By
– August 24, 2011
To Americans, the political situation for Israel-supporting Jews in Britain represents an almost “through the looking glass” reality, where even a center-left figure like Tzipi Livni can’t visit for fear of arrest on war crimes charges. In a country that boasted a prime minister of ostentatiously Jewish roots in the mid-19th century, and a large well-accepted community for some three centuries, the present tension calls out for explanation. Unfortunately, Turbulent Times does not answer that need.
The authors are a pair of talented men of academia and beyond; Kahn-Harris even maintains a serious blog on heavy metal music. And they have expended a significant amount of study on their topic, the history of British Jewish organizational strategies over the past three decades. They are fair-minded, serious, and usually cautious in their assessments. They value calm discussion and seek to broaden the dialogue with Jews of all stripes, whether affiliated or not. They profile Limmud, an exciting UK export that has had an impact across the Jewish world, faulting it only for not putting enough emphasis on encouraging inter-stream argument and resolution.
Yet, for all their attempts at fairness, it’s pretty hard for the authors to not pick their angels and demons in a way that belies their impartiality. Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs comes in for virtually nothing but criticism. Poet Tom Paulin, who called for the death by shooting of Brooklyn-born Israeli settlers in the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram, has his statements bowdlerized as only “allegedly anti-Semitic.” Neoconservative writer Melanie Philips is uniquely identified as a “Jewish” columnist. Overall, there is an embalmed leftism that deems one of modernity’s greatest challenges to be the “alienating quality of capitalist labour.”
In short, the study provides a wealth of information on an important topic, yet does it in language that ever calls its even-handedness into question.
The authors are a pair of talented men of academia and beyond; Kahn-Harris even maintains a serious blog on heavy metal music. And they have expended a significant amount of study on their topic, the history of British Jewish organizational strategies over the past three decades. They are fair-minded, serious, and usually cautious in their assessments. They value calm discussion and seek to broaden the dialogue with Jews of all stripes, whether affiliated or not. They profile Limmud, an exciting UK export that has had an impact across the Jewish world, faulting it only for not putting enough emphasis on encouraging inter-stream argument and resolution.
Yet, for all their attempts at fairness, it’s pretty hard for the authors to not pick their angels and demons in a way that belies their impartiality. Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sachs comes in for virtually nothing but criticism. Poet Tom Paulin, who called for the death by shooting of Brooklyn-born Israeli settlers in the Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram, has his statements bowdlerized as only “allegedly anti-Semitic.” Neoconservative writer Melanie Philips is uniquely identified as a “Jewish” columnist. Overall, there is an embalmed leftism that deems one of modernity’s greatest challenges to be the “alienating quality of capitalist labour.”
In short, the study provides a wealth of information on an important topic, yet does it in language that ever calls its even-handedness into question.
Jeff Bogursky reads a lot, writes a little and talks quite a bit. He is a media executive and expert in digital media.
