alwaysperfectlywrite

This week I glimpsed Angleterre  – that small island just off the edge of mainland Europe - which the medieval mind misconceived as ‘the end’ rather than the ‘corner’ of the earth’.

My guide was the historian, Dr Irene Lancaster, who whisked a crowded and enthusiastic Manchester audience back to the Golden Age of Spain and the peripatetic life of the  polymath, Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra. 

The rabbi’s ‘little life’ was in fact a great – and for the period – very long one which ended abruptly and brutally at the hands of 12th century Jew haters. So for him, I suggest, England was the end of his own particular earth!

Now best remembered as the inspiration for Robert Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra,  he was a pre-Renaissance ‘renaissance man’ -  a glorious poet, Torah (Hebrew bible) expert, philosopher, astronomer and scientist.

I’m still unsure how a Victorian litterateur like Browning would even have known of ibn Ezra, let alone have used him as the subject of his famous verse. I hope to persuade Dr Lancaster to comment on this post and possibly explain.

He was born in Tudela, Spain in 1089 and lived elsewhere there before travelling to Tunisia (then ‘Kairouwan’), throughout Italy and France then finally to London and was murdered by ‘anarchic English hordes’ just north of there in 1164.

Rabbi ibn Ezra saw no division between science and religion, recognised that the strong values shared by Judaism and Islam were stronger than those they enjoyed with any with other cultures and had a peculiarly modern approach to democratising learning. He also grasped that the universe was made of ‘matter’, suggested that the idea of meeting an ‘angel’ was really a ‘messenger’ to the brain and outlined some of the ideas  used in modern psychoanalysis.

Below I reproduce Browning’s Rabbi Ben Ezra with one of ibn Ezra’s own poems. But first, here’s a little bit about Dr Lancaster, who would be far too modest to outline her own achievements.

• Author, academic, broadcaster and journalist who splits her time between Salford, Greater Manchester and Haifa, Israel

• Links to the Centre for Jewish Studies at the University of Manchester

• Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, marking her work in Jewish-Muslim-Christian relations.

• ‘Believes in rooting her academic work in the reality of of contemporary inter-faith engagement’

• Worked with the Arab-Jewish Centre at Haifa University

• Her blog, Irene Lancaster’s Diary, was listed by journalist and broadcaster, Libby Purves as one of ‘The Most Influential Religion Blogs’ for Faith Central

• Deconstructing the Bible, Her book about ibn Ezra, whch has just been republished in paperback by the Taylor and Francis Group (Routledge Curzon), was the subject of her talk on Monday.

———————–

I have chosen the poem below to illustrate the rabbi’s poetry  as it synthesises his  knowledge of astronomy and love of God in a wonderfully lyrical way:

I have a Garment

by Rabbi Abraham ibn Ezra

I have a garment. It is like a sieve

Used for sifting barley or wheat.

At the dead of night I spread it out like a tent

And the stars of heaven put through it their light.

From within it I see the moon and the Pleiades,

And, when it is bright, there peeps through Orion.

I get tired from counting all the holes

Which seems like the teeth of a saw in profusion.

A piece of thread, to sew up its rags,

Both warp and woof, would be superfluous.

If a fly landed on it with all his weight,

He, like a fool, would soon grumble and curse.

My God, make good the repairs which it needs.

Make a mantle of praise from these tattered weeds.

(Pub: The Jewish Poets of Spain; translated by David Goldstein, Penguin Classics)

Rabbi Ben Ezra

by Robert Browning

Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in His hand
Who saith “A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!”

Not that, amassing flowers,
Youth sighed, “Which rose make ours,
Which lily leave and then as best recall!”
Not that, admiring stars,
It yearned “Nor Jove, nor Mars;
Mine be some figured flame which blends, transcends them all!”

Not for such hopes and fears
Annulling youth’s brief years,
Do I remonstrate: folly wide the mark!
Rather I prize the doubt
Low kinds exist without,
Finished and finite clods, untroubled by a spark.

Poor vaunt of life indeed,
Were man but formed to feed
On joy, to solely seek and find and feast:
Such feasting ended, then
As sure an end to men;
Irks care the crop-full bird? Frets doubt the maw-crammed beast?

Rejoice we are allied
To That which doth provide
And not partake, effect and not receive!
A spark disturbs our clod;
Nearer we hold of God.
Who gives, than of His tribes that take, I must believe.

Then, welcome each rebuff
That turns earth’s smoothness rough,
Each sting that bids nor sit nor stand but go!
Be our joys three-parts pain!
Strive, and hold cheap the strain;
Learn, nor account the pang; dare, never grudge the throe!

For thence, — a paradox
Which comforts while it mocks,—
Shall life succeed in that it seems to fail:
What I aspired to be,
And was not, comforts me:
A brute I might have been, but would not sink i’ the scale.

What is he but a brute
Whose flesh has soul to suit,
Whose spirit works lest arms and legs want play?
To man, propose this test —
Thy body at its best,
How far can that project thy soul on its lone way?

Yet gifts should prove their use:
I own the Past profuse
Of power each side, perfection every turn:
Eyes, ears took in their dole,
Brain treasured up the whole;
Should not the heart beat once “How good to live and learn?”

Not once beat “Praise be Thine!
I see the whole design,
I, who saw power, see now love perfect too:
Perfect I call Thy plan:
Thanks that I was a man!
Maker, remake, complete, — I trust what Thou shall do!”

For pleasant is this flesh;
Our soul, in its rose-mesh
Pulled ever to the earth, still yearns for rest:
Would we some prize might hold
To match those manifold
Possessions of the brute, — gain most, as we did best!

Let us not always say,
“Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, made head, gained ground upon the whole!”
As the bird wings and sings,
Let us cry “All good things
Are ours, nor soul helps flesh more, now, than flesh helps soul!”¹

Therefore I summon age
To grant youth’s heritage,
Life’s struggle having so far reached its term:
Thence shall I pass, approved
A man, for aye removed
From the developed brute; a God tho’ in the germ.

And I shall thereupon
Take rest, ere I be gone
Once more on my adventure brave and new:
Fearless and unperplexed,
When I wage battle next,
What weapons to select, what armour to indue.

Youth ended, I shall try
My gain or loss thereby;
Leave the fire ashes, what survives is gold:
And I shall weigh the same,
Give life its praise or blame:
Young, all lay in dispute; I shall know, being old.

For, note when evening shuts,
A certain moment cuts
The deed off, calls the glory from the gray:
A whisper from the west
Shoots — “Add this to the rest,
Take it and try its worth: here dies another day.”

So, still within this life,
Tho’ lifted o’er its strife,
Let me discern, compare, pronounce at last,
“This rage was right i’ the main,
That acquiescence vain:
The Future I may face now I have proved the Past.”

For more is not reserved
To man, with soul just nerved
To act to-morrow what he learns to-day:
Here, work enough to watch
The Master work, and catch
Hints of the proper craft, tricks of the tool’s true play.

As it was better, youth
Should strive, thro’ acts uncouth,
Toward making, than repose on aught found made:
So, better, age, exempt
From strife, should know, than tempt
Further. Thou waitedst age: wait death, nor be afraid!

Enough now, if the Right
And Good and Infinite
Be named¡ here, as thou callest thy hand thine own,
With knowledge absolute,
Subject to no dispute
From fools that crowded youth, nor let thee feel alone.

Be there, for once and all,
Severed great minds from small,
Announced to each his station in the Past!
Was I, the world arraigned,
Were they, my soul disdained,
Right? Let age speak the truth and give us peace at last!

Now, who shall arbitrate?
Ten men love what I hate,
Shun what I follow, slight what I receive;
Ten, who in ears and eyes
Match me: we all surmise,
They, this thing, and I, that: whom shall my soul believe?

Not on the vulgar mass
Called “work,” must sentence pass,
Things done, that took the eye and had the price;
O’er which, from level stand,
The low world laid its hand,
Found straight way to its mind, could value in a trice:

But all, the world’s coarse thumb
And finger failed to plumb,
So passed in making up the main account:
All instincts immature,
All purposes unsure,
That weighed not as his work, yet swelled the man’s amount:

Thoughts hardly to be packed
Into a narrow act,
Fancies that broke thro’ language and escaped:
All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
This, I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped.

Ay, note that Potter’s wheel,
That metaphor! and feel
Why time spins fast, why passive lies our clay, —
Thou, to whom fools propound,
When the wine makes its round,
“Since life fleets, all is change; the Past gone, seize to-day!”

Fool! All that is, at all,
Lasts ever, past recall;
Earth changes, but thy soul and God stand sure:
What entered into thee,
That was, is, and shall be:
Time’s wheel runs back or stops: Potter and clay endure.

He fixed thee mid this dance
Of plastic circumstance,
This Present, thou forsooth, wouldst fain arrest:
Machinery just meant
To give thy soul its bent,
Try thee and turn thee forth, sufficiently impressed.

What tho’ the earlier grooves
Which ran the laughing loves
Around thy base, no longer pause and press?
What tho’ about thy rim,
Scull-things in order grim
Grow out, in graver mood, obey the sterner stress?

Look not thou down but up!
To uses of a cup
The festal board, lamp’s flash and trumpet’s peal,
The new wine’s foaming flow,
The Master’s lips a-glow!
Thou, heaven’s consummate cup, what needst thou with earth’s wheel?

But I need, now as then,
Thee, God, who mouldest men!
And since, not even while the whirl was worst,
Did I, — to the wheel of life
With shapes and colours rife,
Bound dizzily, — mistake my end, to slake Thy thirst.

So take and use Thy work,
Amend what flaws may lurk,
What strain o’ the stuff, what warpings past the aim!
My times be in Thy hand!
Perfect the cup as planned!
Let age approve of youth, and death complete the same!

msniw

The troubled – and to my mind - daft notion of ‘Jewish genius’ has hit the headlines once more. The Los Angeles Times has run a piece (below) proposing that so-called Jewish genius is some sort of ‘reward’ for well-known Jewish diseases like Tay Sachs and Canavan.

Utter tosh! As an infamous member of the uneducated, unwashed I can explain how the disorders occur and why we seem to produce an inordinate number of over-achievers. As I’ll never be among the latter I can conduct this analysis with the greatest possible scientific objectivity:

We have a propensity for some illnesses simply because of endogamy – tribal in-marriage. I suggest that this is bound to thin the blood just like  in-marriage caused haemophilia in the 19th century Royal houses of  Russia and England. A mere glance at pictures of Czar Nicholas 11 (Romanov) and Prince Michael of Kent tells the story. Even The Duke of Edinburgh and The Princess Royal, Princess Anne, have the same general facial features. The physical genes just keep going round. ‘In-marriage’ may also explain rare instances of Tay Sachs among non-Jews in some isolated places in Ireland.

And the genius? C’mmon guys: It’s all down to centuries of learning by rote. Biblical knowledge and Talmudic exegesis are the Olympics of learning and there’s many an over-developed Jewish intellect because of it. This is also why so many Jews are genetically disposed to argument and why there is a huge number of Jews involved in secular law.

And if you don’t like the wise words of Professor Wood, read on:

“Jewish legacy inscribed on genes?

Ashkenazi Jews have a higher rate of some deadly genetic diseases — and of high IQs. Scientists, Gregory Cochran and Henry Harpending say that’s no coincidence.

By Karen Kaplan

April 18, 2009
Gregory Cochran has always been drawn to puzzles. This one had been gnawing at him for several years: Why are European Jews prone to so many deadly genetic diseases?
Tay-Sachs disease. Canavan disease. More than a dozen more.
It offended Cochran’s sense of logic. Natural selection, the self-taught genetics buff knew, should flush dangerous DNA from the gene pool. Perhaps the mutations causing these diseases had some other, beneficial purpose. But what?
At 3:17 one morning, after a long night searching a database of scientific journals from his dishevelled home office in Albuquerque, Cochran fired off an email to his collaborator Henry Harpending, a distinguished professor of anthropology at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City and a member of the National Academy of Sciences.
“I’ve figured it out, I think,” Cochran typed. “Pardon my crazed excitement.”
The “faulty” genes, Cochran concluded, make Jews smarter.
That provocative — some would say inflammatory — hypothesis has landed Cochran and Harpending in the middle of a charged debate about the link between IQ and DNA.
They have been sneered at by colleagues and excoriated on Internet forums. They have been welcomed to speak at a synagogue and a Jewish medical society. They were asked to write a book; that effort, The 10,000 Year Explosion,was published early this year.
Scientists are increasingly finding that propensities for human behaviour - for addiction, aggression, risk-taking and more - are written in our genes. But the idea that some groups of people are inherently smarter is troubling to many. Some scientists say it has such racist implications it’s unworthy of consideration.
“What are their theories about those on the opposite end of the spectrum?” asked Neil Risch, director of the Institute for Human Genetics at UC San Francisco, who finds the matter so offensive he can barely discuss it without raising his voice. “Do they have genetic theories about why Latinos and African Americans perform worse academically?”
The biological basis for intelligence can be a thankless arena of inquiry. The authors of “The Bell Curve” were vilified 15 years ago for suggesting genes played a role in IQ differences among racial groups.
But Cochran, 55, and Harpending, 65, say there’s no question that as a whole, Ashkenazi Jews — those of European descent — have an abundance of brain power. (Neither man is Jewish.)
Psychologists and educational researchers have pegged their average IQ at 107.5 to 115. That’s only modestly higher than the overall European average of 100, but the gap is large enough to produce a huge difference in the proportion of geniuses. When a group’s average IQ is 100, the percentage of people above 140 is 0.4%; when the average is 110, the genius rate is 2.3%.
Though Jews make up less than 3% of the U.S. population, they have won more than 25% of the Nobel Prizes awarded to American scientists since 1950, account for 20% of this country’s chief executives and make up 22% of Ivy League students, the pair write.
“People are perfectly willing to admit that some people are taller or some people are shorter,” Cochran said. “But no one wants to say ‘This group is smarter.’ “
Once Cochran gets talking, it’s hard to get him to stop. He jumps from idea to idea, beginning new sentences before finishing old ones. In email discussion groups, where he befriended Harpending, he thrives on debating people and proving them wrong.
A PhD physicist, he started out in El Segundo, developing satellite imaging systems and other optics hardware for Hughes Aircraft in the 1980s. As the Cold War ended and defence budgets shrank, Cochran moved his family to Albuquerque and became an optics consultant while indulging his amateur interest in biology.
He worked for a while with evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald on theories that germs cause common disorders like heart disease and Alzheimer’s. The pair courted controversy by postulating that some unidentified pathogen prompts a hormonal imbalance that makes babies more likely to become gay.
Cochran read more than 15 genetics textbooks and became intrigued by the deadly diseases that disproportionately afflict Ashkenazi Jews: Tay-Sachs, a neurological disorder that debilitates children before killing them, usually by age 4. Canavan disease, which turns the brain into spongy tissue and typically claims its victims before they can start kindergarten. Niemann-Pick disease Type A, in which babies accumulate dangerous amounts of fats in various organs and suffer profound brain damage and death before their second birthday.
He was struck by the fact that so many of the diseases involved problems with processing sphingolipids, the fat molecules that transmit nerve signals.
This seemed an unlikely coincidence. Genetically isolated groups often have higher rates of certain diseases. But of the more than 20,000 human genes, only 108 are known to be involved in sphingolipid metabolism. The odds of Ashkenazi Jews having four sphingolipid storage disorders by random chance are less than 1 in 100,000, he calculated.
He talked it over with Harpending, an expert in human population genetics. They came to believe this was an example of heterozygote advantage — where having two copies of a mutated gene can mean disaster but one copy is helpful.
The most famous example of this is sickle cell anemia, which strikes people of African descent who have two defective copies of the hemoglobin B gene. As a result, they make red blood cells that are too curvy to carry oxygen to critical organs.
People who have only one bad copy make useful red blood cells that are deformed just enough to protect them from the malaria parasite, insulating them against the disease.
Instead of sickle cell anemia, Ashkenazi Jews had to contend with Tay-Sachs, Niemann-Pick and other diseases.
Instead of malaria resistance, Cochran and Harpending reasoned, Jews got an IQ boost.
The idea didn’t come out of nowhere. Researchers have been drawn to the question of Jewish intelligence and genetic diseases at least since the 1920s, when some of the disorders were first being studied. Many physicians remarked on the unusual intelligence of their patients.
One of the first to conduct a systematic study was Dr. Roswell Eldridge, a neurogeneticist at the National Institutes of Health. He compared IQs of 14 children with torsion dystonia — a neurological disorder afflicting Ashkenazi Jews that twists the body through uncontrollable muscle contractions — against 10 of their healthy siblings and against unrelated Jewish students matched by age, sex and school.
The patients had an average IQ score of 121, compared with 111 for the control students, he found. Siblings had an average IQ of 119, compared with 112 for their matched controls. The results were published in 1970 in the medical journal Lancet.
Dr. Ari Zimran, director of Shaare Zedek Medical Center’s Gaucher Clinic in Jerusalem, thought he would get similar results by studying the very bright patients he treated for Gaucher disease, another Ashkenazi genetic disorder in which excessive amounts of a fatty substance build up in certain organs, causing pain, fatigue and other symptoms.
His small study in the 1980s found no difference between IQs of patients and unaffected relatives. A larger study might have done so, Zimran said. But he decided not to pursue it.
“There is enough anti-Semitism,” he said.
Cochran and Harpending are the first to make a broad case linking multiple Jewish genetic diseases to intelligence. Their theory draws on history, statistics, neurobiology and population genetics.
Jews first came to Europe in the 8th and 9th centuries, long before they were known for intellectual prowess, Cochran and Harpending say. They worked as traders before taking financial jobs made available by Christians who were forbidden by the Church from charging interest. By 1100, local registries listed most Ashkenazi Jews as lenders.
That set the stage for natural selection to do its work, Cochran and Harpending theorised. Jews didn’t intermarry, keeping their gene pool closed. They were subjected to periodic persecution, which kept the population from outgrowing its professional niche.
According to the theory, the smartest individuals made the most money, and the wealthiest families had the most surviving children. The genes of the most intelligent Jews spread most, slowly raising the average IQ of the entire group.
Over 40 generations — roughly 1,000 years — an increase of just 0.3 points per generation would have added up to a cumulative advantage of 12 points, Cochran and Harpending theorized. Some of their other models projected a benefit of 16 to 20 IQ points.
They wrote up their theory and sent it off to a journal. It was rejected.
Harpending said he gave it to an anthropologist friend, editor of another journal, who asked to publish it there. That plan was called off. The friend, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the topic, said the paper was clearly controversial and its extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence — which was lacking.
The paper found a home in a 2006 issue of the Journal of Biosocial Science, published by Cambridge University, after its release online in 2005.
The theory quickly spread among anthropologists and geneticists.
Within a few months, “every academic I came in contact with knew about this,” said R. Brian Ferguson, an anthropologist at Rutgers University in Newark, N.J. Many found it irresistible. A young colleague told Ferguson that the paper convinced him of the power of using genetics to study behavioural differences among people.
To Ferguson, that was a dangerous idea. There may indeed be versions of genes that are unique to Ashkenazi Jews, but it would be impossible, he said, to prove that those genes are responsible for higher IQs.
“This is not a legitimate area of research,” he said.
Others are more receptive to the theory, despite its thorny implications.
Dr. Melvin Konner, a biological anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, said he’s impressed by the theory’s ability to explain why all the Ashkenazi diseases are clustered “on about five pages of a biochemistry textbook.” But, he added, Cochran and Harpending still have to show that the genes play a direct role in brain development.
“There’s evidence that some of them do,” he said. “It’s not a crazy idea. It’s just not nearly a proven idea.”
It would be easy to test the theory, said Steven Pinker, a Harvard cognition researcher: “See if carriers of the Ashkenazi-typical genetic mutations score higher on IQ tests than their noncarrier siblings.”
Cochran and Harpending readily acknowledge the need for such experiments. But they have no plans to do them. They say their role as theorists is to generate hypotheses that others can test.
“One criticism about our paper is ‘It can’t mean anything because they didn’t do any new experiments,’ ” Cochran said. “OK, then I guess Einstein’s papers didn’t mean anything either.””  

 

 

 

msniw

Recent news emanating from several London theatres has made unhappy reading for those with Israel’s – and so international Jewry’s - best interests at heart. I am thus pleased and relieved to pass on details of two productions with a Holocaust theme at Manchester’s splendid Royal Exchange Theatre.

The shows have added import following revelations about the return of the Holocaust denying Bishop Richard Williamson to the UK.

Courageous Examples – The Holocaust Remembered runs at the RET from 17-27 June.

Joy Wolfe, with whom I worked for some years on the old Jewish Gazette  and who was recently awarded for her work on behalf of Israel by its Ambassador to the UK, H.E. Mr Ron Prosser  says:

 “ As time goes on and there are a decreasing number of living witnesses  it becomes increasingly more important to ensure the message is passed on through the generations, particularly to schoolchildren and students at whom much of this programme will be aimed.

“Last night I had the privilege to attend the  Manchester   community Yom Hashoah presentation which brought home the message of the diminishing number of living witnesses to the Holocaust, and highlights the importance of our duty to keep the memory alive and pass it on to future generations.

The two productions are The Pianist and a return by public demand of Dr Korckzak’s Example.

This is more like it. Caryl Churchill and co be-doodled!

msniw

Three months after Israel’s bitter Operation Cast Lead ended, the war is still being waged on the verbal killing fields of Europe.

This week’s joke conference in Geneva has been labelled ‘a circus’ – which is deeply opprobrious to the Cirque du Soleil.

For my part I wish Israel’s supporters would refrain from describing the near- juvenile invective as ‘antisemitism’ as many of the Jewish State’s greatest foes are ‘semites’. We’re examining good (sic) old fashioned Jew-hatred that sometimes gets better, too often gets worse but never goes away. In fact the late Rabbi Felix Carlebach who escaped the Nazis for the UK was wont to remark: “A little antisemitism keeps us on our toes”. It certainly stops the majority of Jews from becoming totally ‘un-Jewish’.

One of the chief battlegrounds continues to be the U.K. where the British Zionist Federation has been forced to move the booked venue of next week’s 61st anniversary Yom Ha’aztmaut (Israel Independence Day) celebrations from the Bloomsbury Theatre to a secret location. Why? Because the cast includes an Israel Defence Forces’ troupe.

ZF Chairman Andrew Balcombe said:  “It is a sad day for Britain when ill-informed minority lobbies attempt to limit freedom of expression in a family cultural programme that has had a similar format for many years”. 

A Jerusalem Post report explained that  after University College London’s Bloomsbury Theatre received complaints from anti-Israel groups, the ZF agreed to exclude an IDF entertainment troupe that had been scheduled to take part. However,  following further protests, theatre  director, Peter Cadley, decided to cancel the event completely.

A letter sent to the theatre by  The International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network demanded: “How will you monitor that IDF performers will not appear under another guise? On a matter so serious as entertaining the presence of those accused of genocide by the UN and others respected for human rights monitoring, surely you don’t intend to be satisfied that the IDF’s removal from the ZF’s publicity is enough”.

Exactly three years ago, the Bloomsbury hosted an event to commemorate the events of Deir Yassin.  Entitled How Palestine became Israel, it was organized by a fringe group, Deir Yassin Remembered (DYR), led by Paul Eisen.

DYR’s board of advisers includes Swedish journalist Joran Jermas, also known as ‘Israel Shamir’. Both Eisen and Shamir have been accused of Holocaust denial.

Meanwhile, the eternally courageous and hardworking OneVoice Group has published the results of a poll showing a popular mandate for a two state solution to the Israel- Palestine conflict. What’s more, the study was led by a nice chap from Liverpool!

It was conducted  in collaboration with Dr. Colin Irwin of the Institute of Irish Studies at the University of Liverpool  and in conjunction with Dr. Nader Said of Arab World for Research and Development (AWRAD) in Ramallah and Dr. Mina Zemach of Dahaf Institute in Tel Aviv. The methodology, which had been piloted by Dr. Irwin in Northern Ireland and subsequently used in places as varied as Sri Lanka and Macedonia, involved a questionnaire designed through a series of interviews with civil society leaders and political figures on each side. The field work was conducted by Zemach in Israel and by Said in Palestine during February 2009, in the wake of the Gaza war and the Israeli elections.

The results indicate that 74% of Palestinians and 78% of Israelis are willing to accept a two state solution (an option rated on a range from ‘tolerable’ to ‘essential’), while 59% of Palestinians and 66% of Israelis find a single bi-national state ‘unacceptable.’ Additionally, according to the data, 77% of Israelis and 71% of Palestinians consider a negotiated peace ‘essential’ or ‘desirable.’ Ninety-four percent of Palestinians and 74% of Israelis think that the people must be continually informed on the negotiations process.

 

BUT THE POLL ALSO REVEALS THAT A CONSENSUS STILL NEEDS TO BE BUILT.

The findings imply that mainstream Israeli and Palestinian populations still have yet to acknowledge the significant priorities and fears on the other side. While the issue of greatest significance for Palestinians is freedom from occupation (94% deem it a ‘very significant’ problem in the peace process, ranking it the primary issue on the Palestinian side), only 30% of Israelis find it to be ‘very significant,’ ranking the issue 15^th on the Israeli side.

Similarly, the primary issue on the Israeli side is stopping attacks on civilians (90% rate it a ‘very significant’ issue). This issue meets with 50% approval on the Palestinian side, and ranks as 19 in a list of 21 issues. Significant gaps in public consensus persist as well on the issues of settlements and refugees – two issues on which there was no single proposed solution which met with majority approval on both sides.

To address the critical gaps that still exist on some recognition and final status issues, OneVoice is launching a Town Hall Meetings Series in Israel and Palestine to present the findings of the poll and discuss the various issues – from mutual recognition to settlements, refugees, and Jerusalem – that both sides will need to confront in order to reach a two state agreement.

Progress at the negotiating table is only one step in the process of reaching an agreement that can be implemented. An end to the conflict will only come when the leaders come to an agreement that their peoples are ready to understand, accept, and support. The series will be launched in May and will be implemented throughout the rest of 2009. It will use the findings of the poll as a starting point for discussions.

Five hundred interviews were completed in Israel and six hundred in the West Bank and Gaza to produce representative samples of both populations in terms of age, gender, social background and geographical distribution. As the polls were conducted during a particularly difficult time on both sides – immediately following the Gaza war and the Israeli elections – the continued insistence of both sides on a negotiated and mutually-acceptable resolution could offer significant legitimacy to political leaders looking to push for negotiations toward a two state agreement.

msniw

The recent BBC TV programme, The Kindertransport Story had a profound effect on me for a unusual reason.

I used to know one of the interviewees quite well and had never realised that she and her late husband were not English. I suppose kids – especially teenagers – are so wrapped up in themselves that they do not think about others – particularly anyone aged 25-plus!

But even The Independent newspaper’s review  noted:

“… (of the) three elderly Jewish contributors, all of whom had been transported from Vienna, only in the memories of Dorothy Fleming (born Dorli Oppenheimer) was there no trace of Austrian vowels”.

I remember Mrs Fleming as the very nice but rather formidable wife of a Sheffield GP, Dr Otto Fleming. The couple had sons, Michael and David and a slightly younger daughter, Caroline. I don’t think I ever saw Dr and Mrs Fleming after I left Sheffield for North Manchester in the early 70s but I met David again when he came to Manchester from Israel as an emissary for the Habonim-Dror youth movement. 

From heroically doughty parents come terrifically strong children. As I recall, David left Sheffield  for Israel in his late teens and went to serve with the Israel Defence Force’s elite Golani Brigade. Further, If I remember the TV show’s account correctly, Mrs Fleming and her younger sister were sent to live in Leeds with a delightfully kind family.

Compared to many on the transport they were enormously lucky, not only in being left with an English family who truly wanted them but in eventually being reunited with their parents.

I was equally surprised on reflection that scant attention has been paid to the late Dr Fleming, as his own story could have been similar but became a bleak contrast to that of his future wife.

He was also born in Vienna, in 1914, the only child of the Fleischner family. He studied medicine at the University of Vienna but was forbidden to take the final graduation degree in 1938, the year of the German annexation of Austria. He managed to escape Nazi Europe but his parents and many relatives perished in the camps. Dr Fleming made his way to British Mandate Palestine where he had relatives and  joined the Royal Army Medical Corps as a medical orderly.

After being demobbed, he completed his training in London but went on to serve in general practice in the Sheffield area for 35 years. However, he achieved this with great difficulty  as it is said that he experienced terrible problems in being accepted for training at St George’s Hospital, London. Later he was forced to complete 96 applications for GP posts before starting work at Mexborough, Yorkshire.

Finally, in 1999, together with five colleagues also forced out of Vienna by the Nazis, he was awarded his medical degree by the University of Vienna – 61 years late!

Before I start to write anything original today, I’d like to republish a timely piece which has appeared on the online business pages of the Jerusalem Post.

As I admit quite happily to being innumerate and financially illiterate, I leave alwaysperfectlywrite readers to make of this important information what they will. It does, of course, have huge bearing on any potential olim (people emigrating to Israel) who are of pensionable age.

This article is for olim from the UK and any other Israeli residents who receive UK pensions.

On April 6, the Israel Finance Ministry announced it had just signed a new tax treaty with the United Kingdom. The announcement proclaimed that the British Government has undertaken for the first time not to impose tax on pension recipients who are new olim from Britain as reported in The Jerusalem Post on April 7.

Many readers in Britain and Israel saw this and asked: Is this for real?

The answer is: Not yet. The new UK-Israel tax treaty draft has only been initialled - it still needs ministerial and parliamentary approval in both countries and probably won’t be in effect before 2010 or 2011.

Under Israeli tax law, new residents who have  arrived from 2007 are exempt from tax on foreign source income, including most UK pensions, for 10 years. So are returning residents who lived abroad five years or more, if they return to Israel in 2007-9. Other immigrants enjoy a five-year exemption on most UK pensions.

But the present UK-Israel tax treaty allows the UK to tax British pensions paid to Israeli residents if Israel doesn’t.

The proposed pension clause in the new treaty draft will apparently only allow the country of residence to tax pensions. So an oleh who receives a British pension may become exempt from tax in both countries in his first 10 years of residence in Israel if the treaty becomes effective, unlike now.

Offshore pensions and bonds apparently will not qualify for this relief - not even Qualified Recognised Overseas Pension Schemes (QROPs).

To sum up, the tax on UK pensions has not changed yet, and the lack of attention to offshore pension and retirement schemes is a shame. The changes, when they occur, will not be restricted to English olim- Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish olim will also benefit!

As always, consult experienced professional advisers in each country at an early stage in specific cases.

* The piece was written by tax expert, Leon Harris.

msniw

I was intrigued to note some weeks ago a flurry of interest in a post I’d first written  last year about Paul McCartney’s visit to Israel and his active support there for OneVoice, the Arab-Jewish Peace Movement.

It emerged a few days later that the great musician had joined the OneVoice International Board of Advisors, along with many other well-known figures.

While in Israel for his historic concert he had met OneVoice Chairman, Irit Perlman, Nisreen Shahin, its Palestine Executive Director, members of staff and youth activists and had expressed his support for its moderate approach to finding a solution to ending the conflict.

He also travelled to the Palestinian Authority, to bring his message of peace to the West Bank.  Later that evening at his concert at Tel Aviv’s Park HaYarkon, he and members of his band wore OneVoice pins in a show of support for the movement and the ideas it promotes.

McCartney said: “Having met representatives of the association OneVoice, I was impressed, first of all, by the fact that half of the organisation is Palestinian and half is Israeli.  Almost 650,000 people have signed on to their manifesto, supporting their steadfast work to bring about a negotiated solution, and peace in the region.”

He added: “They told me that the vast majority of people in both societies are moderates and simply want a better life for their families and themselves. This gave me great hope that, one day, people like them will help to bring about a peaceful resolution to the troubles in the area. I am, therefore, happy to lend my support in this way to the cause of peace.”

During the past six years, OneVoice has built a “human infrastructure” of youth leaders and citizen activists working to mobilise their communities and push their elected representatives to achieve a two state agreement. The movement has trained more than 2,000 youth leaders in Israel and Palestine, and counts on its board more than 60 world leaders, dignitaries, celebrities, business people and political figures.

 

I intend in the coming weeks to outline some of the wonderful work accomplished by OneVoice and its sister organisations like Windows for Peace and how they were affected in unhappy ways by the war in Gaza earlier this year.

msniw

It’s funny how urban myths become real. There’s a story beloved of Jewish feminists about an Orthodox rabbi who declared that women  have no more place on a bimah (the ‘podium’ in a synagogue) than an orange on a seder plate.

Last night I attended an all-women’s Passover meal (seder) – complete with orange – but felt slightly out of place myself. During this highly original and engaging evening at the Menorah Cheshire Reform Synagogue, South Manchester, I was …

• one of two ‘pilgrims’ from North Manchester

•  the only vegetarian

• the least educated or successful among a plethora of high-achievers

• able to remember women  on a bimah in an Orthodox synagogue

• one of very few present whose family in Britain dates back three - four generations.  Many there were either refugees or the children of refugees.

So I spent the evening in awe, even at a slight loss and  this morning I sought the true origin of the ‘orange’ story which you’ll find at the end of this post.

Meanwhile, many observing Passover must by now be  heartily sick of ‘whole’ matza with everything or anything. Indeed readers in the U.K. may agree that the current batch manufactured by Rakusen are over-baked; snap and crack if you so much look at them and are unpleasantly ‘burnt’ to the taste. I, for one, am singularly unimpressed.

So, to make further amends for what I’m not quite sure, I’m sharing a couple of tasty recipes for matza meal buns. Glory be, they may be served hot and come as a wonderful relief when a long, boring and difficult week refuses to end.

The first was published in the Jewish Chronicle by the late Evelyn Rose and the other comes via my kind and capable cousin-in-law, Ann Rabinowitz, from a piece she wrote some years ago for the Washington Times Magazine.

Evelyn Rose’s Pesach Rolls (Imperial Measures)

Makes 12

Ingredients:

8 ozs medium matza meal; 1 tsp salt; 3 tsps sugar; 8 fl oz. hot water; 4 fl oz oil; 4 eggs

Method

Mix the meal with the salt and sugar and set aside. In  an 8” heavy saucepan, bring the oil and water to the boil then add the meal mixture, stirring vigorously over a low light  until it forms a ball that may be rolled around the pan. Remove from heat and beat in the eggs one at a time until the mixture is smooth and thick.

Heat the oven to Gas No 5 / 375 deg F / 190 deg C and line two baking sheets with silicone paper. Roll the cooled dough between the palms into 12 balls and place on sheets 2” apart. Bake for about 50 minutes or until a rich brown.

Ann Rabinowitz’s Matza Rolls (U.S. Measures)

Makes 12

3 eggs; half-tsp salt; three-quarters cup milk; 1 cup matza meal; one-third cup cake meal; 4 tbsps melted butter

Beat eggs and salt together, stir in milk and alternate with matza and cake meal. Add melted butter. Fill 12 greased muffin cups about two-thirds full. Bake at  350 deg F for 30 minutes.

THE ORANGE IS PEELED

 The opening story supposedly based on a remark by a conservative rabbi, is untrue. This is the entire story, as told by the woman involved, Susannah Heschel:

In the early 1980s, the Hillel Foundation invited me to speak on a panel at Oberlin College, U.S.A.. While on campus, I came across a Haggada that had been written by some Oberlin students to express feminist concerns. One ritual they devised was placing a crust of bread on the seder plate, as a sign of solidarity with Jewish lesbians (”there’s as much room for a lesbian in Judaism as there is for a crust of bread on the seder plate“).

At the next Passover, I placed an orange on our family’s seder plate. During the first part of the seder, I asked everyone to take a segment of the orange, make the blessing over fruit, and eat it as a gesture of solidarity with Jewish lesbians and gay men, and others who are marginalised within the Jewish community (I mentioned widows in particular).

Bread on the seder plate brings an end to Passover - it renders everything chometz (leaven and therefore unfit for Passover). And its symbolism suggests that being lesbian is being transgressive, violating Judaism. I felt that an orange was suggestive of something else: the fruitfulness for all Jews when lesbians and gay men are contributing and active members of Jewish life. In addition, each orange segment had a few seeds that had to be spit out - a gesture of spitting out, repudiating the homophobia that poisons too many Jews.

When lecturing, I often mentioned my custom as one of many new feminist rituals that had been developed in the last twenty years. Somehow, though, the typical patriarchal manoeuvre occurred: My idea of an orange and my intention of affirming lesbians and gay men were transformed. Now the story circulates that a man stood up after I lecture I delivered and said to me, in anger, that a woman belongs on the bimah as much as an orange on the seder plate. My idea, a woman’s words, are attributed to a man, and the affirmation of lesbians and gay men is simply erased.

Isn’t that precisely what’s happened over the centuries to women’s ideas? “

msniw

Pro-Israel Publicist, JOEL LEYDEN has sent his Facebook friends one of the most frightening bits of film I’ve ever seen.

Below are excerpts from the video’s transcript -  an address by Saudi cleric, KHALDED AL-KHLEWI - first aired on Al-Jazeera TV on January 11, 2009.

So, it is the mixed-fortune of www.alwaysperfectlywrite.today.com  to tell you how:

“Saudi Cleric Khaled Al-Khlewi Teaches  Children to Hate Jews”

“Khaled Al-Khlewi: “The [Jewish] Qaynuqa tribe betrayed the Prophet Muhammad. A woman went to a Jewish market in order to buy a piece of jewellery. The members of the Qaynuqa tribe were the most ruthless and wealthiest Jews. When the Muslim woman reached the market, what did they do to her? A Jew sneaked behind her, and tied her gown to her headdress, so when she tried to get up, her private parts were exposed. She cried for help, and one of the Prophet’s companions came and killed the Jew. Then the Jews ganged up on him and killed him. When the Prophet Muhammad learned about this, he fought the Qaynuqa tribe and banished them. This is the only way to deal with them.

“In the case of the Qurayza tribe – or rather, the Nazir tribe – the Prophet Muhammad went to them, and learned against a wall. Some of the Jews said: “The Prophet Muhammad is leaning against the wall. Someone should go to the top of the roof and throw a rock on his head.” Then the Angel Gabriel appeared, and informed the Prophet in advance about this treachery. So the Prophet Muhammad banished them. The Prophet carried out the greatest killing among the Qaynuqa tribe, because they had violated their covenant with him.

“So, my friends, the conclusion we may draw from this introduction is that with the Jews, nothing works but force. Memorise the following parable, just like I learned it from others: “Kiss the head of a Jew, and he will deceive you – deceive him, and he will kiss your head.” The Jew is treacherous, disloyal, deceitful, and belligerent by nature. Nothing works with him but force.

[…]

“They have formed clandestine groups in Islamic societies, as well as internationally. Marxism was founded by Karl Marx the Jew. The Austrian journalist who preached the establishment of Israel, 50 years later – Theodor Herzl – was a Jew as well. Many U.S. Congressmen are Jews. Most of the media moguls are Jews.

[…]

“Who can tell us the slogan that points to the geographic [aspirations] of the Jews? What is their slogan?

“Well done! Come up here, my dear… Excellent! Come on up, this way. Come here, my dear, here, so we can see you.

[Eight-year-old Omar comes to the stage]

“Khaled Al-Khlewi: “Welcome, my dear. [kisses him] What’s your name?

“Omar: “Omar.”

“Khaled Al-Khlewi: “Omar? Allah Akbar. They hate Omar and are afraid of him. Omar what? What’s your dad’s name?

Omar: “Mahmoud.

Khaled Al-Khlewi: “And your mom’s name? [covers Omar’s mouth as he is about to say her name] No, don’t tell us mom’s name, there’s no need. Right? Well, dear, what is the slogan of the Jews? From the…

Omar: “’From the river to the Euphrates.

Khaled Al-Khlewi: From the Nile to the Euphrates. Let’s rephrase it: From the Euphrates to the Nile. Now let me complete it for you: And from the cedar to the palm tree. Okay. Who can tell me which countries this represents? From the Euphrates to the Nile – two countries. From the cedar to the palm tree – two countries. Four countries altogether. Who can explain this expression, by telling me what countries it refers to? Go ahead.

“Iraq and Egypt. Well done. “From the Euphrates” means Iraq. “To the Nile” means Egypt. “From the cedar” – where’s that? Lebanon. “To the palm tree”? Saudi Arabia – because they believe that Al-Madina belongs to them, and that they should return to it.

“The problem is not Gaza alone. They have broader aspirations. The Arab rulers and politicians must understand this problem. The Jews are motivated by religious considerations, not only by political, economic, or geographic considerations. They are motivated by their religion, and they want to achieve this.

“What is your first name – Mahmoud, right? And your dad’s name? What’s your first name?

“Omar: Omar.

“Khaled Al-Khlewi: How old are you, Omar?

“Omar: Eight years old.

“Khaled Al-Khlewi: Do you like the Jews?

“Omar: No.

“Khaled Al-Khlewi: You hate them. Why do you hate them? What did the Jews do?

“Omar: They wanted to kill the Prophet Muhammad.

“Khaled Al-Khlewi: Well done. They wanted to kill the Prophet Muhammad. And what are they doing to our Muslim brothers now? They are killing them. When you curse them, what do you say? “Oh God…”?

“Omar: Oh God, destroy the Jews.

“Khaled Al-Khlewi: Well done. “And support…”?

“Omar: The Muslims.

“Khaled Al-Khlewi: The Muslims. Well done, my dear. Do you want to come with me to Saudi Arabia? I have a son like you, called Abdallah. You can play with him. Will you come with me? Will you give me this nice jacket you are wearing? Let me give you some water… May Allah protect you. I will give you this book and some water. Goodbye, my dear”.

• I’m hoping to have permission from MEMRI TV to post the original link as it was sent to Facebook by Leyden.

The clip is doubly scary as  it reinforces my view that while Islamic radicals teach their kids to loathe Jews from infancy, Jewish children are taught merely that they loathe us!

msniw

I’m beginning to think I’ve made a tragic mistake about my health.

About 20 years ago, after a minor gynaecological probe when  small polyps were discovered, I was recommended to a course of Evening Primrose Oil and Vitamin B6 for appalling menstrual problems.

I have to say:

1.  It was refreshing to have had the advice from a conventional medic.

2.  Like all natural cures it took time to take effect, but work it did.

3. I stopped taking the pills when the pain and sickness eased but went on to develop a fibroid so large that even the specialist remarked before my hysterectomy that I had “more fibroid than uterus”.

I dislike taking medicine of any sort, so I was relieved to be told after the op. I would not need Hormone Replacement Therapy as  my ovaries had not been removed. (As a natural rebel, I wouldn’t have taken it anyway!). So far, so good!

However, my health has deteriorated slowly in several minor ways since, most especially my eyesight, because as someone who’s been short-sighted since mid-childhood I’ve developed macular degeneration in one eye relatively young. Although I also have bad ‘floaters’ in both, none of this - believe me - stops me reading, writing and working!

But this morning, catching up with some old RSS feeds, I was deeply shocked to read the following from a US Associated Press story published in February:

“Taking B vitamins can prevent a common type of vision loss in older women, according to the first rigorous study of its kind. It’s a slight redemption for vitamin supplements, which have suffered recent blows from research finding them powerless at preventing disease.

“Age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness in people 65 and older, with nearly 2 million Americans in the advanced stage of the condition. It causes a layer of the eye to deteriorate, blurring the centre of the field of vision and making it difficult to recognise faces, read and drive. There’s no cure, but treatment, including laser therapy in some cases, can slow it down.

“Preventing it has been more elusive.

“’Other than avoiding cigarette smoking, this is the first suggestion from a randomised trial of a possible way to reduce early stage AMD,’ said William Christen of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, who led the research. He said the findings should apply to men as well.

“The women in the study who took a combination of B vitamins — B-6, folic acid and B-12 — reduced their risk of macular degeneration by more than one-third after seven years compared to women taking dummy pills.

“The study, involving more than 5,000 women ages 40 and older at risk for cardiovascular disease, appears in the Archives of Internal Medicine.

“Allen Taylor, director of the Laboratory for Nutrition and Vision Research at Tufts University in Boston, said the study was strong because patients were assigned at random and followed for a long time. But because the findings were teased out of a larger experiment for heart disease, there wasn’t strict categorisation of the type and severity of the eye disease, said Taylor, who does similar research but was not involved in the new study.

“Among women taking the B vitamins there were 55 cases of AMD. In the placebo group, there were 82 cases. More serious cases, causing significant vision loss, totalled 26 in women taking B vitamins and 44 in those taking dummy pills.

“There were too few cases of the most advanced AMD to make claims about vitamins’ potential benefits, Christen said.

“B vitamins lower homocysteine, a blood substance once thought to raise heart disease risk, but the nutrients weren’t helpful for that in the larger study on cardiovascular disease.

“The eye’s small blood vessels may respond better to B vitamins’ effect on homocysteine than the body’s large vessels, Christen said”.

If there’s anyone out there in the blogosphere with a extra information on this  and with whom my wonderful consultant, PAULO STANGA may wish to chat, please let me know!

• As I suffer from ‘wet’ AMD, the picture at the top of this piece illustrates painfully how I would see the world through my left eye it were not for the sterling efforts of Mr Stanga and his teams at the Manchester Centre for Vision, the Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and the Spire (formerly BUPA)  Hospital, South Manchester.

msniw