Ladies and gentlemen: Leviticus. Or, in Hebrew, Vayikra. Perhaps the most boring, or anyway the less exciting, of the five books of the Pentateuch.
There is nothing in Leviticus that compares with the fascinating family dynamics of which Genesis is about. There is nothing, in Leviticus, majestic and inspiring like the story of the Exodus from Egypt or the giving of Ten Commandments. We have instead norms regarding sacrifices, especially animal sacrifices.
And the problem is that we don’t like animal sacrifices. Even those of us who are not vegan nor vegetarian agree on the principle that unnecessary suffering to…
Today is Shabbat Zachor “Shabbat of remembrance” the Shabbat before Purim. We have read these two verses from Deuteronomy, describing the attack by Amalek against the Israelites. That is because of a tradition from the Talmud according to which Haman [boooh!], the antagonist of the Purim story, was descended from Amalek.
Haman and Amalek are two different kinds of people.
Amalek was a nomadic tribe, like many at that time. They assaulted the Israelites for no particular reason other than hate, pure hate, desire to erase our presence from the face of the Earth. There are no reasons for Amalek’s…
Last Shabbat, following the conversation with our MP Peter Kyle, I went on Twitter to drop a line to thank him. Being the mensch who we all agree he is, Peter Kyle had already twitted how thankful he was for our hospitality. But here you go. There was a reply.
It was a tweet by the “Brighton BDS campaign” -you know, the local chapter of the organisation who advocate the destruction of the only Jewish State in the world. They say it is for the good of the Jews, obviously, so don’t you dare to call them anti-Semitic. …
Letter to Prospect Magazine, about this review
David Baddiel may be one of the many Jews who have realised how engrained antisemitism is in the identity of the Left. But even in the current times, when identity politics has replaced class consciousness, he may feel to belong to such a tribe. One thinks to Lou Reed who, in 1989, asked Jesse Jackson whether there was a place for him, a Jew, in the Rainbow coalition, that was so hospitable for Louis Farrakhan (more than 30 years after, the problem is still there).
I have a confession to make. Last week I found myself peeking several times at the photos of the Far-Right extremists who, on January 6th, stormed Capitol Hill.
I am not particularly disturbed by the odd Israeli flag that these people display. I know that some of them, though anti-Semitic, worship Israel for all the wrong reasons. I know that physical strength is the only language that they understand. Do they know that Israel is strong? Good for us, chances are that some of them (at least) will think twice before attacking a synagogue. The common thread that allegedly unifies…
This is a story from a time before the Internet: 1987. A young man is sitting in the waiting room of a train station in a small village outside of Milan. He has taken the wrong train (remember, no internet or smartphones) and now is waiting to return. He’s reading an Israeli novel. He wears a necklace with a Magen David.
A man of the same age enters the room and seats close to him. Darker skin: must be North African. He looks at the book that the other is reading. Then he looks at the necklace. Then, again, at…
For those who don’t know: last week someone sprayed a slogan on a wall in Holland Road, 500 meters from our shul. The same slogan appeared on the seafront, probably work of the same hand:
“Jewish lies matter”.
It is antisemitic. “Jewish lies” are an evergreen. None other than Martin Luther devoted a book about the “Jewish lies”. Chillingly, Luther concluded his polemic book with a plan of actions, that four centuries later was implemented (and quoted) by the Nazis. Burndown synagogues, burn Jewish book, force the Jewish population to physical labour… and so on.
In contemporary times, the motif…
[This sermon originated as a comment to a piece whose author has blocked me long ago]
Two years ago the Council of our city voted in favour of the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Despite what you may read here and there, such a definition does not equate to hate crime the criticism of Israel, and of Israeli policies. Rather it establishes that it is antisemitic to deny to us Jewish people that right to self-determination which for all the other people in the world is taken for granted.
I regard that day a highlight of my Rabbinic…
If only things were simple. This is my reaction when I think to the horrendous carnage in Nice, less than ten days ago. If only things were that simple. This is, too, my reaction to the other episode of Islamic motivated violence, on a train in Germany, last week. If only things were that simple.
We are told that radicalisation happens in isolation. We read that these two murderers were alienated, frustrated and that they did not regularly attend any mosque. We are informed that they were not pious Muslim: actually, the Franco-Tunisian mass murderer seems to have led a…
We must honour the memory of Elie Wiesel, the man who suddenly became an adult at 15 years, when he was put on the cattle train, to Auschwitz. His mother and younger sister were taken to the gas chambers. He was sent to be a slave labourer. He witnessed hangings, endured hunger, beatings and torture. And later he wrote “Never shall I forget that night, the first night in camp, which has turned my life into one long night, seven times cursed and seven times sealed….Never shall I forget those moments which murdered my God and my soul and turned…
Rabbi Dr Andrea Zanardo, PhD
I’m that Rabbi your woke friends warned you about. You find me at the largest synagogue in Sussex (UK).
