Judaism
Angels through the ages
A good question for your upcoming Lent quiz: where are angels mentioned in the Nicene Creed? I asked this at…
The ‘other’ life of Harvey Milk
This is the story of the ‘other’ Harvey Milk. We all know about Harvey the San Francisco politician who was…
The origins of Labour’s racism
Another word which has gained a new meaning in the present decade, along with ‘vulnerable’ and ‘diverse’: survivor. Once it…
Is Prince Charles so fond of Islam because he distrusts Jews?
It has long been my belief that whereas the quality of gentiles drawn to Judaism is very high (Marilyn Monroe,…
Reza Aslan doesn’t fear God. But should he fear his fellow Muslims?
Eating human brains, burying one’s face in dead people’s ashes and publicly deriding the president of the United States as…
Bring back the old Brass Rail, Selfridges!
The last time I reviewed a restaurant in Selfridges, a PR man rang up to ask what he could do…
György Spiro’s Captivity fails to captivate Tibor Fischer
It’s been a long time coming for György Spiró. However much Hungarian writers complain about the isolation forced upon them…
If you believe the internet, I was Israel’s answer to Jason Bourne
One of the strangest and, in a weird way, best things to have happened to me in the past year…
Egypt: where gods are born and go to die
Tom Holland on Egypt, where the deities were born and history itself began
Turning Alzheimer’s into theatre is like building a surfboard out of sawdust
Here are three truths about play-writing. A script without an interval will be structurally flawed. A vague, whimsical title means…
Even Nazis weren’t quite sure how to do the Hitler salute
Gesture politics A royal home movie from 1933 apparently showed the future Queen, aged seven, and her mother giving a…
Vespasian’s Middle East policy (it should be ours, too)
As Ahmed Rashid argued last week, it is hard to see what the West is doing in the Middle East,…
Why is a festival of Israeli film fighting for censorship in London?
The attempt to ban Jewish men from seeing ‘The Gift of Fire’ sets a very dangerous precedent
Bad Jews at the Arts Theatre reviewed: strange, raw, obsessive and brilliant
Bad Jews has completed its long trek from a smallish out-of-town venue to a full-scale West End berth. Billed as…
This ex-priest’s history of the gospels could unsettle the most faithful churchgoer
When James Carroll was a boy, lying on the floor watching television, he would glance up at his mother and…
What Julie Burchill's ex-husband thinks of her new memoir
Unchosen is the journalist Julie Burchill’s account of how she — a bright and bratty working-class girl from Bristol —…
Jonathan Sacks on religion, politics and the civil war that Islam needs
Former chief rabbi Jonathan Sacks on the return of religion to public life and the civil war that Islam needs
The Islamic State is destroying the greatest melting pot in history
The fighters of the Islamic State are bringing a deadly new intolerance to a territory rich in ancient sects
The only trouble with Tel Aviv – flying there doesn’t feel scary any more
‘There’s a dark cloud rising from the desert floor/ I packed my bags and I’m heading straight into the storm/…
The harrowing, inspiring life of Andrew Sachs
Comedians always like to claim that they started making jokes after childhoods made harsh by poverty; that at a formative…
The Story of the Jews, by Simon Schama - review
The recorder of early Jewish history has two sources of evidence. One is the Bible. Its centrality was brought home…
A restaurant in a synagogue. How strange can it be?
A restaurant in a synagogue may be too mad even for this column but we are Jews, so why not?…
