The JC Letters Page, 16th August 2019

When I lived in the UK I attended many pro-BDS street protests, including facing a mob in Whitehall screaming for Netanyahu’s blood. 

Where was Freedland then?

An 18 year old yeshiva student and soldier was brutally stabbed to death this week in Israel by Islamists. 

Would Jonathan Freedland even write about that? Or would his Guardian distort what happened?

When all the Jews finally leave the UK because of antisemitism, maybe Jonathan Freedland will discover, too late, that the friends he has in the Guardian are not worth having.

Name and address supplied

Jonathan Freedland’s latest diatribe was as bizarre as it was inaccurate. My article about European Jews making Aliyah quoted directly their fears about, first, a newly legitimised antisemitism from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and secondly the growing number and political influence of the Muslim community in the UK, contrary to what he said. 

He either did not read the article, or only read the bits of it which fitted his facile agenda. 

Nor did he bother to report that I challenged those who pointed the finger at Muslims. It is true, mind, that I have a disaffection for Islam, based upon its attitudes towards apostasy, democracy, women’s equality, gay rights and indeed its undercurrent of antisemitism. This no more extends towards individual Muslims than does my incredulity at transubstantiation extend towards ordinary Roman Catholics. 

I expect that kind of bile from the Guardian, not the JC.

Rod Liddle
Saltburn, Teesside

Using a Private Act

The letters from Kenneth Zucker and Herbert Goldberg (August 9) on the recent award of a get on receipt of £50,000 protest much — with good reason — but do not really offer a way through the maze. May I try?

I wonder if anyone has considered using a Private Act of Parliament. I am not referring to a “private member’s bill”; that is a proposal for a Public Act that derives from a back-bencher. Initiation of a Private Act is a litigation process.

 
It is conducted through the petitioning of a dedicated committee of Parliament that receives the petition and arranges to hear representations from all affected parties. After due consideration, it proposes the text of the Act that then progresses through the formal legislative stages. 

Jewish law regards national law as applying on occasions in place of halachah:  the principle known as dina d’malchuta dina. 

There is precedent for the use of a Private Act for this very purpose: the Queen Mary College Act 1971, passed to override halachic issues arising from the clearance of the long-since closed Nuevo Cemetery in Mile End for development by London University. 

The process carries some cost, because the agents and professionals involved have their livings to earn; but this will pale into insignificance compared with extortionate bargains being struck between the parties these days. 

I would envisage the Private Act doing or achieving the following: containing a pro forma for the Get itself; directing that as a matter of English law any UK Beit Din shall give immediate effect to it, subject to obliging the husband to agree to give his wife a Get within 30 days or, in case of breach of this, the husband’s assets and financial affairs are frozen, without limit in time, until he changes his mind;  prohibiting every UK Beit Din from being party to any arrangement for the wife to pay money in consideration of the Get (apart from professional fees etc); and requiring every UK Beit Din to excommunicate the husband, pending agreement to the Get. 

I reject the idea of looking for changes in the general law to accommodate a Jewish problem; the private nature of the Private Act keeps this focused on a specific case. And if this becomes the normal way of resolving these very troubled and tragic cases, then actually the Batei Din have a strong vested interest in supporting this and co-operating on the right formulation for the petition and the process that follows. 

Daniel Tunkel 
London N12
 
Relinquish privilege

Shimon Cohen, of Shechita UK, writes (Letters, August 9) that there is an ample body of scientific evidence in support of shechita.  There must also be an ample body of scientific evidence against it, to sustain the opposition of veterinarians, whose vocation is the welfare of animals.

We live on a hungry and poisoned planet, to both of which evils the farming of animals contributes disproportionately. So, today, which is the greater mitzvah: to eat kosher meat, or to eat no meat. 

Our traditional method of slaughter may, or may not, be as we claim, the most humane method.  That is not a matter of faith but of science.

Instead of arguing that our ancient method is superior to all modern methods let us, the first to legislate for the welfare of animals, relinquish our privilege.  

We would do so for the sake of the generations to come, for the sentient creatures who are the victims of all methods of slaughter and because we know which is the greater mitzvah.

Stuart Goodman
Brentwood CM14 

Forgetting Abraham

Your diary correspondent (August 9)  may have suffered a momentary lapse when claiming that a 70-year-old man who was inadvertently circumcised instead of receiving a Botox procedure, “may take home the record for the oldest person to have a Bris”.

It is of course a matter of record that Abraham, the father of the Jewish people, had his Bris at the age of 99.

David Levenson
Stanmore, Middlesex

Inspirational editor

I would like to echo Jenni Frazer’s fine tribute to Geoffrey Paul (JC, August 9). 

On a personal note, Geoffrey welcomed my appointment, straight from university, as a freelance book reviewer for the JC in the early 1970s. He encouraged me first to write features, then, despite my misgivings, to produce the major Review of the Year for the Rosh Hashanna issue for several years. 

Finally, and this was the ultimate accolade, he asked me to deputise for Chaim Bermant and pen the Ben Azai column when Chaim was on holiday. I told him later that my proudest moment in journalism was that no-one wrote to complain that standards had fallen and to enquire after Chaim’s health. He laughed.

Jenni was absolutely right that as a young writer, you both wanted and needed his approval. You also wanted and needed his guidance and encouragement. 

Geoffrey was always an editor whose comments helped you produce better work.

Ian Bloom
Barnet