Lexicon of fear and loathing
There can be no argument with David Aaronovitch about the Christchurch massacre (JC, March 22), which all decent-minded people must condemn in the clearest, unequivocal terms.
There is, however, a question to be asked about the word we use to describe hatred of Jews — antisemitism— and the word we use for what Aaronovitch describes as hatred of Muslims — Islamophobia. The OED describes phobia as an extreme or irrational fear or dislike of a specific thing, which raises the following question: Are not antisemitism and Islamophobia creatures of a different hue? Antisemitism is universally recognised as meaning prejudice towards, or hatred of Jews, while Islamophobia translates linguistically as fear of Islam, rather than hatred of Muslims.
If they are the same, would not antisemitism be described as Judeophobia? It is not, because they are distinctly different. I do not hate Muslims, to do so would be irrational and I am not irrational, but I do have fears relating to Islam based on factors which might induce fear in even the most rational of people; namely, the killings in towns and cities across Europe by adherents to an extreme form of Islam and, furthermore, the terrible litany of inter-communal killing, Muslim killing Muslim, in countries across the Middle East and in Pakistan. Yes, let us live peaceably together while at the same time accepting the difficulties posed by an Islam that has not yet completed its reformation.
Michael Lazarus
Herts
With due respect to Professor Alan Johnson (The ideological roots of Labour antisemitism, JC, March 22), one of the basic intellectual roots of antisemitism since the Enlightenment is that the American and French Revolutions were partly a re-run of the Protestant Reformation. Though aimed primarily at Catholic kings and all hereditary office, the revolutionary epoch was targeting the Mitre for backing the Crown.
The Americans first, then the French and definitely the Russians were out to exorcise religious organisations from an ex officio integrated role in government machinery.
The Cromwellians sacked the bishops and when they were restored, Methodism and other chapels repeated the anti-clerical exercise which delayed decent public education in England and Wales till the 1944 Act.
First, the right took the dethronement of formal religion and Jewish emancipation as an excuse for antisemitism.
Then (we can’t win) the left have seen Jews and Zionism as forms of resistant clericalism in defiance of secular nationalism, ironically in un-English Spain, Ireland and Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaigns.
Unfortunately, over 40 years of clerical Iran, it is the salafi and jihadi wing of the Muslim world that has worn the traditional boots of clerical rule without recognising that it is precisely because the west has escaped the clerics by separating state and religious institutions that it can tolerate itself and non-Christians.
Frank Adam
Prestwich
It should be no surprise that only half of adults know what “antisemitism” means (JC, March 15). The word “antisemitism” itself may not be helpful outside the Jewish community; it would surely be better for us to replace it with anti-Judaism, Jew-hate or Judeophobia, as some people have started to do, or a term that is more clearly associated with the name of the religion.
Furthermore, in most parts of the country the majority of adults are unlikely to have contact with the Jewish community, which represents less than half a per cent of the total UK population. In fact, it is fairly amazing that half the adults in the survey did understand the term so perhaps your headline could have been re-worded: Half of adults know what antisemitism means.
Michael Hart
Havant
Poor attitude
I read with increasing anger your report, Lottery 300k will help fight Charedi poverty (JC, March 22). This poverty is entirely self-inflicted, brought about by irresponsible and selfish parents who willingly bring six children into the world whom they cannot feed and clothe themselves but rely on charity.
Mrs Ciffer speaks of “government money”. The government has no money — the money these families want is paid from the taxes of responsible working families . The thought of these poor children having such parents I find very disturbing.
Mrs S Lewin
Gerrards Cross
Not fully united on dayanim
In the same way as senior rabbinic appointments within the United Synagogue require the voted approval of the lay membership, isn’t it time that a similar mechanism is introduced into the appointment process for dayanim?
Andy Kaufmann
London N2
Impure definition of “Jew”
Last week, you published a letter from my son, Mycal, in which he rightly castigated the Israeli Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi for his endorsement of DNA testing in a search for “racial purity”.
Mycal could have mentioned his late mother’s infallible test of whether a person is Jewish: would Hitler have gassed them?
Henry Miller
London NW2
Messianic misreading
Although some of Donald Trump’s pronouncements may currently be favourable to Israel, I doubt very much that he has been “sent by God to save Jews from Iran,” as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has suggested.
Where in the Torah are we encouraged to extol the virtues of a duplicitous narcissist who routinely breaks most of the Ten Commandments and believes himself to be God? More meshuggener than messiah.
Stan Labovitch
Windsor
