‘Hep, Hep, Hep!’ was the smart yell in dear old Vienna whenever a Jewboy was spotted. ‘Hep’ was the acronym for ‘Hierosalym est perdita’. Nearly two millennia after the Temple and the city were razed by Titus, son of the Roman general and later emperor Vespasian (C-in-C of the campaign), Jews could still be put down as losers by reference to their lost capital and pride. ‘You’re not singing any more’ has been a perennial taunt.

The Second Temple was built by Herod the Great on the site of the Temple Mount, where the Dome of the Rock now stands on ground conveniently, because exclusively, ‘sacred’ to Islam. Jews have regularly been relegated by both of the monotheistic religions which owe much, in conception, morality and practice, to the ‘fossil faith’, as Kant, Hegel, Arnold Toynbee and other refined persons have chosen to describe Judaism. The Aztecs (not renowned for their meekness or mildness) were more deferential to the Toltecs, whose power they had usurped but whose oracle they continued to consult with hopeful piety.

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