Should rabbis dabble in politics? Should they use their influence to persuade their congregation to follow a certain political path? Should this authority extend to interventions in parliamentary elections and other matters of national debate? I pose these questions because in recent days British Jews has been confronted with some dramatic instances of very public
How genuine and inclusive are complaints about institutional racism affecting non-white academics and students in British universities? To find out, over the past half year I’ve made it my business to attend academic conferences (four in all) focused or largely focused on alleged racism at UK universities and the experience of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic
David Cameron announced five years ago that he was establishing a “Holocaust Commission”. The purpose? To “investigate what more needs to be done to ensure Britain has a permanent and fitting [Holocaust] memorial and the educational resources needed for generations to come.” Out of this Commission came a Holocaust Memorial Foundation; and out of this
Is Jeremy Corbyn an anti-Semite? I began researching the answer to this question well before Danny Finkelstein’s recent revelation in the Times that eight years ago Corbyn had written a glowing foreword to a new edition of Imperialism: A Study, written by the radical economist John Atkinson Hobson, first published in 1902. Context is paramount. That’s why
Labour desperately needs to win over Jewish voters if Jeremy Corbyn is to make it to Downing Street. At the snap election, the party was damaged by underperformance in seats with large Jewish populations: Hendon (held by the Tories by a only 1,072 votes) and Finchley (Tory majority 1,657) are two examples. Labour’s summer of anti-Semitism has
The ultimate purpose of a university is, without fear or favour, to pursue the truth, and in furtherance of that ideal I try, as an historian, to go wherever the evidence leads me. That some folks – even some academic colleagues – may not feel comfortable with the end results is of absolutely no consequence.
Universities up and down the land are clambering to recruit students in time for the start of the new academic year. International students – those from outside the EU – are the most lucrative market, not least because there are no legal restrictions on the fees that they can be charged; top universities, such as Oxford,
A campaign is currently underway to have Bristol’s Colston Hall renamed because Edward Colston was a slave trader. This has set me thinking. How gross does someone’s moral turpitude have to be before memorials to him are considered ripe for removal? Two years ago, the Rhodes Must Fall campaign successfully lobbied for the removal of
The UCAS deadline for the receipt of applications for university entry this coming autumn has just passed. In terms of lifetime earnings a university degree – especially a degree from a top-drawer Russell Group university – is still excellent value for money, so thousands of students now working hard to complete their sixth-form studies will
It may come as a surprise to some that, in itself, being homosexual has never been illegal in Britain. But, for hundreds of years, homosexual acts between consenting males were regarded as criminal offences. Thousands of men of all ages were prosecuted, sent to prison – or worse. One of these was Alan Turing, whose
In February, the co-chair of the Oxford University Labour Club, Alex Chalmers, resigned after having publicly accused the Club of harbouring and articulating rank prejudice against Jews and other minority groups. Mr Chalmers – who is not Jewish – declared that a ‘large proportion’ of Club members had ‘some kind of problem with Jews‘. He
Jeremy Corbyn is absolutely right not to resign as Leader of the Labour Party. Those calling for his resignation – including those members of the Parliamentary Labour Party who supported the vote of no confidence against him – betray an astonishing misunderstanding of what the project called ‘The Labour Party’ is all about. Here’s the
In 1962 I made the leap of a lifetime – from a severely cash-limited working-class household in Hackney (my father had been a packer in a Whitechapel warehouse) to Oxford University. No obstacles were put in my way. Educated at an LCC secondary school, I spent a week at Lincoln College, taking exams for admission to
As of 6.30pm this evening, Londoners will (once again) suffer miserably at the hands of the transport unions, which have called another 24-hour strike on the Underground system in support of a demand for higher payments for operating a night-time service on parts of the network. Many commuters – forced onto overcrowded buses – will
As the dust settles on the outcome of the 2015 general election, one group of business executives who we can be sure are less than ecstatic at what the future may hold in store for them are the university vice-chancellors. During the last parliament, Theresa May was responsible for a raft of ministerial directives aimed
Last month, the government’s Counter-Terrorism & Security Bill became law. One provision is the legal obligation it places upon ‘specified authorities’ to ‘prevent people from being drawn into terrorism’. ‘Specified authorities’ includes universities, whose vice-chancellors made several interventions as the legislation made its way through Parliament. The Education (No.2) Act of 1996 places a duty on
Weekends are quality time in the Alderman household. On Saturday evenings, following the termination of the Sabbath, my wife and I are accustomed to sit together, review the week that has just ended, and map out the week ahead. But last Saturday the conversation took a very different turn. My wife and I considered the
A recent study has suggested that over half of Britain’s Jews feel they have no future in the UK. At first glance this might seem outrageous, indeed incredible. Arguably (one might say) we Jews are the most successfully integrated of all the UK’s ethnic minorities. A miniscule set of communities – comprising in total 0.5 per
