Forget the old saying, “Two Jews, three opinions.” Anyone paying the slightest attention to the angst, even anger, that greeted the arrival of Channel 4’s Apprentice-style competition Jewish Mum of the Year would be forgiven for thinking my people had finally – after 3,000 years – managed to speak with one voice: Jewish Mum of the Year was bad for the Continue reading

The past 72 hours have highlighted how bitterly Britain’s longest-serving premier of modern times divided opinion. Margaret Thatcher boosted free markets, slashed big government, saved the Falkland Islands, helped end the cold war and enhanced Britain’s flagging international reputation. She also caused strikes and riots, championed the spiteful poll tax, created an unemployment queue three Continue reading

Former foreign secretary David Miliband has announced that he’ll stand down as an MP, two-and-a-half years after his brother Ed beat him in the Labour leadership contest. The Jewish politician has decided to move to New York where he’ll take up the position as CEO of the International Rescue Committee. Head of Policy in Tony Continue reading

Ed Miliband was in feisty form during his first Q&A forum with the Jewish community as Labour leader. In a wide-ranging discussion that overran, amiable Ed tackled an array hot potatoes including immigration, the NHS, multiculturalism, youth unemployment and the “shameful” recent behaviour of George Galloway. He also amusingly spent time sharing his passion for Continue reading

However heinous one might find some of George Galloway’s opinions, no one who prizes free speech would deny his right to be heard and debated. Indeed, there’s no shortage of educated individuals ready to publically dismantle his distorted views on Israel and the Middle East with logic and reason. Last week, the Respect MP for Continue reading

Any rabbi worth his weight in chopped liver knows the best way to move a congregation is to make them laugh. Whether lamenting low shul attendances or promoting a ladies guild bridge night, their sermons often turn into thinly disguised stand-up routines. Before retiring after 50 years of full-time stand-up at the end of 2012, Continue reading

Which singer invented the modern pop song, wrote the soundtrack to the Sixties, inspired Frank Sinatra and the Sex Pistols and earned praise from the Pope and Elvis Presley? The answer, my friend, will be blowin’ out 72 birthday candles later this year. After 500 songs, almost 50 albums albums and 100 million record sales, Continue reading

Back in the dim and distant 1990s, rubbish recycler to the stars Benjamin ‘the binman’ Pell was living proof that grime really does pay. A modern-day Uncle Bulgaria, making good use of things that he found, Pell built a reputation on rifling though celebrity bins and selling their secrets to the press. From Richard Branson’s Continue reading

One of comedy duo Mitchell and Webb’s funniest television sketches sees two Nazi soldiers worrying that the skull insignia on their caps might be sending out the wrong message. Enviously pointing out that the Allies’ uniforms have friendly lions and shiny stars, one anxiously asks the other: “Erich, are we the baddies?” The British National Continue reading

Ever been handcuffed to a bus stop in Blackpool? Stripped to your boxer shorts in Brighton? Or bundled onto a North Sea ferry bound for Zeebrugge wearing a pretty pink dress? When it comes to his final night of freedom, there is often no end to the ritual humiliation endured by the hapless groom-to-be. If Continue reading