Born near Manchester in 1951, our dentist was Jewish, and his family, family friends. My old man, a bit of a character in the village, and involved in setting up a local rugby club, was invited by the local (posh) golf club to be an Honorary VP (he didn't play the game).
He responded that he would be delighted, and as soon as they allowed Jewish members, he would take the post. That was that.
Despite it being the 1950s, my mother and father taught us all that ALL are worthy of respect, regardless of origin. Bless them.
He was indeed! Thanks. Mum too - during the war she was an ambulance driver. Stationed in Oxford, she witness a US Sergeant racially abusing a black GI. Went to ask him if he was OK, and they formed a friendship. Would go to the movies together once a week, and kept in touch with him for a while when he returned to the States - son of a Mississippi sharecropper. She also made it clear to my rugby mad older brother that if he went to watch the Springboks on the "Apartheid" tour - 1969/70 (Peter Hain rose to fame then with protests about it), she'd never talk to him again. Nor would she. I am hugely grateful to them for my upbringing.
The evil passions are further justified by another linguistic error—the error of speaking about certain categories of persons as though they were mere embodied abstractions. Foreigners and those who disagree with us are not thought of as men and women like ourselves and our fellow-countrymen; they are thought of as representatives and, so to say, symbols of a class. In so far as they have any personality at all, it is the personality we mistakenly attribute to their class—a personality that is, by definition, intrinsically evil. We know that the harming or killing of men and women is wrong, and we are reluctant consciously to do what we know to be wrong. But when particular men and women are thought of merely as representatives of a class, which has previously been defined as evil and personified in the shape of a devil, then the reluctance to hurt or murder disappears. Brown, Jones and Robinson are no longer thought of as Brown, Jones and Robinson, but as heretics, Palestinians, gentiles, Yids, niggers, barbarians, Huns, communists, capitalists, fascists, liberals—whichever the case may be. When they have been called such names and assimilated to the accursed class to which the names apply, Brown, Jones and Robinson cease to be conceived as what they really are—human persons—and become for the users of this fatally inappropriate language mere vermin or, worse, demons whom it is right and proper to destroy as thoroughly and as painfully as possible. Wherever persons are present, questions of morality arise. Rulers of nations and leaders of parties find morality embarrassing. That is why they take such pains to depersonalize their opponents. All propaganda directed against an opposing group has but one aim: to substitute diabolical abstractions for concrete persons. The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. By robbing them of their personality, he puts them outside the pale of moral obligation. Mere symbols can have no rights—particularly when that of which they are symbolical is, by definition, evil.
What I find is people understand your article and Aldous Huxley's essay intellectually, and possibly understand it historically, but don't understand the nuance or subtlety of the message as applied to real time situations happening. Palestinians, Jews, Israelis, vaccinated, unvaccinated, oh no that's different. I currently have the company I employed at celebrating and patting themselves on the back regarding their diversity and inclusion, whereas one year ago they bullied, threatened with termination of employment and ostracised anyone who was unvaccinated, but that's different.
They want us cowering in fear, isolated, looking out for our own necks. Which means we must do the opposite.
Like how gazelle herds survive crossing rivers with lions and alligators lurking. Alone they are weak. Together they are strong.
Everybody should wear the Star of David. safety in numbers. Hiding it away to protect oneself allows a pack of hungry predators to devour the prey, growing more and more voracious. Until there are no more prey left, picked off while on their solo journeys, weak, cowering in fear until they meet their demise they only delayed by trying to hide..
I was appalled at the Israeli government's handling of covid and especially the vaccine rollout, where it forced people to be vaccinated to be able to take part in normal life in Israel. Of all the countries that should not have gone down that path, it was Israel.
But I was not there on October 7th when the attack happened and don't automatically dismiss what was claimed to have happened as so many others here and elsewhere have, and turned the aggressors into the victims. I get the impression that if the footage of the aftermath was shown to the world, some would still dismiss it as staged or a false flag because they don't want to admit it.
Likewise, I was appalled about Israel’s vaccine mandates.
I also watched the Bearing Witness screening, and have no doubts about its authenticity.
It’s a terrible shame that people connect dots which simply aren’t there between an awful authoritarian Covid response and one of the worst terrorist attacks of our lifetime, and then deny the subsequent increase in antisemitism here.
If people wonder who they would have been in 1930s and 1940s Germany they simply need to look at who they are now. People believed propaganda and found the ways to justify Jew hatred then too.
It's less hatred, more fear, and with good reason.
Islam spread across the world incredibly fast...by the sword, not by proselytizing. The deaths have totalled around 250 million. The choice is convert, live as a second class citizen, or die.
Read accounts of the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria on Gatestone Institute.
Should the ME have been bombed by Bush, Cameron, Obama/Clinton, Blair?
No. They stirred up a proverbial hornets nest. They killed hundreds of thousands of people. It was unnecessary and based on a lie, a whole series of lies.
Does that mean it's ok for Hamas to murder, rape, torture unarmed Israeli citizens? Also no.
I am sympathetic to poor elderly people who have irrational fears of discrimination despite little evidence of it maybe because of past trauma they are easily offended, and misconstrue people's disgust with the Israeli regime with antisemitism?
I find it sad,astonishing and disturbing that none of these poor people you interviewed expressed any compassion or empathy for other poor oppressed people in the land where the Israeli government is conducting ethnic cleansing by violent means.
I also find the assertion that Judith Brown has never been aware of any anti Jewish remarks or sentiments astounding.
Reading through her posts a couple of times my conclusion about the style of philosophy manifested in her jottings is that she probably attended the same evening course as Owen Jones: Journalism for Ostriches.
Modules one to one concentrate on the development of a style of writing heavily influenced by an inability to see or hear anything outside of the secluded confines of a sand cloistered head.
Six million dead and other more recent atrocities set against the historic backdrop of continual anti semitism; what on earth does it take to convince some people.
There is one Jewish state, but plenty of Arab nations and states. The Jewish people are outnumbered many times over, and have been under the constant threat of being wiped out completely by aggressive neighbours, eg, Iran, Hamas, etc, not to mention the horrific events of WW2.
It is written in the Koran that Jews should be killed, along with any other non-believers.
The "prejudice" you've observed may be nothing more than self-preservation, as those from Arab countries don't always play well with others.
Read articles on the Gatestone Institute website for more information.
There are still some good humans out there.....hope for us all. Thanks for sharing Laura 👍
This was beautiful. Thank you for highlighting kind people, doing honorable things, in dark times.
Fantastic. God bless these lovely souls and you too , Laura. Thank you
Thank you for sharing Laura, uplifting and beautiful indeed. Bringing much needed light in these dark times.
Born near Manchester in 1951, our dentist was Jewish, and his family, family friends. My old man, a bit of a character in the village, and involved in setting up a local rugby club, was invited by the local (posh) golf club to be an Honorary VP (he didn't play the game).
He responded that he would be delighted, and as soon as they allowed Jewish members, he would take the post. That was that.
Despite it being the 1950s, my mother and father taught us all that ALL are worthy of respect, regardless of origin. Bless them.
What a mensch!
He was indeed! Thanks. Mum too - during the war she was an ambulance driver. Stationed in Oxford, she witness a US Sergeant racially abusing a black GI. Went to ask him if he was OK, and they formed a friendship. Would go to the movies together once a week, and kept in touch with him for a while when he returned to the States - son of a Mississippi sharecropper. She also made it clear to my rugby mad older brother that if he went to watch the Springboks on the "Apartheid" tour - 1969/70 (Peter Hain rose to fame then with protests about it), she'd never talk to him again. Nor would she. I am hugely grateful to them for my upbringing.
This piece addresses similar themes,
The evil passions are further justified by another linguistic error—the error of speaking about certain categories of persons as though they were mere embodied abstractions. Foreigners and those who disagree with us are not thought of as men and women like ourselves and our fellow-countrymen; they are thought of as representatives and, so to say, symbols of a class. In so far as they have any personality at all, it is the personality we mistakenly attribute to their class—a personality that is, by definition, intrinsically evil. We know that the harming or killing of men and women is wrong, and we are reluctant consciously to do what we know to be wrong. But when particular men and women are thought of merely as representatives of a class, which has previously been defined as evil and personified in the shape of a devil, then the reluctance to hurt or murder disappears. Brown, Jones and Robinson are no longer thought of as Brown, Jones and Robinson, but as heretics, Palestinians, gentiles, Yids, niggers, barbarians, Huns, communists, capitalists, fascists, liberals—whichever the case may be. When they have been called such names and assimilated to the accursed class to which the names apply, Brown, Jones and Robinson cease to be conceived as what they really are—human persons—and become for the users of this fatally inappropriate language mere vermin or, worse, demons whom it is right and proper to destroy as thoroughly and as painfully as possible. Wherever persons are present, questions of morality arise. Rulers of nations and leaders of parties find morality embarrassing. That is why they take such pains to depersonalize their opponents. All propaganda directed against an opposing group has but one aim: to substitute diabolical abstractions for concrete persons. The propagandist’s purpose is to make one set of people forget that certain other sets of people are human. By robbing them of their personality, he puts them outside the pale of moral obligation. Mere symbols can have no rights—particularly when that of which they are symbolical is, by definition, evil.
What I find is people understand your article and Aldous Huxley's essay intellectually, and possibly understand it historically, but don't understand the nuance or subtlety of the message as applied to real time situations happening. Palestinians, Jews, Israelis, vaccinated, unvaccinated, oh no that's different. I currently have the company I employed at celebrating and patting themselves on the back regarding their diversity and inclusion, whereas one year ago they bullied, threatened with termination of employment and ostracised anyone who was unvaccinated, but that's different.
A scene from the classic 1953 WWII movie, 'Stalag 17' Anti-bullying 101:
https://youtu.be/iA93nO00b_4
“Six-hundred funny men”
They want us cowering in fear, isolated, looking out for our own necks. Which means we must do the opposite.
Like how gazelle herds survive crossing rivers with lions and alligators lurking. Alone they are weak. Together they are strong.
Everybody should wear the Star of David. safety in numbers. Hiding it away to protect oneself allows a pack of hungry predators to devour the prey, growing more and more voracious. Until there are no more prey left, picked off while on their solo journeys, weak, cowering in fear until they meet their demise they only delayed by trying to hide..
All we are saying is give peace a chance!
https://scientificprogress.substack.com/p/all-we-are-saying-is-give-peace-a
What a truly unpleasant set of comments in response to a project which was supposed to reach a hand of friendship towards Jews and encourage unity.
Agreed.
I was appalled at the Israeli government's handling of covid and especially the vaccine rollout, where it forced people to be vaccinated to be able to take part in normal life in Israel. Of all the countries that should not have gone down that path, it was Israel.
But I was not there on October 7th when the attack happened and don't automatically dismiss what was claimed to have happened as so many others here and elsewhere have, and turned the aggressors into the victims. I get the impression that if the footage of the aftermath was shown to the world, some would still dismiss it as staged or a false flag because they don't want to admit it.
Likewise, I was appalled about Israel’s vaccine mandates.
I also watched the Bearing Witness screening, and have no doubts about its authenticity.
It’s a terrible shame that people connect dots which simply aren’t there between an awful authoritarian Covid response and one of the worst terrorist attacks of our lifetime, and then deny the subsequent increase in antisemitism here.
If people wonder who they would have been in 1930s and 1940s Germany they simply need to look at who they are now. People believed propaganda and found the ways to justify Jew hatred then too.
It's less hatred, more fear, and with good reason.
Islam spread across the world incredibly fast...by the sword, not by proselytizing. The deaths have totalled around 250 million. The choice is convert, live as a second class citizen, or die.
Read accounts of the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria on Gatestone Institute.
Watch this video: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y
Why we are afraid, A 1400 Year Secret
Should the ME have been bombed by Bush, Cameron, Obama/Clinton, Blair?
No. They stirred up a proverbial hornets nest. They killed hundreds of thousands of people. It was unnecessary and based on a lie, a whole series of lies.
Does that mean it's ok for Hamas to murder, rape, torture unarmed Israeli citizens? Also no.
I wasn’t trying to ‘win’.
I am sympathetic to poor elderly people who have irrational fears of discrimination despite little evidence of it maybe because of past trauma they are easily offended, and misconstrue people's disgust with the Israeli regime with antisemitism?
I find it sad,astonishing and disturbing that none of these poor people you interviewed expressed any compassion or empathy for other poor oppressed people in the land where the Israeli government is conducting ethnic cleansing by violent means.
Thank you for writing and sharing this Laura. You - are a mensch.
I find it astonishing that you have never heard any remarks that are critical of Jews.
This organisation records antisemitic incidents, so as you said you want more details you can start there: https://cst.org.uk/news/blog/2023/12/13/antisemitic-incidents-13-december-update
I also find the assertion that Judith Brown has never been aware of any anti Jewish remarks or sentiments astounding.
Reading through her posts a couple of times my conclusion about the style of philosophy manifested in her jottings is that she probably attended the same evening course as Owen Jones: Journalism for Ostriches.
Modules one to one concentrate on the development of a style of writing heavily influenced by an inability to see or hear anything outside of the secluded confines of a sand cloistered head.
Six million dead and other more recent atrocities set against the historic backdrop of continual anti semitism; what on earth does it take to convince some people.
Nothing will convince some people. I had no idea that ignorance was so determined and cruelty so deeply embedded.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y
Why we are afraid, A 1400 year secret.
There is one Jewish state, but plenty of Arab nations and states. The Jewish people are outnumbered many times over, and have been under the constant threat of being wiped out completely by aggressive neighbours, eg, Iran, Hamas, etc, not to mention the horrific events of WW2.
It is written in the Koran that Jews should be killed, along with any other non-believers.
The "prejudice" you've observed may be nothing more than self-preservation, as those from Arab countries don't always play well with others.
Read articles on the Gatestone Institute website for more information.