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Friday, December 26, 2025

12/26 Links Pt2: When “One Religion” Becomes “Zionism”; From Tehran to Turning Point USA: The political utility of Jew-hatred; What is Ireland's Problem With Israel?; Top 10 Worst U.N. Moments of 2025

From Ian:

When “One Religion” Becomes “Zionism”
I was listening to The Interview, the New York Times podcast hosted by David Marchese, featuring Raja Shehadeh, a Palestinian writer and activist. It was rebroadcast on The Daily’s Saturday edition. The conversation itself was interesting; I recommend it in order to understand what is seen today by Palestinians as a moderate view, one that supports peace. But there was one moment- very specific- that genuinely stopped me cold. And it came from the interviewer.

At that point in the interview, the guest, Raja Shehadeh, made an extreme claim- not about Israel as a state, and not about Zionism as a political movement, but about religion.

“Palestine has always been a place for three religions… and now one religion is trying to dominate and say it’s the only one that is going to be allowed.”

This was not a slip of the tongue. It was a clear statement. One religion. Dominating the others. Deciding who will be “allowed.”

Historically, only two political frameworks in the Eretz Yisrael/Palestine provided full freedom of religion- equal protection for Jews, Muslims, and Christians alike. The first was the British Mandate. Whatever its colonial flaws, it explicitly enshrined equal religious rights. Before that, under Muslim rule, Jews paid special taxes for being Jewish, as did Christians (jizya, poll tax), and both often paid to access holy sites.

The second polity is the State of Israel, where freedom of religion is protected by law, Arabic is an official language, and religious practice is legally safeguarded. One can- and should- report on extremist groups and Jewish far-right violence, trying to destory this legal and political framework. But those are not the law of the land.

And yet, when Shehadeh framed his argument in explicitly religious terms- about Jews as Jews- the interviewer probably panicked. Marchese immediately intervened. Not to challenge the premise, or bring facts to the discussuin, but rather to reframe it to the political code he finds appropriate :

“Well, you know, what you’re describing is Zionism.”

This was not a neutral clarification. It was a substitution. A sweeping religious accusation was hurridly converted into a political one.

In doing so, Marchese performed two moves at once. First, he corrected his interviewee- implicitly telling him that the “problem” is not Jews but Zionists. Second, he smuggled in a definition of Zionism that bears little resemblance to reality, implying that Zionism is about religious domination.
From Tehran to Turning Point USA: The political utility of Jew-hatred
The threat picture: Iran amplifying far-right antisemitism through social-media operations, Qatar cultivating conservative influencers through access and economic incentives, Russia weaponizing deceptively edited content, and China bankrolling radical antisemitic campus networks. Different vectors, same target. This is antisemitism’s operational advantage: Its utility transcends ideology. A Nazi and a Marxist, a theocrat and an atheist, a grifter and a communist operative can all deploy identical conspiracy theories while advancing separate strategic objectives.

This is how institutional defenses fail—not through the initial breach but through immune system collapse. When calling out Holocaust denial makes you the target rather than the threat actor, then you’ve already lost. When boundary enforcement becomes boundary violation, there are no boundaries. The attack chain from “perfidious Jews” to “death penalty” to “Cookie Monster” ovens to mass-casualty events isn’t theoretical. We have the historical case studies. The progression is consistent and accelerating.

When this hatred achieves mainstream acceptance (amplified by podcasters with millions of followers, weaponized by hostile state actors, defended as “free speech”) and produces attacks like Bondi Beach, you’re not observing normal political friction. You’re watching the mechanics of how democracies fail to protect their most vulnerable citizens.

The threat requires decisive action. Platforms must enforce existing terms of service against coordinated inauthentic behavior. Law enforcement must treat incitement to genocide as the criminal act it is, not protected speech.

Both conservative and progressive institutions must choose between coalition maintenance and moral clarity. Right-wing leaders must decide whether platforming Holocaust deniers is an acceptable price for audience growth. Left-wing activists must confront how foreign adversaries have weaponized their movements to advance antisemitic agendas. Americans with platforms across the political spectrum must understand that silence functions as operational support.

The historical pattern is clear, and the contemporary threat indicators are impossible to ignore. Antisemitism has been repackaged as a multipurpose political and economic tool: profitable for podcasters, strategically valuable for hostile states and algorithmically optimized for maximum reach. What began as ancient hatred has evolved into modern infrastructure—and that infrastructure is producing body counts.

The question is whether American institutions, left and right, will respond to these threat indicators before the next attack, and the one after that, and the one after that.
‘Palestine 36’ is propaganda by subtraction
There’s a reason why “Palestine 36” avoids al-Husseini: His real record contradicts the film’s narrative. His worldview, which was defined by eliminationist antisemitism fused with religious absolutism, existed long before 1936 and did not end with the Arab Revolt.

During World War II, al-Husseini was a committed Nazi Party collaborator. He lived in a mansion provided by the Third Reich; met repeatedly with Nazi hierarchy; broadcast Arabic-language propaganda for Nazi radio, urging listeners to “kill the Jews wherever you find them”; blocked efforts to rescue Jewish children; and helped recruit Muslim SS divisions responsible for atrocities in the Balkans. Prosecutors at the Nuremberg trials after the end of World War II described him as a collaborator “of the highest order.”

This is not a figure who fits comfortably into a romantic narrative of anti-colonial resistance.

And that erasure is not accidental; it is political. Acknowledging al-Husseini forces recognition of the conflict’s true roots: an Arab nationalism in Mandatory Palestine shaped primarily by Islamist and European bigotry, and ideological rejection of any Jewish sovereignty, not by anti-colonial grievance. The Mufti didn’t oppose the partition of the land because of borders; he opposed granting Jews any civil or national rights whatsoever.

A film that acknowledged these truths would undercut the preferred narrative that the conflict began in 1948 or 1967, or that it is purely an anti-colonial dispute. It would reveal what has always been the case: Jews in Mandatory Palestine were not colonizers. Rather, they were a vulnerable minority facing organized campaigns to eliminate them or keep them permanently powerless and stateless.

Modern Palestinian leadership has never disavowed al-Husseini. His portrait hangs in official offices. Schoolbooks echo his rhetoric. Hamas praises him outright. The hatred ideology that he championed animated the pogroms of the 1920s and 1930s, just as surely as it animated the Hamas-led atrocities in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

This is why films like “Palestine 36” must erase him. Because restoring him to the story restores the truth—and the truth shatters too many cherished political narratives.

And here lies the film’s deeper deception: “Palestine 36” is not history. It is propaganda by subtraction—a film that invites viewers to mourn the colonized while concealing the internal purges, the anti-Jewish violence, the ideological extremism and the Nazi collaboration that shaped the entire conflict.

The war against Jewish self-determination did not begin with Israel’s declaration in 1948 or with the Arab Revolt of 1936. It began when leaders like al-Husseini chose hatred over coexistence, rejection over compromise and alliance with genocidal tyrants over peace with their Jewish neighbors.


UN Watch: Top 10 Worst U.N. Moments of 2025
UN Watch, the Geneva-based human rights NGO that monitors the United Nations, today released its annual list of the “Top 10 Worst U.N. Moments of 2025,” documenting major failures of the world body to uphold its own principles—while elevating dictatorships, shielding abusers, and undermining accountability.

“The United Nations was created to defend human rights and protect victims—not to reward tyrants, whitewash repression, and attack democracies,” said Hillel Neuer, Executive Director of UN Watch.

“Yet in 2025 we saw authoritarian regimes capture U.N. platforms, corrupt U.N. mandates, and turn the language of human rights into propaganda. This list is a warning: when the U.N. normalizes the abnormal, victims pay the price.”

Following are the Top 10 Worst U.N. Moments of 2025:
1. Saudi Arabia Chairs UN Women’s Rights Commission
Despite its abysmal record on women’s rights, the UN made Saudi Arabia Chaired of its “global body for gender equality and the empowerment of women.” Represented by Abdulaziz Alwasil, a regime official having no credentials as a women’s rights activist, Saudi Arabia presided over the 2025 session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women. The desert monarchy still subjects women to legal discrimination including male guardianship controls. London’s Spectator reported: “As the superb organization UN Watch points out, the UN Commission on the Status of Women has never passed a single resolution regarding Saudi Arabia’s treatment of women — and now, grotesquely, has rewarded it with the chair.” Hillel Neuer was quoted by Women’s Agenda magazine: “By elevating a misogynistic regime to its highest women’s rights body, the UN betrays millions of female victims, in Saudi Arabia and worldwide.”

2. UN Launches Day to Defend Dictatorships, Framing Western Sanctions as Illegal
At the initiative of China, Cuba, Iran, and other authoritarian regimes, the United Nations on December 4, 2025 launched its new “International Day Against Unilateral Coercive Measures,” branding Western sanctions on tyrannies as violations of international law. The new annual event will boost an anti-Western narrative at the UN that is designed to shield the world’s worst human rights abusers from accountability. The campaign is driven by UN Special Rapporteur Alena Douhan of Belarus, who has used her mandate to promote the talking points of sanctioned regimes. Outrageously, Annalena Baerbock, the President of the UN General Assembly who until recently was Germany’s foreign minister, also joined the jackals. “Unilateral coercive measures imposed by a single State are in contravention of international law,” said Baerbock. Her opening remarks at the UN’s Orwellian event effectively condemned U.S. sanctions on Sudanese genocide commanders, Russian war financiers, and Chinese officials who run Uyghur prison camps, as “unlawful coercion.”
What is Ireland's Problem With Israel?
The emotional impact is profound. Jewish and Israeli members of Irish universities are repeatedly shown that they cannot expect empathy, that their history will be distorted, and that their suffering will be minimised or openly mocked.

When hostages are discovered dead, there is no moment of silence. When Hamas commits atrocities, the loudest response is often denial. The message delivered by this environment is painfully clear: Jewish identity is not considered worthy of respect, and Jewish voices are not considered worthy of hearing.

For Ireland, it represents a moral failing of historic proportions.

I have worked closely with former politician Alan Shatter last year as well as Chair of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland, Maurice Cohen. I also joined a small group from the Jewish community to meet Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister in September. The community is already tiny compared to other European countries, roughly 2000 people. I know that the government bill that seeks to ban goods from Judea and Samaria, or the fact that a Jewish woman was dragged out of a Holocaust commemoration ceremony in Dublin (as referenced in Jake Wallis Simons’ new book) have had substantial effects on Irish Jews’ perception of their safety. As Maurice Cohen quoted at a government hearing during the summer, “I always felt I was Irish and happened to be Jewish...now I feel that I am just a Jew, living in Ireland.”

Things have got so bad – and the international criticism so loud – that even some politicians are taking note. Ireland’s Justice Minister Jim O Callaghan appeared at a Hannukah ceremony with the Jewish Community at Herzog park where he stated that he was there to “show our support with the Jewish community in Ireland”. This has not come about organically; O’Callaghan’s predecessor and current minister for Foreign Affairs Helen McEntee did nothing for years as Hamas and Hezbollah flag were waved on streets or when cries of ‘Intifada’ or ‘From the River to the Sea’ rang out.

Who knows whether it was provoked by shame or American members of Congress and the Trump administration, threatening to make life difficult for Ireland via the enormously outsized influence of a few select American companies.

US Ambassador Walsh’s Senate confirmation hearing revealed deep concern among American lawmakers about Ireland’s growing hostility to Western power.

I think more courage is required from those of us who have sympathies to speak up. I also believe the Jewish community needs to assert the demand to live as Irish citizens, free from abuse. Too many are pessimistic and remain defensive about their identity. I was delighted to hear Chaim Herzog’s granddaughter, Alexandra, talk of her ‘Jewish pride’ as she discussed the original plans to change the name of the park.

As Vasily Grossman wrote, a society’s welfare at large will decline when Jews are persecuted and we Irish need to remember this. He also said: “Antisemitism is always a means rather than an end. It is a mirror for the failings of individuals, social structures and State systems. Tell me what you accuse the Jews of – I’ll tell you what you’re guilty of.”


French Parliament Exposes Muslim Brotherhood's Political Infiltration in Landmark Report
The French National Assembly registered investigative Report No. 2235 on December 10, 2025, documenting how Muslim Brotherhood ideology and affiliated networks have systematically infiltrated French political institutions, local governments, and civil society—posing what lawmakers describe as an existential threat to the country's secular order and its Jewish communities.

This landmark investigation follows growing European scrutiny of Brotherhood networks. Jewish Onliner recently reported on a December 2024 European Parliament study by Dr. Florence Bergeaud-Blackler and Dr. Tommaso Virgili that exposed Muslim Brotherhood infiltration of EU funding mechanisms and policy structures, revealing how Brotherhood-affiliated organizations have systematically penetrated European institutions.

The report, filed by Commission President Xavier Breton and Rapporteur Matthieu Bloch, marks the most comprehensive parliamentary examination of Islamist political strategy in French history and builds upon a separate government-commissioned report released in May 2025 on Muslim Brotherhood infiltration.

The report’s central finding is stark: Islamist movements have deployed a calculated three-part strategy of “dissimulation, double-discourse, and victimization” to infiltrate France’s political and social infrastructure from within. This “entryism” (entrisme) has created what the report terms “separatist ecosystems”—parallel societies in cities like Lyon, Marseille, and across Northern France where networks of mosques, schools, charities, and sports clubs operate under religious law rather than French civil authority.


UK parliamentarian: BBC coverage of Israel is so ‘distorted,’ only bottom-up change can help
British parliamentarian Ruth Deech had a bird’s-eye view of the BBC’s attitude towards Israel when she served on its governing body 20 years ago during the Second Intifada and the 2006 Second Lebanon War.

Then, as now, since conflict erupted following the October 7, 2023, Hamas-led onslaught on Israel, a furor roiled the UK’s public broadcaster over its coverage, which many see as unfairly biased against the Jewish state.

“It hasn’t changed at all,” Deech, a prominent academic who sits as an independent in the House of Lords, told The Times of Israel in an interview.

“There is a sort of ‘group think’ — an elite, well-educated, sophisticated, southern British mindset — which is very well meaning, adopts liberal causes, but is very easily influenced to believe that there is just one liberal cause and only one side to it,” she said.

“When I was a BBC governor, you walked through the studios, and there were piles and piles of Guardian newspapers and hardly anything else,” she said, referring to Britain’s leading left-wing publication.

That mindset, Deech believes, includes “an absolute obsession over Israel” prevalent within, but by no means confined to, the BBC.

Like all journalists, staff at the corporation dislike their reporting being challenged, but this is exacerbated at the BBC by what Deech terms “an inflated notion of their trustworthiness.”

“They believe in what they’re doing, and they think they must be right,” she said. They don’t want to be challenged. I used to say to them, ‘Yes, the public trusts you, but being trusted is not the same as being accurate.’”

Deech recalls that when she was a BBC governor — a member of a board of outside appointees entrusted with setting strategy and overseeing editorial independence — during the Second Lebanon War, she put together a dossier of 17 incidents that she had personally heard of or seen where the reporting was inaccurate or the photographs false. All but one complaint was rejected.

“That was alarming because I cut through the normal procedure,” said Deech. “I went straight to the top.” It remains the case, she added, that it is “more difficult to get a complaint accepted by the BBC than it is to put a camel through the eye of a needle.”


New Ramallah Shopping Mall Opens
Israel's Channel 11 on Sunday reported on Ramallah's Icon Mall, which opened in April.

It is one of the largest and most modern commercial complexes in the West Bank, housing dozens of international and local brands, restaurants, and entertainment venues.

The mall has quickly become a major destination for shoppers from across central West Bank cities.

The mall's owner, Gandhi Jaber, has been listed on international wanted notices by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration for large-scale drug trafficking.


Israel Warns It Could Strike Iran Again
Six months after a 12-day war with Iran over its nuclear program, Israeli officials are raising the prospect of another clash over Tehran's efforts to rebuild its arsenal of ballistic missiles. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that Israel was watching Hamas, Hizbullah and Iran as they rearm and would act if necessary.

Israel's new national security doctrine following Hamas's surprise Oct. 7, 2023, attacks holds that Israel won't hesitate to act on possible threats. Satellite images show Iran is rebuilding the missile production sites targeted by Israel in previous strikes, said Sam Lair, a research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies. Should Iran get its production facilities running at full capacity, it could produce hundreds of missiles a month, Lair said.

Israel is concerned Iran could eventually produce thousands of missiles in the coming years, enough to overwhelm any defense. Security analysts said Israel sees a short window of opportunity while Iran's capacity to launch missiles is still degraded, its air defenses are weak, and the regime is dealing with a number of challenges. "We don't want to wait for them to get stronger to attack us," said Amir Avivi, a former senior defense official. "We have to deal with this now and hit them while they are weak and the air corridor is open."
FDD: A Half-Year After Operation Rising Lion, Iran’s Ballistic Missile Threat Re-Emerges
When launching Operation Rising Lion, Netanyahu emphasized that Iran’s ballistic missile arsenal constituted the second-most severe threat to Israel after the nuclear program itself. In sufficient numbers — hundreds or more — precision-strike missiles carrying half-ton or larger warheads could overwhelm Israel’s air defenses, inflict widespread destruction, and paralyze civilian life and economic activity. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) echoed the concern in late December saying, “We cannot allow Iran to produce ballistic missiles because they could overwhelm the Iron Dome. It’s a major threat.”

Before the June conflict, Iran was reported to be on pace to field up to 10,000 ballistic missiles by 2028. Recent intelligence suggests that this trajectory has now resumed. Israel therefore faces a difficult strategic choice: whether, how often, and by what means — covert or overt — to employ preemptive force to degrade Iran’s missile program, knowing that retaliation could impose costs on Israel’s home front and economy. Continued use of “MABAM” (campaign between wars) tools, which offer a degree of deniability, may present one viable option.

To avoid a prolonged tit-for-tat cycle, Israel may ultimately decide to expand its target set beyond missile infrastructure to include regime leadership and select economic assets, excluding those that could severely disrupt global markets or strain relations with Washington, such as energy facilities. Such strikes could weaken Tehran’s coercive capacity and potentially trigger renewed internal unrest among an Iranian population already strained by severe economic hardship and acute water shortages.

At Mar-a-Lago, Netanyahu will need to persuade Trump that while U.S. strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities were unprecedented and strategically consequential, Israel’s campaign against Iran is not yet complete. Even if Washington is unwilling to directly strike conventional missile targets, it could quietly authorize Israeli action and reinforce it through intelligence sharing and missile-defense support.

Stability in Gaza will remain a top priority for the Trump administration. But Washington must also recognize that Iran remains the region’s principal spoiler and a continued threat to American national security.
Teen charged with allegedly performing Nazi salutes and distributing ‘propaganda’ stickers
A teenager has been charged with allegedly making Nazi salutes in public and distributing "propaganda-style stickers" in Canberra.

Australian Federal Police said the 18-year-old, from Weston, also allegedly trespassed at the Australian National University multiple times in August and September.

In October, he is alleged to have given a Nazi salute and stuck up stickers at a shopping centre before being confronted by a member of the public.

The man allegedly performed another Nazi salute on December 12 at a different shopping centre.

An AFP National Security Investigations team, with support from ACT Policing, executed a search warrant at a property in Weston on Wednesday, December 24.

Officers seized mobile phones, a computer, stickers, storage devices, a video camera, and clothing.

The man was charged with two counts of public display of prohibited Nazi symbols or giving Nazi salute, two counts of damaging Commonwealth property and two counts of offensive or disorderly behaviour on Commonwealth premises.

He is due to appear before ACT Magistrate’s Court on Friday, December 26.

AFP Assistant Commissioner Counter Terrorism and Special Investigations Stephen Nutt said antisemitism was not tolerated in Australia.

“Anyone allegedly performing Nazi salutes is displaying criminal behaviour that brings pain and anguish to the Jewish community and divides Australian society,” Assistant Commissioner Nutt said.

“The AFP established the National Security Investigations team in September to target groups and individuals causing high harm to Australia’s social cohesion, including attempts to vilify marginalised communities.

“Antisemitism is a cancer that requires swift and direct action, which is what the AFP is continuing to do. Along with our law enforcement partners, we are committed to stopping hate, division and violence in the community.”


Mezuzahs stolen from Toronto apartment building for second time in weeks
The Toronto Police Service is investigating a suspected hate crime after mezuzahs were removed from the doors of apartments in North York on Thursday, The Canadian Jewish News reported.

A mezuzah is a rolled-up scroll of parchment with sacred texts that Jewish families hang on the frame of their front doors, usually in a decorative case.

According to the report, mezuzahs were removed from three doors, all on the same floor of a residential apartment complex. One of the mezuzahs, which belonged to a Holocaust survivor, was found discarded on the floor, it added.

The complex is home to many Jewish residents and is one kilometer away from a synagogue that was the target of several antisemitic attacks in 2024, the report said.

The incident came after some 20 mezuzahs were stolen from residents of an apartment building in the same area of North York earlier in December.

Neighborhood Councilor James Pasternak said that the “disturbing incident” is “another example of the hate that has infected [Toronto], often as a result of incitement from the mobs on the streets and online hate.”

He called for “universal condemnation” of the incident and “consequences” for the perpetrators.

Antisemitism has surged in Canada in recent years, even before the Hamas-led invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, which sparked the war in Gaza. Since then, hate crimes against the Jewish population have surged.

Last week, Canadian police announced the arrest of three terror suspects for attempted kidnappings targeting Jews and women.

In Toronto, in May, three men, one armed with a handgun and another with a knife, approached a woman and attempted to force her into a vehicle. The assailants fled when the attempted kidnapping was interrupted by a passing driver, police said in a statement.
Menorah vandalized outside Jewish food pantry in Queens, NY
The New York City Police Department is reportedly investigating the Dec. 15 vandalism of a menorah outside Tomchei Shabbos of Queens, N.Y., a Jewish food pantry, as a possible hate crime.

The New York Post reported that, according to police, a suspect approached a vehicle parked in front of the charity at about 3:12 pm and tore a Chanukah menorah from the vehicle’s roof, damaging the display. The menorah was valued at about $250.

A photo of the suspect shows a man clad in a dark-colored beanie, sunglasses, gray hoodie and black coat while carrying a dark bag.

Lynn Schulman, a member of the New York City Council, said that the “heinous act of antisemitism” took place in her district “and is being thoroughly investigated by the NYPD.”

She added that “these incidents are happening more frequently and are totally unacceptable.”


Israeli Tech Companies Employ 30,000 in Europe
A study by EIT Hub Israel - the Israeli innovation hub of the European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) - found that over the past three years Israeli technology companies have significantly expanded their activities across Europe.

These companies now employ more than 30,000 workers throughout the continent.

Germany, Spain and France serve as the main innovation hubs, while Poland, Romania and the Czech Republic functioning as cost-effective operational bases for engineering centers and shared services.

Israeli companies are establishing large service centers employing hundreds of workers in Lithuania, Bulgaria and Romania.

"There is a natural synergy between Israel's strengths in AI, cybersecurity, robotics, and defense and the structure of leading European economies such as Germany, France and the UK, as well as the EU's new priorities, particularly in internal and external security," said Dina Pasca-Raz, head of technology at KPMG Israel.
In surprising breakthrough, scientists in Israel find cancer may help heal the failing heart
A discovery by Prof. Ami Aronheim and his team at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology shows that the growth of cancerous tumors may actually combat cardiac dysfunction and reduce fibrosis, the scarring process that stiffens the heart muscle.

“The failing heart can beat much better in the presence of cancer cells or a tumor,” said lead investigator Aronheim, dean of the Technion’s Ruth and Bruce Rappaport Faculty of Medicine, speaking to The Times of Israel.

“This is very surprising,” Aronheim said.

Currently, no drugs exist that can reverse fibrosis or improve the heart muscle once it has been damaged, he explained.

The new findings could open the door to the development of innovative and groundbreaking therapeutic approaches.

PhD students Lama Awwad and Laris Achlaug led the research, which was recently published in JACC: CardioOncology, a peer-reviewed journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Heart disease and cancer are the two most significant causes of death in Israel, according to the Health Ministry. While they have been considered separate diseases, researchers now confirm that they are highly connected — and they affect each other’s outcomes.

The diseases also share similar risk factors, including smoking, obesity, diabetes, environmental factors and aging.

“These are two diseases that are all around us, and that people we know suffer from,” Awwad, 28, told The Times of Israel in a recent Zoom interview together with Achlaug.

Moreover, Awwad said, the two conditions share similar mechanisms, which involve inflammation, growth signals, and survival.
The Chanukah treat coming to Call The Midwife this Christmas
It’s been as essential a fixture of the British family Christmas as tinsel and turkey ever since it was first broadcast in 2012.

But this year for the first time the Call The Midwife seasonal special will celebrate Chanukah, the JC can reveal.

And it’s the Jewish daughter-in-law of the show’s creator Heidi Thomas who’s the inspiration for putting Yiddishkeit at the heart of the much-loved period drama.

The saga of the midwives and nuns at Nonnatus House in London’s East End began with events in the 1950s, but has now passed the end of the following decade as a Jewish character, Mr Fischer – played by award-winning British-Jewish star Henry Goodman – is introduced for the two-part Christmas special.

Thomas told the JC: “I’ve always liked to touch upon Jewish life in the East End because even in the 1970s, where we are now, it was integral to life in the East End and to the Jewish way of life.”
Manchester shul survivor joins thousands thanking key workers on Christmas Day
A survivor of the Manchester Synagogue terror attack has returned to the hospital that saved his life as part of a nationwide project which saw thousands of Jews thanking key workers on Christmas Day.

More than 4,000 Jewish volunteers across the UK and Australia participated in A Time to Say Thank You on Thursday, taking gifts and profound thanks to those working on Christmas Day in hospitals, care homes, homeless centres, fire stations and police stations.

Yoni Finlay, who was hit by a police bullet while attempted to barricade the doors of Heaton Park shul to prevent terrorist Jihad Al-Shamie getting in, returned to Manchester Royal Infirmary to thank those that treated him.

He said: “The NHS saved my life and the people who work there are heroes. Heroes who give up their Christmases to look after others. I wouldn’t be where I am today without them, so already 2 months ago I asked my very good friend Rabbi Alby Chait, if I could have the privilege of giving out gifts to the wards I was on.”

Now in its seventh year, the project reached communities in Leeds, London, Radlett, North Manchester, South Manchester, Glasgow, Liverpool, St. Annes and in Australia.




Buy EoZ's books  on Amazon!

"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024)

PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022)

    
 

 

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