Total Visits

Friday 13 April 2012

“Equality and Diversity” Pitfall?


Below is a report from 2010 about a significant case in the development of “equality and diversity” law.

The report is written from a Jewish perspective and is doubly interesting, as it vividly illustrates the double edged nature of this highly political legislation. Legislation which, until recently, seemed to be only useable by the so called ethnic minorities. Now however it is clear that a claimant asserting anti-English discrimination can use it just as effectively - even against an 'ethnic minority' defendant employer.

I would say not only can English claimants use it but also they should do so and not only for the money but also to ensure that this law is fairly applied to everyone!

Discrimination and Identity in London: The Jewish Free School Case
by J. H. H. WEILER


It is not every day that the Chief Rabbi of Britain, Sir Jonathan Sacks, is found by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom to be guilty of racial discrimination, but that is what happened in the recent Jewish Free School (JFS) Case.

The facts of the case are as simple as the underlying legal, religious, and cultural issues are complex. The Jewish Free School, founded in 1732, is Europe’s largest Jewish secondary school and one of the best schools in London. Moreover, as a state-funded school, it is literally free. As a matter of policy, JFS gives preference to Jews in its admissions decisions. Since the number of Jewish applications consistently exceeds the places available, non-Jews are, in effect, excluded. No one contests the right of JFS to do this. By law, Catholic schools can give preference to Catholics; Muslim schools to Muslims, and so on. The law also allows such schools to determine eligibility by reference to religious “membership or practice.” But there is no exemption for discrimination on grounds of race.

The legal limits of JFS’s policy were recently tested when a twelve-year-old boy, identified in court documents as “M,” applied for admission to the school. M’s mother, who is Italian Catholic by birth, converted to Judaism through a non-Orthodox rabbinic court. At the time of his application, M was living with his father and although the two of them were members of a Masorti synagogue, M was denied admission because Chief Rabbi Sacks, whose authority is recognized by JFS, did not recognize the conversion of his mother as valid, rendering M not Jewish, by extension.

In determining whether M was Jewish, the Chief Rabbi, as head of the United Synagogue, applied the criterion of “membership in the Jewish people” rather than that of “the practice of Judaism.” Membership was determined by traditional norms: someone born to a Jewish mother or converted according to halakha. Since Rabbi Sacks and the United Synagogue do not recognize the halakhic authority of Masorti Rabbinic courts, M was treated as if he were a non-Jewish applicant, his family’s practice of Judaism notwithstanding. A lower court upheld the school’s right to do deny M a place, but this decision was reversed on appeal and came before the Supreme Court.In the eyes of the Majority, this exclusion amounted to prohibited racial discrimination.

Five Law Lords found direct discrimination, which, under British Law, can never be justified or excused. Two Law Lords found indirect racial discrimination which can be justified or excused but which was not so justified in this case. Only two found for the School and the United Synagogue. So how did the Majority reach its conclusion?

English law includes “ethnic origins” as a proxy for race, which is understood to be “appreciably wider than the strictly racial or biological.” Several criteria determine ethnicity: shared history, cultural tradition, common geographical origins, descent from a small number of common ancestors, a common language, a common literature, a common religion, being a minority within a larger community, and so on.

A group defined by reference to enough of these characteristics would be capable of including converts, for example, persons who marry into the group … Provided a person who joins thegroup feels himself or herself to be a member of it, as is accepted by other members, then he is [for the purposes of the law prohibiting racial discrimination,] such a member. The Majority found that on these anthropological criteria, the Jewish people are an ethnic group.

Now, one should not condemn the British courts for construing race anthropologically and giving a non-religious definition to Jewishness. In the first place, it is consistent with the purpose of Britain’s Race Relations Act. Anti-Semites are distinctly uninterested in halakhic definitions of Jewishness, and we would not want someone who was discriminated against as a Jew to face a legal defense that—according to Orthodox standards—she was not actually Jewish, ergo it wasn’t really discrimination. Second, we do not want the legislature or the courts to be in the business of setting religious criteria for Jewishness. But we should note that a gap exists between this anthropological definition of Jewishness and a religious definition. It is possible that someone would be anthropologically Jewish but religiously not. (Many such Jews were gassed at Auschwitz.)

Lady Hale, in a lucid and succinct opinion, captures the core of the Majority’s reasoning:
There is no doubt that the Jewish people are an ethnic group ... [I]t is just as unlawful to treat one person more favourably on the ground of his ethnic origin as it is to treat another person less favourably. There can be no doubt that, if an employer were to take exactly the same criterion as that used by the … Chief Rabbi and refuse to employ a person because the Chief Rabbi would regard him as halachically Jewish, the employer would be treating that person less favourably on grounds of his ethnic origin... M was treated less favorably because he did not come under the Chief Rabbi’s definition of Jewishness, as the son of a Jewish mother. In the eyes of the Majority that definition was an ethnic and hence racial determination. The Jewish Free School was guilty of racial discrimination. Or was it?

In order to highlight the problems with the Supreme Court’s decision, let us imagine that both of M’s parents were Italian by birth, or for that matter Chinese. M would then be ethnically Italian or Chinese. But had his mother undergone a halakhically incontestable conversion, M would be fully Jewish, according to Rabbi Sacks and JFS—race, genes, and ethnicity notwithstanding. This is the traditional Jewish position, and there is nothing racist about it. Thus, an M with exactly the same “racial” or “ethnic” makeup would be considered Jewish had his mother satisfied the religiousrequirements of conversion. This is the traditional Jewish position, and there is nothing racist about it.

As an internal Jewish matter, the wisdom of the Chief Rabbi and JFS’s decision to exclude students such as M calls for serious reflection. But even from the perspective of the non-Orthodox denominations, whose conversions the Chief Rabbi does not recognize, the result of the case should be alarming. All Jewish denominations accept the proposition that Jewish identity is determined by either descent or conversion, though they differ on the precise rules. Indeed, the Masorti movement accepts the same Jewish legal tradition, but interprets it more liberally. A Reform school could also face an M who felt Jewish but was not so by Reform criteria, say because neither of his parents had converted, as noted by Rabbi Bayfield, head of England’s Reform Movement in a statement cited in the Court’s decision.

The Majority has conflated the secular anthropological criterion of ethnicity, which is the province of the civil authorities, with the religious criterion, which is the province of religious authorities.

Was the Chief Rabbi concerned with ethnicity as the Majority Held? To the Minority, it was clear that his concerns were not even remotely ethnic or racial. Thus, Lord Rodger in dissent: Faced with a boy whose mother had converted under Orthodox auspices, the governors would have considered him for admission without pausing for a single second to enquire whether he or his mother came from Rome, Brooklyn, Siberia, or Buenos Aires, whether she had once been a Roman Catholic or a Muslim, or whether he or she came from a close-knit Jewish community or had chosen to assimilate and disappear into secular society. In other words, the “ethnic origins” of the child or his mother … would not have played any part in the governors’ decision to admit him … the only ground for treating M less favourably than the comparator [i.e. a son of an Halakhikly converted woman] is the difference in their respective mothers’ conversions—a religious, not a racial ground. This is cogent but it should be noted that it is this very example given by Lord Rodger which seems to animate the Majority too. Although never explicitly articulated, the following argument seems to underlie the Court’s decision: How is it possible that the Jewish Free School and the Chief Rabbi can consider someone eligible who is an atheist, uninterested in Judaism, believes in none of its propositions, and whose main reason for going to JFS is that it is excellent and free, while rejecting a candidate such as M, who is a deeply religious, committed, and knowledgeable Jew, albeit non-Orthodox? Since the first applicant is, by definition, not religious, preferential treatment of him over M must be due to racial discrimination.

What is wrong with the above implicit reasoning? Well, nothing except that it is underwritten by a profoundly Christian understanding of religion and religious membership. It is shaped by the fundamental Christian idea of the New Covenant in which the “old” covenantal boundaries of Israelite peoplehood were dissolved, and a universal salvific message was extended to all individuals regardless of the people to whom they belonged. To quote Paul, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.” On this view, you are Christian if and only if you believe in Christ. This idea of religion as a matter of doctrinal conviction has shaped the Western sensibility as to what religious membership means. It is to be respected. But it is not the Jewish understanding of religious belonging. In fact it originated in a rejection of Judaism. (Paul also spoke of being circumcised in the heart rather than the flesh.) One can, as a Jewish religious proposition, belong to the Jewish people even if you have lost your faith.

What is troubling about the Majority is its sheer incomprehension and consequent intolerance of a religion whose self-understanding is different than that of Christianity. Their anthropological reading of ethnicity is suitable in the circumstances for which the Race Relations Act was intended. But when the law makes an exception for religion and the religion in question is Judaism, it should be understood on its own terms, not on Christian (or, more precisely, Protestant) terms. But, one might protest, even if one accepted the self-understanding of the religion in question, that acceptance cannot be absolute. We would not allow child sacrifice, even if religiously mandated. What, then, if I continue to hold that the Jewish self-understanding and definition of membership—descent and conversion—just are discriminatory? In fact, this is the unstated conclusion of the Majority’s decision, and it is deeply troubling. For the most troubling discrimination I see here is the one against Jewish institutions applying religious criteria of membership. Lady Hale speaks of the Jewish “people.” The Jewish religious definition of peoplehood—descent and conversion—is no different from all of the secular definitions with which I am familiar. You are French, or Italian, or German, or Irish, or Australian or, yes, British, if you are born to a parent or parents belonging legally to that people (descent) or if you legally naturalize (conversion). Some countries add place of birth, but practically none exclude the two first criteria.

Among the rights of being British is eligibility for election to Parliament. Imagine a different M, born and bred in Britain, speaking English and feeling entirely patriotic, but, alas, the son of non-British parents whose naturalizations were invalid by extant British rules. “I am afraid, Sir,” the British election officer will say, “that until such time as you legally naturalize, you may not stand for election, which is a right reserved to Britons.” “Even to Britons,” M might protest, “who never set foot in this country, who hate it, who disparage it, who want to abolish the Monarchy?” “I am afraid so” would be the inevitable answer of the election officer in Britain and in virtually every other country.

If the majority of the Law Lords of the Supreme Court in the JFS case accept the peoplehood of the Jews, why would they hold the Jewish religious definition of membership to be discriminatory when it is similar to the secular universal practice among all other peoples?

24 comments:

  1. I remember reading something about this case but, as one might guess, it hasn't had widespread publicity.

    Did 'M'get a place after the decision?

    The principle problem for the Jews here is that the equality and diversity laws were intended for gentiles,not jews. When the Frankfurt school designed political correctness after the failure of communism to destroy national loyalty in the first World war, this new ideology set out to do so, amongst other things,by intellectual conditioning.

    Rabbi Sachs must have been surprised to receive a judgement against his point. Zionism, we are told is not nationalism. Nationalism is only perpetrated by Gentiles, particularly Christian white ones. That variety is evil and must be destoyed, whilst Zionism can flourish, with the aid of vast quantities of US cash and the eye watering reparations that the Germans are still paying( they have recently provided Israel with two new nuclear subs - gratis).

    It has always been my understanding that the tribe only accept ethnic jewish identity via the maternal line.I think that is how the right of return is granted? Israel is an ethic identity state, any one wishing to be of the priest class in Israel is reported to have to have no gentile blood in their line for a thousand years and marrying non jews illegal? Can this be true?

    What'ssauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.Ehnic English identity for England.

    All you other lot form a queue at the docks!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Mr Sachs makes a point tacitly he would never espouse in debate - that a nation state must recognise ethnicity to survive.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Perhaps, in response to your conclusion, the Supreme Court considered a not guilty verdict would send the wrong political message. Observers would note that the jews were able to avoid censure as an ethnic group and would therefore open the gates to other ethnicities to discriminate as they have done.

    To rule against them on a relgious front doles out some justice, but does not censure the ethnic claim on placement at the school nor indeed its existence purely for doctrinally and ethnically acceptable jews.

    In effect the school boat sails on full of ethnically 'pure' jews undiverted and unpunished, if punishment be due.

    'M' and future 'M's will face the same battle.

    Comparison is the best test. Set up a school for English Christians whose racial and religious prescription is similar to that enjoyed by the JFS see how the Supreme court would rule then, and see how quiet the media would be.

    ReplyDelete
  4. What a farce. Typical 'neutral' beeb debate on elected mayors, poorly chaired a skewed and frustratingly short, half arsed affair, with asian voices that seemed to be voicing opinions on an entirley different debate. What the heck was Esther Rantzen there for?

    I felt sorry for you Robin, you must have been hotter under the collar than me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Does anyone have the case number for this?

    You only have to look at the NUJ's code of conduct to realise why this was never reported in the media. Anti-white racism is so entrenched, it is hard to reverse.

    There is a lot of hypocrisy about some ethnic groups though. Their homelands are allowed to be a homogeneous monoculture but ours must become diverse with several competing cultures.

    We need to learn about how each culture sees another culture. The more militant Jews see gentiles as their servants and we only exist to serve them.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Yes it is true the Race Relations Acts are balanced in theory but are rarely applied evenly in practise. The Equality and Human Rights Commission is unlikely to fund any case of 'anti-white' discrimination.

    We only need to see the recent case of a head teacher wrongly accused of racism to see how damaging the RRA can be when abused. Here's an article:-

    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationnews/5017550/Head-teacher-who-suffered-stress-from-racism-accusations-wins-400000-damages.html

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Francis, I agree but it is up to us to use the law effectively and it is the lack of willingness to stand up for ourselves that has led us to this pass!

      Delete
    2. Robin,

      I think the problem with many English people is that we have been too frightened to stand up for ourselves for the fear of being branded racist.

      The problem is that Legal Insurance Policies will seldom fund a discrimination case on behalf of an English or white person. Legal Aid is seldom available for cases of anti-English discrimination too.

      The culture of anti-white racism and anti-English racism dominates the NUJ. How can you fight TUC affiliated unions who have huge resources to defend your claim?

      Here is a video (made by UKIP) about the anti-white racism of the NUJ. (BTW I am not a UKIP member or supporter).

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aUjP04lMeqY

      Delete
    3. Francis,
      As a practising Solicitor I can say that this really isn't so. There is Legal Costs insurance and Legal Aid where applicable but people need to stand up for themselves and take on cases and ignore any labels!

      Delete
    4. Robin,

      Thank you. I stand corrected and take note of what you say, after all you are a Solicitor and know your profession. The problem is the general English public are often too frightened to start Court procedures because of the fear of losing and then having to pay the other side's costs (or a proportion of them).

      I on the other hand are quasi-legal. I have a Post Graduate Diploma in Human Resource Management and have worked in both HR and Customer Services for the last 12 years so I am well aware of discrimination legislation.

      Have you read the 2008 King Report? This is a damming report about the BBC. I think this explains the lack of awareness of English issues.

      Delete
    5. Robin,

      Thank you for your reply. I stand corrected as you are by trade a Solicitor while I on the other hand are quasi-legal with a PG Diploma in Human Resource Management.

      I think the main problem is that many English people are frightened to start Court proceedings because they fear the risk of having to pay the other side's costs or at least a proportion of them.

      Have you read the 2008 King Report? It is very damming of the BBC in regards to England and the other home nations.

      Delete
  7. I can't take your alternative scenario seriously: "Among the rights of being British is eligibility for election to Parliament. Imagine a different M, born and bred in Britain, speaking English and feeling entirely patriotic, but, alas, the son of non-British parents whose naturalizations were invalid by extant British rules."

    I'm not sure it's true - and I'm reasonably confident that the Home Secretary would fast-track the naturalisation of anyone caught in this unintentional bind. Jonathan Sacks should have fixed this "fake conversion" problem and his failure to do so is a black mark against him and his faith.

    I will probably be accused of being antisemitic ... so I'll hastily add the obvious, the Jews are generally quite good about obeying the law of the land. Better than Xians and much better than some people we can think of!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Andy, I hope you realise that the comment you have critiqued is not mine but the author of the original article?

      Delete
    2. I think one can see here that the law of the land has not been applied fairly to Mr Sachs' judgement. He has avoided any whiff of racism being attached to him, the JFS, or jewry in general. The ruling against was on religious grounds when the root issue was clearly ethicity from the point of view of 'M' and his entry into a jewish and free school.

      Its easier to obey the law if it is framed in your favour and applied only grudgingly against you.

      Delete
  8. Interesting article Robin. It begs the question; what is the English Democrat policy on faith schools?

    IMO faith schools should be phased out ASAP. Young minds should be protected from the divisive dark age dogma of religion. At the very least zero English taxes should be spent funding such institutions. They do nothing but divide.

    ReplyDelete
  9. This is fascinating as it first of all sets up a precedent for ethnic groups to be exclusive and for ethnic nation states, i.e. Israel, to exist without censure. I hope the whole of Europe is taking note!! Please tell those "nasty" continental and Scandinavian right wing parties. The head of Sweden's freedom party is half Jewish, more than the prime minister of Israel could be. I remember Israel did manage to find some black Jews in Africa a few years back to give the impression that Israel was a religious rather than an ethnic state. However, even more intriguinging is that it makes M a Mischling Erste Stufe, applying the same criteria as the Nazis. The irony is that Stephen Fry in his programme on his love of Wagner emphasised that he had such a love despite being Jewish. He need not have worried as in Jewish eyes he is not Jewish at all!! However, as a commentator has said it turns Jewish anti-fascists into the same sort of fascists as the Nazis who persecuted them. Personally, I was always brought up by my parents' generation to think of the Jews as a race not a religion, the chosen race to be exact. Suddenly in the last few years people have been talking of the Jews as a religious grouping as they might Christians or Muslims. After all, can you commit genocide on a religion rather than a tribe or race? This is undoubtedly because although we hear about racism and anti-racism every day in this country now, the Marxists no longer speak of a multiracial society, it is multi-cultural or inter-faith as if races had suddenly disappeared. I would like to know on which human rights criteria this judgement is made as surely this gives all Europeans the right now to cite it at the European Court of Human Rights stating that ethnic groups and states have a right to be exclusive. Would you like to give it a go, Robin? You can add that this is to avoid such ethnic groups or races disappearing, which would be genocide. I fail to understand why the same people who are trying to prevent the extinction of animal species are quite happy for Europeans, the most varied in terms of eye and hair colour on the planet ( alternative is just black and brown I'm afraid ) to become extinct. By the way, on another tack, the head of the Secular Society in a Radio Times interview said that he looked forward to the day when all religion was history. You Marxists tried that in Russia and Poland which are now safely back in Christianity's fold with a vengeance. Typical Marxist facism again. After all, the Church has always been the target of all socialist and national socialist revolutions but she has always bounced back in the end.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Think I have just got the judgement wrong way round, sorry. However, one swallow does not make a summer and I wonder how many more Ms will make their way into the school. If there is a flood then will Rabbi Sacks then protest that his ethnically pure school is being diluted. I hope so for then it will give Europeans carte blanche to say that so are their ethnically pure nations. Hopefully, when the Jews finally make a stand against impurity and persecution then the whole Marxist one world nightmare will begin to crumble, after all it is already leading to Muslims beating up and killing Jews in Europe. The Jews can make a stand. We are not allowed to.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Into the middle of all this the Anders Breivik trial has just landed like a bombshell. Despite the fact that he is purporting that he is sane, he is clearly not, any more than Ken Livingstone or George Galloway, although obviously much less sane than even they. However, his trial comes as a godsend to those who are engaged in spreading the Marxist one world revolution as it can effectively close down all debate on mass immigration and islamification on the grounds that all those who oppose it are mad and dangerous and white supremecists. I have just been reading the comments on Yahoo and people are even linking him to UKIP, let alone the EDL and the BNP. You will recall that the UKIP website had a link to a youtube clip from Norway's Freedom Party on the islamification of Oslo. I am sure they would do the same with the EDs when they find out we exist. What happens now, Robin? We know the Marxists are winning as evidenced by the comments on Yahoo and more especially by the coverage on the BBC which is so subtly done that the young and impressionable do not even realise it. On our BBC local news Breivik was the first item, a far-right extremist who showed no remorse. None of us who believe in the nationalist as opposed to the internationalist cause would want to harm one hair on anybody's head. People asked why he killed his fellow Norwegians. He killed what he saw as future members of another left-wing pro-globalist government. The BBC local news then switched to local items and then back to national and international items including the shoe bomber from Gloucester who was never once described as an islamist extremist. It was obvious that Breivik is much worse than the shoe bomber because he is white and opposed to the Marxist one world ideology. This is so abhorrent to all those who work at the BBC that they took the item totally out of context and pushed it to the head of the list. We must all be very afraid now because we are all going to be tarred with his brush and it would not surprise me if David Cameron and his left of centre allies, no true conservatives any more, now attempt to curtail the activities of all nationalist parties whom they will portray as fellow travellers of Mr Breivik. I am sure that it is all a coincidence that the trial has opened in the run-up to the French Presidential Election on Sunday. However, I am wondering if it will affect the outcome as the Socialists point the finger at Marine Le Pen and even Sarkozy regarding the islamification of France and suggest that they are born of the same stable as Mr Breivik. The whole thing fills me with a certain apprehension and of course white guilt which is exactly the outcome the Marxists would want. Those who died were in effect Marxist martyrs. No Marxism, no Anders Breivik.
    What say you Robin?

    ReplyDelete
  12. Further to the above, the plot thickens, I have just read an article by a Jewish lady in the Telegraph saying she could not vote for Ken Livingstone because he is anti-semitic. We know that left-wing Jews in London are leaving his rainbow alliance of ethnic minorities. Other Jewish commentators say the Labour Party, including Nye Bevan, were always anti-semitic. Now the Labour Party has a Jewish Marxist leader and the Jews of course were behind Marxism/International Socialism. I think Nye Bevan may just not have been an international socialist but Old Labour. I always thought that their backing for Marxism was because the Jews thought a nation of minorities would suit them as it would be better to be a minority among minorities than a minority of 0.5m in a country of 42m ( pre-mass immigration ) English. They now find themselves outnumbered six to one by muslims and rising, muslims who have been in this country a third of the time that most Jews have. Could it be that just as the Jews created Marxism they will now bring it to an end as they realise that they are going to be even more victims of it than the English. Perhaps they will now realise that the English have treated them very well, even though they excluded them from their golf clubs pre-War. Oswald Mosley caused them less bother than the Muslims will and their expulsion from these shores in the 13th century is a long time ago. As stated, the leader of Sweden's Freedom Party is half Jewish. Hopefully, they will realise that pre-Marxist one world England was a very civilised place for them as well as their English hosts.
    Hopefully, they will realise that their backing for Marxist multiculturalism and the collapse of European Christian civilisation will be as much a disaster for them as for the Europeans amongst whom they live and that those of their race who had been behind it have been pretty silly.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Breivik is a zionist is a patsy for the suppression of free speech. Whatever he has been promised, for his heinous actions he will not receive.

      It is worth stating again that the bombings and killings were to punish the Norse for their support of the palestinians and their sanction of Israel. Look for the placards that the young demonstrators were carrying to see what their protest was - if those pictures still exist.

      This lie will be milked to frighten western Christian society int yet deeper self imposed censure.

      Delete
    2. Have now decided that Breivik is as nutty as a fruitcake after listening to what went on today. Even the prosecution do not believe that he had any links with anybody in this country. We will see what happens in the French presidential elections as he has brought multicultarlism to the fore just as they are about to happen. I have decided that no publicity is bad publicity and he has told the world about what is happening in Luton ( even non-racist UKIP has a youtube clip about that ) - I know from friends that the indigenous population are confined in their houses. Also, he told the world about Enoch Powell. If they did not know already their journalists will have to explain who he was. If Britain and the rest of Europe had been able to listen to him - but the one worlders made sure he was stifled - then there would have been no Anders Breivik, no Abu Qatada farce, no July 7th bombings, no Jews shot in France, no London riots; need I go on? Anders Breivik may have been in retaliation for Norway's policy on Israel but this is not how the world views him. To them he was multiculturalism blowing a gasket. And why is nobody calling the Japanese, Chinese, Indians and Africans racist for not embracing multiculturalism? As somebody said, if multiculturalism is Europe's pay-back for imperialism ( although Scandinavians are wondering where their empires were ) then why aren't the Japanese being forced to take in Chinese, Singaporians, Burmese etc for what they did in WW2? BWT I am wondering how Jack Straw's bit of sculduggery in Libya will play with his muslim multitudes in what used to be Blackburn, Lancashire.

      Delete
    3. In order to create a malleable chaos, you must first murder truth. The Orient is not nominally Christian and does not bear witness to the truth and our absolute moral values, it is more important to destroy the bearers of the truth - first.

      Delete
    4. Have just been reading about Japanese immigration policy. It makes even Nazi Germany's seem quite liberal. I can't blame them for wanting to stick to racial purity but why is nobody imposing sanctions on them for their "racism". And here's another one, Afghans do not like outsiders we were told recently. Neither do we but why aren't the Afghans as well as the Japanese, Chinese, Africans, Indians etc being taken to task by the UN for their xenophobia. Silly me, only Europeans are xenophobic. BTW, for some obscure reason there's a statue of St. Joan of Arc in Winchester Cathedral. Could somebody living near go and give her a quick prayer for a Le Pen victory. I see France and Germany are reserving the right to close their borders. Any chance for us? No. Oh.

      Delete
  13. This is very interesting, and it's something that I have argued about many times with my bro-in-law, who says he is a 'secular ethnic Jew'. In other words, he accepts the ethnicity but not the religion. This ethnic definition apparently depends on his mother being Jewish and his parents having been married in the synagogue. His bro,
    by contrast, is a Christian as per the definition above - he chose to be a Christian, was baptised and confirmed. He also says that he is an Englishman. These 2 are obviously of the same origin, same parents etc, but one wants to be a Christian Englishman and the other wants to be a non-religious Jew. It's like one of those university questions usually followed by: 'Discuss'.

    ReplyDelete