Sunday, January 2, 2011

Podcast: The Guardian (UK) reviews the Jewish highs and lows of 2010

Sounds Jewish: December 2010
Jason Solomons is joined by Jonathan Freedland as he reviews the Jewish highs and lows of 2010


The Guardian's Jonathan Freedland joins Jason Solomons to look back at a year in which Jewish people took centre stage politically and culturally. Listen to it here.


Read highlights below.

Ed Miliband became the first Jewish leader of the Labour party and, as well as telling the story of the flight of his father and grandfather from Belgium in 1940 at September's party conference, he finally used the J-word in public.
We ask, with Howard Jacobson's The Finkler Question winning the Booker Prize, have Jews found their place in British culture? And if so, why did so many in the media – with the honourable exception of Sounds Jewish – avoid the novel's theme of British anti-Zionism.
In 2010 Israel was less in the news than it had been in previous years -May's attack on the Gaza aid flotilla aside. Is this because diaspora communities are finding their own way rather than seeing themselves as satellites of Israel?
Also in May, BNP leader Nick Griffin was soundly beaten to the Barking seat in the general election by Labour MP Margaret Hodge. Was this an example of Jewish people showing others the way forward in defeating fascism? And is anyone really buying the pro-Israel stance of the BNP and other British far-right groups? It seems not.
David Baddiel's film The Infidel, released in April and starring Omid Djalili, was surely the first example of a British Jewish/Muslim film, and was generally well received. So why, judging by its takings at the box office, didn't more Jews and Muslims go to see it?
And we relive the visit of irrepressible comedy duo Ronna and Beverly, who told Jason that Mad Men's Don Draper smells of scotch and testicles "but in a good way".
Sounds Jewish is produced in association with the Jewish Community Centre for London

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