Curbing My (Irish) Enthusiasm

I have recently started to feel a real kinship with Curb Your Enthusiasm’s Larry David. I keep finding myself in awkward situations (and not only with T.A. Woman), and am regularly asking myself “Is it them, or me?!”

Now, funerals are generally a pretty safe bet. You turn up (on time), affect suitable solemnity (modulated to the age of the deceased and circumstances of death), wish the mourners “Long life” (even though you have never really understood what it means), and spend the rest of the time looking for the appropriate moment to piss off.

Safe for other people perhaps. Not for me. Not on recent form, at any rate.

Last week, I attended the funeral of my cousin’s late husband. As co-founder of Israel’s largest law firm, many of Israel’s (supposed) great and good were present.

As I approached the entrance to the grounds, in Herzliya, I recognized Isaac Herzog, a Labor MK (member of Knesset, Israel’s parliament) and a minister in Bibi’s new coalition government. By his side was a woman whom I correctly presumed to be his mother, Aura, widow of the late, former President Chaim Herzog, another co-founder of the firm.

With the big boys: Isaac Herzog (far left) with Barak, Obama

Now, Chaim and my late father were pals, in the twenties and thirties, in Dublin’s small and extremely tight-knit Jewish community. On one occasion, when he learned that my folks were in Israel, Chaim had his driver bring them over to his residence for dinner. And, in 1996, the two Irishmen, then in their eighties, had an emotional reunion at a book-signing for Chaim’s new autobiography. He passed away a year later.

Even though I was born in London, the Isaacson Dublin connection has always brought me into warm contact with other Irish Jews. It is very much a club.

Quite apart from my father’s distinguished academic achievements at Wesley and Trinity Colleges (he tutored Chaim in maths), my grandfather Joe was shammes (beadle) at Adelaide Road Synagogue and a well-known communal character, while my uncle Percy was considered amongst the finest Jewish sportsmen to come out of the “Emerald Isle”. Moreover, their cousin, solicitor Michael Noyk famously defended many Sinn Féin Nationalists, and was a close friend and legal adviser to Republican leader Michael Collins (whose widow used to visit my grandparents’ home, following his murder in 1922).

So, being the friendly and enthusiastic soul that I sometimes am, I decided to introduce myself to Mrs. Herzog. And, on mentioning “Harold Isaacson”, I received an immediate and warm response until, in mid-sentence, she was dragged away by Isaac – perhaps slighted that I should be more interested in his mother – who proceeded to parade her (though really, and self-importantly, himself) around those he considered more shaveh (worth it).

Isaac Herzog has the bearing of what is known in Yiddish as a shnip (the closest English equivalent is probably my favoured “mook”). He is short and weasel-like in appearance – perhaps, as I discovered last week, in character too (he was also investigated, in 1999, in relation to allegations of party-funding violations, but chose to maintain his silence) – and his nickname, “Buji”, for me says everything.

Perhaps this post smacks of the snubbed. Indeed, the experience was not pleasant. Herzog’s rudeness, however, spoke volumes for the nature of Israel’s new generation of ‘leaders’ – arrogant, unremarkable, self-interested, unconnected to the past, and owing their positions to protexia (patronage/connections). The nature of Israel’s electoral system does not help, either, as MKs have no constituents to answer to.

If we wouldn’t have been at a funeral, and my rather more phlegmatic cousin, Danny, hadn’t been there to stop me, then – never a respecter of title or position – I would have said something to the Shnip.

As it was, I just drove home understanding why so many Israelis despair at what they consider Israel’s biggest problem (even more than the Palestinians and our lovely Arab neighbours): the dearth of principled young politicians, who have got where they have on the back of their own talent, charisma and achievements . . . not of who their father was.

Kaufman: Enough to make your Rabbi anti-Semitic

British Member of Parliament Gerald Kaufman has always gone to extreme lengths to point out how the State of Israel has embarrassed him “as a Jew” (see my earlier post on the lovely gentleman).

Now, “Dame” Gerald has brought shame on all law-abiding British Jews by his, at very best, avaricious, and, at worst, thoroughly dishonest expenses claims for his second home (as reported in yesterday’s Daily Telegraph).

The following are some of Kaufman’s claims, which can only serve to reinforce the stereotypical perception of “The Jew” held (and disseminated) by Britain’s most virulent anti-Semites: 

• £28,834 for work on his “slum” (his word) in the swanky central London suburb of Regent’s Park (he accepted a substantially reduced sum in order to “draw a line under the issue” . . . and not, of course, because pursuing the full amount might have opened a Pandora’s box)
• £8,865 for a 40-inch (to accommodate his head perhaps) Bang & Olufsen TV (a claim laughed off by Kaufman as perhaps “a bit daft”)
• £1,851 for a rug imported from a Manhattan antique store
• A claim for a gas account that was actually in credit
• Pushing various claims to their absolute limits (on one occasion, to within six pence!)

Kaufman then had the temerity to bully House of Commons Fees Office clerks for merely doing their jobs in querying the claims.

Following all of his moralising about Israel, surely a man of such exemplary principle would not have swindled (or attempted to) the British taxpayer, would he?

I’ve got news for you, “Dame” Gerald: you don’t need Israel to embarrass you “as a Jew” . . . when you are doing such a damn good job, all by yourself!

Hasmo Legends X: Mad Dogs and English Teachers

Just as the very presence of Jews in the Middle East is anathema to fundamentalist Islam, so was the teaching of non-Limmudei Kodesh (religious studies), mathematics or science subjects repugnant to the extremist regime at Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys (maths and science were tolerated, due to their immunity from the ‘corrupting’ influences of liberalism and moral relativism).

Indeed, in the seventies and eighties, a PR position at the Zionist Federation in Damascus would have been considerably more alluring than teaching the arts at Hasmonean, and the poor bastards tasked with doing so should be more pitied than mocked.

The most to suffer from Hasmo’s philistinism were its English teachers, consisting – during my period at the school (1978-1985) – of fixtures, Ivan Marks and Jeff Soester, and fittings, Tony Pearce and Tim Messom. (There was another English teacher, Jonathan Benjamin, who joined Hasmonean a year or so before I left, but other than considering that – as a very dark-skinned Indian Jew – he didn’t really look the part, I recall little else about him.)

Asking these gentlemen to impart their love of the English language, and literature, to Hasmo boys – who felt justified in being even more chutzpadik than they already were by what they knew to be the contemptuous attitude of the school’s Judeofascist regime towards the subjects – was, in cricketing terms, tantamount to asking Derek Pringle to bowl at Vivian Richards with his shoelaces tied together.

The closest competitor to Jonny Bokor (“the Bonnie Joker”) for the title of Hasmo’s Most Cordial Teacher – though, it has to be said, the competition was not all that fierce – must surely have been Tony Pearce, who taught us first year English. He left the school shortly afterwards, to become involved in Christian ministry. (See Hasmo Legends VIII, Parts I and II)

Perhaps the most persuasive argument for the existence of the Jewish Deity, and of the miracles that He will perform for His people, is that – in spite of Hasmonean’s Jewish ‘role models’ – Tony didn’t succeed, in his four years at Holders Hill Road, in converting any of us to “the Big J”.

The irony, of course, is that, as Jewish youngsters, we were continually being warned of the dangers of Christian missionaries . . . none of whom did any of us nearly as much damage as the assorted misfits and misanthropes charged with providing our spiritual education at Hasmonean.

The tall, bearded Tim Messom, who replaced Tony – and who didn’t last much longer at the school – was a fundamentally decent man, though one prone to absolutely losing it on occasion (once again, usually with Elbaz . . . though he was not alone in that!)

In our first ever lesson with Mr. Messom, in the exotically named Mobile Unit (at the bottom of the playground), our new, imposing, and ever-so English, master – he was more that than “teacher” – spelt out his name:

“M – E – S – S . . . that is double S, of course . . . O – M.”

Naturally, in every subsequent lesson, some bright spark would again ask him how he spelt it . . . and Mr. Messom, in precisely the same fashion, and to our great amusement, would repeat:

“M – E – S – S . . . that is double S, of course . . . O – M.”

Hasmo legend has it that Mr. Messom had been a circus ringmaster, and that his wife had run off with the resident (or should that be “travelling”?) lion tamer. As with so many of the stories that have emanated from Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys over the years, you just couldn’t make it up.

If Messrs Pearce and Messom played nice little cameos in the annals of Hasmonean English teaching, Marks and Soester were clearly the leading men. In fact, these two gentlemen were the closest to a double act that Hasmo has ever had, their names – in tales of the institution – usually running together.

Marks and Soester taught the same discipline (at least in one sense of the word), their tenures at Hasmonean – from the early seventies to mid-nineties – largely overlapped, and they spent much of this time in adjacent classrooms, in the dilapidated former barracks mischievously rebranded the Sixth Form Block (as one commenter to melchett mike has wryly observed, “by the same Roberg-ist propaganda machine that brought us the £3 school kuppel”).

Sixth Formers in front of the Sixth Form Block, circa 1972

This unedifying edifice – situated between the fiefdom of Chich’s gymnasium and the Mobile Unit (see also the photograph in Hasmo Legends V) – had apparently, in the mid-seventies, been condemned as unsafe and insanitary, boarded up, and earmarked for demolition. But, by the time I arrived at Holders Hill Road, in 1978, the boards had been removed, and the Block designated for the exclusive use of Marks and Soester . . . the lucky so-and-sos!

When Mr. Soester became an extra in the late eighties BBC sitcom Brush Strokes – injudiciously, in view of the extra ‘ammunition’ it provided the already well-armed boys (though one can perhaps forgive his longing to escape his daily reality) – pupils would hum its theme tune as he walked into class.

This insolence would then spread to the adjacent classroom of Mr. Marks, who, on one occasion, was complimented (by another commenter to melchett mike) for his wonderful performance the evening before. His wit was rewarded with “a savage attack to [the] head with a hardback book”.

Mr. Soester’s opting to be an extra was rather apt. If DJ was Bond baddie Blofeld and Rabbi Greenberg Batman’s The Penguin (his actual Hasmo nickname), the considerably more likeable, if somewhat unremarkable, Marks and Soester – with their seventies blazers, tank tops, and polyester slacks – were the unfashionable detective extras, in the background at their NYPD desks, on seventies US cop shows like Kojak and Starsky & Hutch.

Rather conveniently, seeing as his son Simon is a regular on melchett mike– and has made all kinds of veiled, though good humoured, threats in relation to what I write about his “old man” – Jeff Soester didn’t teach me much at Hasmonean (emphasis on “me”, Simon, not “much”!) His classroom, however, was clearly rather chaotic, and I recall him being a rather edgy gentleman (as if that is any surprise).

I have one particularly vivid recollection of “Jeff” walking up the playground from the Sixth Form Block, while my classmate Abie Cohen – seated in the middle of our Form 2AB photograph in a beige jumper – performed a Mizrachi (North African Jewish)-style dance around him. Abie was whirling the palms and backs of his hands extremely close to Jeff’s eyes and nose, no doubt intending the excitable teacher to spill his precariously piled books. This somewhat odd spectacle has stayed with me to this day, because it somehow inexplicably captured the unique brand of Hasmo chutzpah.

But Jeff, too, apparently had a mischievous side. A commenter to melchett mike has related how, as a young Israeli boy new to Hasmonean, Jeff told him: “Go to the staff room – you can use the middle staircase – knock on the door, and ask for ‘Freddy’.” The door was opened by History teacher, Mr. Lawrence, who handed over a silver tray with a white plimsoll placed neatly on top, which the rather naïve boy promptly delivered to his ‘executioner’.

It was Ivan Marks, however, who was responsible for the major part of my English education at Hasmonean.

I recall Mr. Marks fondly, not just because his was my favourite subject (it didn’t face much competition), but because he was one of the few teachers at Hasmonean who actually attempted to treat us like adults. This was especially true for those of us who took English Literature A Level, which presented the first opportunity for us, largely repressed, Jewish boys to explore sexual themes through literature . . . an opportunity we rarely missed.

Mr. Marks, unlike so many of his Hasmo colleagues, also had a sense of humour. Often, even post-frenzy, he would barely be able to conceal a smile, which he would further attempt to draw attention away from by characteristically poking his spectacles back up his ski-jump nose.

It was these mock frenzies, perhaps together with his mane of lank jet black hair, which earned Mr. Marks the rather undeserved nickname “Mad Dog”. His bark was far louder than his bite, and I don’t recall him ever administering anything more rabid than a firm prod on the neck with the spine of his textbook.

Mr. Marks was frustrated by the “study aid” mentality of Hasmo boys. Rather than appreciating the rich source texts, we would buy up Dillons’ stock of Pan Study Aids, and York and Brodie’s Notes. For English Literature O Level, my classmate, Grant Morgan, went so far as to purchase Macbeth in comic form. He memorised the text by rote, and would walk up to puzzled boys in the playground – some of whom didn’t even know him – proudly proclaiming “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.” He got an E.

Another Hasmo friend, Daniel Kelly, winds me up to this day about my predilection for study aids (ironic, I remind him, for a boy who had a respected Dayan as a grandfather, but who opted – during our time at Manchester University – to study Modern Hebrew, with non-Jewish undergraduates who knew not their zayin from their chet).

Mr. Marks was also continually frustrated by the idiotic machinations of Hasmonean’s religious elite – which would, inter alia, ban literature considered too sexually explicit from the syllabus and school library – and he would say so.

He would often – somewhat tongue-in-cheek, once again – take these frustrations out on the more religious boys. “It’s always the frum ones” was his oft-heard lament. And “Finn,” he would say, on one memorable occasion, “just because your father drives around Golders Green in a Volvo, it doesn’t mean you can do what you want in my class.”

Mr. Soester shared Mr. Marks’s irritation with frummers, handing back work with the line “I don’t want to hear everyone screaming, ‘Yitzi, Shmuli, I got half a mark more than you!’” (a request which, of course, had the opposite effect).

Ironically, two of Mr. Marks’s star English pupils, Simon Harris – who left the school a number of years before us, but with whom he kept in touch – and Jonathan Levene, from our year, both became significant frummers (the former becoming Chief Rabbi of Ireland). Mr. Marks must have been most disappointed.

I heard, some years ago, that Mr. Marks had not been well. I sincerely hope that he has made a full recovery and that, if he has dipped into melchett mike (as I understand Mr. Soester has), he has found at least something which he considers worthy of his considerable efforts . . . in an institution which didn’t deserve him.

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part XI: “Big Al(an)” Walters

T.A. Woman: Feeling a Lemon in the Big Orange

“Are you a lucky little lady in the City of Light, or just another lost angel . . . City of Night” (L.A. Woman, The Doors, 1971)

City of Night, the novel from which Jim Morrison took the above lyric, describes a sordid world of sexual perversion. Morrison translated it to Los Angeles, but, today, he might just as easily have substituted it with Tel Aviv (nicknamed “the Big Orange”).

I often get asked – especially by the long in servitude, sure that the single’s “grass” is “greener” – what the T.A. singles scene is like.

“Sodom and Gomorrah,” I reply.

Now, anybody who knows me – or, indeed, who follows melchett mike – will know that, whilst I am no Warren Beatty, I am no prude either. Having grown up in the ‘ghettos’ of North-West London, however, I am also not used to Jewish women having sex on the first date, or in nightclub toilets, both commonplace in Tel Aviv. And if the religious – the genuine ones (not those Charedim [ultra-Orthodox] seen kerb-crawling around Ramat Gan at night) – have got anything right, it is their emphasis on sexual modesty and restraint.

I have blogged about both Israelis in general, and the male of the species, but am regularly asked when I am going to address the fairer sex (if ever there was a misnomer!) Having to tackle them on dates, rather than just paper, I think that, subconsciously, I have been putting it off. I also understand no more about them – and, oddly, perhaps even less – than when I first made Aliyah, over 13 years ago.

A recent experience, however, has persuaded me to break my silence. And if it comes across as cynical . . . that’s because it is.

An Israeli acquaintance – who is actually married to an English girl (he had more sense) – recently suggested that I meet his neighbour, a 35-year old divorced mother of one. He said “S” was nice, attractive, down to earth, and spoke good English.

“Why not?” I replied.

S and I had a pleasant chat on the phone, when I realised that I had seen her in the neighbourhood. We even attended the same party recently, and I was pleased to hear that she, like me, was disillusioned with such gatherings, where you can’t get into the toilets for people doing drugs or having sex.

I found S’s frankness refreshing – she confided how miserable she had been on Seder [Passover] night, which she spent with a happily married couple, and how her ex-husband, who she divorced, has now found someone “younger and with bigger tits”.

I was excited to meet S, which we did the following morning, in my “Shabbes café”. And it was most enjoyable, even prompting me to mention her in my post later that afternoon. True, S spoke almost entirely about herself – T.A. Woman can be quite self-obsessed – but we sat for an hour and a half, and she opened up in a way that a woman wouldn’t (or so one would think) on a first date, unless she was feeling extremely comfortable.

S spoke freely about sex – not a topic I generally bring up on first dates – blaming the absence and quality of it for the break-up of her marriage and most recent relationship respectively, and even mentioning that her octogenarian grandmother was still addicted to it. She also complained bitterly about the behavior of T.A. Man, describing how many will only have sex on their living room sofas, to make it crystal clear to T.A. Woman that she will not be spending the night.

S mentioned that she had been in therapy for ten years, but I figured that she was just too nice for the f*ck-up that is the T.A. singles scene. I walked S home, and we arranged to go out again the following Wednesday evening.

When, however, S neither answered Sunday’s post-first date “courtesy call”, nor phoned back, I started to smell a rat. And when she didn’t answer my sms on the Tuesday, enquiring whether we were still on for the following evening, the rat started to reek. I called her on Wednesday too. But, again, no reply.

Neither shrinking violet nor freier (Yiddish-derived Hebrew for “sucker”), I sent her an sms that evening, stating “U could have just said u r not interested. So much easier… and nicer.”

29 minutes later, I received a reply, “Truely sorry…”

While S could do with losing some pounds – or, instead, adding some inches to her next pair of Levi’s – she is both tall and pretty, and the majority of men most definitely “would” . . .

But I can handle rejection (even with a spelling mistake) – one of the few pep talks on such matters that my late father gave me was that not all women will want me (how right he was!) – but why all the provocative sex talk? And why agree to a second date? And then the subsequent disappearing act, leaving me in limbo for the Wednesday evening . . .

Such behavior is not uncommon on the thirties and forties T.A. singles scene, and Israeli friends could not begin to comprehend why it got me so worked up.

But, even if it means remaining naïve, I will never get used to it.

Sometimes, I think that I am just not assertive enough. For instance, I usually ask a woman where she would like to go on a date . . . but most Israeli women just want the man to make the decisions for them. There is also the theory that, unless the man “makes a move” – however low on the “bases” – on the first date, the Israeli woman will conclude that he is just not interested (how different from North-West London’s finest!)

Whilst it is not uncommon, therefore, to hear the single Israeli woman – especially T.A. Woman (everything is more extreme in the Big Orange) – complain about the chauvinistic behaviour of her male compatriots, and claim that she longs for a “real gentleman”, she is so accustomed to such behaviour that she has difficulty recognising, understanding, and/or dealing with anything different. Indeed, she is like the abused child who can only return to abusive relationships in adulthood.

Anyway, next time, S, save the sex talk for the second date (or a dirty telephone conversation). And remember, everyone is deserving of respect . . . even if you don’t want to f*ck them.

“Never saw a woman so alone . . . so alone” (L.A. Woman)

Hasmo Legends VIII: A Pearcing Insight (Part II)

by Tony Pearce

I ended up teaching French, German, and a couple of English classes, at Hasmonean.

Certainly the boys were not all geniuses but there were some who were pretty close to it. One in particular was Benjy whom I taught for two years at both French and German, during which time he never made a single mistake (not that I found anyway!) On the other hand there were some quite dim boys and I soon realised that they had their struggles in a society which was geared towards academic success and/or accepting the demands of the Talmud and the Torah.

I remember Adrian, who was a subject of some scorn in the staff room for being badly behaved. He was not very religious and in the bottom set for everything, but I got on well with him and ended up giving him some extra help in basic English. Both he and his parents were incredibly grateful that I had taken a bit of interest in him. I met him many years later and was pleased to see that he had got on quite well in life, and better than some of the geniuses.

I recall giving a German oral test and asking one of the boys where he lived. “Stamford Hill,” came the reply. I asked him to describe this area. His answer owed more to Yiddish than any German I had taught him and would have got him “nul points” for political correctness: “Voll frummers und schwarzers.”

On another occasion I remember one of the very religious boys telling me he did not want to read the set book, Far from the Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy, because there was adultery in the story. I said I understood his concern, but novels reflect life and adultery happens. I agreed with him that adultery is wrong. I said Hardy did not actually glorify adultery, and his book’s main character, Bathsheba, had the same name as the woman in the Bible with whom King David committed adultery.

My argument was a bit thrown by his reply: “King David was a tzadik and he did not commit adultery.”

“How can you say that?”  I asked. “The Book of Kings describes that David committed adultery and had Bathsheba’s husband killed in the war. He was rebuked for this by Nathan the Prophet and then confessed his sin in Psalm 51.”

But he would not have it and insisted that David was a tzadik and gave me a very complicated reason why this was, which I have to say completely missed the point of the Biblical account of David and Bathsheba. But it meant that my argument about reading English literature was lost on him.

Another incident that sticks in my memory was being set up by a second year French class who asked me if I knew which Jewish festival was happening around then.

“Purim,” I said.

“Bet you don’t know the story of Purim.”

Naively I thought I would show them that I did, so I started telling the story. As soon as I mentioned Haman, they started banging the desks and stamping their feet and creating a terrible noise.

“Stop that,” I said.

“But we have to sir – it’s part of our religion.” That was the end of Purim and we went back to French.

After I had been at Hasmo for a couple of terms, I decided to arrange a day trip to Boulogne. This took a bit of negotiating with the rabbis as we had to find a date which was permitted for excursions. I think the reason was to do with Lag B’Omer or the destruction of the Temple. Anyway we set off with Rabbi Abrahams to keep the religious side going.

The first year we went we had to go to the synagogue to say afternoon prayers, but the next year when I organised the trip it was decided that this synagogue was not frum enough. So the boys ended up davening mincha by the wall of the old city of Boulogne, with rather bemused French passers-by heard muttering, “Qu’est-ce qui se passe? Le Mur des Lamentations est venu à Boulogne?” (“What is happening? Has the Wailing Wall come to Boulogne?”) For evening prayers the rabbi found that the bar of the Dover to London train was not being used, so the whole group piled in, but one rather rebellious boy escaped and told me “It’s like the black hole of Calcutta in there.” Then he was yanked back in by the rabbi to say his prayers.

I realised the rabbis had their work cut out trying to persuade the boys to be religious. I once gave a lift to a very secular Israeli who sounded positively anti-Semitic when he spoke about the rabbis and the Jewish aspects of the education he received at the school.

The rabbis also had to deal with alien influences and the temptations of the flesh. They went to great lengths on the only day that girls were allowed into the school, for the Chanukah service, to prevent any contact between boys and girls. Screens were erected to separate them and prevent them from even seeing each other. Then there was the time an Italian ice cream man parked his van outside the school at 4pm as the boys were coming out, only to be chased away by an indignant rabbi who then reprimanded the boys who had been tempted to buy some treif gelati.

I had some discussions with the teachers there about religious issues. I realised there was quite a wide spectrum of belief as can be found in Christian circles. Clearly Reform Judaism was a “big no-no” and I heard prominent Jewish institutions like The Jewish Chronicle and JFS (the Jewish Free School) being put down as “non-kosher”.

I also picked up divisions between Hassidic and non-Hassidic Jews. There were members of Lubavitch there and some of them did talk to me about their faith, which I found quite interesting. Joe Paley was one such. I understood that he, like me, had travelled down alternative roads before coming to his present faith and found him an interesting person. One thing which surprised me was that he accepted ideas like transmigration of the soul and reincarnation which are a “big no-no” in Biblical Christianity. Another person I spoke to was Shlomo Lewis who struck me as a gentle and mystical man. He told me that some people had called him fanatical. “Maybe you’re just more enthusiastic than most,” I said.

I remember one of the rabbis (can’t remember which one, might have been Shlomo) telling me that it was not that the Jews had kept the Sabbath, but the Sabbath had kept the Jews. I could see his point and that it was the observance of mitzvot – kosher food laws, Sabbath and festivals – that had kept the Jewish people maintaining their separate identity during the years of the dispersion. I was also made to understand that assimilation and Christianity were the main enemies to this identity, although it seemed to me that most of the Jewish people I had come across who did not keep these mitzvot had nothing to do with Christianity.

Most of the religious members of staff avoided talking about anything to do with God with me, but one or two did. One even asked me if I could find him a book written by a Jew about Jesus being the Messiah. I gave him Rays of Messiah’s Glory by David Baron, which he kept for several weeks before giving it back to me with the comment, “All the usual diatribes.” Clearly not impressed.

Once I was sitting in the staff room minding my own business and marking books when the only other person in the room, Osher Baddiel, who was extremely Orthodox, asked me, “What’s a Baptist Church?” I was not sure why he had asked me this and did not try to find out. I explained briefly that Catholic and Anglican churches baptise babies into the faith, but Baptists believe that you have to make a decision to repent and believe the Gospel in order to become a Christian and that you should be baptised after this. As a result they do not baptise babies, who cannot make such a decision, but only adults. I then said that when I became a Christian I was baptised.

“What were you before?” he asked. He looked a bit startled when he asked this and I wondered if he thought I might be Jewish.

“I was a Marxist, in the Communist Party,” I replied, telling him a bit about how I came to this decision.

He seemed quite puzzled by this and then said, “I don’t see what you mean. Communism is a Christian thing anyway.”

“How do you work that out?” I asked. “Marx, Lenin, Stalin and Mao were all atheists and Communist society has always persecuted Christians.” He broke off the conversation, but it dawned on me that as far as traditional Jews like Osher were concerned society was divided into Jews and Christians and everyone who was not a Jew, from Hitler to Billy Graham, was a Christian.

It turned out that Osher was also very anti-Zionist and was actually quite unpopular with some of the boys because of this. I found it quite interesting that the radical left-wing Jews I had known in the Communist Party and some of the ultra Orthodox Jews shared a common view of Israel as a calamity for the Jews. I had read Chaim Potok’s book The Chosen so I knew the reason why Ben Gurion declaring the state of Israel in 1948 without the aid of the Messiah was anathema to certain Orthodox Jews.

For my part I viewed the restoration of Israel as a fulfilment of Biblical prophecy and was interested to go along to lunchtime meetings of the school’s Israel Society from time to time. These showed Zionist films and were run by Danny Joseph, who told me I was the only teacher who ever came to these meetings. I was fascinated by the story of Israel coming into being as a modern nation in the aftermath of the Holocaust, and in the face of all the Arab opposition. And I was ashamed at the attempts to frustrate the rebirth of Israel by so many powers, including the failure of the British to honour their commitments to the Jewish people in the Balfour Declaration. I kept in touch with Danny for a while after we both left the school, when he became President of the Union of Jewish Students. The last I heard he had made aliyah to Israel (if you are reading this, Danny, I’d be pleased to hear from you).

Another lunchtime activity I attended occasionally was the “Gentiles’ Lunch Club” at The Mill, a pub at the end of Holders Hill Road. This was attended by Martin Lawrence, Liam Joughin and Clive Johnson, but also by Ivan Marks and Jeff Soester who were Jewish. Actually it was an opportunity for the less religious Jewish teachers and the Gentiles to get together and talk about the goings-on at the school, sometimes explained by Ivan or Jeff. On one occasion I remember Liam Joughin, an Irish Catholic, getting very excited about one of the wall posters he had read describing what happens on Purim. “It’s a wonderful religion this,” he said. “You’re supposed to get so drunk that you can’t tell the difference between ‘blessed be Mordechai’ and ‘cursed be Haman’, and ‘blessed be Haman’ and ‘cursed be Mordechai’.”

Contrary to some of the comments I have read on melchett mike, I don’t think anyone got drunk at these meetings – half a bitter was about the ration – and it was more of an opportunity to talk freely without worrying about what the more religious elements at the school would think. There was quite a bit of negativity towards those elements and, as a Christian, I was a bit more charitable towards them and actually did not go all the time as I sometimes found the negativity got me down.

The drink problem I actually found difficult at Hasmonean was the habit of having a l’chayim at break times when one of the staff had an addition to their family or marriage. I am quite a light drinker – not teetotal but I only have an occasional beer or glass of wine – and the thought of drinking sherry or whiskey at 11 o’clock in the morning and then having to teach 3C French was not really to my liking.

One time I was sitting in a classroom during the lunch hour on my own. I had gone there for a bit of peace and quiet and was actually reading the Bible. One of the religious boys came in and saw that I was reading Isaiah and was somewhat astonished. “What are you doing?” he asked. “You can’t just read the Bible like that.”

“But I do it every day,” I said.

“We would never sit down and read the Bible on its own. You have to read the Commentaries. It’s like drinking Ribena without water,” he said.

I asked one of the rabbis about this and he said that according to Judaism God gave the Oral Torah to interpret the Written Torah and this was passed on by word of mouth from Moses until it was written down in the Talmud. He said “Our religion is ninety percent Talmud and ten percent Tenach.” Later I mentioned this to another rabbi who said “Ninety percent is too low for the Talmud.” I had noticed the big books being carried around by the rabbis and read the Hebrew words “Talmud Bavli” and wondered if anything good could come out of Babylon. In my reading of the Bible I could not see any reference to an Oral Torah and realised that this was one of the areas of disagreement between our faiths.

One of the boys who I got to know at Hasmonean was Simon Harris, who came to me for extra French lessons as he had failed his O-Level. He was bright and wanted to be a rabbi, but with a more open approach to Jewish Orthodoxy than was practised by many in the school. Simon was involved in the Campaign for Soviet Jewry and was interested to find out about my activities on behalf of Soviet Christians.

On one occasion he said that his sister had attended a Soviet exhibition at Earls Court and been arrested for putting “Free Sharansky” stickers on the exhibits. She had been treated badly, in an anti-Semitic manner, and he wanted to go there dressed as an Orthodox Jew and see if there was any hostility from the Russians. He asked me to go along with him. I agreed, but drew the line at the stickers on the exhibits. I took along a few of our leaflets about Soviet Christians and some copies of the Gospel in Russian. Far from being arrested we had some opportunities to speak to Russians there and one of my really good memories is of Simon and me standing in the middle of Earls Court discussing the existence of God with a Russian atheist who was part of the exhibition. I felt it was a good bit of Christian-Jewish cooperation, and it might have helped Simon when he later became Chief Rabbi of Ireland. I went to meet him once on a visit to Dublin.

One day, in 1980, I was covering for an absent teacher, while the class got on with their work. One of the boys put his hand up and said, “Please sir, I want to ask you something. You’re a Christian. Why do you Christians say we killed Jesus?”

It was a bit of a shock but I decided I would answer this question as it is one of the issues I felt very strongly about and is the theme of talks I give in churches. The Christian teaching of contempt for the Jews and persecution of Jewish people because of the crucifixion is a gross distortion of the New Testament and a disgrace. I explained that the church may have taught this but Jesus did not. He said that he laid down his life of his own accord and the Apostles taught that all of us, Jews and Gentiles, were responsible for his death, because he died for our sins. A true understanding of the Scriptures should lead Christians to love Jewish people.

This resulted in a huge barrage of questions and I realised how much this issue was a cause of pain to Jewish people. I tried to answer the questions as best I could. In the process I guess I said more than was acceptable about Jesus. The son of one of the more “hard line” rabbis was in the class and the next day a rabbi came up to me and said, “Mr. Pearce, we know you are a Christian and we respect your faith, but while you are at this school you should not say any more about the founder of Christianity.”

I realised it was probably time to move on and decided to hand in my notice. Mr. Stanton was sorry to hear that I was going. When the time came to leave, I was amazed to receive a number of cards and good wishes from the boys and the staff. On my last day I went for a walk around the playground during break and was moved by how many boys came up to talk to me to wish me well. I still look back on my time at Hasmonean as my best time in teaching. I started off my time there well disposed towards Jewish people, and also left well disposed towards them. And, to set the record straight, I did not at any stage during my time there try to dissuade boys from Judaism.

A postscript to all of this. I did some supply teaching at Barnet schools for a couple of years afterwards, then taught at Hampstead School and Christ Church School in Finchley. During my period on supply, I was teaching French at Copthall Girls School. There I met an Orthodox Jewish lady who was also teaching French. We got talking about previous jobs we had had and I mentioned that I had taught at Hasmonean.

“When were you at Hasmonean?” she asked incredulously. When I gave her the time I was there, she said, “You got my job!”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

It turned out she had been appointed to the job of French teacher, but there had then been an objection that, as she was a young woman (although married and Orthodox), she might be a temptation to the boys. So they had told her that she could not teach at the school. That explained to me the great rush there had been to appoint me.

God moves in mysterious ways!

I left teaching permanently in 1988 and have been involved in Christian ministry ever since. Having a continuing interest in Israel and Jewish matters has led me to write and speak in Christian circles on these subjects. I have written three books, and produce a quarterly magazine which deals with contemporary issues in the light of Bible prophecy. We now produce this in several languages and have outlets in many countries in Europe, Africa and Asia. We also have a website which includes articles about Israel. We believe in the restoration of Israel as a fulfilment of Bible prophecy and make a stand against the anti-Zionism which seeks its destruction. I am also the pastor of The Bridge Christian Fellowship which meets in Bridge Lane, Golders Green, where I often see and talk to one of the rabbis from Hasmonean on his way to daven at the shul down the road. My wife, Nikki, and I enjoyed 27 years together until she became ill with cancer of the bone marrow, and died in 1998.

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part IX: Moishe Schimmel

A Yom Ha’Shoah Message for Mr. Ahmadinejad

This evening marks the start of Yom Ha’Shoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day). Absolutely everything in Tel Aviv is closed, and it feels like Friday nights perhaps ought to and Yom Kippur doesn’t (because secular Israelis use it as an excuse to take their kids cycling).

One thing that did not shut today, however, was the hateful mouth of Iranian President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, using the platform shamelessly provided him at the so-called UN anti-racism conference, in Geneva, to label Israel a “totally racist”, illegitimate state.

Make no mistake, the threat that Ahmadinejad poses to Israel’s very existence is a real and terrifying one. He is today’s Hitler.

A mere 64 years after the end of the Second World War, however, the State of Israel has completely transformed the position of Jews the world over – from (in the main) “lambs to the slaughter”, to a people that even genocidal maniacs like Ahmadinejad will think twice about messing with.

It is no secret that Israel possesses submarines capable of launching nuclear weapons, and Ahmadinejad knows only too well that even if he (heaven forbid) succeeds in striking Israel, he will be responsible for the decimation of Iran, and probably much of the Arab world too.

Whilst this might seem small comfort, it reflects, sadly, the reality of a world over which a fascist strain of Islam is taking an ever stronger grip, and in which weapons of mass destruction are falling into the hands of tyrants, both religious and otherwise (aided by the unscrupulous, godless mercenary that is Putin’s Russia).

So, this Yom Ha’Shoah – even whilst Ahmadinejad might be “giving it the big one” in front of the international media – we Jews should proudly be reminding ourselves that, because of the State of Israel, “Never again” will we find ourselves in the position of the Six Million . . .

Try to destroy us again, and we’ll be taking all you bastards with us!

Hasmo Legends IX: Moishe Schimmel

Allegedly . . .

https://www.filmibeat.com/music/international/2009/madonna-dumps-luz-moses-200409.html

Moishe Schimmel was a pupil at Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys between 1975 and 1982.Next on Hasmo Legends, Part X: Mad Dogs and English Teachers

Hasmo Legends VIII: A Pearcing Insight (Part I)

by Tony Pearce

My encounter with Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys began in the summer of 1976. I needed a teaching job and, as I was living in Golders Green at the time, the London Borough of Barnet was my first port of call. I rang up the Education Department and asked if they had anything going for the autumn term.

“They need a French teacher at Hasmonean,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

“But I’m not Jewish,” I replied.

“Doesn’t matter,” said the voice.

So I sent off an application form with letters of reference and waited to see what would happen.

In fact the very next day Mrs. Hepner, the school secretary, came round to our flat with a letter inviting me to an interview with Mr. Stanton, the headmaster. It was a bit of an embarrassment because it was one of the hottest days of the year and I was in the back garden sunbathing with only a swimming costume on. She had just come from a wedding. As we lived in the top floor flat there was no way for me to slip in the back door and put something else on. So there I stood, on the doorstep, in my bathing costume with this elegant Orthodox Jewish lady dressed up to the nines. My wife said I blushed from head to toe, but Mrs. Hepner seemed quite amused about it at all and as far as I know did not hold it against me.

I turned up at the interview with Mr. Stanton and Rabbi Roberg, who asked me various questions and seemed quite impressed with my academic qualifications (public school and Cambridge). “I see you went to Bedford School,” said Mr. Stanton. “Did you know a Mrs. Freyhan there?”

“Yes, she taught me music in the primary school,” I replied. Turned out she was a German Jewish refugee he helped come out of Germany in the thirties, so he seemed quite chuffed about the connection and I felt I was on to a good thing.

“We would like you to have the job,” he concluded, “but we have a rule that every teacher must be interviewed by Dr Schonfeld, the founder of the school. He was a great man in his time, but he is a bit elderly now.”

Without being critical of the great man, Mr. Stanton was clearly trying to convey to me that this would not be a normal interview. So the next day, with a mixture of curiosity and trepidation, I went to be interviewed by Dr Schonfeld, this time at Hasmonean Girls’ School. He was not there at the appointed time and I hung around wondering if I had lost the plot somewhere. About half an hour later he came in and said, “I’m late.”

“Never mind,” I said, trying to be conciliatory.

“‘Never mind!'” he snorted indignantly. “He says ‘Never mind’ to me!” This one was not going to be so easy. He then began asking me all kind of questions which had nothing to do with teaching, and writing things down on a scrap of paper. Finally he said, “I see you are a Christian. What kind of Christian are you?”

Funny thing happened then. At the very moment he asked this question, the door opened and a man came in whom he obviously had not seen for a long time. He stood up and began talking excitedly in Yiddish and the conversation went on for about ten minutes. Meanwhile I am sitting there wondering how to answer this question. Should I be theological, evangelical, talk about Christian-Jewish relations? I needn’t have bothered because the Yiddish-speaking man then went out, and Dr Schonfeld turned to me and said, “All right, you’ll do,” and walked out without ever finding out what kind of Christian I was.

So I became a member of the staff at Hasmonean Grammar School for Boys. I had the summer holidays to prepare for this unique cultural experience and, at the beginning of September, I found myself in the staff room looking out of the window on the boys arriving for school. The only other teacher there was Jeff Soester, who started chatting to me. “Look at them – the cream of North London Jewry,” he said. “They can be mischievous and play you up, and they’re by no means all geniuses, but they’re not violent.”

Nice to know, as one of my previous teaching assignments had been at Tulse Hill School, a monstrous eight-storey slab of a building between Brixton and Tulse Hill in South London (now mercifully demolished). There, 1,800 boys, mainly from Brixton, fought their way through the educational system, and the teachers needed to know more about urban guerrilla warfare than the subjects they were supposed to be teaching. National Union of Teachers meetings were dog fights between rival groups of Trotskyite communists, and Mitch Taylor’s NUT meetings at Hasmonean were quite tame in comparison.

As far as I know I don’t have any Jewish blood, but I already had an interest in Jewish issues and people, and in Israel, long before I came to Hasmonean. In the sixties, I had been a student lefty and political activist (and an agnostic), during which time I came to know a number of secular Marxist Jews. And my studies in German had taken me on frequent trips to Germany, including attending a German school for a term. While I was there one of the big questions which came to me was, “How was it possible that these people who seemed so ordinary and not so different from us could have followed someone as evil as Hitler?” This raised another question, “Why do people always pick on the Jews?” At school and at university I had Jewish friends and felt sympathy towards Jewish people.

In May 1967, I was revising for my second year exams when the news came through of the build up of Arab forces on the borders of Israel. The newspapers were predicting a war and I read of Nasser of Egypt threatening to drive the Jews into the sea. I felt deeply involved in the issue and for some reason, which I could not quite explain, I wanted to help Israel. One day I hitchhiked down to London, went to an Israeli agency and offered to go out to help Israel if there was a war. My parents were understandably horrified at this idea and as it turned out, when war did break out in June, Israel did very well in six days without any help from me. As the Israelis went into Jerusalem I knew that something very important had happened, although I did not know why. 

In 1970, I became a ‘born again’ Christian. This followed a series of incidents including, in my first teaching post, two boys who were committed Christians challenging me on the fact that I professed atheism but had not read the Bible. One of the boys, Alec, in a debate I challenged them to, in the school library, spoke of prophecies: “It says in the Bible that the Jews will go back to Israel and that there will be a lot of trouble over Jerusalem and then Jesus will come back.” Israel, Jerusalem, the Jews. My mind raced back two years to the 1967 Six Day War and I wondered if that was the reason I had felt that there was something so important about that event. I decided I ought to read the Bible to check this out for myself. 

I then met Nikki, who had also been in the Communist Party but then become a Christian, who was to become my wife. Through her I met a man called Richard Wurmbrand, who made a great impression on me. He was a Romanian Jew who had suffered under the fascists during the Second World War, then read the New Testament and become a believer in Jesus. After the War, he became pastor of a Baptist Church in Romania, now a Communist state in the Soviet bloc. When he refused to declare his loyalty to the state underneath a large picture of Stalin, but publicly proclaimed his loyalty to the Lord, he was arrested and spent 14 years in prison. He then came to the West to tell the story of what was happening to Christians under Communism. He spoke of the evils of the system but also preached that we should love the Communists as people. Under his influence, Nikki and I set up a Christian outreach to the radical left in London and also a support group for Christians persecuted under Communism.

This brought us into contact with Jewish people on two fronts. Firstly, there were many Jews in the Communist Party at that time and we often ended up having interesting discussions with left wing Jewish atheists, including members of Young Mapam. Secondly, our campaign for Christians in the Soviet Union brought us into contact with The 35s (Women’s Campaign for Soviet Jewry) who were incredibly active in pursuing visiting Soviet delegations to London and telling them to release Natan Sharansky and other Soviet Jews imprisoned for seeking to emigrate to Israel. We often joined them and they were pleased to have us alongside them. We even encountered Gorbachev before he became President.

We also ended up living in Golders Green, in a flat in The Drive, where most of our neighbours were Orthodox Jews. From time to time the family over the road would knock on our door on a Friday night to ask us to come and switch on an electrical appliance after the Sabbath had come in.

By this time I had read the whole of the Bible, learned a bit of biblical Hebrew and studied something of church history, finding out about the oppression of Jewish communities in Europe by the professing Christian church. I knew that for Jewish people in general Christianity was not good news and was horrified to read of pogroms and persecutions against the Jews led by church leaders. I was sickened by statements of contempt for the Jews by such leaders, who stood Jesus’ teaching on its head and left a terrible legacy of bitterness and hostility. I also learned about nineteenth century British Christians who were pro-Jewish and supported the idea of a restored Jewish state in Israel. I came to believe that the prophecies of the Bible point to the restoration of Israel as a significant event in the last days of this age.

So I did not arrive at Hasmonean as a complete ignoramus of Jewish issues and the Jewish community. Coming to the school was interesting because while I had met quite a wide spectrum of Jewish people, from Marxist atheists to ultra Orthodox, they had always been the minority. Now I was to experience what it would be like ‘on the inside’, as a minority Gentile.

I knew that most Jews had ‘issues’ with Jesus and that I would not be able to start a lunchtime Christian Union as I had at Tulse Hill, but I also decided that if anyone asked me questions about what I believed in I would answer them . . .

Next on Hasmo Legends, Part VIII: A Pearcing Insight (Part II)

Who the f*ck asked you?! (The Israeli, Part II)

I am forced out of the writer’s block – nothing to do with all the matzo I have been consuming this Passover – afflicting me recently by “Opinionated” Avi (who has already received mention on melchett mike: see The Israeli).

Yesterday morning, Avi, over hafuch (latte) at ‘our’ kiosk on Rothschild Boulevard, proceeded to tell me, my friend Dalia, and in fact everyone at the kiosk – Avi can add hardness of hearing to a long list of shortcomings – that, from a purely aesthetic point of view, I am “no metzia” (Yiddish for “bargain” or “real find”), and that, basically, I should take the first girl that will have me. She would be happy, he bellowed, to take a lawyer – and relative financial security – over good looks. Well, thanks mate!

Now this advice was not sought, you understand. And especially not from Avi, who is in his fifties, single, unemployed (though he claims to trade stocks from home), and wears jeans that would comfortably house a (plumpish) family of four. In fact, Avi’s selling point on dates is that he doesn’t live with his mother.

Two Saturday mornings ago, in Ha’Tachtit – our “Shabbes café” – Avi was “shooting off” to me and another kiosk friend, Yuval, about the reasons for the collapse of the British Pound. In a sequence reminiscent of the wonderful “movie line” scene in Annie Hall – when Woody brings out the Canadian media theorist, Marshal McLuhan, to confront an idiot pontificating about his work – another opinionated native appeared from nowhere, telling Avi that he had no idea what he was talking about. Yuval and I wanted to kiss him!

In a desperate attempt to save face – and knowing full well that the heroic stranger would never collect – Avi offered to bet with him on the performance of the Pound over the next twelve months. But the damage had been done, leaving Yuval and me sniggering like a pair of naughty schoolboys.

But Avi is merely an extreme (and somewhat unfortunate) case. Everyone here loves to give advice. Even Yuval, who is relatively laid back for “the species”, often begins sentences with “Ata yodeya ma ha’ba’aya shelcha . . .” (“You know what your problem is . . .”) But, as I keep reminding him, “I didn’t f*cking ask!”

Israelis like to think of themselves as psychologists, or, at the very least, life coaches. And they don’t let the lack of any formal training get in the way. Five and a half million dysfunctional Jews telling each other how to live!

I have just returned from a “Shabbes café” date with a woman (a cool one, for once) who complained how one particular guy – sitting a few tables away (it is all very incestuous in this ‘village’ of central Tel Aviv) – keeps telling her “At tzricha lizrom” (“You need to [go with the] flow”). As a woman of some substance, she finds it infuriating advice from a loser of not much. (On a first date, I didn’t want to be the one to break it to her that it also sounds suspiciously like doublespeak for “Why won’t you let me get me into your knickers?”)

Yet another kiosk friend, Yossi, a gay Moroccan, would regularly assault me with “Look at yourself – a lawyer . . . and that’s how you dress?! And you’re so out of shape . . . join the gym!” My mother, who has never met Yossi, loves him of course . . . having been telling me those things for years. Anyway, I did join the gym, just to shut Yossi up . . . but now he tells me what to do with my dogs! (“Little” Stuey got his own back last week, pissing on Yossi’s carpet. Now, I don’t know if you have ever seen a homosexual after a dog has urinated on his favourite rug . . .)

Anyway, in my long and patient search for the future “Mrs. Isaacson”, I am back on JDate, a cyber version of S&M . . . for singlemasochistic Jews. And it ain’t pleasant, I can tell you. In the process of arranging to just talk on the phone with a certain “Ronit” – no straightforward task, as she doesn’t give out even her mobile number (not, at least, until she has seen bank details and a salary slip) – I received an email from her, stating that “being with someone who smokes, even only occasionally, is really not an option”.

“38 and single,” I wrote back, “but you won’t give a chance to someone who likes a cigarette with his beer? Well, that really makes sense!”

I’ll let you know Ronit’s reply. Though don’t hold your breath.

The Chutzpah of the Ass’ Man

Ring any bells?

The word “Chutzpah” may have its origins in Yiddish, but it is defined these days not by Jews . . . but by our lovely Arab cousins.

At the opening of the Arab League summit in Doha, yesterday, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad lamented the Arabs’ lack of a “real partner in the peace process”. With the new government of the right-wing “Bibi” Netanyahu being sworn-in today, Assad is apparently unhappy with the outcome of Israel’s recent elections.

Well, sorry, Ass’ me old mate. That’s democracy for you. Of course, you wouldn’t know . . . having received 97.99% of the votes in the “referendum” between you and yourself, after your lovely old man snuffed it, back in 2000.

Where do these f*cking Arabs get the nerve . . . ?!

"Hope no one smells it."

And what exactly did Assad have to do to get the top job (and for life)? According to Wikipedia, until becoming President, “his only political role was as head of the Syrian Computer Society.” Wow! Perhaps at school, in Damascus, he even ran the tuck shop.

Despite his early promises of liberalisation, Syrians are no freer today than they were under his power-mad dad, Hafez. And the country has even deeper links with international terror.

I tried explaining to my drinking (and drooling) buddy, in a Tel Aviv bar last night, why it is that I have always found Bashar al-Assad to be so particularly repugnant, even more so than his considerably repugnant mates, Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah. The latter two, whilst undoubtedly vile, at least have the familiarity of the religious fanatic.

Separated from Bashar at birth?

But, even before he opens his mouth, there is just something about Bashar – perhaps those horribly cold eyes, or his uncanny resemblance to Blackadder Goes Forth‘s Captain Darling (right) – that renders irrelevant his British education, smooth suits, and (very) doable missus.

In fact, for Israel to deliver the strategic Golan Heights to the Ass’ Man would be akin to putting a serial paedophile in charge of a kiddies’ paddling pool.

(Incidentally, Ass’, who did the other 2.01% vote for?!)