What The Butler Saw

Ok, I'm going to 'come out' here. A few days ago, I posted about how anti-semitism is threatening British Jews; I thought it was safer at the time not to be open about my own Jewish ethnicity. But having considered it, although it's disturbing that in this country a Jew still feels scared to publicly declare that they are Jewish in case they become the target of some kind of attack, I have decided this is no time to pander to such fears.

The thing I keep thinking as the latest 'Al Quaeda' terror plot emerges is how really Muslims and Jews are culturally very similar, and how bizarre it is that the world's current epicentres of war centre on conflict between our two religions. Once Muslims and Jews were part of the same biblical family; both religions place similar cultural value on ideals like family, education, hard work, ambition, respect, prayer, and doing good deeds. As a Jew, when I see the richness of the Islamic community in London, I don't feel remotely threatened; rather I feel close to it, at home with it, because I feel their warm Middle Eastern culture of family and education is akin to my warm Middle Eastern culture of family and education. In my relationships with Muslim friends, there's never once been the slightest hint of political conflict, so close are the shared values. Israeli music has a lot in common with Arabic music; religious Jewish women cover their hair as do religious Muslim women; even the food of the two cultures is similar. When I watch the news in Israel/Lebanon, the dark hair and olive skin common to both the Israelis and Lebanese makes them almost indistinguishable. It really is brothers and sisters killing one another.

Obviously I'm not talking about fundamentalists on either side, just about ordinary people.

So it is strange that a few ignorant people on both sides wage wars and hate all Jews or all Muslims.