Jewish Multiculturalism

Guest edited by Simon Liebesny

Jewish Multiculturalism

“Jewish Multiculturalism? Never mind the ‘M’ word, start with the ‘J’ word. Which part of British multiculturalism is Jewish? In this guest edition authors refute lazy stereotypes which so often lead to suspicion, conflict, division.”

Fragments of my Father

Simon Liebesny

"In searching for clues to my father’s hidden and unspoken past, defined by his own escape, internment and confinement, I find that his survival mechanism was to embrace the present and the world of multiplicity."

The Death of Beelzebub

Will Self

"If culture is a vector for transmitting values through time via objects, artworks, practices, rituals etc .. then ‘multiculturalism’ is an oxymoron."

(In)Security

Stephen Frosh

"Are Jews safe? To make ourselves secure, we put in place all sorts of security; but is this just an indication of rising insecurity - and does it make things worse?"

The Missing Mizrahi

Shelley Silas

"The Missing Mizrahi is my attempt to spotlight and remember the Jews who are invisible, the Jews who are slowly dying out."

Yiddish as a Living Language

Ross Bradshaw

"Yiddish is still a living language, one that is attracting new speakers wanting to find a different way to express their Jewishness and their passion for keeping the language and its culture alive."

Beatty Orwell: The Battle of Cable Street

Rachel Lichtenstein

"The protestors were singing songs and after a while the police come over the loudspeaker and said, ‘[the Blackshirts] are not going to come, they will not pass.’ Huge cheers erupted. The battle had been won."

Jewish Multiculturalism

Michael Rosen

"There is no Jewish pope for secular Jews. Secular Jews are by no means a homogeneous, monolithic group with the same opinions."

On Assimilation

Jonathan Wolff

"Jewish people with a platform have the duty to come forward to make common cause with immigrants and refugees confronting levels of discrimination comparable to those our parents and grandparents faced in the past."

Distinctions & Extinctions

Devorah Baum

"Identity, for most people, isn’t political, it’s existential – a name for who and what they are. Politicisation only entrenches that fact. The more political my identity appears to you, the more existential it becomes for me."

Jews and Poles in Interwar Poland

Eva Hoffman

"I have drawn...on my own and my family’s history, which began with World War Two and the Holocaust; but I have also tried to move beyond it, to considerations of what unites us in multicultural democracies, as well as what divides us."

Photo Essay

John Offenbach

Photos selected from John Offenbach's photography book and exhibition, Jew: A Photographic Project.

The intention

John Offenbach

"John Offenbach's project for the photography book, Jew, is largely inspired by August Sander's People of the 20th Century."
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