In that many of these Covenanters and their successors de-camped to the US in the 18th century and became founding fathers of the new republic (Witherspoon was one of them) I have often wondered if the lack of US anti-semitism drew on this positive view of Israel developed by Scottish Covenant theology. It certainly still influences modern day US Christian Evangelicals.

In the sociologist 1967 Bellah wrote an influential article in which he traced elements of this Covenant theology (‘Promised Land’, ‘Chosen People’, ‘New Israel’, ‘one nation under God’) to key presidential speeches and claimed it represented a kind of US civil religion.

I suppose Jews in Europe are used to a greater degree of anti-Semitism. England’s historical treatment of Jews was pretty bad, so I guess that goes with the territory. You begin at a different part of the spectrum. While the US has had (has) its own history of vicious racism (were people lynched in England for being the wrong race?), it also has vast room, and a history of creating your own reality (Shakers, Mormons, and many others); plus no state religion. No one in the government has to be devoted to “community cohesion” (a really Orwellian phrase). We don’t have to cohere here.

Of course, it’s difficult to sum up any national situation in a few sentences; I’m sure someone can find dozens of counterexamples.

I’ll say! I love her all the same though. I am one of life’s optimists, I think we will come through, somehow, but not without a considerable struggle to right the massive dose of poison churned out by the far left. Your article link was very helpful, thank you.

I visited Israel in 1973 just after the Yom Kippur war, lived in Jerusalem, and loved it.

A Jew is someone born to a Jewish mother. That person remains a Jew by race even if they are secular. If they convert to another religion, they remain a Jew by race. Your friend is right that some Jews are leaving Israel, but many more are immigrating, not least from France where antisemitism is worse than in the UK. “She tells me that many Israelis feel the same … “. That’s far from my judgment. If you go to Israel – which you should (cheap flights now) – you’ll be amazed at how many more children walk to school than in the UK, and how people leave their doors open and feel safe walking in the streets at night. There are attacks occasionally – most recently by the Caterpillar driver in Jerusalem – but the security fence has cut terrorism dramatically. You say your friend is prescient – but she sounds like a bit of a Cassandra to me.

But then he describes Jews who are against Israel. At one point he calls them ‘Quislings’. Yet by this evidence he acknowledges that there is a body of Jewish opinion in this country (for right or wrong reasons, good or bad) which is opposed to Israel. Ie., he seems to affirm, unwittingly, that it is possible to be both ‘Jewish’ and not support Israel.

So which is it? I only ask out of genuine curiosity and because my neighbour, a good friend, is Jewish. Or rather, was Jewish. I don’t know if she still counts as ‘Jewish’ if she is a secular non-observant Jew who married a Gentile and a humanist… But she does self-identify with the Jewish people to the extent that she follows events, owns and reads books on Jewish history, as does her daughter.

Yet she is opposed to Israel, feels it was folly, and can only end in disaster. She tells me that many Israelis feel the same, and that people have started returning to Germany, of all places, convinced that it is now safer for Jews than the Middle East. She is quite blunt about the whole sorry project being stricken. This shocked me, and I’m not even Jewish. I’ll give you that my friend (in her 70s) is not one of life’s optimists. But still, she is highly intelligent and very shrewd, and I have always found her generally negative prognostications to be highly prescient.

So, are these ‘Jews’ not ‘Jewish’ then?

You are right that if the US votes Obama then life in Europe will become less uncomfortable for Americans. But it isn’t going to make any difference to the incidence of antisemitism since the sources – militant Islamists and unreconstructed leftists – will be unaffected. The dinosaur left in Europe already dumped Obama after his AIPAC speech.

It has to be said that what’s happening in the UK (and Europe) is much more nuanced than commonly portrayed in the US. On the one hand, there is little (?no?) discrimination in the employment market or eg housing. Jews can do any job and are freer than ever. Apart from a few antediluvian idots (Jenny Tonge), the man political parties are free of antisemitism. (I can remember (and I’m not that old) when homes for rental had signs outside ‘No Jews, no Blacks’). But on the other hand on certain university campuses it is very unpleasant. Even Oxford has had a bad dose of Zionophobia crossing into antisemitism. One difference between the UK and US is the nature of the Muslim immigrations. The US had its Muslim immigration earlier and they were better educated and from the Middle East. By contrast the immigration into Europe was from Pakistan and Bangla Desh and they were poorly educated.

She has lived in London since the 1980s.

It could all turn around 360 degrees though if America votes Obama. I repeat, the flak is about US policy and Israel, not about a race. But all the same I think it is dangerously emotional. The MSM carries much of the blame for creating this attitude. That’s why I read HP.

The left in this country (UK) are basically emotional. They don’t think, they just react, with lazy emotive cliches and word-bombs like ‘Zionist’ or ‘neo-con’ to close down any meaningful debate.