Thursday, February 17, 2005

It's not often you have contemporaneous notes of your conversations. I'm talking to a lot of people about this antisemitism (aside: don't you hate how word makes it into anti-Semitism?).

We're one step beyond the encoded antisemitism of last year: no it's out and proud. It seems to me, I'm supposed to say.

I mean, three times in as many weeks (Prince Harry, Labour pigs-might-fly campaign, and now Ken) - frankly, it's a minhag.

Like, Tuesday night, out with a friend who teaches in an East London school with a heavy Muslim population. He tells me that in a social studies class with 17 year olds, he's going round the groups who are discussing the media, and he gets to a group, and asks them where they're up to.

- we're talking about the Jewish conspiracy, they respond
- oh, how does that work?
- well, all the Jews get together and agree - IF ONLY! - who runs what and what they'll tell the world...

The conversation goes on: seems like it's mothers' milk to these kids, and when he tells them he's Jewish, one of them says that they don't hate him for it. Although it's not clear if they might hate him for something else.

So it might all be anecodotal evidence - I have twenty stories like that - but how many anecdotes does it take to change a lightbulb?

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