Are there any Jewish FMs?
lemoncurd
Posts: 57,778 Forum Member
✭
It has just occurred to me that I do not personally know, nor have I ever known anyone who is openly Jewish, either practicing or ethnically Jewish.
Is that weird? Jewish people can't be that uncommon in the UK.
Is that weird? Jewish people can't be that uncommon in the UK.
0
Comments
Well, that is true to some extent, but I know people who have mentioned that they are Christian, Muslim and Hindu (as well as people who are avowed atheists).
But I've never met someone who talks about Judaism as their religion. I've just realised and find it surprising.
Also not everyone who is Jewish by ethnicity is Jewish by religion, you might have known some and you wouldn't know unless you asked
I see your point, maybe there are but they don't want to be judged when they put opinions possibly, not that they should be.
I think on a discussion forum your opinions should be free of what your are 'meant' to think.
Manchester has a large Jewish community, around the Cheetham Hill district.
Hoorah!
Actually, I've just realised I do know an ethnically Jewish person - she was my best friend-from-school's mother!
Strangely, she married someone called Goulding, which sounds as though it might be Jewish, but neither he nor any of his family were...
My dad grew up in what was then a very Jewish area of Leeds, although most of that community were gone by the time I was a kid - but many of their customers and lifelong friends were Jewish. I remember meeting an elderly lady who was a friend of my grandad who was Jewish. My ex once introduced me to one of his neighbours, an elderly gent in East London who had a concentration camp number tattooed on his arm.
My mum was a Yorkshire lass and grew up on a dairy farm and the rabbis would come out from Leeds on a train, and make the milk they sold kosher. I only found that out when I read it in a little local mongraph, a man in the next village's memoirs that his family had published. He mentioned my great grandma and how she would have the rabbis come to the farm, and they'd give her presents like little biscuits that she shared with the kids who came to our farm to buy milk.
My kids are not Jewish even 'on paper' as it has to be the female side, but in terms of their DNA, they are a quarter Jewish. Their grandma told me her uncles were murdered by nazis in Eastern Europe. Word only got back to the family in England after the War that they hadn't even been sent to a concentration camp, but had been killed with a bayonet as the local nazis thought they weren't worth the train fare or cost of the bullets.
My kids' great grandad got out of Vienna in the 1930s. That's all I know about their Jewish ancestry - that and a couple of their surnames.
Maybe it was a demographic blip then, but there were a lot of Jewish people at my uni on my course. One of my friends was the niece of a well known TV producer. Another friend came from a quite orthodox family in London.
I once went shopping with my ex in East London, and an old bloke came up to us and yelled: "JEWS!" It was a bit disconcerting.
I always tend to imagine the Jewish population being much larger that it is and it's probably because there are so many well known Jewish celebs. Rachel Weisz, Alan Sugar, Nigella Lawson, Claudia Winkleman, Jason Isaacs, Esther Rantzen, Rachel Stevens, Neil Gaiman, Milliband brothers, etc. Then there are those with one Jewish parent: David Beckham, Stephen Fry, Joan Collins, Daniel Day Lewis, Helena Bonham Carter, etc. So TV has definitely skewed my perception about their ubiquity in Britain even though I've only knowingly crossed paths with a handful in my life.
Strongly agree with that, Mrs T.
Many people have views which span the entire left/right spectrum, and definitely do not tow any party line. It shows they think rather than blindly follow.
As for Jewish people, I've known one or two. Possibly the most curious was a local shopkeeper who I got talking to once about a noisy neighbour (years ago) and he asked me if I had a gun - he wasn't joking either
Sounds like Kosminski to me!
My deaf brother has loads of Jewish friends, though. There's a large Jewish deaf community in London that's connected to all major cities in this country, and has its own organisations - the Jewish Deaf Association, the Jewish Deaf History Society, etc. I attended a couple of plays organised by, if I remember correctly, the Jewish London Deaf Drama Group.
Quite a few working stage/TV deaf actors/directors/musicians are Jewish. Twins Paula and Fiona Garfield, and the Woolf brothers are good examples. Yeah, there's a strong Jewish presence in the British deaf community. Same with the deaf communities around the world. American deaf actor Marlee Matlin is Jewish.
There was quite a few Jewish kids from Prestwich went to my school in Bury......
I saw a lot of Jews yesterday.........it was the annual Jewish Music Institute bash in Regent's Park, London and I stopped off during my daily walk to listen to a bit of 'Klezmer'.......it's that Jewish music, bit gypsy, bit jazz, that you see people dancing to with their arms outstretched.......this kind of thing......
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9MfZEoVR3M
He did have some mental health issues though, so i think that goes some way to explaining it.