Micah's Back Pages

Click  on the links below to read past posts. Most recent is first.

Why we need Jewish flavoured BDS Ice Cream


Just as we need it most, the UK cracks down on BDS

We need to decolonise our understanding of antisemitism

B’Tselem, apartheid, and correcting the ethical grammar on Israel/Palestine


Dear Vice Chancellor, don’t let Gavin Williamson bully you into adopting IHRA

From ‘Vision for Peace’ to ‘normalisation’ – 2020 has become the year of forgetting

“History will judge us” – Have Progressive Rabbis reached the end of the road on Israel?

As Jews, we’ll never address racism while clinging to Zionism

Dear Marie, claiming the Board is neutral on West Bank annexation should fool no one

Edgy Jewish reflections on a Covid-19 exit strategy

Tom Stoppard's first Jewish play leaves Zionism offstage

Orla Guerin's report shows what's wrong with Holocaust remembrance

How (not) to tackle antisemitism in the Age of Boris

Archbishop Justin, you need some new Jewish friends

Chief Rabbi, we need a better way to fight antisemitism than attacking Labour

As a British Jew I’m not fearful of a Corbyn government but I’m horrified at how antisemitism is being used against him

Extinction Rebellion has shown me the way forward for Jewish solidarity with Palestine

The Climate Emergency makes Zionism obsolete, but Judaism could help save the planet

‘A splendid fellow’ Lionel F. Cohen 1926-2019

The BBC debated antisemitism, but who got ‘muddled’, Melanie Phillips or Robert Cohen?

The Church of England is stifling Palestinian solidarity – IHRA is to blame

#DareToDreamOfFreedom and don’t watch Eurovision

How Jonathan Sacks dumbs-down Jewish history to defend Zionism

Does Palestine make celebrating the Jewish Passover impossible?

Deborah Lipstadt, you’re wrong to say Jewish BDS supporters are enabling antisemitism

Only by moving beyond Zionism will Christian-Jewish dialogue progress

British MPs won’t get to see ‘WitchHunt’ in the House of Commons – the very place it needs to be shown

It’s okay to use your smart phone, tablet and laptop to boycott Israel

Whether it’s Brexit or Zionism – going it alone makes little sense

As British Quakers divest from the Occupation, Jewish leaders seek to discredit and smear them

Christian-Jewish dialogue must be more than taking tea and talking antisemitism

If you want a fair definition of Zionism, it's best to ask a Palestinian

Sacks V. Corbyn: Why conflating anti-Zionism makes fighting antisemitism impossible

Bringing it all back home - Marc Ellis on the return of the Jewish prophetic

The Jewish establishment's ‘War Against Corbyn’ risks bringing real antisemitism to Britain

Dear Ed Husain, don't let your call for moderate Islam give Israel a blank cheque

They prayed for the dead of Gaza, now it’s time to say Kaddish for Zionism

Why Jews in solidarity with Palestinians will win the day

Dear Natalie Portman,your liberal Zionism won't save your Jewish values

As Israel turns 70 it's high time we Jews ditched Zionism for the sake of everyone

Dear Prince William, if you have to go, make it count

I faced my Jewish racism, can you do the same?

"Did you enjoy Oslo?" London's West End applauds a failed peace process

Why Trump's Jerusalem "reality" is good news for Palestinian solidarity

Dear Simon Schama, you need a history lesson in Zionism

For the children of Palestine the second Balfour century has already begun

Corbyn and Arkush show how Balfour is marking the end of the British consensus on Israel

No, Ambassador Regev, don’t turn Balfour into a holy Jewish text

"Trust me, I was a first-year Jewish student too." 

“It’s about equality, and that’s why I can’t work with you on this.”

Brace yourselves for costly Palestinian solidarity

So many bad ways to mark the Balfour Declaration – but here’s one good one

From Manchester to Jerusalem: The limits of Trump’s terror narrative

Church of Scotland must be fearless against the bullying Board of Deputies

Zionism, Apartheid and the Delegitimisation of Passover

Dear Rabbi Sacks, stop your lies about BDS

As Jews, we welcome refugees (unless they're Palestinian)

Love in the Age of Trump

“OMG! I’ve just renounced my right to Jewish national self-determination.”

Reclaiming the lost Jewish voices of the Balfour Declaration

‘Children of Palestine’ – the radical new folk song bringing the tragedy to a new audience

A call for artefacts for the Museum of Modern Jewish Life

Birth of a Kairos Jew

Settlement Boycotts – calling time on the hypocrisy of our Jewish leadership

Two years on, Scotland’s Jews concerned over Gaza – but for all the wrong reasons

The Ten Commandments Revisited (in response to current Jewish and Palestinian requirements)

As a UK citizen, as a European Jew, as a campaigner for Palestine – I’m voting ‘REMAIN’

“Honey, I shrunk the religion!” Who’s in and who’s out according to Zionism?

Letter from an anti-BDS Arab to a Jewish BDS supporter [and this Jew’s BDS response]

Three pieces of advice to help British leftwingers kick racism out of their anti-Israel rhetoric

The Wicked Son's guide to Passover

Young liberal Zionists, if you’re serious about peace, let go and move on

Comparing Nazis to Jews? Leon Rosselson explains ‘The Ballad of Rivka & Mohammed’

My Poetic response to Facebook Friends and Foes

The on/off pro-Israel rally that tells us much about the state of British Jewry

My five point 2016 manifesto as a dissident, rebellious and awkward Jew

Maccabees, Miracles and Grandpa Boris: The battle for the soul of Hanukkah in 2015

The Prophet in Exile – an interview with radical Jewish theologian Marc H. Ellis

The End of Jewish History? What makes radical theologian Marc H. Ellis too hot to handle?

“Dear Chief Rabbi…” The Knife Intifada sermon that failed the test of moral and communal leadership

Holocaust deniers, Kafka's sisters and how anti-Semitism can kill global support for Palestinians

Micah meets...Jeff Halper

He came, he saw, he sold us high tech surveillance systems - A report on Bibi's Grand Day Out in London

This High Holidays I'm challenging the Modern Jewish Sacred

After the murder of baby Ali, is Zionism beyond redemption?

Did the BBC cover-up the antisemitism of Gaza's children?

Five brilliant things about Judaism (that we sometimes forget)

What's wrong with this picture?

Christians United for Israel comes to Britain - Here's one Jew that's less than thrilled

The Topsy Turvy world of the Israel/Gaza conflict - First thoughts on the UN report

A new home for Micah

Reclaiming the language of Jewish identity

Going Green for Palestine - Micah goes to the polls

Boycotting from Within

Exodus & Numbers: Who's counting this Passover?

"Indeed" Bibi Mk.4 and the unraveling of the British Jewish consensus

A Jewish encounter with Easter

The turbulent Priest and the arrogant Board - Reflections on the Stephen Sizer affair

#JeSuisUnJuifBritannique

A Jewish Advent reflection

How to start that difficult conversation

How the UK's Jewish leadership killed off the two-state solution

Jonah and the Elephant

The things I learnt this summer

Remembering COHEN A. and COHEN H. (Or the short trip from Flanders Fields to the Gaza Strip)

Time to cross the line - A letter to Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner

Standing on one leg for Israel-Palestine

The true meaning of 'Brother's Keeper' 

Micah meets...Marc H. Ellis

A new song for Europe (or the Jewish antidote to the Board of Deputies EU manifesto)

In Every Generation...How Passover locks shut the Jewish Imagination

Why I'm on the side of Bibi's "shameful" "anti-Semites"

Dear Bibi (the letter Cameron should have written to Netanyahu)

Talkin' Jewish Self-determination Blues

Lessons from Mandela's long walk to freedom

Micah meets...Mark Braverman

Simon Schama and the error of Jewish silence

A Letter to the Council of Christians and Jews

When will there be a Jewish Kairos moment for Palestine?

Will Jewish Democracy please phone home

Jewish nationalism, Christian theology and the demise of interfaith dialogue

"Put yourself in their shoes" - taking Obama seriously for Nakba at 65

The Story of Marek Edelman and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Soundtrack to a Paradigm Shift

Update: On the Impossibility of Passover

On the Impossibility of Passover - a Poem

Last of the Purimshpiels!

Israeli elections, Tu B'Shvat and the history of 'righteous trees'

Notes from a road-crossing, border-walking, inter-faithing Jew

Hanukkah...rekindled

Now is the time! A prophetic call to action

Swords, ploughshares and letters to the Israeli ambassador

Does a Christian arts festival have the right to criticise Israel? A Jewish defence of Greenbelt 

Jonah on the couch - inside the mind of the reluctant prophet

A radical rabbi's call for prophetic justice

Searching for a Just Zionism

45 years on...The poverty of the arguments

For Israel and Nakba at 64...Micah meets David Ben-Gurion

Yom Ha Shoah, Ahmadinejad and why we need to break the Holocaust narrative

Occupy the Haggadah! Radical thoughts for Passover

The Colonel and the Rabbis

A Letter to Anne Frank

Maccabees, Miracles and Zionists...and how to get the balance right.

Is it kosher to boycott? (After the UN some FAQs on BDS)

On being a naïve, self-hating, single-issue sympathy tourist (or some notes on the Jewish civil war)

Israel and the crisis of Jewish-Christian dialogue in the UK

Occupied with justice – A visit to the Holy Land

Dorothy in Oz – Micah on the West Bank

Lost Jewish Voices (part two)

Lost Jewish Voices (part one of two posts)

Why Britain's Chief Rabbi got it wrong

Micah meets...Sami Awad

Writing from the edge

On my way home from Israel