Jenkins And The Jews
Lord Truth 13th April 2006
Simon Jenkins,the renowned British journalist, for many years provided considered , intelligent and humane analysis of the human condition in the pages of the Times......
He now writes for several other papers as well, churning out articles however,that now , as their rapid hysterical tone shows, indicates clearly that they have been thrown off in a couple of minutes and with their financial instigations being almost embarrassingly obvious.....
'Darling,the bill for the last installment of the conservatory has just arrived'..clickety clickety...
'Do you know, we've never been on a cruise to the South Pacific?'...clickety clickety...
'They may last a few years but I really think all this bridge work needs replacing'..clickety clicketyclickety.. etc..
And who can blame him?...a few minutes clicketing is a lot easier even than walking half a mile in the rain to the nearest ATM
And only a week or so ago his photo appeared in the Guardian:fully Botoxed,micro granulated, a most remarkably wholesome looking specimen, only the mouth,curling slyly and uncertainly, reminding us that living in Jenkins street we would stop leaving the milkmans pennies on the doorstep....
Yet a week or so ago one of his pieces did seriously catch my eye.It concerned his visit to a new exhibition of Modernism This visit produced a tirade of abuse against the entire movement...its Art ,architecture,design,the lot. In a thousand words or so,Jenkins argued that Modernism was directly responsible for all the horrors of the twentieth century from Fascism and Communism to sink estates.
It was an enjoyable diatribe and he deserves his new set of dentures, yet I could not help feeling a certain frisson while reading it.... Could it be...was it really essentially a huge concealed attack on Jews and what may be called Jewism .
After all , almost every name he mentioned was Jewish as were the institutions he named, To relate Jews and Fascism might seem to be going to extremes but although its true there was no political power base for this at that time ,anyone researching the methods and techniques of the great Hollywood film companies for example, all owned and run by tyrannical Jewish masters might find some disturbing authoritarian echoes .The huge welcoming celebratory party given in Hollywood by Louis B Mayer to all the German Nazi media a few months before the war -which by then seemed inevitable , might suggest a greater sympathy than one might imagine.
In todays world of course any overt form of what is immediately dubbed anti- Semitism'results in ones complete artistic or commercial obliteration or even a visit from Mossads stranglers ,yet I do find the relationship between the British writing elite and the Jews a fascinating area totally(naturally ) unexplored.
After all if one examines twentieth century British writing there is no shortage of anti jewish sentiment:,even in the forties Agatha Christies Moriartys were often 'yellow skinned Asiatic looking Semites and remarks about and against the Jews abound in many novelists work.All this has indeed been explored. But what of the post war situation ?
The power of the Jews in what we now call the media was considerable before the war,though kept largely undercover.After the war with the horrors of the Nazis fully revealed it rapdily consolidated itself.
Where then did this leave British writers? Their publishers publicists agents editors,virtually their whole world now revolved around Jews who a few years before they would not have hesitated to clearly categorise if not denigrate....
In post war British writing mention of the Jews vanished ,no character however sympathetic was ever Jewish....
The one exception to this -and I applaud her for this, was Iris Murdoch.Jews do appear in her novels some good some unpleasant. She does not try to pretend they dont exist in her literary cultured worlds.
Yet take that most British ofwriters ,KingsleyAmis.His extensive works cover the gamut of British society yet -I have not read all of them by any means-there is no trace of a Jew anywhere.Yet there is something about Amis that surely suggests he must have had some views about this.
Once walking towards Gower Street tube station,which then had an entrance to the lifts actually on Tottenham Court Road I saw Amis waiting-he saw me and appeared either terrified at my appearance -this was probably the early seventies and Iwas tall with long black hair or recognising a certain intellectuality about my face thought I was going to start up a conversation.At that time I was surprised at how tiny he was ,very short and thin with an extraordinary pretty face-later he became enormously fat.
I also sometime later saw Lord Wiedenfield as he stood drooling at the jewellery in the shop on the corner of Chancery Lane ,his chauffeur waiting by his stetched Volvo limo
It is interesting to wonder how these two caracters related to each other when they met as meet they must have. Was it the usual British hypocracy of face to face politeness laughter slaps on the back friendliness have another one before you go-followed -as the door closed and the footsteps died away by the equally British-God I need a stiff drink after that.Cant stand him or any Jew....
Now not for one moment am I suggesting that Amis might make such a remark only that all that traditional awareness reserve and one must admit dislike of Jews must have gone somewhere,it cannot have just vapourised-indeed I know it cant because I happen to look rather Jewish-although I am not-and attitudes to me are frequently unpleasant or critical-as I am often disliked by Jews also my position is somewhat difficult ,but thats another story
To return to Simon Jenkins (after all there are no new dentures in this piece for me and my clickety clickety gene is getting tired) it might be interesting if one day instead of the usual empty huffing and puffing Jenkins actually addressed this question.After all he sits or at least visits the home of Britains most Jewish newspaper the Guardian....But I doubt if it will happen,muddy waters are perhaps best left unstirred and it would require more than Simons usual ration of clicks to do the subject justice....
Simon Jenkins,the renowned British journalist, for many years provided considered , intelligent and humane analysis of the human condition in the pages of the Times......
He now writes for several other papers as well, churning out articles however,that now , as their rapid hysterical tone shows, indicates clearly that they have been thrown off in a couple of minutes and with their financial instigations being almost embarrassingly obvious.....
'Darling,the bill for the last installment of the conservatory has just arrived'..clickety clickety...
'Do you know, we've never been on a cruise to the South Pacific?'...clickety clickety...
'They may last a few years but I really think all this bridge work needs replacing'..clickety clicketyclickety.. etc..
And who can blame him?...a few minutes clicketing is a lot easier even than walking half a mile in the rain to the nearest ATM
And only a week or so ago his photo appeared in the Guardian:fully Botoxed,micro granulated, a most remarkably wholesome looking specimen, only the mouth,curling slyly and uncertainly, reminding us that living in Jenkins street we would stop leaving the milkmans pennies on the doorstep....
Yet a week or so ago one of his pieces did seriously catch my eye.It concerned his visit to a new exhibition of Modernism This visit produced a tirade of abuse against the entire movement...its Art ,architecture,design,the lot. In a thousand words or so,Jenkins argued that Modernism was directly responsible for all the horrors of the twentieth century from Fascism and Communism to sink estates.
It was an enjoyable diatribe and he deserves his new set of dentures, yet I could not help feeling a certain frisson while reading it.... Could it be...was it really essentially a huge concealed attack on Jews and what may be called Jewism .
After all , almost every name he mentioned was Jewish as were the institutions he named, To relate Jews and Fascism might seem to be going to extremes but although its true there was no political power base for this at that time ,anyone researching the methods and techniques of the great Hollywood film companies for example, all owned and run by tyrannical Jewish masters might find some disturbing authoritarian echoes .The huge welcoming celebratory party given in Hollywood by Louis B Mayer to all the German Nazi media a few months before the war -which by then seemed inevitable , might suggest a greater sympathy than one might imagine.
In todays world of course any overt form of what is immediately dubbed anti- Semitism'results in ones complete artistic or commercial obliteration or even a visit from Mossads stranglers ,yet I do find the relationship between the British writing elite and the Jews a fascinating area totally(naturally ) unexplored.
After all if one examines twentieth century British writing there is no shortage of anti jewish sentiment:,even in the forties Agatha Christies Moriartys were often 'yellow skinned Asiatic looking Semites and remarks about and against the Jews abound in many novelists work.All this has indeed been explored. But what of the post war situation ?
The power of the Jews in what we now call the media was considerable before the war,though kept largely undercover.After the war with the horrors of the Nazis fully revealed it rapdily consolidated itself.
Where then did this leave British writers? Their publishers publicists agents editors,virtually their whole world now revolved around Jews who a few years before they would not have hesitated to clearly categorise if not denigrate....
In post war British writing mention of the Jews vanished ,no character however sympathetic was ever Jewish....
The one exception to this -and I applaud her for this, was Iris Murdoch.Jews do appear in her novels some good some unpleasant. She does not try to pretend they dont exist in her literary cultured worlds.
Yet take that most British ofwriters ,KingsleyAmis.His extensive works cover the gamut of British society yet -I have not read all of them by any means-there is no trace of a Jew anywhere.Yet there is something about Amis that surely suggests he must have had some views about this.
Once walking towards Gower Street tube station,which then had an entrance to the lifts actually on Tottenham Court Road I saw Amis waiting-he saw me and appeared either terrified at my appearance -this was probably the early seventies and Iwas tall with long black hair or recognising a certain intellectuality about my face thought I was going to start up a conversation.At that time I was surprised at how tiny he was ,very short and thin with an extraordinary pretty face-later he became enormously fat.
I also sometime later saw Lord Wiedenfield as he stood drooling at the jewellery in the shop on the corner of Chancery Lane ,his chauffeur waiting by his stetched Volvo limo
It is interesting to wonder how these two caracters related to each other when they met as meet they must have. Was it the usual British hypocracy of face to face politeness laughter slaps on the back friendliness have another one before you go-followed -as the door closed and the footsteps died away by the equally British-God I need a stiff drink after that.Cant stand him or any Jew....
Now not for one moment am I suggesting that Amis might make such a remark only that all that traditional awareness reserve and one must admit dislike of Jews must have gone somewhere,it cannot have just vapourised-indeed I know it cant because I happen to look rather Jewish-although I am not-and attitudes to me are frequently unpleasant or critical-as I am often disliked by Jews also my position is somewhat difficult ,but thats another story
To return to Simon Jenkins (after all there are no new dentures in this piece for me and my clickety clickety gene is getting tired) it might be interesting if one day instead of the usual empty huffing and puffing Jenkins actually addressed this question.After all he sits or at least visits the home of Britains most Jewish newspaper the Guardian....But I doubt if it will happen,muddy waters are perhaps best left unstirred and it would require more than Simons usual ration of clicks to do the subject justice....
posted by Lord Truth at 7:02 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home