Reviews Articles
The fruits of conversation
Rooted in Christianity, Open to New Light – Quaker spiritual diversity by Timothy Ashworth and Alex Wildwood, Pronoun Press in partnership with Woodbrooke. ISBN 978 0 955 6183 3 8. £9. This book comes at the same time as the deadline of the Friends Quarterly essay competition on the future of Quakerism in Britain and in some...
Not all of one mind
Occupied Minds: A journey through the Israeli psyche by Arthur Neslen, Pluto Press. ISBN 0 7453 2365 0. £16.99. Who are the Israelis? We may think we know – proud, motivated Jews defending their right to a homeland. But is it true? Some of the people Arthur Neslen spoke to in his psychic journey...
An invented people?
The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand, translated by Yael Lotan, Verso. 2009. ISBN: 978 1 84467 422 0. £18.99. Spanish Jews are largely descended from converted Berber tribes from North Africa; Yemenite Jews are descendents of an Arabian tribe; many Jews from Eastern Europe come from Turkic Khazar stock; modern Palestinians are largely...
My Name is Asher Lev
My Name is Asher Lev by Chaim Potok. Penguin. ISBN 978 014119 056 3. £9.99. Asher Lev is a young man who makes waves in his community. It is a strict orthodox one in 1950s New York, burdened with the rescue of Jews in hostile lands. Asher’s father works for the Ladover community Rebbe,...
Daniel Deronda
Daniel Deronda by George Eliot. Penguin Classics. ISBN 978 014043 427 9. £8.99. Rereading George Eliot’s Daniel Deronda at the same time as My Name is Asher Lev, it occurred to me that the story of the latter is actually subsumed into a single chapter of the former. When Daniel finally meets the mother...
A journey of transformation
God Sleeps in Rwanda: a journey of transformation by Joseph Sebarenzi with Laura Ann Mullane. Atria Books. ISBN: 978 141657 573 3. £18.99. The European subjection and colonisation of Africa has left a brutal legacy. From the indefensible abuses of enslavement and apartheid to the wanton plundering of Africa’s rich resources, it is...
Two views on faith
The case for God: what religion really means by Karen Armstrong. The Bodley Head. ISBN: 978 1 847 92034 8. £20. Reason, Faith and Revolution: reflections on the God debate by Terry Eagleton. Yale University Press. ISBN: 978 030 015179 4. £18.99. As sparks continue to fly between allies and opponents of Richard Dawkins, both sides have taken a hammering in...
The making of modern Britain
Television: The Making of Modern Britain BBC 2. When Victoria died at the beginning of the twentieth century, ‘New Dawn’ thinking was inevitable. Great Britain was about to undergo traumatic changes. One was a shock to the empire, when it took Britain two years to defeat not very many Afrikaners in...
Quaker Theatre Company: ‘Now We Are Sixty’
The Quaker Theatre Company arrived about an hour before the performance as we waited anxiously on a Friday evening at Long Sutton Village Hall in darkest Somerset. Alan, Judy and Katy, held back by traffic en route from their previous performance at Peterborough, soon had the set laid out and...
Cole Sahib: Quaker educationist
Cole Sahib: The Story of a Multifaith Journey by Owen Cole. Sussex Academic Press. ISBN: 9781845193362. £16.95. ‘This story has three intertwining strands. One is my deep interest in religious education from 1954 onwards… until now; the second is the multifaith journey that I have travelled since about 1968; and the third is...