Remembering Jonathan Sacks – remembering his struggles
JewThink
Publication Date: November 8, 2020
Theme: Jews, Judaism and Jewishness
Category: Journalism and essays
Writings
Here you can find a record of almost all my publications – from scholarly journal articles to newspaper articles – listed with the most recent first. In most cases there is either a downloadable pdf or a link to the publication itself. You can search by publication type (academic, non-academic, book reviews etc), by theme and by keyword. Enjoy!
An end to Labour’s antisemitism controversy seems as far away as ever
The Guardian
The EHRC’s measured tone contrasted with Starmer’s dramatic suspension of Corbyn. Neither will bring resolution
Publication Date: October 29, 2020
Theme: Antisemitism, Racism, Hate, Politics
Category: Journalism and essays
Breaking the Law: ‘Confess’ by Rob Halford
The Battleground
Publication Date: October 26, 2020
Theme: Metal Music and Culture
Category: Book reviews
Hope In Extremity: An Interview With Barney Greenway Of Napalm Death
The Quietus
Keith Kahn-Harris chats with legendarily personable Napalm Death vocalist Mark ‘Barney’ Greenway about what extremity and radicalism mean in a plague year
Publication Date: October 20, 2020
Theme: Metal Music and Culture
Category: Journalism and essays
A gloriously miserable British Sukkot
JewThink
The worst the weather is on Sukkot, the more perfect the festival is
Publication Date: October 9, 2020
Theme: Jews, Judaism and Jewishness
Category: Journalism and essays
Metal and the Holocaust: Too much transgression?
JewThink
What do you do when you are drawn to the bad guys, but the baddest guys around are just too bad?
Publication Date: October 7, 2020
Theme: Jews and Metal, Jews, Judaism and Jewishness, Metal Music and Culture
Category: Journalism and essays
Heavy Metal and Renewal: Rosh Hashanah in the end times
JewThink
How metal’s Christian apocalyptic sensibility can ground hope for a Jewish new year of renewal.
Publication Date: September 21, 2020
Theme: Jews and Metal, Jews, Judaism and Jewishness, Metal Music and Culture
Category: Journalism and essays
The problem of love in Corbyn’s Labour Party: Reflections on Left Out
JewThink
How Gabriel Pogrund and Patrick Maguire’s ‘Left Out’ shows how love was always a greater problem than hate in Corbyn’s Labour Party
Publication Date: September 11, 2020
Theme: Antisemitism, Racism, Hate, Politics
Category: Book reviews, Journalism and essays
Speaking of the Holocaust: From Silence to Knowledge and Back Again
European Judaism 53(2), 13–19
Albert Friedlander's writings were part of a generational struggle to find a language in which to speak of the experience of the Holocaust. This struggle was, in part, a response to the ‘unspeakability’ of the Holocaust, the silence and denial of its perpetrators. As such, in the postwar period, the perpetrators of the Holocaust also struggled to find the words to speak of what they had done. This short article goes on to speculate on the implications of the unspeakability of the Holocaust and other genocides. It suggests that this unspeakability is beginning to break down as desires are spoken of more openly. As such, it is possible that current and future generations will have to embark on a different struggle to that of Albert Friedlander. While he could count on an assumed moral consensus that the Holocaust was wrong, current and future generations may no longer be able to rely on this assumption.
Publication Date: September 1, 2020
Theme: Antisemitism, Racism, Hate, Denial, Ignorance and Stupidity, Jews, Judaism and Jewishness
Category: Journal articles
Engaging with absence: Why is the Holocaust a “problem” for metal?
Metal Music Studies, 6(3), 395–411.
While genocide, killing and transgressive acts of violence are common themes in metal, there is a relative absence of metal lyrics and other ways of engaging with the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews as a theme. This stands in contrast to premodern genocides that are often the subject of fascination. Even when the Holocaust is apparently ‘celebrated’ by neo-Nazi metal acts, some of the specificities of the genocide, together with its applicability to Jews today, may be elided and effaced. When the Holocaust is engaged with in non-neo-Nazi metal lyrics, it is usually with great care and the victims themselves are rarely mentioned. The Holocaust constitutes a ‘problem’ in metal that makes silence and absence a preferable option to engagement. The reasons for this lie in part in metal’s self-conscious avoidance of ‘politics’, the lack of salience of Jews and antisemitism, and the excessive nature of the Holocaust itself.
Publication Date: September 1, 2020
Theme: Antisemitism, Racism, Hate, Jews and Metal, Jews, Judaism and Jewishness, Metal Music and Culture
Category: Journal articles
Metal, Jewishness and the Holocaust
Metal Music Studies, 6(3)
Special issue co-edited with Dominic Williams
Publication Date: September 1, 2020
Theme: Jews and Metal, Jews, Judaism and Jewishness, Metal Music and Culture
Category: Edited issues and publications
On Bournemouth beach
JewThink
The boundary-crossing of Haredim on the beach.
Publication Date: August 28, 2020
Theme: Jews, Judaism and Jewishness
Category: Journalism and essays
48 hours later: Now let’s confront our own hatefulness on Twitter.
JewThink
Publication Date: July 29, 2020
Theme: Antisemitism, Racism, Hate, Conflict Resolution, Civility and Dialogue, Politics
Category: Journalism and essays
On Transgression and Comedy
Letter
Correspondence with James Harris
Publication Date: July 24, 2020
Theme: Culture, Miscellaneous
Category: Journalism and essays
What if nothing changes?
JewThink
WiIl the impact of Covid-19 be as ephemeral as the impact of the death of Diana?
Publication Date: July 13, 2020
Theme: Community, Jews, Judaism and Jewishness, Miscellaneous
Category: Journalism and essays
Antisemitism and the politics of attention
Medium
This is a version of a paper I presented at a seminar held by the Parkes Institute at the University of Southampton on 30 June 2020. It is a draft that will possibly form the basis of a longer article. Comments and suggestions would be welcome.
Publication Date: July 9, 2020
Theme: Antisemitism, Racism, Hate
Category: Conference papers and lectures, Journalism and essays
Ready to eat
Imperica
On Saturday 14 March - during the last weekend before work, school and shops started to close – my son and I sat down to dine on a French 24-hour military ration. Earlier, we had excitedly unpacked the contents of the box of delights and laid it out carefully on my bedroom floor
Publication Date: July 6, 2020
Theme: Miscellaneous, Small worlds
Category: Journalism and essays
Smoke your way to hopelessness
Sick
Publication Date: July 1, 2020
Theme: Miscellaneous, Personal/Memoire
Category: Journalism and essays