Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz in the Telegraph.  And the Jewish Telegraph.

Here are the hotspots of a rather interesting, suitably fawning Telegraph article about the demographic crisis of Diasporic Jewry.

Is this the last generation of British Jews?

It is 350 years since Oliver Cromwell readmitted Jews to Britain, but a leading Israeli rabbi warns that Judaism here is now in imminent danger of extinction.

Leading figures from Britain’s Jewish community will join the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh this week at a glitzy ceremony at St James’s Palace to mark the 350th anniversary of Cromwell’s decision to allow Jews to return to these shores.

It is hard today to envisage British society without Jews. It is more than 100 years since Benjamin Disraeli became prime minister and there are Jews prominent in every profession and in every corner of British culture: from Lucian Freud, the artist, to Sacha Baron Cohen, the comedian; Harold Pinter, the playwright, to Harry Woolf, the Lord Chief Justice.

As the Government has conceded that it is time to reconsider the success of the multicultural experiment, Jews in Britain have provided the perfect example of an immigrant people able to retain their identity while playing a full part in society.  However, their very success in assimilating into British life now appears to be threatening their survival in this country.

Earlier this month, Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz, the world’s leading Talmudic scholar, on a visit to Manchester from his home in Jerusalem, delivered an apocalyptic vision of Anglo-Jewry, warning that a once thriving community faces extinction.

“The Jewish community in England, as in other parts of Europe, is demographically unviable,” he said. “It is a dying community, without even counting assimilation. They say that in order to remain stable, a community needs to average 2.2 children. I don’t think this is the case in Anglo-Jewry. Whatever the figure, when you add the devastating devaluation of assimilation and intermarriage, it is becoming smaller all the time.”

And here’s the Rabbi’s Manchester speech reported - minus the salad dressing - in the Jewish Telegraph.  At the close are some brief but interesting observations on the native majority:-

Do not get comfortable in Diaspora, warns rabbi

Israel is the only place where Jews have a demographic future.

That was the opinion of Jerusalem-born Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz speaking at Shaare Hayim synagogue on Monday.

He said: “If we feel comfortable in the Diaspora there is something wrong.

“There is a difference between the words Diaspora and exile. Diaspora sounds neutral. Exile means we are unwillingly out of place.”

Rabbi Steinsaltz added that Jewish communities all over the world suffered from the same problem. Their future existence was in doubt.

He said: “Our demographic existence is iffy. Communities all over the world are dwindling. Many have more funerals than weddings.

“They need to plan what to do with the money when they close synagogues.

“The situation in Russia and the former Soviet Union is much worse.  Israel is the only place where Jews multiply.”

He added: “Jews of Europe have a negative growth rate. There is a good chance that the whole of Europe could become Muslim.”

... Rabbi Steinsaltz added that religion did not feature prominently in British life.  He asked: “Who cares if the Queen is the head of the Church? The British are not interested in religion.  They are more interested in football and the middle pages of The Sun.”

Referring to the failed government plans for quotas of non-Jewish pupils at Jewish schools, he said: “We are not missionary.

“There is a good chance that the majority will swallow up the minority.  We do not want to influence them.”

Goodness no, who would want to swallow up the goyim?  Especially when there is a good chance, anyway, that they and the whole of Europe will become Moslem.

I wondered why the real flavour of the speech - this coarse-tongued, racial flavour - was omitted from the Telegraph article.  It’s not as if what the man said isn’t perfectly true.  Could it be because decency and tolerance and all things liberal must at all times be ascribed to wise Jewish elders like Rabbi Steinsaltz?  Nick Griffin is not “the world’s leading Talmudic scholar”.  Is that why if he treated Manchester BNP to a speech describing Jews as more interested in money and sex than their religion he would be reviled everywhere, and chased back into court?

Posted by Guessedworker on Sunday, November 26, 2006 at 02:55 PM in That Question Again
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