Before the comment on the events in France, it is right and proper that I publish the Jewish Mourning Prayer, the Kaddish. May the memory of all those innocents who died, whatever type of belief or disbelief they hold, be for a blessing,

Transliteration:

Yitgadal v’yitkadash sh’mei raba b’alma di-v’ra

chirutei, v’yamlich malchutei b’chayeichon

uvyomeichon uvchayei d’chol beit yisrael, ba’agala

uvizman kariv, v’im’ru: “amen.”

Y’hei sh’mei raba m’varach l’alam ul’almei almaya.

Yitbarach v’yishtabach, v’yitpa’ar v’yitromam

v’yitnaseh, v’yithadar v’yit’aleh v’yit’halal sh’mei

d’kud’sha, b’rich hu,

l’eila min-kol-birchata v’shirata, tushb’chata

v’nechemata da’amiran b’alma, v’im’ru: “amen.”

Y’hei shlama raba min-sh’maya v’chayim aleinu

v’al-kol-yisrael, v’im’ru: “amen.”

Oseh shalom bimromav, hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu

v’al kol-yisrael, v’imru: “amen.”

Translation:

Magnified and sanctified be the great name of the One by whose will the world
was created.

May God’s rule become effective in your lives
and in the life of the whole House of Israel. May it be so soon;
and let us say: Amen.

May God’s great name be praised to all eternity.

Blessed and praised, glorified, exalted and extolled; lauded, honoured and acclaimed
be the name of the Holy One, who is ever to be praised, though far above
the eulogies and songs of praise and consolation that
human lips can utter; and let us say, Amen.

May great peace descend from heaven, and abundant life be granted, to us
and all Israel; and let us say: Amen.

May the Most High, Source of perfect peace,
grant peace to us, and all Israel, and to all humanity,
and let us say: Amen.

Je Suis Juif, and I’m grieving and angry about the recent events in Paris. I’m grieving for the loss of life at CharlieHebdo, on the street and in the Kosher supermarket, and I’m angry that so many people, 17 is the figure I’ve heard, have been murdered because of Islam and its followers.

Je Suis Juif, who is dismayed to see that the Great Synagogue in Paris would not be holding Sabbath services, for the first time since the Nazi Occupation, because of Islam and its followers.

Je Suis Juif, who knows that Jews who make up 1% of the French population but suffer 40% of all racial or religiously motivated attacks, which are often carried out by the followers of the cult of Islam.

Je Suis Juif, who wonders what it is like for French Jewish parents who have to worry about whether their child will be safe in schools which contain a significant proportion of Muslims.

Je Suis Juif, who wandered round Tel Aviv in Israel, and was shocked out of my very British complacency, by seeing how parts of it were now very French in their feel, and the reason for this was that these French areas are populated by Jews who had had to flee France because of Islam and its followers.

Je Suis Juif, who has seen French Jews attacked by mobs of Muslims in the street.

Je Suis Juif, who knows that tens of thousands of French Jews have left France because the French state has allowed the followers of Islam to spread hatred against all sections of French society and against French culture, without sanction, and without too much challenge, intellectual or otherwise.

Je Suis Juif, who is tired of reading about French Jews getting their heads kicked in by gangs of Muslims purely because of Islamic Jew-hatred.

Je Suis Juif, who is starting to think that Jews faced with danger from Islamic thugs may need to have a few more 43 Group style things going on and less effort expended on communal talking shops that don’t address the real problems.

Je Suis Juif, who is now reluctantly accepting that maybe, in certain circumstances, as in France, an armed Jew is a safer Jew.

Je Suis Juif, who is angry at seeing Progressive (and sadly some not so Progressive) Rabbis sitting down, and trying to be friends with Islamic organisations who, if they had the power, would kill or oppress Jews. Islam is not an enemy that can be negotiated with in good faith, and it would be better to learn that lesson voluntarily now, rather than later, at the point of a sword or the barrel of a gun. Appeasement of Islamic groups, or wishful thinking about them, or putting in a few joint Rabbi/Imam/Vicar appearances on the ‘Bagels and Bhaji’s’ Interfaith circuit will not make Islam any less hate-filled, prejudiced or violent.

Je Suis Juif, who knows a modicum of history and is aware of how badly Jews were treated in the Islamic world, and no I’m not interested in seeing Islamic apologists wave around the ‘Spain’ card. I’ll see your semi-mythical ‘Golden Age of Al Andalus’ with the expulsion of nearly a million Jews from the Arab world in the mid 20^th century one. Life for non-Muslims under Islamic rule was full of oppressions, ranging from pogroms bringing mass murder to small but ever present humiliations. Sadly this is not just history, Islam is still full of hate for others, first the Jews and then the rest.

Je Suis Juif, who believes that we should all stand together against the Islamic threat. Whether we are Jewish or Gentile, monotheist or polytheist, believer in a higher being or an atheist, we all have much, if not everything, to lose by not countering, by peaceable legitimate means where possible, the threat that we are all under from the ideology of Islam.

Je Suis Juif, who dearly wants a peaceful world but recognises that sometimes, wishing for or praying for peace is not enough. Sometimes there is a war and enemies have to be fought.

The Rubicon of Islamic terror has been crossed in Europe this week. It’s time to fight back. Remember the dead by defending those who ‘choose life’, and give no quarter to the members of, or the appeasers of, those cults which love death.