Fownhope’s Heart of Oak Society traces its roots to the age of friendly societies, when communities provided their own safety net. Its anniversary celebrations reveal a tradition still very much alive, says MARK SEDDON
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What does Jewish self-determination actually mean?
Many Jewish people reject the idea of a fortress state, favouring alternative ways to build equal lives for Jews, as a minority, wherever they live, says DAVID ROSENBERG
A poster calling on young people to join the Bund youth movement (left), an election poster of Ukrainian Bundists that reads “There where we live, that is our country” (right), a Bund march in 1917 (middle top) and (middle bottom) Bund leader Henryk Erlich stands above the crowd at a may Day rally in Warsaw early 1930s
ANGUS REID explains the significance of Cuba’s egalitarian in letter and spirit Family Code and the pertinent lessons it holds for democracies anywhere in the world
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NICK WRIGHT considers how the isolation of Israel and a new film on the controversial Italian communist leader are creating new reference points for Italy’s left
CARLOS MARTINEZ says Cuba’s achievements in the face of a criminal blockade are startling, but the island’s future if the United States succeeds in crushing it looks bleak
AMNON BROWNFIELD STEIN reports that far-right MPs who mobbed the event organised by Hadash may have helped raise awareness of the brutality of the Israeli right
IN 2013 the remarkable Polin museum opened in a location that 80 years ago formed part of the Warsaw Ghetto.
It showcases 1,000 years of Jewish culture, interaction with non-Jews, intellectual creativity, periods of terror and hardship but also “Golden Ages.”
Many Jews are taught that Poland is just a Jewish graveyard: centuries of life are collapsed into six years of utter destruction, when the Nazis exterminated 90 per cent of Poland’s 3.3 million Jews. And yet, Jewish life is reviving today in 15 Polish cities.
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Bezalel Smotrich’s measures to extend Israeli property law into the West Bank are a continuation of a decades-long project to dispossess Palestinians and preclude statehood, argues HUGH LANNING
In search of political understanding, MATTHEW HAWKINS welcomes a critique of anti-semitism as codified by the Israeli state
With foreign media banned from Gaza, Palestinians themselves have reversed most of zionism’s century-long propaganda gains in just two years — this is why Israel has killed 270 journalists since October 2023, explains RAMZY BAROUD