BBC revels in “Jewish” movie director Mike Leigh’s decision to boycott Israel

Robin Shepherd
robinshepherdonline.com
19 October '10

Imagine. Just days after Howard Jacobson won the Booker prize — Britain’s most prestigious literary award — for a book ripping apart that small but vocal section of British Jewry that only ever advertises its Jewishness (or has its Jewishness advertised for it by a grateful liberal-left establishment) when it can be used as a weapon to berate Israel, and I come across the following story on the BBC website: “Mike Leigh cancels Israel trip over loyalty oath”.

Until today, I never knew that Mike Leigh is “himself Jewish”, as the BBC puts it. Now I know. How? Because his Jewishness has been advertised in the context of his decision to boycott Israel’s Sam Spiegel Film and Television School where he had been due to spend a week in November.

Leigh’s decision came, he said, in protest against the proposed loyalty oath for new immigrants: “This is the last straw — quite apart from the ongoing criminal blockade of Gaza, not to mention the endless shooting of innocent people there, including juveniles,” he said in a letter to the School’s director.

The BBC is having a field day.

(Read full post)

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