Depression. Comedy.

Our new series of films at the Victoria Park Baptist Church is set to begin on Thursday, the 25th of January, and I can promise you it's going to be pure fun, from beginning to end.

But not quite yet.

Before we get to the "fun" part, I beg your indulgence while I talk to you about some personal stuff. It's relevant, I promise.

I am writing this on Sunday, the 14th of January, and the BBC has just published an article noting that 100 days have passed since Hamas launched its "unthinkable" (their word) attack on Israel.

I'm sorry, but "unthinkable"? Of all the words they might have used to describe what happened on the 7th of October, unthinkable is probably one of the least appropriate. It was traumatic; savage; horrific; barbaric; nightmarish. But (unfortunately) it was not even remotely unthinkable. 

I was born in the United States. The reason I was born there was because about 120 years ago, the Russian Empire decided it would be a good idea to slaughter its entire Jewish population. Between 1880 and 1920, somewhere between 70,000 and 250,000 Jewish civilians were massacred, mostly in what is now present-day Ukraine. In what was to become something of a grisly leitmotif, the victims of these pogroms were not simply killed; they were tortured, butchered, raped (not necessarily in that order) often while family and loved ones were forced to watch. Unthinkable.

The survivors (including members of my family) tried to escape to the West, with varying degrees of success. Some kept going until they reached North America, while others elected to settle in "safer" Western European countries such as Germany and Austria. 

And didn't that go well.

When Hitler was elected in 1933, many European Jews (a lot of whom had been living in their respective countries for generations) were completely integrated into their societies, and many of them were totally unprepared for the savagery and raw anger that was unleashed upon them by their fellow citizens. And no one was prepared for the clinical, mechanised efficiency with which the Nazis set about their "mass-production" genocide. It was (wait for it) Unthinkable.

The Russian pogroms had been savage, brutal and chaotic: children and babies were hacked to pieces in front of their parents. Pregnant women had their bellies sliced open and the foetus ripped out while they were still alive. Victims of all ages (and genders) were gang-raped, often until their bodies were literally ripped apart.

The Holocaust on the other hand was something entirely new. Every subject was given a serial number, and strict records were kept, so that each and every one of their millions and millions of murder victims could be traced back to a specific time and place with ease. The Nazis carried out cost/benefit analyses to determine the most efficient way of disposing of the maximum number of people. Nutritional trials were carried out to establish which was cheaper: the cost of the food necessary to keep people alive as forced labour, or the cost of the gas required to murder them. (Gas was cheaper than bullets, especially once the war was underway. And the gas chambers were easier to clean, and "reset" in preparation for the next batch.) The Nazis were meticulously organised and rigorous, and very, very efficient.

This was genocide by accountants.

I am not going to waste your time talking about the Holocaust right now. People have been talking about all this for over eighty years; there is nothing for me to say that hasn't already been said. I mention it now because (again) it's the reason why members of my family (from a different branch) settled in the United States.

Right now, I want to talk about the present.

In many ways, the attack carried out by Hamas on the 7th of October felt like the Russian pogroms all over again. Yet again, we saw children slaughtered in front of their families. Babies were murdered in their cribs, or cooked in ovens. Pregnant mothers had their bellies ripped open while they were still alive. Women (and men) were gang raped until their pelvises fractured. 

Survivors spoke of women being mutilated even as the rapes were ongoing.
(This link contains accounts that are extremely distressing.)

Nearly four months later Rescue Services are still struggling to arrive at an accurate body-count because many of the bodies were so badly mutilated that identification was completely impossible. 

And of course the entire attack was filmed by the attackers themselves, and live-streamed over the internet. In some cases, the attackers used the victims' own smartphones to upload images of the dead, mutilated corpses onto the victims' social media profiles, so that family, friends and loved ones would get front row seats.

That was one trick they didn't learn from the Russian pogroms.

You know what the BBC has called it? "Unthinkable". 

With respect to the BBC, maybe they should "un-think" a little less, because this seems to be happening again and again. When you're Jewish, it never seems to stop happening.

This is where (for me, at least) the cognitive dissonance sets in. 

Because I am not religious. I do not believe in god; I have never believed in god, and I have never participated in any religion. I do not attend a synagogue, I do not keep kosher; I don't speak Hebrew. Do you know what that makes me? Not Jewish.

I am not Jewish on a train.
I am not Jewish in the rain.
Not in the Dark! Not in a tree!
Not in a Car!

Please. Let me be.

By any sane, non-fundamentalist definition, I am not Jewish, since Judaism is a religious belief, and I. Am. Not. Religious.

But that doesn't seem to matter. History (especially modern history) is overflowing with dead people who were exactly as Jewish as I am. During the Russian Pogroms, I would have been considered "Jewish". In Nazi Germany I would have been Jewish, and in the eyes of Hamas, I am Jewish.

It would seem that I am Jewish, whether I choose to be or not. Apparently it's not up to me; it's up to the people who want to kill me.

And apparently, it's also up to the millions of "enlightened" Westerners who agree with (and support) the people who want to kill me.

This has been the most painful lesson of the past few months. In the hours and days following the Hamas abomination, even before Israel had begun to retaliate, there was a massive groundswell of anger, rage and hatred. Against Jews.

Social Media sites overflowed with anti-Semitic memes (even more than usual). Students on American college campuses chanted "From the River to the Sea" as Jewish students were forced to barricade themselves in the library. Professionally angry climate-activist Greta Thunberg proudly announced that she "stands with Palestine". (I have no idea whether Greta has yet experienced any #MeToo moments, but I have a strong feeling she would have been very unhappy had she stood anywhere near Hamas on the 7th of October.)

And of course, three Ivy-league University presidents gave testimony before Congress in which they all said that explicitly calling for the extermination of Jews would not be considered Hate Speech.

This is very interesting, at a moment in history when academic institutions are drowning in terms like "trigger warnings", "safe spaces" and "microaggressions". Using the wrong pronoun is considered sexual harassment, and professors have been fired for screening the wrong version of Othello, but calling for the extermination of Jews is apparently okay.

I feel safer already.

When one of those three Presidents - Harvard President Claudine Gay - resigned (a month after her remarks before Congress) she said "My inbox has been flooded with invective, including death threats. I’ve been called the N-word more times than I care to count."

That sucks, of course, and I understand exactly how she feels. It's very painful to become a target simply because someone else decides that they don't like your race. Or religion. 

But those death threats and N-words shouldn't be considered "hate speech". They need to be understood in context. 

(That's not my opinion,by the way; I am citing the words of Dr. Claudine Gay, [former] president of Harvard University, from the 5th of December, 2023. I would hate to reference someone else's words without providing appropriate citation. That would be unforgivable.)

I am certainly no stranger to anti-Semitism. I have been called a "f***ing Jewish c**t" (without the modesty screen, needless to say). I have presented film screenings at the Victoria Park Baptist Church where it has been "explained" to me how "everyone knows that Hollywood is run by Jews."

A currently serving member of the US Congress believes that a series of wildfires in California were caused by Jewish Space Lasers (apparently launched by the Rothschild family) and a plurality of American conservatives believe that billionaire philanthropist and Holocaust survivor George Soros is actually the head of some shadowy, Satanic "new world order".

The irony (if that is the correct word for all this) is that Israel, the "Apartheid" country that is now being accused of genocide, is one of the most racially diverse countries in the world. Not only is Israel the only country in the Middle East with full rights and protections for its LGBT community, it also operates an "underground railroad" that smuggles gay Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza and away from the constant threat they would face - often from their own families.

But then, that's what Israel was supposed to be: the ultimate "safe space" for those who have been subjected to endless persecution, hatred and violence. 

Israel was the "panic room".

According to the Metropolitan Police, anti-Semitic incidents in London have jumped by 1,350% in the last few months. UN Women (a United Nations group that was formed specifically to combat violence against women) was silent for almost four months before they acknowledged the sexual atrocities committed by Hamas, despite the abundance of evidence which included the videos filmed by the attackers themselves. 

I would say that this is a very bad time to be of Jewish descent, but when has it ever been a good time? 

When does it stop?

When will it ever stop?

If anyone is still reading this (and thank you, if you are!) I have been talking about all this so as to give you some idea of what the last few months have been like. And to provide some context for the film series I have planned for the next few months.

Yes, it's finally time to talk about that.

Now, comes the fun

Misery can be seductive.

When times are bad, it is very easy to fall into a cycle of despair. You begin to obsess over everything that is wrong, and you communicate that obsession to others, plunging them into despair, and so it goes. It spreads, and before you realise what's happening, the whole society has fallen into a black pit of depression.

For our new film series, I have decided to cure everyone of that depression (myself included).

It just so happens that Hollywood knows a great deal about getting through depression, or more accurately, Depression. It was during the Great Depression that "talking pictures" came of age.

The 1930s was a decade of severe economic hardship. It was a decade when whole communities were laid low. In the US, people had no jobs, no homes and no security, and in Europe, communities lost far more than that. The newly-created refugees, escaping fascism and anti-Semitism, had been forced to leave everything behind (including family and loved ones in many cases) which is why it is so remarkable that the cinema of the 1930s was so positive.

Yes, everything was terrible. No, people had no hope. But they did have the movies, and film-makers of the era made a conscious decision to be the backbone of society.

Rather than beating everyone into submission with tales of hardship and woe, 1930s Hollywood decided gave us the sharpest, smartest, funniest films they could possibly provide. It's as if they were saying to the nation, and to the world,

"Yes, we know how awful everything is. We know how much you are suffering right now. But you are not going to suffer because of us. We are going to be something good in your life, and when you look back on this time, your memories of the hours you spent with us will be nothing but positive. We will make you feel better, not worse."

For the next few months, I am going to follow the example of 1930s Hollywood. We are going to have fun. 

We are going to celebrate the triumph of the spirit by showcasing wit and creativity at its most joyous. 

We are going to make our lives better.

This is not escapism, at least not the way the term is generally understood. 1930s comedies did not ignore the harsh reality, but neither did they wallow. 

I am not for one moment recommending that we simply turn a blind eye to the disasters occurring all around us. We shouldn't fiddle while Rome burns, but throwing the violin onto the fire doesn't save the city. It just destroys a violin and feeds the flames.

At a time when the very fabric of society seems to be under threat, it is sometimes important to be reminded just what one is fighting to preserve. 

So, I will screen these movies. I have chosen some of the finest comedies of the era, and hopefully they will do for us what they did for audiences nine decades ago: they will help us through a depression.

To spend every moment of our lives drowning in horror is to throw away our lives. It is a tacit admission that life is devoid of joy. We don't have to do that. We can choose to celebrate everything that lifts us up, out of the pit.

I am an atheist; I'm not waiting for my happiness to come in some hypothetical eternity, when I reach some hypothetical paradise. This is my life, right here, right now; there won't be another one. I plan to use my life to celebrate everything that is important to me, and I hope you will join me.

We're going to have a wonderful time. The best time we can possibly have.

Failing that, I always have my Jewish Space Laser (apparently).