Another contentious correction to Israeli mythology about the past is provided by historian F.M. Loewenberg. For centuries Jewish pilgrims and historians paid no attention to the Western Wall. Then Ottoman Sultan Suleiman decreed it should be a place of Jewish prayer. It has only gained its status as a sacred site in the last 150 years.

Once a common Jewish wish for the new year, inside and outside Israel, was for peace. No longer. Now peace-wishers are seen as deranged leftists. Akiva Eldar lists the five worst sins of politicians and public. Uniting the peace camps is No. 1 on his wish list.

Labour’s internal discussion on antisemitism will become an open debate next week at the party conference. Here is a clarification from JVL and Shami Chakrabarti of what a constitutional amendment should say – and what leave out, viz. any criterion of motive or belief.

JJ Goldbeg is alarmed that the incoherent thoughts of a right-winger who wants to eliminate all signs of a Palestinian community – eg annex the West Bank, force Palestinians to emigrate – should have been published in a mainstream conservative magazine.

Avraham Burg decries the sort of Rosh Hashanah some Israelis will enjoy – dependent on antisemitism to justify their country’s paranoia and isolation. He then movingly evokes the values supported by the Netanyahus’ enemy of choice – George Soros – and diaspora Jews which include celebrating all of God’s creatures and open societies.

Ditch the ideology and moral correctness and look at what actually works. Noam Sheizaf responds enthusiastically to Nathan Thrall’s new book which, inter alia, points out that only Palestinian violence has shifted the status quo in their favour.

In this interview the former Special Rapporteur for Palestine Richard Falk is asked about his time in the post, what changed, what were the highs (getting injustice documented) and lows (the campaign of personal defamation against him).

To Daniel Susskind, the Nazi genocide tried to destroy Jewish civilisation: “our histories and memories, songs and stories, ways of thinking and living”. That constitutes his Jewishness while, like many, he cannot believe in a God of any denomination.

Palestine cannot hope for independence as long as its people and leaders are divided. So the fact that a weakened Hamas has agreed to a general election and unity talks with Fatah has been welcomed – cautiously, as reconciliation initiatives have been taken many times.

Last month Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar gave a media briefing about his political plans, but he might as well have not been there himself. The Israeli media were not interested. Like their audience they knew he must be a terrorist and didn’t want to have to think. Ronit Marzan decodes for those who do.

Arab affairs expert James Zogby writes a scathing attack on the policies of Netanyahu and the Likud/GOP alliance. They are presented as providing the only route to peace and stability through ‘a Clean Break’ but instead have created turmoil and ungovernability.

The Republican elite in the US despise the vulgar, racist Pres. Trump. Actually, he is saying and doing much that they want but can’t be seen to support. The anti-racist convention that has held the USA together is broken.

The IHRA definition of antisemitism, and its controversial link to Israel in its examples of the prejudice, has achieved an unexpected success.The backlash against the blithe acceptance of the definition and examples by many official bodies has pushed the question to the top of several agendas including the Labour conference’s next week.

Netanyahu’s Faustian pact with the religious right has fed the ambition of the Ultra-Orthodox. Not content with their authority over marriages the Haredi Rabbis have taken to themselves the power to decide who is really Jewish.

The new year starts on Wednesday evening. We wish all our friends and supporters: ‘Shanah Tovah’ – ‘A good year’

Plus greetings from ACRI, Breaking the Silence and Rabbis for Human Rights

Summary of, and links to, this week’s postings on the JfJfP website

Last December the Chief Rabbinate published a new regulation allowing it to investigate the religious status of Israelis even if they are not applying to marry in Israel and even if they were already recognized as Jewish for the purpose of marriage. Recently it also emerged that the Chief Rabbinate maintains a blacklist of rabbis from abroad whose letters of certification for the purpose of marriage it does not honour.

“The idea that the Chief Rabbinate can suddenly ‘un-Jew’ individuals is completely antithetical to halakha (Jewish religious law), which states that one must take the word of people who say they are Jewish,” say Rabbi Seth Farber.

Might there “be a change of paradigm, a shift away from the two-state ideal to a civil rights struggle inside the single-state reality that exists on the ground” asks Jonathan Freedland in this pessimistic assessment. For there is no longer serious pressure for a peace agreement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – whether from within Israel, the Occupied Territories, or from the international community. It is, he says a “longest-running of dramas [a] story that refuses to have a happy ending. It remains a tragedy without end.”

Palestinian citizens of Israel constitute at least a fifth of Israel’s population and yet they are often overlooked, by Israel and by the international community. Inspired by Mohammed Amin’s 2-16 article, Remember the Forgotten Israelis, Oasis of Peace has organised a symposium in London to explore the issues at stake.

Based on the ethos of Neve Shalom / Wahat al-Salam (NSWaS), the mission of Oasis of Peace is to advance social equity and cohesion in both Israel and the United Kingdom.

In the US a draconian bill, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, is before Congress. It threatens individuals and businesses who actively participate in boycott campaigns in support of Palestinian rights conducted by international governmental organisations with up to 20 years in prison and a $1,000,000 fine. Roger Waters of Pink Floyd argues strongly against it in the pages of the New York Times.