I think (my honest opinion) that you, Chief Rabbi, talking about the IDF as ‘our heroic soldiers’ was a betrayal of humanistic Jewish values.

https://twitter.com/jewishchron/status/1951246543903682857

X not great place to expand this: humanistic Jewish values = formally‘Humanistic Judaism’ (groups in US/Canada/UK), available to any or all to use/adapt. Informally also eg Hugo Gryn/George Steiner/Einstein/Erich Fromm/

1/ We used to say to children (when it came to writing) any of the following: what do you want to say? (topic) who would you like to write it for? (audience) what kind of writing? (genre) let's find a way to share it? (brings in editing, presentation, clarification, expansion) 2/ We used to say, 'how can we express that idea? that feeling? that place? that character's motives?' (ie how to move and interest audiences). 'Let's look at this great book. How did they move/interest you? You could have a go at writing like that too.

1/ Because the Primary English curriculum for writing has got distorted to focus on 'grammar', we overlook that writing can be developed by looking at 'ingredients': who narrates? can we deepen characters with flashbacks? can we create expectation/tension with 'reveal-conceal'? 3/ Are we clear at the beginning what is the 'problem'? Is it a dilemma? A lack of something? A yearning for something? How will the character(s) achieve or attain the objective? Will they do it through their own actions? How do they engage with others?

Elections were won in the past by warning the British public there were reds under their beds. In the next election, the reds have become the 'Woke' and it's much worse (apparently): the Woke aren't just under your bed, they're in it too. @Wkrs Inspired by the works of Karl Marx
the Woke have taken over our parks
They want to be seen
to be making us green
and they whinge about 'saving the sharks'.

1/Ok some serious points about the Baddiel-Oppenheimer argument. The words 'Jew' or 'Jewish' cover a wide variety of traditions. To say, Oppenheimer should be played by a Jew, invites the question (in my mind), played by what kind of Jew? 2/ Oppenheimer's parents came from Germany, they weren't religious. Oppenheimer was born in New York. If one were type-casting, he was a different 'type' culturally from the poor Yiddish-speaking Polish Jews of Lower East Side or London's East End.

1/ Then there is the issue of 'talk' (or 'oracy'). We have to remember that talk is the primary act of language for small children. It's how they express what they know and need, their desires, fears, hates, anger, love etc. 2/ Writing is not separate from talk. It was invented as a way of preserving what we say (or count) and then developed into certain specialised forms of expression not often or usually expressed exactly that way in speech and conversation.

1/There's an educational theory like this: clever people have broken down a particular bit of knowledge into its constituent parts. In education we'll start with the smallest bits, we'll call them 'building blocks' (metaphor borrowed from mechanics) and 'work up' from there. 2/ There are several problems with this: a) what are being called 'constituent parts' may be disputed b) there may be 'parts' or 'processes' which are crucial but which may not have been included in 'constituent parts' and the pedagogic one c) (see next tweet)

I will try to tackle the untruths in this article in my tweets that follow:
thetimes.co.uk/article/how-we… 1. Gross oversimplification of 1950s methods and what replaced them eg the 'Beacon Readers' focused explicitly on phonics+meaning simultaneously (as described in the teachers' accompanying guide).

1/ Yesterday we opened a park in the village where my father’s uncle was arrested prior to being deported to Auschwitz 3. This building (now a bank) used to belong to a woman who rented a room to my father’s uncle. It was top left, and he was there the night of Jan 31 1944 when 4 gendarmes arrested him.

1/ "It is possible to install solar panels on schools, universities, and public buildings (indeed 56 Trusts across the country are currently working on it.
The issue is more about Capital Departmental Expenditure Limits (CDELs), which limit the capital budgets for Departments... 2/"...and codify the accounting rules for how that's considered. Solar pays for itself very quickly, but it does require an up-front capital investment.

The NHS is a particularly capital-constrained part of Government, and so often finds sourcing this capital quite challenging..

Make up sayings that sound terribly meaningful but in fact mean nothing:

Only the rain knows why it's raining.

#CodSayings The longest journey is long.
#codsayings

New game: "Cross-naming using a word (or words) from two titles and writing the new plot?"
(Let's call it 'CrossWorks')

What would the plot of the book be like if you crossed 'Lord of the Flies' with 'Lord of the Rings' ie 'Lord of the Flyrings' Or 'Lord of the Ringflies'. A Midsomer Night's Dream
(A nightmare in which Oberon finds out that Titania killed Bottom.)

The Mayor and me laying a wreath on the war memorial where my father’s uncle’s name has just been engraved, as it was here he was arrested prior to being deported to Auschwitz My father’s uncle’s name newly engraved on the memorial in the village where he was arrested.

How far back can you go where you can see today a dwelling where one of your ancestors lived? (I can’t go back further than great grandparents.) This house used to be multi-occupied (and still is, judging by the fact that one of the dustbins has the number 5 on it). It's where my great grandmother Betsy Brookstone (Bruchstein) 64 Filey Avenue, Stamford Hill, London.

This image comes from the 1871 census. Anyone be absolutely sure (no guesses please) what the name of this street is in Westgate, Newcastle? Ah there was an Alderman Hamond in Newcastle at that time....I just can't find a street of that name being mentioned in the 19th century...

Between 12 and 22 minutes on this video, the village council of Sainte Hermine (Vendée) discuss the upcoming inauguration of a municipal park in the name of my father's uncle who was arrested in the village and deported to Auschwitz.
facebook.com/watch/live/?re… One reason for doing this, the mayor says, arises from him observing his Lycée pupils saying things about the Second World War that are wrong.

@LucyWilliamson Hello Lucy. You said that during WW2 20k Jews were deported from France to concentration camps. It was 77k from which some 2.5k returned. My father's uncle and aunt were amongst those who did not come back. I hope it can be corrected before the repeat. Yad Vashem put the figure higher: "In total, approximately 80,000 Jews were deported from France during the war. 2,000 of them survived. Approximately 70,000 Jews were sent to Auschwitz, while the rest were sent to Majdanek, Sobibor, and a small number to Buchenwald."

Dear 'From our Correspondent' @BBCRadio4 . You said that 'more than 20,000 Jews' were deported from France to concentration camps. In fact more than 75,000 were deported to the camps, where about 72,500 were murdered. Please could you find a way of correcting this. @bbcfeedback

Patrick Vallance on the Life Scientific? Mar 13 2020 Vallance:
‘Our aim is to try and reduce the peak, broaden the peak, not suppress it completely; also because the vast majority of people get a mild illness, to build up some kind of herd immunity.’
@BBCRadio4

Far from the Maddening Crowd
#AnnoyedTitles The Whinge in the Willows

The French village where my father's uncle was arrested in Jan 1944, before being handed over to the Nazis, is going to commemorate him on May 8 by naming the local park after him: Parc Martin Rozen. Many of us in the family will be there. @YadVashemFr
@Shoah_Memorial
@Fondation_Shoah
@AuschwitzMuseum
@wienerlibrary
@UCL_Holocaust
@JewishRen
@JewishBookWeek
@WalkerBooksUK