Palestinian No

V Dr Jonathan Myers (How Jews laid tracks for UK’s long journey to HS2, JC, February 14) omits some prominent Jews involved in building railways and running transport.

The best known Minister of Transport was Leslie HoreBelisha, from 1934 to 1937, who introduced the Belisha Beacon at zebra crossings.

Civil servant Mike Fuhr, a leading member of the Reading Hebrew Congregation, was awarded a CBE for his work in turning the nationwide train service Crossrail into a reality, and previously an OBE for his role in revitalising the High Speed 1 railway line.

Dr Myers mentioned Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid. His son, Sir Francis Goldsmid, MP for Reading, died in an accident, getting out of a railway carriage, at Waterloo Station in 1878.

Mark Drukker

Reading, Berkshire

V Thank you for the excellent article by Jonathan Myers. Just a few more points:

Isaac Lyon Goldsmid (later to be Baron da Goldsmid e da Palmeira, he, and he alone, in the Portuguese peerage) was a founder Director of the London and Brighton Railway opened in 1841. His younger son and third Baronet, Julian, had in fact two locomotives named after him, and a profile of the earlier one was on the cap badge of the locomotive drivers.

David Mocatta, son of Isaac’s business partner, also designed Brighton’s Grade II listed Devonshire Place Synagogue on the pediment of which there still reads “Jews Synagogue AM 5598”. There is a Blue Plaque on that building recording its design by this ‘Anglo-Jewish Architect’. And Mocatta is also remembered by Blue Plaques on Brighton Station and the superb Ouse Viaduct on the Brighton Main line just north of Haywards Heath, where he designed the balustrades and especially the iconic classical Pavilions, four at each end.

Sir David Lionel Salomans, Bart., only son of Philip Salomons, older brother of Sir David Salomons, Bart., the first Jewish Lord Mayor of the City of London, was an engineer, inventor, electrician, craftsman, architect, cinematographer and all round technical whiz kid! He invented a very early form of Track Circuiting (recording the presence of a train on the track by electrical means) and which was trialled on the Rothschild financed Chemin de Fer du Nord. A large scale model of a steam locomotive with his equipment fitted can be found at the Salomans Country House, Broomhills (now Salomans), near Tunbridge Wells. The estate is full of interest and the small museum there houses much Jewish memorabilia including material

from the United Synagogue and Board of Deputies, plus the very bench from the House of Commons from which Sir David spoke illegally on being elected an MP. It was given to Sir David by Benjamin Disraeli! Godfrey R Gould

Hon President, Sussex Branch, Jewish Historical Society of England.

V Jewish groups on the left from this country and elsewhere have slammed Trump’s peace plan (Liberal Jewish groups label Trump peace plan a ‘sham’, JC, February 14). However, and notwithstanding the merits or de-merits of this latest peace proposal, we must be aware of the context surrounding the Palestinian leadership’s reaction to such offers.

In 2000, for example, as part of the Oslo Process final-status negotiations, Arafat rejected Israeli PM Ehud Barak’s offer of the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank as well as in most of Gaza. At the close of the 2008 Annapolis conference, it was Mahmoud Abbas’s turn to reject an offer

by Israeli PM Ehud Olmert of a Palestinian state not only in most of the West Bank and Gaza, but with part of East Jerusalem to boot.

The reasons for what might be termed the Default Palestinian No are various and complex. But if nothing else, ‘no’ is certainly lucrative for some Palestinians: for the leadership, some of whom live well on plentiful funding from Western governments; and for families of ‘martyrs’, who receive monthly payments — the more murderous the act of terror against Israelis, the more money you receive — from a designated martyrs’ families fund.

Fostering an atmosphere of victimhood, fomenting hatred of Israel (not least through Palestinian school textbooks) and acts of terror, and unrealistically promising a return to ‘all occupied Palestinian lands’ pay Palestinian leaders better and more easily than accepting their own responsibility for at least some of the current hardships borne by ordinary Palestinians.

Mike Fligg

Leeds 17

V What characterises Judaism at its best? Is it underpinned by core tenets of morality and justice? Have we ‘conquered our transgressions?’ How can we thrive?

History tells us that societies with the greatest disenfranchisement have always ended in revolution. Have we as Jews attained the highest possible standards in each of these arenas when it comes to our relationship with the Palestinians? Or is it time to look again at how we frame this conversation?

From this perspective Melanie Phillip’s comment piece, ‘Don’t Fall For Bogus Claims of Islamophobia’ (JC, December 13) felt misleading, unhelpfully incendiary, and less factually rigourous than the gold standard.

For instance (“Islamophobia was invented by the Muslim Brotherhood (MB)).”

Yet basic research shows the term was invented by Frenchman Alain Quellien 25 odd years before the MB came into being.

Ms Phillips responded to

this point by saying she meant that the term was brought to the West by the MB.

In which case, she should have said so.

Real harm can be caused by imprecise use of language.

The most worrying issue with this piece, for me, however, is that making xenophobic remarks about “the other” while decrying “the other” for xenophobia, is untenable and we are surely better than this. (“Hatred in the Labour party directed at Israel…the Palestinians continually spew out medieval and Nazi-themed hatred.”)

Hypocrisy aside, racism is racism.

Can a race to the bottom be a worthy pastime for any reputable publication?

Surely fanning flames is less important than inspiring meaningful resolution?

In devising future discussions can we invoke the best of Judaism to help us face and address our relationship with the Palestinians in a way that honours rather than demeans who we are as Jews?

Gillian Mosely

Director, The Tinderbox

V In the eye of the coronavirus storm, maybe it’s time to rethink the ‘kiddush handshake’.

Wishing fellow congregants Shabbat Shalom at kiddish after the service is problematic, as anyone who has been on the receiving end of a sticky rugelach and fish ball handshake will no doubt agree.

Perhaps eating with one hand and greeting with the other would be an option, or better still, we could avoid all contact and adopt the Japanese tradition of just bowing to each other.

Kay Bagon

Radlett Herts