You want to argue about it? Course you do

JEREMY CORBYN did achieve one remarkable feat over the course of his election campaign. Not the one he and John McDonnell selfdeludingly claim to have achieved in “losing the election but winning the argument”, which is rather like an athlete being lapped in a 1500-metre race but claiming to have “won” the lonely last circuit of the track, while the other runners were having their photographs taken and waving to their friends in the crowd.

No, the feat that the MP for Islington North actually achieved was indeed remarkable, something that has eluded many people over the centuries, from Jesus of Nazareth to Topol. He has united the Jews — or at least those who live within the British electorate.

Since Corbyn allowed the Labour Party to become a haven for antisemites, British Jews — left, right and centre; orthodox, progressive and secular — have closed ranks in opposition to The Opposition. And, since the general election, we’ve all been agreeing with one another, smiling at former adversaries and laughing at each other’s jokes.

A very high percentage of Jews in the UK, wherever their hearts traditionally lay on the political spectrum, can now paraphrase Messrs Corbyn and McDonnell, but in a way that makes sense: “We won the argument, and so we won the election.” Or, perhaps more reasonably: “We won the argument, and so helped defeat the current, racisttolerant Labour leadership.”

This happy harmony cannot last, of course. Jews need to argue. With each other. Argument is part of the stuff of Jewish life.

We can speculate on what Freud meant by the “very essence” of Jewishness, having eliminated Judaism along with all other forms of religion, and Zionism with all manifestations of nationalism, but we can be sure that one “essentially Jewish” element would be argument (I would definitely argue that it is).

The brilliant, and very Jewish writer, Howard Jacobson, has pointed out the importance of the word “but” in Jewish discourse. It is a little conversational dart lying in wait for when a speaker is in full flow.

Whether court room or common room, that word, “but”, is the classicus interruptus of many a would-be philosophical conception, ranging from talmudic dispute to the Broadway stage:

“Mindy’s cheesecake is the greatest alive”… but… although you might disagree, many people prefer Mindy’s strudel.” This crucial argument, at the heart of the great musical, Guys and Dolls, is quintessentially Jewish. It is the subject of a bet, it has two passionate and opposing schools of thought — and it’s about food.

And while argument can be intellectually stimulating, challenge conventional wisdom, address complex ideas and advance different but equally educated opinions or firmly held moral beliefs, it doesn’t have to be any of these things in order to keep two Jews, and any number of kibitzers, loudly, and sometimes flamboyantly, engaged. Two Jews, three opinions,” as the saying has it.

It doesn’t have to be structured along the lines of an Oxford Union debate. It doesn’t even have to be intelligent. And it can often be funny.

In Woody Allen’s funniest — and most Jewish — comedy, Radio Days, his narrator (Allen himself), recalls his childhood with two pathologically argumentative parents: “two people who could find an argument in any subject” as the soundtrack puts it. Right on cue, the young boy’s father (played by Michael Tucker), enters a room where his wife (Julie Kavner) is sitting. “Wait,” he says to her, affronted, “are you telling me you think the Atlantic is a better ocean than the Pacific?”

“No,” she replies with weary, Jewish sarcasm. “Have it your way. The Pacific is greater.”

In the same film, Josh Mostel and Larry David act out a visceral argument on the subject of atonement. This takes place on Yom Kippur itself, giving it a wildly ironic context, into which is inserted a brief, hilarious, visual item about a prim and gossipy neighbour, Mrs Silverman (look it up).

But, whatever the issue or subject, Jews unfailingly find argument enlivening — even to the point of invoking death: “From now on, that fashtinkener brother of mine is dead to me!”

There’s nothing like a Jewish falling-out, particularly when it happens, as it most commonly does, within families. And especially when it is spiced up with the odd, full-blooded, Yiddish curse — “May all your teeth fall out except one, and may that one give you toothache.”

While the cracks in Jeremy Corbyn’s amazing achievement are already showing, it has at least revealed the power of Kol Yisrael chaverim. And you can’t argue with that. Or maybe you can.

Gerald Jacobs is the JC’s literary editor

This happy harmony cannot last. Jews need to argue. With each other.