Attitudes don’t change

The appalling comments of the Thai restaurant in Manchester when refusing to serve Jews must be protested (Restaurant lashes out at Jewish customer in row over request for pork dish substitution, thejc. com, 17 October).

Sadly it is another example of what goes around coming around. I had hoped that such attitudes, which were all too common in the 1930s, had long since gone.

It is ironic that just last weekend a large group drawn from the Leeds Jewish community, local historians and those such as myself who have contributed to Leeds Jewish history gathered to note the installation of a blue plaque to mark the residence of Professor Selig Brodetsky, the brilliant mathematician and defender of the Jewish community and identity.

On one of his early visits to Leeds in 1919 he and his two colleagues were refused service at a Leeds restaurant. Michael Sadler, the then ViceChancellor of the University of Leeds, heard of this incident and immediately invited Brodetsky to join the prestigious Leeds Luncheon Club in order to show him the better side of the City of Leeds. Alas, we must still be as vigilant.

Michael Meadowcroft Leeds