Women Born In The 1970s

"Through all those years Marcelle had confused Yoel with the imaginary heroes that her sad eyes cut out of the romances she read... and she realized that all through the past years she had merely travelled over the road map of the land of love, never in the land itself."

"Israel's collective consciousness, which was the cornerstone of the foundation of the Zionist state 53 years ago and which bound the immigrants from all parts of the world into a people, into a nation, is no longer our consciousness. This is the archaic, too idealistic outlook on life of our parents that arouses in us a concealed snigger at the Sabbath-eve family dinners. According to it, the individual has to sacrifice his own good, his freedom, his life, for the common good. This outlook has not succeeded in upgrading itself to a modern, sophisticated version."

"All the Rivers touched a raw nerve in Israeli society. The book tries to address the Jewish fear of losing our identity in the Middle East. And yet that very fear condemned it to official rejection. It was banned from the high-school curriculum on the grounds that “intimate relations between Jews and non-Jews threaten to subvert our distinct identity.” The Minister of Education, Naftali Bennett had claimed that I portrayed Israeli soldiers as sadistic criminals — even though he flatly denied reading the book — and now all the Israeli social networks, news sites and current-affairs programs were discussing All The Rivers."

"(What moves you most in a work of literature?) The joy and tragedy of the passage of time. Which is almost always what I’m trying to write about."

"(Which subjects do you wish more authors would write about?) I wish I could hear more about the details and peculiarities of characters’ jobs. Not a generically boring office job, but something terribly specific that we don’t normally get to hear about. I want to enjoy a novel and at the same time learn everything about eel fishing or asbestos removal or typewriter repair. And once in a while I want to read about people who like their work, people whose work isn’t a grind holding them back from self-actualization."

"[From a family of male doctors and female nurses, Clarke at first did not want to become a doctor] I worried that my main reason would be because I hero-worshipped my dad, wanted to make him proud. [As a journalist, Clarke] had massive impostor syndrome, always felt like I was faking it, trying to act tough."

"[Clarke was] caring for patients who are destined from the moment they come into hospital to never even see a human face again [...] Every face they see is masked."

"[Frail patients] went on to Covid wards, which was where I tended to work. Sometimes, six or eight patients on a ward would die in one day. The hideous, industrial scale of death after death after death – it was utterly horrific. And I say that as someone who is very used to death and dying."

"I arrive at work to find the atmosphere mutinous. The nurses in my hospital – as in every other – are exhausted, demoralised and often close to quitting. They take on gruelling extra shifts to make ends meet. They know they could earn more in the local supermarket. I look at my colleagues’ faces – so decent, so weary – and think: what a fatuous own goal, what vindictive idiocy. Who in their right mind would take nurses to court rather than persisting with diplomacy?"

"With NHS staff being forced to witness our patients dying in corridors, in cupboards, on floors and in stranded ambulances, we can only thank our lucky stars that the country's second most powerful politician is the man who last year published Zero: Eliminating Unnecessary Deaths in a Post-Pandemic NHS."

"[T]he ABC acronym used in traumas all over the world today arose from a particular light aircraft crash on a Nebraska prairie in the 1970s. James Styner, the American trauma surgeon who happened to be flying the plane, was horrified by the chaos, incompetence and dithering that nearly cost his four young children their lives in a tiny rural hospital. The acronym he developed is based on the principle that when someone is critically injured, time is of the essence. Airway, Breathing and Circulation problems must be fixed in that order, before moving on to the next thing, because they are most likely to kill the patient fastest. The genius of the acronym lies in its simplicity. It gives doctors, nurses and paramedics a scaffold to cling on to amid the shock and disarray of a major disaster, providing emergency treatment one logical step at a time."

"The morning after it happens, it is hard to believe the sun still shines. I am standing in the kitchen, staring out across fields of frost, when a wren darts and whirs through the hedge in front of me. Dad, in a flash, is there too. "Look, Rachel! A wren!" His heart, like mine, never failed to lift at this smallest and most jaunty of birds. But, the night before, cancer finally claimed my dad. The wrens will keep whirring, but he has gone."

"If [[w:Sally Davies (doctor)|[Sally] Davies]] really wants to bolster rock-bottom morale among juniors, she could publicly lobby the government to address the gaps that cripple every junior doctor rota. She could argue for proper hospital rest facilities so that never again does a junior doctor kill themselves while driving home from a night shift, having fallen asleep at the wheel. She could demand a public inquiry into the recent spate of junior doctor suicides, because no one’s conditions of work should ever make them feel suicidal, least of all those who save lives for a living. She could, in short, campaign for meaningful action, not a conveniently cost-neutral name change."

"This week, in response to the series, NHS England linked staff to a range of support services in a tweet [which follows]. The only problem? The dedicated NHS staff mental health and wellbeing hubs to which the tweet directed staff had their funding cut in early 2023. Almost half have since closed. I suppose they were judged too costly to maintain for NHS staff who were so evidently, from the outset, expendable."

"I enjoy the fact that every day brings a new challenge and a fresh opportunity for me to make a positive impact on our society through the flagship programme of This Morning."

"We believe in our cultures and values of Uganda and we do legislate for the population and the people in Uganda."

"With a lot of humility, I thank my colleagues the Members of Parliament for withstanding all the pressure from bullies and doomsday conspiracy theorists in the interest of our country."

"I call upon the East African Community to trouble-shoot the Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) that continue to breach the EAC Common Market Protocol and inhibit the integration process. These NTBs manifest through tax measures, quality and safety standards, import bans and customs and trade facilitation measures."

"Diversity isn’t just having a black person here and there. It’s about where they can have some kind of influence and power, and have a say in how things should run."

"When female media practitioners – who better understand the problems of women – take interest in highlighting the challenges of women in society, it would help in addressing same."

"You are right to believe in the goodness of people. Keep doing what you do; working hard, loving, laughing, forgiving and doing your bit might not change the whole world, but it will change you for the best."

"Every British Jew has their own family story – of emigration and immigration, of threats and losses, but also of community and belonging. My own family’s journey to the UK from Iraq via Israel – two places fatefully touched by the influence of empire – may explain my own lack of shock at the callous, divisive and biased treatment of minority communities by the British political class, Labour included. Remembering Britain's history is not an excuse for today's politicians, or a minimisation of the real and noxious racism that still permeates our society. But it should be a reminder that for many in Britain, the experience of racism is still the norm and not the exception."

"Israel has changed radically since the days of its Ashkenazi founding fathers and mothers but Shabi's important book is nonetheless a wake-up call to modern Israeli society. For a nation to be able to call itself a true democracy, all of its citizens must feel equally enabled and valued."

"Shabi contends that the need to show a united front against the common enemy has meant that Israel has taken a long time to confront this discrimination [against Mizrahi Jews] and develop the equal opportunities so familiar to us in modern Britain. What is more, she argues, consigning the Mizrahi Jews to a lower status than Ashkenazi Jews has resulted in a huge missed opportunity for improving Israel's relations with its neighbours."

"Omnipresent on our screens, the redoubtable Shabi is one of the few Corbyn supporting commentators to be taken seriously by the media. Thoughtful and fluent, she deserves her massive rise in this year’s list."

"Everyone can, hopefully, agree that a connection to Israel should not make British Jews a target for antisemitism, which spikes every time that tensions in the region escalate. We might also agree not to infer that anyone with a "connection" to Israel automatically supports the state's violent policies towards the Palestinian people. But from there on, things get murky. One can passionately disagree with a British Jewish person’s appraisal of the Gaza war as "self-defence", but not be motivated by anti-Jewish hatred. One can be distressed by the apocalyptic images coming out of the Palestinian strip and wonder how anyone might justify such horrors, yet not be fuelled by antisemitism. But the different motivations lying behind criticism have been terribly conflated amid a fearful Jewish minority and its established leadership."

"Proponents of the "smears" and #itwasascam narratives tend to see two oppositional camps: either you are a genuine socialist and sincerely committed to the Palestinian cause, or you are an anti-Corbyn liberal washout and advocate for Israel. This false dichotomy must be rejected outright."

"We might also add, to those defending the film on the grounds that it features several Jewish voices, that this is a terrible fig leaf. Would we apply the same logic to people of colour dismissing the legitimacy of claims of anti-Black racism or Islamophobia? One would hope not."

"[On Oh Jeremy Corbyn: The Big Lie] The film does make central an argument based on antisemitic conspiracy layered upon conspiracy. First, there is the idea that Jewish groups within Labour and in Britain are de facto pro-Israel fronts. Then, that such groups nefariously exerted outsized power – “orchestrating” the demise of a Labour leader, no less – and that Israel was pretty much behind all of this. Hence claims of Labour antisemitism were only ever false – indeed they are exclusively referred to as "smears" throughout the film’s narrative voiceover."

"She started writing jokes, in Hebrew, Arabic and English, trying to communicate the topics and ideas she had felt unable to broach within the confines of the peace industry. "You start with open mic slots, you bomb, you fall on your face a million times, you sharpen your material,” she says. But there was a receptive audience for a half-Iranian Israeli woman cracking jokes about the absurdities and injustices of Israel's decades-long military occupation."

"[[w:Noam Shuster-Eliassi|[Noam] Shuster]] worked with a women's health organisation in Rwanda before becoming a co-director of the Israel programme at Interpeace, a peacebuilding organisation set up by the UN. Shuster concentrated on a project working with Jewish settlers, the ultra-Orthodox and other groups either resistant to or excluded from standard peace camp initiatives. For Shuster, reaching out to such communities was a key part of conflict resolution, but the UN disbanded the project in 2017."

"But Mr. Johnson had set a terrible example at work, breezily claiming he'd shaken hands with Covid-19 patients, crowding into Parliament and undermining health messages with his joshing delivery. Meanwhile, dozens of doctors and nurses were dying of the virus, among them several of the thousands who had answered the government call to come out of retirement to work in the N.H.S. during the pandemic. Reports emerged of staff members "bullied and shamed" into treating Covid-19 patients without the equipment needed to protect themselves, which the World Health Organization had warned in early February would be needed in vast supply."

"[Following Boris Johnson's three days in intensive care with Covid-19 in spring 2020] A national leader in critical condition is an unsettling jolt, especially in the midst of an anxiety-drenched pandemic. But in Britain’s news media, the prime minister’s condition seemed to crowd out concern for others, and the exaltations of Mr. Johnson dampened scrutiny of his government’s failures."

"Whatever your views on Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – and there are many – [[George Galloway|[George] Galloway]]'s move is plainly an own goal (assuming his goal is to support Palestinians, rather than generate publicity for himself). One reason that many left-leaning Jews don't join the BDS movement is precisely because the boycott is perceived to be about rage against people, rather than an effective political tool. What's the best way to cement that belief? Announce you're avoiding Israelis as part of your commitment to BDS. Cue a flood of "told you sos" from those who say its all about punishing Israelis just for being who they are."

"I come from a society where the default is conformity. I don’t know how to conform and I find myself putting question marks against everything"

"[T]his is the manifesto of Sunset Boulevard and all its awful children. The female star, with her autonomous gifts, is just too threatening to be admired. She must, instead, be pitied, and turned into a cautionary tale for girls: her success is itself a failure, because it is the root of her tragedy. In lesser hands than Wilder's, the message is a call for women to stay mundane: from cinema's most self-hating, and desolate, franchise."

"When I was young, being female was not something to enjoy, but to navigate carefully: there was always a terrible jeopardy in it. When I look back on the mild workplace assaults and the insinuations — so long ago I feel they were directed at a different woman — what strikes me most is how little they had to do with sex. I don't think men who harass women at work want sex: at least not principally. It is a function of inadequacy and the dominion that masks it: putting you on your knees, where you belong."

"Notting Hill is two cities with two kinds of stories, the dreamlike and the deadly. One Notting Hill contains residents who paid more capital gains tax than three major British cities in 2020; in the other, looms Grenfell Tower, swaddled in rippling tarpaulin. These two depend on each other, because you only need a dreamworld if reality is unjust. Nowhere else in London is so polarised, or practices self-worship like this."

"I've long thought that monarchy allows us to imagine our kingdom – our national story – as more interesting and singular than it is. Monarchy is attractive but necrotic: it looks backwards by nature. If there was an opportunity for dynamic monarchy – the Norman lawmakers, perhaps, or the Tudor propagandists – we haven't taken it. The instruments of monarchy are imperial, and in daylight they look increasingly odd and piteous. It's a truism of addiction – and many are addicted to monarchy – that the larger your fantasy life, the smaller your real one."

"Holocaust Memorial Day is 24 hours of shame, but not in the way you think. It was designed to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, and it falls on the day that Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by Soviet forces: January 27, in 1945. This is tragedy enough for the Jewish people, you might think, but HMD — I don't mind giving it an acronym, it deserves one — has changed. It is now an annual festival for the abuse of living Jewish people and the denial of our loss, and we brace ourselves for the memory of the past, and the cruelty of the present. This was the worst year yet."

"It's a truism that every wretch in the village is a king on the day of the pogrom because he is not a Jew. And here is his book."

"His conclusion is darkly hilarious. Corbynism failed because he was not brave enough to defy the cabal: the people needed more antisemitism, and Corbyn denied them."

"[In the book under review] When left-wing activists — Momentum, for instance? — organise, it is righteous, but when "Zionists" organise, it is sinister."

"I now know my generation of Jews is the luckiest in modern history. I never saw antisemitism in my youth. I know that others did. OK, a boy at my school shouted, "Jew" at me once, but I knew it was lust. Likewise, a boy at my college – a devout Christian – also shouted "Jew" at me once, but I think his DNA test would come up 25 per cent Ashkenazi Jewish at least, and we both knew it."

"I read social media all week, and it is a maelstrom. One man says he laughed on a visit to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Another says the Final Solution wasn't final enough. Yet another says the world is run "mostly" for the benefit of Jews. I'm called a genocidaire, immune to non-Jewish suffering. I present my credentials – a Liberal Zionist, in favour of two states – which are dismissed, since, to some, all Zionists exist in a state of pre-murder. The most sympathetic people are religious Christians, which initially confuses me: I am contrite, and grateful to them. I am not grateful for "allies" who use Jews to pursue their vendetta against Muslims – and if you mention European anti-Semitism, they insult you and withdraw, for you have disappointed them."

"I am afraid now, though it is hard to write about fear because fear is formless and because it offends my pride. I have heard the silence of my non-Jewish friends with horror because they, apparently progressives, should know better. I can't write more, for maybe one day I may want to speak to them again."

"Still, on he goes, glibly, hearing nothing he does not want to hear, and seeing nothing he does not want to see: a god in tiny rooms."

"[T]he Corbynites, who live on fantasies and conspiracies, can convince themselves of anything except their complicity in their own failure."

"Truss did not fall: it is worse than that. Rather, and obediently, she shattered."

"I met [[Liz Truss|[Liz] Truss]] at university, long before she entered real politics, and she mirrors and watches, as if trying to learn a new language. That is why she is stilted and ethereal: that is why she cannot speak easily or from the heart."