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Liam Neeson is a fine actor and, when given a good script is a man to admire. But when speaking for himself he can appear a clown. Once, after a friend of his was raped by a man with a dark skin, he says he wanted to murder any black person he met.
Some years ago, another fine Irish actor (or as she and I would have described her at the time -“Actress”) was interviewed in New York for an American TV station on events in the North of Ireland. Siobhan McKenna launched a diatribe against Jews, which showed an ignorance of their splendid record in Ireland, and of their huge numbers and influence in New York.
I have long been and still am an admirer of Maureen Lipman, whom I’ve seen on screen and stage in London, and do hope that she will remain there and continue to entertain us with her artistry. A few years ago she was talking of leaving her native England because of anti-Semitism. I am not convinced that anti-Semitism is as widespread, and virulent as paid-up, OR PAID FOR, Foes of Palestine claim and I am completely convinced that Jeremy Corbyn is not anti-Semitic.
I was Whitechapel for the 80th Anniversary of the Battle of Cable Street celebrating the solidarity of workers there which saw the routing of Sir Oswald Mosley’s Fascist Blackshirts, whose thugs had enjoyed Police protection when trying to intimidate its Jewish residents. Irish workers were prominent in the defence of their Jewish neighbours, remembering how they had fed the children of Irish dockers and matchstick workers during strikes. Jeremy Corbyn was on the platform, together with veterans of the 1936 battle. including one Dublin-born Jewish Communist. a former playmate of Chaim Herzog (later President of Israel). Chaim Herzog’s father was made Chief Rabbi of Ireland in 1919, when Eamon de Valera was elected President of the first Dail Eireann and supported the Republic against the onslaught of its British enemies. He was known as “the Sinn Fein Rabbi”. Th Cable Street commemoration was attended by representatives of The International Brigade’s Organisation, unlikely accomplices of anti-Semites
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