Kurdish supplementary school in Manchester, 2020 What current issues face UK language policy, who are the principal actors in UK language policy, and what drives policy making on language? These and other questions are on the agenda of a Roundtable Discussion on ‘Multilingualism, Identity and Ideology’ convened by Professor Ioanna Sitaridou at Queens' College, Cambridge … Continue reading UK language policy: Promoters, reformers, counterforces
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The ‘Genocide’ narrative and ritual vilification: South Africa’s discursive distortion, and Manchester’s complicity in anti-Jewish violence
On Yom Kippur, 2 October 2025, the United Kingdom was shocked by a murderous attack on worshippers at a synagogue in Manchester. Shocked, but not surprised – such was the reaction within the Jewish community. Anti-Jewish hate speech has gone hand in hand with the demonisation of Israel and of those associated with it. It … Continue reading The ‘Genocide’ narrative and ritual vilification: South Africa’s discursive distortion, and Manchester’s complicity in anti-Jewish violence
A storm broke the tea cup: Perspectives on the Gaza conflict
Gaza conflict, July 2025: Israeli protestors in Tel Aviv carrying images of Palestinian child victims and Palestinian protestors in Gaza carrying images of Israeli child victims (images from @HenMazzig) I recently attended a social gathering of international academics who get together occasionally to watch films. This time, the suggested piece was Gaza Sound Man. Promoted … Continue reading A storm broke the tea cup: Perspectives on the Gaza conflict
Antisemitism and the fight against racism. My thoughts on the Runnymede Trust report ‘Facing antisemitism: the struggle for safety and solidarity’
Left: Me in a playful mood exploring so-called 'pride in heritage'; Right: Great-grandfather Rabbi Meir Matras who escaped pogroms in the Jewish Pale of Settlement in present-day Ukraine. In January 2025 the Runnymede Trust published a short report entitled ‘Facing antisemitism: the struggle for safety and solidarity’, authored by members of the Birkbeck Institute for … Continue reading Antisemitism and the fight against racism. My thoughts on the Runnymede Trust report ‘Facing antisemitism: the struggle for safety and solidarity’
The story of Hugh, or: Why I’ve joined the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism
At the age of nineteen I left Israel to take up university studies in Germany. It was the early 1980s. Israel had launched a military offensive in southern Lebanon and the only way to avoid serving in the army was to leave. My grandmother, who was raised in the German-speaking principality of Danzig and had … Continue reading The story of Hugh, or: Why I’ve joined the London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism
Manchester connections, universal roots
My great-grandmother Pepi Bleich-Schwager arrived in Manchester, England in 1899 with her mother Chaje after leaving the town of Skalat in Austrian Galicia (now Ukraine). They travelled via Hamburg with a group of Jewish emigrants and found work as seamstresses in Manchester’s flourishing textile industry. Pepi met my great-grandfather, Moses (Morris) Margulies, of Brody in … Continue reading Manchester connections, universal roots
Yaron Matras 