YouSaid · the spoken record

Ed Kessler

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73
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2024-04-07
most recent
2024-04-07
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1
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podcast

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  1. “You start with what you have in common. You note that in the work you do, I want to get to know you. I mean, dialogue is very easy because I simply say, tell me your story and I shut up. Literally shut up. So the first thing is you get to know the other person and you can't go anywhere without that, whether it's knowledge, whether it's feeling, whatever it is, experiencing things together. But then you've got to go on to where do we differ and how do we manage that difference. And we haven't done that well enough. And it's remarkable how well we have done, but October the 7th and the invasion of Gaza and the war shows us how far we have yet to go”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Today's form of anti Semitism is often but not always about Israel and Zionism. There may be other tropes that hide behind it, but actually a lot of it is to do with Zionism and how we handle Zionism. And one of the failings of my world of interfaith, and one of the reasons why there's been such a calamitous reaction here between communities is we haven't dealt with the most obvious thing, which is how do you deal with difference? We're very good at building up relations where what we have in common, Jesus the Jew, sharing with Islam and vice versa. It's not one way, but we haven't really got to, we have to get to, is how do we deal with the most difficult issues? And it could be theological. I believe I'm saved and you're damned. You know, that's pretty profound. It could be to do with a piece of real estate the size of Wales.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Yeah, relatively small. They might have been very integrated, very German. I mean, it was Austrian, of course, very Austrian, right? Leopold Stadt, you know, you think about the contribution of choose to culture in Europe in that period before Hitler. They were very easy targets. And Jews couldn't believe what was going to happen. It's easy looking back on it, isn't it? They say that the optimists stay behind and the pessimists left”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “The irony is they were the communists and they were also controlling the world. They were godless. You know, you could choose whatever you want, right? And so what Hitler did, of course, was to find a scapegoat for the failure of the First World War and the scapegoat within their midst was there.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “You're right, we'll go there in a moment in terms of the difference of the rise of racism. It was late 19th century, it wasn't Hitler creation, Hitler exploited it. But in fact, the beginnings of modern 1970s actually go back to Spain, the Iberian Peninsula. So Jews who were forced to convert, as were some Muslims were forced to convert, they became new Christians. New Christians, not Christians. In other words, those Christians time either married old Christians, but they wouldn't marry the new Christians because they were deemed slightly different. And you have this whole history of what became known as Muranos or crypto-Jews, secret Jews, and Muslims as well became known as Morisco, right? And so they were already deemed as different as in the 16th, 17th century, let alone in the late 19th.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “They may not, but it's like a cloud, it's there. But what you're referring to is the modern complexion of anti-Semitism, which is the rise of anti-Semitism as a racism. Jews as what Hitler did, unter mention. Subhumans, and it entered society in those tropes, as you mentioned”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Struggled with that, you know, because much of my work is about turious non-Jewish relations. First of all, there is within us, all of us, an aspect where there is a dislike of somebody else. You know, we're not all perfect. So you have that within the human condition. Secondly, Judaism and Christianity, which are the bedrock, if you like, of Western culture. And obviously we've added Islam more recently in the last 150 years or so, but nevertheless, Christians identified themselves as not Jews. You know, we're not like you. You might have provided Jesus a Jew, but you fail to see that he was the Messiah. You didn't read your own scriptures properly.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “At school, you have comments made about being a Jew. Sometimes this anti-Semitism is so lightweight, you know, could be about comments about your wealth or your power, your authority. So it's the tropes. Yeah, the tropes, exactly. You mentioned October the 7th, and one of the shocking things is the 12-fold rise in reported incidents of anti-Semitism just in the last few months. And these vary from online anti-Semitic comments to physical abuse and so on. So anti-Semitism is dormant. It's always there as actually some form of racism and hatred is often there within our society, but it's very much come into Western culture.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “Arsenal supporters talked against first. Yes, yes, we still made Arsenal supporters for you pretty uncomfortable, right? Imagine, yeah.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “I was an Arsenal supporter, and Arsenal Totten Games were pretty unpleasant affairs in those days, and there was a lot of anti Semitic chanting. There was a lot of racist chanting full stop.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “Wrong, and you're right. So, on the one hand, Jews and Christians share the fact that Jesus was Jew, the first Christians were Jews, etc., etc. But the irony is, theologically, Muslims and Jews are much closer, the emphasis and the unity of God, the emphasis on the legal tradition, coming out of the Middle East, customs like food laws and things like that, circumcision of boys. You know, they're incredibly close. And in my conversations with Muslims around the world, of course, that's where we always begin. What do we have in common?”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “Because you would understand in the political world, there are certain truth claims that you have. You and Rory get on pretty well. I get on with Christians pretty well, but you differ over your allegiances, over your political truth claims, as do Jews and Christians. Jews don't think the Messiahs arrive. Don't think the world has changed in that way. Christians think he has and think he's going to come back.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “The irony is that Christianity is based around the Jew called Jesus. Jesus was born. He lived, he died a Jew. And his followers claimed him to be God or the Son of God. And that's what made Christianity begin to separate from Judaism, even though it was about Jewish things and the arguments in the New Testament are about things like food laws, circumcision, or whatever. But the belief in the life, death, and resurrection of Christ as something... Absolutely fundamental is what divides Jews and Christians.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “Yes, I have relations with the outside Orthodox community as well. They have interesting outreach programs. There are some similarities between the evangelical churches and the ultra-Orthodox communities that you wouldn't expect.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “So, the Jewish community in this country is about 300,000, and it's divided between, if you like, three different denominations. There are lots, of course, but let's put them into three, a bit like sort of Catholics, Protestants, and the Orthodox Have the Orthodox, you represent about 30%, and then you have the progressives, liberal and reform. In fact, they're going to become one movement in the coming year. And they also represent about 30%. And then you have ultra-Orthodox.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “The time, my great grandfather was a wood turner and he made umbrella handles, which was a fashion accessory in the 1880s, 1890s. And he said to one of his children, go to London because it rains a lot there. It would be good for business. As a result of that decision, they had an agent in London who got the whole family out. They lost the business because, of course, it was appropriated by Hitler and the regime. But they started up again in Stewington and moved further east. And now they're in East London. My mother was sponsored by a synagogue called the Liberal Jurist Synagogue. And we were brought up there in St. Johnswood. It was a schlep from Southgate. But they sponsored my mother out, so it was good enough reason.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “So, my father's family got out and had a business there, and the whole family got out and started up the business again in East London called Kessler's. It's now the Kessler group. I worked there for seven years.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “So I took a year off between school and university, worked, and then I went to Israel to work on a kibbutz before traveling around the Middle East. By the time I came back, I'd applied to study Hebrew. The Hebrew department had closed to new applications because of the cuts. So they put me in the Department of Theology and I ended up doing religious studies.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “Went to school in London, local primary school, then to a public school. Deeply unhappy at school, secondary school, and then went to university. And I ended up in this world, Rory, because of Maggie Thatcher.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “So, let me start with my parents who were both born in Vienna, came over as refugees. I'm presently chairing a commission on the integration of refugees, so the circle has come around. And I was very aware of that as a kid growing up in Southgate, North London, one of the most suburban and forgive me Southgators, but dull areas of the university. For any one thing, as far as I know, and that's Amy Winehouse. Went”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Will come an end, all war comes to an end of one type or another, and what we've got to start thinking about is the day after. It will end with some kind of resolution probably brokered by Qatar. There are all sorts of conversations going on at the moment. Rory said when I met him in Amman, that was specifically about Jerusalem. And there are lots of conversations about Jerusalem. In some ways, the map of the... Has been drawn already. It just takes the courage of leaders and a great deal else to enable there to be some kind of end resolution and moving forward.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “There are lots of reasons for Hamas attack, and you've discussed them in the program, the rest is politics. I don't think they thought about interfaith relations. I think they wanted to undermine whatever conversations that were going on between Israel and the Gulf states. What they call normalization. I think they wanted to undermine any conversations that were happening between the Israelis and Palestinians, though under this particular government that was in serious decline. But they just wanted to blow everything up, literally. And they've achieved that. And I think they suspected they'd get the response which they have, which is calamitous for everybody.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “It's been an absolutely calamitous period since October 7th, not simply because of the attacks in Israel, but the following war in Gaza, which is still ongoing, and the impact that it's had around the world. I've never known relations between faith communities, particularly as Rory said, Jews Christians and Muslims in this country to be as bad as they are. And that's a direct effect of struggling with probably the most difficult issue between us all, which is Israel-Palestine.”

    2024-04-07 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 68. Israel-Gaza: How the conflict divided Britain and the US, with Ed Kessler · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source