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    To Buy Gilad's Music and Books

    Atzmon writes  on political matters, social issues,  Jewish identity and culture. His  papers are published on very many press outlets around the world.  Here is just a short list of his recent publications: World News, Press Tv, Rebelion, The Daily Telegraph, Uprooted Palestinians, Veterans Today, Palestine Telegraph, Counterpunch, Dissident Voice, Aljazeera Magazine,   Information Clearing House,   Middle-East-Online,   Palestine Chronicle, The People Voice, RedressShoa (The Palestinian Holocaust) , The Guardian, transcend and many more.

    Gilad Atzmon's New Book: The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics

    Jewish identity is tied up with some of the most difficult and contentious issues of today. The purpose in this book is to open many of these issues up for discussion. Since Israel defines itself openly as the ‘Jewish State’, we should ask what the notions of ’Judaism’, ‘Jewishness’, ‘Jewish culture’ and ‘Jewish ideology’ stand for. Gilad examines the tribal aspects embedded in Jewish secular discourse, both Zionist and anti Zionist; the ‘holocaust religion’; the meaning of ‘history’ and ‘time’ within the Jewish political discourse; the anti-Gentile ideologies entangled within different forms of secular Jewish political discourse and even within the Jewish left. He questions what it is that leads Diaspora Jews to identify themselves with Israel and affiliate with its politics. The devastating state of our world affairs raises an immediate demand for a conceptual shift in our intellectual and philosophical attitude towards politics, identity politics and history.

    The book is available on Amazon.com  or Amazon.co.uk

    Gilad Atzmon on HardTalk BBC Persia (english) from Gilad Atzmon on Vimeo.


    Monday
    Jun042012

    Celebrating Palestinian Resistance and Resilience

    By Eva  Bartlett & Ali Mallah 

    You may rob me of the last span of my land

    You may ditch my youth in prison holes

    Steel what my grandfather left me behind:

    Some furniture or clothes and jars,

    You may burn my poems and books

    You may feed your dog on my flesh

    You may impose a nightmare of your terror

    On my village

    Enemy of light

    I shall not compromise

    And to the end

    I shall fight....

    --Samih_al-Qasim

     

    With the passing of the 64th anniversary of the Nakba, (the establishment of the illegal Zionist state on the land and homes of Palestinians), should
    we mourn or celebrate? Professor Nurit Peled–Elhanan wrote of her mourning:

    “I will mourn on Nakba Day. I will mourn for vanished Palestine most of which I never knew. I will mourn for the holy land that is losing its humanity, its landscape, its beauty and its children on the altar of racism and evil. I will mourn for the Jewish youngsters who invade and desecrate the homes of families in Sheikh Jarrah, throw the inhabitants into the street, and then sing and dance in memory of Baruch Goldstein, the infamous murderer of Palestinian children, while the owners of the desecrated houses with their children and old people are sleeping in the rain, on the street, opposite their own homes. …All these things I will mourn on Nakba Day. I will join the millions of dispossessed, downtrodden and humiliated who have not given up on the future and who still believe there is a chance, who stand as witnesses and as firebrands of the true human spirit.…”

    For the last 64 years, Palestinian women, men, elderly, and youth have steadfastly and spiritedly resisted the occupation and the Zionist state. It is a resistance that continues flourishing among Palestinians from all walks of life both inside and outside Palestine, be they farmers, workers, students, poets, or intellectuals.

    Click to read more ...

    Saturday
    Jun022012

    Cartoon of the Day: God Save The Queen

    By Enzo Apicella

     

    Saturday
    Jun022012

    Stopped By Apartheid on the Way to Madonna's "Peace Concert" 

    The Amira Brothers of Ni'lin villege try to get to Madonna's "Peace Concert".The road is long, but they are determined. Through the apartheid wall, to the checkpoint' to the DCO's office, will they make it?

    Saturday
    Jun022012

    Hope not (Jewish) Racism

    The true reality of the 'Jews only State' . It isn't just the Palestinians. Segregation and ethnic cleansing are at the heart of Israeli and Zionist cultures. If we want to understand it all, we must elaborate on the real meaning of Jewish identity politics...

    Watch the Israeli mob celebrating their symptoms...

     

    The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics

    The book can be  ordered  on Amazon.com  or Amazon.co.uk

    Friday
    Jun012012

    The BDS Cultural Boycott and Integrity

    By Sarah Gillespie

    If we are ‘humanists’ we cannot be lured into suppressing or vandalizing art or ideas. 

    Collaborators

    Last week I went to see an excellent play at the National Theatre called The Collaborators by John Hodge. The play explored Josef Stalin’s unlikely admiration for dissident playwright Mikhail Bulgakov and the complex bond between art and ‘the State’. The play was a reminder that historically, even when culture has been puppeteered by an authority, unapproved and unintended meanings have a way of leaking out. Had the horror of Stalin’s Holodomor been contemporaneous today, we may well have been called upon to boycott the works of Bulgakov. This would do a great disservice, not only to the cannon of great literature, but also to the counter-revolutionary spirit evoked by Bulgakov’s work. I don’t claim that all art originating from criminal or repressive states, is loaded with subversive messages, but that art has the capacity to transcend the binary world of ‘placard politics’ (‘for’ this or ‘against’ that) and deliver the transforming might of pathos, spirit, sadness and beauty.

    Reflecting on this reinforced my reluctant opposition to the cultural and academic boycott of Israel and, in particular to the call by the BDS to sabotage or ban any mode of expression delivered by state-enforced Israeli artists, musicians and thinkers. While the motives of many activists speaking out against Israeli artists and intellectuals are well intended and heart-felt, any action that seeks to abolish freedom of expression or thought is not winning any prizes for tolerance. Jews had their books burnt by Nazis & Israelis continue this dubious tradition by banning writer Gunter Grass, composer Daniel Barenboim and academic Norman Finkelstein. Surely, if we are ‘humanists’ we cannot be lured into suppressing or vandalizing art or ideas.  If we do, we enter the supremacist domain of those we claim to oppose.

    Click to read more ...

    Thursday
    May312012

    Anthony Lawson: International Bureau of Double Standards (Must Watch)  

    Wednesday
    May302012

    Sarah Gillespie Quartet feat. Gilad Atzmon at Black Mountain Jazz 27/05/12  

    Sarah Gillespie Quartet feat. Gilad Atzmon at Black Mountain Jazz, Kings Arms, Abergavenny, 27/05/12

     Reviewed by: Ian Mann  Live Review

    The best Sarah Gillespie show I've yet seen, with the emphasis more firmly upon the singer.This was her most convincing and assured performance to date.

    Sarah Gillespie Quartet featuring Gilad Atzmon, Black Mountain Jazz, Kings Arms, Abergavenny, 27/05/2012.

    Tonight’s performance represented a very welcome return for singer/songwriter/guitarist Sarah Gillespie who last visited the club in January 2011 attracting one of the largest crowds seen at BMJ for some time. This evening’s event was less crammed but the attendance was still gratifyingly healthy with Gillespie and the quartet earning a warm reception for their distinctive music. This was the third time I’ve seen Gillespie appear live and for me this was her most convincing and assured performance to date.

    Gillespie seemed to emerge from nowhere in 2008 with her acclaimed début album “Stalking Juliet”, a stunning release that also featured the playing, arranging and production skills of multi instrumentalist Gilad Atzmon, a significant recording artist in his own right. This was followed by 2011’s “In The Current Climate”, another strong collection which cemented Gillespie’s reputation as a skilled and highly literate songwriter. Her current tour comes in the wake of the release of “The War On Trevor”, an EP containing a mini suite of four songs which has recently been reviewed elsewhere on this site.

    It’s something of a mystery to me that Gillespie is still only a “cult” artist. Her songs are excellent, she possesses a distinctive voice, striking good looks and fronts a characterful band of superb musicians but to date mainstream success seems have eluded her. Perhaps it’s because her songs are too wordy, too musically exotic and too politically uncompromising. Her tunes have great choruses but they’re a far cry from Coldplay’s anodyne stadium anthems, I guess the great British public just doesn’t like to be challenged too much. Their loss is my gain, one of the joys of being a fan of jazz or any other so called “minority” music is getting the opportunity to witness artists of this calibre performing in intimate situations such as a jazz or folk club. Whilst I wish Sarah every success there’s still a part of me that’s grateful that she’s still playing in venues like this. 

    Click to read more ...

    Tuesday
    May292012

    Ed, David and Glenn

    By Gilad Atzmon

    http://www.deliberation.info/

    A few days ago, in a New Statesman special Jewish edition article, Labour leader Ed Miliband explored his Jewish heritage.

    As expected, Ed Miliband confessed that his father, the Marxist historian Ralph Miliband, and his mother, Marion, “raised him to appreciate various aspects of his Jewish heritage. “

    But what is Jewish heritage for Ed Miliband, is it the Torah, the Ten Commandment or any particular ethical universal teaching? Not at all, Ed is not a religious Jew and is actually innocent enough to admit that  his “relationship with  Jewishness is complex.”  In fact, it amounts to a combination of suffering mixed with Woody Allen and matzo balls.

    On the one hand we follow the standard trail of Jewish anguish and trauma.

    “So how can my Jewishness not be part of me?” he says. “It defines how my family was treated. It explains why we came to Britain. I would not be leader of the Labour Party without the trauma of my family history.”

    But for Ed suffering is just part of the story, Ed’s Jewishness has some cultural elements in it too:

    “My mum got me into Woody Allen; my dad taught me Yiddish phrases, and my grandmother cooked me chicken soup and matzo balls.”

    Profound indeed.

    Young Miliband is also deeply immersed in Jewish ‘rituals’.  Like Zoey, Dictator Aladdeen’s Wife in Sacha Borat Cohen’s new Hasbara film, Justine, Ed’s new wife, also “broke a glass” under their wedding canopy.

    Click to read more ...

    Monday
    May282012

    The United Jewish Kingdom

    By Gilad Atzmon

    http://www.deliberation.info

    The Telegraph reported yesterday that “ministers have criticised Britain’s biggest exam board after pupils were asked to explain ‘why some people are prejudiced against Jews’ as part of a GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education).

    Apparently more than 1,000 teenagers are believed to have sat the religious studies test papers, which challenged pupils to assess the reasons behind anti-Semitism.

    The Assessment and Qualifications Alliance, which set the exam, rightly said that the question acknowledged that “some people hold prejudices” – they probably expected the students to examine the reasons that lead to anti Jewish feelings rather than simply justifying them.

    Michael Gove, the Education Secretary who is notorious for his pro Israeli stand and his intimate relationships with the Jewish lobby, has managed to produce a particularly lame statement that should disqualify him from any holding any position related to education.

    To suggest that anti-Semitism can ever be explained, rather than condemned, is insensitive and, frankly, bizarre,

    antisemitism

     

    Click to read more ...

    Monday
    May282012

    The First Jazz Review-“The Wandering Who?”

    http://www.thejazzmann.com/

    By Ian Mann -TheJazzMann

    GA: Ian is one of my favourite Jazz writers, I am delighted to see he liked my book and noticed the bebop in it.

    Book Review; Gilad Atzmon “The Wandering Who?”

    This book is a fascinating insight into what makes Atzmon tick. Yes, it's a polemic but it's a very insightful and entertaining one.

    Book Review

    Gilad Atzmon

    “The Wandering Who?”  (A Study of Jewish Identity Politics)

    (Zer0 Books)

    To jazz fans Gilad Atzmon is best known as a dynamic multi-instrumentalist playing saxophones, clarinets and accordion with equal brilliance. His music encompasses both jazz and middle eastern influences and from time to time he unleashes his rock and roll persona as a member of The Blockheads. Atzmon is one of the hardest working men in the music business, touring and recording constantly both with his own Orient House Ensemble and with singer/songwriter/guitarist Sarah Gillespie. He’s also an in demand producer and his involvement with any project is guaranteed to enhance the end result and grant it a certain frisson.

    Atzmon’s music is inextricably linked to his background. Born in Israel into an orthodox Jewish family Atzmon’s grandfather had been a Zionist terrorist in the aftermath of World War 2. The young Gilad was brought up to believe in the supremacy of the Jewish “race” but soon learned to question this notion, embarking on a course that was to lead to his eventual self imposed exile from the state of Israel and the writing of this book subtitled “A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics”.

    The book is a political argument and although little of the content is concerned directly with music the latter subject is still a significant factor in Atzmon’s life choices. He first began to question the values of his family and peers at the age of seventeen when he heard Charlie Parker on a late night jazz programme. “Bird With Strings” was literally the record that changed Atzmon’s life and he later paid homage to Parker with his own album “In Loving Memory Of America”(reviewed elsewhere on this site).

    Click to read more ...

    The wandering who- Gilad Atzmon

    GiladAtzmon on Google+