Editorials
Blog by Dr. Shimon Samuels published in The Times of Israel
10 February 2015
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/munich-to-munich-a-symbol-of-betrayal-or-warning/
The hash tag “Munich” evokes a key signpost to World War II. For the Jewish collective memory it symbolizes betrayal:
– September 1938, Neville Chamberlain’s kowtow to Hitler, brandishing his umbrella, justifying allied appeasement as “Peace in our time.” This was the prelude, less than two months later, to “Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) State pogrom that was to unleash the Holocaust. Munich 1938’s betrayal became synonymous with deletion from the map of the small democratic state of Czechoslovakia, as the appeasers fed the crocodile in order to be eaten last.
Read more: Munich to Munich: A Symbol of Betrayal or Warning
Blog by Dr. Shimon Samuels
published in The Jerusalem Post
13 June 2012
https://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-Ed-Contributors/Football-and-the-Jews
In my youth in England, football was not considered an appropriate pastime for a good Jewish boy.
Hence my passive appreciation of "the beautiful game" was platonic : "play" for the footballers, "tonic" for me.
The 8 June opening of the Euro 2012 championship in Warsaw was a personal epiphany.