Another

 Yesterday Mrs N and I attended another talk (it was 'Enlighten' weekend in Lichfield, a series of events aimed at making us once again a 'city of philosophers'). The talk was by biographer and self-confessed journalist Anne Sebba, and the subject was her recent book, The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz. Unfortunately I hadn't noticed that, at some time after the programme for the weekend was printed, the time for this talk had been brought forward by half an hour, so we missed the first half. However, to judge by the second half, it was an excellent, if harrowing, talk, telling an extraordinary story, and telling it well. Towards the end, the chair (Nick Higham) invited questions from the floor. The first few were good, thoughtful questions – but then came one more, one that wasn't really a question at all. A youngish woman in the front row, who seemed to be in some mild emotional distress, wished to display her tender moral sensibility by 'wondering' if the Jews, having suffered the Holocaust, were now inflicting the same thing on the inhabitants of Gaza. Anne Sebba managed to stay cool and give an emollient diplomatic answer. Of course the last thing she wanted was to get drawn into contemporary Middle Eastern politics; she was there to talk about The Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz – the clue's in the title – but this, apparently, was of little interest to the woman in the front row, who had an agenda and a point (an irrelevant and historically illiterate point) to make, and that was far more important. It was a sad end to the occasion, and left a nasty taste in the mouth, especially on a day when the Green Party, in its wisdom, has declared that 'Zionism is racism', thereby positioning itself as the most antisemitic party since the National Front. Enough.