I'm Jonathan Sacerdoti

For a thousand years Jews lived under Islamic rule. Professor Paul B. Fenton has spent his career reading what the documents from those centuries actually say.
Was there ever a golden age in which Jews and Muslims lived as equals? Professor Fenton argues that the flowering of Jewish philosophy, poetry and science under Islam was real — but that it was a Jewish achievement rather than a shared society, and that it happened in spite of the conditions Jews lived under, not because of them.
Fenton, a scholar of Hebrew and Arabic who spent much of his career at the Sorbonne and wrote 'Exile in the Maghreb: A Thousand Years of Jewish Experience Under Islam', joins Jonathan Sacerdoti in Tel Aviv to discuss the status of the dhimmi, the jizya and the lead seal a Jew had to wear at his neck as a receipt, the forced conversions of Mashhad, and why he believes the Islamic cruelty the world saw on October 7 has roots far older than Zionism. He also explains the debt he believes Judaism owes to Islamic civilisation — and why he thinks Europe has already missed its chance.

👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand what a thousand years of documents say about Jewish life under Islam — and why a scholar of both traditions believes no reconciliation is possible until that history is acknowledged.

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We discuss:

📜 Why Muhammad courted the Jews of Medina — and what happened when they refused him
🕌 The verse of the sword – what does the Quran really say about Jews and Christians?
🛡️ Dhimmi: why “protected people” is a mistranslation, and protected from whom
📋 The conditions of Umar — Jews deprived of weapons, horses, even blowing the shofar in public
💰 The jizya, the lead seal worn at the neck as a receipt, and what befell those who could not pay
🏘️ Life in the mellah: separate quarters, distinctive dress, danger beyond the walls
✨ Al-Andalus reconsidered — a Jewish golden age inside a society that was not golden
📚 Why Maimonides outwardly converted to Islam and fled Spain
☪️ Sunni and Shia attitudes to Jews, and the doctrine of ritual uncleanness
🇮🇷 Why Jerusalem had almost no standing in traditional Shia Islam before Khomeini
🔥 How an anti-colonial movement in Qom became the theology of the Iranian regime
🎥 What Jews still living in Iran can and cannot say on camera
⚔️ Razzia and Gaza: how Europe's riots are linked to Palestinians and Islam
🙏 Why Islam can have no Vatican II, and what blocks the Abraham Accords
🎼 The debt Judaism owes Islamic civilisation — Saadia Gaon, Baghdad and Jewish music
🇪🇺 “There could have been a European Islam” — what, how and i it too late?

🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, antisemitism, politics, terrorism and the defence of Western democratic values.

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She grew up in the Soviet Union. Now she hears its propaganda repeated in the West — by people who think they are fighting for justice.
Why does so much of today’s anti-Israel rhetoric sound familiar to someone raised behind the Iron Curtain? Izabella Tabarovsky argues that Soviet antizionism outlived the regime that promoted it — and that its language is shaping how a new generation thinks about Israel, Jews and the West.
Tabarovsky, a writer and researcher of Soviet antizionism and contemporary antisemitism, joins Jonathan Sacerdoti to discuss life under communism, the export of Soviet propaganda and the dangers of romanticising a system millions wanted to escape. Drawing on her own experience and her book, Be a Refusenik: A Jewish Student Survival Guide, she explains how demonising Zionism affected ordinary Jews — and why she recognises disturbing echoes today.

👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand the Soviet roots of modern anti-Zionism — and why someone who lived under communism believes a free society can teach its citizens to silence themselves.

💬 We Discuss:☭ Growing up in the USSR: shortages, censorship and stifled ambition
🛒 Socialism’s renewed appeal and the promises of Zohran Mamdani
✡️ How Soviet anti-Zionism put ordinary Jews under suspicion
🇮🇱 Why Israel’s victory in 1967 triggered a new propaganda offensive
🌍 How the USSR spread its message through political movements, diplomacy and the UN
🎓 Soviet influence and the changing language of the Western left
📚 Why young people learn about Nazism but know so little about communism
💔 “The left has left and it’s not coming back”
🤝 Do Jews have more allies than they realise
📱 Social media, foreign influence and the exploitation of division
💰 Antisemitism as a route to attention, followers and money
🤐 How social and professional pressure can silence dissent
👏 The fear of being the first person to stop applauding
🗣️ Compelled speech, online mobs and the demand to prove your virtue
✊ What Soviet Jewish refuseniks can teach a new generation
📖 How to preserve your independence of mind when the crowd demands conformity

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One of Netanyahu's closest advisors speaks frankly about Israel – past, present and future – and what it means to be a Jew in the 21st Century.

Why is Israel increasingly condemned abroad even as it transforms the Middle East and demonstrates its military and technological strength? Caroline Glick calls it a “diplomatic October 7” — and argues that Israel cannot make its survival dependent on international approval.

Glick, Benjamin Netanyahu’s international affairs adviser and a longtime journalist and author, joins Jonathan Sacerdoti to discuss Israel’s war, its growing diplomatic isolation and the resurgence of antisemitism across the political spectrum. She explains why she believes October 7 exposed both the dangers of Jewish vulnerability and the failure of assumptions that had shaped Israeli policy for decades.

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👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand how one of Netanyahu’s closest advisers sees Israel’s future — and hear her challenged on leadership, accountability and the lessons of October 7.💬

We Discuss:

🇮🇱 Israel’s resilience, economic performance and changing regional position

🌍 The “diplomatic October 7”

✡️ Why antisemitism surged after the massacre of Jews

🇬🇧 British sanctions and Europe’s relationship with Israel

🏠 Why all Israelis are 'settlers'

🛡️ The strategic case for Israeli control of the territory

🇵🇸 Rejecting the two-state solution

🗺️ Her proposal for Palestinian autonomy under Israeli sovereignty

👤 What the world misunderstands about Netanyahu

⚔️ Iran, Israeli military capabilities and Netanyahu’s willingness to act

❓ Netanyahu’s responsibility for the failures before October 7

⚖️ The dispute over a national commission of inquiry

🤝 How alliances between progressives and Islamists work

📚 Holocaust education and antisemitism beyond Nazism

🇺🇸 The history of discrimination against American Jews

🎭 Jewish humour and the power of political satire

🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, antisemitism, politics, terrorism and the defence of Western democratic values.

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What happens when a BBC journalist challenges his own organisation’s coverage of Hamas, Israel and October 7? After 22 years at BBC Radio Lancashire, Sean McGinty lost his job. He tells Jonathan Sacerdoti why he spoke out, what he believes his dismissal reveals about the broadcaster, and why he still hopes the institution he loved can be saved.

McGinty describes the private email he sent to presenter Nihal Arthanayake after a social media post recommending “context” for the October 7 attacks. He explains why it appalled him, how his criticism of BBC journalism extended to transgender coverage and cuts to local radio, and what happened as his relationship with management deteriorated.

Having recently lost his employment tribunal case, McGinty gives his account of the disciplinary process, his struggles with mental health and the isolation he says he experienced among former colleagues. He questions whether the BBC applies its standards equally to local journalists and its biggest stars, discussing Gary Lineker, Huw Edwards and the limits of speaking freely inside the organisation.

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👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand why a journalist who devoted 22 years to the BBC believes it has lost its way — and what he says happens to those who challenge it from within.

📧 The private email challenging Nihal Arthanayake’s response to October 7
📰 Why the BBC’s language about Hamas matters
🇮🇱 How McGinty reacted to the attacks on Israel
⚖️ His dismissal, employment tribunal and allegations of unequal treatment
🧠 Mental health, workplace isolation and the human cost of his dispute
🤐 Self-censorship and the consequences of questioning editorial decisions
📺 Gary Lineker, Huw Edwards and the treatment of the BBC’s biggest names
✡️ Allegations of antisemitism and failures in the BBC’s Israel coverage
🏥 Reporting of the Gaza hospital explosion and accountability for mistakes
🎥 The controversy over the BBC’s Gaza documentary
🏳️‍⚧️ Transgender coverage, safeguarding and the WPATH files
🗳️ Brexit, Blackpool and the voices McGinty says went unheard
📻 Cuts to local radio and the communities left behind
📱 How chasing social media numbers changes journalism
🇬🇧 Whether the BBC can regain public trust

🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, antisemitism, politics, journalism and the defence of Western democratic values.

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To donate to Meir Panim: http://meirpanim.org/rise-for-israelAs Britain introduces sanctions on Israel, Rabbi Leo Dee asks if British taxpayers should be funding the families of terrorists who murdered British citizens? And when Britain threatens sanctions against Jews living in the West Bank, who will actually suffer – Israeli settlers, Palestinian workers, or Britain itself?Rabbi Leo Dee’s wife Lucy and daughters Maia and Rina were murdered by Hamas terrorists in 2023. He speaks to Jonathan Sacerdoti about how that tragedy thrust him into public life, his confrontation with the British Foreign Office and the extraordinary paradox he discovered: while his own family was ineligible for British compensation, UK money was helping to support the families of Palestinian terrorists.Dee, a British-born rabbi and former private-equity investor who lives in Efrat, challenges the conventional account of Israeli settlements, Palestinian violence and the two-state solution. He describes his relationships with Palestinian neighbours and workers, explains why he calls himself a “resettler” in Judea and Samaria, and proposes an alternative peace plan based on autonomous Palestinian city-states protected by Israel.This wide-ranging discussion also examines Edward Miliband’s proposed sanctions, accusations of settler violence, Britain’s increasingly hostile climate for Jews and Israel’s growing economic and technological strength. Dee argues that Israel can no longer be treated as a dependent nation: its cyber security, defence systems, water technology and rapidly expanding start-up economy have made it increasingly difficult for other countries to boycott.Subscribe for more interviews: https://www.youtube.com/@MrJonsac?sub...If you value my work, please donate: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support/👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand why Rabbi Leo Dee believes Britain’s policy towards Israel punishes Jews, harms Palestinians and keeps alive a peace process that has already failed.💬 We Discuss:🇬🇧 How the British Foreign Office responded to the murder of three British-Israeli women💷 Why British money may support the families of Palestinian terrorists⚖️ The compensation denied to British victims of terrorism abroad🏠 What it means to live as a Jewish “settler” in Judea and Samaria📖 Why Rabbi Dee describes himself as a “resettler”🤝 Everyday coexistence between Israelis and Palestinians in Efrat🇵🇸 Why the Palestinians repeatedly rejected one-state and two-state proposals🏙️ Rabbi Dee’s alternative plan for autonomous Palestinian city-states🗺️ The controversy surrounding Israel’s E1 development plans🪨 How Israeli settlements are built around existing Palestinian towns and farmland📰 Claims of “settler terrorism” and the international media’s focus on Israel🛡️ Whether Israel is doing enough to prosecute violence by Jewish extremists✡️ Antisemitism in Britain and the possible decline of British Jewish life🚀 Why Israel’s start-up economy may emerge stronger from war🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, antisemitism, politics, terrorism and the defence of Western democratic values.📲 Follow JonathanOn X: https://x.com/jonsacOn Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jonathansac...On Substack: https://jonsac.substack.com👇 Comment below — are Britain’s proposed sanctions a principled response to settler violence, or collective punishment driven by political calculation?

Across Britain, thousands of supposedly “multi-faith” prayer rooms have appeared in airports, hospitals, schools, offices, museums and shopping centres. But have you ever been in one?They are presented as neutral spaces open to everyone – so who actually uses them? Are they genuinely shared places of worship, or has Britain quietly created a vast network of unofficial mosques while avoiding an honest conversation about religion, Islam and the decline of Christianity?

Dr Andrew Crompton, former Head of the Liverpool School of Architecture, speaks to Jonathan Sacerdoti about the strange architecture and hidden meaning of Britain’s multi-faith spaces. Crompton argues that attempts to remove every recognisable religious symbol do not create true neutrality. Instead, the arrangement of furniture, prayer mats, washing facilities and segregated areas often reveals which faith the room primarily serves.

This wide-ranging discussion looks at why Britain has become embarrassed by public prayer, how Islam has been generously, but often unconsciously, accommodated, and what these anonymous rooms reveal about the country’s changing religious identity. We also examine the tensions between religious practice, secular institutions, sex equality and personal freedom, and ask whether Britain’s reluctance to speak frankly has produced a solution that satisfies nobody.

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👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand how multi-faith prayer rooms spread across Britain, and why their true purpose is rarely discussed openly.

We discuss:

🕌 Why many multi-faith rooms function primarily as Islamic prayer spaces
🇬🇧 What these rooms reveal about Britain’s changing religious identity
✝️ Why Christian symbols have largely disappeared from shared prayer spaces
🛫 How Heathrow came to have 39 'mosques'
🏥 Why prayer spaces have spread through hospitals, schools, offices and airports
🚿 How prayer mats and ritual-washing facilities can transform a neutral room into a mosque
⚖️ Is there a legal obligation to make a prayer room?
🙏 Is Britain embarrassed by prayer and religion?
🚪 Putting religion “in the closet”
👩‍🦰 Sex-segregated worship and equality in the workplace
🏫 Prayer rooms in schools and religious pressures
🔮 What today’s prayer rooms tell us about Britain’s religious future

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🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, society, religion, politics and the defence of Western democratic values.

Israel and the Jewish people are facing a dramatic collapse in their standing across much of the world. Israel is increasingly portrayed not merely as a country whose policies should be criticised, but as the embodiment of absolute evil: accused of genocide, colonialism and apartheid, while the legitimacy of Jewish collective existence itself is challenged. Is this simply the latest eruption of an ancient antisemitism? Or has something deeper changed in Western society that has made hostility towards Israel increasingly respectable?

Dan Schueftan speaks to Jonathan Sacerdoti, arguing that the central conflict is between the worldview increasingly dominant in Western institutions and the reality in which Israel has to survive. While much of the West has grown suspicious of nationalism, military force and even the idea that nations must defend themselves, Israelis have drawn almost the opposite conclusions from Yom Kippur, the Second Intifada and October 7. Israel cannot afford, he argues, to adopt fashionable Western assumptions about war, national identity and security when its enemies still pose an existential threat. The result is a country increasingly at odds with the political and cultural zeitgeist of the societies whose approval it once sought.

Dan Shchueftan joins Jonathan Sacerdoti for a wide-ranging discussion about why Israel has become such a fixation of Western politics, whether Jewish life in Europe and America has a future, and why the moderate right may now offer Jews an alliance once associated with the liberal left.

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👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand why hostility towards Israel has exploded across the West – and why antisemitism alone cannot explain it.

💬 We Discuss:

🇮🇱 Why Israel has become increasingly isolated from the Western political and cultural mainstream

🌍 The clash between Israel's survival instincts and the modern Western zeitgeist

🕊️ Why Western attitudes towards war and military force changed so dramatically

⚔️ What October 7 taught Israelis about deterrence, prevention and the use of force

🎓 How progressivism transformed universities, human rights activism and attitudes towards Israel

🇵🇸 Why Israelis largely reject Western guilt over the Palestinians

✡️ Is today's explosion of anti-Israel sentiment fundamentally about antisemitism?

🩸 How the ancient blood libel has been repackaged for the modern age

📰 Why Schueftan believes Western media helps legitimise some of the oldest accusations against Jews

🔄 How antisemitism can simultaneously serve radically different political movements

🤝 Why parts of the Western left and the developing world have found common cause against Israel

🌐 What international institutions reveal about the changing global order

🇪🇺 Why Schueftan believes Jewish life in Europe faces a profound crisis

🇺🇸 Could American Jewish life be heading in the same direction?

🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, Judaism, antisemitism, Islam, geopolitics and the defence of Western democratic values.

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👇 Comment below — is today's hostility towards Israel primarily a new form of antisemitism, or the result of a much deeper ideological shift in the West?

Two ancient Jewish practices are increasingly being challenged in modern Britain and Europe: kosher slaughter and the circumcision of baby boys. Both can appear troubling to outsiders. Both raise legitimate questions about animal welfare, bodily autonomy and religious freedom. And both have a long history of becoming political battlegrounds over whether Jews can continue to live according to their traditions in European society.

The debate over kosher slaughter has become entangled with a much larger argument about halal meat, Islam and immigration. Yet kosher production represents a tiny proportion of British slaughter, while vast amounts of halal meat enters the general food supply every day. When politicians demand bans on religious slaughter, are they really arguing about animal welfare, or about the religious communities themselves?

Circumcision presents an equally difficult collision between ancient faith and modern values. Brit Milah remains fundamental to Jewish identity even among many Jews who are otherwise not particularly observant. But should parents have the right permanently to alter the body of an eight-day-old child for religious reasons? Shimon Cohen, director of Shechita UK and an advocate for religious freedom at the Conference of European Rabbis, joins me for a frank discussion about two practices at the heart of Jewish life – and why defending them requires answering the difficult questions rather than avoiding them.

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👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand why kosher slaughter and circumcision have become political battlegrounds – and what banning them would mean for Jewish life in Britain and Europe.

💬 We Discuss:

🔪 What actually happens during kosher slaughter – and whether stunning really is more humane

🐄 Why mechanical stunning was never about animal welfare

🧪 The scientific argument over how quickly an animal loses consciousness during shechita

🇨🇭 The disturbing history of European bans on kosher slaughter

☪️ Why the explosion of halal meat has dragged Jewish practices into a much wider political fight

🥩 The difference between kosher, stunned halal and non-stunned halal meat

🏫 Are you unknowingly eating halal meat in restaurants, schools and other institutions?

🏷️ Does food labelling may make more sense than banning religious slaughter?

👶 What actually happens during brit milah and why circumcision remains so important to Jewish identity

⚖️ Where parental rights, bodily autonomy and freedom of religion collide

🩺 Why a mohel does not necessarily need to be a doctor – and how the practice is regulated

🚫 Why male circumcision and FGM are fundamentally different practices

🇬🇧 Whether ancient religious traditions can survive increasingly secular Western attitudes

✡️ What restrictions on kosher slaughter and circumcision would ultimately mean for Jewish life in Europe

🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, Judaism, Islam, religious freedom and the defence of Western democratic values.

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The vast demonstrations that filled Britain’s streets after 7 October 2023 have shaped politics, policing, Jewish life and public debate for nearly three years. Their scale gave them authority. Their repetition gave their slogans extraordinary reach. Their organisational structure deserves the same scrutiny routinely applied to every other force seeking to influence British public life.

Behind the crowds sits an infrastructure of campaign groups, funding networks, organisers, political activists and international connections. Questions about who pays for that infrastructure, who coordinates it and what regulation applies to it go directly to the integrity of democratic politics.

Anne Herzberg of NGO Monitor joins me to discuss the organisation’s investigation into the movement behind Britain’s major anti Israel demonstrations.

Please donate to support these important conversations: https://jonathansacerdoti.com/support

👁‍🗨 Watch if you want to understand how protest movements acquire power, money and influence

💬 We Discuss:

💷 How organisations hide the source of money behind Britain’s mass demonstrations

🪧 Why supposedly spontaneous mobilisation looks identical all around the world

🏛️ Charity money, tax payer money, and highly political campaigning

🌍 American foundations and international activist platforms funding British protests

🧩 How leadership overlaps across multiple organisations

🧒 Targeting young people through activist training, universities and social media

☪️ The Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist actors challenging democratic life

🇮🇷 How demonstrations centred on Gaza can absorb wider ideological causes

⚖️ Gaps in the Charity Commission, Companies House rules and Foreign Influence Registration Scheme

🇬🇧 Does Britain need stronger institutions capable of examining ideological extremism?

🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Britain, Israel, extremism, institutional power and the defence of Western democratic values.

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Israel has become one of the most formidable developers of advanced defence systems in the world, despite its tiny size and population. Now, as calls to boycott its arms industry grow louder across Europe, Yuval Steinitz — Chairman of Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and former Israeli Minister of Finance, Energy and Intelligence — tells Jonathan Sacerdoti how Iron Dome, David's Sling and the revolutionary Iron Beam laser have defended the country against more than 40,000 missiles and rockets in three years, and why he believes those pushing to disarm Israel are handing its enemies exactly what they want.

As Britain reluctantly accepts its new Prime Minister, Steinitz responds to Andy Burnham's proposed arms restrictions on Israel, argues that singling out the Jewish state for boycott while ignoring China, Russia or Saudi Arabia is indefensible, and points out that British fighter jets and air defense systems already depend on Israeli technology developed by Rafael.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Jonathan Sacerdoti speaks with Yuval Steinitz about the hypocrisy behind BDS, the $2 laser rewriting the rules of warfare, Israel's rise past Britain, France and Germany in GDP per capita, the legacy of David Ben-Gurion, and what a defenceless Israel would mean for 8 million Jews.

Donate to support these conversations, at https://jonathansacerdoti.com/donate

🛡️ Watch if you want to understand why disarming Israel would not bring peace, but risk a new Holocaust in the Middle East.

🎯 We Discuss:

🚀 How Israel intercepted over 40,000 missiles and rockets in three years

🇬🇧 Why Britain's new Prime Minister made Israel his first target

⚖️ The hypocrisy Steinitz sees in boycotting Israel but not China, Russia or Saudi Arabia

💡 The $2 laser beam that could end the era of missile warfare

🇫🇷 How France's arms embargo backfired and forced Israel to build its own defence industry

📈 How Israel's GDP per capita overtook Britain, France and Germany

🏭 The secret history of Ben-Gurion founding Rafael in 1948

🛰️ Why Britain's own fighter jets already rely on Israeli-developed technology

💀 Steinitz's warning: what a defenceless Israel would mean for 8 million Jews

🕊️ Why he still believes peace with the Palestinians remains possible

🔔 Subscribe for more serious and unflinching conversations about Israel, defence, Western politics and the forces shaping the Middle East.

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💬 Comment below — can the West keep criticising Israel's right to defend itself while relying on the very technology that defends it?

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