Yesterday we walked up 300 steps, in 33 degrees of high humidity, to reach Marjam Park. A fabulous hillside park stretching for miles along the coast. Oddly, the higher you go, the hotter you seem to get. The Jewish Cemetery was there, used from 1700 to 1946.

On the way we passed a group of Croatian… scumbags. Unshirted yobbos, drinking their beers in the shade and looking aggressive, though fairly harmless. One had the Croatian national requirement of at least 60% of your chest and arms covered by tattoos. In the middle was a large cross. I get that. All devout Catholics get pissed by 11.30 am. On his left shoulder, about 4 inches across was a swastika. Not an apologist type of ‘Indian love symbol’, because they are straight. This was the 45 degree, proper thing. And there is nothing which will bring my inner Jew to the fore like a Swastika. Particularly in Eastern Europe. I mean, swastikas are banned, right? But what you gonna do? Take the Shylock route and demand they cut it off him? And it’s futile anyway. The swastika is an unambiguous sign of an attitude. You can remove the ‘badge’ but the attitude remains.

So I went to synagogue to pray for guidance. Ok, maybe not in the literal sense. I don’t pray and for guidance I used Google Maps cos it was well hidden within the walls the ‘palace’ (built by a Roman emperor, the size of a small town). And it was a revelation. And just typical of virtually any European synagogue lucky enough to survive the Holocaust. Which hit Croatia big-time and murdered 80% of its Jews.

Albert opened the place up for us. It has stood there since the 1700s, though Jews have been here since the 4th century. A tiny little space, but as Split claims about 100 Jews, all non-practicing, they use it to meet there every sabbath and… eat. They collectively decided that they wouldn’t pray but were all happy to eat. And why don’t they pray? Albert’s mother lost her parents and all her brothers and sisters in the holocaust, right here in Croatia, to save the Nazis the train fares to Poland. And you have to ask yourself, as 6 million of your ‘brethren’ are murdered industrially, where God was at the time. In Waitrose? Putting some new moons on Jupiter? Restoring a vintage car in his garage? So therefore, ‘there is no God’. And if that’s true, why the fuck would you pray? So they don’t. Furthermore, Albert married a Christian woman but ‘keeps kosher at home’. A statement followed by, ‘all lobsters are kosher, right?’.

And I fell in love with Albert at that point. And I don’t even like lobster. But that attitude. Cynical enough to make me look like a ‘believer’. Realist enough to not give a shit. Almost anti-religion, anti-God, anti-Jewish. And yet…

He runs the synagogue. Keeps it alive. Tells the story, the history and maintains a presence there, all on a voluntary basis, because no-one else will do it. Gives up lots of his time because of the importance of continuity. Something all Jews get.

Because if you leave the world in the hands of nuclear powered Jew haters like Iran, continuity would be something of a problem. There is simply no question that Iran MUST be stopped from nuclear armament. Not just for Jews, not just for Israel, not even just for England (high on the Ayatollah’s hate-list), but for the security of the entire planet. It’s bad enough we have one unstable, mildly insane, unpredictable world leader in possession of nukes. But another would be unthinkable.

Happy Sunday

A xxxx