Good journalists are endlessly curious and should be endlessly enthusiastic. My features run the gamut from politics to travel writing. They all have one thing in common – to transmit that enthusiasm to the reader.
For the Times of Israel sent June 4 2019 With the air of a triumphant conjurer, Benjamin Dreyer, the copy editors’ copy editor — he is the veteran copy chief of Random House publishers — says that in his new book, “Dreyer’s English”, there are two important Yiddish words. “There’s a ‘geshrei’ and there’s an […]
For the JC June 6 2019 Benjamin Dreyer for JC by Jenni Frazer June 3 2019 On a hot summer morning by the edge of the Thames, the doyen of American English, Benjamin Dreyer, leans forward and confesses that he really wanted to be a rabbi. Instead, he agrees, he has partially achieved his ambition […]
For the Jewish News magazine May 2019 There is a chilling, but prescient, moment in a unique BBC film made in the early 90s when the Israeli politician Benjamin Netanyahu and his wife Sara invited the TV cameras into their home. Their children, toddlers Yair and Avner, are running around until Yair decides to play […]
Tesco Cohen for the JC May 10 2019 At the end of his long life, it was difficult to get a sense of the hard-nosed and ruthless businessman “Tesco Cohen” must once have been in his heyday. When I interviewed him for the JC back in 1978 on the occasion of his 80th birthday, Sir […]
Book review for the Jewish Chronicle posted April 17 2019 In some ways, I have to admire Israeli Nir Hezroni — or his agent. To have persuaded a publisher to destroy trees for his new book Last Instructions Point Blank, £8.99 (translated by Steven Cohen), and his previous outing, Three Envelopes, takes chutzpah of an […]
For the Jewish News April 19 2019 Most people, after a debilitating stroke, would be concentrating hard on looking after themselves and recovering as best they can. But Cheryl Sklan, a busy professional — she was a social worker, a psychotherapist and a life coach — is not most people. She had a massive stroke […]
Jews and money for Times of Israel by Jenni Frazer March 19 2019 If ever there were two toxic words to put together, it would be “Jews” and “money”. Yet — joined by a third word, “myth”, the tortured and tangled relationship between the two is examined by London’s Jewish Museum in a fearless exhibition […]
For Hadassah Magazine March 2019 British politician Ruth Smeeth is a gutsy campaigner, not prone to emotional breakdowns. Yet the 39-year-old Jewish parliamentarian was in tears when she left a news conference unveiling a 2016 report on anti-Semitism in her own Labour Party. Why? Because while a fellow party member shouted abusive remarks at her—accusing […]
For the JC March 1 2019 Franz West is the Austrian artist with whom we are least familiar — and perhaps the least comfortable. His art, huge ungainly installations, often destined to squat outside or to be climbed over by joyously squealing children, has a Marmite effect. So much of West’s output is deliberately designed […]
The Last Survivors by Jenni Frazer for JN Jan 14 2019 The faces loom at the viewer out of the dark, captured in almost too much detail, the experiences of a lifetime etched on their skin. Some of the faces are familiar, some could be any senior citizen. But they are not just any senior […]