The Jewish Chronicle is celebrating its 175th anniversary this week with a commemorative issue boasting a retro front page.
There is a contrast between that old-fashioned typeface amid a crowded layout and the up-to-the-minute main article: a news story about Donald Trump’s election as US president.
Inside, there are six __more pages of Trump analysis. But there is plenty of the JC’s own history too across 12 pages plus a special magazine.
Its first issue appeared on 12 November 1841 and editor Stephen Pollard tells readers in a page 1 piece that, in Britain, the JC “is predated only by the Times and the Observer.”
I couldn’t help but note the paper’s editorial, a full-frontal assault on Trump for running an election campaign that “was self-consciously antisemitic.” It stated:
“Many of us have always looked to the US as a beacon of freedom. When the Third Reich looked unstoppable and Britain stood alone, it was the US that then sacrificed so many of its sons to defeat the Nazis.
In the Cold War it was the US, through Nato, that ensured the Soviet Union was held in check. And in recent years Nato has helped preserve the long-delayed freedom of Eastern Europe from the Warsaw Pact.
All that is now threatened. Mr Trump cites Vladimir Putin as a role model and believes Nato no longer has a purpose. The message is clear: far from standing up to an aggressive tyrant, he will willingly acquiesce in that aggression.
For Jews, these are worrying times. We have already been scapegoated by Mr Trump, so it is no supposition to suggest that worse may be to come. History shows that when bullies take charge, they turn on the Jews.”
Doubtless, much __more concern was aired about Trump during last night’s reception at the Jewish Museum to mark the JC’s birthday. But it was, of course, mainly a celebratory event.