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Our guest is journalist, author and social commentator, Melanie Phillips.

She was once a committed diaspora Jew, pledged to contribute to life and society in her native UK. Moving to Israel was not on the radar; why would it be when she lived in the “goldener mediener”, a “golden country” in Yiddish, where Jews could live and prosper?

Today she’s an arch-Zionist, living mostly in Jerusalem with her husband, the BBC’s former legal affairs correspondent Joshua Rozenberg.

This episode chronicles Melanie’s change of mindset, using her story to illustrate what’s been happening to Anglo Jewry since the end of World War II. We also ponder the modern Conservative Party, why she thinks the BBC see her as the “acceptable face and voice of lunacy” and whether zealotry can ever be a positive influence. Jonny produces these podcasts for free.

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62: Melanie Phillips: “Israel, the West’s last man standing”