Monica Porter

London-based journalist and author

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May 21, 2020, 11:24 AM

The children who fought the Nazis

Before writing my book about youngsters involved in anti-Nazi resistance during the Second World War, I had a certain notion about the Holocaust. It was that, in order to save Jewish lives, you had to be a gentile. Because...

Feb 29, 2020, 10:19 PM

Whacking Nazis – Al Pacino-style

There is a new 10-part series on Amazon Prime called Hunters. It’s about an eclectic team of badass people hunting ageing Nazi war criminals living incognito in 1970s America, and ‘whacking’ them. Hooray! This cold-blooded A-team is headed by...

Oct 21, 2019, 12:14 PM

The saddest spot I know

Every year on 27th January, International Holocaust Remembrance Day reminds us about the horrors inflicted by the Nazis on the Jewish race. On that day in 1945, of course, Auschwitz was finally liberated by Soviet troops. The Holocaust had...

Oct 17, 2019, 5:18 PM

Spare a thought for the half-Jew

I was in my early twenties when I found out that I was half-Jewish. Until then, as far as I was aware, I was merely a lapsed Catholic who, by the age of ten, had had enough of the...

Oct 15, 2019, 11:01 AM

You just can’t beat a Hungarian Jew

Four decades ago I read a snippet in a British newspaper which so impressed me that I cut it out and pasted it into my cherished notebook of thought-provoking quotes. It came from a Professor Andre Brousson, whose claim...

Oct 10, 2019, 11:02 AM

What’s in a Jewish name?

In one of his autobiographies the centenarian movie star Kirk Douglas, son of Russian Jewish immigrants, explains that he started life with the name Issur Danielovitch and it had to be Americanised for the sake of his film career. He...

Oct 6, 2019, 11:23 PM

The Japanese and the Jews

I have made several trips to Japan in recent years and always been amazed by those most impressive of peoples and their glittering, futuristic capital. Tokyo is the city of dog lovers where you never see dog’s mess on...

Oct 2, 2019, 11:52 AM

Do Jewish men make the best lovers?

Do Jewish men make the best lovers? Ha! I knew that would get your attention. So much more critical a matter than the prospective composition of the next Israeli government. And you know, it’s a question that gentile women...

Sep 26, 2019, 2:48 PM

In the ceaseless war of Israel vs Hamas and Hezbollah, I have at times waged my own mini-battles on Facebook, flying the flag for Israel. I have a couple of thousand or so Facebook friends, the vast majority of...

Sep 23, 2019, 11:59 AM

Yiddish for goyim

‘For a goy,’ a Jewish friend once told me, ‘you sure use a lot of Yiddish words’. ‘Yes I do, bubala,’ I replied, ‘and there’s a good reason for that.’ I proceeded to explain why, although I’d been born and...

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About Me

Monica Porter was born in Budapest and emigrated with her family to the US after the 1956 Revolution. Living in London since 1970, she is a freelance journalist who has contributed to countless British newspapers and magazines and written several books - her latest, about youngsters involved in anti-Nazi resistance in wartime Europe - will be published in April 2020.

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