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Jul 15, 2021, 12:46 AM

Agunot — We’re a Beth Din: Don’t expect creativity

A British dayan warned last Saturday evening that an Orthodox Beth Din can do little to help a spouse who can’t get a divorce from an unwilling partner, and that new initiatives by the English civil courts will only...

May 24, 2021, 4:33 AM

How many more times? Brutes don’t win friends

Last week a flagship BBC radio programme in the UK put a listener’s question to a panel of guests: “Are Palestinian lives as valuable as Israeli lives?” To Jewish listeners, this question is immediately recognisable as coded and offensive. It...

Sep 6, 2018, 1:23 PM

Jews, racism and the fear of Jeremy Corbyn

There is an elephant in the debating chamber when it comes to British Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and the issue of leftist antisemitism that has plagued him throughout the summer. As the debacle about Mr Corbyn's tolerance of Jew-baiting...

Apr 25, 2018, 11:33 PM

A message to members of Britain’s Board of Deputies

Dear Deputies, If you have not already nominated a candidate to be president of the Board of Deputies, it may be because, like me, you haven’t yet seen a candidate whose ideas you find convincing. I certainly don’t feel confidence in...

Mar 14, 2018, 5:17 PM

World War Three: Day 1

In the West, it was widely assumed in the 1990s that glasnost and perestroika—the movement for openness and reconstruction overseen by Mikhail Gorbachev—would lead Russia from the repression of the Soviet era to what Vaclav Havel, first president of...

Aug 17, 2017, 7:44 AM

What did Trump mean about Charlottesville?

I'm not convinced that standard readings of Donald Trump's comments on last weekend's horrible rally in Charlottesville are sufficient. He was accused of saying too little too late, which resulted in various CEOs resigning from his American Manufacturing Council,...

Nov 9, 2016, 5:21 PM

The end of Democracy

So, President Trump, then. He held up a mirror of brash, crude vulgarity to the American people and they saw their reflection in it. That speaks well neither of him nor them. He did, however, have something to say, and...

Oct 11, 2016, 5:29 PM

Britain’s dangerous new democracy

Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election to the leadership of Britain's Labour Party in September has not been credited with the significance it deserves. It has the potential for remaking British democracy. That sounds exciting. From Runnymede to Cromwell to the Anti-Corn Law...

Feb 24, 2016, 5:55 PM

Britain in Europe: learning from the long view

Everyone in the UK, and in London especially, has been waiting for London’s mayor to express a view on whether Britain should stay in the European Union. We now know: in the national referendum that’s been called for June...

Dec 9, 2015, 7:12 PM

Chanukah: The Real Story

A year ago, Andrew Margolis gave a talk about the real origins of Chanukah to a small group of friends attached to Muswell Hill Synagogue in North London. Much of our best thinking goes unrecorded. On this occasion, Andrew kindly agreed to make available to...

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About Me

Stephen Games is a designer, editor and award-winning architectural historian, formerly with the Guardian, BBC and Independent. He was until spring 2018 a member of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, has been involved in synagogue activism for many years, and is in his spare time editing various volumes of the Tanach.