Let Will Self leave us, the real prize is to convert

‘SORRY, WILL Self, but you ARE a Jew’ ran the Jewish Chronicle headline a fortnight ago. And with his trademark stinging erudition, Geoffrey Alderman used his column that week to explain to Self why being born to a Jewish mother makes him as Yiddishe as the chasidim of Stamford Hill — whether the celebrated writer of fiction and journalist likes it or not. The celebrated writer of fiction and journalist likes it not, of course.

In 2006, Self publicly resigned as a Jew (via the Evening Standard), and this month he reminded us of his departure, and the reasons for it, in the Guardian: “My resignation (he explained) wasn’t a protest against Israeli aggression — why would they care about such a gesture? — but aimed, I believed, against prominent, left-wing English Jews, who, despite the complete contradiction between their espoused values and the undemocratic, apartheid and territorially expansionist policies of the

so-called Jewish homeland, continued vociferously to support Israel.” Nonsense, said Alderman: ethnic origins are indelible. If Self wants to express antagonism towards Israel, he should do so as a Jew, for that is what he is.

So what, say I. So what, if Will Self is technically Jewish: why bother claiming him and his ilk?

There are lots of halachic Jews who care not a jot about being Jewish, let alone about Jewish national selfdetermination. And there are many who, to put it politely, struggle with both concepts.

“What people think they are is undoubtedly their own affair,” says Self, and I couldn’t agree with him more.

What you think you are is, invariably, about who you feel you are. And having Jewish parentage doesn’t, sadly, always make you feel part of the tribe.

Conversely, there are many nonJews who certainly do feel part of the tribe or, rather, who would like to, if only we would let them through the door.

Yossi Beilin, former leader of the Meretz party, first floated the idea of secular conversion in 1996 and it has stayed with me ever since. Stripped to its essentials, his idea is that any nonJew who wants to be part of the Jewish people, who throws his lot in with us, if you like, should be welcomed.

Secular converts would be expect-