5 Feet of Fury

‘Unchosen’ by Julie Burchill: Tribute to Jews mixes humour, passion and bigotry

The corollary of Burchill’s Zionism is contempt for Islam. While she has never been known for moderation in anything, her venom has usually been cut with a playful and sometimes self-deprecating naughtiness. But Unchosen often degenerates into EDL-style abuse that lacks any redeeming wit. It’s not a pretty sight when Burchill (a vocal supporter of Rock Against Racism at the NME in the Seventies) comes out with lines such as: ‘If a Mohammedan is searching for one’s clitoris, it’s probably not in order to give a girl some fun, but rather in order to chop it off.’ (…)

Somewhere deep down I suspect she realises there is a fundamental problem she will never be able to overcome: Jewish history is so lengthy and its people so diverse that there is just too much that doesn’t fit into her idea of what Jews are.