iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 22h

Simon Schama has lost the right to lecture anyone on anything, or to be considered a good historian

Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

In relation to the attempted plane hijacking half my timeline is salivating over Israeli heroism and the other half is calling it a false flag.

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Just Fair @justfairuk.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

🟰On this day 16 years ago the Equality Act came into force in Britain. ⚖️ However part of this, the socio-economic duty, which would require public bodies to consider socio-economic inequality, was never brought into force. 1/5

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Sanction all countries that practice capital punishment, including the US.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

It’s fine to try to get people to join the party to suppprt a particular policy. It’s not fine to work with the AZM, which is closely tied to David Miller and Rahmeh Aladwan, both of whom are racist. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Now people are claiming that the attempted air-hijacking was a false flag. Don't get sucked into these conspiracies. And don't share anything from the Canary.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

People realise that just because the police are no longer categorising the Golders Green stabbing as terrorism it’s still a real thing that happened right? It’s now being classified as a hate crime, presumably because they think the attacker acted alone. Don’t give me any of this false flag shit

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

Really good discussion on the Green Party Zionism is Racism motion (supporting the principle but critiquing the behaviour of its proponents) on the Life of the Party podcast podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/l...

podcasts.apple.com

28: Green Party Conference, Zionism is Racism and Organising Beyond Elections

Podcast Episode · Life of the Party · 28 September · 1hr 6min

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 29/09/2026

Andy Burnham is definitely wrong on some key issues: refugees, far-right groups, the continued proscription of Palestine Action. But it does make a nice change to have a PM who is not wrong on absolutely every issue, and is actually decent on quite a few.

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Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.northsky.social · 28/09/2026

Not that it counts for much now but Rafah had been inhabited for over 3000 years and appears in the book of Maccabees. Now it's just gone.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

It’s not credible for the government to claim to have reset policy on Israel / Palestine unless they overturn the proscription of Palestine Action and cancel all the prosecutions www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

theguardian.com

Ed Miliband to acknowledge Labour’s former stance on Palestine fell short

Foreign secretary will tell party’s conference ‘we are not here to accept the status quo but to change it’

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Jordan @jordanpfot.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

Danny Tommo, Amodei, Man City fair play Piddington, Macklemore, Dolly ain’t alive no more Netanyahu’s iron dome, Meg and Harry coming home New cat, Clavicular COVID CONSCIOUS LESBIAN BAR 🎶 we didn’t start the fire 🎶

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Annie Gottfried Cohen @annsplaining.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Full of admiration for @zackpolanski.bsky.social after hearing about the Jewish community hustings yesterday. We need more political leaders who stick to their principles even when they know it won't make them popular. I'm proud to be a Jewish member of the Green Party this morning

jewishnews.co.uk

Polanski sparks anger after declaring himself ‘anti-Zionist’ at packed communal hustings - Jewish News

Green Party's Holborn and St Pancras by-election candidate is booed and heckled

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

The only way you can identify yourself as anti-Zionist and say that Israel has committed genocide in a shul and not be thrown out, is if you are standing for election and get invited to a hustings there. So shekoyech to @zackpolanski.bsky.social for speaking for all of us excluded from these spaces.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 24/09/2026

I increasingly think that the Zionism is Racism motion is strategically wrong and will be counterproductive but this Yachad statement spectacularly misses the point and just goes on about self-determination as if every people has the right to its own ethnostate. yachad.org.uk/statement-on...

yachad.org.uk

Statement on the Green Party Motion - 'Zionism is Racism' | Yachad

The “Zionism is Racism” motion, to be debated at the Green Party conference in Brighton on 2–4 October, and the ... Read more

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

Re the line ‘Zionism is just Jewish people exercising their right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland’ - why is self-determination presented as everyday vocabulary? Do people go to their shed for some self-determination? Kids meet up with friends so they can self-determine together?

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LiLBazula 👻 🎃 @lilbazza.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

The absolute bare mins we should be waking up to tomorrow is the arrests of Thomas & everyone else present & suspected to be involved & the Home Sec on every morning news programme explaining her plan for grinding the fash to dust

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Alex Remington @alexremington.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

i suspect she couldn't even articulate the legal distinctions between nidrei, essarei, shevuei, hinuyei, haramei, konamei and kinusei

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Starfire’s Deranged Neocon Foreign Policy Podcast @irhottakes.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

Okay, so I have a plan to get everyone on our side. First, we be absolutely as viscerally unpleasant as possible. Next, we downplay any time we get what we want, say it's the bare minimum and so forth. Finally, if anyone gives up and says we win or apologizes, we belittle them.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

The amendments Zack Polanski suggested to the Zionism is Racism motion - ensuring members aren’t sanctioned just for belonging to nominally Zionist institutions like synagogues, and not specifying exact future constitutional arrangements in I/P - are sensible and don’t constitute opposition to it.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

I've been an Ed Milband fan for many years, but I take it to new levels here, celebrating the way he seems to me to far more in tune with the ethics of Judaism than his pro-Israel critics. www.toratalbion.org.uk/ed-miliband-...

toratalbion.org.uk

Ed Miliband: the Red Rebbe and Master of Teshuva

In sanctioning Israeli settlements Ed Miliband has shown himself to be far more Jewish than his critics

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

In most Jewish communal circles condemnation of the claim of genocide, of apartheid, of sanctioning settlements etc are not the main point. There’s a liberal position which says Israelis and Palestinians bear equal responsibility for the conflict, and measures should target both in order to be fair

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Owler Nook @owlernook.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Withdraw bin collections. They'll fold within a fortnight.

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Mark Hebden @unionlib.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Ed Sheeran gigging with Nina Simone, 1963 (probably) Ed: Look, Nina, I like you and everything but if you keep talking about civil rights and singing Mississippi Goddam then you can't remain on the tour.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

‘The Chief Rabbi is wrong’ is a sentence uttered at pretty much every British Jewish family gathering, it’s basically tradition.

Steerpike
Ed Miliband: The Chief
Rabbi is wrong
• 9 September 2026, 9:11am

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

We just reached peak madness on Radio 4 where Ed Miliband was asked if he was going to synagogue for Rosh Hashanah and then told that as he wasn’t he didn’t understand Jewish concerns. Ed Miliband understands the ethical core of Judaism far better than the Chief Rabbi, however long the latter prays.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 09/09/2026

Those surprised by how bad the Chief Rabbi’s response to the Miliband announcement should know that his predecessor Jonathan Sacks was just as right wing. But Mirvis is far more parochial, he lives in a NW London Orthodox bubble and his worldview is entirely shaped by that.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Miliband powerfully drawing on his mother’s legacy to explain his approach

Asked if his mother's memory was in his mind as he delivered the major foreign policy announcement, Miliband said: "I mean, you know, I take responsibility myself for what I said today, but I have thought a lot about what my mother would have thought in the last few weeks. I think her story is interesting-you know, here was someone who went through the most traumatic childhood because of the Nazis, lost her father, separated from her sister, separated from her mother in hiding, incredibly fortunate to survive the war, unlike 60 of her relatives.

"And in the last 20 years of her life before she became unwell, she spent much of her time campaigning for the rights of Palestinians. I think that tells us something, and it's probably shared by a lot of your readers: we can be the strongest advocates, as I feel I am, for the security of Israel, for Israel to prosper, and for the rights of the Palestinian state.

"And so, in a sense, what I channel from her is that spirit and that concern about suffering - whoever is suffering: Jews, Palestinians, or anyone across the world. She was somebody who deeply cared and was moved by that, and I'm sure she'd have had a bone to pick with one or two aspects of my statement-no doubt. She wouldn't have been my mum without that. But her influence on me, and her commitment to justice, is very important in what I do."

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Onni Gust @onnigust.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Whatever you think of Miliband's wider politics, this was a strong and important statement. Don't underestimate the emotional toil of repeatedly claiming one's Jewishness whilst opposing Israel's genocide. share.google/tRgHtpz4nM76...

share.google

UK accuses Israeli ‘terrorists’ of ethnic cleansing in West Bank with government backing

In strongest condemnation ever by UK government, Ed Miliband announces sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Legacy institutions like the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council have resources and organisation but Ed Miliband is more in line with the majority of British Jewish opinion than them.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Miliband says the UK wants a continued good relationship with ‘Green-line Israel’, but such an entity doesn’t exist and the Israeli gvt opposes it coming into existence. Eventually the UK will have to sanction the actual regime which claims all the territory between the river and the sea.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Another first: Charlotte Nichols using the word ‘etrogim’ in the House of Commons.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Ethnic cleansing isn’t an official crime in international law - it’s therefore much easier for the UK to recognise than genocide. Recognising the latter would have serious legal consequences.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Got to be a first for a UK cabinet minister to declare themselves proud of their Jewishness in the House of Commons.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

Much more important than the boycott of settlements will be the (presumed) UK acceptance of the ICJ’s 2024 advisory ruling that Israeli occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza is illegal under international law. Means that the conflict is an international rather than a domestic one.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

I have a great policy proposal: a dry tax. Those who get wet in the morning are compensated by those who haven’t yet gone out and thus remained dry. Sure to be highly popular amongst the wet community.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Foolishly I’ve booked my driving test to take place between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Who by parking, who by roundabout, who by over 14 minors etc.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 06/09/2026

Has any journalist asked Andy Burnham about Palestine Action yet?

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Of course James Orr is in the Divinity faculty. Just as Nigel Biggar was in the theology faculty at Oxford. By all means study the history of religion in humanities facilities, religious art in art faculties etc. But a divinity or theology faculty is a recipe for nonsense dressed up a scholarship.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Firstly, this group of 16 employees of legacy orgs simply do not represent the diversity of British Jews. Secondly, while it’s completely legitimate for them to raise issues of antisemitism and Jewish safety, it’s not acceptable for them to lobby the gvt not to sanction Israeli settlements.

Joint statement from organisations meeting Prime Minister Andy Burnham to discuss UK Jewish community concerns
Leaders from a range of Jewish communal and key partner organisations met today with Prime Minister Andy Burnham and Secretary of State for Communities Angela Rayner to convey concerns facing the UK Jewish community, and seek the Government's commitment to addressing them.
In a constructive and focussed discussion, the participants set out the full extent of the concerns of British Jews in the context of record levels of antisemitic incidents. They spoke about measures needed to address the community's heightened fears heading into the Jewish holiday period, which marks a year on from the deadly Heaton Park attack, and comes just a few months after violent attacks including arson and stabbings in Golders Green.
Participants stressed the importance of maintaining a clear line against all expressions of antisemitism wherever it arises, including continuing the important work of tackling this hatred within Labour and other political parties.
They also conveyed the depth of feeling across the community regarding the welfare and security of Israel, and called on the Government to reaffirm its rejection of anyone inciting hatred or calling for Israel's elimination.
Whilst the participants expressed support for all efforts to promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians, and their opposition to extremism on all sides, they conveyed significant concerns about the unintended consequences of policies the government is considering in relation to settlements.
They pressed the Prime Minister to avoid steps that may cause harm to the Jewish community, including measures that would place a profound strain on the Jewish people's deep connection to places of great religious and cultural significance, including the Western Wall, Judaism's holiest site. They cautioned that broad, untargeted measures may also give legitimacy to a wider boycott movement that marginalises an…

STATEMENT
03.09.2026
They also asked the Prime Minister to carefully consider the potentially perverse consequences of announcing such measures during an already heated Israeli election, and the need for both the UK and Israeli governments to ensure that domestic political considerations do not stand in the way of the positive policy outcomes that the Middle East so desperately needs.
They further pressed the Prime Minister to prioritise tackling extremism in Britain in all its forms - whether from the far right, the far left, or Islamist sources.
The community organisations underlined the importance of promoting social cohesion, calling for the Government's support and pledging the Jewish community's commitment to building an inclusive and respectful society for all.
Finally, participants called on the Prime Minister to promote a positive engagement with the Jewish community across society through government support for Jewish students on campus, Jewish care and welfare organisations, Jewish cultural institutions and initiatives such as Jewish Culture Month.
The group presented the Prime Minister with apple and honey - eaten together on the forthcoming Rosh Hashana festival to symbolise a sweet new year - and expressed wishes for a year of peace, prosperity and security in the UK and around the world.
The Prime Minister, along with Secretary of State for Communities Angela Rayner, strongly affirmed the importance to him of the security and confidence of the community, and announced the Government's intention to hold a National Security Council meeting on antisemitic threats, and to holding future roundtables with the community on a twice yearly basis.
© The Board of Deputies of British Jews Limited,

BRITISH JEWS
ADVOCACY I DEMOCRACY I COMMUNITY
03.09.2026
Participating in the meeting were:
• Louise Jacobs, Vice Chair of the Jewish Leadership Council
• Debbie Fox, Interim CEO of the Jewish Leadership Council
• Dame Louise Ellman, Independent Plenary Chair of the Board of Deputies
• Raphi Bloom, Management Board Member of the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Region and Trustee of the JLC
• Marc Levy, Chief Executive of the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Region
• Danny Stone MBE, Chief Executive of the Antisemitism Policy Trust
• Karen Pollock CBE, Chief Executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust
• Ruben Persey, Vice President of the Union of Jewish Students
• Mervyn Kaye, Chief Executive of the Union of Jewish Students
• Carolyn Bogush, Chair of the Union of Jewish Students
• Dovid Lichtig, CEO of the Interlink Foundation
• Sam Clifford, Chief Executive of Jewish Women's Aid
• John, Lord Mann, HM Government's Independent Adviser on Antisemitism
• Dr Toby Greene, Director of Public Affairs at the Board of Deputies

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Called Sky Broadband today and pretty sure I spoke to an AI bot. Odd pauses and weirdly stilted. Is this normal? Makes me want to cancel the contract.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

Very much looking forward to this!

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I know optimism is a dangerous thing but it does seem like Burnham’s government will be a significant improvement on Starmer’s. We will have to put pressure on him from the left for sure. But it’s refreshing to hear a PM put the case for progressive politics from the dispatch box.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

I’d say Holborn and St Pancras is winnable for the Greens if they choose a good candidate

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Na'amod @naamoduk.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

We welcome the sanctions on illegal settlements reported this week. It is the minimum response to Israel’s ongoing unlawful actions.

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Joseph Finlay @josephfinlay.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

I like the fact that Jewish communal leaders are having to grovel to Ed Miliband - a secular left-wing Jew and child of immigrant Jewish Marxists and Palestine activists - precisely the kind of Jew they hate and like to pretend doesn’t exist.

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