Town was incredibly busy with Christmas shoppers as we arrived on Buchanan Street at 10:45 this morning. And all last week, Silverburn, our local shopping mall, was packed with shoppers from first thing every day, with hardly a parking space to be found. Is this the cost of living crisis we’ve been hearing about?!
Our first visitor today was the lovely Jimmy from Larkhall. When he comes into town he visits Glickman’s, the oldest sweetie shop in Glasgow that was founded by a Polish Jewish man in 1903. We talked about the confectionary that was sold in the old days and are still firm favourites today. Jimmy likes his soor plooms and dolly mixtures and I love liquorice, not the new soft eating stuff most shops sell today, proper old fashioned hard liquorice and liquorice allsorts. Jimmy became quite emotional as he told me of his love for the Jewish people that he used to know. What a sweet way to start our day.
I think I said a few weeks ago that we had many Christians who love Israel and come to talk to us and today this is exactly what happened again. One person after the other wanted us to know that they stood with Israel and while the overwhelming number were Christians, we had a Sri Lankan gentleman who is a Buddhist who told us in broken English that “G-d helps Israel. Good military. I support Israel” and he took some Israeli badges that I hope he shares with some of his friends.
And a Muslim man called Tarik (“Call me Tony”) from Morocco but who now lives in Glasgow. “G-d preferred Jews. The Quran tells that you are the chosen people. We share the same prophets, they are from Israel” He stayed chatting to a few of our volunteers and then came back over to tell me that “Israel is not bad, they’re just stuck in something political” and then insisted on writing down the words ‘God say to Israel nation I prefer you over all nations’ and he wrote his phone number and said he’d like to come back to the stall to volunteer and to let people know the truth.
I think that most people know our wonderful Taiwanese friend Grace. She’s a member of a church in Newton Mearns and has as many Jewish friends as Christians and everybody who knows her, loves Grace. She often comes into town to visit us at the stall and today she brought along her friend Ida from Hong Kong. I had the pleasure of speaking to Ida and hearing about her love for Israel and the Bible and she talked of the many visits she’s made to visit the places mentioned in her Holy book. She told me that all Christians should visit Israel at least once in their life and they should pray for Israel and the Jewish people as Jesus was a Jew.
Ida said that all Chinese Christians love Israel and when she left the stall with Grace, she gave me a huge hug and said “I will pray for you and the Jewish people”
Joe has been to see us before and he came today to let us know that “Salvation came through Jesus and the Lord gave the whole territory to the children of Israel as is written in the book of Genesis”
We told Joe and a few of the other Christian visitors today that the awful Israel haters say that Jesus Christ was a Palestinian. This concept understandably upsets many of our religious visitors. Saying that Jesus Christ a Judean, who was born, lived and died a Jew, upsets many Christians when they hear the ‘Palestinian’ claim. They simply cannot understand how anyone could talk such nonsense.
We had many donations today. Shintha from Indonesia asked if we had a collecting box and put in a really generous donation, simply saying “I want to praise Israel” And a man who didn’t tell us his name donated and said “My wife won’t let me go near the other tents because I just want to fight with them. Good to see you out here”
Thank you also to Ivor from Manchester for his donation. He is back in Glasgow with his family to visit his sister who’s a patient at the QEH. Ivor is one of the heroes of the Manchester synagogue Islamic terrorist attack on Yom Kippur and we were all so pleased to welcome the family to the stall again today.
Kim, her daughter and sister stopped to chat to us. Kim is originally from Glasgow and made aliyah in the 80s. She lives on Kibbutz Kadarim and when she mentioned she used to go to Habonim, I included Sammy and Tommy in the conversation as they were both Habonim members. But Kim is quite a bit younger than them, so unfortunately there was no reminiscing about old Habo pals.
Margaret had a long conversation with Orna from Dublin. She apologised about Ireland’s reaction to Israel and how it has upset her greatly. She told Margaret that people at her work are pro-Pal and she doesn’t want to rock the boat and lose her job, so instead she visits the Jewish Museum in Dublin where she’s made connections with Jewish supporters of Israel. She said that she’s lost friends because of her views and she mentioned a good friend who won’t speak to her any more, just because Orna said how awful October 7th was.
A woman called Rae who lives in Ireland contacted GFI on Messenger and wanted to thank us for mentioning that the Irish people gave Israel 10 points in the Eurovision public vote. She also said that our post about people losing friends and family because they support Israel, resonated deeply with her as she will only be spending this Christmas with one other person. I found that so incredibly sad.
And for another reason entirely, we were deeply saddened when we spoke to a Jewish couple who live near Radlett, which is home to many Jewish people. They asked us not even to mention their first names and said that they dare not go into London these days and they try to keep a very low profile. The couple said that last year, the Chanukiah that was erected only 1 mile from where they live, was torn down and they have now removed their mezuzah from their front door. They added ruefully that the police do nothing to help. Antisemitism, the oldest hatred, is alive and well and we see no sign that anything is going to change any time soon.
It’s so distressing to hear stories like this and also to speak at the stall to people who tell us of the fear and indeed anger that some in Scotland are feeling because of the exponential rise of Islamism and pro-Pal violence and hate. 3 generations of one family from Irvine told us that they share these fears and that these days we’re being censored for what we say. They fear Sharia law and believe that this will happen here in Scotland as it is being normalised in some towns in England. I have the names of this family but I’m concerned that they might be identified and targeted by pro-Pal thugs, so I won’t divulge them here.
A very interesting gentleman who follows us on Facebook and who works at Glasgow University has asked for anonymity. Once again, for fear of reprisals if anyone knows who he is. What a very frightening world we all live in, where ordinary people are so terrified for their safety and their livelihoods. This particular gentleman believes that support for the Palestinians will diminish over time. Surely though, this is not just ‘support for the Palestinians’ it’s evil, it’s dangerous and it’s blatant, overt Jew hate.
On a lighter note, Paul from Lanark visits us every week now. His fiancée Margaret Anne is too unwell to come with him into Glasgow but she’s such a true friend of Israel and is even teaching Paul to speak Hebrew. So far he’s learned ‘shalom’; well it’s a start. Margaret Anne’s late father was Jewish and Paul told us that she treasures his kippah and Magen David. The couple recently walked past the Oxfam shop in Lanark and she was shocked to see “a Hamas scarf” in the window. Paul has been well warned to keep away from the Oxfam shop in future and to only buy from the Cancer Research charity shop.
We had some really great friends who came into town to spend some time with us today. Paul and his father Martin, Rhona and Tony and their family, Farbod our Iranian Jewish volunteer who we haven’t seen for many weeks as he works offshore and who today brought us a box of noon khamei, huge Iranian pastries filled with cream. And Claire who we thought had forgotten us but she assured us that it’s only because she normally has to work every Saturday. She’s very excited that she’ll be going to Israel on the 19th on January to visit her daughter who’s just about to make Aliyah.
We had a good laugh when Eddie told us that he’d spoken to two young boys who took away an Israel wrist band. They came back to tell him that they’d put it on the haters’ stall down the road saying “sell that you dirty rats”
And of course we had the usual one-liners; “C’mon the IDF” And a man on receiving a leaflet from Brian said “Thank you mate, you get my vote” “Good on you” and many other words of support throughout the day.
I should of course mention the demo outside Barclays Bank on Argyle Street. The bigoted Israel haters have more reason than ever to get into a blind rage; Barclays Bank and Hampden, Scotland’s national football stadium, announced a new partnership. We had placards printed and Sammy and Tommy went to Barclays with the placards and boy were the Palis infuriated. They tried to cover them with their flags, without success and we enjoyed with great amusement the photos that Charlie showed us when he came back to the stall from Barclays.
Another good day at the stall and I’m sorry if I haven’t mentioned your name if you came to see us today. So many conversations that I’d be here until midnight if I told you about them all. ... See MoreSee Less
