Excellent piece in The Times by Julia Magnet on being Jewish in Britain:

...Jewish culture is at the edge of British society, an opinion confirmed by my long tenure here. There is no British Philip Roth or Saul Bellow, not even a Mel Brooks.

..Like everyone else in New York, I’m only half-Jewish, and the wrong half at that, but I’m all Jewish American Princess. Mine is, after all, the only city that could be dismissed with a racist epithet — Jesse Jackson’s “Hymie-town” — and embrace said slur, applying it gleefully at any occasion. In Hymie-town, which sets the cultural agenda for elite America, even Italians have passable Yiddish and there ’s a synagogue every fifth block. There’s no need, then, for New York Jews to cling to each other, to fret about marrying out. There is no out — Jews have influenced and been accepted by urban American culture: take Broadway’s most popular show, the Jewish-fest, The Producers. Of course, mothers still nag: “It’s just as easy to fall in love with a Jew, as a shaygetz,” but their world doesn’t end if the boy’s a goy.

...Notwithstanding half-Jewish Michael Howard, Jewish culture is still quite hidden in Britain. It could be the legacy of T. E Laurence-style Arabism, or a culture clash between gentlemanly amateurism and the “may you grow up to be a doctor” Jewish work ethic. But the less open a society, the more closed and protective its Jewish culture will be...

Just one small quibble: turning a racialist epithet on itself, and embracing it, is not just the preserve of New Yorkers. Spurs fans long ago responded to the chants of 'yids' and now scream 'yiddo' and 'come on you yids' at every opportunity (to good effect this afternoon, when we beat the cheats of Newscastle 1-0).