You might wonder in a blog that focuses on attitudes and behaviour against Israel and Judaism, why I am not writing on the U.K. Labour party’s anti-Semitism scandal instead of the use of the white robe, but you will, at the end understand, besides, you can read all of UK politics in the media, or here

I wore a white robe instead of the usual black one the first day of Passover, for the prayer of dew, many approached me and asked why I did.

“Certain features of Jewish dress are as valid today as they were two thousand years ago”[1] Religions have a lot in common and the long robe is only one of them. The Church did very well in copying the attire of the Priests in the Temple of Jerusalem, called the kethoneth as we learn from the Bible[2] and Muslims do as well, long robes are at the end a very usual part of the dress code in western Asia.

So no wonder that we in the most intimate moments of liturgy use it, a black robe by Cantors and Rabbis, a kittel (white robe) in Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah (Day of atonement and New Year), many have te custom to use it during the Pesach Seder (Passover meal) as well, and when praying for the so essential Rain and Dew insertion in the additional service the first day of Passover and in Shemini Atzeret (Eighth day of Assembly) and the state of purity we have to try to achieve when asking God to bestow us with these, we can understand the use of white, from the verse “our sins shall be made as white as snow”[3]

The beauty of seeing religions have so much in common like this example of the robes, brings me again to the question I made at the beginning and which troubles me these days, what makes people hate us and the answer is already given by Rabbi Lord Sacks in his book “Not in the name of God”, where he clearly illustrates how much we do have in common and no reason to kill each other but clearly blames the non-believers philosophy  that for example moved the extreme right in Germany in the 30’s last century and brought the Holocaust upon European Jewry and we can see drives the extreme left in European politics nowadays asking for the same, may democracy win, in this case, as it is very much in need at the other side of the Atlantic, where also extremist’s voices are heard with calls of hate, and where God Our Creator is forgotten, and may we strive to see speedily in our days that He will recognised as the ONE and only for all humanity.[4]

[1] A history of Jewish Costume by Alfred Rubens pg. XV

[2] Exodus 28,29

[3] (Isaiah 1:18)

[4] Zecharia 14.9