Jonathan Sacerdoti

Roald Dahl died in 1990. So why does it matter today that he was an anti-Semite? Why has his family apologised thirty years on? And should his work be cancelled as a result? Or, to paraphrase the bible, should the sins of the author be visited upon the third and fourth generations who profit from his work? In September 1983, Israeli TV stopped broadcasting Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected to avoid paying royalties to an anti-Semite, making Dahl the third person whose work was excluded from the still-young state’s airwaves after Wagner and Strauss.

I never expected to become a fake Rabbi. But this year, on Yom Kippur of all days, it happened. In the middle of the Pandemic, Jews were faced with the problem of marking the holiest day of the year without being able to meet up even for prayer. Communal prayer is a central feature of Judaism, especially on the day when we collectively atone for our sins. As the day approached, my family’s discussions (by FaceTime, of course) increasingly focused on how depressing it was going to be sitting at home alone, not eating. An idea quietly formed in my mind. What if I could put on some sort of Covid-safe substitute?