Earlier this month, British vandals defaced a new location of Gail's, a bakery chain with 170 locations across the U.K. They smashed the store's windows, splattered it with red paint, and left pro‑Palestinian and anti-Zionist messages on its doors. One such message: "F*** Bain Capital." It refererred to an investment firm that manages USD$215 billion in global assets, including investments in Israeli security companies and, in some other far corner of the company's wide reach, the Gail's brand.

Gail's was also founded by an Israeli baker in the 1990s. So even though the business is not exactly Jewish, it is Jewish enough by vandals' standards—and this new location happened to be opening a few blocks away from a popular Palestinian cafe. After the week of on-and-off violence, a columnist named Jonathan Liew justified the acts of hatred in The Guardian, describing Gail's opening as an act of "aggression" towards its Palestinian neighbour. (The Guardian has since redacted that phrase and others; the piece remains online.)

At The CJN, opinion editor Phoebe Maltz Bovy had reached out to prominent British Jewish writer Hadley Freeman to discuss Woody Allen's new novel, which she'd recently reviewed. But then the Gail's controversy came up, and they pivoted. This week, Freeman dissects the issue and explains how British progressive movements have evolved over the years—and, yes, they'll discuss Woody Allen, too.

Credits

• Host: Phoebe Maltz Bovy
• Producer and editor: Michael Fraiman
• Music: " Gypsy Waltz " by Frank Freeman, licensed from the Independent Music Licensing Collective

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