28 JANUARY 1978, Page 18

Anti-semitism

Sir: May I add to Auberon Waugh's list (14 January) of unspeakable characters: Waugh, the ultimate English gentleman who's willing to see all sides of an argument and hopes he isn't an anti-semite or anything else (God forbid) ungentlemanly, but who's obviously just as bigoted as any joky German, Jew, Negro he cares to mention joke.

Jeff Groman 21 Crownfield Avenue, Newbury Park, Ilford, Essex Sir: The Apologetic Jew is, happily, a rare species these days, but here's one Jew who would like to apologise to Mr Waugh for all those buffoons who will by now have written to him, accusing him of monstrous Hitlerian tendencies. They are silly and should be ashamed of themselves.

Some Jews so underestimate the intelligence of Gentiles as to imagine, apparently, that they will think us incapable of pride or avarice, any vice indeed, so long as none of us 'gives the game away'. This betrays a lack of a sense of humour. (Now I've torn it! 'Some Jews lack a sense of humour'. Whatever will the goyim think?) Worse, it betrays submission to antisemitism, rather than contempt for it.

As a matter of fact, anti-semitism is not of great importance. The fundamental prerequisite of the Holocaust was not that vile madness, but the extinction in Germany of all human rights, such as the right to life, and the right to speak the truth even when it hurts.

Marcus Gottlieb

Magdalen College,

Oxford