Zoe Strimpel

Zoe Strimpel (born 8 July 1982) is a British journalist. She is a columnist for The Sunday Telegraph where she writes a weekly column, commenting on gender, feminism, dating, relationships and identity politics.

portrait of Zoe Strimpel

Quotes

2022–2023

• [From an article on Kanye West's admiration for Adolf Hitler and the Nazis.] It's hard to believe that this is all happening in the country of my childhood — a place where light antisemitism sometimes marred small Waspy towns like the one I grew up in, or circulated within certain communities, but didn’t dominate the ether. On the contrary.
  Crucially, there was a sense, an awareness, that Jews were an indispensable addition to American showbiz — and America was lucky to have them. The idea that celebrities, from comedy to music and sport (the NBA's Kyrie Irving recently promoted a terrifying book called Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America) might weekly spew some new Goebbels-grade sentiment would have seemed dystopian.
• The America of my childhood was not a place where Jews had to brace themselves for constant invocations of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, where Jewish excellence in entertainment triggered public mockery laced with canards about Jewish control, as in Dave Chappelle's monologue. And, on the left, it was not a place where being pro-Israel was seen to be a position of "white supremacy" — a crime, in the new American progressive universe, deemed far worse than antisemitism.
  • "Goodbye, America. It was nice knowing you", The Jewish Chronicle (8 December 2022).

• Anti-black racism rightly gets a lot of attention. But perhaps it's time to figure out where Jews fit into the picture because, as the Tuck report makes clear, our struggles are just as real as those facing other minorities.
  • "Jews face real racism, but campaigners are blind to it" Sunday Telegraph (5 January 2023).
  • The Tuck Report, an independent inquiry conducted by Rebecca Tuck KC, found the UK's National Union of Students maintained a "hostile environment" for Jews.

• But increasingly "gender critical feminist" is simply becoming another term for members of the public who are not willing to put up with this madness.
  • "Sorry, Nicola Sturgeon, but we're all 'Terfs' now" The Telegraph (5 February 2023).
  • "TERF" (acronym) = "trans-exclusionary radical feminist".

• I'm petrified of driving, but what about flying? It’s now cheaper and more reliable than taking the train to Manchester or Newcastle.
  • "Train travel in Britain is a joke – I’m taking up flying", The Telegraph (6 August 2023).

2024–present

• Everyone has the right to say or do what they like within the law, but that doesn't change my conviction – which is considered as extreme as it is obvious to me – that anti-Israel Jews are worse than antisemitic: they are traitors. If their lives were at stake, and Israel was the one place in the world they might be safe, Israel's duty would be to take them in because they are Jews.
  But to me, now, whatever rituals they perform, they are useless Jews. Superfluous. In the enemy camp, working against all who believe "never again".
  • "Anti-Israel Jews are worse than just antisemitic", The Jewish Chronicle (26 April 2024).

• Despite this near-impossible battlefield, the IDF seems to have managed to keep its ratio of civilians to combatants killed lower than almost any other army ever has. The world eats up Hamas figures for the numbers who have been killed, naturally refusing to distinguish between Hamas fighters and civilians.
  But according to one analysis earlier this year, even if we accept the terror group's statistics, for every Hamas combatant eliminated, approximately 1.5 civilians have been tragically killed. Given that the UN says that civilians usually make up a shocking 90 per cent of casualties in war (a 1:9 ratio), this is impressive.
  Unlike most, Israel drops leaflets and sends texts to people before any attacks so they can evacuate; in this war, it has sacrificed some of its objectives in order to limit civilian deaths.
  • "The Israel Defence Forces are the most moral soldiers in the world", Sunday Telegraph (27 April 2024).

• [T]he Farage approach, much like that of Boris, is not only fun for the man, it seems to be just as fun for the woman.
  • "The mysterious sex appeal of Nigel Farage", The Spectator (19 June 2024)