Is Melanie Phillips a bad influence on North American Jews

Jonathan Freedland has just written an article attacking Melanie Phillips.

Her recently published book, Londonistan has become highly influential amongst North American Jewry, and in Jonathan's view, her blog gives a false impression of what life is like for Anglo Jewry. True, her piece on Jews for Genocide was over the top, but unfortunately, she's spot on most of the time. It's easy to dismiss her tone of writing as bordering on hysteria, but when you spend twenty years as she has writing about issues that few in Britain take seriously, you start to lose your rag. Since her time at the Guardian, Melanie has written about the dire state of our education system, the failure of multiculturalism, and the threat from terrorism. Unfortunately, most of her predictions have come true, but still no one listens.

One thing that Jonathan Freedland is right about is her influence on North American Jewry. Half an hour after flying into Toronto, some Jews got into our elevator at the airport and said to us: "You're from England, isn't that a Muslim country? We've just been reading Londonistan!". In North America at least, Melanie has an audience.