Madam,

For Dan Cohn-Sherbok to equate the second home council tax rise with “a substantial extra Jew tax” imposed by the Nazis in the 1930s is just a teeny bit hysterical (‘A tax on outsiders’, last week’s Cambrian News).

Why he felt the need to bring his religion into the question is confusing. The tax is based on wealth, or at least the presumption that someone who owns two homes is wealthier, not religion, and as Jews make up only about 0.5 per cent of the British population Dan’s Jew tax would hardly raise enough revenue to solve “.. the myriad problems of Welsh society”.

The fact that he and his wife are accepted into the local community – shown by the fact that his wife has joined the village chapel, the WI and Merched y Wawr and that they always enter the village shows, with some success in knitting and coconut macaroons – hardly equates with his claim to be regarded as “unwanted foreigners”, “destroyers of the Welsh language” and “exploiters of the countryside”.

It would seem from his quote “... we thought of our Welsh neighbours as friends”, past tense you may notice, that perhaps extra council tax is more important than friendship to some.

If he feels so alienated by the second home tax hike might I suggest that he sells his “ tiny flat in London”, which he obviously considers to be his main home despite the fact that he works in Ceredigion, and thus avoids his “Jew tax” altogether.

Yours etc

Charley Young

Blaenpennal

Aberystwyth.