Harry Spare and Megan

Shalom Elaine,

What other Jewish site jumps from Jewish takes on Prince Harry’s memoir and an inspiring story about Roger Moore, to a discussion about God, evil and seeing the good in the world, capped with a captivating profile on Albert Reichmann. Just another week at aish.com.
Prince Harry’s Questionable Memoir
Our editorial team discussed whether or not we should cover Spare, since it’s a rather grievous example of someone throwing his family under the bus. We decided it’s worth delving into and to present some noteworthy Jewish insights from the book. The incomparable Yvette Miller devoured the book and shared her insights here.

https://aish.com/5-jewish-takeaways-from-prince-harrys-memoir/?src=ac
5 Jewish Takeaways from Prince Harry’s Memoir

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by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller
January 15, 2023
7 min read

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"Spare" describes a lifetime of pain.

Prince Harry’s memoir Spare is painful to read; on virtually every page, he describes a life filled with psychic pain.  The book, ghostwritten by American author J.R. Moehringer, sometimes reads like a compilation of a lifetime’s worth of grudges.  It opens with a quote from Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” In over 400 pages, Harry details a lifetime of insults, slights and grudges that have profoundly shaped the man he is today.

Some of Harry’s complaints seem frivolous and have been mocked or criticized since his book came out. (He describes, for instance, when he and his older brother Prince William visited their grandmother Queen Elizabeth II at her castle Balmoral in Scotland, that William got a bigger bedroom.) Other descriptions are searing in their sadness: the night a 12-year-old Harry was woken up to be told that his mother, Princess Diana, had died, he was left all alone until morning with no one to comfort him.

Spare is a cri de coeur, a blistering attack on the institution of the British royal family and elements of the British and international media as well as us, its avid consumers. Here are five Jewish lessons we can learn from this international bestseller.

Gossip kills
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue” writes King Solomon, said to be the wisest man in the world (Proverbs 18:21). Speaking badly of other people is akin to murder.

The heartache that hangs over Spare is Princess Diana’s violent death in 1997, when the car she was riding in sped along a Paris underpass in a vain attempt to evade reporters who were hounding her and crashed. (Her driver was later shown to have been intoxicated.) That tragedy changed Prince Harry’s life, giving him a lifelong antipathy towards the press. Later on, he describes how his every misstep was seized on in the newspapers and sometimes even embellished.



His wife Meghan Markle has been harassed and reduced to tears by aggressive reporters. Reading Spare is a master lesson in the very real harm of treating other people as fodder for gossip, instead of real, complex human beings deserving of respect.

In publishing his memoir, Prince Harry is perpetuating this painful and damaging cycle.

The Talmud describes three victims each time gossip is spoken about other people: the speaker, the object of gossip, and the listener. Hearing and sharing gossip inures us to its dangers. Ironically, in publishing his memoir, Prince Harry is perpetuating this painful and damaging cycle: his book is filled with negative and unflattering descriptions of his closest family members. Publishing this memoir will make any reconciliation with his family more difficult.

Nazi Uniform and Meeting Rabbi Sacks
One of the most moving episodes in Spare describes Prince Harry’s decision in 2005, when he was 21 years old, to attend a costume party wearing a fancy-dress Nazi uniform, complete with a swastika armband and a Hitler mustache.



In his book, Harry attempts to deflect blame for this decision. He claims he doesn’t remember much about his actions in the costume rental store, describing how his memory has had holes in it and blank moments ever since his mother’s death. He also describes calling his brother Prince William and his then-girlfriend Kate and asking what they thought. “Nazi uniform, they said,” when he presented them with his choices. He claims that he desperately wanted to make his future sister-in-law Kate laugh and this was an ideal way. Nowhere does he apologize, though he does describe feeling “self-loathing” afterwards, once a photo of him in costume was leaked to the press.

After the party, a deeply ashamed Prince Harry phoned his father, King Charles, who seems to have dismissed the episode as an example of typical youthful poor judgment. A few days later, King Charles asked Prince Harry to visit Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, then the Chief Rabbi of Britain. Harry recalls that Rabbi Sacks spoke to him with love and understanding, and urged him to use his humiliation to grow and become a better person:

He condemned my actions. He wasn’t unkind…He also placed my stupidity in historical context. He spoke about the six million, the annihilated. Jews, Poles, dissenters, intellectuals, homosexuals. Children, babies, old people, turned to ash and smoke.

A few short decades ago.

…He urged me not to be devastated by my mistake, but instead to be motivated. He spoke to me with the qualities one often encounters in truly wise people - forgiveness…. He told me to lift my head, go forth, use this experience to make the world better. To become a teacher of this event…

Sadly, this is one of the most gentle and lovingly delivered pieces of advice that Prince Harry describes in his entire, kaleidoscopic book.

Recognize the Humanity of Others
The most devastating pain in Prince Harry’s memoir is described in its title, Spare. “Two years older than me, Willy (Prince William) was the Heir, whereas I was the Spare. This wasn’t merely how the press referred to us… This was shorthand often used by Pa and Mummy and Grandpa. And even Granny. Their Heir and the Spare - there was no judgment about it, but also no ambiguity. I was the shadow, the support, the Plan B. I was brought into the world in case something happened to Willy….”

This situation in this description is devastating in its cruelty, and is diametrically opposite to a Jewish worldview in which every single person is infinitely precious and created in the image of God (Genesis 1:27). The coldness that Prince Harry described growing up, and the psychological damage it wrought on him, is his indictment of his royal family. For the rest of us, it’s a cautionary reminder never to take other people for granted.

Know your Heritage
Prince Harry describes how he lacks this same interest in his own royal family’s history. Even the exploits of his own great great grandparents fail to interest him. It’s a situation that’s familiar to many of us, including in the Jewish community. Jews have a rich and compelling heritage. Like Prince Harry, many Jews today are disinterested and don’t put in the effort to learn more about it.

In one tender passage, Prince Harry provides an antidote, describing the love that his father has of British history and culture. He describes watching his father give a speech calling for British students to study Shakespeare, peppering his speech with quotes from various Shakespearean plays. “It was showmanship, but not in an empty way,” Prince Harry described. “He was making the point: You should all be able to do this. You should all know these lines. They’re our shared heritage, we should be cherishing them, safeguarding them…”

Your life is enriched through learning about your history.

Making Peace
Perhaps the saddest aspect of his memoir is the rift it's caused between Prince Harry and his family. Bitterness is on nearly every page, but so is love. Prince Harry describes moments of tenderness between himself and his father, himself and his brother, and other relatives. It can be read as a longing to once more be a part of his family, a wish to somehow erase a past that’s filled with hurts, slights and recriminations.



He writes that he tried to put his side to his father and brother after Queen Elizabeth II’s death last year, and that they failed to listen to him. Spare, he writes, is his final attempt to explain all he's gone through to his closest relatives. Given the incendiary nature of many of his claims, it’s hard to see how he can be reconciled with his family. Despite his misguided attempt at reaching reconciliation, readers can take to heart the statement from the Mishna: “Be among the disciples of Aaron, loving peace and pursuing peace” (Ethics of the Fathers, 1:12)..

Aaron, Moses’ brother, was known to be gifted at bringing warring people together. He used to travel between relatives who weren’t speaking to one another or between husbands and wives who were fighting and cajole and counsel them to make peace with each other.

Creating peace is one of the highest Jewish values. May Prince Harry eventually find a way to make peace between himself and his family, and finally bring himself the closure and comfort he craves.

More About The Author
https://aish.com/authors/84110707

Dr. Yvette Alt Miller

Dr. Alt Miller lives with her family in Chicago, and has lectured internationally on Jewish topics. Her latest book Portraits of Valor: Heroic Jewish Women You Should Know describes the lives of 40 remarkable women who inhabited different eras and lands, giving a sense of the vast diversity of Jewish experience.  It's been praised as inspirational, fascinating, fun and educational.

Harry had laughing gas and ate chicken while Meghan was giving birth to Archie
Newsner » News » Harry had laughing gas and ate chicken while Meghan was giving birth to Archie


RASMUS SENATOR
  January 18, 2023
Prince Harry has commanded the attention of the world with the release of his tell-all book Spare.

Not only did he reveal details of his life as a working royal, but also gave fans insights into what he claims went on with some of his closest family members. He also talked at length about his upbringing – including the loss of his mother, Princess Diana – and discussed in detail his time serving in the army.

Harry also shared new details about the family he has created with Meghan Markle, offering new information on his firstborn child, Archie.

Although Harry and Meghan undoubtedly enjoy the spotlight, they have thus far ensured that their children are afforded a more sheltered time of things as they grow up. As a result, not much has been seen of Archie and his sister, Lilibet.

Yet during the Sussexes’ Netflix documentary, which aired in December, Harry and Meghan opened up and shared many private moments with their children.

In Spare, Harry shared more information about his private life. Interestingly, that includes what he did while Meghan was in labor with Archie … apparently, he got high!

Harry
Youtube/TheTelegraph
Since Harry and Meghan began dating, the couple have been something of a fixation for the British tabloid press. That in itself is hardly surprising – it seems like half the world wants to know what they’re doing.

Harry was “obsessed” with sheltering Archie from journalists
Since Meghan Markle was already an established name – thanks to her role in the television series Suit – it caused quite the stir when it became apparent that she would be joining the British Royal Family.

On May 6, 2019, Harry and Meghan’s son Archie was born at The Portland Hospital in London. As with the birth of any royal child, it was a huge occasion – but Harry and Meghan decided to approach things a bit differently.

According to royal expert Katie Nicholl, Harry was reportedly obsessed with not giving the media any details of his son’s birth. In her book The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth’s Legacy and the Future of the Crown, Nicholl described Harry as being “almost morbidly obsessed” with keeping Archie’s birth as secret as possible.

However, with millions of loyal fans and the majority of the public sought information about the little boy, the longing for secrecy was ignored as it was a beach of the “unwritten contract between the royals and the public.”

“Behind the scenes, matters were so fraught that more than one official — as I know from personal experience — was reduced to tears of frustration and despair,” Rebecca English, royal editor of the Daily Mail, added.

Usually, when a royal baby is born, the parents and in front of the media on the steps to the hospital with their new son or daughter. After photographs are taken, the proud mother and father usually answer a few questions before retreating to privacy once more.

Kate Middleton William
Shutterstock
Harry and Meghan, however, wanted to approach their son’s birth differently, according to Katie Nicholl. Instead of facing the media openly, they tricked reporters and photographers.

“I had been really worried going into that labor”
Prince William, Harry, and William’s children were all born at St Mary’s Hospital, and thus that’s where the traditional first baby photos were taken. However, Meghan’s doctor worked at Portland Hospital. Therefore, it made sense to give birth there. Not only that, but the Sussexes were told the place would make photos impossible due to safety considerations around the entrance.

“Harry had always enjoyed outfoxing the media,” Nicholl wrote in The New Royals: Queen Elizabeth’s Legacy and the Future of the Crown.

“He and Meghan were thrilled to be safely delivered of their son in London’s private Portland hospital even before the palace press office had confirmed the duchess was in labor.”
Harry’s sad news on Prince George has us in tears
Kate’s furious message to Meghan leaves us silent…
In their Netflix documentary series, Meghan explained how she was anxious about what might happen the day her baby boy was born.

“There was already the pressure of the picture on the steps. … But I had been really worried going into that labor because I’m older, I didn’t know if I’d have to have a c-section, and I had a very longstanding relationship with my doctor, and that’s who I trusted with my pregnancy,” she said.
REEAD MORE
https://en.newsner.com/news/harry-had-laughing-gas-and-ate-chicken-while-meghan-was-giving-birth-to-archie/?fbclid=IwAR25Qx8Xj-TktfFlmq8CUzVbVSGIX-ZSJF6ePWN-PfjqnIdD70qdwJg0_rQ

https://aish.com/5-jewish-takeaways-from-prince-harrys-memoir/
5 Jewish Takeaways from Prince Harry’s Memoirs

by Dr. Yvette Alt Miller
January 15, 2023
7 min read
"Spare" describes a lifetime of pain.

Prince Harry’s memoir Spare is painful to read; on virtually every page, he describes a life filled with psychic pain.  The book, ghostwritten by American author J.R. Moehringer, sometimes reads like a compilation of a lifetime’s worth of grudges.  It opens with a quote from Faulkner, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” In over 400 pages, Harry details a lifetime of insults, slights and grudges that have profoundly shaped the man he is today.

Some of Harry’s complaints seem frivolous and have been mocked or criticized since his book came out. (He describes, for instance, when he and his older brother Prince William visited their grandmother Queen Elizabeth II at her castle Balmoral in Scotland, that William got a bigger bedroom.) Other descriptions are searing in their sadness: the night a 12-year-old Harry was woken up to be told that his mother, Princess Diana, had died, he was left all alone until morning with no one to comfort him.

Spare is a cri de coeur, a blistering attack on the institution of the British royal family and elements of the British and international media as well as us, its avid consumers. Here are five Jewish lessons we can learn from this international bestseller.

Gossip kills
“Death and life are in the power of the tongue” writes King Solomon, said to be the wisest man in the world (Proverbs 18:21). Speaking badly of other people is akin to murder.

https://www.thefp.com/p/prince-harry-proves-one-thing-the?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=260347&post_id=96526582&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email
(Samir Hussein/Samir Hussein via Getty Images)
Like many Americans, I’ve gone on a real journey with Harry and Meghan. When they first got together, I loved everything about what they symbolized. I loved that she was a California girl. I loved that they seemed so genuinely in love. 

But by the time the Sussexes landed on that Montecito veranda with Oprah I had been reduced to just one reaction: Oy.

I didn’t think it could get more uncomfortable. I clearly suffer from a lack of imagination.

Next came the various deals: a reported $25 million for a Spotify podcast; a rumored sum of $20 million for Prince Harry’s just-published book; and then, of course, the eponymous Netflix series.

Reader, I am not proud to admit this but admit it I must: I watched the whole thing. 

Somehow, six hours I will never recover later, I found myself nodding along to these lines from my friend Caitlin Flanagan: “When she was miserable, the way his own mother had been miserable, he didn’t do what his grotesque father had done—cheat on her, treat her like a broodmare, ignore her suffering; he moved her and his family far away.” 

But what I couldn’t get over was the extent to which the couple—Harry especially—blames the press for everything. The tabloids in particular are the subject of the Sussexes’ white-hot rage. 

So we thought: Who better to hear from Martin Clarke, editor-in-chief of dailymail.com from 2008 to 2022? He argues that Prince Harry’s deep hatred of the media is based on a delusion. In fact, writes Clarke, “the great revelation at the heart of Spare is that so much of the reporting Harry has objected to over the years turns out to be substantially true.” — BW

“Fiends.” 

“Infected pustule on the arse of humanity.” 

“Sad little men.” 

“Scum of the earth.”

I guess I’ve been called worse.

There is no shortage of people who spark deep resentment in Prince Harry, as revealed in the stew of self-pity that is his ghosted autobiography, Spare.

The Duke of Sussex takes digs at his brother William (whose crimes include ignoring him at Eton, having a nicer bed in their shared boyhood room, and warning him against marrying Meghan Markle too soon); his distant and adulterous father Charles (who hung upside down in his underpants at Balmoral Castle like a bat); and Camilla (who he claims leaked stories about himself and William to rehabilitate her own reputation in the media). 

But absolutely nothing matches the antipathy Harry feels toward journalists—and freedom of the press in general.

Rupert Murdoch is “evil.” No “human being in the 300,000-year history of the species (has) done more damage to our collective sense of reality,” he writes. 

Eat your heart out, Goebbels.

Photographers, or “paps” as the prince brands any journalist who’s ever picked up a camera, are as bad as the Taliban he “removed from the board” (i.e. blew away from his Apache helicopter as they fled on motorbikes) in Afghanistan.

Indeed, the prince even manages to blame the press for a Taliban attack in September 2012—allegedly targeted at him—when he was based at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province after UK news outlets reported that he was there. This, despite the fact the British Ministry of Defense had formally announced the news a week earlier, and a US investigation found that the attack had been planned before he arrived.

On another occasion he complains about being “papped” with a girlfriend at an England rugby game at Twickenham . . . in front of 50,000 people. How dare the press take pictures of such an intimate moment?

Harry’s obsession with the press so permeates every chapter of Spare one wonders if it’s some kind of psychological condition. He leaves nightclubs in the trunk of his bodyguards’ car rather than risk a harmless snap on a London sidewalk. He goes on honeymoon in a vehicle disguised as a removal van.

This is probably not surprising given that, almost immediately after his mother’s death, much of the public focus fell on the scooter-borne paparazzi who constantly pursued her. Memories of Diana weeping as journalists swarmed around her are deeply imprinted on his childhood.

It was perhaps not healthy for him to be handed the secret UK file on her fatal accident, which included pictures of photographers snapping away at the wreckage containing his dying mother.

In short, he thinks those photographers—and by extension, the press in general— killed her.

Of course, it later emerged that the paparazzi were nowhere near Diana, who wasn’t wearing the seatbelt that could have saved her life, when her drunken driver lost control and crashed the Mercedes into a concrete pillar.

But for a boy who lost his mother when he was just 12, perhaps none of that mattered. And perhaps it never can.


Prince William (left) and Prince Harry bow their heads as their mother's coffin is taken out of Westminster Abbey. (Adam Butler via Getty Images)
Ironically, the great revelation at the heart of Spare is that so much of the reporting Harry has objected to over the years turns out to be substantially true. 

The press was right about the drug use that started in Harry’s teens. He cheerfully admits to smoking large amounts of cannabis in the years up to and following his escape to California. He even cops to sampling chocolate-covered magic mushrooms from Courteney Cox’s fridge in Montecito.

The press was right about allegations that Meghan bullied Palace staff (though Harry maintains it never happened). 

We were especially—and tragically—right about the friction among “The Fab Four.” 

In fact, by the time we got around to reporting about the tensions between the Cambridges (William and Kate) and the Sussexes (Harry and Meghan), they had been simmering for some time.

As an editor for 27 years, I can assure Harry that nobody sits around in editorial conferences plotting how they can screw over the Sussexes today. In my experience, senior journalists are much more likely to be plotting how they can screw over each other.

But, above all else, the main gripe Harry has with the press is the way the media—the tabloid media in particular—allegedly hounded, smeared and demeaned his wife. So much so, he says, they ultimately had to flee for North America.

In his book, Harry claims that the media’s unacceptable treatment of Meghan started the moment news of their relationship leaked on October 31, 2016.

But I went back and reviewed what the UK papers wrote about the then-Ms. Markle in the days following that report. And while there was plenty of comment about her biracial background, it was almost entirely in the context of how it showed Britain had become a color-blind society (yup, that was still a good thing back then)—even if some of it was clumsily worded.

Most pieces lauded her for her beauty, style and acting career. In fact, several female columnists wondered why on earth she’d want to marry Harry. 

But what struck me most was how little coverage there was. Meghan was barely on the front pages and some days didn’t appear in most outlets at all.

Nevertheless, days later, by November 8, 2016, Harry had had enough. Pushed over the edge by an essay in HuffPo (of all places) that claimed “the mild reaction of Britons to this explosion of racism was to be expected, since they were the heirs of racist colonialists,” he overrode longstanding Palace practice to issue a statement. 

It said, in part: “The past week has seen a line crossed. His girlfriend, Meghan Markle, has been subject to a wave of abuse and harassment. Some of this has been very public—the smear on the front page of a national newspaper; the racial undertones of comment pieces; and the outright sexism and racism of social media trolls and web article comments…

“Prince Harry is worried about Ms. Markle’s safety and is deeply disappointed that he has not been able to protect her.”

I can remember the morning that statement dropped. My colleagues and I felt shocked after giving the couple what we thought was pretty positive coverage.

Looking back, two things strike me. First, Harry casually conflates social media and The Media. While there are some horrendous racist trolls on social media, they are not the same as the press. (You see this same conflation, by the way, in the couple’s Netflix series, in which random, anonymous tweets by trolls are shown on the screen as a way of illustrating the hate the couple faced.)

Secondly, this was the first instance of him playing the Diana card, suggesting that negative press coverage can cause physical harm. Most notably, he writes that he found Meghan weeping and saying she wanted to die if it would make “the press go away.”

Yet the constant resurrection of his mother fails to mention the biggest irony of all: When it came to playing the press, Diana invented the game...