Meet Rosita Rosenberg

. We have also worked hard this year on ensuring that Jews do not face hatred online, by coming up with proposals to ensure that new Online Harms legislation protects us MEET ROSITA ROSENBERG all from abuse social media platforms. Online is the new frontline in the fight against antisemitism – and not just antisemitism, but misogyny, anti-Muslim hatred, Rosita sadly passed away on the 8th March. The following article was rst published in 2016 and gives a brief glimpse into the life of this homophobia and racism and bigotry against other religions, ethnicities and minority groups. We are working hard to ensure we are better protected. In the meantime, we have acted to stop antisemites selling their poison online by working with Amazon to extra-ordinary woman who did so much for Liberal Judaism. Our ensure Holocaust denial works are removed from its platform. thoughts are with her family and all those friends and associates who knew her. She will never be forgotten. We may be the Board of Deputies of British Jews but some of our most important and successful work has been in support of a group which are neither British nor

Rosita (known as Zeta to her Jewish. The Chinese Uyghur Muslims are there for the duration of the war, subject to terrible persecution, and I was friends) is one of the longest established a synagogue (of which not the only one to see echoes of the Holocaust in their treatment by the Chinese standing members of our shul and Rosita’s father became Chairman), authorities. I wrote to the Chinese Ambassador following a harrowing interview on the also has been involved with Andrew Marr Show and as an organis and Rosita spent her formative years ation we worked tirelessly to persuade MPs to Liberal Judaism for all of her adult life. immersed in a strong Jewish support the Genocide Amendment to the Trade Bill, which would allow Uyghurs to How that transpired is an interesting environment. Her parents were get around the broken UN system and be able to take their call for justice in a British story.court. Orthodox, but not terribly observant, keeping kashrut at home and lighting the Sabbath candles, although her In a year in which the world mourned the racist murder of George Floyd in the USA, mother never attended shul as she we felt a responsibility to ensure that our community was one in which Black Jews and Jews of Colour do not feel alienated didn’t know Hebrew. The family . To this end we set up the Commission on remained in Windsor until 1951, but Racial Inclusivity in the Jewish Community with Stephen Bush as Chair. We hope the buying of kosher meat came to an end some time before that: that the recommendations that the Commission makes will make our community a model of inclusivity in the coming years. Everyone, Jews included, was entitled to a bacon ration. The family Despite the tragedy in the world there have been some beacons of light in the past 12 months. I have seen our c would swap their bacon ration for ommunity come together like never before. Despite the kosher meat, obtained by Rosita’s uncle on his weekly visits to London. He was obliged to take whatever he could get and the quality was physical distance, we have been looking after each other and this is has been so necessary and heartwarming. We have also seen remarkable progress in Israel’s relations with its Middle East neighbours. The Abraham Accords were signed between Israel the UAE and Bahrain. We also saw an agreement with Morocco. One of the highlights of my years was lighting the Chanukah candles in an online event with the ambssadors of the UAE and Bahrain sometimes questionable. – something I never thought I would see. Meanwhile, Rosita’s mother could see lovely meat in the butchers’ shops in Windsor and told her husband she was no longer going to buy the expensive, but poor quality, kosher meat! Rosita knew no one when she came back to South London aged 17. She was working in the Executive She was born in London, but the day Civil Service, where on Friday before her 6th birthday, war being evenings she attended the fantastic imminent, she and her sister were social club. Her parents worried evacuated and sent to a couple who about her secular environment, so were strict Roman Catholics! they made her join a Jewish Youth Unsurprisingly, they were very unhappy Club. She traipsed around several, there and persuaded their parents to which she found unfriendly (the girls fetch them home again. Ultimately, this were snooty Jewish princesses and led to the family moving to the relatively the boys only interested in showing safe area of Windsor, where the off their cars), but when a friend took disparate Jews who found themselves her to a group at South London

Liberal Synagogue as soon as Rosita walked in she had ‘an epiphany’ - they were her kind of people - friendly, welcoming and helpful. She never looked back, making lifelong friends, some of whom are also members of TLSE! Her parents were delighted, even though it Sinclair was a Liberal youth club, it was Jewish and that was the important thing.

Rosita joined the shul and soon became very involved. She edited the National Youth magazine, joined the council and by her mid twenties, became secretary then chairman, of the national youth movement.

She remained at home until she married at 27, (at Brixton United Synagogue, both sets of parents saying they would boycott the wedding if it took place at a Liberal Shul as it wouldn’t be a ‘real marriage’!). She’d met her husband Stanley at a wedding conducted by the great Lily Montagu. Stanley’s job brought them to North West London where they joined Wembley Liberal shul. Rosita was obliged to leave the Civil Service upon marriage but her reputation in the youth movement led to her being invited to work at ULPS by Greta Hyman, the organising secretary, when the movement expanded in 1964. Rosita worked without a break, (taking a 3-month Sabbatical in 1984, which she spent travelling around the USA researching the Reform Movement) until her retirement in 1997. Part of her job was to establish new congregations (one of which became TLSE) and after her US trip, she put much of what she learned there in place. She became Executive Director of Liberal Judaism (then Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues) when Rabbi Sidney Brichto retired in 1989. Although TLSE was founded in 1969, Rosita and Stanley didn’t join until their daughter Sally came to the Religion School in 1970. Once here though, Stanley was one of the many, including his friend Gerry Dickson, who spent virtually every weekend hard at work with hammers and nails literally building our shul with their bare hands! This did not mean that they never took holidays however, as proved by the photograph

But having seen the dedication and hard work she has put into Liberal Judaism during the past sixty-odd years, no one else was and it was with huge pride and pleasure that those gathered there gave her a standing ovation as she collected it.

Although she retired almost twenty years ago, Rosita has remained involved in Liberal Judaism in a variety of ways. One of her many roles is to serve on the committee that decides on those who are going to be honoured with awards that are given out at the LJ Biennial to people who have been nominated by their communities as having an extraordinary level of commitment to Liberal Judaism. It was a very surprised Rosita therefore who, right at the end of this year’s awards, was suddenly presented with a Life Time Achievement Award that she knew nothing about! This is not the first time that Rosita has been taken by surprise at a Biennial. The year she retired, she was actually very involved in the planning of the event. Imagine her astonishment then, when instead of the project she had enthusiastically been expecting on the Saturday evening, they ambushed her with a ‘This Is Your Life” event, of which of course, she was the star! Well done Liberal Judaism for managing to hoodwink someone who was involved at every level, and well done Rosita, for all your hard work and commitment, without which it can truly be said, Liberal Judaism would not be the same today.