Hakol May/June 2020 Iyyar/Sivan/Tammuz 5780

T he L iberal Synagogue E lstree

Hakol

May/June 2020

Iyyar/Sivan/Tammuz 5780

EREV SHAVU’OT Thursday 29th May, 8.00pm Service, study & cheesecake!

RABBI’S WORD – MAY 2020

J

Rabbi Pete Tobias

ust after the start of Pesach, I received an email from one of the TLSE members. I was moved to respond immediately to its message. The exchange is reprinted here with the writer’s permission:

Dear Pete, I wanted to message and say a massive thank you. The past few weeks have been...interesting...for want of a better word...and everything we know and take for granted has been taken away from us.

However, throughout this, I've been really cheered up and supported by the constant TLSE posts and emails coming through, showing that in a crisis religion really is the constant. I truly feel TLSE has stepped up to the mark here, at a time where I'll be honest, I was starting to lose my way.

You're now a constant on a Friday night, online whilst we sit around the table, and I think I may miss that when life goes back to normal!

I cannot imagine how bizarre it must feel holding a service through a screen where you cannot feel the energy bouncing off people, but you've kept positive throughout (on the outside at least! haha). Knowing you're there has been a godsend, especially for Passover. That's my first ever Seder without my family (like other people I imagine), and you holding that Children's Seder meant the world to me. Thank you.

I know that you sometimes get frustrated with the lack of participation from the community, and we play a part in that, but you and the team behind you have seriously pulled it out the bag as far as I'm concerned and shown how important you are to people - especially in times of crisis and uncertainty.

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I have printed it here not because I want to wallow in its generous praise (though I would like to take the opportunity to acknowledge and pay tribute to the efforts of the other members of the TLSE staff during this crazy time). As soon as I received it, I felt moved to respond immediately. I want to share my response with you all, in the belief that it offers a little hope and a vision, however blurred and unfocussed, in these bewildering times.

Dear …, Thanks for such a lovely email.

Religion is a peculiar thing, there’s no doubt. I think its greatest strength manifests itself at times of uncertainty or crisis such as the one we’re in now.

I think that humanity is actually in a much more permanent state of anxiety or crisis than it realises, and a time of reflection, re-evaluation and redefinition of what is truly valuable and worthwhile is long overdue. The fact that it took a tiny virus to alert us to this is perhaps ironic but that doesn’t really matter.

But my job is not to say ‘I told you so.’ I wouldn’t dream of having such arrogance anyway. My role, I think, is to model the potential we all have to reach out to each other and demonstrate how it’s possible to find strength and courage in community even when its full expression seems to have been taken from us.

I could say that the test will come when this is over and we see how easily and readily we slip back into our old ways. But that doesn’t matter now.

What matters is how we find ourselves and others in these difficult days and your words give me comfort and strength in the knowledge that what I believe in and strive for is worthy and is having an effect.

So my thanks to you for that - I am indeed speaking and singing to an empty screen, but I do so in the belief that you and others are receiving what I seek to give.

Stay safe, and please take advantage of what being part of a community – virtual or real – offers you.

Rabbi Pete Tobias

TABLE OF CONTENTS Rabbi’s Word

Page 2/3

Social Anxieties Solved

Page 11

The Jewish Community in England

Page 4

Leopoldstat - Wyndham’s Theatre

Page 12

Care & Welfare

Page 13

Editor’s Word Communal Seders

Page 6

Berlin 2020

Page 14

Aaron’s Message

Page 7

Berlin 2020

Page 15

Adult Education in Lockdown

Page 8

Berlin - March 2020 Walking with my Children

Page 16/17

Berlin - March 2020

Page 9

Page 18

Berlin

Page 10

Why is this night different from any other night?

General Information

Page 19 3

THE JEWISH COMMUNITY IN ENGLAND A Brief Account in Three (or more) Parts Part 2 – Cromwell brings back the Jews

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t’s June 1711 and The Examiner, the early eighteenth century version of The Telegraph, is getting hot under the collar about the entry into high society of “the uncircumcis’d”. The Tory editor accuses the Whigs of promoting “prohibited Conjunctions of Jews and Christians” and that a young Duchess “a toast of the first rate” is not “disgusted at giving her hand to dance in partnership with a frowsy Jew”. This does not make pleasant reading and shows that antisemitism was buried deep in the soul of the Examiner’s readers. The last we heard of the Jews had been 400 years previously when they were being deprived of their livelihood and then expelled wholesale from the kingdom. But now they are back and being entertained at the very highest level of society. How did this happen? We have to go back 50 years to the Protectorate and Oliver Cromwell. The easy explanation for the readmission could lie in the Jews’ traditional role as money men to help in the permanent funding crisis which plagued the government. This would not in itself been sufficient to bring the Jews back so clearly there were other things to be considered. One of these was England’s international trading position and the need to maximise the value of foreign imports and exports. The Jews expertise in international trade would come in very handy. So economics was a fundamental factor in Cromwell’s decision to re-admit the Jews. A further factor was the centrality of politics and religion which in the 1650s were inextricably

bound together.

The Protectorate Parliament was made up from a collection of dissenting sects ranging from the relatively sensible to unreasonable zealots. The workings of the minds of the most radical of these dissenting Protestant groups are sometimes difficult to comprehend but some of them at least believed that the return and conversion of the Jews would facilitate the second coming of Christ.

The process of bringing the Jews back began almost as Charles I’s decapitated head hit the ground with Hope of Israel (1650). This was an essay written by Rabbi Menassah and addressed to the English Parliament from Amsterdam. While it wasn’t the first pamphlet to advocate the opening up of the country it was among the most noticed (1648 seems to be the earliest date of and which a pamphlet appeared). The subject was a contentious one. Some Protestants laid the blame for the death of Christ on the Jewish nation like a shroud. However with a renewed interest in the Old Testament there was an increasing pro-Jewish feeling which was gathering strength. The pamphlet battle between the two sides raged in a way that was peculiarly English

in its ferocity. As a result of this interest the question was considered important enough to merit its own conference in Whitehall. In 1655 a collection of lawyers sat down together to debate the thorny question. They came to the opinion it that there was no legal objection for the Jews to return but coming to a conclusion was a little too much for them so they left the decision for someone else to make. Fortuitously it became relevant in the next year when England and Spain went to war. Spanish citizens living in England were of course now suspected as aliens. The few Jews who were resident were Muranos (clandestine worshippers) who quickly realised that some might think of them as the enemy. This would result in their being stripped of their possessions so they decided that this was an ideal opportunity to distance themselves from Spain. So they wrote to Cromwell pointing out that they were Jewish not Spanish.

Cromwell listened, agreed and the

first synagogue was established in the City of London in Creechurch Lane. A further wave of Jewish immigrants came in the 1660s in the wake of Catherine of Braganza, Charles II’s Portuguese queen.

Although tiny the Jewish population of England established itself and became important, although not always popular.

Now let’s return to the man who outraged The Examiner. The Jew who danced with Duchesses cited at the beginning of this piece is Sir Solomon Medina, the first professing Jew to be knighted in England and host to William III. It is unfortunate that his name is associated with the disgrace of the first Duke of Marlborough and the accusation that the duke had skimmed money from payment made to Medina who supplied the allied troops with food and other necessities.

So the Jews were back. It remains to be seen how they prospered.

Ruth Herman

EDITOR’S WORD

I

t’s that time again but like no time I have experienced. I almost dare not ask how people are doing. While it is horrifying to battle against a tiny little being like a virus which has no conscience and no discrimination, I suppose we have to look out for good things.

You can hear the birds sing and the skies are clear. Pollution levels are down. And what are people doing to keep themselves occupied.

What are you doing? I seem to be writing endlessly not for publication necessarily but because I enjoy it. Hopefully by the time the next Hakol appears we will have tamed the little monster and we will think of this as a dystopian nightmare. It would be good if any of you are keeping a diary to let us see what your thoughts and feelings are. Things you might record are new hobbies you have taken up. It would also be good to hear if this episode has changed

your view of the world, or even your world itself. Keep safe has become the mantra of the month. Perhaps that will become a permanent saying as well.

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COMMUNAL SEDERS

W

hen we came to St. Albans in 1967 we joined the then Beds Herts Liberal Congregation meeting in the Conservative Hall, Stanhope Road.

Being a small community we soon became actively involved with the services and eventually the Council.

The Communal Seder was a very important part of the year being a chance for everyone to get together and take part in the activities. We could host as many as 60, a lot for a small congregation. We both became involved in the planning and preparation of the Communal Seder.

They were highly successful except on three occasions when things went wrong and the event on two instances was almost a disaster.

they had the right date on the order they had written the next day’s date in the delivery diary. Fortunately the food was ready although frozen. We finally got to eat just before drinking the fourth glass with very hungry members and angry organisers.

The third mistake was mine alone. My father worked in the East End and was friendly with a local Kosher Vintner who agreed that if I purchased two cases (24 bottles) of Kosher Palwin’s wine he would sell them to me at the wholesale rate.

I was sent a catalogue to make my choice, I ordered, the wine was paid for and delivered. I took the two unopened cases of wine to the communal Seder with the thought that there would be enough bottles The first happened when we were left over to see us through the year. doing the catering ourselves.

We were a small congregation and Members prepared food in advance very few would drink a full glass of with the use of the hall kitchen to cook Palwin’s No 10 let alone 4. and prepare things such as vegetables that needed a different approach. All I opened the boxes and to my horror would have been well except that for there were 24 bottles of white kosher some reason the numbers attending table wine, not what I expected, I had was greater than we had been made a terrible mistake. In great expecting. The result was that the trepidation I put them on the tables. generosity of early servings meant By the end of the evening we had that towards the end portions were managed to get through 21 of the 24, getting steadily smaller and the it was a superb wine enjoyed by one organisers were left with very small and all. Sadly the shop owner retired meals indeed. This was compounded soon after and I could never repeat by our lack of catering experience. the order.

Determined not to make that mistake again we tightened up on the admin and used an outside caterer. The next Pesach we got to the hall early to set up tables etc and welcome the caterer.

Half an hour after the allotted time of arrival and no caterer we got worried.

A phone call established that although 66

Eventually we stopped attending the communal events concentrating on our family affair. I look back to those times of fun, averted disaster and comradeship with a sense of nostalgia but with no wish to repeat them.

AARON’S MESSAGE Hi All This is my fourth week at home whilst I write this, and I have to say I prefer school (that’s saying something)!

For the first two weeks we were home schooling using Google Classroom, and it was harder than I thought and much less interesting. I miss being around my school friends and working with them. I am able to keep in contact with many of them with my online gaming (Mum says I have to tell you she monitors it closely for safety!) and WhatsApp groups.

The school holidays have been a bit boring – we didn’t manage to go do anything we had planned including to go and see Wicked in the West End, but instead, Mum made us walk a ten kilometre round trip to go see the wind turbines near us (we live in the countryside).

It was our first Passover without the rest of our family (which is quite big) but we instead logged on to watch Rabbi Pete hold the Children’s Seder and then had a family dinner and it wasn’t too bad. After dinner we spoke to the rest of the family using Zoom and my Papa was so deaf we had to call him on the telephone as well as talking through the video screen!

Anyways, I hope you are all doing alright and I hope we make it through this time together ok.

Aaron

Michael with the winning trophy

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ADULT EDUCATION IN LOCKDOWN

T

here has been a lot discussion about home schooling for children and on line tutorials for university students, but has anybody thought about the older members of the congregation? They too may have missed their regular dose of the aptly named Adult Education. Amazingly, it has not only been carrying on during the lockdown period but it has actually grown from a fortnightly event to an eagerly awaited twice weekly Zoom meeting. And it has lost no participants despite the trials of tackling the technology. In fact it has gained at least one member and the original group of about a dozen people still faithfully attend.

period. We have so far concentrated on the rites and rules concerning Shabbat and the Festivals, paying particular attention to their place in the calendar, similarities with non-Jewish festivals and relevance in the 21st century. It was, of course, The technology can be challenging and particularly poignant to discuss the ten the first few minutes seem to follow a plagues in the Pesach story whilst standard pattern of “I can’t hear you”; experiencing the ‘plague’ of Covid-19.

“I can hear you but I can’t see you” but The Friday session focusses on Rabbi eventually we settle down into what has become a comfortable format. So Pete’s book “Putting the ‘o’ in G-d”. twice a week on Tuesdays and Fridays We take a chapter each week, Pete usually at 11.00 and for a little over an reading a few paragraphs and then we hour we are engaged in thinking about discuss elements that have resonated with us in some way, before Judaism under the watchful eye of continuing.

Rabbi Pete. He has even solved the problem of our replicating the Tower For the final ten or fifteen minutes, we of Babel and all talking at once by are unmuted and an informal bringing discipline into our virtual classroom. To avoid the difficult sound discussion or Q&A takes place.

Keeping these sessions going has patterns which make it near made an enormous contribution to impossible to hear someone else putting structure into a period which speaking, he starts the meetings and could easily have found us bored and mutes all the participants giving us space to make our contributions when probably raiding the biscuit box a little too often. one of us waves.

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Although the group is largely the same for both sessions there is a significant difference in the content. On Tuesday Rabbi Pete has been tracing the development of Judaism from the era of Abraham until the present day, contrasting early Judaism with the middle ages and the more recent

Although we have been going a few weeks now, the style and content is such that any new participants would be welcomed and would rapidly fit in.

Well done and thank you Rabbi Pete for giving us something to look forward to every week.

Mike Herman

BERLIN - MARCH 2020

I

want to begin with an acknowledgement and a huge Thank you to Rabbi Pete

My first visit to Berlin was two years ago, when I had the privilege of chaperoning the KT 2018 group. It was a one-night, two day whirlwind trip visiting Jewish history and Holocaust memorial sights as well as seeing how East and West were divided less than thirty years earlier.

When Rabbi Pete announced he was planning to lead an adult Berlin trip, my husband Jonathan didn’t need any persuading to be part of this group after having heard of my experiences with the KT group.

and not the kids when referring to one of the roads as “Big Mac Street” (Grosse Hamburger Straße) and shouting at us to hurry up while trying to herd 17 people onto a German train.

From the meticulous planning from arranging the transportation at stupid o’clock to Luton Airport, to where we ate our meals including the Rabbi’s favourite German delicacy, currywurst, to navigating us through the city on foot and by trains and buses. Thank you Rabbi Pete for sharing Berlin with us and leaving us with a lasting memory of the trip.

Davina Bennett

Rabbi Pete’s knowledge of Berlin as both a city and its history gained from the numerous times he has made the trip with both KT groups and adult trips (18 times)! shone through from the very beginning though occasionally he did forget he was with the adults

Above: Stolpersteine in Grosse Hamburger Strasse

Right: Memorial in Grosse Hamburger Strasse

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BERLIN

R

abbi Pete’s 3-day tour of Berlin was designated to the history and sights of the Berlin wall and its influence on life both during and after its fall. We could take in the opulence of the city’s architecture although minimal time could be spent looking at it due to time constraint. For us it was mainly the Jewish sites and memorials which were the focus of our trip. Rabbi Pete’s tour of Berlin was so well organised and orchestrated. I know he has done this so many times before but his experience and knowledge made it possible to do so much in such a short time. Each day was packed with local travel on public transport, walking, facts and sights to see. We never felt rushed or overwhelmed, it was very chilled. We had enough time to take in the sights reflect and on occasion wipe away a tear or two. The history was brought to life in all that we visited much of which provoked deep emotions and also wonderment. You almost gasped out loud when you visited sites and read accounts Platform 17 at Grunewald station of lost families, villages and established with scrub and trees growing along societies including Jews and others who its edge is overlooked by local perished in the towns, cities as well as houses just the other side of a those transported to the camps and the fence where the victims would have resulting Holocaust. been hoarded to before embarking.

In the most beautiful country side setting Along the edge of the platform on both sides of the track are metal of Wannsee is a grand house set in plaques marked with the dates, beautiful grounds on the edge of a large numbers included in each transport lake. This pretty leafy peaceful setting and their destinations. was the place where a conference was held by key figures of the Nazi regime to As we travelled back on the local develop the final solution. The house is train through the local forest, my now a museum with information of this thoughts were with those who period of history including letters and travelled east to meet their fate. photos of the period.

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In a more suburban setting in the western district of Berlin, we visited platform 17 of Grunewald Station which was formerly a goods train platform. This was used until 1945 to transport in total 50,000 Jews to the ghettos, work camps and ultimately the death camps in the East. This memorial/installation at the old platform where nature has taken over

The tour did not afford a general impression of Berlin of which I have heard of it as a modern and bustling city. We saw the more traditional side with its architecture and History but also there was a clear lack of tourists and citizens because of the impending Covid 19 crisis.

Estelle Leigh

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11

LEOPOLDSTADT- WYNDHAM’S THEATRE

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managed a visit to see Tom Stoppard’s new, and possibly his last, play before the apocalypse closed all productions. It was well worth the effort and, at that point, the low level risk of catching anything nasty.

Set against a background of distressing black & white war pictures, the play commences in Vienna in 1900. We are introduced to a largely secular, prosperous, Jewish family, some of whom have ‘married out’, and follows the fortunes of family members over the first 50 years of the twentieth century. The older generation, having fled the pogroms in the East, try to retain many of the old customs, whilst many of the younger generation, whilst happy to indulge them, question the need for such behaviour.

There are many funny moments, not

least over whether the newest baby is going to be circumcised, and the children portrayed at the start of the play gradually age and become involved in the First World War and its consequences. The rise of the Nazis is greeted with varying degrees of belief by different family members, with the terrible effects eventually being felt by the majority of the family.

In the final scene, two family members meet- one of whom had managed to emigrate to America, and the other of whom to Britain, where he becomes the classic English public schoolboy, only finally becoming aware of the fate of the majority of his extended family.

This is a high impact production, well crafted, with a message for us all not to forget.

Tina Shaw.

Did you know that TLSE member Maya Larholm (11) had a role in this play, Leopoldstadt? That might even be her decorating the Christmas tree – a great job for a Jewish girl!

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CONDOLENCES TO: Carol Albert on the death of her mother Joy Lyn Harris on the death of her husband Ron

MAZAL TOV TO: Benjamin Alabaster for his bar-mitzvah ceremony on May 16th Aaron de Jonge for his bar-mitzvah ceremony on June 20th Dan and Tamy Ozarow on the birth of their son Noah

GET WELL SOON TO: Peter Belkin, Trevor Gilbert, Val Dickson and Blake Lewis who have had recent (or ongoing) hospital stays.

NEWS FROM THE LUNCH CLUB LUNCH

CLUB

Lunch Club at The Liberal Synagogue Elstree has been a monthly date in the diaries of many retired people for several years but due to the present uncertain times we have sadly had to postpone our regular get together. quiz.

We always have a three course meal followed by tea or coffee during which everyone has a chance to chat, eat and then listen to a speaker. The topics are wide ranging and include areas such as history - Jewish and personal experiences and of course our annual otherwise music, art, entertainment, , Everyone has always looked forward to these regular meetings and we hope to start again as soon as we are able. If you haven’t yet attended our Lunch Club we would love you to join us for our future programmes.

In addition, we are always happy to welcome more volunteers to help with the ‘hands on’ running of Lunch Club. These include - pre cooking a course, offering a lift, laying tables, serving meals and eating and chatting with members and guests. All of which are greatly appreciated.

Please bear with us until restrictions are lifted and we are able to announce when we can start Lunch Club again. Until then, keep fit, stay safe and well.

Watch this space … !

BURIAL In cases of bereavement, please contact our Burial Officer, Joan Shopper on 01582 792959 13

BERLIN 2020

G

etting up early on Tuesday 10 March; Breakfast Pret a Manger on the eaten-on airplane. After a busy sightseeing morning on the coach we stopped for and early lunch at The Mall of Berlin. I don’t think I have ever seen in a Food Hall with so many varieties of food on offer.

Imagine the smell that hits you.

Thai, Indian, Chinese, Italian, Salads, Pizzas, McDonalds, Burgers, Coffees, Mashed Potato Bar, Ice Cream and most importantly for some Curry Wurst, a national delicacy of Germany, Sausages in a curry sauce.

Wandering around Berlin we passed loads of bakeries with fabulous pastries, Large salted Pretzels, Apple Pastries and Custard Tarts.

Maximilien’s a typical Bavarian restaurant provide a delicious meal and a chance to chat to our fellow travellers. Schnitzels and Red cabbage seemed to be the most popular main course, Apple Strudel and Kaiserschmarrn basically a thick pancake filled with spiced plums all chopped up with whipped cream, delicious. Another food highlight was the Houmous and Friends Restaurant next to the Synagogue. I never knew there were such a variety of Houmous to choose from. Plates 14

stacked high on tiered stands served with pickles and pitta breads.

Second evening was an Italian Feast, don’t think the waiter knew what had hit him when 18 hungry Jews descending on the restaurant.

As everyone knows I am passionate about food, everywhere I go I have to visit supermarkets, we found a lovely organic shop close to the Hotel which had the most beautiful fruit and vegetables and delicious looking pastries. Berlin may not be a gastronomic centre, but we certainly had an array of food to choose from.

Penny Beral

BERLIN 2020

T

his was my first visit to Berlin - three dense intensely packed days seeing the Berlin Wall, Check Point Charlie, the Jewish Museum and Platform 17 at the Gruenwald Station, the Holocaust Information Centre and the memorial - so much more. I found it all emotionally harrowing, so how to pick out special moments.

Well, here are just two of many.

Right at the outset Rabbi Pete took us to what had been one of the main Jewish districts. I tried to imagine it as it had been - Jewish shopkeepers busily serving women shopping for Shabbat, men and children walking to shul, dogs running around, street cries, the hustle and bustle of chatter and noise and activity of a colourful lively community. It is nothing like this now. It is just an ordinary area of Berlin - quiet, nothing of special interest. I was trying hard to picture it eighty years or so ago when a chain of schoolkids aged about six or seven came into the street chattering away like starlings, happy little kids in a straggly line with their teacher up front - and suddenly my throat seized, my eyes filled. That could also have been part of the imagined scene eighty years ago.

Gone, I thought. All gone. Wiped.

A whole way of life just totally, utterly, brutally erased. And the future - the kids - with it. For me this opening set the context for everything that followed in the following days.

On the third last day we went to Wannsee, the Haus am Wannsee where in January 1942 a select group of businessmen, academics

and Nazi officials met to discuss the Final Solution.

Final Solution. Chilling words.

Already hundreds and thousands of Jews had been slaughtered, murdered, and the problem became how to efficiently dispose of so many bodies. I was feeling very disturbed and distraught by everything I had seen and heard in these three days; I thought there was nothing more that could touch me. And yet in the Haus am Wannsee, a magnificent mansion set in manicured parkland on the shores of the lake, there was a room of photographs, blown-up photographs of the attendees at the conference - handsome men in their impeccable uniforms, their steel blue eyes proudly gazing out at me as I walked past them. There to discuss ovens, gas chambers. How could you. HOW COULD YOU, HOW COULD YOU, I thought as I stared at them. I'll never ever forget this. I shudder now. We left the beautiful house behind us as we walked back through the gardens and above us by the main gate was a blackbird singing its heart out, its lovely song echoing through the trees - on it went, on and on. Pure. Exquisite.

These are just two of the very many moments that I will carry with me for ever.

And I will never go back to Berlin.

Never.

Vivienne.

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BERLIN – March 2020 Walking in the Footsteps of my Children

T

he day of our departure to Berlin loomed with some uncertainty as we could not be sure the trip would proceed since Coronavirus was stealthily closing down many towns and cities across Europe. As it transpired, the Foreign Office was not suggesting Brits should not travel to Germany at this point, so off to Luton we went.

Truth be told, Berlin has never particularly been on my “places I must visit” list, but Rabbi Pete was leading this TLSE adult venture and having participated in his TLSE visit to Krakow a couple of years earlier, it goes without saying this was a trip not to be missed.

Rabbi Pete usually takes the KT youth to Berlin and, in fact, all three of my children had undertaken this during their KT studies with him.

Luckily for us, he had realised that we would need to approach Berlin at a slightly slower pace! That said, we still packed in a fair few sites including the Berlin Wall, walking tour of the Jewish Quarter, the Holocaust Memorial and the Holocaust Information Centre. We also visited the Jewish Museum, stopping at Checkpoint Charlie en route.

I think one of the things I found most moving, other than the Holocaust Museum itself, were seeing all the Stolpersteine (stumbling stones) which are brass commemorative plaques by artist, Gunter Demnig, which are set into the pavements outside properties 16

where members of the Jewish community used to live or work prior to being rounded up for transportation to concentration camps. They really bring home to you that Berlin was once a place full of the hustle and bustle of everyday Jewish lives, Jewish trades, Jewish education, Jewish rituals and Jewish worship – that these were our people, our ancestors – just getting on with their ordinary day to day activities - until, bit by bit, their street, block and area were systematically emptied on an industrial scale.

Which leads me to another place I found particularly emotive, but in a very different way. We visited the Haus am Wannsee – a very beautiful, large house which overlooks the most picturesque lake (Wannsee). Yet, it was in this most delightful of settings that Hitler and his compatriots devised and discussed the best means of carrying out ‘The Final Solution’ so that this could be done in the most effective way possible. I still cannot quite grasp how a group of intelligent adults could sit and debate this whilst the merest glimpse through the window would surely evoke in most people an appreciation of the wonders of nature and the beauty of the world in which we all live.

Of course, I appreciate that the purpose of the meeting at the Haus am Wannsee, was clear to all those participating and no doubt they were all solely focussed on how to dispatch the unwanted Jewish

population by the quickest means possible. This is explained very clearly, and quite graphically, by the educational displays that are exhibited there – and which are well worth a visit. It is just so achingly sad to spend time in this ‘peaceful house by the lake’ knowing what was planned in this place.

Most moving of all, for me, was Platform 17 at Gruenwald Station – the place where the residents of Berlin were herded onto trains heading East, from which they would never return.

Even on a sunny, Spring day, there is a bleakness here that chills you to the bone. The platform is overlooked by apartments that would have been there at the time when these trains were filled with their human cargo. It is not easy to put into words how it feels to stand there – I don’t believe there is a word in the world that could be descriptive enough. It is stark. It is

despair. It is the destruction of a community.

I am very grateful to have had the opportunity to visit Berlin with such a knowledgeable guide as Rabbi Pete and to have had the wonderful company of some of our TLSE community with us – each member of the group made their own contributions to the visit and as always added to the enjoyment of the shared experience. Even with the threat of Coronavirus hanging over us (which helpfully meant that most of the sites we visited were very quiet) the trip was immensely worthwhile.

I, personally, do not have any family ancestors that were living or working in Berlin pre-war, so rather bizarrely instead of tracing my forebears past during this visit, I was actually walking in the footsteps of my children.

Sunrise over the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe

Maxine Steinberg

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WHY IS THIS NIGHT DIFFERENT FROM ANY OTHER NIGHT?

W

e all recognise the above quote, the Seder Service would not exist without that important question the one that the youngest present asks and of course the rest answer.

although gradually the numbers declined. The wine /grape juice was drink with the fourth cup drunk to those missing from the table. Sadly this year the answer to the Four Questions has a fifth answer, “this year there will be no family Passover has always been the gathering, the corona virus has put favourite festival in my personal paid to that.” We celebrated the Jewish calendar. I know that Rosh Seder together, just the two of us; Hashanah and Yom Kippur are more for the first time in my memory the important but they are introspective family was not gathered together and individual dwelling on our faults and the youngest did not ask “Why and suggesting ways we can improve is this night different from all other in the coming year. Passover is nights?” although the questions exciting, the Seder brings families might be asked by a 77 year old. together creating a sense of Michael Shaw community and enjoyment. The story may, or may not, be true but it is one we all know and enjoy with the telling opening opportunities for creative story telling and entertainment. The Seder has always been a major event in my life. Some of my earliest memories are of the family gathered together with my Grandfather leading the evening, later my father and stepmother took over. We gathered around the table, uncles, aunts and cousins with my uncle and aunt from Denmark coming over to join us, as many as 24 people getting together enjoying themselves. We even helped organise the communal Seder with the then Beds Herts.

Liberal synagogue based here in St. Albans. Eventually the family mantle passed to us and we took over the Seder inheriting the family silver that has always graced the table.

Grandchildren joined us enjoying the story telling magic, the Afikomen was hunted and cup of Elijah had the level lowered provided I could distract granddaughter. This all ensured the youngest were involved 18

GENERAL INFORMATION GENERAL INFORMATION T L S E

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