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‘You are an anti-Semite’ Furious Jewish MP confronts Corbyn amid hate code outrage

A senior Jewish Labour MP this week angrily accused had taken place. Corbyn’s office has said Dame Margaret party leader Jeremy Corbyn of being anti-Semitic to will now face disciplinary action.

The party earlier ignored pleas by 69 his face, writes Adam Decker. rabbis from across the religious specDame Margaret Hodge’s extraortrum – including Chief Rabbi Ephraim dinary tirade in the House of ComMirvis and the Reform Movement’s Senmons on Tuesday evening came as the ior Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner – to party’s national executive committee reject the code, which adopts the Interapproved a contentious new code of national Holocaust Remembrance Alliconduct on anti-Semitism, despite ance definition of anti-Semitism withintense criticism from Labour MPs out some examples relating to Israel. and peers and Jewish leaders.

It states that criticism of Israel and A livid Dame Margaret told her its policies should not automatically leader: “You’re an anti-Semite and a racist. You have proved you don’t want Anger: Dame Margaret Hodge be regarded as anti-Semitic and makes clear that even “contentious” comments people like me in the party.” Corbyn reportedly replied: “I’m sorry you on this issue “will not be treated as anti-Semitism unless accompanied by… evidence of anti-Semitic intent”. feel like that.”

The Jewish Labour Movement has called in the EqualiA Labour source confirmed the con- ties and Human Rights Commission to investigate the frontation decision.

Labour MP Wes Streeting said: “The leadership were warned of the consequences of the NEC decision.

They didn’t care.” His colleague, MP Ian Austin, said the move was “utterly shameful”. He added: “I am ashamed to be a member of the Labour Party.”

Full story on pages 2, 3, 14 & 17

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

News / Labour’s anti-Semitism code

Fury as Labour rejects • Jewish MP calls Corbyn an ‘anti-Semite’ to his face • JLM calls in equalities watchdog to probe new code

Labour’s adoption of a much-criticised code of conduct on anti-Semitism has been branded “contemptible” – as the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM) prepared to call in the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to investigate, writes Justin Cohen.

The national executive committee ignored pleas by dozens of rabbis from across the religious spectrum and its own MPs to reject the code, which adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism without some of its accompanying examples.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis had warned those who advocated for anything other than the full IHRA definition – already accepted by the government, Crown Prosecution Service and dozens of local authorities – would be on the wrong side of the fight against racism, while the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council argued it was for British Jews to define the racism facing it.

But, despite pleas from members including deputy leader Tom Watson, Dame Margaret Beckett and Eddie Izzard, the national execu-

tive committee (NEC) chose to stand by an earlier decision of a sub-group while agreeing to consult with the community on developing the code.

Following the decision, the Board, JLC and Community Security Trust (CST) accused the party of “failing British Jews and failing as an anti-racism party” and urged the NEC to rethink the “self-serving” code “whose main purpose seems to be to protect those who are part of the problem”.

A joint statement said: “The decision taken by the NEC today to adopt a watereddown definition of anti-Semitism will be regarded with a mixture of incredulity and outrage by the overwhelming majority of the UK’s Jews. The suggestion that they will now consult with the Jewish community is an insult, given the complete lack of meaningful consultation up until now.

“This is a sad day for the cause of antiracism in this country. The strength of feeling across the breadth of the Jewish community could not have been clearer and many will see this as a deliberate provoca-

tion, built on misrepresentations of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism and double standards for the treatment of British Jews.”

A senior communal source said they would be “disappointed” if the Board and JLC entertained the idea of taking part in any consultation, adding: “Surely you only consult with a process you trust.”

JLM’s chair Ivor Caplin told Jewish News his organisation was left with “no option given the rise in anti-Semitic incidents but to refer the matter to the Equality and Human Rights Commission to conduct an inquiry into the NEC and its code of conduct”.

The head of the equalities watchdog said last year that Labour needs “to do more to establish it is not a racist party”.

A JLM statement said the party acted in a ”reckless” manner in not previously consulting over the issue, adding: “This is not the same Party that wrote the Equalities Act and has proudly championed minorities.

“The impact on Jewish Labour activists has been unprecedented and severe. Rather than working with the Jewish community to solve this issue, the Labour Party has deliberately chosen to ignore those who know best, with no likelihood of this changing.”

The party failed to follow the Macpherson principles by communicating with victims of hate, it charged.

It said specifics within the definition are not a question of theory, with attacks owing to

Israel-related anti-Semitism taking place on the streets of the UK. “It has been suggested that the ever-present media coverage of anti-Semitism and British Jews, due to the Labour Party’s inability to deal with anti-Semitism within its

MY GOOD FAITH IN THIS SHAM IS NOW SHATTERED ADAM LANGLEBEN

FORMER LABOUR COUNCILLOR, BARNET

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020 8505 2725 / 07910 285115

www.tobylevy.com tobylevy@talk21.com Glatt Kosher under the supervision of the Sephardi Beth Din

After May’s election, I attended a meeting of the national executive council (NEC)’s Anti-Semitism Working Group on behalf of the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), but was initially refused entry, which got me thinking they weren’t interested in what JLM had to say.

I’d been told it was to hear proposals for tackling anti-Semitism but, once there, we were told we were giving evidence. Unprepared, JLM director Ella Rose and I ran through the issues, stating that full adoption of the IHRA definition was a red line for the Jewish community.

Yesterday the people we addressed chose to ignore us, despite JLM being one of the party’s oldest affiliates, having helped build Labour.

They ignored the JLC, the Board of Deputies, the Community Security Trust, the historic mass protest at Parliament Square, the unprecedented display of communal unity

from 68 cross-denominational rabbis, and the chief rabbi. They treated the Jewish community with absolute contempt Those on the left believe in the good of people, that people act in good faith. I woke up on Tuesday with that belief, however naïve.My good faith in this sham is now shattered.

I now believe there are anti-Semites right at the top of the party, including some of Corbyn’s closest aides. It has become so factionalised that ideological purity now trumps historic anti-racist principles.

Decisions are no longer judged on principle but on narrow factional lines. The new code is a ‘get out of jail free’ card for those who would fall foul of the IHRA definition. It blurs decision-making at every level.

I now believe Labour has become institutionally racist, unable to look objectively at issues of anti-Jewish hatred without factional politics taking precedence.

So, what next? Racist institutions are unable to investigate themselves objectively, and the Equality and Human Rights Commission has warned that Labour must do more to prove it is not racist. JLM will now be exploring all options available to it.

19 July 2018 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

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Labour’s anti-Semitism code/ News

IHRA’s definition

• Ruling body chooses to ignore pleas of 69 rabbis • Party’s own MPs brand decision ‘contemptible’ Protesters during the demonstration organised by Campaign Against Antisemitism outside the Labour Party HQ in London, amid the row over claims of anti-Semitism

ranks, has been an all too important contributor to the sustained period of increased anti-Semitic incidents.”

The JLM took to Twitter to urge members “stay” and pledged never to give up fighting for the rights of

Anglo-Jewry.

MPs also joined the chorus of criticism. Former Labour leader Ed Miliband tweeted that his party should adopt IHRA in full, insisting the argument it is incompatible

with criticising Israel is “wrong”, while Dudley North MP Ian Austin said the NEC adopted “a position on anti-Semitism that allows members to be anti-Semitic”.

Wes Streeting, MP for Ilford North, branded the move “utterly contemptible” and insisted it could not go unchallenged.

He wrote: “The damage it will inflict on our credibility as an antiracist party is the leadership’s responsibility – and theirs alone.”

Reflecting on the clear warnings from across the community ahead of the meeting, he added: “It appears they simply do not care. It is impossible to imagine Labour’s leadership would treat any other community in this way.”

Labour had claimed IHRA did not go far enough and that its code was the “most detailed and comprehensive” adopted by any political party in Britain.

General secretary Jennie Formby argued most of the examples were adopted “word for word”, with additions “from the UN Charter on Human Rights, the Home Affairs

Select Committee report 2016, the Chakrabarti Report and other contemporary sources”.

Formby said only one example, covering descriptions of Israel as a racist endeavour, was not referenced.

She told MPs the code “provides the necessary explanation to ensure legitimate criticism of Israeli policies is not silenced while not tolerating comments which deny Jewish people the right to self-determination or hold Israel to unfair standards not expected of other states”.

A Labour Party spokesman said: “The NEC upheld the adoption of the code of conduct on anti-Semitism, but in recognition of the serious concerns expressed, agreed to reopen the development of the code, in consultation with Jewish community organisations and groups, in order to better reflect their views.”

Anger: Margaret Hodge

Westminster protest planned A rally is to place in Parliament Square tonight to protest Labour’s new code of conduct on anti-Semitism.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) has organised a demonstration for 6.30pm, aiming to tell the opposition “how we feel” about the new definition.

This comes after Labour’s national executive committee backed the adoption of a code of anti-Sem-

itism – ignoring the chief rabbi’s warning that doing so would send “a message of contempt” to British Jews.

After repeated calls, including from the Board of Deputies, Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) and 69 rabbis from across the religious spectrum to adopt the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antiSemitism, the party’s choice

sparked anger.

The Board, JLC and Community Security Trust accused Labour of “failing British Jews and as an anti-racism party”, while the Jewish Labour Movement prepared to call in the Equalities and Human Rights Commission to investigate.

This follows the Board and JLC’s unprecedented ‘Enough is Enough’ demon-

stration against anti-Semitism in March, protesting the party’s handling of the problem, after which community leaders met leader Jeremy Corbyn in a meeting they described as “a disappointing missed opportunity”.

CAA said: “We have long stated that the Labour Party under Jeremy Corbyn is institutionally anti-Semitic and unsafe for Jews.”

Semitism is being tolerated” in the party, which he said had been taken over by the hard-left.

He was suspended earlier this year after allegations that he sent inappropriate messages to a female former aide, but denies the allegations. The case had been referred to the party’s national constitutional committee after an investigation.

MOMENTUM GROUP’S TWEETS ‘HACKED’ The Redbridge branch of Momentum has said it was hacked after a Twitter account under its name was accused of making “crude comments” about Jews.

In the tweet, a user calling itself Redbridge Momentum wrote: “if Jews want Labour to adopt a nonesence [sic] decleration [sic] that associates criticism of the racist aparthied [sic] state of Israel with antisemitism. then let them be p***d of [sic]. the rest of the world can see through the nonsense.”

The group later denied the tweet was official, writing: “We are aware of a fake Redbridge Momentum account… tweeting offensive material – most recently around the anti-Semitism definition.”

It added that the user was “not a real Momentum account, not controlled by Redbridge Momentum…

Have reported to Twitter and Momentum HQ”.

BRADFORD ADOPTS IHRA DEFINITION Jewish leaders have welcomed Bradford Metropolitan District Council’s decision to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism, hours after the Labour Party’s ruling body refused to do so.

The West Yorkshire councillors voted to adopt the IHRA working definition with all its examples on Tuesday night, after a debate in which vociferous criticism of Israel was nevertheless voiced. Most of the definition’s examples relate to Israel.

Among the minority to vote against the definition’s adoption was former Liberal Democrat MP David Ward, who once likened Israel’s treatment of Palestinians to Nazi actions against Jews, in an entry he made in a Holocaust remembrance book.

The definition’s adoption marked a departure for a city once declared an “Israel-free zone” by former Bradford West MP George Galloway.

CORBYN ALLY DENIES ASSAULT CLAIMS The Enough is Enough rally

FORMER LFI CHAIR QUITS TO BECOME INDEPENDENT A former chair of Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) has resigned from the party while suspended on misconduct allegations and will now become an independent MP. Barrow and Furness MP John Woodcock, who has been a vocal critic of Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, said he was leaving in part because “anti-

NEWS IN BRIEF

Earlier this year, Woodcock accused Corbyn of “deliberately baiting the mainstream Jewish community” after the Labour leader attended a seder with anti-occupation group Jewdas in his Islington constituency.

Woodcock led LFI until 2013, and until this week was its vice-chair. His resignation letter, coming hours after

Labour adopted a code of conduct over anti-Semitism, criticised Corbyn, who he said would be “a clear risk to UK national security as prime minister”. He added: “Anti-Semitism is being tolerated and Labour has been taken over at nearly every level by the hard left, far beyond the dominance they achieved at the height of 1980s militancy.”

The chairman of a Dutch Jewish group has said he was assaulted by a prominent ally of Jeremy Corbyn during the Labour Party leader’s visit to the Netherlands.

Hidde J. van Koningsveld, chairman of the CiJo student group, has complained to police about an alleged altercation with writer Paul Mason at an event hosted by the Dutch Labour party PvdA. Mason flatly denies the allegations.

Van Koningsveld told police three people shouted at him and shoved him around at a nightclub in the Hague.

He later wrote on Twitter that he had learned the main culprit was Mason, a speaker at the Labour event.

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

News / Communal ‘ceasefire’

REFORM ISRAEL TOUR GUIDE IS TAKEN ON

BY LIBERAL JUDAISM A Jewish student stopped from leading an Israel tour for Reform Jews after participating in the ‘Kaddish for Gaza’ in May has been taken on as a tour leader by Liberal Judaism.

Oxford University undergraduate Nina Morris-Evans (pictured) flew out for the month-long tour with the Liberal LJY-Netzer group on Sunday, with the blessing of Senior Liberal Rabbi Danny Rich. He described Morris-Evans, who had been due to lead an RSY-Netzer tour this summer, as “trained and willing”, adding that she had been through “a full interview process”.

After initially suggesting she would receive “mentoring”, the leadership of Reform Judaism subsequently announced she would not be going. Last week, dozens of youth leaders leading Israel tours this summer wrote an open letter accusing the Jewish community of “bullying” peers.

Verbal clashes as right and left-wing Jews talk Israel A UJIA-sponsored attempt to broker dialogue between two opposing sides of the community on how best to support Israel at times descended into a bad-tempered shouting match between right and left wingers – and ended with both sides apparently as far apart as ever, writes Jenni Frazer.

Ceasefire was the optimistically-entitled event held on Tuesday at London’s JW3, the first of what UJIA hopes will be a series of discussions.

But although moderator Henry Grunwald QC and JW3 chief executive Raymond Simonson made it clear from the start that they were looking for “civilised” exchanges of opinion, this was often lacking during the event.

“Diversity is not heresy,” Grunwald declared, but that largely fell on deaf ears.

Instead, the audience was fairly evenly divided between

right-wing activists — one woman draped in an Israeli flag — and others who had either taken part in, or were supporters of, the now notorious “Kaddish for Gaza” on Parliament Square several weeks ago.

Grunwald introduced the night’s panel, but their input was deliberately diminished in favour of audience participation.

The task of Adrian Cohen (chair of the London Jewish Forum and Labour Friends of Israel), Ella Rose, (director of Jewish Labour Movement), Natasha Hausdorff and Rabbi Andrew Shaw (chief executive of Mizrachi UK), was to kickstart the discussion by offering answers to two central questions: how to respond to people in the community who were “uncomfortable” at the direction taken by the Israeli Government, and what should be said to members of the community who were “profoundly dis-

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Photo by Mark GoldsmithÐ courtesy @RabbiMarkG

NEWS IN BRIEF

turbed” at those who expressed their opposition to the direction of the Israeli Government.

Cohen said he was conscious of the “extreme anger and language” used in recent weeks, but counselled that “shouting and emoting are selfdefeating”.

Hausdorff, a barrister who is a director of UK Lawyers for Israel, suggested a variety of ways in which people could make their views heard, including calling Israeli radio stations or even going to Israel “to take part in anti-Bibi demonstrations”. But, she said, more important was to redress the balance of the “twisted and skewed narrative on Israel” and the “lies which have permeated throughout the community and the country”.

Shaw observed that “in today’s PC society everyone has an opinion, but you can’t sing ‘kumbaya’ to Hamas”.

Rose, however, felt that “all opinions matter” – but declared “if Bibi chooses to speak in my name, as a Jew, I have the right to call it out”.

Even allowing for a breadth of opinions, however, Rose believed that there had been “some disgraceful things” that had happened in the community in recent weeks.

“Everyone is entitled to an opinion,” she said, “but it’s about the way you express it.

There has been language [used] which is not becoming of our community.”

Top: Raymond Simonson introduced the Ceasefire event for right and left wingers. Above: ‘Kaddish for Gaza’

Much of the ensuing contributions which followed from the audience, however, were split clearly along generational lines as well as right and left — older people tending to back right-wing points of view, younger people siding with those on the left or those disaffected with the organised Jewish community.

The blogger Jonathan Hoffman, who announced himself as one of two people who had identified “the ringleaders” of the Kaddish for Gaza event, insisted that claims of abusive language in response to the publicity was “un-evidenced” and “a smokescreen to deflect attention from the act itself”.

But other members of the audience insisted that not only had there indeed been abusive language, but a number of distressing examples were read out.

One posting on social media had hoped that one of the Kaddish for Gaza participants died. Another wrote: “Are you

even Jewish? I want to see your mother’s ketubah, you half-breed”.

Audience member David Krikler spoke half-despairingly of two new tribes — the “gevaltright and the gevalt-left”.

Shaw was obliged to clarify that there was no longer any link between Mizrachi UK and any Israeli political party, specifically the hard-right Jewish Home party.

One audience member said optimistically: “There is much more that puts us on the same side than we think – if we listen to each other”.

That, however, did not seem likely as the event concluded.

Nevertheless, UJIA chair Louise Jacobs announced that Ceasefire was the first of a number of dialogue events, some public, some lower-key, in which UJIA wanted to bring together different strands of the community to discover how best to support Israel. She said that more events would be rolled out until the autumn.

19 July 2019 Jewish News

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Communal ‘ceasefire’ / World News

Jewish activists target Birthright participants

SOMETIMES, THE GREATEST GIFT YOU CAN GIVE IS YOUR TIME. VOLUNTEER FOR NORWOOD.

Cash isn’t the only currency charities need.

You can help keep our incredible services running by volunteering today.

FIND OUT MORE at norwood.org.uk/volunteering Na’amod activists mingling with the Birthright group at Luton Airport

British Jews against Israeli policies in Palestinian territories say they had a “positive response” when they met Jewish youngsters about to embark on a Birthright trip at Luton Airport.

Activists from the new antioccupation group Na’amod, which they say was “born out of Kaddish for Gaza” in May, were finally escorted away by police. They said organisers from the UK-Israel charity UJIA “tried to stop us talking to participants” but to no avail.

Na’amod organiser Emily Hilton said: “Many participants were interested in staying on in Israel/Palestine to go on trips that explore the impact of the occupation on Palestinians and Israelis. Some didn’t even know what the occupation was, or what the West Bank was.”

UJIA chief executive Michael Wegier said the Na’amod activists were entitled to their views. He added: “The trip has taken off and we look forward to [participants] having an amazing 10 days learning about the extraordinary achievements, realities and challenges of modern Israel in all its diversity.”

Na’amod’s airport intervention is the latest Birthrightrelated incident to hit the headlines in recent weeks, after two separate groups walked off the free Israel tour to meet Palestinian families and hear a different perspective.

Birthright is a non-profit organisation that takes diaspora Jews aged 19 to 26 on a free 10-day trip to Israel to experience “the culture, history and politics of our dynamic home-

land, and to get to know young Israelis from a cross-section of society”. Participants must have at least one Jewish parent.

However, the popular trip has been hit by two recent walk-outs [see below], with an American Jewish group leaving to meet a Palestinian family facing eviction, and another leaving the week before to visit Hebron with Israeli veterans’ group Breaking the Silence.

Formed last month, Na’amod says it “seeks to end our community’s support for Israel’s occupation” and “to mobilise it in the struggle for freedom and equality for all Palestinians and Israelis”.

Among its supporters is Rabbi Leah Jordan, who led the Kaddish for Gaza event in Parliament Square.

BIRTHRIGHT MUST BE HONEST ABOUT AIMS TOMMER SPENCE

MEMBER OF NA’AMOD: BRITISH JEWS AGAINST OCCUPATION

As a Na’amod activist, I travelled to meet Birthright participants at Luton Airport, to talk to them about the occupation and the ways it might be hidden from them on their trip.

Although the Birthright leadership were unhappy at our presence, and tried to prevent us from talking to the group, the participants were overwhelmingly interested in what we had to say.

By the time the police arrived to escort us away, we had spoken to everyone going on the trip.

I went on Birthright two years ago, and had a deeply meaningful experience. The tour took me to many landmarks I missed out on as a child and helped strengthen my Jewish identity.

Yet it also hid a lot. Although I and many others

had a sense we weren’t shown the full picture, it was only afterwards I discovered the extent to which the occupation had been obscured.

For example, during our trip around Jerusalem’s Old City, no one thought it important to share that approximately 90 percent of its residents are literal second class citizens, denied the right to vote for the Israeli Government simply because they were born Palestinian.

Israel was repeatedly described as the “start-up nation” whose pioneering founders had “made the desert bloom” – yet more than 70,000 Palestinians live in West Bank communities without access to water, and 97 percent of piped water in Gaza is unfit for human consumption. This double standard was one of many I discovered in the aftermath of my trip.

When it comes to occupation, you either believe everyone should have the same rights, or you don’t. If Birthright is going to continue taking young Jews to Israel, it’s time for it to be honest about where it stands.

volunteering@norwood.org.uk norwood.org.uk/volunteering 020 8261 7650

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

News / Community ‘ceasefire’ / News briefs NEWS IN BRIEF

CHIEF RECEIVES AN HONORARY DEGREE Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has been awarded an honorary degree at Middlesex University London, which he praised as “a real partner” of the Jewish community. Mirvis, now in his fifth year as Chief Rabbi, visited the University in April, telling Jewish students that Judaism needed to also be outward-facing, encompassing both “drawbridge up” and “drawbridge down” ideologies if it is to be successful. He said: “This is a great honour which I am privileged to accept.

RABBI RE-ELECTED

BY FAITH NETWORK Rabbi Maurice Michaels of Bournemouth Reform Synagogue has been re-elected as honorary treasurer of the Interfaith Network for the UK at its recent Annual General Meeting.

Rabbi Michaels has been described as “one of Reform Judaism’s most experienced rabbis” and has been involved in interfaith work for many decades, instigating local initiatives in all the areas he has served as rabbi. He said: “I am grateful to the outgoing board of trustees and the AGM delegates for showing renewed confidence in me.”

UJIA regret over communal clash The chief executive of UJIA has spoken with regret of “provocative acts and provocative language” on both right and left of the political spectrum, writes Jenni Frazer.

Speaking before UJIA’s first structured dialogue, Ceasefire, held at JW3, Michael Wegier said that “a big challenge for the mainstream community” was enabling all sides of the debate to air their opinions inside the UJIA “tent”.

But, he added: “Some people want to challenge the stability of the tent. The tent metaphor only works when people want to be part of it. On both extreme sides there are people who want to challenge that notion of a tent”.

Wegier emphasised that UJIA had donors at every level of the campaign who had both left and right-wing views, but that the charity itself took no political position.

Nevertheless, he condemned the most recent acts in America in which small numbers of people who had gone on Birthright trips (UJIA is Birthright’s UK partner) had walked out, seeking interaction with pro-Palestinian groups.

He said: “If they want to protest against Birthright, they shouldn’t go on it: no one’s forcing them. I think people who leave a Birthright group are behaving like entitled brats.

“I can’t promise it will never happen in the UK, but I hope it doesn’t. They are offered a major opportunity, at the expense of the Israeli Government and the Jewish people, to go to Israel for a 10-day free trip. Birthright is a learning organisation.

“I have no truck whatsoever with people who come on a trip, knowing what it is, and just to make a point of disruption, they leave. I think it’s a dishonest thing to do.”

Wegier said UJIA was involved in a long process to see how best to engage young people in Israel, and was reviewing some of its Israel programmes.

“The total number of people going on gap years [before university] has not declined, but the demographic has changed. The numbers going on yeshiva or seminary programmes remains stable, around 300 or so each year.

“But those going on non-yeshiva programmes — it was 250 at its peak, to

Michael Wegier speaking at a Jewish News event in Tel Aviv this year

about 90 to 100 now. That’s a big drop, and I don’t think we will get those numbers back.”

He attributed the drop to a variety of factors, including the economic situation, the rise in tuition fees, and the “overwhelming concern of students about their earning potential. However, we are seeing an increasing number of people going to Israel during or after university.”

This shift in attitudes meant the numbers going to Israel had not varied greatly from a decade ago, but the programme range was different.

Wegier said one of the most exciting new programmes to be rolled out by

UJIA this year was “Onward Israel”, which offers young people the opportunity to work for two months as interns in a variety of Israeli companies. “It’s really good for people who want to build up their resumés, but couldn’t afford a whole year.”

He acknowledged the difficulty in getting students to commit to be Israel activists while at university, but was optimistic about post-university options.

As for the Ceasefire event, Wegier said: “I think we have tapped into something. There are a lot of people who have a lot of things to say. Our role is to listen.”

19 July 2018 Jewish News

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Education inspections / Sports marathon / News

Orthodox schools have ‘pathway’ to compliance Jewish education chiefs this week said they were confident of ensuring Orthodox schools are capable of meeting Ofsted standards following crunch talks with the government.

A meeting took place on Tuesday with 12 delegates of Chinuch UK, which represents Orthodox schools in London, Manchester and Gateshead.

Delegates from London expressed concern that Ofsted inspection results of Orthodox schools in Manchester and Gateshead appeared to differ from those in the capital, and Ofsted’s director of London agreed to visit schools around the country to look into the disparities.

Rabbi David Meyer, executive director

Yesodey Hatorah School was recently downgraded by Ofsted

of PaJeS, said: “The outcomes from the discussions were exceptionally positive and there is a confidence that a pathway can be found that will ensure Jewish schools can be fully compliant with the independent

schools standards in a manner that is compatible with Orthodox values and beliefs.”

In a statement issued by Ofsted on Wednesday, following the meeting, a spokesperson for the national inspectorate said: “All independent schools must meet the statutory independent schools standar. These are baseline minimum standards.

“The Department for Education (DfE) draft guidance... makes clear it is not sufficient for schools to promote respect in a general way, without explaining to secondary school pupils what all of the protected characteristics are.”

They added: “It is not about changing or weakening the standards themselves.”

Family is ‘humbled’ by help for Liat The British family of a Greek Jewish woman has thanked the UK Jewish community for helping her get “life-saving” treatment in Israel.

Radiologist Liat Papantoniou, 48, started specialist treatment at the Sourasky Medical Centre

in Tel Aviv earlier this year, after being diagnosed with high-grade fibrosarcoma a rare bone cancer.

After several rounds of chemotherapy, she was told she needed difficult surgery to remove the cancer and fit a prosthetic hip, news that spurred the family into

a fundraising campaign.

Her UK-based cousin, Jonny Mosseson, who is still fundraising to reach £85,000, said: “The community has been incredibly supportive, which has been a very humbling experience.”  gofundme.com/savingliat

Liat Papantoniou

Footie fundraiser in Shani’s memory The family of a little girl who died from complications arising from a congenital heart defect has urged Jewish community members to support a “football marathon” to raise money for cardiac research.

The 12-hour event, on 29 July at Watford Powerleague from 9am to 9pm, will be held in memory of Shani Berman, who had several operations at Great Ormond Street Hospital until she finally lost her battle, aged five.

The family’s charity – Shine for Shani – is now raising money to fund cardiac research at the children’s hospital and aims to raise £70,000 over two years to support research into child heart transplants at Great Ormond Street.

Shani was always told she had “a magic heart”, after she was born with a congenital defect that meant she had a hole in her heart and no valve linking her heart to her lungs.

In risky open-heart surgery, doctors fitted a tube, which worked until Shani was 20

Shani Berman on the front page of Jewish News

months old, when she suffered heart failure.

Remarkably, she pulled through, despite very low oxygen levels, until she was five, when doctors again had to operate. Tragically, she did not survive the operation.

Now parents Simon and Juliet, who live in Borehamwood, together with sister Tammy and brother Joel, have asked the community to get involved, either by playing or donating, with 250 already signed up to play.

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

News / Righteous recalled / Neo-Nazi jailed AMAZING, AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

Legendary Jewish singer-songwriter Paul Simon bid a fond farewell to Britain on Sunday night.

His Homeward Bound retirement tour transfixed a 60,000-strong audience in London’s Hyde Park, bringing down the curtain on more than 50 years of touring.

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Jailing of neo-Nazi ringleader praised Jewish representatives have welcomed the jailing of a neo-Nazi ringleader amid warnings far-right thugs now “take inspiration from jihadists”.

The reaction followed news of the custodial sentence handed at the Old Bailey to Christopher Lythgoe, 32, who leads white nationalist group National Action, which was proscribed in December 2016 after it supported the murder of MP Jo Cox. Lythgoe was accused of giving permission to Jack Renshaw, 23, to murder Rosie Cooper, a Labour MP in Liverpool. Renshaw subsequently bought a 19-inch machete for the purpose, but a jury found Lythgoe not guilty of the charge. He was, however, convicted of

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belonging to a proscribed organisation, along with Matthew Hankinson, 24, from Merseyside, who was described as Lythgoe’s second-in-command, and who called for “race traitors” to be hanged from lampposts.

Lythgoe rose from being National Action’s north-west organiser to become its national leader. Jurors were shown decrypted messages from him in 2016 discussing how to bypass the forthcoming ban of the group, which the Home Office said “promotes the idea that Britain will see a violent race war”.

They were shown a USB stick found at Hankinson’s address containing text from an interview reading: “We fight for the racial survival of our people.., We are not Shabbos goyim, we are not good cattle to be commanded. We must secure the existence of our people.”

The judge sentenced Lythgoe to eight years in prison and Hankinson to six, saying the group held a “truly evil and dystopian vision”.

A spokesman for the Community Security Trust said: “It is vitally important [we] understand that terrorism now comes in many forms, including neoNazis who take sick inspiration from jihadi terrorists.”

Heroes thanked at Golders cemetery

The Hoop Lane memorial service

On 29 March 1946, her 16th birthday, Lily Pohlmann arrived in Britain on the first of three rescue transports, organised by Rabbi Solomon Schonfeld, under the auspices of the chief rabbi, writes Jenni Frazer.

Last Thursday, Lily and members of her family joined nearly 100 people at Hoop Lane cemetery in Golders Green to celebrate the rescuers, including Schonfeld and two people who helped Lily and her mother Cecilia Stern.

A number of plaques are there already, including one for Frank Foley, the British passport control officer in Berlin who helped thousands of Jews by issuing visas to help them escape Nazi Germany.

Among those celebrated were also wellknown names such as Sir Nicholas Winton, who helped organise eight trains – the original Kindertransport – from Prague to London.

At the Memorial Wall, historian Robert Lacey told some of the rescuers’ stories and said their bravery had saved thousands of lives.

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Trump visit / Camp trips / ECHR welcomed / News

Anger at Trump is ‘cross-communal’

Protests in London against Donald Trump featured prominent Jewish representation

Organisers of the “Jewish bloc” in the protests against Donald Trump in central London said Jewish opposition to the hatred he represents “transcends the community’s dividing lines”.

As banners and placards were being made last Friday morning, plans were put together to hold a Friday night service in St James’ Park after the march and rally in Trafalgar Square, where Dr Edie Friedman of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE) was due to speak to tens of thousands of people.

“The Jewish bloc within the Stop Trump protests has been independently organised by individuals to get support from across the community,” said Amos Schonfield, who was part of the organising team.

“After the march and the rally we thought a Kabbalat Shabat service in St James’ Park was the right way to end.”

More than 100 British Jews protested the government’s inaction on refugees and Schonfield said Trump tapped into some of the same values. “For me, [he] is a threat to

democracy, decency and people all around the world,” he said. “My Judaism has taught me to stand up to people like him and [for] the values we hold dear.”

He said while the Jewish community “has its plate full right now, individuals like us want to stand up to the hate Trump represents”.

Friedman told the Trafalgar Square crowds that “with others in the anti-racist community, we were shocked by... Trump’s presidential campaign and his subsequent behaviour”.

She said: “We need as a response to Trump and our government to reinvigorate the refugee welcome movement and ensure Britain honours its commitment to a fair asylum system, so people can have faith in legal routes to come to Britain and live here with dignity.”

In a final message to the president, she added: “Through your statements and policies you have helped to normalise the rising tide of racism, Islamophobia and anti-Semitism. You do not speak for us.”

AUSCHWITZ VISITS FOR UNI STUDENTS LAUNCHED A project to take 200 university students and leaders to Auschwitz-Birkenau with the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) was launched this week.

It follows the January announcement of £144,000 in government funding to extend HET’s Lessons from Auschwitz programme, which until now has only been available to schools and colleges.

The money was committed by the Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government, which was then headed by Sajid Javid MP, before he replaced Amber Rudd as home secretary.

The programme is to be delivered jointly by HET and the Union for Jewish Students (UJS) and it is hoped the 200 students who visit the notorious Nazi site will return to the UK to educate a further 7,500 of their peers in seminars.

Another element of the programme provides for a half-day seminar “where

HET’s project will take 200 students to see the crematoria

vice-chancellors and student leaders will learn about prewar Jewish life and hear testimony from a Holocaust survivor”.

Researchers at the Community Security Trust say there have been more than 100 recorded anti-Semitic incidents on university campuses in the past five years, involving either Jewish students, Jewish academics or Jewish societies.

UJS chief executive David Davidi-Brown said: “When Nazi graffiti, ‘Hitler was right’

posters and Holocaust denial literature have appeared on campuses in recent years, the need for this project is clear.”

Jewish students generally live “safe, full and free lives” on campus, he said, but the project “will ensure the student union and institutional leaderships are working towards that being the case every day on every campus”.

HET chief executive Karen Pollock urged students, senior university leaders and sabbatical officers to apply.

RIGHTS PLEDGE WELCOMED Jewish human rights campaigners have welcomed the UK’s commitment in its Brexit White Paper to stay a member of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).

The ECHR, with the Equalities Act 2010 and Human Rights Act 1998, gives protection to different groups, and was recently cited in a landmark case for the Jewish community.

Lawyers acting for an Orthodox Jewish burial society said London Coroner Mary Hassell’s “cab rank rule” of not prioritising the release of bodies on religious grounds breached this legislation, which underpins Britain’s dedication to supporting a diverse and pluralist society. The court agreed.

Jewish human rights barrister Adam Wagner, who founded Brexit Secretary Dominic Raab

several human rights organisations, said the government’s commitment to the ECHR was “huge” but argued it would be “incendiary to hardcore Brexiteers”.

Dr Edie Friedman of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE) said: “Much of the origins of human rights are Jewish. It’s important we don’t lose touch with that.”

Mia Hasenson-Gross of Jewish human rights group René Cassin said: “The government is maintaining a link to a part of British human rights heritage which holds a unique significance for the Jewish community.”

The Convention, seen as the cornerstone of legal human rights protections in the UK, was created in direct response to the Holocaust and was intended as a safety net to prevent European states falling back into totalitarianism.

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

School roles / Thief sentenced / Blood donors/ News NEWS IN BRIEF

MAN WHO BURGLED JEWS SENT TO JAIL A homeless drug addict who burgled Jewish properties in Manchester because he thought Jews were rich has been jailed for six years.

Steven Lovell, 47, (pictured) was caught earlier this year by volunteers from neighbourhood watch group Shomrim, who handed him in to the police. He had targeted homes and cars owned by Jews in Salford.

Lovell cut himself while breaking into the first home near Broughton Park, leaving blood at the scene.

This allowed police to identify him.

During another break-in, Lovell came face-to-face with a male householder who backed off for fear he would be attacked.

Although Lovell fled with his wife’s handbag, the victim was able to identify him. On another occasion, a terrified Jewish family with five children was woken by him banging downstairs, as he made off with two candelabras worth £2,500 and a silver goblet worth £500.

Key appointments at Jewish schools The deputy headteacher at Kantor King Solomon (KKS) High School in Redbridge has been appointed the new head following the exit of Matthew Slater, who took a leave of absence “for personal reasons” last year.

Hannele Reece (pictured), ), who has been at the school for 19 years, became interim head at the start of the academic year and has now been confirmed in the post, after Slater led the 975-pupil school from ‘Requires Improvement’ to ‘Good’ in its 2016 Ofsted report.

Stephanie Sollosi and Richard Burack, co-chairs of KKS governors, thanked parents for “your understanding and patience over this last year”, and praised Reece’s “expertise” in quality assurance frameworks.

Reece said: “I look forward to driving KKS forward to ensure that we become the

best school we can be and to provide our community with the school and the opportunities it deserves.”

Meanwhile, Nancy Reuben Primary School in Hendon appointed Rabbi Joshua Conway as Head of Kodesh from September.

Conway, who spent time working in a technology start-up before becoming a teacher, is leaving his role as assistant headteacher at Menorah Primary School to fill the newly-created role as designated lead for pastoral care.

Headteacher Anthony Wolfson said Conway was “a well-respected, popular and outstanding Jewish educator who will inject a new dynamism into our Kodesh provision and make a massive impact on many other important aspects”.

JAKE INSPIRED BY BLOOD DONORS A four-year-old boy with cancer who has had 25 blood transfusions saw where the blood comes from as his parents donated at Yavneh College in Borehamwood.

Jake Cohen and his sister Phoebe watched with interest as mum Hannah and dad Adam showed them how the process of giving blood works, a year after Jake was diagnosed with Stage 4 Neuroblastoma.

Since then, Jake has had several different types of chemotherapy, internal radiotherapy and 25 blood or platelet transfusions, and will have many more over the course of his treatment in the coming year.

The youngster, who is about to start high dose chemotherapy with surgery, radiotherapy and immuno-

Jake with his dad Adam and mum Hannah

therapy to follow, saw his parents donate at the Joely Bear Blood Donation session at the Jewish college on Sunday, and met Hertsmere’s deputy mayor, Rabbi Alan Plancey.

GARETH HONOURED A north London synagogue has temporarily changed its name in tribute to Gareth Southgate leading England to the World Cup semi-finals. Cockfosters & Gareth Southgate United Synagogue’s Rabbi Daniel Epstein said: “Gareth united the country and made us all proud.”

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

News / Gaza strikes / Camp theft / Tefillin app NEWS IN BRIEF

MARADONA SHOWS HIS HAND

Argentine football legend Diego Maradona told Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas: “My heart is Palestinian”, when the two met in Moscow last Saturday.

The pair met as part of international football governing body FIFA’s activities around the final match of the World Cup, for which France beat Croatia 4-2 the following day.

Maradona posted a photo of the hug with Abbas on his Instagram account, which has three million followers, and wrote: “This man wants peace in Palestine. Mr President Abbas has a country and has a right.” The post has received more than 106,000 likes.

Abbas presented Maradona with a painting of a dove. Vladimir Putin invited Abbas to watch the final.

Israel hits 40 Hamas targets

Israel said the IDF “dealt Hamas its biggest blow since 2014” after 40 targets were destroyed in response to 170 missile launches from Gaza.

The dramatic escalation over the weekend was followed by a period of calm, after an Egypt-brokered ceasefire was largely adhered to. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he hoped Hamas had “got the message”.

Hostilities renewed on Friday after a senior Israeli officer was injured by a IT’S BAD NEWS FOR HE-BREWS grenade on the Gaza border.

The Israeli Air Force then attacked Kosher customers who pick up their coffee at what it said were two tunnels, a training leading brand Starbucks may need to look camp and sites for building incendiary elsewhere for their caffeine fix. A kosher-certifying agency in the United States has said balloons and firebombs. it can no longer vouch for the kashrut of In the hours that followed there were many beverages served by the international 170 missiles at Israel. Although most coffee giant. The Star-K agency said this landed in open fields, more than 20 misweek that it was ending a programme under siles were intercepted by the Iron Dome which it deemed many Starbucks products anti-missile defence system, which was permissible without actually certifying them deployed to protect Tel Aviv as a precauas kosher. Plenty of kosher consumers aren’t tion. taking the news lying down; so far more Four Israelis were injured on Saturday than 7,000 people have signed a change.org in Sderot after a rocket hit their house. petition calling to “Make Starbucks Kosher Again”. Star-K for years has kept a list of the Israeli jets hit back, attacking 40 drinks prepared at Starbucks that it called sites the IDF said included arms depots, 2 04/02/2014 10:39 Page 1 “kosher friendly”. 14-047-AW Jewish Helpline General Flyer_Layout 1 copytunnels, and the headquarters of a

Hamas battalion in Beit Lahia – which included 20 office buildings, operation rooms, storage areas and an urban warfare training facility.

The Shati refugee camp was also hit, with military figures saying it contained a Hamas training facility. Palestinian health officials said two people were killed and 12 injured in the air strikes.

On Tuesday, Israel announced that it had stopped fuel shipments to Gaza, having last week stopped all supplies except food and medicine, and that it had reduced the distance Gaza’s fishermen could work from the coast, from six miles to three.

Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said it was in response to “continued terror attempts” by the Palestinian militants who have been flying burning fuel-laden kites and balloons over the border, setting fire to thousands of acres of Israeli land.

Education Minister Naftali Bennett, who heads the religious-nationalist Jewish Home party, said “a cease-fire that doesn’t include preventing a [military] build-up and stopping the kite terrorism is a mistake that we must not make”.

The Iron Dome system located outside Tel Aviv

Camp bricks stolen Two visitors to the AuschwitzBirkenau Memorial and Museum were caught trying to steal bricks from one of the crematoria located in the former Nazi death camp.

The two Hungarian tourists, a man, 36, and a woman, 30, were caught on Saturday after two other tourists saw them hiding the bricks in a bag and notified security, the Polishlanguage Gazeta.pl reported.

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They admitted to the attempted theft and each was fined 1,500 zloty, or about £309, and given a suspended jail sentence of one year, the Frenchnews agency AFP reported.

“They explained that they had wanted to bring back a souvenir and didn’t realise the consequences of their actions,” regional police press officer Mateusz Drwal told the Polish news agency PAP.

There have been several incidents of tourists stealing artifacts from the former Nazi death camp in the past few years.

In 2009, the “Arbeit macht frei” sign, meaning “Work sets you free”, was stolen from above the entrance to the Auschwitz I concentration camp.

The three thieves were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 30 months.

TEFILLIN APP LAUNCHED You can call a taxi, order a hamburger, rent a film and buy a book with a few clicks of a smartphone.

So why shouldn’t it be as easy to score a set of tefillin?

That, at least, was the question that led to the launch last month of Wrapp – an app its creator calls “the Uber of the tefillin world”.

It connects those who have tefillin – leather straps attached to a set of two small boxes containing scripture on parchment – with Jews who need them for morning prayers or other rituals. And it’s free.

The brainchild of a 39-year-old Brooklyn businessman, Wrapp hit app stores last month.

It has already signed up more than 4,500 providers in the UK, United States, Israel, Canada, Australia, South Africa and New Zealand. Providers offer their tefillin to those making the request within a radius of 20 miles.

The app’s creator, a Chabad follower named Shimon, decided on a trip to Israel two years ago that this is what the world needs, he told JTA last

People can now register to rent tefillin

Thursday. He got the idea after meeting an old friend from the US who had made arrangements to borrow another person’s tefillin in Israel. “It didn’t make sense that in a Jewish country, borrowing a tefillin should be such an issue,” he said.

Although the app is also intended for observant Jews who forgot or lost their tefillin, Shimon said the typical user would be someone who had an impulse or inspiration to don a set.

19 July 2018 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Bill blasted / Wall anger / World News

Anger over Bibi’s Nation State bill Thousands of demonstrators gathered in Tel Aviv to protest against “discriminatory aspects” of the nation-state bill, which would legislate Israel as a state of the Jewish people.

The rally, organised by civil society and human rights organisations in conjunction with religious groups and political parties, decried a clause to allow segregated communities and also condemned the entire bill, which would become part of Israel’s Basic Law, which functions as its de-facto constitution.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whose Likud Party proposed the bill, has said he would like to see it passed before the end of the Knesset’s current session.

As well as allowing segregated communities, the bill would demote Arabic from an official language to a “special status”, identify Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, make the Jewish calendar the state’s official calendar, and recognise Israeli days of remembrance as official holidays.

Several opposition lawmakers spoke against the legislation. “This government is destroying peace and destroying democracy and equality for a little more political capital

Marchers taking to the streets of Tel Aviv for last weekend’s protest

for the tyranny of Netanyahu,” Arab Joint List chairman Ayman Odeh said at the demonstration. “The racist laws of a government that fears the power of a majority and tramples the minority will not remove us.”

Israeli President Reuven Rivlin last week also criticised the bill, saying it “could harm the Jewish people, Jews throughout the world, and the State of Israel, and could even be wielded as a weapon by our enemies”.

The groups participating in Saturday ’s protest said: “The nation-state law would turn racism, discrimination and segregation into an inescapable part of our lives.”

CHAREDIM ACT AGAINST WOMEN AT THE KOTEL Charedim have burned a Jewish prayer book near the Western Wall in Jerusalem in protest at the actions of female worshippers seeking greater freedom at the site.

The incident came as nearly 200 Women of the Wall activists arrived for their monthly prayer service in celebration of the beginning of the Hebrew month of Av. Several thousand protesters greeted them with booing and shouting.

Charedis and other conservatives oppose the group’s singing and their use at times of prayer shawls, kippahs and Torah scrolls,

all items which are reserved for men in Orthodox Judaism. Some of the protesters were reported to have set fire to a prayer book bearing the group’s logo.

They “laughed with pleasure as a WOW participant burned herself trying to salvage it”, the group said in a statement.

According to the Foundation of the Heritage of the Western Wall, which administers religious services there, Women of the Wall declined to pray at a space allocated to them for this purpose, thereby “triggering serious disturbances”.

WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF

Your weekly digest of stories from the international press UNITED STATES

Arizona State University, which has 3,500 Jewish students, has finally introduced kosher meals on campus. Until now students have needed a car to fetch kosher food or had to go to Chabad, but now the meals will be served in the dining hall. Chabad Rabbi Shmuel Tiechtel said the move ‘takes Jewish provision to another level’.

AUSTRALIA

Sports media company ESPN has banned an Australian football tipster after it emerged his username was ‘Burnthejews’. The head of Australia’s Jewish representative body said ESPN’s reach made it ‘especially important’ the company showed zero tolerance for racism. The company apologised for not spotting the username.

HUNGARY

Footballers from Hungary’s most popular team have paid tribute to former player and manager Istvan Toth, who helped to save hundreds of Jews during

the Holocaust. The former Ferencvaros player was in the anti-Nazi resistance and executed in 1945. He was honoured at a match against Maccabi Tel Aviv.

TURKEY

Hundreds of Jews in Istanbul have said a special prayer in memory of more than 250 people who died during an unsuccessful coup against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in 2016. In a tweet, the Turkish Jewish Society described the dead as ‘martyrs’. The failed coup attempt was led by a faction of the national army.

Documentary 93Queen, by filmmaker Paula Eiselt, follows an allfemale version of the Hatzalah emergency service in New York.

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

Editorial comment and letters VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

Labour’s two-fingered salute to British Jews

It will surprise no one that Margaret Hodge’s extraordinary outburst was cheered to the rafters by so many in our community, with some declaring: “We are all Margaret tonight!” Whether or not you agree with the former minister’s words – which go further than anything said publicly by leaders of the Jewish community – they were undoubtedly born out of long-simmering anger and frustration.

That a veteran MP known for tackling the British National Party and not for rabble-rousing, exploded in such a way should trigger some serious soulsearching among the leadership – not to mention a disciplinary case against her.

If she felt compelled to do this in the House of Commons, Jeremy Corbyn and those around him might want to ask themselves what hope – or lack of it – others in our community now feel they have of being listened to.

The idea of a consulting the community now – after the new code has been twice adopted – is one that will rightly receive short shrift. After all that as happened, were else is there left to go?

Three months ago, the Board of Deputies and Jewish Leadership Council called an unprecedented protest in Parliament Square to demand greater action in tackling anti-Semitism. This week, rabbis from progressive to ultra-Orthodox came together in an unprecedented show of unity against the proposed Labour code of conduct. We’ll say one thing for Labour – the party has brought our ‘two Jews, three opinions’ community together like never before.

The overwhelming majority of the Jewish community made its views clear on what constitutes the hate targeting it – and still Labour’s ruling body decided it knew better. Jews who readily criticise Israeli policies said the full IHRA examples do not compromise the ability to criticise Israel – yet again Labour insisted otherwise. The Chief Rabbi said the supposed party of anti-racism would be sending “a message of contempt” to British Jews by backing the code – yet its governing body did just that. It’s hard to interpret this latest move as anything other than a two-fingered salute at our leaders. What does this say about the weight that would be placed on their views if Labour come to power? And what might a Corbyn administration mean for the approach of the CPS, which currently follows the full definition with examples?

It is absolutely true that many of that IHRA examples of contemporary antiCONTACT Semitism are included word-for-word inDETAILS Labour’s code and others are referred to in some form. But why, for example, would Labour go out of its way to downgrade the claim that Jews are “more loyal to Israel” from something likely to be antiSemitism to something simply “wrong”? Why, when the government and more than 100 councils accept that Nazi comparisons are likely to be anti-Semitic, does Labour stand alone in needing “intent” to be proven? Why did Labour feel the urge to remove completely the claim that Israel is a “racist endeavour” from the list of examples of contemporary anti-Semitism? Why, that is, unless they are trying to provide a get out of jail free card.

There have been many new lows in the last three years. But you know the situation is worse than ever when your own MPs are labelling you an anti-Semite to your face and your only Jewish affiliate feels it as no option but to report the party to the equalities watchdog. After this week, even those who have admirably vowed to continue fighting within the fold will struggle to find a straw to clutch to.

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LEADERS SPEAKING OUT OF TURN Sir Mick Davis’ Jewish News the “far right” is excluded from We’re bursting with column in which he depicted positions of responsibility in our pride!

Zionists against Zionists here in communal institutions, the “far Britain and beyond was typical left”, which he has tolerated with of our community figures with The fight for Zionism his past statements, was under Jewish debate over Israel delusions of grandeur (Jewish his leadership a dominant force is more vicious than ever, warns former JLC chief News, 5 July). among our many youth organisaAs chief executive of the Contions. servative Party, he has failed to A host of youth groups and wield any influence over a dicharities have now normalised the vided rabble, which the parliadiscourse that Sir Mick chooses to mentary party has become, and condemn. The recent ‘Kaddish for in turn seems to have released Front page on Sir Mick’s view Hamas’ episode is just one tiny his frustrations on his own example.

Jewish community.

Sir Mick’s connection to Israel is tenuous.

Sir Mick wildly overstates the numbers and Rather than style himself a prophet on this prevalence of what he terms the “Jewish far subject, he should perhaps confine himself to right”, which he equates with the “Jewish far speaking on issues he is more familiar with. left”. They do not compare.

Sami Steinbock He does not mention, however, that while Hendon It might not be all over...

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ISSUE NO.

...but we won’t know during Shabbat! Page 39

BRITAIN’S BIGGEST JEWISH NEWSPAPER

5 July 2018

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22 Tamuz 5778

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Issue No.1061

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@JewishNewsUK

Ten inspiring individuals shaping attitudes and acceptance of LGBT+ Jews in Britain Pages 24 & 25

Caption here please Caption here please Caption here please Caption here

Increasingly polarised Jewish communities are threatening the viability of Zionism and Israel, a community grandee warned this week, writes Adam Decker.

Conservative Party chairman Sir Mick Davis, a former chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council and head of the Prime Minister’s Holocaust Commission, issues his caution in this week’s Jewish News.

In it, he warns of a “Jewish far-left and a Jewish far-right,” both of which erupted into the open in May, after hostilities along the Gaza border led a group of mainly young British Jews to say kaddish for the dead, who were largely Hamas members.

Highlighting a “crisis” at the heart of British and worldwide Jewry, he writes: “Jewish discourse around Israel has never been more polarised, vicious or impoverished.

“The damage this could do to Stark warning: Sir Mick Davis

The community’s got flour power!

Young and old rise to the challenge to mark Jewish Care’s fabulously fun Great Jewish Bake Day

Page 21

Sketches & kvetches

‘What can I tell you? We’ve just launched a Deliveroo service and the signs were just lying in a skip!’

Jewish communities, our confidence in our values, our long-term viability and the long-term viability of Zionism – and with it the state of Israel – is an existential threat.”

Davis has previously penned misgivings about a lack of leadership and vision from the current Israeli leadership, but has seldom issued such a stern warning about the future of Britain’s community owing to unchallenged “polarised extremism”.

He said the kaddish argument – which led to death threats and rabbis using the term ‘kapo’ – “made clear the existence of a British Jewish far-right and far-left, both dominating the discourse despite most of the community finding them objectionable”.

In May, the leading figure in progressive Judaism in the UK warned that the Jewish community was on a “path to self-destruction,” with Senior Reform Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner describing the polarised abuse as akin to “self-harm”.

This week Davis upped the ante, describing “an uncompromising and self-indulgent far-left and far-right, seeking to outdo each other in acts of provocation, naval-gazing and virtue-signalling”.

He said this meant large numbers of

Prince’s moment of reflection William concludes his historic Royal visit to Israel with a prayer at the Western Wall Page 25

Jews were disengaging completely, because anyone trying to address the real issues were “shot down with online vitriol”.

He said: “Caught between a right for whom Israel can do no wrong and a left for whom Israel can do no right, it is little wonder that large swaths of Jews in the middle choose to say nothing, leaving the floor for the partisans to slug it out between themselves.”

Continued on page 9

Acid victims relive attack Katie Gee and Kirstie Trup reflect on their horrific ordeal in Zanzibar, five years on

Page 5

The business of giving Newlyknighted Sir Lloyd Dorfman on making money and giving back Page 27

DEFENDING KADDISH FOR GAZA IS A MATTER OF SERIOUS CONCERN FOR BRITAIN’S JEWS Your report that almost 90 current and former Jewish youth leaders have written to protest at the communal “bullying” of Nina MorrisEvans, who acknowledged leading the recent ‘Kaddish for Gaza’ protest outside Parliament will have raised serious concerns for many of Britain’s Jews.

Showing compassion for the plight of ordinary citizens of Gaza is the right thing to do, but reciting Kaddish for victims, most of whom were terrorists, crosses a red line.

Kaddish is a prayer that is precious to Jews. Our youth leaders ought to realise that the act of commemorating terrorists with Kaddish is not only sacrilegious, it is a betrayal. All Jews are

accountable to one another.

My worry is these wellintentioned leaders have lost their perspective and swallowed whole the narrative that every action by Israel in Gaza and the West Bank is bad while the Palestinian Authority and its people are completely blameless for the situation they are in.

Symbolic gestures of this kind merely play into the hands of those who wish the Jewish community serious harm, including the leaders of the British Labour party who at present are giving anti-Semites in their ranks a free pass to undermine Zionist ideals and the existence of the state of Israel.

David Levenson Stanmore

19 July 2018 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

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Editorial comment and letters

Fanfare was the offence The sin was not to recite Kaddish for the dead Gazans, whose unnecessary deaths were planned and implemented by their own Hamas leaders purely for PR purposes.

The offence was to recite it with fanfare, in a very public place and in a manner that attributed blame to Israel and the IDF, with no mention that Israel’s hands were tied by its first responsibility, the protection of its own citizens, which left it with no

alternative.

Try reversing the circumstances and I suggest it is likely any Islamic country would have killed 100 times the number of rioting Jews approaching their border fence with wire cutters.

It is not wrong to pity those who are compelled to force us to kill them (!), but it is very wrong to apportion any blame where clearly there is none.

Bernard Stanbury By email

Muslim community.

However, it has failed to open its eyes to look around to what is going on in the rest of Europe in the forums of the European Union and those of the United Nations.

It needs a reminder that more resolutions against Israel have been presented by Muslim countries in United Nations forums against Israel than any other country in the world.

You published a letter from two academics justifying the actions of Nina Morris-Evans and other ‘Kaddish for Gaza’ protesters (Jewish News, 12 July).

The letter states that they support them “whether or not many of those killed were Hamas supporters”.

How about if most of them were actually members of Hamas, and how about if they had arrived at the border with the specific intention of killing Jews, do you still support them?

Eliezer Kaufman By email

Ann Cohen Golders Green

BOARD WRONG ON PINE The unprecedented move by the Board of Deputies to suspend Roslyn Pine over her alleged remarks about Muslims bodes ill both for the communal leadership and the community in general.

Mrs Pines’ remarks, if proved to be accurate, reflect what is seen internationally.

The Board has put itself in a position of succumbing to the will of those who hate us in order to foster what they consider mutual harmonious relationship with the

WHEN WOULD SUPPORT END FOR PROTESTERS?

SICILY’S JEWISH GEMS I read your travel article entitled ‘Lava at First Site’ with interest, but during our visit to Sicily last October, we also discovered the church in Palermo, which is being converted into a synagogue (Jewish News, 12 July).

While we were there, there was a cultural week that involved archeological sites and we were fortunate to be taken underground to see the medieval mikveh, which is fed by a subterranean stream.

In Taormina, we discovered a street sign, Via del Ghetto, and another street, Salita Ibrahim in the original Jewish quarter of the town.

The streets reveal rich Jewish merchants’ houses often decorated in the black lava stone of Mt. Etna. The Renaissance town hall, on Piazza Duomo, features Magen Davids above the windows.

David Bagon Radlett

Tune into this Friday’s Jewish Views podcast!

•Hear about a letter raising concerns over Labour adopting a new code to tackle antiSemitism from one of nearly 70 signatories, Rabbi David Mason of Muswell Hill shul. * Actor Marlon Solomon tells us how his one man show ‘Conspiracy Theory: A Lizard’s Tale’ expels myths about Judaism.

HOW TO LISTEN...

PODCAST: Fridays iTUNES ‘The Jewish Views’ WEB RADIO: Sundays at 10pm on Wandsworth Radio ONLINE: jewishnews.co.uk

• Hear the heartbreaking story of Shani Berman, who died aged five of a heart defect, from mum Juliet Berman.

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

Opinion

You can’t have your racism cake and eat it JENNI FRAZER

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emember Bigotgate? Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown undoubtedly does, as his unguarded comments after meeting Rochdale widow Gillian Duffy in the 2010 general election arguably cost him the entire election.

As it happens, Mrs Duffy was commenting unfavourably – to Brown’s ears, at any rate – about Labour’s policy on immigration. Viewed from the psychotic kaleidoscope that is politics in 2018, the Brown “gaffe” seems almost endearing, almost enough to be regarded with wistful regret. Politicians – and wannabe politicos – often say, or commit to paper, or, more often, screen, really terrible things that makes you wonder what on earth they were thinking.

Or if, indeed, they were thinking at all.

Two examples are up for consideration this week: what we might call #Fabrican’tbeserious, and #Pininginthewoodshed. The first is the case of the Conservative MP, Michael Fabricant, who is Jewish,

and thus, of all people, ought to know better.

Mickey Fab, as he was once memorably dubbed by the late Guardian sketchwriter Simon Hoggart, is most noticeable in the Commons, where he sits for Lichfield in Staffordshire, for his, er, eclectic hair-covering.

It is a bright blond colour and has the air of having arrived upon Mickey rather later than the rest of his outfit.

But his hair is the least of our concerns today.

Instead, he has been obliged to apologise, at length, over a cartoon he posted on Twitter whose aim, ostensibly, was to push back at much of the anti-Trump cartoons and demonstrations.

The cartoon Fabricant posted showed a giant Trump balloon in the foreground, and, in the background, another balloon, bearing the face of Mayor of London Sadiq Khan. The Khan balloon was being molested by a pig.

It surely doesn’t need spelling out how offensive this was on so many levels, not least because the mayor is an observant Muslim who takes pride in his identity – and in London’s diversity.

Fabricant has variously blamed the person who sent him the cartoon, saying he thought he

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WHAT WE DEMAND OF THE LABOUR PARTY, FOR INSTANCE, IN RIDDING ITSELF OF ANTI-SEMITES, HAS TO BEGIN AT HOME had better judgment, claimed he had not realised the face on the small balloon was that of Khan, and complained that journalists who attacked him should have known better, because he prided himself on being a liberal Conservative.

Nevertheless, when caught bang to rights, Fabricant did apologise. My take is that he will be more careful in future – at least, I hope so.

The other case is more egregious, that of Roslyn Pine, who – until last week – represented Finchley United Synagogue at the Board of Deputies.

In an unexpected turn of events, the Board has issued a draconian sentence against Mrs Pine, suspending her as a deputy for six years – that is, two triennial sessions of the deputies – for bringing the Board into disrepute.

At issue were comments she made on social media relating to Muslims. She had shared tweets, for example, describing Muslims as “the vilest of animals” and attacked Islam. She has made a point of not apologising, and instead has claimed that her views are held by “most normative Jews”, which I sincerely hope is not the case.

The Board has been attacked for its treatment of Mrs Pine, who unsuccessfully stood as a member of the international committee – before her views were made known to most deputies.

But neither she, nor “most normative Jews”, can have their cake and eat it. What we demand of the Labour Party, for instance, in cleaning house and ridding itself of anti-Semites, has to begin at home. Pinegate views should have no place in our community. End of.

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www.jewishnews.co.uk

19 July 2018 Jewish News

17

Opinion

Labour cannot oppose political anti-Semitism DAVID HIRSH

SOCIOLOGY LECTURER AT GOLDSMITHS, UNIVERSITY OF LONDON AND AUTHOR

In September 2001 at the global conference against racism in Durban there was a campaign to construct Zionism as the key racism on the planet. Opposition to anti-Semitism was presented as incompatible with opposition to racism. Jews were said to be white, Israel racist, and both were constructed as enemies of anti-racism. 9/11 followed a week later and the peace process collapsed.

A number of Jewish NGOs pushed back against the splitting of anti-racism from anti-anti-Semitism. They wanted left wing, pro-Palestinian and Jihadi anti-Semitism to be taken as seriously as that from the right and the fascists. The Jewish NGOs won a hearing within the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Co-Operation in Europe) and the EU (European Union) but not within the UN (United Nations).

They drafted a definition which could help monitor and oppose anti-Semitism, especially in the newly-democratic coun-

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YOU DON’T HAVE TO TREAT THE IHRA DEFINITION AS HOLY TO BE ANGRY ABOUT LABOUR’S DISAVOWAL tries of Europe. This was eventually adopted by the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance), the British Government and the US State Department.

Sometimes the IHRA definition is criticised for being political. But in the world as it is, how could a definition of anti-Semitism be anything else? The point is what are its politics? And what are the politics of those who denounce it?

In such a contested realm, no definition could substitute for political judgment. There can be no app for your phone to tell you what is anti-Semitic. The IHRA definition offers a framework which can be helpful in making an informed judgement.

It offers examples of things which may be considered, depending on context, to be antiSemitic. It says that denying Jewish self-determination may be anti-Semitic if it is claimed that any state of Israel would necessarily be a racist endeavour. It says that it may be right in some contexts to judge that comparing Israeli policy to that of the Nazis is anti-Semitic. It offers less controversial examples too. And then it emphasises the point that ‘criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic’.

Opponents of the definition say that some

Some 1,500 people protested against Labour anti-Semitism in Westminster

of the things they want to do, like denouncing Israelis as Nazis, and treating people they say are Zionists as one would treat racists, are deemed anti-Semitic under the definition.

They say that even though the definition is clear that criticism of Israel is legitimate, it does not really mean it.

They imply that even within the definition of anti-Semitism itself, the Jews are up to something sinister.

In April 2009, President Ahmadinejad made an anti-Semitic speech at the UN. Seumas Milne, now a key adviser to Jeremy Corbyn, denounced those states which protested against the speech by walking out, in the following terms: ‘What credibility is there in Geneva’s all-white boycott?’

Milne was pushing the Durban understanding that opposition to left or Jihadi anti-Semitism was likely to be a kind of white supremacism, perpetrated by the powerful and functioning to silence the voice of the oppressed.

You don’t have to treat the IHRA definition as holy to be angry about Labour’s disavowal.

People are angry because Labour is sacrificing its anti-racist tradition to legitimise those of its members and allies who want to do things which the definition warns against.

Labour doesn’t like the definition because it is a political definition which describes and opposes political anti-Semitism.

The biggest specific problem with Labour’s homemade definition is that it declares that hostility to Israel could only be anti-Semitic if motivated by anti-Semitic intent. This is a radical break from everything which is accepted in the scholarly study of racism and in anti-racist practice.

The kind of anti-Semitism which is now legitimate in the Labour Party is pushed and defended by people who think of themselves as opponents of anti-Semitism.

They have no anti-Semitic intent and so would not be found anti-Semitic by a tribunal using the homemade definition. Yet they still ostracise those who oppose anti-Semitism and they are responsible for a culture which nurtures and licenses anti-Semitic ways of

thinking. You could not even prove that Ken Livingstone himself is motivated by antiSemitic intent. He probably isn’t.

As the letter by 69 diverse rabbis shows there is an overwhelming consensus within

the Jewish community in opposition to Labour anti-Semitism.

From all denominations, from all political parties, from the UJS to the Board of Deputies, the CST and JLC, Jews are fundamentally in agreement on this question.

This is not a case of two Jews three opinions, it is a case of 270,000 Jews, one consensus, and a tiny but noisy “asaJew” opposition determined to undermine it.

The refusal of the Party to accept the IHRA definition is symbolic of its refusal to oppose left anti-Semitism. Today’s Labour Party is led by people who embrace political antiSemitism. Their politics on this issue comes from the Soviet Union, from Durban and from the Iranian regime, for whom Jeremy Corbyn worked as a propagandist on Press TV. He did not mis-speak when he claimed that his friends in Hamas and Hezbollah were dedicated to peace and justice; that is his worldview and has been for decades.

Corbyn isn’t going to endorse a definition of anti-Semitism which may influence people to judge his political friends to be anti-Semitic.

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www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 19 July 2018

Scene & Be Seen / Community

1 LEADERS AWARDED

Jewish Care celebrated and recognised the commitment of young leaders in the community during its Motivation, Inspiration, Knowledge and Education (MIKE) awards at Redbridge Jewish Community Centre. The 110 award recipients are participants in the MIKE youth leadership programme, which empowers young people to become youth leaders, learn leadership skills from their peers and become educators themselves.

Centre manager Graham Freeman said: “There’s nothing else like MIKE and we are extremely proud of the continued success this brings both to the young people themselves but also to the community in general.”

And be seen This week’s news, pictures and social events from across the community Email us at community@thejngroup.com

2 BBQ FOR GIFT

Bournemouth Football Club chairman Jeff Mostyn launched this year’s GIFT BBQ. He said: “It’s a very easy yet effective initiative for a great cause and is a charity close to my heart as my niece, Roxanne Stross, got me involved as she works for the charity.” Roxanne added: “Pick a date, host your own BBQ and get your friends to donate to GIFT – it’s that simple! GIFT’s a great charity – based in London, but also active in Manchester, Bournemouth and Jerusalem, which educates kids to become givers through educational sessions, facilitating people to volunteer their time with its food distribution service, tutoring club, helping hand initiative and hospital visiting.”

3 CANCER CAMPAIGN

Edgware residents Julie Tucker and author David P Perlmutter joined nearly 80 other Cancer Campaigns ambassadors in Westminster for Cancer Research UK’s bi-annual Parliament Day. They delivered a letter to 10 Downing Street, which was signed by 197 MPs and peers, to coincide with the NHS’ 70th birthday. Focusing on the Shoulder to Shoulder campaign, each ambassador met with their MP to persuade them to sign a letter to Theresa May asking her to commit to training and employing more staff to meet the challenges of a growing and aging population, diagnose cancer earlier and provide patients with the best treatment.

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4 ARTY PARTY

The Young Friends of British Friends of the Art Museums of Israel celebrated their annual summer party at Unit gallery space in Hanover Square. The 300 patrons who attended raised more than £15,000, which will sponsor educational projects.

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19 July 2018 Jewish News

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Community / Scene & Be Seen

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5 ORT BRIDGES GAP

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IT WAS REALLY NOSTALGIC SEEING OLD FRIENDS AFTER 60 YEARS

6 MAGICAL DINNER

Northwood United Synagogue held a sellout dinner party featuring the magic of Mandy Muden. A semi-finalist in this year’s Britain’s Got Talent, Mandy entertained the audience with her comedy-led magic and mind reading tricks as members of the shul were left embarrassed and amazed in equal measure.

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Investigative journalist Tom Bower shared tales of ‘Princes, Tycoons and other Riff Raff’ at the ORT UK annual lunch, which raised more than £25,000 for its schools and educational programmes. A total of 130 attendees enjoyed a drinks reception, meal and entertainment at St John’s Wood Synagogue. Adam Overlander-Kaye, ORT UK chief executive, said: “For 138 years, ORT has been making an impact through education.

There are ORT schools and programmes in Latin and Central America, northern Europe, South Africa and here in the UK; today we focus on science and technology education and employmentrelated training in more than 30 countries, bridging the gap between ability and opportunity.”

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AVIGDOR REUNION

Former pupils at the Avigdor School in London enjoyed a class reunion in Netanya.

Attended by husbands and wives, The Avigdor Primary & Grammar Schools in Lordship Road, was founded by Rabbi Dr Solomon Schonfeld, after whose father the school was

named. Gene Portnoi, who helped organise the reunion, said: “It was really nostalgic seeing old friends, some of whom had not seen each other for more than 60 years.”

6 SPACE WORKSHOP

Key Stage One children from Torah Vodaas in Golders Green, dressed up in astronaut costumes and let off rockets in the playground which reached 200ft, as they enjoyed a Space workshop at Emily’s Adventures in Wonderland. Organiser Emily Ben-Ze’ev said: “The enthusiasm and excitement of the children was electric.”

9 KEREM CONCERT

Students at Kerem School performed a concert for 120 people and raised £1,550 for Musicians of Tomorrow (MOT), one of Myisrael’s under-theradar charities in Israel. The charity supports musically gifted children from poor and secluded areas in the north of Israel. Danni Franks, founder and CEO of Myisrael, said: “The money Kerem has raised will fund music lessons for the kids of MOT and help some of Israel’s most underprivileged children reach their potential.”

10 TROIKA OVATION Wally Fields and his new band Troika played to a near-capacity audience at the Southbank Centre. Performing a variety of tunes, from good old-fashioned toe tapping Klezmer, to Russian Red Army songs and New York speakeasy jazz of the 1920s, the band deservedly received a standing ovation.

Your family announcements Jemma Sher celebrated her batmitzvah at Alyth Gardens Synagogue

Natasha Clifford and Paul Taylor celebrated their marraige at The Prince Regent Hotel Photo by Karen Zetter Photography

Photo by Neville Bloom Photography

Photo by Kate Swerdlow Photography

Josh Turschwell celebrated his barmitzvah at Borehamwood andElstree United Synagogue

Photo by Kate Swerdlow Photography

Robbie Schuster celebrated his barmitzvah at Essendon Country Club

Have you had a recent simcha?

Send your picture to picturedesk@thejngroup.com

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

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19 July 2018 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Life

21

Mental health and well-being / Lifestyle

IN THIS SECTION: Food 24 Competition 31

‘I’d completely given up, then a stranger saved me’ Mental health campaigner Jonny Benjamin tells Francine Wolfisz about his memoir

E

xhausted, yet determined to succeed, Jonny Benjamin and Neil Laybourn were nearly five hours into their run and just a few miles from crossing the finishing line of the London Marathon, when they looked up and saw the most poignant of landmarks: Waterloo Bridge.

Nine years previously, Jonny, then aged 20 and having been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder while struggling to conceal he was gay, decided to take his own life.

He climbed over the barrier, teetered on the edge and might have carried out what he had resolved to do but for the kindness and compassion of one stranger who noticed him.

While other commuters rushed by, a personal trainer named Neil waited with the distressed young man and gave him hope. “I really believe you’re going to get better, mate,’ he told Jonny reassuringly.

Now here they were in 2017, no longer on the bridge, but running underneath it, together, and in the name of helping a cause they are both extremely passionate about – mental health.

“Look where we had come from,” reflects the former JFS pupil. “From up there to down here. It was unbelievable, a really special moment.”

Jonny has much reason to feel overwhelmed by how far they have both come in the past decade. From two strangers meeting on a bridge, one desperate and unable to see a future; to Jonny launching the #findmike campaign in 2014 (he couldn’t remember Neil’s name so gave him the moniker of Mike), which went viral and engaged 319 million people around the world in helping him find the stranger who saved him; to their emotional reunion and their mission to become leading advocates of mental health issues and suicide prevention.

The pair’s successes have not stopped there. They met the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge with Prince Harry, as part of their work with mental health charity Heads Together and, in 2016, in recognition of launching the ThinkWell initiative, a mental health programme for schools, Jonny was awarded an MBE. Now the eloquent 31-year-old has written The Stranger On The Bridge, a moving memoir looking back over these incredible achievements, as well as the many challenges that led Jonny to contemplate taking his own life.

It’s a story that begins in childhood, when even before Jonny had started primary school he had experienced his first hallucinations. One

of his earliest triggers was watching the otherwise benign film adaptation of Roald D a h l ’s The BFG, a children’s story about a big, friendly giant.

“I remember being in bed and seeing what I thought was the BFG – and hearing things. I was truly scared, but I didn’t communicate what was going on.

Instead, I began lashing out. My behaviour began to change, because I was frustrated.”

He recalls how he purposely broke his mother’s new jewellery just before his brother’s barmitzvah and slammed his father’s hand in a door. Jonny even secretly fed an imaginary Pooh Bear honey in the kitchen, “covering the room in a sticky mess”.

His parents took him to a child psychologist, but by his own admittance, “no real progress was made”.

In fact, it was not until he was aged 20 that doctors would finally diagnose him with having schizoaffective

disorder, a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar. But there were many years in between when Jonny was simply left to navigate life without the help he needed.

“Young people’s mental health is not taken as seriously as it could be,” he explains. “Fifty percent of all mental health issues start before the age of 14, 75 percent before 18. We are really behind in terms of treatment, our knowledge and understanding.”

As a teenager, Jonny struggled not only with hearing voices and hallucinations, but his depression deepened and, given his traditional Jewish upbringing, he struggled to accept he was gay.

He reveals: “It was like a massive secret. I felt a lot of guilt, a lot of shame.

I constantly worried about what people would think of me, whether the community accepted me. It affected not only my mental health, but my whole existence.”

After years of supressing unwanted thoughts and feelings of shame, Jonny made the heartbreaking decision to

Jonny Benjamin, above, ran the 2017 London Marathon with Neil Laybourn, the good samaritan who saved him, for mental health charity Heads Together

end his life at Waterloo Bridge, on 13 January 2008. Then he met Neil.

“I’d completely given up,” reflects Jonny. “But that conversation we had on the bridge really had a profound effect on me. Just having a stranger put his faith in me and say he believed in me was incredibly powerful.”

Since their meeting, Jonny and Neil resolved to help other young people with mental health issues.

“There’s much work to do,” he adds.

“What we really want to see is parity of esteem, for people to take mental health as seriously as physical health.

We won’t stop driving that message.”  The Stranger On The Bridge

by Jonny Benjamin and Britt Pflüger is published

by Bluebird, priced £16.99 (hardback).

Available now.

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www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 19 July 2018

Lifestyle/ Remembering the fallen

The quest to map Israel’s tragedies Victims of terror attacks were in danger of being forgotten until a bereaved father stepped in. Lisa Sanders reports The first picture to flash up on the screen is of a cute baby, looking out quizzically at the camera from behind his dummy. Immediately, the image switches to a cheeky toddler, then a smiling pre-schooler, an athletic preteen, and so on, image after image of the same engaging grin, the same sun-streaked blond hair, a little bit older in every photo. But after a few seconds the photos begin their cycle again: baby to toddler, to schoolboy to teenager – over and over.

The boy is Asaf Zur, and he died on 5 March 2003, just before his 17th birthday. A little after 2pm on that day, Asaf and his school friends boarded the 37 bus in Haifa to go home. Asaf sat on the fourth row from the back, on the left. The bus made a further two stops before a Palestinian suicide bomber, seated just two rows in front, detonated himself. Asaf and another 16 passengers were killed, 53 injured.

“I didn’t have any sense of premonition,” Asaf’s father, Yossi, 59, says. On the day of the bombing, he was away, working in Germany. “On the contrary, I had the idiotic opinion that this couldn’t happen to us.”

Yossi’s wife Leah was the one to get the call.

She went to identify Asaf’s body. Yossi, meanwhile, tried frantically to get home.

“The first 24 hours were a black, empty pit,” Yossi says. “I remember that I tried to buy a train ticket from the automatic machine and I couldn’t manage to press the right buttons.”

Yossi and Leah, who both work as computer scientists, chose a unique gravestone for their son: a wave breaking over a surfboard, to reflect Asaf’s love of the sea. Then Yossi built a website – blondi.co.il – dedicated to Asaf’s memory.

Keeping Asaf’s memory alive became a driving force for the bereaved father. In 2007, when Asaf would have been 21, Yossi launched a campaign to “send Asaf a stone”. Thousands of well-wishers sent in stones from around the world, including two fragments of meteorites from space. In 2009,

Yossi urged Israeli travellers to send in photographs of themselves holding Asaf’s poster at various locations across the globe. In this way, Asaf would go on his “world tour”, the traditional rite of passage for many young Israelis.

Yossi also wanted a tangible memorial, so he built a playground in their Haifa neighbourhood.

By this time, the family had a new baby: Eitan, born 30 months after Asaf’s murder. “To take Eitan to play in the playground was a wonderful thing,” Yossi says. “It was very special.”

The family struggled on. They had three surviving children to care for: Arik, three years older than Asaf; Almog, 10 years Asaf’s junior, and baby Eitan. But Yossi had discovered, to his dismay, that nobody had recorded the names and locations of other memorials to terror victims, up and down the country. There simply was no national list.

“I saw nobody is documenting [the memorials],” he says. “I did some research of my own.

After a couple of months, I had a list of 200 places.

I started travelling to take photos all over the place. Sometimes it took me hours to walk in fields and find them.”

From simple plaques to benches, statues, gardens and beauty spots, Israel has hundreds of memorial sites, reflecting 70 years of tragedy after tragedy.

“I started out thinking I’d produce a book. But after I saw some, I decided a paper book would be outdated the second it would be published.

Sometimes the memorials are temporary.”

The answer: another website, with a comprehensive master list of memorials commemorating terror attacks.

“It’s so important that these are not lost,” Yossi stresses to me, quoting Winston Churchill: “A nation that forgets its past has no future.

It’s why I document everything.”

The site has almost 700 entries, covering every corner of the country. For example: deep in the Arava desert, a simple wooden shelter Far left: The gravestone of Asaf Zur, who died just before his 17th birthday.

Left: The Bet Shean 1967 Memorial

The Haifa playground built in memory of Asaf Zur, who was killed by a suicide bomber in 2003

and some concrete benches stand out against the stark landscape. The nearby plaque tells the story of five friends who, in 1953, set out to visit Petra in Jordan. In circumstances that are still unclear, the five were killed by the Jordanians, perhaps when they went to ask for help at a police station.

In the northern kibbutz of Kfar Blum, hidden by trailing pink bougainvillea, a modest stone plaque marks the spot where, in 1948, Ari Leshner, a kibbutz worker, was shot dead by an Arab sniper.

Also listed are the various structures for terror attacks that occurred outside the country, such as the memorial square in Eilat, which commemorates 9/11.

One question crosses my mind. Isn’t Israel’s Ministry of Defence responsible for looking after, and listing, these memorials? After all, Yom Hazikaron, the national remembrance day, commemorates both fallen soldiers and the civilian victims of terror.

“The Department of Defence [has] their own website for fallen soldiers. But for civilians there’s nothing, so I did it,” Yossi says, somewhat bitterly.

He adds: “There are papers at the universities that are based on information from my site. It’s the main repository, and it’s still the only one. The memorials that are gone, for example in Gush Katif, are gone forever. Now these only exist on my site.”

Since Israel’s official bodies don’t provide funding, Yossi’s project has to rely solely on donations. But it has become too important to him to stop now. In fact, the site has taken on a whole new dimension.

A People Remembers is a new smartphone application, launched in May this year to coin-

Monument at Bet Lid near Netanya, where 22 people were killed in 1995

cide with Yom Hazikaron. On opening it, a user is greeted by a map of Israel, covered entirely by a myriad of red place markers. Each one is a clickable link, presented in English or Hebrew, with information and photos on what occurred there.

Users can “leave a flower”, digitally of course, with a message of remembrance.

Yossi is now a grandfather, still working andstill searching for new ways to memorialise Israel’s victims of terror. In so doing, he helps to keep Asaf’s memory alive. He signs himself, “Yossi Zur, Asaf’s father”.

“Death doesn’t come with old age,” he writes, quoting the author Gabriel Garcia Marquez. “Death comes when one is no longer remembered.”  A People Remembers: www.ezy.co.il An app is also available to download for IoS devices, iPhone, iPad and Android

19 July 2018 Jewish News

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Lifestyle / Nosh

PLATEExpectations

This is a perfect summer picnic snack, free from wheat and dairy – but not taste – and also vegetarian. You can enjoy it with hummus, your favourite dip or just by itself.

COOKING TIME 20 MINS

Denise Phillips SERVES

24 people

Ingredients 100g whole almonds – toasted 1 tablespoon cumin seeds 50g sunflower seeds 50g pumpkin seeds 50g sesame seeds 50g linseed 4 carrots – approx. 250g, peeled and grated 2 tablespoons sun-dried tomato paste / tomato purée / olive paste 3 tablespoons water 1 tablespoon olive oil 2 eggs

METHOD 1 Preheat the oven to 200°C/ 400°F/ Gas mark 6.

2 Place the toasted almonds in the food processor and pulse so that they are coarsely chopped.

3 Add the cumin seeds, sunflower seeds, sesame seeds and linseed 4 Remove and stir in the grated carrot, tomato paste, water, oil and eggs 5 Season to taste 6 Line a baking tray 20cm x 30cm with parchment paper.

7 Spread the mixture so that it is ½ cm thick, score into rectangles and scatter over the cumin seeds.

8 Bake for 15 minutes or until golden and firm.

9 Cut into biscuit-sized pieces, turn them over and bake for a further 5

Salt and freshly-ground pepper – to taste

minutes to crisp up.

Topping: 1 tablespoon cumin seeds

10 Cool on a wire rack.

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19 July 2018 Jewish News

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25

Orthodox Judaism

SEDRA Devarim

It’s Biblical

BY RABBI ARIEL ABEL Near the end of his life, Moses the lawgiver gave a sermon marathon. This week begins that trilogy, which recounts key events in Israel’s 40-year journey in the desert.

Moses rebukes his people for their restlessness, misconduct and lack of faith. He encourages them to adhere to the Torah as it will be their heritage. He points out how he set up a court system to dispense justice and took the brunt of Divine anger for the rebellion of the spies. He mentions that God decreed that he was barred from entering the Promised Land, but avoids mentioning why. Perhaps he wishes to make it clear that where there is upset and anger, nothing good ensues for anybody.

The positive elements highlight how Israel succeeded in the battles against Sichon and Og. He also speaks of the settlement by the tribes of Reuben, Gad and Menashe on the East Bank of the Jordan and the plan for future battles to be led by his successor-in-waiting, Joshua.

In this way, Moses highlights his own successes near the end of his own life, against the background of failure to coalesce as a people and face their fears in the first 38 years of desert travel.

Moses was unable to lead militarily until this point because the spies prevented him from taking full charge of the people. Therefore, in the short two-year window prior to his death, a very elderly Moses led intensive battles and prepared the way for Joshua.  Ariel Abel is padre to HM Armed Forces and rabbi of the Liverpool Old Hebrew Congregation

Everything you wanted to know about your favourite Torah characters, and the ones you’ve never heard of...

BY RABBI MENDEL KALMENSON THIS WEEK:

ABNER

Avner ben Neri, or AviNer son of Ner, or Abner, was a general for King Saul. His name means “father of flame” or light, or “my father is light”. He was loyal and dedicated to duty and his death was a tragedy.

We first encounter him as Saul’s chief military man, and he points out David as the slayer of Goliath. Saul was killed in a disastrous battle, along with Jonathan, his heir. Abner, being loyal, sets up Saul’s son as king in succession, and there is an uneasy standoff as the succession is disputed with David (who was already anointed by Samuel).

David ruled from Hebron, and Saul’s

❝

as his wife. Of course, son Ish-boshet from Ish-Boshet had nothover the Jordan in ing to complain about Mahanaim. as Abner was a loyal The one serious miliadviser, but Ish-boshet tary encounter between thought he detected the two occurred at pretensions to the Gibeon and involved throne. Abner, therechampions for each fore, switched sides side fighting. David’s champions won. Abner David and the tomb of Abner and in doing so brought back Michal, Saul’s fled, so Asahel, brother daughter, who had been taken away by of Joab (David’s general), pursued him. her late father from David and given to Asahel fought Abner despite being another man. Joab, however, saw his warned of Abner’s prowess, and was killed. Joab, as his brother, was tradition- chance, and slew Abner at the gates of Hevron, ostensibly to avenge his brother. ally entitled to wreak revenge.

David was ostentatious in showing this Abner fell out with Ish-Boshet when was not his own desire nor had he given he took Saul’s former concubine Rizpah any orders to do this. He mourned for Abner, fasted, and buried him, weeping on his grave.

Ish-Boshet was assassinated, but his assassins did not gain anything, as David had them executed for being disloyal.  Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson is executive director of Chabad of Belgravia, London

ABNER FELL OUT WITH ISH-BOSHET WHEN HE TOOK SAUL’S FORMER CONCUBINE RIZPAH AS HIS WIFE

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

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Progressive Judaism

The Bible Says What? Progressively Speaking Is JFS right to ban mobile phones to protect students’ mental health?

‘If your slave refuses freedom, pierce his ear’

BY RABBI CHARLEY BAGINSKY

BY RABBI DEBBIE YOUNG-SOMERS “And if the slave shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free: Then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him to the door, or unto the door post; and his master shall bore his ear through with an aul; and he shall serve him for ever.” Exodus 21:5-6 My six-year-old is desperate to have her ears pierced. This has left me feeling curious about Jewish approaches to ear piercing and I wondered if, because of this verse, there might be a similar traditional avoidance as with tattoos (although clearly across the community it is common practice).

Piercing in the example here was a way to demarcate a slave. However, we are told in several contexts that both male and female ear piercing was normal and acceptable.

Rashi explains that men would walk in the marketplace with earrings denoting their professions (Shabbat

11b). I wonder what a rabbi’s earring would look like? Do I need to go out and shop for some?

Is it also possible that this professional earring custom stems from Exodus, where we see this verse suggesting a kind of punishment for a slave who refuses his freedom?

He would have been permanently identifiable as a slave who has turned down freedom by the ‘aul’, or the hole or scar left in his ear.

The slave’s motives seem like good ones. He is happy in his life, he has a wife and child who he doesn’t want to leave behind. So why would the Torah encourage a punishment for those who turn down their freedom?

Perhaps this is a reminder that after being created as a nation on the back of our freedom from Egypt, we must always seek out the greatest individual freedom. To choose otherwise permanently marks us out as different.  Debbie Young-Somers is Reform Judaism’s community educator

As both a rabbi and a parent, I find myself agreeing fully with the decision by JFS to ban mobile phones.

The school’s new head introduced the policy at the start of the month in the interest of the “mental health and well-being of children”.

A recent visit by Jami – the mental health service for the Jewish community – to a joint meeting of Liberal Judaism and Reform Judaism rabbis really brought home the reasons why this is so important.

Over the last few years, mental health has become much more of a focus for us all.

We now know how smartphone and/or social media addiction can lead to depression and self-harm.

We also know that half of all mental health problems are established by the age of 14 and 75% of them by the time someone turns 24 – which is why positive action within schools and homes at a young age is so vital.

Jewish Association of Cultural Societies ͶͲ Ǩ

JACS started in the year of 1978 and has currently 16 branches around London and the South East.

If you are retired or semi-retired and would like to meet Jewish people of your own age group then why not come along to a branch near where you live and see for yourself what it is all about. It is not too late to enjoy life and make new friends.

The branches meet on either a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday afternoon to listen to a speaker or entertainer which is then followed by refreshments and an opportunity to catch up with your old and new friends.

We also organise group holidays, days out and theatre visits.

If you can’t find a branch near you, maybe consider starting one. We will assist in every way possible. For further information please visit our website http://www.jumpingjacs.org.uk

̷

JFS has banned mobile phones

Of course, mobile phones are an important part of everyday life in 2018, as is social media – which Liberal Judaism uses for everything from keeping our members informed on service times to live-streaming our recent Biennial Weekend.

But everything has its place and should be used in moderation.

Putting our mobile phone away for periods of the day, and concentrating on the people and places around us, is something all of us could learn from, whatever our age.

It ties into the Jewish ideal of l’havidil – which means making a clear distinction or separation.

It is something that can be seen most clearly in the Havdalah ceremony, which marks the end of Shabbat, separating our holy day from the rest of the week.

Imagine all that we could achieve if we took l’havidil into our own everyday lives, marking out clear periods where we weren’t to be distracted by our smartphones and instead using that time to focus on the people and things we really love.

That sort of role-modelling would then have a powerful effect on our children and those around us.

The ideal situation would not be JFS having to ban phones, but students volunteering to lock them away at the start of the school day because they want to.  Charley Baginsky is Liberal Judaism’s director of strategy and partnerships

19 July 2018 Jewish News

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27

Professional advice from our panel / Ask Our Experts

Ask our

HOW AM I GOING TO MANAGE? JUGGLING MY BOYS, WORK AND HOME THERE’S A GROWING MOUNTAIN OF OVERWHELMING PAPERWORK I’M EXHAUSTED AND I DON’T KNOW WHERE TO START

Our trusty team of advisers answer your questions about everything from law and finance to dating and dentistry.

This week: Contemporary kitchens, travelling straight after making aliyah and health plans in Israel...

SHANTI PANCHANI KITCHEN DESIGNER

THE HOME CONSULTANCY Dear Shanti I love contemporary, cleanlooking kitchens, but am busy mum with three young children so I need to find a kitchen that’s stylish and practical. What type of kitchen would suit my requirements?

Tammy Dear Tammy Handleless kitchens are on-trend and match the style you’re looking for. While giving off a streamlined, sleek appearance, handle-free cabinetry also offers practical benefits

DOV NEWMARK ALIYAH ADVISER

NEFESH B’NEFESH Dear Dov I’ve been told that once I make aliyah I cannot leave the country for six months.

Is that correct?

Stephanie Dear Stephanie First, mazeltov on your aliyah! Second, there are no restrictions for travelling once you make aliyah. During the first six months, one of the benefits you receive is a

monetary gift from the Israeli Government in the form of Sal Klita. Any travel outside of Israel during that period may stop your payments.

Upon returning to Israel, you must contact your local branch of Misrad Haklita and have payments reinstated.

You are entitled to receive back payments.

We suggest you check your bank statement to ensure all Sal Klita payments are received as scheduled.

Commuters and others who need to travel outside of Israel for work purposes should contact Misrad Haklita to discuss their specific situation.

One can apply for their Israeli passport three full months after their date of aliyah. Should you need to travel before receiving your

too. There are two types of handleless kitchens.

The first has a handle built into the top of the door.

These are regarded as handled kitchens as we design them as a normal kitchen.

The second is where a finger rail is placed behind the door to allow opening. This is true handleless.

The second option is more popular as people can add lighting in the finger rail to create ambience and this looks really cool. They are easier to clean than kitchens with handles because of the smooth lines –there are fewer hidden places for dirt to settle. You can just give the cabinets a wipe over.

Handle-free kitchens are also a safer option because they have no handles sticking out that could potentially cause injury, especially to young children – so a perfect choice for you and your young family!

Israeli passport, an Ishur Yetziyah (permission to leave) must be obtained from any branch of Misrad Hapnim. No appointment is necessary.

In an emergency, Border Control at Ben Gurion Airport may allow you to leave the country with just your foreign passport, or they may refer you to Ben Gurion’s branch of Misrad Hapnim.

You must book an appointment to apply for your Israeli passport at Misrad Hapnim. On average, it takes approximately 10 business days to receive a passport. All family members requesting passports (including children) must be physically present at Misrad Hapnim.

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THE JEWISH AGENCY Dear Sharon I understand I’ll be choosing a health insurance at the airport and I’d like to make an informed decision based on our needs. There are five of us, me, my wife and our three kids, ages six months to 10 years. Our baby requires wellness visits and vaccinations; our oldest has special needs and requires specific therapies. How do I

Dear Sam Well done on your due diligence for a healthy and successful aliyah! You are correct in that selecting a health maintenance organisation (HMO) is among one of the first steps of your absorption arrangements when you arrive.

There are four HMOs (aka: kupot) in Israel: Maccabi, Clalit, Leumit and Meuhedet. Where you are planning on residing will be a main factor in choosing a kupah and therefore asking for recommendations from future neighbours is highly

suggested.

All kupot offer additional services, such as subsidised therapies. It’s worth investigating what therapies are available in your area under the various kupot which you can find, in English, on their websites. Ultimately, your choice will boil down to convenience, availability and recommendations.

It is possible to switch kupot every few months, but there is a crossover time period to consider.

Additionally, you can look into private health insurance with an insurance company. This will require a qualification period of at least a few months.

For more information, call me on 020 8371 5258 or email me at sharong@jafi.org

28

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

Ask Our Experts / Professional advice from our panel

Our Experts Do you have a question for a member of our team? Email: editorial@thejngroup.com CHARITY EXECUTIVE

PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST

SOCIAL WORKER

TREVOR GEE Qualifications: •Managing director, consultants in affordable family and corporate health insurance.

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THE HOME CONSULTANCY 07738 067671 www.thehomeconsultancy.com shanti@thehomeconsultancy.com

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STEVE WAYNE Qualifications: • Owner of Benjamin Stevens established in 2004 with offices in Edgware and Bushey and dealing with all surrounding areas.

• Specialist in buy 2 let investments and managing lettings portfolios.

• Deals with residential sales locally and an expert on all things property in North West London.

• Partner at Frederick George & Co

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• Deep understanding of the impact of deafness on people at all stages of life, and their families.

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JONATHAN WILLIAMS Qualifications: • Jewellery manufacturer since 1980s.

• Expert in the manufacture and supply of diamond jewellery, wedding rings and general jewellery.

• Specialist in supply of diamonds to the public at trade prices.

DAVID SEGEL Qualifications: • Managing director of West End Travel, established in 1972.

• Leading UK El Al agent with branches in Swiss Cottage and Edgware.

• Specialist in Israel travel, cruises and kosher holidays.

• Leading business travel company, ranked in top 50 UK agents.

• Frequent travel broadcaster on radio and TV.

CARL WOOLF Qualifications: • 20+ years experience as a criminal defence solicitor and higher court advocate.

• Specialising in all aspects of criminal law including murder, drug offences, fraud and money laundering, offences of violence, sexual offences and all aspects of road traffic law.

• Visiting associate professor at Brunel University.

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29

Professional advice from our panel / Ask Our Experts

ACCOUNTANT

IT SPECIALIST

HEARING AID AUDIOLOGIST

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• Expert witness advice for all financial matters.

EWA KOZLOWSKA MSHAA Qualifications: • Fully qualified, HCPC registered, Hearing Aid Audiologist.

• Specialist in hearing healthcare including tinnitus management and wax removal.

• Fully understands the impact of hearing loss and will work with you to find the best solution for your unique hearing needs and lifestyle.

IAN GREEN Qualifications: • Launched Man on a Bike IT consultancy 15 years ago to provide computer support for the home and small businesses.

• Clients range from legal firms in the City to families, small business owners and synagogues.

• More than 18 years’ experience.

SOBELL RHODES 020 8429 8800 www.sobellrhodes.co.uk m.sobell@sobellrhodes.co.uk

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ALIYAH ADVISER

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BUILDING CONTRACTOR

DOV NEWMARK Qualifications: • Director of UK Aliyah for Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organisation that helps facilitate aliyah from the UK. • Conducts monthly seminars and personal aliyah meetings in London.

• An expert in working together with clients to help plan a successful aliyah.

BAYLA PERRIN Qualifications: • Free professional service delivering immediate practical help with domestic administrative matters, assisting those alone and in crisis.

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• Member of the Consumer Protection Association offering an underwritten insurance backed guarantee of 5 years on all projects.

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MEDIATOR

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

ANDREW MILLER QC Qualifications: • Mediator with more than 25 years of experience of using mediation to economically resolve commercial disputes.

• Queen’s Counsel (Barrister) with 25+ years legal experience of conducting commercial cases.

• Providing a cost-effective and time-efficient alternative to the court litigation process.

HAZEL KAYE Qualifications: • Able to draw on the charity’s 45+ years of experience in providing specialist accommodation designed to enable independence.

• Knowledge of the features and innovations that can empower people to undertake everyday tasks and awareness of relevant grants and benefits available.

• Understands the impact of a diagnosis of disability.

ROHIT SHETTY Qualifications: • M.S (Orth), DNB (Orth), FRCS (Tr & Orth), Dip (Tr & Orth) • Clinical Interests: Minimal invasive keyhole spinal fusion, spinal injections, Complex adult deformity and reconstructive surgery • Main sub speciality area of interest is adult reconstructive deformity

AMQC MEDIATION @ 2TG 020 7822 1260 www.2tg.co.uk amqc@2tg.co.uk

JEWISH BLIND & DISABLED 020 8371 6611 www.jbd.org hazel@jbd.org

HIGHGATE PRIVATE HOSPITAL 020 8003 0889 www.highgatehospital.co.uk enquiries@highgatehospital.co.uk

SENIOR ALIYA CONSULTANT

CAREER ADVISER

SHARON GLASSMAN Qualifications: Born and raised in Israel.

Worked in the private sector.

15 years experience with new olim while working for the government.

Vast knowledge of the Israeli business and labour market.

LESLEY TRENNER Qualifications: • Provides free professional one-to-one advice at Resource to help unemployed into work.

• Offers practical support, workshops and networking opportunities to maximise job prospects.

• Expert in change management and people development. International Coach Federation certified coach helping people with career development and midlife change including dilemmas around ageing parents.

THE JEWISH AGENCY FOR ISRAEL 020 8371 5258 www.jewishagency.org sharong@jafi.org

RESOURCE THE JEWISH EMPLOYMENT ADVICE CENTRE 020 8346 4000 www.resource-centre.org office@resource-centre.org

• • • •

FAMILY SOLICITOR

DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS

REBEKAH GERSHUNY Qualifications: Member of Resolution, Law Society Accredited and registered with the Family Mediation Council.

Collaborative family lawyer, with more than 20 years’ experience and founder of family mediation practice, Evolve Family Mediation.

Promotes a constructive and non-confrontational approach.

•

NICKI BONES Qualifications: • Registered mental health nurse with more than 30 years’ experience in areas supporting people with Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

• Founding member of SweetTree Home Care Services.

• Proudly leads SweetTree team to the forefront of home care and specialist services delivery.

FREEMANS SOLICITORS 020 7935 3522 www.freemanssolicitors.net rg@freemanssolicitors.net

SWEETTREE HOME CARE SERVICES 020 7644 9554 www.sweettree.co.uk info@sweettree.co.uk

• •

CONSULTANT ORTHOPAEDIC & SPINAL SURGEON

Got a question for a member of our team?

Email: editorial@thejngroup.com

EILAT 2018/2019 Economy from £329 Business Class from £1049 Selected flights from Luton ElAl New Premium Economy Class out of Heathrow On new Dreamliner from £826

DIRECT FLIGHTS EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY FROM 28 OCTOBER Book early for Xmas, New Year and half term at your favourite hotels

JEWISH HERITAGE ESCORTED TOURS 2018 Call Marcel 07712 290 520 or email marcel.manson@westendtravel.co.uk Head Office: 4-6 Canfield Place, London NW6 3BT 020 7644 1500 Email: admin@westendtravel.co.uk Edgware Office: 70 Edgware Way, Edgware, Middlesex, HA8 8JS 020 8958 3188 Email: info@westendtravel.co.uk. www.westendtravel.co.uk

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www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 19 July 2018

WE ARE RECRUITING. JOIN US. DIRECTOR OF MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS You will be an experienced marketer tasked to provide leadership to the Marketing & Communications Team.

The core purpose of this role is to develop our marketing strategy and competently oversee our channel execution across print, digital, social media and PR. You will have a thorough understanding of key audiences through our insight to be able to deliver appropriate and engaging messaging to target audiences.

The role also has responsibility for reputation management and internal communications.

You will work closely with internal colleagues across teams, as well as external agencies and you will lead by example.

To apply visit ujia.org/vacancies or email Cyndy Bloom, HR Manager at recruitment@ujia.org Closing date for applications: Friday 20 July 2018

ujia.org United Jewish Israel Appeal is a registered charity no. 1060078 (England & Wales) and SC 039181 (Scotland).

Nursery Staff: Qualified/Unqualified, Full-Time/Part-Time, All Year / Term Time TLC has moved to Ner Yisrael where we now have all our age groups, from baby to pre-school, under one roof. We are looking for a number of new members to join our already amazing teams of friendly and energetic staff and would like to invite all potential candidates - irrespective of experience or qualification – to contact us with a view to starting by September 2018 Although we are a Full Time Nursery and are open All Year round from 8:30am – 6pm, we can offer compatible and flexible working shifts for both full time and part-time nursery staff. We also have a few positions which would suit a candidate looking for Term Time only hours.

We invest in all our staff by offering on the job qualifications and support as part of our package Please email your CV to:

marc@tracylewischildcare.co.uk with a separate covering letter to help us understand what you are looking for.

Application process open until we fill our positions

Watford United Synagogue MARKETING EXECUTIVE (FULL TIME) Would you like to work for the UK’s oldest Israel charity?

JNF UK is looking for a creative, professional and forward-thinking Marketing Executive to project manage multi-channel direct marketing campaigns and lead the production of all JNF UK’s marketing and fundraising material.

The ideal candidate will have a passion for Israel and at least 2 years’ experience working within a marketing role in the charity sector.

Salary £25,000 - £28,000 (dependent on experience) More information can be found on our website www.jnf.co.uk/job-vacancies To apply please send your CV along with a covering letter to simon.myers@jnf.co.uk or call 020 8732 6124 to discuss the role further.

CLOSING DATE: FRIDAY 10 AUGUST JNF Charitable Trust Reg No. 225910

Cheder Teacher - Salary: £60 per session Watford United Synagogue is looking to appoint a teacher with leadership responsibilities to work in our thriving Cheder.

The start date will be September 17th 2018 or after the yom tovim if required.

The successful candidate will lead the Cheder to ensure it is providing the highest possible level of Jewish education. This will include managing the assistants to ensure they develop activities and age-appropriate events/programmes/outings for the children, developing a rounded religious curriculum ensuring it is regularly reviewed, updated, and tailored to meet the needs of the children, making the learning fun and interesting and working with the Cheder Parent’s keeping them up-todate with any developments in the Cheder, advising and assisting where appropriate.

You will be expected to demonstrate good organisational and leadership skills, an ability to manage others and to communicate effectively.

Closing date for receipt of applications – 3 August 2018 To view the job description and apply for this position, please log on to our website www.theus.org.uk/vacancies United Synagogue Registered Charity No. 242552

19 July 2018 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

31

Deluxe picnic hamper up for grabs! / Fun, games and prizes

WIN A LUXURY PICNIC HAMPER FROM EUREKA COVE, WORTH £200+!

Jewish News and Eureka Cove have teamed up to offer one lucky reader a luxury picnic hamper packed with summer goodies, worth more than £200!

Eureka Cove, founded by husband-and-wife team Richie and Jackie Loebenberg, produces frozen kosher ready meals, which are preservative free, calorie controlled and well-balanced, and made from sustainably sourced ingredients.

Choose from five delicious meals – beef meatballs with linguine, spaghetti Bolognese, lean beef lasagne, lean beef ragu and gluten-free hake goujons – which are on sale in 11 Tesco stores and 15 independent kosher shops across the UK and online via Ocado.

For every £4 meal bought, 25p goes directly to Chai Cancer Care, which supported Jackie after she was recently diagnosed with breast cancer.

In line with giving back to the community, Jackie and Richie have also set up Eureka Education, a service providing Jewish education in schools, synagogues and community centres.

This fantastic prize includes a deluxe Duka picnic hamper, a bottle of Bartenura Prosecco, a copy of Celebrate Every Day by Denise Phillips, a pair of Anthropology tea towels and £80 worth of Eureka Cove ready meals.  For more information see www.eurekacove.com

TO BE IN WITH A CHANCE OF WINNING THIS WEEK’S COMPETITION, ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTION: Where does Eureka Education launch on Sunday 26 August?

A: Brent Cross Shopping Centre B: Westfield Stratford

ENTER ONLINE:

jewishnews.co.uk

C: Intu Lakeside

Hilarious Hebrew Hilarious Hebrew Word of the Week Word of the Week

Eureka Education launches on Sunday, 26 August with family fun at Brent Cross Shopping Centre, in aid of Chai Cancer Care! Children’s entertainer Dov Citron, aka Captain Calamity, will wow the crowds with music, magic, bubbles and interactive storytelling.

Closing date 2 August 2018

THE JEWISH NEWS CROSSWORD

THE JewishNews CROSSWORD 1

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120 YEARS OF ZIONISM ”ZIONISM IS AN INFINITE IDEAL”

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The ELEPHANT is ill, he needs to take a PILL The Hebrew word for 'elephant' is… pil ‫פִּיל‬ *** From the book Hilarious Hebrew – the Fun and Fast Way to Learn the Language, available on Amazon and in book and gift shops around NW London. www.hilarioushebrew.com

14

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ACROSS 1 Draw (liquid) by tube from a vessel (6) 4 After‑bath powder (4) 8 Term of farewell (3) 9 Eucalyptus (3,4) 10 Make ready again (5)

11 Given a moniker (5) 13 Drugged, sedated (5) 15 Stamp collector’s book (5) 17 Essential item for a referee (7)

Last issue’s solutions ACROSS: 1 Chain 4 Eager 7 Sopping 8 Men 9 Apt 11 Huddle 14 Bidder 17 Roe 19 Ire 20 Soft-top 22 Bushy 23 Every DOWN: 1 Co-star 2 App 3 Neigh 4 Edged 5 Gambler 6 Ring 10 Triceps 12 Use 13 Deeply 15 Dusty 16 Rifle 18 Limb 21 Toe

All puzzles © Puzzler Media Ltd - www.puzzler.com

See next issue for solution.

19/07

COMPETITION TERMS AND CONDITIONS:

By Paul Solomons

The WZO and ZF run subsidised Ulpan (Hebrew language) classes across the UK. For more information, contact ulpanuk@wzo.org.il or call 020 8202 0202

19 Tea‑making vessel (3) 20 Thin part of a wine glass (4) 21 Diluted (6) DOWN 1 Opposite of ‘drunk’ (5) 2 Exercise involving lifting the elongated body (5‑2) 3 Should (5) 5 Melody, tune (3) 6 Profession of faith (5) 7 Word ending a prayer (4) 12 Government by the masses (3,4) 13 Quickly drinks (5) 14 Facts (4) 15 Field of organised combat (5) 16 Banknotes, eg (5) 18 Decorate (a cake) (3)

Terms and conditions: One winner will receive a deluxe Duka picnic hamper, a bottle of Bartenura Prosecco, a copy of Celebrate Every Day by Denise Phillips, a pair of Anthropology tea towels and £80 worth of Eureka Cove ready meals. The total prize value is worth £234. Prize is as stated, not transferable and cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or exchanged in whole or in part for cash. By supplying your email address, you agree to receive marketing information from the JN Media Group or any of its affiliates and carefullyselected third parties. The promotion excludes employees of Miroma and the promoter, their immediate families, their agents or anyone professionally connected to the relevant promotion.

Proof of eligibility must be provided on request.

For full Ts and Cs, see jewishnews.co.uk.

Closing date: 2 August 2018.

BUSINESS SERVICES DIRECTORY 32

Jewish News 19 July 2018

Business Services Directory

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14:47

34

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 19 July 2018

Active

How did you keep active this week?

Send details of what you’ve been up to and forthcoming events to: andrews@thejngroup.com

It’s coming home for Tribe’s football winners FOOTBALL Tribe got into the World Cup spirit on Sunday by hosting 70 players at its football tournament.

Held for Years 7-10 pupils, the competition, at the Mill Hill Powerleague pitted the best of several US communities against each other in two age group events; one for Years 7 and 8 and the other for Years 9 and 10.

Bushey won the younger tournament, with St John’s Wood, claiming the honours in the older-aged tournament.

Josh Reindorp, Youth Director at St John’s Wood said: “The St John’s Wood team had an amazing day out and were so happy to win the competition!”

Tribe Fieldworker, Motti Rotenberg added: “It was great to see many teams from

numerous communities coming together and participating in a very successful competition. Congratulations to our winners and we hope this will encourage more of our members to participate in sporting activities.”

The two winning teams; St John’s Wood (above) and Bushey (inset)

Kids muck in for Chai Cancer

CHARITY

Six children got their hands, feet and bodies dirty as they took part in the Mini Muscles Mud Run, to raise money for Chai Cancer Care. Michael and Mya Dahan, (both 8), Joey (9) and Sammy Nyman (7), and Sofia (9) and Odelia Tenenblat (8) took part in the 2.5k event, a child-friendly version of the adult course, and raised more than £800 for the charity. One of the six, Michael, said: “It was such a fun day and I’m really happy that I could do this with my friends for a good cause, everyone is looking forward to doing it again next year.”

ACTIV8 STAY ACTIVE NEXT WEEK...

1 2 3 4

Krag Maga for women 22 July – 10.00am www.jw3.org.uk Camp Kochavim with HGSS 23-27 July (all day) alephlearningcentre@hgss.org.uk Woodside Park paintballing 23 July – 6.00pm manager@woodsidepark.org.uk Edgware Rainbows 23 July – 5.45pm-7.15pm office@edgwareu.com

Karina rides high in Denmark DUATHLON Karina Kaufmann said she was “super pleased” having earned a top-10 world finish at the ITU world duathlon championships in Denmark. Comprising of a 8km run and 19.9km cycle, and backed by her sponsors Skybound Capital and Seven Feet Apart, she finished tenth in the world, and was also the fifthfastest Brit. She said: “I not only met my goals, but went

5 6 7 8

End of year roller disco at Kinloss 23 July – 6.00pm-9.00pm office@kinloss.org.uk Ladies Pilates 24 July – 2.00-3.00pm admin@belmontus.org.uk Israeli dancing 24 July – 8.00pm-10.00pm office@ealingsynagogue.org.uk Classical Egyptian belly dancing 25 July – 7.10pm www.jw3.org.uk

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beyond them!” Now focussing on the rest of the season and qualifying for the 2019 ITU World Triathlon Championships, she will miss out on the 2018 event in Australia, with it falling inbetween Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur. She added: “It’s obviously frustrating, but I’m going to use it to the best advantage that I can, to prepare for the 2019 event and testi out some new race disciplines.”

Rio represents England in Rome FOOTBALL Ten-year-old Rio Woolf has returned from Rome where he took part in this year’s European Amputee Football Federation (EAFF) Junior Training Camp. Selected by The England Amputee Football Association (EAFA), Rio, who’s been dubbed ‘baby bladerunner’, after having his right leg amputated through the knee having been born with tibial aplasia, joined 70 young footballers, aged 5-16, from ten European countries. The camp included morning and evening

training sessions, and saw participants take in some of the city’s famous sights. He said: “It was great meeting lots of other children like me from all over Europe. I

really enjoyed playing all the matches and learning different techniques, I can’t wait for the next EAFA Junior Camp in Crewe next week.”

Rio’s mum Juliette, added: “We were so excited when Rio was selected once again.

It was wonderful to see Rio’s confidence boosted as he trained with other amputee children. We’re so proud of Rio for adapting to training in the heat and to a different style of football, he’d been practising on his crutches in the garden before we left so really built up his speed and was flying around the pitch!”

19 July 2018 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

35

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Overcoats Suitsfrom from £79.50 £79.50

Shirts £15 each 2 for £25

Raincoats from £49.50 from £79.50 Overcoats

Trouser Bargains £25

Lightweight casual jackets from £39.50 Trouser Bargains New Bargains infrom White Shirts, £25 Raincoats £49.50 £15 each or 2 for £25

Raincoats from £49.50

Special purchase of Chinos £15 2 pairs for £25

Large SizesLarge a Sizes a Summer Blousons £29.50speciality speciality Dinner Suits all at £99.50

Open everyday & Open everyday & Sundays til 5:00pm Sundays til 5:00pm

We accept We accept

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Jewish News 19 July 2018

www.jewishnews.co.uk