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Interview: UAE envoy on Israel peace deal Page 14

VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY 15 October 2020

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27 Tishrei 5781

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Issue No.1180

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@JewishNewsUK

‘You got a damehood!’

Actress Maureen Lipman among many Jewish role models honoured by the Queen Pages 4 & 5

Extraordinary Care from Extraordinary People

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Billions protected from Shoah denial Facebook’s Nicola Mendelsohn says ‘clear message sent to the world’ after platform bans Holocaust revisionism Facebook vice-president Lady Nicola Mendelsohn has spoken of her “special pride” at her company’s decision this week to finally remove all Holocaust denial and distortion from its social media platforms, writes Adam Decker.

Mendelsohn, who together with husband Jon is a senior British Jewish community figure, said Facebook’s new policy would “send a clear message to the rest of the world” that online hatred would not be allowed.

Writing in this week’s Jewish News, the vicepresident of Facebook Europe, Middle East and Africa said the tech giant’s hierarchy “felt it was time” for the change after years of allowing denial and revisionism on its platforms on the basis of free speech.

She also revealed that two UK-based Jewish organisations – the Community Security Trust (CST) and the Antisemitism Policy Trust (APT) – “played a key role in the decision” that Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg announced on Monday.

In a personal note, Zuckerberg said he had “struggled” to find a balance between free expression and minimising harm, adding that his own thinking had “evolved” after seeing evidence of rising antisemitism on his platform, which has almost two billion registered users.

The firm’s vice-president of content policy Monika Bickert said Facebook, which also owns Instagram, was updating its hate speech policy “to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust”.

Bickert said Facebook removed 22 million examples of hate speech from April to June, having Nicola Mendelsohn recently

banned antisemitic stereotypes about the collective power of Jews “that depicts them running the world or its major institutions”.

Zuckerberg appeared to address criticism that Facebook’s algorithms send users down an online path of Holocaust conspiracy, saying that from now on anyone searching for the Holocaust on the site would be directed “to authoritative sources to get accurate information”.

He said: “I’ve struggled with the tension between standing for free expression and the harm caused by minimising or denying the horror of the Holocaust. My own thinking has evolved as I’ve seen data showing an increase in antisemitic violence, as have our wider policies on hate speech.”

Zuckerberg added that “drawing the right line between what is and isn’t acceptable isn’t straightforward, but with the current state of the world, I believe this is the right balance”.

Bickert cited “the alarming level of ignorance about the Holocaust, especially among young people,” adding that a recent survey of Americans aged 18 to 39 showed that almost a quarter thought the Holocaust was a myth, exaggerated or weren’t sure.

She cautioned that “enforcement of these policies cannot happen overnight… There is a range of content that can violate these policies, and it will take some time to train our reviewers and systems on enforcement”.

APT’s chief executive Danny Stone said the move “finally aligns” Facebook’s policies to ban antisemitism and hate speech. “Previously, Jew-hatred disguised as Holocaust denial and revisionism was allowed to be posted unabated, meaning Jews who saw this Mark Zuckerberg Cont, p2

RED ALERT AT ISRAEL PROTEST An anti-Israel protest in London turned ugly on Saturday when Israel supporters holding Zionist Federation banners were attacked with red paint. Activists from Palestine Action protested outside the Holborn headquarters of Elbit Systems, a company that produces drones, missiles and artillery. Five people were arrested and one police officer was injured.

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

News / Bilateral trade / Iran plan / Facebook ban

UK-Israel trade boom Government ministers this week announced plans for a “higher ambition” UK–Israel trade deal, calling the two countries “tech superpowers”, writes Adam Decker.

Answering questions in the Commons, international trade minister Ranil Jayawardena said annual bilateral trade between the UK and Israel was already at more than £5 billion, but could be more.

“As Britain has now taken back control of her trade policy, I can confirm that we are now able to start scoping and probing for talks for a new higher-

ambition trade agreement with Israel,” Jayawardena said.

“I’m delighted the UK– Israel trade and partnership agreement was one of the first agreements to be signed by the Department [for International Trade], and relations will be enhanced as we further deepen our work with Israel.”

His Tory colleague, Alexander Stafford MP, suggested that the UK offer “support for expanding Israel’s commercial ties with the Gulf states” following the summer’s thaw with Bah-

Boris Johnson at Tel Aviv’s Stock Exchange

rain and the United Arab Emirates.

International trade secretary Elizabeth Truss said: “We have already signed a continuity free trade agreement with Israel and we want to go

further in a new free trade agreement in areas such as tech, digital and data.

“We are two tech superpowers, and there is huge opportunity for British and Israeli businesses to work more closely together.”

Britain ends Iran weapons ban bid The UK has given up trying to get the United Nations Security Council to agree to extend a ban on the sale of conventional arms to Iran, after it became clear that Russia and China were the would-be suppliers, writes Adam Decker.

Diplomats from London, Paris and Berlin had sought to gain agreement from world powers to delay the expiration of the UN arms embargo on Iran, due to expire this Sunday, but British ministers admitted defeat in the House of Commons.

Middle East minister James Cleverly said the E3 (the UK, France and Germany) had found “there was no consensus to extend the embargo”.

Donald Trump’s White House administration withdrew from a mul-

tilateral nuclear deal struck during the Obama era, under which Iran dismantled its atomic infrastructure in return for an easing of sanctions. Trump has since returned and extended sanctions, whilst also seeking to stop all sales of weapons.

Despite the setback, Cleverly said the European arms embargo and the UN ballistic missile restrictions placed upon Iran “remain in place”, as does other prohibitions on the distribution of weapons from Iran to militias such as Hezbollah.

He said the UK, “alongside our E3 partners, remains concerned about the impact of the expiry on the region”, adding: “We remain committed to countering Iranian proliferation to non-state actors.”

CFI ANNOUNCES 20 NEW OFFICERS

A new group of 20 parliamentary officers have been unveiled by Conservative Friends of Israel.

The MPs and peers will work closely with CFI’s parliamentary chairs Stephen Crabb MP and Lord Pickles to argue for Israel in Westminster. Andrew Percy, Theresa Villiers and John Howell will serve as the CFI’s vice-chairs, with

officers including Baroness Altmann, as well as Siobhan Baillie, Bob Blackman, Matthew Offord, Christian Wakeford, Nicola Richards and Mary Robinson.

Crabb, Pickles, and CFI honorary president Lord Polak said the group was “delighted to be joined by a strong new team of parliamentary officers who represent all corners of the United Kingdom

and reflect the Conservative Party’s support for Israel.

“The Conservative Party secured historic results at last year’s election and we are particularly pleased to welcome a number of MPs from the new ‘blue wall’. We look forward to working closely with the group to further strengthen the record-breaking UK-Israel relationship”.

Lord Pickles at a Conservative Friends of Israel reception

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Continued from page 1 sort of content could not do anything to combat it,” he said. “In removing it from the platform, Facebook is sending a message that Jewish and other people’s collective memories and experiences of this horror are no longer fair game.

Denial will no longer be so easy.”

Evidence of the impact of the status quo had been building. In May, the UK-based Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right said Facebook had become a “key arena” for the mainstreaming of far-right narratives, with the use of terms like ‘Zionists’ or ‘globalists’ to denote Jews.

Dr Tehilla Shwartz Altshuler, at the Israel Democracy Institute, said the policy U-turn “recognises that recent upticks in antisemitism can be tied directly to the prevalence of white supremacists on the largest social network”.

Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl said the change was “long overdue”, adding: “Holocaust denial is not just a form of misinformation, it is a form of hate speech.” The CST was proud of having helped to make it happen but said “the real benefit of this will only be felt through proper, consistent enforcement”. Editorial comment, page 18

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As a proud member of the Jewish community, it hits me hard to see any form of antisemitism. It makes me sad and it makes me angry.

It’s a deep-rooted and dangerous ignorance, a serious problem on the rise which we need to work together to stop.

I’ve always been proud to work at Facebook because we stand against hate of any kind. We don’t want it on our platform, and we work hard to constantly re-evaluate and update our policies to tackle it.

This week I was especially proud as we took another step forward in this effort, updating our hate speech policy to prohibit any content that denies or distorts the Holocaust.

We’ve long removed posts that praise hate crimes or mass murder, including the Holocaust. But with antisemitism on the rise, and an alarming level of ignorance about the Holo-

caust, especially among young people, we felt it was time to go further.

Education and access to the right resources are also crucial in tackling this problem. From later this year, we will direct anyone searching for terms associated with the Holocaust or its denial to credible information off Facebook.

Conversations and feedback from experts and community groups, including Community Security Trust and Antisemitism Policy Trust, in the UK, played a key role in these decisions and I would like to thank them for their contribution and continued partnership with us.

It strikes me as an incredibly sad reality that some people in society wish to spread hate. Especially when the vast majority are using our platforms as a force for good.

I hope our decision sends a clear message to the rest of the world that there should be no place for Holocaust denial. Not online. Not offline. Not anywhere.

Our efforts to keep hate speech, in any guise, off our platforms will continue, so we can keep Facebook a safe space for everyone to enjoy.

15 October 2020 Jewish News

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Tiered lockdown / Vaccine call / Expat anger / News

Shuls and other places of worship will stay open even under the most stringent coronavirus restrictions, the government said this week as it outlined its new three-tier lockdown system, writes Joy Faulk.

In England, Boris Johnson unveiled a structure in which limits on Tier 3 zones, where infection rates are highest, will include a ban on households mixing.

Faith groups had lobbied for flexibility after synagogues, churches, temples and mosques had already made a series of adjustments to facilitate Covid-secure inperson worship.

The government said prayer services could still take place in Tier 3 zones, though suggested that these be held outdoors if possible.

Authorities now have the statutory

Photo by Marc Morris

Shuls can stay open even in top tier of lockdown system

Anti-virus screens around the bimah at South Hampstead Synagogue

power to fine people who do not adhere to the restrictions, up to £6,400 for repeat offenders, but allowed worshippers to

meet inside at a distance of two metres, asking that they wear masks to do so.

Last week, the government issued special guidance to Jews ahead of the High Holy Days, advising, for instance, that no more than six people should be in a garden or outdoor space together for Succot unless they are members of the same household.

Steven Wilson, chief executive of the United Synagogue, said: “We are relieved the government recognises the important role places of worship have in society. Religious services, provided they are held in Covid-secure venues, are important for people’s spiritual and mental health and offer a sense of community which can be reassuring at this challenging time.”

Israelis in UK complain to new envoy More than 100 Israeli expats in the UK have written to the ambassador in London to express concern about the stifling of dissent against Benjamin Netanyahu.

In an open letter to Tzipi Hotovely, who is a member of the prime minister’s Likud party, they blasted recent laws “which undermine civil liberties,

notably the right to protest”. They also said the suppression “tarnishes Israel’s reputation worldwide”.

Two weeks ago, MKs voted 46 to 38 to limit the weekly protests against the continued rule of the prime minister, who is on trial for corruption. Israelis were banned from being more than 0.6 miles

from home and from having gatherings of more than 20 outdoors. The signatories compared the Israeli action to their adopted home, saying: “In Britain, which experienced a severe first wave where tens of thousands lost their lives… the right to demonstrate has been upheld.”  Anger at Netanyahu mounts, p13

JEWS NEEDED FOR VACCINE TRIALS British Jews are being urged to take part in coronavirus vaccine trials.

About 270,000 volunteers are currently participating in testing for the UK Vaccine Taskforce but those from ethnic minority groups, including the Jewish community, are under-represented – along with those with chronic diseases and the over-65s.

The vaccine study needs a diverse group of volunteers to check if the drugs will work for all populations. But only seven percent of those recruited are people belonging to an ethnic minority, who are at a higher risk of complications if they develop coronavirus.

Equalities minister Kemi Badenoch, who is herself volunteering for Covid-19 vaccine trials at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital, said: “The UK is leading the world in the search for a Covid-19 vaccine.

“At home, we have to ensure every community trusts a future vaccine to be safe and that it works across the entire population.

Together, we can be part of the national effort to end this pandemic for good.”

Business secretary Alok Sharma said in a statement: “Coronavirus affects anyone regardless of their background, age or race.

“To ensure we can find a safe and effective vaccine that works for everyone, we all need to get involved.”

The NHS Vaccine Research Registry was launched in July to create a database of people who can be contacted by the NHS to take part in clinical studies.

Kate Bingham, chair of the government’s Vaccine Taskforce, said: “The only way to check how well a coronavirus vaccine works is to carry out large-scale clinical trials involving thousands of people.

“Researchers need data from different communities and different people to improve understanding of the vaccines. The only way to get this is through large clinical trials.”

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

News / The Queen’s Birthday Honours

Shoah educators honoured This year’s Queen’s Birthday Honours List, delayed from June because of the coronavirus, is one of the most Jewish in recent times: Holocaust educators and survivors are recognised, actress Maureen Lipman becomes a dame, and philanthropist Professor David Khalili is knighted for his interfaith and charitable work, writes Jenni Frazer.

For services to education, there is an OBE for Rabbi David Meyer, director of Partnerships for Jewish Schools, and an MBE for Jeffrey Leader, the director of Pikuach, the Jewish schools inspectorate and community equivalent of Ofsted.

Meyer said it was “gratifying to see educational services are being recognised and valued especially at this time when school leaders are facing such exceptional challenges” and said the award recognised the whole PaJeS team”.

For her Jewish/Muslim interfaith work, Mehri Niknam receives an OBE. Professor Stefan Reif receives an OBE for his services to scholarship; for more than 30 years, he was founder-director of the TaylorSchechter Genizah Research Unit in Cambridge. It was set up in 1973 to examine thousands of medieval

manuscripts retrieved from Cairo in the 19th century.

Simon Morris, former chief executive of Jewish Care, receives an MBE for his services to the Jewish community; and Gateshead’s Rabbi Avrohom Sugarman, head of the Haskel School in the town, receives an MBE for his work with children with special educational needs.

But it is Shoah education and awareness that is highlighted this year.

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, is made CBE, and Olivia Marks-Woldman, who runs the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT), is awarded an OBE. Jeffrey Pinnick, former chairman of Yad Vashem UK and former chair of the Yom Hashoah Forum, is awarded an OBE. Pollock said: “This is a tribute to the Holocaust survivors I have the privilege to work with whose strength, determination and zest for life, inspire me every day. It is also thanks to the dedication of a brilliant team who work to ensure young people not only learn about the Holocaust but stand up to antisemitism, racism and hatred today.”

Marks-Woldman, who has headed the HMDT since 2012, is the grand-

Clockwise from top left: Lilian Black receives an OBE, Simon Morris an MBE, Karen Pollock a CBE and Olivia Marks-Woldman an OBE

daughter of a Polish Jewish refugee, Leon Blumenkehl, who arrived in Britain in the early 20th century; the rest of his family did not survive the Holocaust.

Praising her staff and trustees, she said of her grandfather: “He arrived penniless and friendless, yet built a new life and created a community

of friends in the UK. For his granddaughter to receive this honour is a further symbol of the diversity and richness of British life.”

Pinnick said: “I felt privileged to accept the honour, particularly for the light it might reflect on the causes of Holocaust commemoration and education, in which I have been passion-

ately involved for the past 20 years.”

A large number of survivors, many of whom recount their experiences to school pupils around Britain, have been honoured. MBEs go to Nelly Ben-Or Clynes of Northwood and Ellen Davis of Swansea, to Samantha Hunt in Sandhurst, Mordechai Kahan and Lady Zahava Kohn in London; the BEM – the British Empire Medal – goes to Eve Glicksman, Hana Kleiner, Marcel Ladenheim, Thomas Komoly, Lili Stern-Pohlmann, Professor Peter Lentos and Elfriede Starer.

There is an OBE for Lilian Black, chair of the Holocaust Survivors’ Friendship Association (HSFA). She said: “I am deeply honoured to have received this award on behalf of the Holocaust refugee and survivor community, especially here in the north of England.

“It also recognises the importance of the legacy being preserved for future generations to learn from, through HSFA’s Holocaust Exhibition and Learning Centre at the University of Huddersfield.”

The Association of Jewish Refugees, which counts many of the honoured survivors among its members, offered congratulations. Chief executive Michael Newman said: “That

15 October 2020 Jewish News

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The Queen’s Birthday Honours / News

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more people are staying at home and accessing information online has added value to AJR’s testimony projects, Refugee Voices and My Story, which enable many survivors and refugees to share their stories for posterity so the world never forgets.

“They are an inspiration to us all and rightly deserve their accolades.”

Pollock said of the survivors: “Seventy-five years after the Holocaust, these brave and brilliant individuals share their darkest memories for the benefit of others, to ensure the next generation know where hatred and prejudice can ultimately lead.”

Dr Marcel Ladenheim said: “Coming to England as a nine-yearold refugee in 1948 changed my life completely. Unlike my own childhood, I was able to bring up a family of three children and five grandchildren in absolute safety.

“I will forever be grateful to Britain, the kindness shown to me by the English people and am hugely honoured to be recognised alongside my fellow survivors.”

There were awards for others working in the creative arts. David Suchet, the stage and TV actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, has been knighted. He is one of three brothers from a London Jewish family – his brother John, an author and longtime ITV newsreader, is now a music

presenter on Classic FM – although he himself converted to Christianity.

Judy Craymer, who is made CBE, is the woman behind the multi-awardwinning musical Mamma Mia, based on the songs of Abba. She is the daughter of a London Jewish lawyer, which she has said was great training for the world of theatrical contracts.

Dr Gideon Rubin, a health protection researcher at King’s College London, is made OBE, as is Professor Marta Cohen in Sheffield for her work in the treatment of sudden infant death syndrome.

Pikuach director Jeffrey Leader said of his MBE: “I’m surprised, humbled and honoured to receive this award.

I have an overriding passion for the community and the education of its children. So to receive this award is the honey on the honey cake.”

Stefan C Reif, emeritus professor and fellow of St John’s College, Cambridge, was awarded an OBE for his academic achievements.

David Parlons received a BEM for his work saving Sandys Row Synagogue from closing down and helping to keep the shul operational.

Julie Siddiqi, who co-founded NisaNashim, the Jewish/Muslim women’s network with Laura Marks in 2016, received an MBE for her services to promoting interfaith understanding, and Ahmereen Reza received an OBE for her work promoting literacy among girls in Pakistan and for her interfaith work.

YOU GOT A DAMEHOOD! Awards for those in the creative honour. “When I think about my arts were headed by Maureen grandfather, who I never knew, Lipman, made a dame in recoggetting on a boat from Kovne nition of her stage, TV and film and coming here, landing in Hull career. Her citation notes many and thinking it was New York… roles, such as Aunt Eller in OklaI think about Hull, which gave homa,, sitcoms and more recent me a full grant for going to drama work in The Fugitives, Jonathan school.

“To become a dame in one Creek and Coronation Street..

She is also a prolific writer, with generation says a lot about immia decade-long column in Good grants and about how kind treatHousekeeping and a current ment can give back to society. column in The Oldie.

It makes me feel very small in Lipman (pictured), who this world, that such a thing can received a CBE in 1999, made her happen so quickly”.

Speaking from Manchester, first film appearance in Up The Junction in 1968, and in 2002 where she is working on CoronaStreet, Lipman paid tribute appeared in Roman Polanski’s tion Street award-winning The Pianist. to her agent, Michelle Burke, Following the death of her who had seen the role of Evelyn husband, Jack Rosenthal, she Plummer, which she plays in the completed his autobiography “So, at least one actor gets soap opera, and had said: “That’s got Maureen written all over it.” and starred in her daughter Amy to be a dame this year!”

She said she had received mesRosenthal’s four-part adaptation of the book on BBC Radio 4. sages of congratulations from many people, She supports the work of Burma Campaign including the actress with whom she has had UK, and the process of democratisation in that many public disagreements over Israel, country. She is also the patron of International Miriam Margolyes.

Myeloma Foundation UK. “I thought it was very warm and generous She said: “I’m a little bit relieved I can talk of her to send a message,” Lipman said, “and I about this now – you have to sit on the inforsaid, ‘Let’s end the broiges here and now.’ ” mation for so long, and extreme discretion is She said she regarded the honour as “an not my forte.” More seriously, she said, she felt extra gold star in the exercise book” and some“touched and sentimental” about the thing for the whole community to enjoy.

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

News / Advice dispute / Abuse inquiry / Blogger fired

Shul warns rabbi not to ‘bring it into disrepute’ A synagogue has warned its rabbi against “bringing it into disrepute” after he advised a Covid-19 survivor not to fast on Yom Kippur, writes Francine Wolfisz.

Rabbi Ariel Abel (pictured), who serves Liverpool Hebrew Congregation, also questioned “how it is possible to halachically allow anyone at all to fast this year”, fearing it could lower an individual’s immune system at a time of pandemic.

He added: “No one can possibly know how, if they catch it, Covid-19 will affect them. They would be playing God to decide on a 25-hour fast day and allow the immune system to lower itself to vulnerability to this terrible plague. Where are... our great rabbis in respect to this?”

Rabbi Ariel Abel

The column, which appeared in The Jewish Telegraph, prompted senior warden Saul Marks to issue Abel with a letter over the “controversy it has caused in some circles”.

In the letter, seen by Jewish News, Marks stated while there was “no objection” to his regular columns or his “right to publish halachic opinions”, the synagogue requests Abel

“write nothing that could reasonably reflect badly on the congregation or bring it into disrepute”.

Abel, who is a regular Jewish News contributor, was asked to ensure his columns are accompanied by a disclaimer making clear “the opinions expressed… are his own and not necessarily shared by Liverpool Old Hebrew Congregation or its management”.

Originally published on 25 September, the column also stated: “We have no right in Judaism to disregard clear and palpable dangers.”

A source close to Abel said: “That a learned rabbi should be censored for making a ruling on a halachic matter by a synagogue chairman is a gross impertinence.”

ANTI-SHECHITA SURVEY ‘PATRONISING’ A poll of 23,000 Europeans by an animal welfare charity has been condemned as “misguided” and “patronising” for claiming nine out of 10 EU citizens oppose animal slaughter without prior stunning.

Of those surveyed in the poll for Eurogroup for Animals, carried out by Savanta ComRes, 89 percent thought that making an animal unconscious before slaughter should be mandatory. Shechita UK said: “The Euro-

group for Animals is a lobby group with a long-term anti-shechita position. Their survey stands in stark contrast with a recent European Commission study. It seems intent on promoting misguided perceptions.”

JANNER’S CHILDREN STEP UP DEFENCE OF FATHER

The children of Lord Janner this week stepped up their staunch defence of their father as barristers said a “culture of deference” towards the late Jewish peer had contributed towards errors in investigating claims of child sex abuse.

It came as police officers told the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse about their aborted investigation into the former MP, who died in December 2015 while awaiting trial for 22 counts of child sexual abuse relating to nine boys.

Janner, who visited children’s care homes in Leicestershire, always denied the allegations, first levelled in the early 1990s. This week, his claims of inno-

cence were reiterated by his daughter Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner, a senior figure in the Movement for Reform Judaism, who steps down this autumn.

“We have listened carefully to all the serious accusations, and believe as totally in our father’s innocence today as we always have,” she said, adding that the family believed their father had “become a target” for different reasons, including “his public profile and being financially comfortable”.

Large sections of the proceedings are being held in private owing to concerns that evidence may identify alleged victims. The inquiry continues for two further weeks.

Writer axed for laughing at Shoah Grazia has sacked one of its writers after she apologised for making “ignorant and antisemitic” comments about the Holocaust.

The fashion and women’s magazine announced that Stephanie Yeboah (pictured) would “no longer be writing as a contributing editor”, following an internal review and discussions with

Stephanie Yeboah

Jewish groups.

This comes after the “plus-sized style blogger”, charged with championing diversity, apologised over com-

ments made online about the Holocaust, arguing “there have been bigger and more horrific genocides”.

She was found to have written a series of questionable tweets in recent years, Private Eye reported last week.

After communication with the Board of Deputies, Yeboah issued her own apology.

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Springdene CARE HOMES 19/05/2020 11:26

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

News / IHRA threat / Shoah hero / Museum opens

Unis face funding cut if they don’t adopt IHRA

MOVING FORWARD AFTER REDUNDANCY

Universities could have their funding cut if they refuse to adopt an internationally recognised definition of antisemitism, the education secretary has warned.

Gavin Williamson said he would take action if higher education institutions did not adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition before Christmas.

In a letter to vice-chancellors he said there were “too many disturbing inci- Pro-Palestinian activists and, inset, Gavin Williamson dents of antisemitism on campus and a lack of willingness by too many universities to came after research showed that only a fifth of confront this”. A “shamefully low” number had higher education institutions had adopted the adopted the definition and he was surprised IHRA definition.

A Universities UK spokeswoman said: that institutions had chosen not to demonstrate that they “do not tolerate antisemitism”. “We recommend universities do all they can to “These providers are letting down all their tackle antisemitism, including considering the staff and students and, shamefully, Jewish IHRA definition, while recognising their duty students in particular.” Williamson’s warning to promote freedom of speech within the law.”

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Princess praises Scottish hero killed in Auschwitz A school matron who gave her life to help protect Jewish pupils during the Holocaust must never be forgotten, the Princess Royal has said.

Jane Haining worked at the Scottish Mission girls’ boarding school in Budapest, Hungary, from 1932 to 1944 and refused to abandon the Jewish girls in her care, many of whom were orphans.

She sheltered them for more than four years until she was arrested and eventually taken to Auschwitz, where she died at the age of 47, six months before its liberation in 1945.

Haining was the subject of the Caledonian Lecture, hosted online last week by St Columba’s Church, central London and delivered by Mary Miller, who has written a book about her.

Princess Anne, patron of the Scots in London Association, said: “Jane Haining is an inspirational subject whose devotion to duty is a lesson to us all. We can take heart from the knowledge that Jane’s life will be honoured.”

Jane Haining, above, and Princess Anne

Haining, who grew up in Dunscore, near Dumfries, was posthumously awarded a Heroine of the Holocaust medal and named Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Israel.

IMPERIAL WAR MUSEUM TO OPEN FOR HMD IN 2021

UnionOfJewishStudents

UJS_UK

The Imperial War Museums has said it will be running a limited programme of self-guided visits and learning sessions for Holocaust Memorial Day in 2021.

The learning sessions in January will be the first time any schools will have been allowed into Imperial War Museum buildings since the coronavirus lockdown was initiated in March.

The museums – including IWM London, IWM North and IWM Duxford – said they had decided on “how to best welcome school audiences safely back” after months of lockdown restrictions led to closed public spaces.

“Sessions will launch to invited schools on 27 January 2021 to mark Holocaust Memorial Day and then be available for general booking from 1 February,” IWM said, with online booking now

Schoolchildren learning at the museum

open. In preparation, IWM said it had collaborated with “innovative story-makers and creative technologists… to provide a digital version of IWM London’s Holocaust exhibition designed especially for schools, to support teachers and students to learn about the Holocaust while they are unable to visit IWM’s branches”.

That digital exhibition will launch on Monday on the IWM website, with supplementary material also available to support teachers and home educators.

15 October 2020 Jewish News

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Art anger / News briefs / News NEWS IN BRIEF

ANTI-ZIONISTS WAVE FLAGS AT STADIUM A small group of anti-Zionist demonstrators protested as Scotland beat Israel in a dramatic Euro 2020 play-off semi-final penalty shootout at Hampden Park last Thursday.

Despite police urging activists to find “alternative ways to protest rather than attending mass gatherings” in the wake of Covid regulations, a handful of people attended outside the National Stadium in Glasgow, waving Palestinian flags.

No arrests were made. The match ended 0-0 after extra time, with Scotland winning 5-3 on penalties.

NEW HOMES BUILT IN BARNET AND HERTS An organisation supportIng housing needs in the Jewish community is building in Hertsmere and Mill Hill East. The Industrial Dwellings Society (IDS), will build 27 homes in Hertsmere and 22 in Mill Hill East, a mix of rented and shared ownership units. Chief executive Suzanne Wolfe said: “We are focusing on centres of Jewish community to support the community by providing homes for those who can’t normally access them.” More at www.ids.org.uk

Fury as Tate drops exhibit by anti-racist Jewish artist The indefinite postponeGuston’s work “can be more ment of a major retroclearly interpreted”. spective to honour the Canadian-born Jewish artist Philip Guston, born GoldGuston has sparked stein, often created fury in the art world, work about racism writes Leyla Sanai. and antisemitism.

The exhibition, He died in 1980. His which was due to open father, a Russianat Tate Modern in London Jewish blacksmith, fled and tour art galleries the pogroms in in Washington, HouJewish artist Philip Guston Odessa but when ston and Boston, was he struggled to find cancelled because, according to the enough work in the US to feed his four galleries, it requires “additional seven children, he hanged himself. perspectives and voices” to frame Philip, then 10, found his body.

Guston’s depictions of racism.

Guston was traumatised by the The paintings, which feature Ku antisemitism his father suffered Klux Klan members going about their and in his youth was an anti-racism daily business wearing robes stained activist, which is why the postponeby the blood of their victims, were the ment has angered so many. artist’s way of presenting the banality The Tate’s senior curator, Mark of evil. Now, according to some critics Godfrey, voiced his frustration, of the decision, the impact of the Black posting on Instagram that the deciLives Matter movement has resulted sion “is actually extremely patronin galleries postponing the exhibit as ising to viewers, who are assumed not they want to wait until the “message of to be able to appreciate the nuance social and racial justice” at the centre of and politics of Guston’s works”.

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The Studio by Philip Guston. Decision is ‘extremely patronising’, one curator said

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

News / Extremism talk / Cultural support / Memorial opposition

Former neo-Nazi on leaving hate behind A reformed neo-Nazi this week revealed her remarkable journey from espousing Jewish conspiracy theories to campaigning on behalf of Jewish and Muslim women, writes Tali Fraser.

In a talk to Nisa-Nashim, the network bringing together Jewish and Muslim women, 30-year-old Canadian Lauren Manning discussed her experiences of both the Blood & Honour and the Vinland Hammerskins far-right groups and how she left extremism behind.

Having spent five years in the far-right groups, she finally left in 2012 to work as an outreach specialist, teaching tolerance with Exit UK and Life After Hate.

“Both the groups I was involved with, we had a problem with everybody,” she told her Jewish and Muslim audience.

Having grown up in a “typically middleclass” family, Manning explained that she turned to a life of white supremacy at the age of 17 after suffering from abuse, losing her father just a year earlier and later being kicked out of her family home.

Receiving a pair of panzer boots from her online recruiter when she was 17, covered with swastikas and SS bolts, led

Transformation: Lauren Manning

to a warning from her school. The first conspiracy theory she encountered was “Jewish control of the media and society”.

She added: “I had never met anyone who practiced Judaism so it became this fear of the unknown.”

Manning said she chose to leave the far-right groups after a friend and fellow member was murdered by being stabbed to death. But her earlier attempted escape had failed when she was left “near beaten to death” by the group after she informed them of her plan. Manning had to spend a number of months in therapy after the attack. Part of her desire to leave was after

the Vinland Hammerskins group pressured her to “have kids to carry on the white race”. Manning said: “I couldn’t see myself teaching another kid how to hate. It doesn’t seem fair to force opinions onto a kid and show them how to hate people who don’t deserve it.”

This week Home Office data showed the number of racially or religiously aggravated offences in June 2020 was 34 percent higher than in June 2019.

Manning said: “The best thing [Jewish and Muslim women] can do during these difficult times is to try to stand together as much as possible and help each other where possible.”

Laura Marks, interfaith consultant and Nisa-Nashim co-founder, said: “As Muslim and Jewish women, we commend Lauren for her incredible bravery and work in educating and raising awareness around the dangers of far-right extremism.”

Hifsa Haroon-Iqbal, Nisa-Nashim chair of trustees, added that far-right groups “either blame the Jews or the Muslims”, but “Nisa-Nashim is about saying we are not going to let anybody come in between us”.

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JEWISH MUSEUM TO GET £250K BOOST

The Jewish Museum in Camden, north London

The Jewish Museum has been thrown a £250,000 lifeline as part of a rescue package for creative organisations, writes Jack Mendel.

The Camden-based institution is one of 1,385 cultural bodies that will benefit from a £1.57 billion ‘recovery fund’ (CRF) in the first round of grants announced today.

Administered by Arts Council England, the initial set of £257m investment will help recipients overcome Covid restrictions and become sustainable in the future.

This comes after cultural groups warned at the start of the pandemic in March they

were “staring down the barrel of deep financial ruin” without government help.

Welcoming its £249,126 financial boost, interim director Frances Jeens said it had had “to reorient our engagement programme by opening our doors virtually”.

She added: “This funding shows support for how the museum has adapted, and importantly, now provides us with the resources to reopen our physical doors and welcome back our visitors safely” through a programme called ‘Museum to Myself’, which incorporates social distancing.

Romain opposes memorial

A prominent Reform rabbi has told a public inquiry that £100 million of mainly taxpayers’ money earmarked for a giant Holocaust memorial near Parliament would be better spent educating Britain’s children about the genocide.

Rabbi Jonathan Romain, of Maidenhead Synagogue, said “monuments do not combat antisemitism”, adding that the eye-watering amount “could be better used”.

Most British Jewish leaders support the erection of the proposed new national Holocaust memorial and learning centre

in Victoria Tower Gardens next to the Houses of Parliament, despite significant environmental concerns about the site.

But many prominent British Jews, including peers whose families were killed in the Holocaust, have said it is not needed.

“The substantial cost of the proposed memorial could be better used,” Romain said.

“If £100m, or maybe it has now risen even higher, went into Holocaust education nationally rather than a London-centric edifice, that would have far greater impact.”

During the five-week inquiry, he said the giant architect-designed fin sculpture and underground information centre would duplicate the new permanent Holocaust exhibition at the Imperial War Museum less than a mile away.

Also addressing the inquiry was Wiener Holocaust Library director Toby Simpson, who said the memorial was a “oncein-a-lifetime opportunity” to make sure Nazi victims were “permanently honoured”.

Housing Minister Christopher Pincher MP is expected to approve the application.

ERUVS GO LIVE Group award The St John’s Wood and South Hampstead eruvs launched last Shabbat after more than a decade of planning, writes Tali Fraser.

Jointly covering an area from Maida Vale in the west to Kentish Town in the east, project leaders say the eruvim will be the first in the world to use bespoke tapered poles to blend into the landscape.

Although the area does not include Regents Park, the eruv incorporates Primrose Hill Park, allowing for community and family activities to take place.

The eruvs – the first to take in central London – connect to the recently launched Brondesbury Park and the north-west London eruvs, allowing Shabbat observers to walk and carry to neighbourhoods throughout north-west London, as far as Belmont and Barnet.

A group of survivors who devote their lives to passing on the lessons of the Shoah have been honoured with a national award.

Mala Tribich, 90, accepted the Volunteer Team of the Year gong at the Third Sector Excellence Awards, as the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) was recognised for its work.

Tribich said she has “been speaking and volunteering for HET for over 20 years. We are very proud to have won and feel that speaking to the next generation is so important”.

Last year, HET’s survivor volunteers spoke in 542 schools, telling their life stories and teaching about the lessons of the Shoah.

Chief executive Karen Pollock said: “We are incredibly proud of our brave and brilliant survivors for being named Volunteer Team of the Year from a shortlist of inspiring organisations.”

15 October 2020 Jewish News

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

Happy children learn well at Sinai Jewish Primary School.

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Sinai School has a wonderful reputation across the community and is the largest and best equipped Jewish primary school in Europe.

We embed a lifelong love of learning and offer specialist teaching facilities for French, Art, PE and Music.

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15 October 2020 Jewish News

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13

Demos renew / Peace meeting / Tributes paid / Teacher rehired / World News

Israelis protest in their thousands Tens of thousands of Israelis demonstrated against Benjamin Netanyahu in hundreds of sites across Israel last Saturday, renewing a movement halted by a sharp second wave of the coronavirus.

The country’s second lockdown kept Israelis from going far from home, so many smaller protests erupted in different locales. For instance, fewer than 100 people gathered in Jerusalem’s Paris Square, the site of large past protests, while a group of people were fined for trying to ride in front of Netanyahu’s private home in Caesarea.

But as they did regularly for months earlier in the year, the protesters decried the prime minister’s botched coronavirus pandemic response, his handling of the economy and his alleged involvement in multiple corruption scandals. Hundreds gathered in Tel Aviv, including many in Rabin

Protestors in Jerusalem against Netanyahu

Square and Habima Square. Police claimed there were several injuries owing to protester violence.

Israel is in the midst of a strict second nationwide lockdown to stop the spread of the virus, which some say is expected to last for months.

Foreign ministers ISRAEL’S OLDEST in historic meeting MAN DIES, AGED 117 In a historic meeting, the foreign ministers of Israel and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) met in Berlin and visited the city’s main Holocaust monument together.

Less than a month after signing a peace deal that normalised relations between the Middle Eastern neighbours, Israel’s Gabi Ashkenazi and the UAE’s Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan walked through the large monument of concrete blocks symbolising the Jews killed by the Nazis in a meeting that was both symbolic and productive – according to reports, the pair discussed trade and tourism issues.

The two diplomats toured the monument along with German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who said the meeting and the peace deal shows “that peaceful coexistence in the Middle East is possible.”

Israel also signed an agreement with the Arab nation Bahrain on the same day at the White House.

‘Can’t prove Shoah’ teacher back

A headteacher who told a parent he “can’t answer questions about them. say the Holocaust is a factual, historical Latson sued, saying he had been event” will be rehired after a vote by the wrongfully terminated, and in August, school board that fired him. a judge concluded he should have been William Latson (pictured) made the reprimanded but not fired. comments to a parent in 2018 and was later The board voted to rehire him rather removed from the Boca Raton high school in than face a protracted and costly legal battle.

Florida. Last October, the school board voted 5-2 He will be given an administrative job rather toHALF fire him, citing also the fact Latson refused to than16:04 one with students.

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Israel’s oldest man, Shlomo Sulayman, has died at the age of 117.

Sulayman died on Sunday with is family by his side, according to Ynet. He is survived by six children as well as “dozens of grandkids, great and great- Shlomo Sulayman great grandkids”.

Sulayman was living on his own and his mind was clear until the very end, according to his grandson Gil Radia, who said confinement to his home in recent months due to the coronavirus pandemic did his grandfather “harm.”

“Until the pandemic, he would go to the synagogue, even at the age of 116. He was a very modest man, which is why everyone loved him.

But I guess the isolation at home contributed to his health deteriorating,” he added.

BEATRICE POSTS HER BALLOT We are less than a month away from what’s likely the most significant American election of our lifetimes, and people are mobilising to get out the vote. Among them is a 102-year-old Jewish woman named Beatrice Lumpkin. A photograph of Lumpkin mailing in her absentee ballot – while wearing a homemade anti-virus hazmat suit – went viral on social media.

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

Special Report / Jewish News meets... UAE ambassador

‘The idea Arabs and Jews are enemies is nonsense’ UAE Ambassador Mansoor Abulhoul tells Justin Cohen why it’s time to shatter negative perceptions in the Middle East

T

he United Arab Emirates ambassador has urged British Jews to visit the country, as he expressed his wish to be an ally in the fight against antisemitism in the UK and decried hate in parts of the Arab media.

Mansoor Abulhoul made the comments in his first interview with the Jewish media after his country and Israel signed the historic Abraham Accords to normalise relations.

The envoy, who studied at Leeds University and whose British mother moved to the UAE in 1968, said the region had suffered from decades of “indoctrination stemming from the Arab nationalist movement” and been “held back” by a fear of engaging with others.

“The narrative that the Arabs should be in endless war with the Israelis is absolute nonsense and the Abraham Accords proves that,” he insisted. “To have a dialogue, you have to be at the table and we very much see the Abraham Accords as a new pathway to peace. For us to ignore a major power engine, we’re denying the region strengths and bonds from which we can build peace. We’re both very dynamic economies and its difficult not to be able to work together.”

He strongly disagrees with any suggestion that the deal doesn’t progress the issue of peace with the Palestinians, whose leadership have accused the UAE of betrayal. “Where we had looming annexation – which would have sent peace into overdrive reverse gear – that’s been removed.

“It’s important the Palestinians use this time to come in and engage. It is up to the Israelis and Palestinians to decide what sort of solution they finally come to. But the UAE will do all it can to urge both sides to break the impasse. We will be able to help precisely because we can now communicate directly with Israel.”

Some commentators noted a change in tone

Above: UAE’s Mansoor Abulhoul with his family and, right, Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump sign the Abraham Accords

at last week’s UN address by Foreign Minister Abdullah bin-Zayad; gone were any explicit mentions of occupation or human rights violations that have been prominent in previous years. Abulhoul was also treading carefully, while making clear his country remains a “stanch supporter” of the Palestinians and asserting the deal in no way diluted Abu Dhabi’s backing of a twostate solution with East Jerusalem as capital.

Asked about their stance on settlements, his answer was softer than you’d expect even from a British official: “We feel UN resolutions and the Arab Peace Initiative are still central to finding a just solution for the Palestinians,” he said.

The deal has been almost universally welcomed in the international community and the accords pave the way for an exchange of embassies and ambassadors, and officials plan to cooperate on issues from cybersecurity to agriculture and the fight against coronavirus.

A keen cyclist, Abulhoul also hopes to see sporting and music initiatives to bring the two peoples together. While declining to comment on the wider boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign, he said of efforts to boycott Israel culturally: “It’s a shame when we can’t use culture, which is such a bridge.

We need to be much more open and accepting.”

The ambassador now “very much looked forward” to meeting his Israeli counterpart Tzipi Hotovely, and said “it’s important” the two embassies hold joint events. He hoped there

❝

would also be capacity for three-way projects involving the UK. It’s all a far cry from just two months ago when Israeli passport holders were still officially barred from the Emirates. Challenged on whether that policy had been a mistake, Abulhoul said it was crucial to “focus on the future. What is important now is to build this relationship, work towards a broader peace settlement and break old perceptions on both sides”.

It is an irony resulting from the pandemic that it is currently easier to visit the Jewish state from the UAE because of an air bridge, than from the UK, and he hopes to make his first trip soon when visiting Yad Vashem will be a priority.

He is keen for British Jews to know they can travel to his country without reservation.

“It’s like jumping on the Eurostar,” he joked. As well as great hotels, the world’s tallest building and “island resorts in Abu Dhabi”, the Louvre Abu Dhabi museum is home to a Yemenite Torah scroll dating back to 1498, housed alongside scriptures from other faiths in what the envoy says is a “big statement by us”.

The UAE brought in a law outlawing religious discrimination in 2015 but, Abulhoul acknowledged, the local Jewish community may “understandably in the Arab world” not have been comfortable in fully expressing itself until recently.

It has had a synagogue since 2008, now boasts a chief rabbi and, from 2022, will benefit from the

TO HAVE A DIALOGUE, YOU HAVE TO BE AT THE TABLE AND WE SEE THE ACCORDS AS A NEW PATHWAY TO PEACE

Abrahamic Family House, a world-first complex featuring a synagogue, mosque and church alongside each other.

He told Jewish News the accords had in many ways been a “triumph of dialogue” between faiths, adding: “The UAE is emerging as a centre for interreligious dialogue and we need to do more of that here in the UK. “There has been this issue with antisemitism here and it’s something we need to join hands on and combat this narrative of hate.”

Having contacted Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis last year, he added: “I think we now have all the links in place to run some excellent initiatives. The sky’s the limit now.”

When it comes to Arabic media in the Middle East, the envoy is troubled at the messages about Israel and Jews sometimes pushed to youngsters.

“It’s something that’s very concerning,” he said.

“This narrative of hate we have to push back on.”

He suggested there had been “certain very strong currents that were well-funded that are trying to push a strong psychological manipulation and agenda. We have been pushing back against that. It is a huge risk to future generations”.

On Iran – which he described as a “destabilising force”– he said the UAE is “concerned” about the imminent expiry of the arms embargo, but declined to say whether they joined Israel in calling for Britain to withdraw from the nuclear agreement. “We are looking for de-escalation in the region and also bringing Iran in line in terms of arms and supporting proxy regimes within the region.”

He urged the world not to view Iran and the accords as linked , but urged “like-minded states” to follow in normalising relations with Israel. “It’s a natural progression but states make their own decisions when is right for them”.

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15 October 2020 Jewish News

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

World News / Pandemic latest

FOUR-MONTH PLAN TALKS

Israel’s health ministry is set to recommend to government officials a four-month plan to exit the current covid lockdown.

The strategy will involve nine stages ending in February 2021, Israel’s Channel 12 reported.

A specific drop in the daily number of infections is required to trigger each stage.

Israel entered a second nationwide lockdown in midSeptember after a rise in coronavirus cases representing what many are calling the worst second wave of infections in the world.

Israeli politicians say the country’s economy opened too quickly the first time around, and the health ministry’s strategy takes a slower tack. The government’s coronavirus committee will need to approve the plan.

The first stage, to begin in a week, would not progress until there are fewer than 2,000 daily infections. It will open preschools, end the under-a-mile limit that people can travel from their homes, allow family visits and reopen Ben Gurion Airport. The second stage, set for 1 November, would not allow more than 1,000 daily infections.

Cities and towns with high rates of infection could reopen more slowly if their numbers do not improve.

Charedi anti-lockdown leader released from jail The ringleader of violent protests by strictlyOrthodox Jews against New York City leaders was released from jail this week, vowing to bring thousands out onto the streets on Wednesday night, writes Joy Faulk.

Heshy Tischler, an emerging grassroots leader in the city’s Borough Park district, whipped up his mask-less Charedi followers, who waved Donald Trump flags and chanted anti-authority slogans before attacking and injuring an Orthodox journalist.

Jacob Kornbluh, who writes for Jewish Insider, was following the demonstration when Tischler directed his followers towards the reporter, who said he was then chased, pinned against a wall, called a “Nazi” and hit.

Tischler had earlier called Kornbluh a “moser” – one who informs on fellow Jews to the authorities.

Tischler was later arrested and charged with inciting a riot against the city’s leaders for imposing coronavirus restrictions, despite infection rates in areas with large Charedi populations continuing to skyrocket.

More than 100 Charedi Jews protested at night outside Kornbluh’s home after Tischler was arrested, chanting “No Heshy, no peace”, as police were called to protect the building.

Upon his release from prison, Tischler said he was running for the city council and planned to take legal action against the city’s authorities, including Mayor Bill de Blasio and Governor Andrew Cuomo, both of whom are Democrats.

Charedim in Brooklyn this week, the majority refusing to wear anti-virus masks

On Monday, Cuomo said Charedi protesters had “never followed” coronavirus restrictions imposed to varying degrees over the past seven months, adding that the pattern of micro-clusters in areas with high Orthodox Jewish populations “makes the case of how the regulations actually worked.”

Last week’s figures showed areas with large Orthodox Jewish populations had five times more Covid-19 infections than other neighbourhoods, but the true figure may be higher, with local media reporting anonymous Yiddish messages telling Charedi Jews to get tested in private clinics only so as not to raise the official figures.

Virus harms patients’ sperm The pandemic is harming the sperm of patients, even weeks after recovery, Israeli doctors have concluded, raising concerns the disease could reduce fertility, writes Nathan Jeffay.

“Men who had the mild disease had a broadly normal sperm quality,” Professor Dan Aderka of Sheba Medical Center, told The Times of Israel this week. “But those who had the disease in moderate or serious form often did not, even after recovery.

“These men had a reduction of around 50 percent on average of the number of sperm per millilitre, total volume of ejaculate, and motility of sperm,” he said. This figure reflects testing that was carried out around a month after diagnosis.

Aderka, a Tel Aviv University professor, said he was concerned that a minority of men who had Covid-19 could face fertility problems or even “permanent sterility”.

But he said doctors need to monitor sperm of recovered patients for months to find out more.

He drew his conclusions after conducting what is believed to be the most extensive analysis of the research projects conducted around the world looking at sperm

Sperm quality in moderate or serious covid cases was damaged

and Covid-19, in order to assess what is currently known. His analysis has not yet been peer reviewed, but the 40-plus studies he referenced, covering the sperm of hundreds of men, have been.

Aderka is now starting to implement ongoing sperm monitoring for some recovered Sheba patients, to assess the long-term impact of the disease on male fertility.

He said: “We don’t know yet if these effects are reversible, but we do know that other diseases from the coronavirus family, such as mumps and SARS, have left

a long-term effect on fertility for male patients. For 20 percent of adult male mumps patients, there is sterility, total loss of fertility, so we know viruses can have such an impact.”

His concerns are based not only on the assessment of sperm samples, but on reports of the state of testes of deceased Covid-19 patients.

“There is probably physical harm to the testes in some cases, though we don’t know in how many,” he said, noting the virus was found in the sperm of some patients during

and after infection, but said this did not mean it can be transmitted sexually and said all evidence currently suggests it cannot.

He said existing literature suggests the virus is found in the sperm of 13 percent of male patients who have the disease, and 8.6 percent of those who are recovering a week or two after the active disease. A month later, there are no traces of coronavirus ribonucleic acid (RNA) in the sperm.

Asked if there were any steps men could take to protect their fertility during the pandemic he said that mask-wearing can help, even if one ultimately becomes infected.

This is because the viral load entering the body tends to be smaller if people are protected by a mask, and the smaller the viral load, the better the immune system’s chances of beating the virus while still in the mild stage and having minimal impact on sperm.

Aderka said: “If you have a small viral load at the start, your immune system has a better chance of catching up with the virus, so wearing a mask can reduce severity, reduce mortality, and – potentially also, based on what we’re learning – reduce infertility.”

New York’s current restrictions for ‘red zone’ areas includes a maximum 25 per- Heshy Tischler cent capacity in places of worship, but Cuomo said that even when this was at 50 percent, Orthodox leaders saw it as a negotiation and “offered 75 percent”.

Asked about the protests at a press conference on Monday, he said: “They have never been following the regulations with any rigour. I had an eye-opener in talking to them. Now you see the result.” Tischler’s lawyer said he was “not guilty”, adding: “This is a politically motivated arrest and the truth will come out.”

5.5% of Israelis have antibodies A nationwide serological survey conducted by the Health Ministry from July to September found that 5.5 percent of Israelis have coronavirus antibodies, indicating that the country is far from achieving so-called “herd immunity” from the pandemic.

The study released last week indicated the virus was far more widespread than known, but fell short of assessments that had predicted the pathogen had gone undetected in the vast majority of cases.

According to the study, up to half a million people may have caught the virus, about double the number of cases that had been confirmed by the end of September, and about four times the number who had been confirmed infected at the start of September.

The Health Ministry announcement did not say whether the study had included September and a spokesperson could not be reached for clarification.

Police officers in Israel wear masks

15 October 2020 Jewish News

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17

Festival resilience / Shul opens / Righteous named / Cuba support / Diaspora News

Jewish Berliners celebrate resilience of community Young Jewish Berliners have celebrated the resilience of the Jewish community in the German capital to mark one year since a gunman attacked a synagogue in the central city of Halle.

The event was especially pertinent because some of the teenagers and young professionals who took part in the weeklong High Holiday Festival of Resilience had been in the Halle synagogue on the day of the attack last October.

Weaving tradition and innovation, a moving ceremony was a focal point in a week of activities from Yom Kippur to Succot in a festival supported by Genesis Philanthropy Group (GPG), Hillel Deutschland, the Central Council of Jews in Germany, the Alfred Landecker Foundation, and the Amadeu Antonio Stiftung.

Around 150 people gathered at a beer garden in Gleisdereick Park for an event that Hillel director Rabbi Rebecca Blady said was designed to both commemorate the Halle attack and to move forward with confidence.

“The past year has involved a deep healing process for many of us, and for many of us that process is not over,” she said.

“Even as we come together and support each other, we also state that trauma does

Participants in the High Holiday Festival of Resilience in the German capital

not define who we are as a people.”

The Jewish community in Germany is small but strong and increasingly proactive in dealing with challenges such as those posed by the resurgence of far-right activists.

Marina Yudborovsky, GPG chief executive, said the festival gave young Jews in Berlin and Germany an opportunity “not

unionists and Jews.

The mammoth five-year hearing was the biggest trial of fascists since Nuremberg, resulting in what will likely be a string of 15+ year sentences for the group’s senior members, a verdict that led to jubilant scenes in the Greek capital.

The Central Board of Jewish Communities in Greece (KISE) said: “This historic verdict delegitimises the neo-Nazi organisations and at the same time fortifies democ-

only to confront the evil of what happened in Halle, but to come together in unity and solidarity, born of optimism to continue envisioning and creating a bright future”.

Participants also heard from Faruk Arslan, who lost his family in the 1992 neoNazi firebombing of a home of Turkish migrants in Mölln, as well as from student and communal Jewish leaders.

racy in this country.”

Golden Dawn operatives are accused of vandalising a Jewish cemetery just days before the ruling, daubing Nazi slogans across its walls, leading KISE to warn Greeks not “to let our guard down”, given the danger still posed.

Among the 69 party activists on trial was leader Nikos Michaloliakos, who has denied the existence of gas chambers used to kill millions of Jews during the Holocaust. He was arrested

POLANSKI RESCUERS NAMED AS RIGHTEOUS BY YAD VASHEM A couple who hid the film director Roman Polanski when he was smuggled out of Krakow ghetto as a child in 1943 are to be recognised as ‘Righteous Among the Nations’.

Stefania and Jan Buchała, whose grandson will accept a medal on their behalf in Poland this week, hid the then 10-year-old Polanski (pictured) for two years until the end of the war, risking their lives to do so.

Yad Vashem, Israel’s national Holocaust memorial and museum, confers the title ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ on non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis.

Your weekly digest of stories from the international press MOLDOVA

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The European Commission has said it will fund the restoration of the 18th century Great Synagogue of Raskov in eastern Moldova. The roofless building is currently in a state of ruin, but the reliefs of its interior walls are intact.

Communists closed it in the 1930s and most local Jews were killed by the Nazis in the years that followed.

Greek Jews cheer Golden Dawn verdict Jewish representatives in Greece have welcomed an “historic verdict” after a court in Athens ruled that the neofascist Golden Dawn party was in fact a criminal organisation.

Judges last week found the far-right group guilty of operating as a criminal gang and “hit squad” intent on murdering its perceived enemies including immigrants, human rights defenders, members of the lesbian, bisexual, transgender and related communities, trade

WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF

More than 7,100 Poles have already been recognised as such.

Polanski’s father smuggled him out of the Krakow ghetto and entrusted him to the couple, who died in the 1950s.

Now 87, Polanski continues to make big box office hits, most recently on the antisemitic trial of French soldier Alfred Dreyfus.

Last month, officials attended a ceremony in the Lithuanian city of Kaunas to honour the actions of Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat who, along with his Dutch counterpart Jan Zwartendijk, gave life-saving visas to thousands of Jews fleeing the Nazis.

Golden Dawn members at rally in Athens in 2015

in 2013 for stabbing and killing the anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas.

Authorities in Vienna have placed a protective ring around the statue of a former city mayor who accused Jews of “terrorism”. Protesters have vandalised the figure of Karl Lueger and called for its removal. In his antisemitic tract Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler said he was a great admirer of Lueger, who died in 1910.

Jewish American scholar Paul Milgrom has jointly won a Nobel Prize in economics for his auction theory research with colleague Robert Wilson.

Their work to understand value and bidding has led to the invention of new auction formats, “benefitting sellers, buyers and taxpayers” everywhere, the Nobel Committee said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will “immediately” bring up to 2,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel after a conversation with Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed.

Up to 13,000 Ethiopian Jews are in Addis Ababa and Gondar and have threatened to go on hunger strike if they cannot make aliyah.

‘NUCLEAR’ SYNAGOGUE OPENS NEAR MOSCOW A city near Moscow built in 1945 to house the staff at the world’s first nuclear plant has finally opened its first synagogue.

With about 400 Jews now living in the city of Obninsk and others from the capital expected to move there, Jewish leaders in Russia felt the time was right for a place of worship.

Russian Chief Rabbi Berel Lazar attended the opening and said: “Our goal is not only to restore what was destroyed by the Communist regime, but also to build even more than was there before.”

Shul in Obninsk, built in 1945, will host weekly services

The city’s Rabbi Aron Golovchiner told Russian media that the shul would begin by holding Shabbat services, expanding to weekday services according to demand.

Jewbans issue plea for Havana

The owners of the only kosher establishment on Cuba have called on Jews around the world to “bring assistance to a community in need”.

Speaking to Jewish News, Chateau Blanc proprietor Scott Berenthal said the island’s small but vibrant Jewish community had been affected by the pandemic, the restrictions from which cut international travel overnight.

“With a high dependency on tourism, Cuba is particularly vulnerable, with severe shortages of food, medicine, and general supplies,” he said.

“The Jewish community there has fared slightly better due to

the generosity of Jews who have historically brought aid as part of their visits, but even their supplies have been reduced as a result of the pandemic.”

Berenthal’s family are part of the community of so-called Jewbans, who fled during the Castro revolution before returning; his father Saul founded the first US company licensed under the Obama administration to do business in Cuba.

He said the island was “slowly reopening”, with the capital, Havana, expected to fully open next month.“We want to encourage people to once again explore the world beyond their borders and invite them to see a unique part of

Cuba and once again bring assistance to a community in need,” said Berenthal, who lived in London in the early 2000s.

“We believe that by encouraging travel to Cuba, we continue to bring visibility to Cuban Judaism and help the community thrive, especially during the currently difficult times.”

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Editorial comment and letters ISSUE NO.

1180

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

Two billion people are now better protected Twenty years ago, an American academic historian won her London libel trial against a British author and Holocaust denier, prompting The Times to write in an editorial that “history had its day in court and scored a crushing victory”.

Mark Zuckerberg, boss and co-founder of Facebook, was 15 years old when Professor Deborah Lipstadt and her lawyer, Anthony Julius, beat the litigious David Irving. While history was being made in court, Zuckerberg was in the playground.

No doubt the tech magnate-to-be was by then learning historical truths, alongside the importance of letting people speak their own truth, no matter how bonkers, brazen or offensive. After all, knowledge only blossoms under free expression.

It was, therefore, no surprise to hear him speak this week of the “tension” he has felt between banning Holocaust denial or distortion from the online platforms he owns and allowing his users to engage freely in it.

Legally, Zuckerberg was fine to allow it for as long as he has – the US constitution sees to that. But morally it had become an increasingly sticky wicket, which he appeared to acknowledge this week when he said Facebook would no longer allow it.

More than anyone, he has a bird’s-eye view of the ‘fake news’ posttruth online juggernaut screaming along the networks he oversees, as well as the radicalising harm it does. He profits from it. His algorithms even facilitate it.

No more.

The ban is late, welcome, and likely to be tough to implement, because distortion and revisionism are nuanced.

To help, Zuckerberg might read Lipstadt’s 1993 book Denying the Holocaust: The Growing Assault on Truth and Memory.

He was only nine when Lipstadt wrote the book, but he will see that what stood then stands now: that because Holocaust denial has no basis in fact, deniers often have an ideological agenda, be that exonerating the Nazis, rehabilitating Fascism or taking part in that age-old past-time of vilifying Jews.

Get the implementation right, however, and some two billion Facebook users will be better protected from online hatred.

It may even prompt The Times to write that “history had its day online and secured that crushing victory”.

Send us your comments PO Box 815, Edgware, HA8 4SX | letters@jewishnews.co.uk

Charedim are Who let liberals change our law? not exempt During this pandemic, many Charedim in Israel (and the diaspora), have decided for themselves how to behave in public (and, no doubt, also in private). Doubtless, some Charedi rabbis have encouraged their followers to ignore their government’s information about the risks. Charedim, like billions of people globally, have to accept and learn to live with the new paradigm of life, that the coronavirus has required us to adopt.

JD Milaric, by email

Sketches & kvetches

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It was a matter of grave concern that your front page and editorial promoted and endorsed the ‘anything goes’ divisive Liberal view of marriage (Jewish News, 8 October 2020).

The fact is authentic converts have always been welcomed by mainstream Jewry and can be married under a chuppah as fully-fledged Jews. Who gave liberal Jews the entitlement to change Jewish law or impose their minority view?

Their constant distortions against the fundamental tenets of our live and let live co-religionists, community and Israel has nothing to do with the ‘diversity or equality’ they espouse.

Mrs M Vine, Ilford

MUSLIMS WOULD HAVE BEEN KILLED

KEEP UP PRESSURE OVER UYGHURS

Do the anti-Israel antisemitic morons who take pride in spraying, among other slogans, ‘Free Palestine’, not realise that had there been Muslims living in Germany during the Second World War then they, too, would have been included in the 11 million murdered by Hitler and the Nazis?

I was shocked but hardly surprised to read in last week’s Jewish News that the Chinese government dismissed your campaign on behalf of the oppressed Uyghur Muslims in the country as “slander and falsehood” and an “elaboration of the facts”. You clearly pressed their buttons. Keep pressing.

Marilyn Finester By email

Emma Backerman By email

Sedra: B ? ???? ereshit

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Editorial comment and letters IMMANUEL COLLEGE

HERD IMMUNITY IS THE FUTURE The strictly Orthodox community in Stamford Hill, estimated to be 20,000 in Hackney, plus 6,000 to 7,000 in Haringey was, and is, a Petri dish for the virus.

It has big, overcrowded families, widespread poverty, men spending entire days studying religious texts in special colleges in close proximity to each other; and praying together three times a day, mixing with likeminded or related families from around the globe (Belgium, Israel and America), as well as mixing freely with their neighbours.

This is an exceptionally vulnerable community and, if any group did lock down, it would have been late and patchy (there are about 40 sects and each has its own response, depending on its leading rabbi).

They have little contact with the outside world (they do not own TV sets or have computers except for work, if needed), and do not read newspapers, except their own.

They are extremely sceptical about scientists and, given the poor quality of the scientists advising the government – overestimating, as it did, the death rate by a factor of 10 – they may have a point.

In any event, how can you have long lockdowns in crowded houses or more likely flats, with five to 10 children? The men are used to spending all day in their yeshivot,

so it is hard to imagine them changing this routine for any length of time.

Some high-profile synagogues and yeshivot may have been closed, temporarily, but most of these places are ordinary houses, so no outsiders can know whether they are in use or not. Anecdotal evidence from people who live and work in the area suggests that life is continuing as normal among this community.

Three prominent epidemiologists recently met in Massachusetts. In brief, they proposed a strategy that would protect the vulnerable but encourage the fit, young and middle aged to mix in order to achieve the sort of herd immunity that they have in Sweden, and what we will have to do anyway, even with a vaccine.

I believe that the strictly Orthodox community may have also achieved it.

This strategy is far more sane, humane and scientific than endless repeated lockdowns, arbitrary and damaging restrictions such as the ‘rule of six’ and pubs closing at 10pm. These restrictions are destroying the travel, sport and entertainment industries and creating more health problems and deaths than Covid-19.

Anthony Kerstein Barkingside

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Opinion

Aunt taught me value of knowing my history ALEX BRUMMER

CITY EDITOR, THE DAILY MAIL

W

hen I spoke on Yom Kippur evening with cousins in Israel, where Auntie Rosie spent many of her retirement years, the reaction was how fitting it was that, after a long illness, she had died on Judaism’s most holy day – an appropriate passing for a tzedek or righteous person.

Rose was born a Brummer, one of 11 siblings, in 1926 in the town of Vylok (Tisza-Ujlak), close to Berehova on the Czech-Hungarian border.

The family enjoyed a peaceful life before Hitler uprooted their existence.

Her testimony and that of those like her is why I believe strongly in the value of Holocaust education in spite of the debate that has erupted among intellectuals, sparked by a critical article by former Harvard professor Ruth Wisse in the magazine National Affairs.

It also is why I find the recent attempts to block the national memorial to the Shoah, on Victoria Gardens adjacent to Parliament, so unbecoming. Britain needs a prominent reminder of the industrial killing of Nazism.

Over the years, talking to my courageous

late aunt and other family members and when visiting the family home with my father Michael, I was able to get a glimpse of their lives. Rose was a skilled seamstress who worked with families in her hometown. The image that sticks in my mind is of my grandfather, Rose’s father Sandor, under a peach tree outside the Brummer house on a Shabbat afternoon learning the biblical stories with the children.

The peace was disturbed as the Hungarian fascists the Arrow Cross, allies of the Nazis, took over in 1940. Three brothers, Danny, Ference and Ignatz, vanished, never to be heard of again.

Then, in 1944, my grandparents and the three young women were rounded up, packed in a cattle train and sent to Auschwitz. The horror of separation from parents who went to the gas chambers was bad enough. But the cold, filth and brutality of the camps was a permanent scar.

The older siblings settled in Brighton before the Second World War. Philip Brummer was the chazan at the historic Middle Street Synagogue. My father returned to his roots as a farmer and Auntie Yita (Shindy’s mother) ran a boarding house on Cannon Place. It was assumed that Rose, her younger sister and Yita’s daughter, suffered the fate of their parents. But in 1947 there arrived a telegram

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AS THE SURVIVORS BECOME EXTINCT, A MEMORIAL NEAR PARLIAMENT WILL KEEP THE FLAME BURNING from the Swedish Red Cross saying it had in its care three women with the name Brummer, who claimed relatives in the UK. The three women would find work (and husbands!) in the Cannon Street kosher boarding house. It was here that Rose encountered a talented Hebraic scholar Tony (Tovya) Rafalofwicz. Soon after marriage, they moved to Edinburgh, where Tony served as an assistant minister and lectured at the university.

He worked for his semicha at Jews College (now London School of Jewish Studies).

From Edinburgh, Tony and Rosie took the call from the Sydney Jewish community to be director of Jewish education. Once he obtained his semicha, Tony, Rebbetzen Rosie and their two children, Ruth and Eli, moved to Adelaide, where they were the rabbinical couple for several decades. On retirement, they fulfilled a dream to move to Ramat Gan, in Israel, close to Rose’s brother Martin (also a

survivor). To escape hot summers, they established a second home in Hove. The scars of Auschwitz never left Rosie. She had an obsession with cleanliness and a loss of smell.

The abiding memory of Rose is her fighting spirit and an ability to overcome adversity.

Rabbi Tony fought a long battle against heart disease, her daughter Ruth predeceased her and she later was diagnosed with cancer.

All these traumas were met with inner strength, stoicism and a devotion to Judaism that never wavered. If you can survive and defy the horrors of the Shoah, then tragedy is placed in perspective.

In her final years, Rose would join her cousin Shindy, visiting Brighton and Hove schools to impart their story as living witnesses to Holocaust education. As the survivors become extinct, a stark memorial, close to Britain’s most cherished sites, would keep the flame of remembrance burning.

Modest leaders will get us through this crisis NADAV TAMIR

SENIOR ADVISER AT THE PERES CENTER FOR PEACE AND INNOVATION

A

n analysis of countries across the world dealing with the corona crisis reveals a clear finding. Those with populist leaders are less likely to successfully meet the challenge, compared to those with more modest ones.

The pandemic crisis allows us to inspect up close, an age old phenomenon, which has always been difficult to diagnose – the human inability to understand and rapidly predict changing trends in the modern world.

A unique feature of the coronavirus is our inability to understand its behaviour. For a long time, this type of uncertainty has been evident elsewhere. It stems from the fact that change in the world is becoming less linear and more exponential, complex and multifaceted.

The human brain can easily process linear change and can predict the future based on analysis and extrapolation of the past. However, the information and technology revolutions have complicated matters, making change far less understandable. As a result, predicting the future is not only much more complex, but also

one of the most significant leadership challenges.

Leaders in the past relied on being able to present a clear vision for the future, based on the ability to understand the present and analyse the past. Leaders today do not have this luxury. Yet the public still expects them to provide a sense of certainty and assurance against a background of often frightening uncertainty.

Populist leaders are well versed in taking advantage of this existential public anxiety, marketing themselves as resolute leaders with solutions. By contrast, leaders who question, who understand that they do not understand, are often perceived as weak. Yet it is they who cope better with global change.

I well remember that as Prime Minister, Shimon Peres was ridiculed for acknowledging multiple views, for saying yes and no at the same time. It has taken me many years to realise that his ability to see each matter in a complex and dialectic way, to view both sides of the issue, is essential to modern leadership.

Peres demonstrated how modern leaders need to be learners rather than knowers, because much of the old knowledge and way of thinking has become not only irrelevant, but a barrier towards dealing with the unknown and the unfamiliar. Peres showed me that curiosity,

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SHIMON PERES’ ABILITY TO VIEW BOTH SIDES OF THE ISSUE IS ESSENTIAL TO MODERN LEADERSHIP

imagination, creativity and also intellectual modesty serve us much better than knowledge and understanding of the past.

This realisation was further sharpened for me when I studied Prof Ronald Heifetz’s theory of adaptive leadership at Harvard Kennedy School.

Heifetz argued that adaptive leadership, rather than technical leadership, is better suited to tackling today’s new and unfamiliar challenges because it brings about deeper learning and eventually understanding for a wide range of people, rather than relying on the leadership of an all-knowing and charismatic leader.

When I accompanied Peres in diplomatic meetings, I was always impressed by leaders who asked questions and were comfortable expressing doubt, rather than asserting foregone

conclusions. One prominent example was Chancellor Angela Merkel, who knew how to listen and learn, rather than flaunt her knowledge.

President Barack Obama examined each issue from every angle. He also realised that understanding the modern world requires learning and flexibility, not assertive recklessness. It is clear Prime Minister Levi Eshkol, who famously stuttered when addressing the public on the eve of the 1967 Six-Day War was one of Israel’s best prime ministers. This stands in contrast to too many of Israel’s leaders who have made the mistake of hubris.

It is not surprising the countries that are most successfully tackling the challenge of the corona crisis are those with leadership (mostly female) characterised by modesty, intellectual flexibility and the curiosity to learn ‘on the go’.

This type of leadership does not look to provide an immediate, comprehensive answer that can be marketed to a confused public searching for certainty amid a chaotic reality.

This is something the Israeli public must internalise. The leaders we need do not have to be charismatic speakers. We need modest leaders who tell us the truth even when it is unclear and requires us all to learn; leaders who courageously tackle real challenges rather than distractions.

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“ To be able to understand the paramedic and see her reassuring smile stopped me feeling so terrified.”

When Eva’s breathing became erratic and she complained of a tight chest, thankfully Janine, one of JDA’s Support Workers, was visiting her.

Janine called an ambulance and, upon arrival, gave the paramedic a see-through mask.

This enabled Eva to lip-read and follow what was happening to her.

As a result of this, JDA has been in consultation with the London Ambulance Service and is equipping Hatzola’s paramedics with these specialist masks.

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Brian was a political foe I couldn’t help but admire

VIVIAN WINEMAN

engagingly simple. The state of Israel was the beginning of the redemption. The War of IndeFORMER PRESIDENT, pendence, the Sinai campaign in 1956 and the BOARD OF DEPUTIES Six-Day War were all miracles – signs of divine intervention in history. his is a tribute to an old friend and Similarly, his view of history was straightforopponent, Brian Gordon. He died ward. The destruction of the First Temple and aged 64, just before Yom Kippur the first Jewish Commonwealth had nothing to and days after taking office as do with great power rivalry between Babylon, mayor of Barnet. We were totally opposed politically, but I had a great deal of respect Egypt and Assyria. It was because the Jews committed murder, idol worship and immoand affection for him personally. rality. As for the destruction of the Second Brian and I were long-time sparring partners Temple – forget the Romans. It was due to causeand later colleagues as members of the Board less hatred among the Jews. of Deputies. We were from the very opposite The state of Israel, holy though it was, had ends of the political spectrum; Brian, a leading spokesman for Likud in the UK, and I, an ex-chair its downsides. Normal aspects of modern life, like the construction of a football stadium in the of British Friends of Peace Now. I don’t recall Holy City, were a sign of the deplorable godlessoften agreeing with him, but when I did, I felt I ness displayed by the secular founders of Israel. should immediately re-examine my position.

Still, as Brian was pleased to say, there were only We crossed swords often on the multi-faith two types of Jew; those who were Orthodox and station Spectrum Radio, at one time run by the those who were not yet Orthodox.

Saudis, where there was a Jewish slot. He was an I joined him on the Board of Deputies, where articulate and a formidable adversary in debate. he had already established a reputation as a Despite, or perhaps because of, the fact he D spokesman for opinions to the right, was a ba’al teshuvah, a returnee to Orthodox GEprominent Judaism, his religious and political outlook Y,on the religious and political spectrum.

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HE WAS AN ARTICULATE AND A FORMIDABLE ADVERSARY IN DEBATE

I recall sitting next to him at a meeting where the Middle East conflict was debated. I delivered a speech, which I thought was a fair-minded, if rather pedestrian, view. I sat down and Brian told me how much he admired me. He said after all these years and all that has happened ‘you can still speak... the same old bilge as before’. One could not help being amused.

Eventually, I stood for Board president. Brian had previously decided to resign. I thought, as I still do, that it would be a big loss. I knew he would not have voted for me even if I had been the only candidate, but I tried to persuade him to stay. I failed. He was moving on and becoming more engaged with the Charedi world.

He was not confrontational, unlike some of his successors on the Zionist right, but was happy to advocate his views in unfamiliar environments. I, and others, subsequently arranged

for him to address a meeting of Meretz UK, where he gave an articulate defence of his position. He was asked what he would do if he were prime minister of Israel and had a mandate to solve the situation. Brian said he would annex all the territories, Judea, Samaria and Gaza.

The inevitable question followed: what would you do with the inhabitants? Enfranchise them all and give them equal rights, Brian replied. And what about the demographic problem? Brian had three answers. First, there were probably not as many Palestinians there as people thought.

Secondly, many of them might leave. But he had a third answer in case anyone thought these two were unrealistic: ‘The moshiach will come – after all, you are all Jews and believe in the coming of the Messiah’. This was a largely secular audience, but Brian said it with such seriousness I think he got away with it. It was a tour de force.

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15 October 2020 Jewish News

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23

Opinion

UAE deal dismantles the age-old narrative LUKE AKEHURST

DIRECTOR, WE BELIEVE IN ISRAEL

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don’t think many people engaged in the debate about Israel and the Palestinians have really absorbed yet the full significance of the Abraham Accords, the peace deal struck in Washington DC between Israel, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain on 15 September.

On the ground in the Middle East, where it most matters, the deal is a new kind of peopleto-people peace that builds coexistence between the societies, not the rather hollow model of a purely state-to-state “cold peace” with Israel pursued by Egypt and Jordan, where the governments have good practical diplomatic and security relations with Israel, but this does not trickle down to the cultural and educational spheres and does not penetrate public discourse.

The UAE and Israel are making a big effort to promote grassroots civil society links between businesses, non-governmental organisations, universities and cultural institutions.

The Abraham Accords are about Israel and Arab countries building peace together

because it gives them the opportunity to improve prosperity and everyday life for everyone in the region. But in terms of the debate here in the UK, once people begin to digest the significance of the deal, it will become apparent that it has driven a coach and horses through four of the key parts of the ideological narrative of the anti-Israel camp.

First, the Abraham Accords sound the death knell for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign. BDS was built on the foundations and legacy of the Arab Boycott of Israel, initiated as a boycott of the pre-state Yishuv by the Arab League in 1945.

With key Arab states now formally embracing trade and diplomatic deals with Israel, it looks ridiculous and out of touch with the reality of the region or Arab opinion for radicals in Europe and North America to continue to pursue a boycott policy.

Second, the Abraham Accords demolish the narrative that Israel is engaged in a race-based and hence racist oppression of the Palestinians, and hence the apartheid smear and the BDS policies that flow from the false comparison with apartheid South Africa.

❝

THE LANGUAGE OF THE DEAL ACKNOWLEDGES THAT JEWS ARE INDIGENOUS TO THE MIDDLE EAST Emiratis and Bahrainis are the same ethnicity as the Palestinians: Arab. If Israel is able to have normalised and mutually beneficial relations with other Arab states, it stands to reason that the occupation is down to a political impasse with the Palestinians, not a race-based desire to subjugate them.

Third, the Abraham Accords destroy the narrative that the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is based on an inevitable religious clash between Jews and Muslims. The UAE and Bahrain are predominantly Muslim societies, just like Palestinian society. If anything, they are more monolithically Muslim than Palestinian society is. This deal proves Israel can have good relationships with Muslim countries.

The way in which the deal uses language about the mutual heritage of the three Abrahamic religions acknowledges that Jews are indigenous

to the Middle East.

This last point links to the fourth aspect, which is that the Abraham Accords draw a line under historic Arab delegitimisation of Israel and the narrative that saw it as a temporary, colonialist imposition that could be destroyed.

The deal shows the rest of the Arab world is growing impatient with Palestinian intransigence and has moved to seeing Israel in pragmatic rather than ideological terms, as a permanent feature in the region that doesn’t just have to be accepted but can actually be a useful trading partner and security ally against Iran and its proxies.

As well as opening the door to a better life for many people in the region, the Accords have made it easier for all of us who proudly defend Israel to win the ideological arguments with the delegitimisers.

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

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15 October 2020 Jewish News

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25

Community / Scene & Be Seen

1 LOCKDOWN WAFFLES

Freshers’ Week was even busier than usual this year for the Aish on Campus team. Aish ran a waffle delivery campaign, offering students a variety of toppings, sauces and an ideal time of delivery, with boxes delivered to more than 400 students. Rabbi Gideon Goldwater said: “The Aish on Campus teams and the students went above and beyond to launch this year with a fantastic event.”

2

And be seen!

SUPPORT ACT

Little Britain actor and Great British Bake Off host Matt Lucas was the star guest of Chai Cancer Care’s fortnightly Zoom social last week.

Matt said his biggest achievement was updating the lyrics of the 20-year-old Baked Potato comedy song to raise awareness of how children can avoid coronavirus. The song was viewed three million times and is being used to fundraise his FeedNHS campaign, which will provide hot meals to NHS workers. Matt said: “What you are doing is brilliant.”

The latest news, pictures and (virtual) social events from across the community Email us at community@jewishnews.co.uk

3 UPPER CLASS

At 84, Martin Greenberg has completed his retirement project by receiving his certificate in English Literature and Creative Writing from the Open University, with an Upper 2:1.

His wife Rosalind said: “After six years of hard slog, we are all thrilled at this achievement. I am now running out of jobs for him to do to keep him busy!”

4 MOBILE JOY

Bushey Synagogue took its succah to the people.

Erected on the back of a trailer, its mobile succah travelled around for people to enjoy outside their homes. While adhering to Covid-19 rules, each member would be able to eat and drink within the succah.

Rabbi Elchonon Feldman said: “Succot has been associated with bringing joy to others.

We felt, why not take this one step further and literally bring joy to others’ homes.”

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5 COMMUNAL APPEAL

UJIA, Jewish Care, Norwood, Jami and GIFT raised £11,000 through their first cross-communal event, for which more than 200 signed up. The five young professional committees, led by For Starters’ founder Lauren Fried, hosted a cooking masterclass

by Palomar restaurant founder, chef Yossi Elad, live from his kitchen in Jaffa. The money raised will go towards the host organisations with matched funding donated to GIFT in the UK and Leket in Israel.

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

ADVERTORIAL

Tech of the town!

Israeli firm seeks new CEO Microdel entrepreneur Yossi De Levie tells Joe Millis why he wants to hand over the baton to someone who can invest, lead and succeed

I

f you have a spare $3 offers a diverse entrepremillion (£2.25 million) neurial-technological incuto invest, an Israeli serial bator for the development entrepreneur has just the of start-ups, both high and offer for you. low-tech.

Yossi De Levie, the man The start-ups under the behind 19 successful startMicrodel umbrella have ups, is looking to relinquish created products ranging the leadership of Israeli techfrom a bio-filtration capsule Yossi De Levie nology incubator Microdel for cleaning fishponds and and bring aboard the next a twist-and-sit folding stool CEO-investor. that is sold all over the world.

A sprightly 70-year-old – who doesn’t This is how De Levie defines the sound his age – he says: “You have to Microdel he founded, in order to help know when to stand aside and 70 seems inventors fulfil their dream. to me to be the right age.”

“There are 17 entities in the incuHe began investing “in 1974, upon bator,” he says. “Some will be acquired completion of my army service, when and some will bring in revenue from I established a real estate development sales. These are a dozen core compacompany that at its peak employed 70 nies and the rest are other concepts workers”. He adds: “As a member of that have not yet been materialised as the Israeli Union of Industrialists, I also commercial companies. voluntarily assisted in the construction of “We have a bio-filtration capsule for the Ashkelon Marina.” dealing with one of the most painful, From there, De Levie branched out and expensive problems facing indusinto playground equipment. His Games trial fish farmers that was developed by & Sports company, which became one of our subsidiaries, Sea Dream. a leading Israeli manufacturer and “Such a company will make an exit for exporter, sold more than 300 products hundreds of millions of dollars and the to the international market with annual CEO will be among those who profits revenues of $15 million. from its sale.”

In 2002, Games & Sports was His folding Mini Max stool is sold in acquired by Gaon Holdings, controlled Japan, the Netherlands, on QVC US and by the late Benny Gaon. in other countries around the world.

His current company, Microdel, which Other Microdel successes include he set up in 2004, focuses on business Novokid, a natural, plant-based treatdevelopment and exit processes, and ment, which tackles lice and lice eggs, the portable and accurate MIDetector heart monitor developed by subsidiary Corsens Medical and approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, and an on-land aquaculture farm in the Negev, which raises 2,000 tons of Barramundi fish in the heart of the desert.

Microdel’s management team includes expert leaders from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds and focuses on identifying the few most promising and extraordinary ideas with the highest potential to become profitable and marketable products.

Through pinpointing of the right ideas and close and continuous involvement by Microdel’s management team and advisory board, the selected ideas grow from early concept to a global, product-ready company. All portfolio companies work in full synergy with The Mini Max stool

Left: Novokid is a natural, plant-based treatment, which tackles lice and lice eggs. Below: Shine, the world’s first 10-minute hair makeover

each other to ensure mutual success.

In the first two years after its establishment, Microdel turned to students at universities and colleges in order to find suitable ideas for a start-up.

“We published one ad and got 40 ideas every day. Today, after sorting out the right ideas, we are interested in selling the same start-ups in which we developed the ideas, making an exit and making a profit.”

“Since its inception, [Microdel has] sorted 14,000 ideas, in order to promote the best and avoid failures,” De Levie says, adding: “After selecting the best ideas, we set up subsidiaries, in which each start-up develops and promotes their product.”

What differentiates Microdel from other entrepreneurial-technological incubators is, says De Levie, that most of the entities “deal with sales and business development; this is thanks to strict selection, correct planning and selection of the right group of investors”. He adds: “This is a company that is based on thinking outside the box.”

Microdel isn’t quick to blow its own trumpet; it rarely “makes noise in the media – we know how to make the right moves quietly and register success”.

Israel, the start-up nation, “has a very impressive pool of minds and ideas,” he notes when asked about the benefits of investing in the country.

“The advantage of human capital in the country is the ability to think creatively. Israel is different from the countries of the world, given the collective memory of the Jewish people.”

Thinking outside the box, De Levie adds, has “become an integral part of the DNA of the Jews… Even after the establishment of the state, if we return to the Israeli wars, such as the Yom Kippur War, it was a people fighting for its survival. The wars we go through are

wars of survival.”

Now De Levie is “looking for a CEO who I can mentor. He or she will invest in the company in exchange for an equity stake that will pass into their hands and who will later inherit my part”.

The ideal candidate will have – apart from the $3m to invest – “skills and abilities in business development and understanding of finances. It is not a problem to find a CEO who will be responsible for management and promotion”.

He continues: “The new CEO’s success will be reflected in increasing sales and exiting most companies. At the same time, success for me is establishing an inheritance chain, with the transfer of management into the hands of a CEO who can serve as a mentor and march the incubator and its subsidiaries forward for many years.”

When asked why he thought his successor might be in the UK, De Levie says: “The atmosphere towards Jews is changing in the UK and in Europe. Many are considering making aliyah to Israel that, Covid-19 aside, has become a true paradise. Any person who wants to immigrate to Israel will want a business of their own there, where they can leave their mark. Microdel is a perfect opportunity. An established business that is constantly innovating and growing.”

• Details: www.microdel.co.il, www. yossi-delevie.com, email: ykonijn@ gmail.com or call +972-54-6404176

15 October 2020 Jewish News

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27

Traditional dating / Weekend

Matchmaker,

MATCHMAKER...!

Singletons are ditching dating apps and turning to old-fashioned ways to find love, discovers Louisa Walters

W

e all know that 2020 is not a good year. It’s even less of a good year if you’re looking for love. One in four couples in the UK meet at a social gathering and one in five meet in the office, so finding a partner is all the harder as Covid-19 has changed our working and social lives.

Many single people came out of lockdown determined to find a partner, but because we are all now doing so much online, the prospect of scrolling through JSwipe or Tinder is having less and less appeal.

Aimee Belchak, 26, (pictured, right) is bright, bubbly and single. She enjoys dating and has always loved setting people up. When she was made redundant from her job in theatre production a few months ago, she decided to put her exuberant personality and networking skills to good use.

“Covid has made it even harder to meet people, but I’m bored of dating apps – it’s like shopping for a boyfriend,” she says. “I really felt that the human touch had gone out of the dating game.

“Matchmaking is a good old-fashioned way to meet people and I thought people might enjoy a new type of experience.”

Once restaurants and pubs began to reopen, meaning there were physical places where dates could take place, Belchak set up The A-gency, a blind-dating agency for those aged 23 to 36.

She sent a WhatsApp message to lots of people and 100 signed up straight away. The concept is simple. Each singleton fills out a form with details about themselves and how religious they are, plus what they are looking for. They only pay an admin fee when they get set up on a date.

Belchak matches them up, arranges the date and makes a booking in her own name at a pub equidistant to both partners. Five minutes before the date, the attendees receive an email with the name and number of the person they are meeting.

Crucially, there is no photo – it’s a true blind date.

Lily and Jason were among The A-gency’s first sign-ups. “Turning up and seeing who will be sat at the other side of the table can be scary, but at least you’ve got an instant conversation starter!” says Lily.

“I love the fact there are no expectations on either side from scrolling, swiping, Facebook stalking and playing Jewish geography,” explains Jason.

The first round of blind dates was in August and led to several people arranging to meet up again. Word spread fast and 220 people signed up for the second round of dates last month. There is

another batch of hopefuls meeting up this month and just a couple of weeks ago Belchak announced a LGBTQIA+ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer/questioning, intersex and asexual/ally] pool.

In total, more than 400 people have signed up to The A-gency. How has she got it right so quickly?

Paul and Penn y are the third “I am a people person and I trust my couple to get en meeting throug gaged after h We Go Togeth own intuition. I speak to all the clients er on the phone or meet them in person, Lady Daniela Pears so I get to know them a little,” she explains. and is open to any “Everyone has loved going on a blind date and member of the most people have signed up again. I document Jewish community everything on my Instagram account @Aimeeover the age of 28.

Belchak and there is a podcast in the works.”

Initially operational Suzy Goldberg (pictured, below) has been only in London, it is a shadchan, or matchmaker, for nearly 40 years now expanding into and has sent many couples Manchester, Leeds and down the aisle. She Liverpool. worked on her own The matching process focuses for most of that time heavily on values compatibility, believing that and, seven years ago, shared values are fundamental to a successful started working with long-term relationship. No computers, no shidduch.im, part swiping, no algorithms – just good old-fashioned, of sawyouatsinai – face-to-face conversations between each client a huge database, run and a committee member. It is completely free. by volunteers, with thouPears said: “I set up We Go Together to introsands of Orthodox Jewish duce a deeper dimension to the dating process. people and matchmakers We are truly cross-denominational, and now worldwide. working across the country, too, so if anyone This is much more personal than it sounds. reading this is single and wants something more Goldberg meets her clients and helps them create than swiping on an app, please do get in touch. a profile. She then helps them work through the We are always especially on the lookout for more suggested partners thrown up by the database. single men!”

“The beauty of working with advance algoPaul and Penny are the third couple to get rithm-based technology is that we know immediengaged. They each turned to We Go Together ately if someone has already been suggested and seeking a more personal approach after getting declined, so we don’t waste any time,” says Goldbored of internet dating. They were put together berg. “You can accept or decline as many times are you like – the computer doesn’t get offended!” by matchmaker Caroline and, after living together for a year, Paul popped the question.

Many people who come to Goldberg have Paul says: “It was so refreshing having the never had relationships before and find the support to think deeper about myself, my values process overwhelming. She mentors them and that of my future partner, as well as the type through every aspect of the journey, even of person and relationship I wanted. I loved the suggesting where they should go for their dates. fact that Caroline would check in with me after “There has been a big increase in demand for dates and offer encouragement.” our services this year,” she says. “Covid-19 has Penny added: “After my first chat with meant that people have fewer opportunities to Caroline, she immediately said she had someone meet partners and the loneliness of lockdown who she thought would be a good match for me. has made singles want to meet someone more As soon as I met Paul, I knew that she was right. than ever.

I have found my true soul mate and my best “People who actually want to get married friend for life.” will find their partner on a dating site.”

So much of our lives may have moved online, Shidduch.im is behind Zoom with Whom, but it just goes to show that when it comes to an initiative set up as a way of dating during finding love, nothing beats a true human lockdown. It expedites the initial stages of dating connection. by meeting on Zoom and seeing if there is any potential in proceeding with an actual date.  To find out more contact aimee With many long-term relationships and @thea-gency.uk or visit Shidduch.im three engagements to its name, We Go Together and Wegotogether.net is a matchmaking service set up in 2017 by

In association with

A look

Inside Television: Helena Bonham Carter returns in The Crown Series 4

Competition: Win a luxury walnut journal from Bark & Rock worth £300!

Food: Cook up a feast on National Shawarma Day

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

Weekend / Entertainment

COMPETITION Win a luxury journal from Bark & Rock, worth £300!

IN THE PIPELINE

Cleopatra

Gal Gadot is walking in the footsteps of screen siren Elizabeth Taylor in Cleopatra,, a new film about the life of the Egyptian ruler.

The Israeli superstar will work alongside Wonder Woman director Patty Jenkins in the historical drama, Deadline reported.

Gadot’s husband, Yaron Varsano, and the couple’s Pilot Wave production company will be involved in the project as well.

Universal, Warner Bros, Netflix and Apple have all vied for rights to the film.

The 1963 epic, directed by Joseph L Mankiewicz, starred Taylor and Richard Burton, who began an extramarital affair off-screen during the film’s production.

It swept the board with nine nominations at the 1964 Oscars, and won four, including for best picture.

Alongside Ryan Reynolds and Dwayne Johnson, Gadot is currently filming comedy thriller Red Notice, which centres around an international art thief and is said to be the most expensive Netflix feature film to date.

BOOK Bitter Herbs

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The story revolves around one young girl caught up in the events of May 1940, after the Nazis invade her homeland. When there is finally a knock at the door, a split decision is made that will have lasting and devastating consequences on the family.

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The promotion excludes employees of Jewish News 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: 30 October 2020

NETFLIX

APPLE TV+

The Supermodels Oscar-winning director Barbara Kopple is at the helm of a new docuseries exploring the meteoric rise of iconic models Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Linda Evangelista and Christy Turlington.

The supermodels travel back to the 1980s, when four women from different corners of the world united in New York. Already fashion forces in their own right, by coming together they superseded the brands they showcased, making the names Naomi, Cindy, Linda and Christy as prominent as the designers who styled them.

Today, the four supermodels remain on the frontlines of culture through activism, philanthropy and business prowess.

Campbell, Crawford, Evangelista and

The Crown Season 4

Turlington all serve as executive producers alongside Kopple, as well as Brian Grazer, Ron Howard, Sara Bernstein and Justin Wilkes.

Helena Bonham Carter returns as glamorous cigarette-wielding royal Princess Margaret in the fourth series of The Crown, which is released on Netflix next month.

The Harry Potter star, who is of Jewish descent on her mother’s side, is still creating havoc in the background for reigning monarch Queen Elizabeth (Olivia Colman).

Also causing trouble is Britain’s first female Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (Gillian Anderson), whose divisive policies are leading to tensions both at home and abroad within the Commonwealth as the country enters the Falklands War. Meanwhile, the Queen is preoccupied with safeguarding the line of succession by

securing a bride for Prince Charles (Josh O’Connor), who is still unmarried at 30.

While Charles’ romance with a young Lady Diana Spencer (Emma Corrin) provides a much-needed fairytale to unite the British people, behind closed doors, the Royal family is becoming increasingly divided.

Written by Peter Morgan, The Crown also stars Tobias Menzies as The Duke of Edinburgh, Erin Doherty as Princess Anne, Emerald Fennell as Camilla Parker Bowles, Marion Bailey as the Queen Mother and Charles Dance as Lord Mountbatten.

The Crown returns on 15 November on Netflix

15 October 2020 Jewish News

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The lighter side

29

Inspiration / Weekend

Brigit Grant’s little bit of this and little bit of that...

Brigit@jewishnews.co.uk

Where there’s a will, there’s OY VEY IN HER COLUMN LAST WEEK colleague Jenni Frazer highlighted the many differences between us and the folks across the pond. Duly noting the absence of kettles and egg cups, she also touched upon American spelling, which was a bone of contention between myself and the staff I worked with living in New York.

According to my NYC team vowels such as the ‘e’ in aging and ‘u’ in labor are redundant and they howled at my pronunciation of Leicester (they say Licester) and aluminium (aloominum!).

I took their grammar jibes on the chin and referenced “the Queen’s English” to which some wise guy retorted: “Yes, I heard she was!” But Jenni’s column was about more than ‘theater’ at the ‘center’ of a shared language. She had spotted a US story about a group of people requesting the personalised number plate ‘Florida Stands With Israel’ and wondered whether such a plate would

Schitt’s Creek

required to help a British exist here? Unlikely I’d say, as a driver with audience identify ‘us’ along “Chigwell Stands With Israel” on their with a residue of Eastern bumper would have to stay within the IG7 Europe in the accent of every postcode to avoid trouble. elderly Jew. A few shaloms And that’s the rub. Sure Americans and a challah on the table have trouble with their orthography, too suffice in a UK Jewish sitcom, many weapons and a deluded cantaloupe while in America it’s not only as President, but pick the right zip code in acceptable to spit out three a moderate state and you can display Holy times, reference Yom Kippur, Land allegiance across your dashboard. barmitzvahs and brisket, but Visiting my cousin Melanie in Westchester, Los Angeles with a mezuzah on your bonnet positively the norm in shows such as Transparent, The Marvelous Mrs is not a problem and it’s ok to introduce Maisel, My Crazy Ex-Girlfriend, Schitt’s yourself as Goldstein beyond Brooklyn’s Creek Broad City, Difficult People and Borough Park in New York. Not so much The Goldbergs. in Blighty, where we anglicise our names We can watch all of them here which is to feel comfortable, as the continual good news since the chances of a comedy mispronunciation of ‘Gershkovich’ over a called The Goldbergs being commissioned tannoy gets under our tribal skin. Yet there is as likely as an ‘Islington stands with are US states where a heimishe moniker is Israel’ number plate. But the appeal of these practically a blessing and nowhere more American shows for me is the ease with so than Burbank where the film and TV which the characters identify and blend show credits always boast at least one Gershkovich, five Goldbergs or in the case of Schitt’s Creek two Levys. Father and son Eugene and Daniel Levy are the creators and stars of the Schitt show which won nine Emmys last month, proving its possible to produce a hit about a bankrupt Jewish family forced to relocate to a backwater town without using kletzmer music.

Sadly this is not the case in the UK where the arrival of Jews on the small screen is usually heralded by an Ashkenazi folk soundtrack regardless of the era or location.

Transparent Evidently a fiddler on the roof is

Amazing Pamela Adlon with her Better Things

in without a ‘JEW’ signpost, but still call a fool, a nudnik. For casual simchas and faith acceptance however,there is nothing better than FX’s Better Things.

The series also on BBC I player (thank God) is about a divorced Jewish actress with three daughters and an eccentric mother navigating life with biting wit and big heart. Written by and starring Pamela Adlon as Sam Fox, Better Things is an honest, funny, moving study of Jewish womanhood which must confuse Middle America, but I doubt Adlon cares. The acting is a revelation and a sensible man would snap up Sam Fox, while I just want to toast her with Palwins and thank her for nailing what’s essential in an authentic Jewish character: for the record, it’s feelings – big, emotive reactions to everything and Yiddish words when nothing else will do.

Better Things will get you through a tough winter and I’d advise leaving the numberplate switch until spring.

CARTOON PHIL

WHAT A Wag

OUR NEW YEAR MAGAZINE was right on the money, for there among the many features was an interview with Phil Rosenthal, the star of Netflix Somebody Feed Phil. Then just days ays after we published, Phil, the producer of Everybody Loves Raymond got his own spot on The Simpsons in cartoon form and sampled the snacks at Moe’s bar.

Renowned for his global tour of restaurants, Phil knows about tasty, but the food at Springfield’s most popular watering hole wasn’t up too much. It will be hands on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Next I tweeted – but he’ll need to let go of that fork first !

No pandemic pup roll call could be complete without the arrival of Judge Waffle, the cockapoo who’s taken up residence at the home of Jewish News editor Richard Ferrer. Judge, as he is informally known in familial circles, has already appeared at JN editorial meetings on Zoom and visited Waggingtons in Mill Hill for behaviour lessons. “It’s like the Judge Waffle (left) Groucho Club for dogs,” said Ferrer, who previously had a penchant for cats – particularly the concerned Devon Rex in the picture called Super Injunction.

We also welcome golden doodle Nala (left) and Buster, the Cairn terrier. Keep sending the pup pics to me at brigit@jewishnews.co.uk along with your thoughts. www.waggingtons.co.uk

Phil in The Simpsons

Foodie Phil Rosenthal

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

Weekend / Food & Drink

Y SHAWARMA E K R U T G IN R E T A MOUTH-W

I

n celebration of National Shawarma Day today (Thursday), why not rustle up your own version at home with this authentic Israeli recipe?

Shawarma joints have become a staple in cities across the globe, but those in the know will tell you that the best ones are still to be found in Israel, where slices of sizzling seasoned meat are cut from a vertical spit into a pita or wrap and garnished with fresh Israeli salad, diced tomatoes and pickles and oozing with hummus, tahini, or amba mango sauce.

Halo Teiman in Jerusalem is legendary for its veal shawarma, served with hummus, babaganoush and grilled onions, while 6 Shamai Street, located in the heart of the city, offers two types of shawarma with hand-cut fries, hummus and kibbeh.

In Tel Aviv, Night Kitchen offers an upmarket spin on the fast food classic, with diced fish fillet paired with green tahini and yoghurt, while chef Harel Zakaim at Sultana serves a groundbreaking vegan shawarma with forest mushroom ‘meat’.

Hakosem, an acclaimed street food restaurant in Tel Aviv, is famous for both its schawarma and falafel.

For more information, visit Goisrael.com

SERVES: 4 INGREDIENTS 500g (shawarma) turkey thighs (boneless) 1 tablespoon shawarma seasoning (or, to make the seasoning from scratch, combine 4 tablespoons olive oil, 1 tsp cardamom powder and 50g of lamb fat, chopped (optional)) Olive oil Lamb fat Pita bread Salad of fresh cucumber and diced tomatoes Pickles Chopped spring onions Tahini Shawarma spice mix ½ tsp ground cinnamon ¼ tsp ground cardamom (or cloves) 1 tsp ground coriander 1 ½ tsp ground turmeric ½ tsp ground ginger 2 tsp smoked paprika 2 Tbsp ground cumin ⅛ tsp cayenne pepper (or ½ tsp ground black pepper) 1–2 tsp Baharat

Baharat spice mix 1 tablespoon black ground pepper 1 tablespoon ground cumin 2 teaspoons ground coriander 1 teaspoon ground cloves ½ teaspoon ground cardamom 1½ tablespoons paprika 1 teaspoons ground cinnamon ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

METHOD 1. Preheat oven to 180ºC. 2. Season the meat with the spice mix of your choice.

3. Place seasoned meat in hot oven for 25 minutes.

4. While the meat cooks, heat a pan with a little olive oil and add lamb fat and season with salt.

5. Remove the roasted meat from the oven slice.

6. Mix the lamb fat and add the shawarma chunks to the pan.

7. Season with the shawarma seasoning and a little cardamom and stir until cooked.

8. Halve the pitas, add the freshly- chopped cucumber and tomatoes, season with salt, drizzle with olive oil and arrange the shawarma.

9. Serve with tahini and chopped spring onions.

REVIEW:

KITCHENAID ARTISAN STAND MIXER AS A KEEN HOME BAKER, I’ve always hankered after a KitchenAid stand mixer, joining a long line of others who have it on their wish list.

Seduced by seeing it used on any TV show worth its flour, like the much-loved The Great British Bake Off, and the strong, sturdy vintage design, I jumped at the chance to test one out.

I excitedly took receipt of a stunning Azure Blue Artisan machine (it comes in 24 hues, including the new Kyoto Glow – pictured). The mixer, which is very similar in design to the original American-made 1930s version, came with a 4.8-litre stainless steel bowl, a threelitre bowl that is stored inside the larger one, a whip, flat beater and dough hook.

It was heavy (being made from die-cast metal) – yet, despite this, I was scared of mishandling it; somehow, the tilt-head mechanism felt fragile compared to my multifunctional plastic (and decidedly unsexy) food processor. Once I got the hang of lifting up the head to add in ingredients, fitting the attachments was a piece of cake (excuse the pun).

I decided to make challah. After analysing the instructions and doing various calculations, I worked

out how much flour and which, out of the 10 speed settings, I should use to knead it.

Being able to see the dough transforming at close quarters was great, and kneading took no time at all; just two minutes in the KitchenAid is equivalent to 10 to 12 minutes of kneading by hand.

I also used the mixer to make my son’s birthday cake, as well as several others, including the obligatory lockdown banana bread. While testing it, I ate far too much sweet stuff, but it was a real delight to use.

And cleaning it was a cinch – quick and without any awkward angles.

The downsides are the expense and the fact food prep accessories, such as pastamaking, processor attachments and meat grinders, have to be purchased separately.

However, the mixer is very solid (hence its weight) and durable. The only other drawback is that the mixer is so pleasing on the eye, you won’t want to put it away – so you will need a counter big enough to show it off.

The KitchenAid Artisan 4.8L Tilt-Head Stand Mixer is available from www.kitchenaid.co.uk. www.kitchenaid.co.uk The Kyoto Glow is priced at RRP £599.

Reviewed by Alex Galbinski

15 October 2020 Jewish News

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31

Orthodox Judaism

SEDRA Bereshit

BY RABBI ALEX CHAPPER The story is one we all learnt about as children – God created the world in seven days.

But what they did not teach us is that before God created this world, He created a thousand hidden worlds, all of them swept away in the blink of an eye until He created this one and declared: “This one pleases me, those did not.”

It is perhaps little wonder we were not taught this particular story, as it is a tradition contained in the mystical teachings of the Zohar.

To even attempt to understand the depths of this idea, we first have to remember the Midrashic statement that there are 70 facets to the Torah, which highlights that there are multiple ways in which the Torah may be interpreted.

Coupled with the fact that there are more than 200 major commentaries on just the first word of the Torah alone, we realise that it would take us a lifetime to

know them all.

However, what emerges is a greater appreciation of the complexity of the world and an acknowledgement of the different levels of design and incredible beauty that surrounds us.

Like the thousand hidden worlds, we may not be able to see them all, but we sense that there is so much more to the universe than meets the eye.

The Torah is the blueprint of the world. As another Midrash teaches: ‘God looked into the Torah and created the world’.

The more we study it, the more we discover the layers of meaning it contains and the greater understanding we have of our world and its creator.

Star Trek’s Captain Kirk may have said that space is the final frontier, but certainly knowledge is the key to reaching the divine.

◆ Rabbi Alex Chapper serves Borehamwood and Elstree United Synagogue

Torah For Today What does the Torah say about: Pandemic superspreaders

BY RABBI DANIEL FRIEDMAN There’s been too much negative energy in the air in recent months with talk of Covid-19 and “superspreaders” passing the virus on to large numbers of people. While the Torah might not refer to this specifically, it does guide us on becoming superspreaders in another way – of positivity.

To avoid the virus spread, we’ve been told to physically distance. But if we want to spread positivity, we must be socially closer. Practically, that means looking out for one another’s welfare and always being the first to reach out. Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakai prided himself on going into the marketplace each day and being the first to greet everyone – friend or stranger, Jew or gentile.

Second, to avoid spread, we wear masks. To spread positivity, we must remove our masks, albeit metaphorically. Often, we spend years in relationships with neighbours, colleagues, or even loved ones,

Head of Jewish Studies

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Sinai Jewish Primary School is dedicated to motivation, inspiration and excellence. We are a happy, thriving and successful school with a positive, caring and imaginative learning environment that gives our children the very best start in life.

We are seeking an ambitious and energetic professional with experience of leading teams, monitoring teaching and learning, and with experience of successfully leading improvement and raising standards. Our community is highly valued by our families and staff and as a school we expect everyone to actively contribute to and promote our strong, positive ethos.

If you are a dynamic and inspirational leader with the capacity to grow and develop in the role, if you have initiative, constructive enthusiasm, a thorough knowledge of all key stages and the ambition to play a major role in the leadership and management of our school then we would love to hear from you.

What Sinai can offer: • an opportunity for career development • exciting opportunities and development • a forward thinking Jewish Studies curriculum • children who are eager to learn, confident and enthusiastic • staff who are fully committed to making a difference • superb resources in excellent facilities.

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• knowledgeable about practicing Judaism • experienced in Leading teams

wearing a mask, not daring to express our true feelings or inquire about the other person. Queen Esther was the most powerful woman in Persia and yet she was powerless to save her people, until she removed her mask and revealed herself to Ahasuerus.

It’s time to remove our masks and be honest in our relationships.

Third, we know handwashing stops the spread. It’s time to also stop washing our hands... of difficult people and challenging situations.

It’s tempting to avoid dealing with complicated matters, but a superspreader of positivity is never afraid to face issues requiring resolution.

God chose Abraham because he

“walked before Me”. He didn’t wait for the others to come to the table.

He always made the first move.

Fourth, we now have the ‘rule of six’. In Hebrew, six is the letter vav, meaning ‘and’, which implies connectivity. To be a positivity spreader, you must strive to connect people with each other. Always be on the lookout to make shidduchim, help jobseekers, and connect young and old for companionship.

Ecclesiastes, read on Succot, states (7:14), “God created this one corresponding to that one.”

Every negative force in this world has an equally powerful positive force. If you can become a superspreader of coronavirus simply by walking into a room and speaking, you can certainly become a superspreader of positivity simply by going about your daily business. ◆ Rabbi Daniel Friedman serves Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue

CYP-IAPT TRAINEE IN COGNITIVE BEHAVIOURAL THERAPY (CBT) AT NOA GIRLS Noa Girls is a charity supporting adolescent girls in the Orthodox Jewish Community An incredible training opportunity has become available at Noa Girls, provided through the Child and Young Persons Improving Access to Psychological Therapies Programme (CYP-IAPT).

The successful candidate will receive a full-time salary whilst undertaking two days of training and three days of working clinically at Noa Girls each week.

The one year of training, towards a Post Graduate Diploma (PGDip) in Cognitive Behavioural Therapy, takes place at Kings College London. The clinical work utilising CBT supporting girls and young women in the community will take place at Noa Girls.

This is a full-time fully funded position (including both university PGDip course fees and placement), with funding being provided by NHS England.

This is a training position, so applicants are required to apply simultaneously for the trainee role with Noa Girls and the KCL Post Graduate Diploma in Child and Young Person IAPT Therapy in order to be shortlisted. For further information about this training role, to receive a job description, please reply directly to this advert or call 020 8731 7025. (For more information about the course and minimum entry criteria, please see: https://www.annafreud.org/transforming-the-workforce/cypmh-workforce-development-old/recruit-to-train/). Please complete your university application using the KCL University Application Guidance supplied.

The training placement includes supervision by clinicians specialising in CBT as well as in-house support by a clinical psychologist.

Start date: January 2021 Salary commensurate with experience: up to mid-point NHS Band 6 equivalent Closing date for applications: Wednesday 21st October 2020

Further details and an application form please contact the Headteacher’s PA hbrotherton@sinai.brent.sch.uk Deadline Friday 16th October Interviews week of 19th October Sinai School is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of children and young people and expects all who work here to share this commitment. The successful applicant will be subject to an enhanced DBS disclosure and other relevant checks.

Reg. Charity No 1130834

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

Progressive Judaism

The Bible Says What?

‘God has a face, a hand and a back’

Progressively Speaking From wildfires and extinction to plastic pollution, what can we do to help our fragile planet?

BY RABBI SANDRA KVIAT

BY RABBI LAURA JANNER-KLAUSNER On Yom Kippur we read a fascinating bit of Torah. Moses at Sinai is blessed by having a moment of revelation with God, when he suddenly calls out a request that he wants to actually see God. This might seem odd – given that God, by definition, has no physical form. He might be onto something, though, because God seems to agree.

Moses is shielded with a hand, and then gets to see the back of God – but is not permitted to see God’s face.

It is almost as if Abraham’s rejection of idols – of gods with physical forms – never happened.

Is this blasphemy or is something else going on?

It is clear the intention of Moses is to get as close as possible to God, to “see” pure spirituality.

We don’t have the language to aptly describe God, so Moses has to resort to the language of physical bodies that is available to him.

In fact, the response acknowledges

our human inability to really define God by giving us the 13 attributes of God, at least a foothold to understanding what divinity and holiness is.

But not even Moses – the greatest Jewish leader – can see God’s face.

No one is able to fully grasp what holiness and spirituality is.

We try hard, especially at times like Yom Kippur, but we must accept that our understanding will always be partial.

Perhaps in a fleeting moment we will get lucky – maybe catch a glimpse of a toe or a flick of hair.

And maybe our best chance to understand this unknowable part of our religious experience is if we form holy communities and piece together the small glimpses each of us has managed to gather.

Together, our individual insights might help us find some understanding.

◆ Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner is the former senior rabbi of Reform Judaism

Yet another massive wildfire destroying everything in its wake, another species going extinct, another nail in the coffin of our planet.

These and many other global news stories – which seem to be occurring daily – leave us overwhelmed, anxious and with a deep sense of dread.

It is no wonder we are exhausted, overwhelmed and emotionally shut down when it comes to the environment.

So what do we do when we find ourselves in the aisles of the supermarket, wondering whether we can buy an avocado or cashew nuts and worrying about the use of plastic wrapping on many items?

Or when our family abroad asks us to visit and the easiest way is via a plane journey?

One, quite natural, reaction is to drop the avocado into the basket, ignore the plastic wrapping and book that flight ticket. After all, in the

grand scheme of things what does it matter anyway?

You might recognise this thought pattern. It is called climate anxiety or dread, and it is a sense of feeling completely helpless, and even paralysed to act. It is the main obstacle to taking action.

You’re not alone if, like me, you have felt this way. It is a mentally healthy reaction to the stark realities in our world.

So what should we do as Jews?

The most important thing is not to give up hope.

The unetaneh tokef from Rosh Hashanah still haunts our minds; who by wildfires, who by starvation, who by floods. And now we are reading Bereshit – the optimistic story of creation.

The Torah, especially Genesis, is a lesson in hope, not optimism, for optimism is the passive sense that everything will be OK, whereas in hope there’s faith that our actions can make a difference.

I find the American writer Rebecca Solnit’s view of hope useful.

She talks about hope as an embrace of the unknown and an opening among all the complexities and uncertainties.

Hope is not a denial of how terrible the situation is, but rather an opening for us to act. ◆ Rabbi Sandra Kviat serves Crouch End Chavurah

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33

Professional advice from our panel / Ask Our Experts

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

This week: Upgrading a mobile phone, selling old jewellery and private health insurance for Covid-19 stored on the SIM card, now we have all our information and photographs and applications IAN GREEN stored on the device itself or on the cloud.

IT SPECIALIST This is both a blessing and a curse. There MAN ON A BIKE is more information to move, but it can often be done automatically. It all depends on the Dear Ian phone you have and the one to which you are The launch of the NHS Test & Trace app has transferring, but it is much easier to stay with prompted me to look at upgrading my phone. the same system, ie Android to Android or Apple Is this something you advise on? to Apple.

How do you transfer all the data, Newer phones have better battery will my battery life be better and life in general and it should be noted which model should I get? battery life does deteriorate.

Frank As to which model would be best, that’s down to your needs and Dear Frank budget. Screen size, storage capacity While it is not our core work, we as well as the price are all factors often have to support mobile phones to consider. It’s worth seeing the and tablets. They have become more phones in person to make a decision like mini hand-held computers. and we’re happy to set it up for you Unlike when phone numbers were and offer advice.

JONATHAN WILLIAMS JEWELLER

JEWELLERY CAVE LTD Dear Jonathan I’m 92 and have to clear out my house as I’m moving into a care home in Golders Green. I’m actually looking forward to it, after being in the same home in Willesden for the past 60 years. In one of my dining room drawers, I came across an old carrier bag, which I think originally belonged to my late

mother-in-law, containing a large variety of old watches, rings, chains and bracelets, much of which is knotted together or broken. I have no idea if it is real or just imitation jewellery. I’m a bit frail now and was wondering whether you do home visits?

Elizabeth Dear Elizabeth Please don’t throw any of it away or give it to a charity before I have a chance to look over the items.

As the gold price has been so strong this year – and still is – I’ve had many customers interested in selling items.

And probably in every lot similar to yours, l have always found gold items in

9ct and 18ct, which amounts to a lot of money.

We have also had people coming in with big diamonds, which they thought were zircon!

If you would like to phone our Finchley office and showroom on 020 8446 8538, then we can make an appointment for me to visit you in your Willesden home.

I can carefully go through everything you have and hopefully you will be pleasantly surprised at the value.

If you have old sterling silver candlesticks and silver tableware, I can look at those as well if you would like me to, as they are always difficult for customers to bring in to our Hendon Lane showroom.

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TREVOR GEE PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST

PATIENT HEALTH Dear Trevor If I contract coronavirus and become sick, how would private health insurance help?

Irina Dear Irina Thank you for your question.

It is important to address what the health insurers are doing to help their clients.

Some insurers are providing cash benefit in

the event of hospitalisation owing to the virus, up to £5,000, which can be applied if someone is already in hospital, and contracts the virus, or is hospitalised as a direct result of it.

In addition, testing can be facilitated through some of the insurers when symptoms appear. All the leading insurers now provide a free virtual GP service, which is especially valuable when the public are reluctant to attend their local surgery.

Understanding that

medical issues can occur at any time of the day or night, they also provide 24 hour help lines, which are staffed by nurses who will offer the best advice.

If anyone believes they should be tested, some of the insurers provide Covid-19 testing benefit, which will include an antibody and antigen tests.

Clients will also have the choice as to where they would like to be tested, which is a complete end to end journey from conducting the test to providing the results with any additional support that may be required.

There are costs associated with these tests although they do not affect any of the benefit limits on their plan or count towards their claims.

34

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Jewish News 15 October 2020

Ask Our Experts / Professional advice from our panel

Our Experts Got a question for a member of our team?

Email: editorial@jewishnews.co.uk PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST TREVOR GEE Qualifications: • Managing Director, consultant specialists in affordable family health insurance.

• Advising on maximising cover, lower premiums, pre-existing conditions.

• Excellent knowledge of health insurers, cover levels and hospital lists • LLB solicitors finals • Member of Chartered Insurance Institute

PATIENT HEALTH 020 3146 3444/5/6 www.patienthealth.co.uk trevor.gee@patienthealth.co.uk

DIRECTOR OF LEGACIES

DYSLEXIA PRACTITIONER

COMMERCIAL LAWYER

SARAH BENARROCH Qualifications: • Director of Literacy Specialist Ltd, educational services for children with literacy difficulties and dyslexia.

• MA in Specific Learning Difficulties (dyslexia), APC, British Dyslexia Association, PATOSS, 20 years’ experience in child education and development.

• Full diagnostic assessments and reports for dyslexia.

• Primary-age tuition in reading, writing and spelling.

ADAM LOVATT Qualifications: • Lawyer with more than 11 years of experience working in the legal sector. Specialist in corporate, commercial, media, sport and start-ups.

• Master’s degree in Intellectual Property Law from the University of London.

• Non-Executive Director of various companies advising on all governance matters.

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JEWELLER

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CAROLYN ADDLEMAN Qualifications: Lawyer with over 20 years’ experience in will drafting and trust and estate administration. Last 14 years at KKL Executor and Trustee Company.

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Member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.

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.

SUE CIPIN Qualifications: • 18 years’ hands-on experience, leading JDA in significant growth and development.

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• • •

Got a question for a member of our team?

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• Visiting associate professor at Brunel University.

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STEPHEN MORRIS Qualifications: • Managing Director of Stephen Morris Shipping Ltd. • 45 years’ experience in shipping household and personal effects.

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Professional advice from our panel / Ask Our Experts

ACCOUNTANT

ADR CONSULTANT

DENTIST

ADAM SHELLEY Qualifications: • FCCA chartered certified accountant.

• Accounting, taxation and business advisory services.

• Entrepreneurial business specialist including start-up businesses.

• Specialises in charities; Personal tax returns.

• Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation Volunteer of the Year JVN award.

DONIEL GRUNEWALD Qualifications: • Accredited mediator to International Standards offering civil/commercial and workplace mediation; in a facilitative or evaluative format, or by med-arb.

• Experienced in all Beth Din matters; including arbitration, advocacy, matrimonial settlements and written submissions.

• Providing bespoke alternative dispute resolution (ADR) to the Jewish community.

DR ADAM NEWMAN Qualifications: • Dentist at the Gingerbread House, a Bupa Platinum practice in Shenley, Radlett.

• Regional clinical lead for Bupa Dental Care UK. • Providing NHS and private dentistry, whitening, implants and cosmetic treatment.

• Bachelor of Dental Surgery and member of the Royal College of Physician and Surgeons Glasgow; GDC registered 212542.

SOBELL RHODES LLP 020 8429 8800 www.sobellrhodes.co.uk a.shelley@sobellrhodes.co.uk

JEWISH DISPUTE SOLUTIONS 020 3637 9638 www.jewishdisputesolutions.co.uk director@jewishdisputesolutions.co.uk

GINGERBREAD HOUSE 01923 852 852 www.gingerbreadhealth.co.uk Adam.newman@gingerbreadhealth.co.uk

INTERNATIONAL PAYMENTS SPECIALIST

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NAOMI FELTHAM Qualifications: • Leading currency transfer provider since 1996 with over 500 expert employees.

• Excellent exchange rates on your transfers to/from Israel.

• Offices worldwide, with local support in Israel, the UK, mainland Europe and the USA. • Free expert guidance from your dedicated account manager.

JOE GRIFFIN Qualifications: • More than 13 years’ experience in the construction and property industry, with a specialism in high-end residential and commercial property.

• Negotiation of site acquisitions and property deals; design and planning strategies.

• Focus on niche market purchasing airspace above commercial and residential blocks to create additional stories of accommodation and penthouse apartments.

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.

CURRENCIES DIRECT 07922 131 152 / 020 7847 9447 www.currenciesdirect.com/jn Naomi.feltham@currenciesdirect.com

LONDON PENTHOUSE 020 7665 9604 www.londonpenthouse.com info@lphvgroup.com

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INSURANCE CONSULTANCY

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

LEON HARRIS Qualifications: • Leon is an Israeli and UK accountant based in Ramat Gan, Israel.

• He is a Partner at Harris Horoviz Consulting & Tax Ltd. • The firm specializes in Israeli and international tax advice, accounting and tax reporting for investors, Olim and businesses.

• Leon’s motto is: Our numbers speak your language!

ASHLEY PRAGER Qualifications: • Professional insurance and reinsurance broker. Offering PI/D&O cover, marine and aviation, property owners, ATE insurance, home and contents, fine art, HNW. • Specialist in insurance and reinsurance disputes, utilising Insurance backed products. (Including non insurance business disputes).

• Ensuring clients do not pay more than required.

LISA WIMBORNE Qualifications: Able to draw on the charity’s 50 years of experience in enabling people with physical disabilities or impaired vision to live independently, including: • The provision of specialist accommodation with 24/7 on site support.

• Knowledge of the innovations that empower people and the benefits available.

• Understanding of the impact of a disability diagnosis.

HARRIS HOROVIZ CONSULTING & TAX LTD +972-3-6123153 / + 972-54-6449398 leon@h2cat.com

RISK RESOLUTIONS 020 3411 4050 www.risk-resolutions.com ashley.prager@risk-resolutions.com

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

ISRAELI ACCOUNTANT

ALIYAH ADVISER

CAREER ADVISER

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.

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.

NEFESH B’NEFESH 0800 075 7200 www.nbn.org.il dov@nbn.org.il

RESOURCE 020 8346 4000 www.resource-centre.org office@resource-centre.org

DIVORCE & FAMILY SOLICITOR

PALLIATIVE CARE MANAGER

VANESSA LLOYD PLATT Qualifications: • Qualification: 40 years experience as a matrimonial and divorce solicitor and mediator, specialising in all aspects of family matrimonial law, including: • Divorce, pre/post-nuptial agreements, cohabitation agreements, domestic violence, children’s cases, grandparents’ rights to see grandchildren, pet disputes, family disputes.

• Frequent broadcaster on national and International radio and television.

POLLY LANDSBERG Qualifications: • Polly has worked in health and social care for more than 35 years.

• Has a degree in nursing and a diploma in health visiting.

• Polly is responsible for the day-to-day management of the palliative and end of life care service.

LLOYD PLATT & COMPANY SOLICITORS 020 8343 2998 www.divorcesolicitors.com lloydplatt@divorcesolicitors.com

SWEETTREE HOME CARE SERVICES 020 7644 9500 www.sweettree.co.uk polly.landsberg@sweettree.co.uk

Got a question for a member of our team?

Email: editorial@thejngroup.com

Lost your job?

Been furloughed?

Worried about your future career?

Resource Advisors can help you to start thinking about the positive actions you could be taking and help you find the way forward.

There are still jobs out there, and with our free support and practical advice we could help you secure one.

Book a chat with a Resource Advisor on 020 8346 4000 or visit www.resource-centre.org

36

Jewish News 15 October 2020

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15 October 2020 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

37

Fun, games and prizes

THE JEWISH NEWS CROSSWORD 1

2

3

4

5

6

9

10

11

Fill the grid with the numbers 1 to 9 so that each row, column and 3x3 block contains the numbers 1 to 9.

11 Copy (a document) using an office machine (5) 13 ___ Gordon, sci‑fi film hero (5) 15 Doctor called in to cover for another (5) 17 Exaggerate a role (7) 19 Coq au ___, chicken dish (3) 20 Avoid, ignore (4) 21 Major suit at bridge (6)

7 8

SUDOKU

12

5

S

K C U D X

T

H G S

22

R R E H U

L

L

H K

B

A

E C H

I

L

D R E N

L

X

U

F

I

A O

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R

E M M S

A C G S I

I

S O A

L

S

B G S W D C A

V

H U E

F

I

I

P

O S

E N R O U N D A S

T

E

Y R D

V

I

Z O

O

J

A

E Q R Y G R C N

F

Z

N

L

L

D A

P D N A

S

I

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BENCH BIRDS BUSHES CHILDREN CLIMBING FRAME DOGS DUCKS

A T

S H D I

M B W F

Y N E

X

E

T

B

L

B

A

FOOTBALL FOUNTAIN GARDEN PLAY AREA POND RAILINGS ROUNDABOUT

Last issue’s solutions Crossword ACROSS: 1 In-law 4 Devil 7 Dignity 8 Sop 9 Cos 11 Deputy 14 Groggy 17 Rue 19 Ire 20 Freight 22 Other 23 Demon DOWN: 1 Induct 2 Lag 3 Weird 4 Dry up 5 Visitor 6 Lips 10 Screech 12 Egg 13 Neaten 15 Go far 16 Yield 18 Biro 21 Gum

20

D K

14

9

4 1 3 9 6 7 2 5 8

13

20

18

11

13

8

7

25

8

20

1

13

3

8

9

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1

9

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23

8

20

8

24

12

19

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13

8

4

12

4

6

10

8

13

4

4

S O R 25

12

7 3 1 6 9 2 4 8 5

7

6

6 1 3

4 9 1 2 8 7

5 8 9 4 1 7

1 3

SUGURU Each cell in an outlined block must contain a digit: a two-cell block contains the digits 1 and 2, a three-cell block contains the digits 1, 2 and 3; and so on. The same digit must not appear in neighbouring cells, not even diagonally.

2

20

4

13

23

4

19

20

3

19

11

8

4

19

5

13

24

4

20

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13

24

19

12

23

26

12

12

5

3

1

5

3

3 4 5

9

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24 13

8

3 2

20

4

5

26

1

5 13

9

19

16

16

5 4

8

3

20 26

5 4

2

8 19

9

26

See next issue for puzzle solutions.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1

2

14

15

S

3

4

16

17

R

5

6

7

18

19

20

O

8

9

10

11

12

13

21

22

23

24

25

26

Suguru 2 8 9 5 3 4 7 6 1

12

20

8

8 15

2

20

13 2

2

2

22

Sudoku 9 6 7 2 5 8 3 1 4

25

2

SANDPIT SLIDE SWINGS TABLES TREES

5 2 8 1 4 3 6 7 9

4

5

S O P J

P Q N U S

F

I

8 21

T M

B O U

A G B G G G N

R A

T W B

9

In this finished crossword, every letter of the alphabet appears as a code number. All you have to do is crack the code and fill in the grid. Replacing the decoded numbers 2, 4 and 20 with their letters in the grid will help you to guess the identity of other letters.

The park words can all be found in the grid. Words may run either forwards or backwards, in a horizontal, vertical or diagonal direction, but always in a straight, unbroken line.

B

1 2 3

3 9 7

CODEWORD

WORDSEARCH S

6

9

DOWN 13 14 15 16 1 Badge (5) 2 Lack of activity (7) 3 Gain access to (5) 17 18 19 5 Self‑worth (3) 6 Rubbery material (5) 7 Peak, pinnacle (4) 12 Get back possession of (7) 20 21 13 Dental thread (5) 14 Detect sound (4) ACROSS 8 Word of farewell (3) 15 Milky Italian coffee (5) 1 Hang around (6) 9 Leading, principal (7) 16 With the exclusion of (5) 4 Town in Kent (4) 10 Afterwards, subsequently (5) 18 Australian bird (3)

T

9

6 4 5 7 8 1 9 2 3

3 9 2 8 7 5 1 4 6

8 7 6 4 1 9 5 3 2

1 5 4 3 2 6 8 9 7

2 4 1 4 2 3

1 3 2 3 1 4

2 4 1 5 2 5

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

Wordsearch 1 5 3 4 3 1

2 4 1 2 5 2

1 3 5 4 3 1

1 3 5 4 1 2

5 4 1 2 5 4

1 2 5 3 1 3

4 3 1 4 2 4

2 5 2 3 1 5

1 3 1 4 2 3

S O F R H S B A F Q X D E

W C L U U G Z R W F B V G

N V A O R G I O P K Z S D

N C K L F E N N E L R F U

F H Y F S D T S A E R A F

J L P W R E G T G U G I N

R Y A E M I T N I L H R G

Codeword M S S N F R I T D R K Y K

R E T R U F K N A R F C M

Y R R V H J L S F H J A I

D E Y S F L A P J A C K O

K C I T S H C N E R F E T

F F Q Q G P I P E X A S T

SWU NG T H N A O A U D I B L Y L N E T OR P E DO Y T C S A X O P H S K A R E J E C T E A M R I F L E P C I A A H U R D L E R

O P A R A G O ON QU N A T I L

S I D E V Y H YME L L A Z E B T I S T O M E R R Y B S R I O T N I OG I C

WR BOD K P G YMQU N F E H X J S V A I Z L T C15/10

38

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 15 October 2020

Business Services Directory ANTIQUES 44

The Jewish News 22 September 2016

www.jewishnews.co.uk

BUSINESS SERVICES DIRECTORY

Stirling of Kensal Green

Top prices paid

Antique – Reproduction – Retro Furniture (any condition)

Carer

Clothing

WE BUY ANTIQUES Carer FURS WANTED Auxiliary Nurse VERY HIGH PRICES PAID. FREE HOME VISITS.

Epstein, Archie Shine, Hille, G Plan, etc.

Antiques

Dining Suites, Lounges Suites, Bookcases, Desks, Cabinets, Mirrors, Lights, etc.

Cash paid for Mink Available support Allto Antique Furniture Hille & Epstein jackets, coats, you in your home.

Diamond Jewellery, Gold, Silver,boleros, Paintings, stoles, Porcelain, also fox coats, etc.

Glass,Days/nights.

Bronzes, Ivories, Oriental & Judaica Antiques jackets etc.

Very reasonable rates.

Full house clearances organised.

Wardrobes cleared Call Please 0208 look 958 at 2939 our website for more details Call 01277 352 560 or 07495 026 168

Established over 60 years.

Know who you are dealing with.

Top prices paid

House clearances

All quality furniture bought & sold.

Antique – Reproduction – Retro Furniture

Single items to complete homes

(any condition)

Best prices paid for complete house clearEpstein, Archie Shine, Hille, G Plan, etc. ances Lounges includingSuites, china, Bookcases, books, Dining Suites, clothing etc. Also rubbish clearance Desks, Cabinets, Mirrors, Lights, etc. service, lofts, sheds, garages etc House clearances

MARYLEBONE ANTIQUES - 8 CHURCH STREET NW8 8ED

WE BUY ANTIQUES

07866 614 744 (ANYTIME)

www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk

VERY HIGH PRICES PAID. FREE HOME VISITS. All Antique Hille & Epstein 0207Furniture 723 7415 (SHOP) Diamond Jewellery, Gold, Silver, Paintings, Porcelain, closed Sunday & Monday Glass, Bronzes, Ivories, Oriental & Judaica Antiques etc.

Computer FOR APPOINTMENTS CALL SUE ON:

0800 840 2035 or 07956268290

Single items to complete Please contact Gordonhomes Stirling

STUART SHUSTER - e-mail - info@maryleboneantiques.co.uk

Man on aOPEN Bike8am will TOget 9pm 7 DAYS. you working fast! RD LONDON. PORTOBELLO

020 8960 5401 or 07825 224144

Full house clearances organised.

CHURCH STREET ANTIQUES � 8 CHURCH STREET NW8 8ED

MAKE SURE CONTACT BEFORE SELLING Please look YOU at our websiteUS for more details

͔͚͚͛͜ ͚͕͘ ͛͘͘ (ANYTIME) Email: gordonstirling65@gmail.com

www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk

Rapid Response IT support for your PC & Mac Networks, virus problems, broadband, wireless systems, new computers and everything else you may need.

CHARITY & WELFARE For small businesses & home users.

0207 723 7415 (SHOP)

FOR APPOINTMENTS CALL SUE ON: 0800 840 2035 or 07956268290 OPEN 8am TO 9pm 7 DAYS.

Call Ian Green, Man on a Bike on

PORTOBELLO RD LONDON.

020 8731 6171 • www.manonabike.co.uk

closed Sunday & Monday STUART SHUSTER � e�mail � stuart@churchstreetantiques.net

MAKE SURE YOU CONTACT US BEFORE SELLING

WESTLON HOUSING ASSOCIATION

ARE YOU BEREAVED?

Sheltered Accommodation

Charity & Welfare Bereavement Counselling for adults and children individually. Support Groups available.

During the pandemic, we offer telephone and online counselling.

ARE YOU BEREAVED? Contact Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service in adults confidence.

Counselling for & children who are 0208Support 951 3881groups offered. experiencing loss. enquiries@jbcs.org.uk | www.jbcs.org.uk Call The Jewish Bereavement

Labels are forTURN, jars.

Refer yourself or aKNOW loved one by IF YOU DON’T WHICH WAY TO Not people. calling 020 8458 2223 orOUR visit HELPLINE. REMEMBER www.jamiuk.org

For confidential advice, information and support don’t forget Jewish Care Direct.

REGISTERED CHARITY NO. 1003345

020 8922 2222

Counselling Service in confidence

jcdirect@jcare.org

020 & 8951 3881 • 07765 693 160 CHARITY WELFARE

jewishcare.org/helpline

HOUSE CLEARANCE

E: enquiries@jbcs.org.uk

PLUMBSAFE (UK) LTD Jami supports and represents people with mental illness across Fast & Efficient House the Jewish community.

For all your heating and plumbing requirements | boiler repairs and installation | complete central heating | | power flushing | complete bathroom installation service | | landlords certificates | project management | home purchase reports |

Clearance

#jamithinkahead We are reliable, cover all neighbourhoods & suit all budgets.

Give support • Get support • Get involved We also buy good quality furniture, old books & Judaica.

All NW-London postcodes covered

07860 881505 or 0800 610 12 12

020 8458 2223 | info@jamiuk.org www.jamiuk.org

Call: 078 060 79299 Reg Charity No. 1003345

Not shabbat

PLUMBSAFEUK.COM

We have an open waiting list for our friendly and comfortable For further details and application forms, please contact warden assisted sheltered housing schemes for Jewish people Westlon on 020 8201 8484 in Ealing, EastHousing Finchley Association and Hendon. We provide 24-hour warden support, seven days a week; a residents’ lounge and kitchen, laundry, a sunny patio and garden.

BUY/SELL For further details and application forms, please contact Westlon Housing Association on 020 8201 8484

Charity Reg No. 802559

“Better Safe Than Sorry�

We have an open waiting list for our friendly and comfortable warden assisted sheltered housing schemes in Ealing, East Finchley and Hendon. We provide 24-hour warden support, WESTLON HOUSING ASSOCIATION seven days a week; a residents’ lounge and kitchen, laundry, aSheltered sunny patioAccommodation and garden.

Town & Country House Clearance We buy quality items, furniture and bric-a-brac We also clear unwanted items and rubbish For free advice or a quotation Are you a Jewish woman experiencing domestic violence?

With abuse in your home, do you worry about your children?

We are here to help Contact Finlay with free support, advice and information and confidential counselling.

Mobile: 07973 542018 Kosher Refuge available for women and children in need.

Email:Freetowncountrymove@aol.com Confidential National Helpline 0808 801 0500 advice@jwa.org.uk • www.jwa.org.uk

HOME & MAINTENANCE

Home & Maintenance

L

K

PLUMBSAFE (UK) LTD

No further, your

LOCAL PLUMBERS

Hall & Randall Plumbers

CENTRAL HEATING, PLUMBING REPAIRS & ADVISORY SERVICE EMERGENCY REPAIRS, BLOCKED PIPES DRAINAGE GUTTERING, ROOFING, CENTRAL HEATING AND BOILERS 12 MONTHS GUARANTEE, 40 YEARS EXPERIENCE

| boiler repairs and installation | complete central heating | | power flushing | complete bathroom installation service | | landlords certificates | project management | home purchase reports |

Not shabbat

) *" " - *'

Home & Maintenance

STONEMASON

PROFESSIONAL A. ELFES LTD PAINTING, DECORATING memorials & New PAPER HANGING Additional inscriptions Over & 20renovations years experience Friendly, reliable & Gants Hill service.

Edgware personal

The specialist masons in creating bespoke Granite and Marble Memorials for all Cemeteries.

Email : info@garygreenmemorials.co.uk

12Very Beehive Lane 130rates High Street competitive Gants Hill, IG1 3RD Edgware, HA8 7EL Telephone Telephone

STEPHEN: 07973 342 422 0207 754 4659 0207 754 4646

www.garygreenmemorials.co.uk

Gary Green ad 84 x 40mm JM Group v2.indd 1

LOFT CONVERSIONS & UPVC Fitter

+ " ) "# ,! " " ! #

!

•DRIVEWAYS •PAINTING London 020 8485 8176 •PATIOS •PLASTERING •BRICKWORK •PLUMBING ADVERTISE IN THE AUTOMOTIVE •ROOF REPAIRS •ALL BUILDING UK’S BIGGEST •GUTTERING WORKNEWSPAPER JEWISH City and Guilds Electrician MOTOR VEHICLES

PLUMBSAFEUK.COM

office@hallandrandall.com

Edgware Showroom 41 Manor Park Crescent Edgware. HA8 7LY T: 0208 381 1525

!

! # ! " " #

All NW-London postcodes covered

07860 881505 or 0800 610 12 12

020 8953 2094 office

Clayhall Showroom 14 Claybury Broadway Ilford. IG5 0LQ T: 0208 551 6866

HI LINE ROOFING

For all your heating and plumbing requirements

020 8207 3286 home 020 8386 8798 hallandrandallplumbers.com

LONDON

“Better Safe Than Sorry�

18/03/2019 12:50:51

srindsmc@hotmail.com

www.memorialgroup.co.uk

All types of electrical work undertaken

FOR LESS THAN

PURCHASED A WEEK £24.00 FREE ESTIMATES & ADVICE Rewiring, extra sockets, BT points, Economy 7 CLASSIC OR CARS storage heaters, Shabbat time switches, security lighting, ALL tests, WORK FULLYCall GUARANTEED for vehicles 10 CCTVportable appliance LED spotlights, over fault finding, Marc today landlord tests and house buyer’s surveys. years old preferably on 020 7692 6943 581 Bowrons Ave, Wembley HA0 4QP withan low mileagereliable and friendly For efficient service.

Call Harvey Solomons on

020 8958 Anthony 6495 / 07836 Contact: – 648 554

07850 590415

01245 211 002 / 07773 102 386 Jewish hilineroofing.site123.me

15 October 2020 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

39

Business Services Directory SILVER

KITCHEN INSTALLATION

AUCTIONEERS

Bespoke German Kitchens Konig experienced designers will plan, supply & install a stunning new kitchen to suit your lifestyle & budget giving you the best use of space, quality & value.

Enjoy your dream kitchen - contemporary or traditional for many years.

ADVERTISE IN THE UK’S BIGGEST JEWISH NEWSPAPER FOR LESS THAN £24 A WEEK

German kitchens at affordable prices.

Contact: 020 8946 3539 info@konigkitchens.com konigkitchens.com Instagram: @Konig_Kitchens

Email Sales today at sales@jewishnews.co.uk

OFFICE FURNITURE

LEGACY- LEAVE A GIFT IN YOUR MEMORY

JEWISH WAR VETERANS

Leave the legacy of independence to people like Joel.

& THEIR DEPENDANTS NEED

YOUR LEGACY

PLease remember us in your wiLL.

eNABLeD

Tel: 020 8202 2323 Web: www.ajex.org.uk Email: headoffice@ajex.org.uk

visit www.Jbd.org

Registered Charity

or caLL 020 8371 6611 No. 259480 18-361-JM Small legacy advert v1.qxp_Legacy 09/10/2018 10:27 Page 1

Registered Charity No: 1082148

Need to furnish your home or office?

London’s leading supplier of new and reconditioned furniture.

Free assembly and delivery next working day on most items – call now!

HELP US CONTINUE TO BE THERE FOR OUR COMMUNITY WITH A GIFT IN YOUR WILL. Call Alison on 020 8922 2833 for more information or email legacyteam@jcare.org Chancellors House, Brampton Lane, London, NW4 4AB Tel: 020 8903 8746 | Fax: 020 8795 2240 www.bfiwd.org | email: info@bfiwd.org

Charity Reg No. 802559

Call 0800 559 3917 Email sales@andrewsofficefurniture.com www.andrewsofficefurniture.com

STONE WORKS

Secure our

children’s future

Please include

CST in your Will

Charity no. 1042391

Every gift makes a difference legacy@cst.org.uk

020 8457 3700

www.cst.org.uk

COMPUTER Legacy advert 84x40.indd 1

Man on a Bike will get you working fast!

07/04/2017 14:47

Rapid Response IT support for your PC & Mac Networks, virus problems, broadband, wireless systems, new computers and everything else you may need.

For small businesses & home users.

Call Ian Green, Man on a Bike on

020 8731 6171 • www.manonabike.co.uk

Quartz & granite worktops Give your kitchen the wow factor with a stunning granite or Quartz worktop.

We template, manufacture & fit.

Amazing colours & patterns.

Best quality stone worktops to last a lifetime at very competitive prices Factory in Enfield. 25 years in business

Tel; 02088265724 Sales@rossistoneworks.co.uk www.rossistoneworks.com

ADVERTISE IN THE UK’S BIGGEST JEWISH NEWSPAPER FOR LESS THAN £24 A WEEK Email Sales today at sales@jewishnews.co.uk

40 Jewish News

15 October 2020

www.jewishnews.co.uk