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Raise the roof

4,000 watch our Fiddler 50th anniversary reunion Page 3

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Invent a new flavour for Shavuot Page 9

VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY 15 April 2021

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3 Iyar 5781

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Issue No.1206

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@JewishNewsUK

‘A LIFE OF HONOUR AND DUTY’

Prince Philip tributes, P6, 7, 20 & 22

Son charged with killing his mother Ilford man appears in court after woman, 85, found strangled in bath

We finally do!

First Jewish wedding after lockdown, P9

One resident said she found the news “terA Jewish man has been charged with murdering his 85-year-old mother after rible” and “very upsetting”. She said she saw she was found unresponsive in a bath at seven police vehicles pull up on the street on Friday morning and a man being arrested. her Ilford home, writes Jack Mendel.

The woman, who asked to be named only Metropolitan Police officers have charged Mark Herman, 54, with murdering the as Debra, said: “It’s a terrible death for an old lady, in her own home, it’s very upsetting. woman at the bungalow in Rushden Gardens.

“I knew her from years ago, but I presumed A post-mortem examination confirmed the cause of her death as compression to the she had moved out because I hadn’t seen her in five years.” neck.

Debra said Ms Herman used to live with Detectives have named the woman as Loretta Herman, though formal identifica- her husband, who died some years ago.

Herman, of Rushden Gardens, is being tion has not yet taken place.

A spokesperson for the Met confirmed the held in custody and appeared at Redbridge Magistrates’ Court on Monday. two were mother and son.

Officers and paramedics were called to the quiet residential street at 10.51am last Friday, where Ms Herman was found unconscious and not breathing in the bath.

Paramedics battled for an hour to save her but she was pronounced dead at 11.48am.

The Met Police confirmed that the officer leading the investigation understands that the family are Jewish.

Red roses have since been left on the doorstep to the home, where neighbours said Ms Herman had lived for around 35 years.

Scene outside the bungalow in Ilford

UK JEWS OFFER HUMANITARIAN AID TO UYGHURS One of Britain’s biggest Jewish charities has launched an appeal for thousands of Uyghur refugees living in poverty in Turkey, where they fled to escape Chinese persecution, writes Michael Daventry.

World Jewish Relief said more

than 11,000 Uyghurs had risked a hazardous journey to reach Turkey but were now stranded without food or the right to work.

Many now fear being deported back to China, where they risk internment.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis urged Jews in Britain to give generously because it would provide practical help to an Uyghur community that it is possible to reach.

There are wider fears about the Uyghur population living in China,

where access is far more limited.

Campaigners say that more than a million Muslims, including Uyghurs and ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks, have been rounded up by the Chinese authorities and detained in “reeducation centres”.

Many reports have been received of forced labour, compulsory sterilisation and repression of their faith.

Some Uyghurs have sought refuge in Turkey because the country has strong ethnic links with the province Continued on page 12

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

News / Labour antisemitism / CFI claims / Party readmission

JVL figure chairs Labour panel that hears antisemitism cases

By Lee Harpin lee@jewishnews.co.uk @lmharpin

A leading Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) figure, who was once branded an “antisemitism denier” by the Board of Deputies, has been allowed to chair a hearing of the Labour Party’s highest disciplinary body that looked into accusations of antisemitism, Jewish News can reveal.

Stephen Marks, a JVL committee member, led a three-person meeting of Labour’s national constitutional committee (NCC) last Thursday that ruled on a case involving allegations of bullying and further claims of antisemitic discourse, according to Jewish News sources.

In 2018, Marks was controversially elected on to the NCC, which has the power to expel members of the Labour Party, after being supported by activists of the Momentum group.

Last week’s hearing involved allegations made by the former Labour Mayor of Haringey and Labour councillor Sheila Peacock.

Peacock, who is Jewish and aged 89, had made a formal complaint against local councillor Vincent Carroll, which included the allegation that he sent her a text message threatening she would be “physically removed from office”. It followed a dispute over Peacock’s decision to cancel a council AGM last year due to the pandemic and instead hold it this May. Sources said Marks chaired last week’s hearing alongside Annabelle Harle, the Cardiff West Labour activist who was also backed at elections for the NCC by the Momentum group, and Mick Carney, president of the Transport Salaried Staffs Association trade union.

Jewish News has learned that the case also involved an allegation that Carroll had issued threats to Peacock and offered her “money” to leave the party. A mobile telephone text message exchange revealed Carroll had told Peacock: “If you wish to leave the party, say so... If you need the money, come to me. Don’t just try to hang on, it’s pathetic.”

Sir Keir Starmer, above, and Stephen Marks, inset, of Jewish Voice for Labour

The four-time mayor of Haringey and councillor for the Northumberland Park ward responded by texting him: “Money unlike for some is not my God.” Carroll replied: “Yes it is. You either move the AGM or be disciplined by the party.” It is understood that in a witness statement Peacock said she was particularly upset that Carroll had offered her money and alleged that he had done so because she is known to be Jewish.

Labour sources stressed the main allegation at the hearing involved allegations of bullying rather than antisemitism, and that Peacock had first used the “Money not my God” phrase.

After hearing the case, the NCC panel cleared Carroll of the charges. He had been suspended

by Labour last year but he is now back as a full member of the party’s Haringey group.

It is not known if this was a decision reached by all three people on the panel or by a majority.

Sources close to Peacock say she has been left “distraught” by the ruling.

The decision to ask Marks on to a panel involving some allegations around the issue of antisemitism has raised anger among senior Jewish Labour figures. It is understood that they have now raised the issue with senior figures connected to leader Sir Keir Starmer.

The NCC meets to adjudicate on the most high-profile and serious cases of alleged misconduct in Labour – such as those involving former London Mayor Ken Livingstone and other antisemitism claims.

Its three-person panels are selected shortly in advance of upcoming cases, with care meant to be taken to ensure the panel does not have political or factional left-wing/right-wing bias.

Momentum founder Jon Lansman, who has stood down, had been among those opposed to Marks being nominated for the NCC. Last December, Marks wrote an article for the JVL website openly attacking the decision to suspend Jeremy Corbyn over his response to the Equality and Human Rights Commission

(EHRC) report into Labour handling of antisemitism.

He accused Starmer and Labour general secretary David Evans of granting “privilege” to Jewish communal groups “who agree to join in the lynch-mob attack” on Corbyn.

Marks complained: “To point out that Jeremy’s statement was in no way antisemitic is now proof of ‘antisemitism’.”

He had also previously supported a Labour member suspended from the party in 2016 over allegations he had shared claims on Facebook that Isis had used weapons made in Israel, comparing Mossad with the Nazis and accusing Israel of genocide against the Palestinians.

Marks shared a petition, saying: “It is cases like this which ‘bring the party into disrepute’.

Those responsible should be suspended!”

In 2018, he reportedly compared calls by communal organisations for Labour to strengthen its disciplinary processes on antisemitism with how “the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum to Serbia in 1914 was designed to provide a pretext for starting World War I”.

Marks, who once accused the Board of being behind “imagined” claims of antisemitism in Labour, also wrote a letter in support of the now expelled Labour activist Jackie Walker, according to minutes of a meeting of Momentum’s Oxford branch.

Miriam Mirwitch, former chair of Young Labour and a leading member of the Jewish Labour Movement, said electing Marks on to Labour’s NCC was not the way to “win back the trust of the Jewish community”.

The power of the NCC will be greatly reduced once Labour introduces an independent disciplinary process as instructed by last October’s EHRC report into antisemitism.

A Labour spokesperson refused to comment on the decision to use Marks at the panel. Jewish News approached Marks for comment.  Editorial comment, page 20

‘CFI is embedded espionage’ COUNCILLOR READMITTED Sir Alan Duncan has launched another scathing attack on the Conservative Friends of Israel group, accusing it of engaging in “embedded espionage”, writes Lee Harpin.

The veteran Tory – who has in his new political diaries accused CFI of preventing him from becoming Middle East minister – has given an interview to The Times in which he discusses what he claims is the “scandal” behind the organisation’s activities.

He said: “This is embedded espionage.

All these senior politicians in the next generation are so ignorant of the history of the Middle East and all they want is donor money.

“They have no understanding of what is happening on the ground in the West Bank. Where is the party’s sense of justice, either for poor people or for Palestinians?”

Sir Alan, who stood down as an MP at the last election, also claims that the Foreign Office’s integrity has been “eroded” in recent times – including by the recent cut in foreign aid and

Sir Alan Duncan made claims against the Conservative Friends of Israel group

cites the character of Prime Minister Boris Johnson as well as the quality of his cabinet.

Last week, in published extracts from his diary, Sir Alan claimed that he was prevented from becoming Minister for the Middle East after an intervention by CFI. He wrote that his new role was agreed until Johnson, then foreign secretary, alerted him to the fact CFI “are going ballistic”.

A Labour councillor has been readmitted to the party after being suspended for claiming there is “no factual basis for a Jewish race, nation or homeland”, writes Jack Mendel.

The party confirmed Tower Hamlets official Puru Miah has been let back in after being issued with a formal “reminder of values”. He was suspended in November over a 2014 Facebook post that stated: “‘The invention of the Jewish people’ by Israeli historian Shlomo Sand’” was an “absolutely ‘must read’ for everyone who wants truth and justice for Palestine/Israel.

“The essential historical evidence will amaze you– there is no factual basis what-

soever for a Jewish race, nation or homeland, it is all a recently invented propaganda called ‘Zionism’.”

After his suspension, Miah said he “unreservedly apologised for the hurt caused” and was “embarrassed” by what he had written.

He said after his reinstatement: “The complaint was based on an edited screenshot of a social media post I made in 2014. At the time I rigorously denied the allegation… I apologised for the hurt caused, welcomed the investigation and was confident of being cleared.

“Four months later the party’s National Executive Committee found that I did not breach any party rules,

subsequently restored my full membership without any conditions or restrictions.”

He defended appearing on the Muslim news site 5 Pillars, alongside its editor Roshan Salih, who repeatedly caused outrage in the community, including by calling an interfaith Mitzvah Day chicken soup cook-a-thon ‘Zionist infiltration’, and called for a boycott of a Muslim Heroes of the Holocaust exhibition.

Miah said he appeared alongside Salih “following the scathing report on Islamophobia in the Labour Party, published by the Muslim Labour Network” and that “no complaints have been upheld against 5pillarsuk”.

15 April 2021 Jewish News

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Shul services / Israel travel / Fiddler at 50 / News

Al fresco shul services?

Fresh guidance has been issued to United Synagogue shuls as lockdown eases, urgeing communities to consider holding services outdoors, writes Joshua Salisbury.

The extensive advice recommends the clinically vulnerable to exercise their own judgment on whether to attend services, and urges synagogue-goers to get a vaccine when offered.

Children are especially encouraged to attend, as long as parents can guarantee they are able to stay in one place.

The guidance, signed off by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and the London Beth Din, says: “Following a winter during which many of our shuls closed their doors, we look forward to gathering again as communities to daven, learn, volunteer, mark significant

New guidance is issued on services

events and enjoy being in the company of each other.”

Visors will not be considered an acceptable alternative to masks, it states, and those handling ritual items are being told to sanitise their hands before doing so.

The United Synagogue guidance adds that alongside the government’s own recommendations, singing should not take place indoors unless from a permitted service leader or choir member.

The updated guidance to communities comes after the United Synagogue unveiled its roadmap for the resumption of many in-person services last month.

In line with the government’s lockdown easing plans, from 17 May rabbinic hospitality could be permitted again, limited to six people or two households, with weddings limited to 30 people.

From 21 June – the date the government is targeting for the end of all social distancing restrictions – it is possible that Kiddush will be permitted again indoors and communal meals could restart.

ISRAEL WILL OPEN TO VACCINATED BRITS Vaccinated Britons will be able to travel to Israel from 23 May, the country’s health ministry has announced, writes Jack Mendel.

Tourists will need to undergo two different coronavirus tests, a basic one before boarding a flight and after landing, and a second

upon leaving Ben Gurion Airport, to confirm a vaccination or recovery from Covid.

According to the Jerusalem Post, health minister Yuli Edelstein said: “Israel is the first vaccinated state, and the citizens of Israel are the first to enjoy it.

“After we have opened

up the economy, it is time to carefully and thoughtfully facilitate tourism.

“The opening of tourism is an important line for one of the industries that was particularly damaged in the year of coronavirus.

“We will continue to examine the relief at all times

in accordance with the morbidity data.”

Israel has led the world in vaccinating its citizens, with 60 percent of the country’s adult population having had at least one dose.

The UK has delivered almost 32 million of the first dose of the vaccination.

Topol ‘very well’ but misses 50th Chaim Topol, the Israeli actor most closely associated with the role of Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, did not appear at Jewish News and JW3’s 50th celebration of the film on Sunday because of ongoing health issues, writes Brigit Grant.

Appearing in his place, his youngest daughter, Adit Topol Margalith, said: “He is physically very well, but about a year ago he fell down a whole set of stairs and hit his head on the right hand side which is where you form your words. So he finds it really difficult to talk. He knows what he wants to say, but he can’t say it – so we preferred he wouldn’t be seen that way.”

A global audience of 4,000 was saddened by the news, despite Topol Margalith adding: “He is a happy bunny, he is having fun, walking on the beach with his son, my older brother Omer. We call them the twins as they look so much alike.”

Topol, now 86, made his screen debut in Fiddler in 1971 and continued to perform the role on stage across the world.

Adit played Chava opposite her father at the Palladium in 1994.

In Israel, the actor has continued to support Jordan River Village, a year-round camp in Israel’s lower Galilee for children living with chronic illnesses and disabilities.

Chaim Topol, above, and as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

News / Board elections / Candidate concern / Union claims / Mayoral manifesto

‘Far-right’ row over Board vote

By Lee Harpin lee@jewishnews.co.uk @lmharpin

A bitter row has erupted ahead of elections for the Board of Deputies leadership after the group planning a challenge to current president Marie van der Zyl was branded “far-right” in a briefing document.

The memo, prepared by a small group of Deputies as a strategy plan to be shared among the lay leadership of the Reform Movement, claimed that a “far-right wing caucus” was backing challenger Jonathan Neumann, of Shomrei Hadath Synagogue, in his bid to be elected president next month.

The document, titled Reform Deputies to Reform Leadership, also referred to a book written by Neumann that openly criticised the interpretation of tikkun olam, or “healing the world” made by the Jewish left.

Neumann, a director of the Jewish Human Rights Watch group, claims in his 2018 book that “the Jewish left corrupts Judaism and endangers Israel”.

Jewish News has learned that Laurence Julius, deputy for Holland Park Synagogue, and one of the members of the so-called ‘gang of four’ who first sparked the challenge to the current Board president, reacted furiously having been alerted to the existence of the memo.

In a warning emailed to six Reform deputies,

Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl and challenger Jonathan Neumann

Julius wrote that he had “been made aware of a highly divisive and very nasty communication” and labelled the allegation that the caucus is farright “libellous”.

He added: “I would appreciate if you could ensure that the smear is not repeated and the document is withdrawn and that you personally dissociate yourself from this message.”

But Jewish News understands those behind the document have no plan to retract the memo.

They point to senior figures in the rival caucus, including the Manchester-based lawyer

Robert Festenstein, who represents Prestwich Hebrew Congregation.

After appearing in a video put out by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – who is also known as Tommy Robinson – on YouTube in 2017, Festenstein, another Jewish Human Rights Watch director, denied that the far-right activist was his client.

He said: “I was interviewed by Mr Robinson in connection with a matter where I am instructed by a client who has a potential dispute with Sunderland City Council. Mr Rob-

inson is not my client. I have no association with him.”

The pro-Neumann group has sent all supporters a list of their five main principles – including banning any criticism of the Israeli government, calling all forms of the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) antisemitic, and suggesting the Board should not get involved in issues that do not impact the community.

In further explanation of these principles, it claims: “This caucus does not have political opinions.. Our members have a range of views, including support for, opposition to and agnosticism towards a two-state solution.”

The caucus leaders also claim their principles “accord with the views of the overwhelming majority of Anglo-Jewry”.

The Reform deputies urge their supporters to back current president Marie van der Zyl in the Board election next month. They also urge supporters to back David Mendoza-Wolfson for vice-president in a poll that will be held under the single transeferable vote system.

The rival caucus is backing Gary Mond, the Jewish National Fund’s Deputy, for vicepresident.

Jewish News has approached Neumann and Julius for comment. Deputies linked to the Reform Movement refused to comment on the briefing document and its use of the term “far- right”.

TORY CANDIDATE SORRY GMB ‘failed on antisemitism’ FOR ‘JEW BOY’ POSTING A Conservative election candidate has “shown deep regret”, said party bosses, over a social media post in which he used the term “Jew Boy” to refer to a friend, writes Lee Harpin.

Darran Davies, the Tory hopeful in the 6 May Charville ward by-election in Hillingdon, west London, shared on Facebook the offensive post, which featured an image of a male along with the words: “Wanted Jew Boy Reward $100.” He circulated the message on his personal page and wrote: “Guys have you seen this bloke.”

Among the comments under the October 2016 Facebook post from Davies was an acknowledgement from a Mr Richard Stevens that the message was directed to him after he had not been seen for a while at a pub in which a group of friends congregated.

Stevens’ Facebook page is littered with extreme postings against Muslims, including a threat to commit actual violence against people of Somalian heritage. In one post, Stevens wrote: “Why don’t you f*** off... That’s wot was said to me tonight when I said Muslims are racist.”

Darran Davies is contesting a by-election in Hillingdon

In February 2017, the Hayes Conservative Club member shared another post, which featured a clip of a video by American anti-immigration campaigner Roy Howard Beck, whom The Washington Post has previously described as an “eccentric figure whose views some consider xenophobic or even racist”.

Ian Edwards, Hillingdon Council’s Conservative group leader, told Jewish News: “The posting ... relates to the use of an inappropriate nickname among friends. Although the comment was inappropriate and below the standards expected of a Conserva-

tive member this has been resolved by admonishing Mr Davies and reinforcing with him the standards expected of persons seeking to represent Hillingdon Conservatives.

“Mr Davies has shown deep regret for his lack of judgment and has apologised.”

But Jewish Labour Movement national chair Mike Katz said Davies’ social media posts “are incredibly offensive and deeply inappropriate for anyone seeking an elected position”.

A Conservative Party spokesperson said yesterday: “We are investigating the matter.”

One of the UK’s biggest trade unions faces claims it failed to properly investigate allegations of antisemitism in a speech by a senior official, Jewish News can reveal, writes Lee Harpin.

The former official within the GMB union is alleged to have made a speech to colleagues in 2019, during which he openly dismissed claims of antisemitism in the Labour Party and said “rich bastard Jews” were responsible for the continued prominence of the issue.

The GMB’s acting general secretary, Warren Kenny, is understood to be so concerned about the way the investigation into the claims was handled that workplace dispute expert ACAS has been brought in to review the case.

The official, who has since left the role, told the 40-strong audience he hoped Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of becoming prime minister were not harmed by what he said were false allegations of antisemitism.

He is then alleged to have put the blame for those on “rich bastard Jews”.

Following the speech, several union members who were present at the function lodged official complaints about the alleged antisemitic remarks to a manager who had himself been outspoken in his opposition to all racism.

Sources told Jewish News that late last year,

An official’s speech led to several complaints

now under the watch of GMB’s Kenny, steps were eventually taken to begin a proper investigation but an official in charge of a latter aspect of the investigation decided that there no case to answer.

It is understood that Kenny, who was surprised that two investigations could reach different conclusions, ordered a review into how the union had gone about investigating the claims.

A GMB spokesperson told Jewish News it takes any allegation of racism seriously. “We have a zero-tolerance policy and any report made is investigated thoroughly by the union.”

MANCHESTER’S MANIFESTO The Jewish Leadership Council and Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester have released a manifesto containing 20 pledges for the city ahead of its mayoral election.

The pledges, issued ahead of

a husting event tonight cover schools, security and housing.

The Jewish Community Manifesto for Greater Manchester highlighted why the city continues to be attractive for around 30,000 resident members of the community.

However, among the manifesto pledges are calls to provide more Jewish school places, to continue funding for youth organisations and, due to the increased security threats, to ensure combating hate crime remains a priority.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

15 April 2021 Jewish News

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Flight refunds / ICC statement / Factory protest / News

‘El Al is taking advantage of us’

By Joshua Salisbury josh@jewishnews.co.uk @josh_salisbury

El Al passengers have been left waiting more than a year for refunds after their flights were cancelled during the first virus outbreak last year.

Passengers have told Jewish News of their headache trying to get back their cash from the Israeli flag carrier airline. It is offering two options for those who had flights cancelled before 21 September: flight credit worth 125 percent of the tickets or a cash refund.

Among those hit is Mike Mandelbaum, a charity chief executive who lives near Brighton. He booked tickets for four

relatives to fly from Luton to Tel Aviv for Pesach and said he was owed $920 (£699) for the flights, which had been booked for 12 April last year. Three of the refund requests have been ‘approved’ – but he has still not received the money.

“If they said it was going to be six months for a refund, it’d be fine. But if they say they’re going to refund you and don’t, that’s not fine,” said Mandelbaum.

Contact with the airline has been difficult, he said, because a UK landline rings out and an automated WhatsApp number gives back messages in Hebrew. “You just go around in circles,” he added.

Nick Conway and his partner, whose flights to Tel Aviv last year were also cancelled, face a similar problem. He said they

are owed around $1,000 (£728), which the airline confirmed was due for a refund in December.

“They are offering flights to Tel Aviv but have yet to pay me back. It’s disgusting.

They have the money. They are taking advantage of their customers,” he said.

Mike, another customer, said his El Al flight was cancelled last spring. “There is no customer service to call,” he said, adding that he had since filed a complaint with the US Department for Transportation. “I’m very frustrated,” he said.

The airline did not respond to a request for comment, but a statement on its website said that because of the “heavy load” of refund requests, the process was being handled gradually.

Passengers have been trying for a year to get flight refunds

Boris: ICC no jurisdiction FIVE ACTIVISTS ARRESTED Boris Johnson has said the investigation by the International Criminal Court (ICC) into whether war crimes were committed by Israel and Hamas in the territories since the 2014 war, “gives the impression of being a prejudicial attack” on the Jewish state.

Last week, Jerusalem denied any suggestions of war crimes, but insisted the ICC had no jurisdiction to investigate alleged crimes against the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.

In a letter to Conservative Friends of Israel

(CFI), after the group raised the issue with Johnson and Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab, Johnson agreed unequivocally.

Emphasising the UK had long supported the ICC as one of its founders, he said it opposed its investigation. “We do not accept the ICC has jurisdiction in this instance, given Israel is not a party to the Statute of Rome and Palestine is not a sovereign state. This investigation gives the impression of being a partial and prejudicial attack on a friend and ally of the UK’s.”

At least five people have been arrested after protests at a factory that pro-Palestinian activists claim supplies weapons to Israel.

A small number of demonstrators from the Palestine Action group entered the Elbit Ferranti factory in Oldham, Greater Manchester, on Tuesday morning.

Activists sprayed computers in red paint, broke windows, chained themselves to the premises and stuck “war crime scene” barrier tape across the front doors.

Five people have been arrested – two on suspicion of criminal damage and three on suspicion of burglary – after being removed from the roof, Greater Manchester Police said.

The group took similar action at the UK headquarters of Israeli firm Elbit Systems in a business complex near Bristol.

Demonstrators have pledged to blockade the sites for “as long as possible”. The protests follow the Ministry of Defence confirming Elbit had won a £102 million surveillance contract.

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Tributes / Prince Philip: 1921–2021

‘He was a true friend’ Heartfelt tributes to the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Philip, were paid this week by community leaders in the wake of his death at the age of 99, writes Joshua Salisbury.

Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies, sent her “deepest commiserations” to the Royal Family.

“Prince Philip’s life was spent in public service, from his active duty in the Navy during the Second World War to the tens of thousands of engagements which he carried out over six-and-a-half decades of royal duties,” she said. The Board also opened an online condolence book for members of the community to send their commiserations.

The Jewish Leadership Council’s chair, Jonathan Goldstein, said the Duke “devoted his life to public service”, and added: “We all share many happy memories of his engagements with the Jewish communities.”

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis sent his “profound condolences” and expressed the community’s gratitude for Prince Philip’s long life of public

service. “I enjoyed immensely my personal conversations with the Duke of Edinburgh, during which I was deeply moved by his extraordinary sense of duty,” he added.

Michael Goldstein, president of the United Synagogue, said the Duke had “been a constant for generations of members and their families, the wider Jewish community and the nation at large”.

Progressive Jewish movements also paid tribute. Rabbi Celia Surget, chair of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis and Cantors UK, said: “The Duke was by the Queen’s side for seven decades and his loss will be deeply felt by all.”

Reform Judaism chair, Robert Wiltshire, said: “He was a true friend to our community and Israel.”

The Holocaust Educational Trust shared a picture of the Queen and Prince Philip laying a wreath at BergenBelsen in 2015, ahead of the 76th anniversary of its liberation.

Top: Prince Philip with his mother, Princess Alice, and planting a maple sapling in her honour in the Righteous Among the Nations plot at Yad Vashem

Together Now

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15 April 2021 Jewish News

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Prince Philip: 1921–2021 / Tributes

Raising smiles at school opening

BY ELIZABETH HARRIS-SAWCZENKO DIRECTOR, GOOD FAITH PARTNERSHIP

Photo by David Katz

Prince Philip’s “mastery at making people laugh” has been recalled by the former president of the Board of Deputies, as he remembered the day the duke opened Hertsmere Jewish Primary School (HJPS) in Radlett, writes Jack Mendel.

Following the Duke of Edinburgh’s death aged 99 last Friday, Jonathan Arkush, who served as communal leader from 2015 to 2018, remembered the royal for his “wonderful sense of humour”.

Opening HJPS in 2000, Prince Philip “ was a wonderful guest, engaging brilliantly with the children and giving an off- the-cuff outstandingly witty speech”, said Arkush, who was the HJPS chair of governors at the time.

“I referred to our community’s everlasting gratitude and admiration for the Prince’s mother, Princess Alice, who rescued Jewish families from the Nazis in the Second World War. Prince Philip was visibly moved and wiped his eyes.” Princess Alice is buried in Jerusalem, and is recognised as a Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem.

“Seeing HJPS’s benefactor Stanley Cohen in a plaster cast around his foot, and referring to Stanley’s skill in fundraising,

Prince Philip at the opening of HJPS in Radlett in 2000

he joked that someone had obviously decided to get one back at Stanley when asked for a donation.”

Arkush said the Prince and Cohen “enjoyed a long friendship” and he “was very appreciative Stanley chaired the Duke of Edinburgh Award Charitable Trust for a number of years”.

Rivlin salutes Prince Philip’s ‘honour’ Israel’s President Reuven Rivlin paid tribute to Prince Philip’s “honour and duty” and the links his family forged between the British and Israeli people.

In a letter of condolence to Queen Elizabeth, he said the Duke of Edinburgh’s service fighting the Axis powers would never be forgotten and that his mother Princess Alice provided a further connection.

“We are proud she is recognised

BONDING OVER A BUTTER KNIFE

as one of the Righteous Amongst the Nations. Her burial here in Jerusalem, on the Mount of Olives links the stories of our peoples even more closely,” the president wrote.

He also recounted Philip’s remarks at Yad Vashem during a trip to Jerusalem in 1994, when he became the first senior royal to visit Israel and recounted the lessons he learned from his mother.

Rivlin quoted the Duke as saying:

“‘We may dislike individual people, we may disagree with their politics and opinions, but that should never allow us to condemn their whole community simply because of the race or religion of its members. “‘The Holocaust may be over, but there are altogether too many examples in the world today of man’s capacity for inhumanity.’” Rivlin added: “How true, and how sad.”

In June 2016, I received a call at the office of the Council for Christians and Jews. The man at the other end of the phone said: “Hello Elizabeth, I’m the Equerry to her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and she has asked me to invite you to lunch at Buckingham Palace on 26 October.” I started laughing and he politely added: ‘That’s usually the response I receive, but this is an invitation from Buckingham Palace..’

I was one of seven individuals invited from different roles in public life for an informal luncheon. As we sat in the waiting room, the invitees tried to guess who would be seated next to the Duke and the Queen. To my amazement, I found myself placed next to the Duke.

For the first half hour, he chatted with his other neighbour. And then suddenly he turned to me. His first words were: “I think you have my

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butter knife.” I was mortified!

But he simply laughed kindly and said: “Will you loan me yours?”

After that, we chatted at length about my work, about how I met my husband and, crucially, about Israel.

I thanked him for the courage of his mother Princess Alice, who hid and saved Jewish people in her own home during the Second World War. I told him that a tree had been planted in her name at Yad Vashem, to which he retorted: “I planted the damn tree. Of course I know!”

He also told me about the first car he ever owned and a little about his childhood.

He was a great raconteur and extremely warm and entertaining.

My heart goes out to her Majesty and all the Royal family at this time of immense sorrow.

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

News / Yom HaShoah / News briefs

One in six million: Writer’s shock as friend gets aunt’s Shoah candle A writer has told of her shock after her friend was given a Yom HaShoah yellow candle with her aunt’s name on it – a one in six million chance, writes Joshua Salisbury.

Debra Barnes, who has written a novel inspired by her family history called The Young Survivors, was stunned to discover that her friend, Karen Markham, had received a yellow candle in memory of her late aunt, Annette Szklarz.

Debra’s mother, Paulette, survived the Holocaust because she had measles when the Gestapo tried to take her, and was later hidden by nuns in a convent.

Debra’s friend Karen posted online an image of the candles without knowing one was in Her twin sister, Annette – who memory of Debra’s aunt, left. Above right: The home in Louveciennes. In the middle was registered under the name of the back row are Annette, second from left, and Paulette to her right Danielle – was taken from an “It sent shivers up my spine and I was thrilled at The Association of Jewish orphanage in Louveciennes, to have had the opportunity to light this candle for Refugees.

Paris, to Auschwitz in July 1944.

“I’ve had messages from her,” she said.

She was in the last convoy to “The chances of this happening were so slim, people saying it’s a sign, a leave France. ‘thank you’ for remembering which made it even more of an honour.”

Last Thursday when Karen, Twins Paulette and Annette, the youngest of the them. her friend of 14 years, posted “I’ve been telling my family’s five Szklarz children, were born in 1938 in Metz, on Facebook a photograph of her story through the book, and now a French town on the border with Germany. yellow candles, a stunned Debra After her miraculous escape from the gas chamI’ve got this sign. It’s quite spooky, realised that one of them was in memory bers, Paulette, then aged eight, came to England really.” of her aunt.

Debra Barnes Karen said she had been none the where her maternal aunt lived.

“It’s amazing; there’s literally a one in Paulette died on her birthday, 9 April 2010, six million chance of this happening. It’s so emo- wiser about the incredible coincidence before aged 72. tional,” said Debra, who works alongside Karen Debra told her.

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WOMAN TOLD ‘JEWS SHOULD LEAVE UK’ Police are investigating after a woman in was allegedly abused by a man telling her Jews should leave the UK. The 75-year-old pensioner was confronted by the abuse after answering her door on Friday, 26 March, according to Jewish neighbourhood watch Shomrim.

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15 April 2021 Jewish News

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9

Wedded relief / Shul campaign / Cake contest / Oldest journalist / News

Couple finally gets to wed It was third time lucky this week for a couple who tied the knot on the first day of lockdown easing, writes Joshua Salisbury.

Newly-married Phil and Emma Lewis had originally planned to mark the occasion with a bigger bash last June, but coronavirus forced the date to be rescheduled twice.

The ceremony on Monday at Woodford Forest United Synagogue with 15 guests means the pair were among the first Jewish couples in the country to be married in a synagogue as lockdown eased.

“It’s created a lovely story for everyone,” said Phil, a 40-year-old police officer.

“It was intimate and that on its own made it more emotional. We had it livestreamed and the feedback we’ve had is that they could feel the emotion as well.

Friends and family think it’s amazing; they’re really pleased for us.”

New bride Emma added: “It was very emotional; it just felt like there was a bit of ‘oomph’ factor. And with these times we’ve been in, there’s something for us to remember what we’ve been through.”

The synagogue’s Senior Rabbi, Mordechai Wollenberg, said: “It was not without challenges, but to be able to celebrate the next step of the couple’s journey and the building of their home together was truly amazing.”

Phil wore his ceremonial police uniform for the wedding in memory of his late grandfather, Joseph, who was also an officer – while Emma’s grandmother, Mildred, 89, helped to walk her down the aisle.

The pair met on a Jewish dating website – and Phil told Jewish News that he was only seconds away from cancelling his membership when Emma popped up on the screen to say hello.

Phil and Emma Lewis on their big day

WIN CHANCE TO CREATE A NEW CHEESECAKE! One lucky Jewish News reader is set for an extra sweet – or savoury – Shavuot, with the chance to create a new cheesecake flavour.

Following the success of this newspaper’s ‘design a doughnut’ Chanukah competition, we have again teamed up with the United Synagogue – with the winning design

being sold to support vulnerable community members (and a donation made to the Chesed deparment).

Readers should submit their ideas for a new cheesecake flavour; the best will be selected by

judges and put to a public vote and the winning concept will be made by the new KLBD-supervised COCO Bakery in Golders Green. The cake creator will win a gift voucher to spend at the bakery – and their own version of the cake.  To enter, submit your idea via www.theus.org.uk/cheesecake

by Monday 26 April.

Shul’s £700k drive Brondesbury Park Synagogue hopes to raise £700,000 in a crowdfunding drive to finish work on its new building.

The 36-hour campaign takes place from 18 April and is being match-funded by a group of donors.

Work on the new building began in 2017 and was due to complete last summer. However, lockdowns delayed progress and extended temporary accommodation was required.

Services during the pandemic, when allowed, have been held in local premises, adding an extra layer of challenge in keeping the community going through the past year.

The synagogue now hopes

to celebrate this year’s high holy days in its new home.

Brondesbury Park, once a dwindling community, was taken over by Rabbi Baruch and Rebbetzin Kezi Levin in 2004. The community now has 350 families, many of whom are fully engaged in community life. In normal times around six children’s and youth services run every Shabbat.

Synagogue chair Victoria Portnoi said: “After years of being nomads, we’ll finally have a home once more. We need this final amount of money to finish it off and have the building we always hoped for. So please donate whatever you can.”

Bingham, 97, sets record A 97-year-old British-Israeli was last week named by Guinness World Records as the oldest living journalist.

Walter Bingham fled Germany after Kristallnacht and took part in the D-Day landings at Normandy in 1944.

He has worked as an actor,

and holds the record as the oldest radio talk show host.

He made aliyah from the UK in 2004 and skydived over northern Israel aged 95.

He said: “God willing, for my 100th birthday”, he’d do it again. He received France’s Légion d’honneur in 2018.

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Special Report / Yom HaShoah

30,000 keep eternal

A virtual youth choir performed Never Again recorded from their homes in early lockdown

moved online for a second consecutive year, with more than 30,000 people tuning in last Wednesday evening to honour the memory and pledging never to forget.

The Remember Together We Are One cereSome 250 charity chiefs, rabbis and youth leaders joined Holocaust survivors and camp mony broadcast numerous moving testimonies liberators in lighting candles in memory of the from survivors – including that of Lily Ebert, who recalled on camera to her great-grandson six million Jewish victims.

Dov16:04 Forman the1hell of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

The PAGE UK’s Yom HaShoah commemorations HALF ADVERT JAN 2020:Layout 1 09/01/2020 Page

by Lee Harpin lee@jewishnews.co.uk @lmharpin

Ebert described seeing Dr Josef Mengele condemning her mother and sisters to death with a wave of his hand. Equally poignant were the words of Auschwitz survivor Ike Alterman, one of The Boys, the group of 732 child survivors who were flown to Lake Windermere after the war to rebuild their lives in the UK. He gave testimony to granddaughter Danni about how he rebuilt his life in Manchester.

Among those to speak were Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the actress and campaigner against antisemitism Tracy-Ann Oberman and Sharon Bar-Li, Israel’s deputy ambassador.

Mirvis spoke powerfully of the need to continue to speak about the “lessons of the Shoah” that he said were “perhaps more relevant today than ever before since the end of the Second Prominent figures speak about the lessons of the Shoah World War” and about the inspiring survivors. tion to generation,” he continued. “Our respon“Most importantly of all, we must speak sibility to continue the greatly important work about our pledge of remembrance from genera- of the survivors in order that we guarantee their

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15 April 2021 Jewish News

11

Yom HaShoah / Special Report

flame burning online Survivors, above and right with TV personalities, light yellow candles in memory of the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust

first-hand testimonies will not be forgotten nor be denied.”

Oberman paid tribute to the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising who fought back and gave their lives in defence of the Jewish people.

She said: “Today in a world where antisemitism is again on the rise we are reminded of the incredible bravery of these heroes on Yom HaShoah, They stood up, fought back and gave their lives in defence of the Jewish community.

We honour them, we remember them and we are inspired by them.”

The ceremony had been introduced by host Henry Grunwald, ex-president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and a founder and first

chairman of the Jewish Leadership Council.

He said the ceremony would ensure Shoah remembrance would have a permanent place within the community and that we were “joined online this year to show we can come together whatever the circumstances as one people to remember that loss in our own special way”.

Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl next officially opened the commemoration by reading out the Yad Vashem Law ‘We Commune’ passed by the Knesset in 1953 and establishing Yom HaShoah as the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day. The Memorial Prayer El Malei Rachamim was sung by chazan Jonny Turgel, grandson of

the late Gena Turgel, the Bergen-Belsen survivor and educator.

Third generation survivor and Game of Thrones actress Laura Pradelska then offered a reminder of the millions who lost their lives in the various Nazi death camps.

TV judge Robert Rinder and actress Louisa Clein told the story of The Boys. There then followed the yellow candle lighting ceremonies streamed from locations including Glasgow, Ipswich, Manchester and London.

Six candles were lit by survivors to remember the six million who perished.

Jewish religious leaders followed, as did the heads of communal organisations, charity

leaders, politicians and media organisations, including Jewish News.

A virtual youth choir sang Never Again, recorded from their homes in the early stages of lockdown.

Neil Martin, chair of Yom Hashoah UK, who led the event organising team, said: “For this second unexpected virtual commemoration in lockdown, we wanted to ensure it was a truly national event that would bring the generations together to remember from all parts other community. It’s humbling to have received so many messages about the profound effect the ceremony has had on all those who watched and remembered on Yom HaShoah.”

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Special Report / Plight of the Uyghurs

Appeal ‘will make diffe Continued from page 1

of Xinjiang in China, a region known in Turkish as East Turkestan.

But many live in difficult conditions, mostly in Istanbul, with limited access to healthcare and food and no contact with their families back home.

“Any strong, stable person under these circumstances, not knowing what happened to their loved ones, would no longer be normal,” said Rahima Mahmut, a London-based Uyghur and campaigner.

“Yet the ones who give testimonies are the luckiest of the lucky ones, as they were able to escape.”

There are also fears that a China-Turkey extradition treaty signed in 2017 could soon come into force as President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government seeks to build closer ties with Beijing.

This could result in many Uyghurs being deported.

World Jewish Relief, which was founded to save people from being persecuted as Nazis came to power in Europe, said its emergency appeal would provide emergency food packages, healthcare and psychological support to the most vulnerable Uyghur families in Turkey.

“Our community knows only too well the unique challenges faced by refugees both

One of China’s vast ‘re-education’ camps

The campaign to help stranded Uyghurs is backed by most mainstream Jewish movements

during and after such immense trauma and suffering,” the charity said in a statement.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said: “World Jewish Relief is performing a vital service by undertaking this emergency appeal, and

I commend them for identifying a substantial Uyghur refugee population in desperate need of our assistance.

“I urge you to generously support this campaign, while keeping in mind the many Uyghurs

‘It’s like a bad nightmare’ Tursanay is one of the few people who can tell the story of China’s “re-education” centres, where Uyghurs are enduring surveillance, repression and even brainwashing.

She escaped to Turkey where life is now a desperate daily struggle to survive – alone.

The monthly food parcels she receives from WJR’s local partner make her feel very happy. “It is a very basic need, the need for nutrition,” she says, “but under my current circumstances I couldn’t even meet it.”

Like many Uyghurs living in Turkey, Tursanay did not want to have her photograph published because of her fears for her safety.

The same view was voiced by the mother of Murad, seven, who fled China with her son, leaving behind her husband and an elder son. She has not heard from them for months.

we are unable to offer the very same type of practical help at this moment.”

The campaign has been endorsed by most mainstream Jewish movements in the UK, including the United Synagogue, Masorti Judaism, Liberal Judaism and Reform Judaism.

It was also backed by Lord Alton of Liverpool and the Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani, who have campaigned in parliament on the Uyghur issue.

Ghani said: “The Uyghur Refugee Urgent Appeal will make a significant and meaningful difference for 6,000 families who have

CONDEMNATION IS NOT ENOUGH: WE MUST ACT

BY HENRY GRUNWALD PRESIDENT, WORLD JEWISH RELIEF

Murad, seven, and his mother left behind an older brother and their father

“At least I know that my Murad is safe, but what about my husband and son? Not a day goes by when I do not think of them,” she said.

“They took my husband and my 15-year-old son to the camp.

I cannot speak to them. People say they have been subjected to

A Uyghur family collects food aid in Turkey

very heavy torture there, and that makes me very sad.”

Another woman – a 35-year-old identifiable only by her initials, MT – escaped with her two small children, but has a whole family she left behind in China.

She said: “Looking back, the process I went through to get here is unbelievable. It still feels like a bad nightmare sometimes. I wish what happened to me was not true, but when I think about where I am today, the fact I have the two things I care most about in my life keeps me alive. My two little boys are alive and by my side. Thank God for that.

“The food packages provided are very important for Uyghurs here, since we depend on your help.

Thank you so much for thinking of us and our children. You will be in our prayers.”

Last July, satellite imagery emerged showing what was believed to be Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang kneeling, blindfolded, as they waited to be led on to trains. The resonance of this footage with our own history shook the Jewish community. It was impossible to ignore.

Our collective memory is so powerful that Jewish leaders across the religious and political spectrum felt compelled publicly to highlight and condemn the treatment of Uyghur Muslims.

It is rare that an issue universally mobilises our community. When our rallying cries for the rest of the world to join our condemnation fell largely on deaf ears, this ignorance stirred something deep within our conscience.

It is well-documented that genocide does not begin with mass extermination, but rather with incremental policy changes and cultural shifts that go unchecked.

Undoubtedly, the Chinese ‘reeducation’ campaign puts the Uyghurs’ culture, religion, and way of life at risk of extinction.

If history has taught us one thing, it is that if we do not stand up until

we can be certain of legal definitions, we will surely have waited until it is too late. Numerous human rights agencies, within and beyond our community, are leading important campaigns in support of the Uyghurs.

And yet it is hard not to feel a profound sense of helplessness.

Condemnation is important, but it is not enough. Judaism unambiguously advocates that to be a bystander in the face of human suffering is tantamount to perpetrating injustice yourself. Inaction is not an option.

World Jewish Relief’s Uyghur Refugee Urgent Appeal is a call to action, providing our community with a way to stand up and support Uyghurs who have escaped persecution.

We cannot assist everyone, but we can support 6,000 of the most vulnerable Uyghur refugees in Turkey, who face daily challenges and live in fear of internment.

World Jewish Relief’s humanitarian team is experienced in responding to the needs of displaced communities.

I am proud to be its president as we intervene at this critical moral juncture, and respond to our community’s inclination not to stand by in the face of human suffering.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

15 April 2021 Jewish News

13

Plight of the Uyghurs / Special Report

erence’

Risk of extradition to China is greater than ever before

By Michael Daventry, Foreign Editor mike@jewishnews.co.uk

Uyghur refugees face daily challenges

fled oppression in Xinjiang and now reside in Turkey. It deserves our full support.”

WJR chief executive Paul Anticoni added: “British Jewry has shown outstanding leadership in its support for the Uyghurs.

“I am proud that today World Jewish Relief, utilising its expertise and ability to deliver practical humanitarian assistance, is able to play its part in this tragic and deeply worrying issue.”  Donations to the WJR Uyghur Refugee Urgent Appeal can be made at www.worldjewishrelief.org/uyghur

China’s treatment of its Uyghur minority has been an emotive topic in Turkey for many decades, long before the issue came to wider attention in the west.

The reason is ethnicity: many Turkish people trace their ancestry to Central Asia and share a centuries-old heritage not just with Uyghurs but with other regional nationalities such as Uzbeks, Kazakhs and Turkmens.

Even today, their languages have many words in common and, of course, they share a religion: Islam.

The Uyghurs’ plight is raised often by nationalist politicians in Turkey whenever the authorities seek to build closer ties with China – and, in recent months, those links have become closer than ever.

Turkish banks are increasingly reliant on Chinese credit and the majority of Covid-19 inoculations are provided by Sinovac, the vaccine developed in China.

Then there is the question of the extradition treaty between Turkey and China that was signed in 2017. It was ratified by Beijing last year, but Turkey’s parliament is yet to follow suit.

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi met Turkey’s President Erdogan in Ankara last month

Uyghurs living in Turkey fear that with President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government increasingly dependent on Chinese aid and money, the treaty could be waved through – resulting in their deportation.

China is becoming more assertive in the Middle East and it has shown it is increasingly willing to interfere in Turkish politics.

Last week, its embassy directly criticised two opposition politicians – including the mayor of Ankara – for campaigning on the Uyghur issue.

And when Foreign Minister Wang Yi visited Turkey last month as part of a six-country tour of the region, the unratified extradition treaty was his top demand. His efforts were unsuccessful, meaning Turkey was the only country on the tour where Yang did not announce a new strategic partnership.

But with a shaky economy and coronavirus infections soaring in Turkey, many Uyghurs fear that Erdoğan’s government will buckle under Chinese pressure.

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Jewish News meets... Sadiq Khan on the campaign trail

‘Israel has been light years ahead on vaccine roll-out’ London mayor on the pandemic, post-Corbyn Labour and plans to visit Israel

By Lee Harpin lee@jewishnews.co.uk @lmharpin

Sadiq Khan has revealed he regularly turned to advice from Israel over the past few months on how to encourage Londoners to overcome concerns about having the Covid-19 vaccine.

Touring the streets of Golders Green as he campaigned for a second term in office as London mayor, Khan heaped praise on his counterpart in Tel Aviv, Ron Huldai, and revealed they had spoken “quite a lot” during the pandemic.

“What Israel did with what is called vaccine hesitancy – they were light years ahead,” he told Jewish News. “We were speaking to them regularly on how you bust the myths. What Israel recognised was that you have to educate people.

“They explained very well and normalised and educated if you want to get back to reality, vaccines are the way out.

“Initiatives like the ‘gym for a jab’ scheme, where you got to go to the gym if you had the vaccine, that was such a clever way to deal with those who were hesitant to get vaccinated.”

With such close working relations with Israel, Khan was questioned on why he had not yet kept a 2018 promise made to Jewish News that he was ready to visit the country with a delegation “soon”. Asked if could pledge to visit Israel if elected for a second term on 6 May, he said: “I can, absolutely.”

He added: “If re-elected, I intend to go to Israel. There is a lot of work we are already doing in fintech, with innovation. Whenever I speak with the mayor of Tel Aviv I am very excited about the work taking place there.

“There is an obvious partnership. I want to see us building on that. In term two I will bang the drum for London in Israel.”

Khan accepted that some voters among the capital’s Jewish community could still not bring themselves to accept that his party, Labour,

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Sadiq Khan at a vaccination centre in Stamford Hill

is doing enough to tackle antisemitism, even under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership.

He said it was to Starmer’s “credit” that he had implemented the recommendations of the Equality and Human Rights Commission report into his party “in full and straight away” and that he had suspended former leader Jeremy Corbyn over his refusal to apologise for his criticism of the watchdog’s assessment of his handling of antisemitism.

Khan then called for Labour to “redouble our efforts to try to persuade” the likes of former MP Luciana Berger that “we have changed”.

He said: “I think people such as Luciana and Louise Ellman still needed to be persuaded. It is really important we redouble our efforts to persuade them the party has changed under Keir.”

Khan said he was fighting the election on a manifesto that promised to protect those who have lost jobs in the pandemic and that Covid had illustrated the inequalities which continue to exist in London across every community.

Pointing to the “good example” of the Stamford Hill Charedi community, he said: “What Stamford Hill showed was that families living in multigenerational households – through no fault of their own – were passing the virus on.

“It is important to understand the consequences of overcrowding and to support the communities. One of the ways is through homes that adults and children can move into, which are affordable. In Stamford Hill, for example, we were seeing three generations in one household. For some, that is fine, but some do it because they have no choice. That’s why it is really important to support those families.”

Venturing into familiar Golders Green establishments such as Carmelli Bakery, Head Room Café, and Pita restaurant, Khan was greeted enthusiastically by nearly all. He was joined by senior figures from the Jewish Labour Movement, including national chair Mike Katz, London region chair Neil Nerva, Sarah Sackman and Barnet candidate Anne Clarke.

...and in Golders Green on Wednesday

Outside Pita, he told two people he was in favour of vaccine passports to gain entry to shops and venues, but only if they did not place “an additional burden on small businesses”, adding: “More work needs to be done on them.”

Only one man on the street sought to criticise him over claims he had left a hole in the finances of Transport for London, a claim made recently by Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Khan explained the impact of the pandemic on travel and the government’s offer of a loan.

Khan told Jewish News he wanted to be seen as a mayor who would look after the interests of all Londoners and who recognised the contribution made by the Jewish community.

“One of the reasons why we are one of the greatest cities in the world is because of the contribution made by Jewish Londoners – economically, socially and culturally,” he said.

Khan refused to criticise the attempts by his rival Tory candidate Shaun Bailey to win over the community, saying he believed all politicians should attempt to reach out to them.

But he said he hoped recognition would be there for his work with the Jewish community over the past five years.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

15 April 2021 Jewish News

15

Abuse aid / Home merger / Interfaith award / News

Support over school abuse

Everyone’s Invited founder Soma Sara

A leading Jewish charity has revealed it is supporting schools in “developing healthier cultures” in the wake of thousands of sexual abuse allegations posted onto a victim support website, writes Francine Wolfisz.

Jewish Women’s Aid reached out to all mainstream Jewish schools after an escalation in the national debate surrounding sexual abuse in schools, which has been largely ignited by anonymous posts on the website Everyone’s Invited.

The website was set up last June by Soma Sara, now 22, who began to share her experience on

Instagram of what she calls “rape culture”.

Within a week of her posting, she had received and shared more than 300 anonymous testimonies of “misogyny, harassment, abuse and assault”.

Many of the allegations refer to sexual harassment experienced by female students by young men at their school or university.

At the time of going to print, the website had garnered more than 14,000 testimonies from anonymous victims, some as young as age nine and some including allegations that involve Jewish schools.

Jewish Women’s Aid, which

offers support services for women and girls who have experienced sexual assault and runs an education programme on healthy relationships and consent, said in recent weeks that it had been contacted by “several schools and others across the community who are very concerned”.

The charity already reaches 4,000 students each year with its educational sessions.

CEO Naomi Dickson said: “We can provide expert knowledge and experience of healthy relationships and consent education in Jewish school settings, both for pupils and teachers.

“We are happy to share this expertise and hope to be able to support school communities in developing healthier cultures.”

In the past week, the NSPCC has set up a special support line for those who have been affected, while Ofsted announced it would begin an immediate review of safeguarding policies in state and private schools to determine whether guidance around sexual harassment needs to be improved.

The results of the review are expected next month.

• To contact JWA’s sexual violence helpline, call 0808 801 0656 or visit www.jwa.org.uk

HOME MERGES WITH JEWISH CARE Interfaith prize for former CCJ chief

A Jewish care home in Golders Green will merge with Jewish Care.

Sunridge Court, which was established by families from the Liberal and Reform movements, is set to complete the merger this month.

Bosses at the care home say it would ensure most staff keep their jobs while “retaining its ethos” as a “non-Orthodox

home from home”.

“By our two organisations joining forces, Sunridge Court will have access to greater resources to provide a higher level and wider spectrum of care now and in the future for the community than we would by remaining separate organisations,” said Linda Stone, chair of Sunridge Court.

Jewish Care is the com-

munity’s largest care provider, with nine care homes and two retirement living sites, with a third set to open this month.

Its chairman, Jonathan Zenios, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Sunridge Court as the newest member of the Jewish Care family, which we hope will increase the breadth of the community we can serve and allow us to achieve more.”

A Jewish interfaith leader has been recognised for her “outstanding work” in promoting Jewish-Christian dialogue in the UK. Elizabeth Harris-Sawczenko (pictured), former director of the Council of Christians and Jews, was handed an award by the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, as part of the 2021 Lambeth Awards.

Harris-Sawczenko was given the Hubert Walter Award for Reconciliation and Interfaith

Cooperation, recognising her efforts to foster “balanced and nuanced discussion of Israel-Palestine, the rights and diversity of Christians of Israel, and Arab-Israeli rights in Israel”.

She told Jewish News: “I am delighted this award is given not only for my contribution to Christian Jewish relations but also highlights the work of peace builders in the Holy Land.”

The awards recognise contributions to the church and wider society.

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

World News / Death rates / Leibler mourned / Hate report NEWS IN BRIEF

NAZI AVOIDED COURT THANKS TO SPY ROLE A senior Austrian Nazi behind the murder of thousands of Jews avoided prosecution until his death in 1975 because he spied for the west, The New York Times reported last Tuesday. Franz Josef Huber, a top Gestapo officer serving in Vienna who helped Adolf Eichmann to round up and murder the Jews of central Europe, was wanted for crimes against humanity, it stated. However, US occupation and intelligence authorities blocked an Austrian extradition request on bureaucratic grounds, as well as attempts by Nazi hunters to prosecute Huber, who had moved to Germany.

PFIZER HALTS COVID VACCINE TO ISRAEL Pfizer halted a shipment of 700,000 Covid vaccine doses to Israel, alleging the country has not paid for a previous 2.5 million doses. The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday that the batch was due to arrive last Sunday but was delayed pending payment. Israel paid for its first 10 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine soon after they were made available, helping the country to achieve the world’s highest vaccination rate.

Shoah’s health harm lingers Survivors of the Holocaust suffer from worse health outcomes than the general population even decades after the Nazi atrocities.

The damaging effects of life under Nazi rule have long been understood, but new research from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem found that those who survived suffer worse health outcomes from cancer and heart disease.

Death records of approximately 22,000 people who were followed up from 1964 to 2016 were analysed; the rates of mortality from cancer and heart disease among survivors

Survivors have higher cancer and heart disease death rates

were compared with those in individuals who did not live under Nazi occupation.

The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, revealed that female

survivors had a 15 percent higher rate of overall mortality and a 17 percent higher chance of dying from cancer.

Among men, while overall death rates of the survivors were not different from those of the unexposed, mortality from cancer during the studied period was 14 percent higher among the survivor population. Remarkably, the rate of mortality from heart disease was 39 percent higher.

“Our research showed that people who experienced life under Nazi rule early in life, even if they were able to successfully migrate to Israel and

build families, continued to face higher mortality rates throughout their lives,” said Dr Iaroslav Youssim, one of the study’s authors. “This study supports prior theories that survivors are characterised by general health resilience combined with vulnerabilities to specific diseases.”

Dr Hagit Hochner, a coauthor, said: “These findings reflect the importance of long-term monitoring of people who have experienced severe traumas and elucidates mortality patterns that might emerge from those experiences.”

Refusenik campaigner Leibler dies, aged 86

‘Fearless’ Isi Leibler

Australian activist Isi Leibler, who helped lead an international campaign to release Soviet Jews who were denied exit visas, has died aged 86.

He is credited as being one of the first people to raise wider awareness of the refuseniks’ plight.

Leibler’s press and lobbying campaign, which began with an article in 1959, resulted in Australia becoming the first

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country to raise awareness of Soviet Jewry as a human rights issue in parliament and at the United Nations.

His nephew, Jeremy Leibler, who is now president of the Zionist Federation of Australia, said he had shown how one individual “can indeed change the world”.

“That is exactly what Isi achieved in the role he played in the fight to free Soviet Jewry,” Jeremy said.

“He was fearless and uncompromising in his dedication to the Jewish people and the State of Israel. He enjoyed success in all aspects of his life, but his passion was always defending the Jewish people and ensuring the centrality of the state of Israel to Jewish life in the diaspora.”

Leibler would go on to campaign on the issue of Soviet Jewry throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

ANTISEMITIC ATTACKS FALL BUT RHETORIC IS UP IN LOCKDOWN A 19 percent decrease in the number of antisemitic assaults recorded worldwide in 2020 from the previous year was attributed to lockdowns connected to the Covid-19 pandemic, according to an annual report published last week.

The lockdowns limited personal interactions generally, the authors of the Report on Antisemitism Worldwide said. There were 371 cases of physical assaults last year.

Vandalism, however, increased by 25 percent. Antisemitic activity against cemeteries and Holocaust monuments rose to 96 incidents

“because these sites are open and unprotected”, the report by the Kantor Center at Tel Aviv University said.

The prevalence of antisemitic rhetoric increased online, as well, with much of it coming from conspiracy theorists writing or speaking about the pandemic.

Moshe Kantor, the initiator of the Kantor Center and president of the European Jewish Congress, issued a warning in a statement that the pandemic might give rise to further ripple effects on antisemitism.

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Israeli police beat up a leftwing member of parliament and one officer knelt on his face, drawing outcry from across the political spectrum.

Ofer Cassif, the only Jewish member of the Arab-Israeli Joint List party in Israel’s Knesset was at a protest against evictions in the East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah when he became involved in an altercation with police.

The police shoved him to the ground and video from the protest shared on social media shows an officer placing his knee on Cassif’s face.

“The police are going crazy, they’re not letting people demonstrate,” he said. The

Biden administration has resumed funding UNRWA, the UN agency that administers to Palestinian refugees and their descendants, overturning Donald Trump’s policy and drawing a rebuke from Israel’s government.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken has announced $235 million (£171m) in aid for the Palestinians, including $150m (£109m) for UNRWA, $75m (£55m) in humanitarian assistance, and $10m (£7m) for peace-building programmes.

The money is in addition to $15m (£11m) Blinken announced last month that would go to coronavirus relief, and to $40m that will go to training Palestinian police.

March of the Living has honoured Dr Anthony Fauci with an award for “moral courage in medicine”.

Fauci, who for decades has been the top US official handling infectious diseases, faced a barrage of criticism, notably from Republicans including former President Donald Trump, for his warnings about neglecting recommended public health practices, including mask wearing and social distancing, to limit the Coronavirus pandemic’s spread.

In his acceptance remarks, Fauci referred to Maimonides, the medieval Jewish scholar and physician. The award was given to mark Yom HaShoah.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

15 April 2021 Jewish News

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Special Report / Terrorism survivor

‘4mm from my Kaddish’ Every Yom HaZikaron, Kay Wilson remembers her hiking partner Kristine Luken, who was killed in a machete attack As Kay Wilson prepared to stand silent for Israel’s Memorial Day siren on Tuesday night, to remember fallen soldiers and terrorist victims, she had a stark reflection, writes Nathan Jeffay.

“I was four millimetres from this siren being a memorial to me,” she said.

An English immigrant to Israel, Wilson’s life changed forever 10 years ago, when she was the victim of a machete attack by two Palestinians during a hike in a Jerusalem forest.

She remembers “seeing the sun glinting off a machete and preparing to be beheaded”.

She recalls being stabbed – “butchered” – 13 times, pouring with blood, hearing her friend Kristine Luken being murdered a few steps away, and ensuring her own survival by playing dead.

Wilson later discovered how narrow this survival was: had the knife moved by four millimetres she would be dead.

“When the siren goes off I first of all think of my friend Kristine,” she says. “And then I think of myself and how I was four millimetres away from a Kaddish, four millimetres from people standing up to remember me.”

Wilson’s experience in December 2010 is as harrowing today as when she first told it: “It was half an hour at knifepoint, which is an eternity, not knowing if you’re going to live or die, watching someone being murdered.

“It’s not just the watching, it’s the listening, it’s the sheer helplessness of seeing a woman being murdered, praying to her God and begging for life, and not being empowered to do anything.”

Memorial Day is evocative for her, a special

Kay returned in 2011 to the site of the attack

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occasion to remember Luken – who was an American tourist and not buried in Israel – as part of the Jewish state’s narrative.

And it is a day that connects her trauma to the national story.

“I can’t see what happened to me in isolation,” she said. “Today it feels like part of a collective history, part of the story of a nation, of a people.”

The attack made her voice powerful in the discussion of Israel’s battle with terrorism, and she has spoken in many international forums including the United Nations Human Rights Council.

Her interview with Jewish News this week came just after she had spoken to American teenagers on a gap year in Israel – one of many groups she is asked to address.

But it has also made her an inspiring figure for many on a personal level: for the strength she has shown, and for what she calls her “commission to choose life” and decision not to live the rest of her life “in hatred and fear”.

As she stands outside the lecture hall, smiling and joking, the teenagers approach her to express admiration. They tell her they feel strengthened by her story of pain, which is in contrast with her positivity.

“The attack is always present, because of my physical pain and my psychological pain,” she says. “It’s like looking through a distorted mirror, you can see it, it’s there, but as time passes memory changes.

“How has it changed me? It’s given me an appreciation of the present. It’s shaken the foundations of the belief we’ll all live until 95 and die in bed with pink sheets.

“It’s given me a mindfulness of the present, which has created gratitude for the small things and it’s put life in perspective. Things that I used to worry about, or which bothered me, really don’t bother me now.”

She reflects that the attack has the

Kay Wilson

unexpected effect of “opening up my world”, saying that she had been living in Tel Aviv for 25 years at the time of the incident, and “hardly met a religious person”.

Telling her story, and meeting other victims, has brought her into contact with people of all faiths and none, from Israel and the diaspora, and left her feeling “very enriched — and that’s an amazing blessing”.

The attack left her more able to connect with the pain and the challenges of others.

It has led her to take unusual decisions, including opening her home in 2014 to an Arab teenager who got death threats after voicing support for the operation that Israel was fighting against Hamas at the time, and secretly hosting him for a month.

“What I have is not empathy exactly, because that infers you actually know how someone is feeling,” she states.

“I don’t. For example I’m not a mother and I don’t know what it’s like to lose a child to terror, to bury a child. But I want to be the friend of people who have gone through this. I want to be by their side.”

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Kay with the parents of Kristine Luken at a court hearing for her attackers in 2011

15 April 2021 Jewish News

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Yom Ha’atzmaut / Special Report

Reflections of Israel’s founding generation

By Nathan Jeffay

As Israel celebrates Yom Ha’atzmaut this week, a remarkable 4,300-hour video collection of the founding generation talking about the state’s first months is making its way into the national canon.

Some 14 years in the making, the production team is preparing to move the 1,300-interview collection from their offices to Israel’s national library – and upload the whole collection online.

It is full of gems, with people who had a front row seat to history talking about how it unfolded in front of their eyes – everything from the dress style of the time to the politics of the Declaration of Independence.

“The idea is to make the whole thing available to everyone who wants to know about Israel’s first years,” says Aryeh Halivni, head of the Toldot Yisrael documentary film project, a non-profit that has raised more than $2.75 million (£2 million), mostly from American Jewish federations.

“As people we interviewed talk about topics, you’ll be able to cross-reference topics discussed to show relevant articles on Wikipedia, locations on Google Maps, and newspaper clippings.

“Full of powerful stories from people who were there, it will become the go-to resource for people who want to know, or teach, about the founding of Israel.”

A military air show marks Israel’s Independence Day in the skies above Tel Aviv in 2019

History Foundation to record the memories of Holocaust survivors, wanting to do something similar for Israel’s founding generation.

Halivni made aliyah from the US in 2002, and five years later launched Toldot Yisrael, Hebrew for “the chronicles of Israel”.

He consulted British-born Yehuda Avner, the Israeli prime ministerial advisor and diplomat, who guided him and sat on the organisation’s steering committee. Avner, who died in 2015, was an interviewee, as was the late Arieh Handler, founder of British Bnei Akiva, and one of the guests at the Declaration of Independence. “Mr Handler was one of the first interviewees, and was fantastic in terms of describing how it was at the centre of things as history was being made,” Halivni reflects.

Remembering Balfour Some of the interviews took Halivni back long before Israel’s establishment. “Only a handful of interviewees were born in the first decade of the 20th century.” One of them, the late Chaim Savitsky, recalled the momentous news of the 1917 Balfour Declaration.

“Savitsky, born in 1907 in Baranovichi, then in Poland and now in Belarus, was 10 years old.

‘We felt we had a country,’ he stated, telling

us the Balfour Declaration was delivered on a Friday, and in synagogue that night a particular prayer was infused with new meaning: ‘Let our eyes behold Your return to Zion.’”

Halivni believes the stories have the power to make people think, raise questions and become inspired. He came to look up to several of the interviewees, especially Harold Katz.

Raised in Terre Haute, Indiana, Katz was valedictorian of his high school, and attended Harvard. After serving in the Navy during the Second World War, he returned to Harvard for law school, but dropped out to volunteer for Aliyah Bet, the operation to bring Holocaust refugees past the British blockade into Palestine.

“We couldn’t just sit in law school while this was going on,” Katz says in an interview.

“This was history being made.”

Halivni recalls: “[Harold’s] story was captivating, his speech eloquent and refined, and his account resonated with me in a powerful way.

“Our shared American Jewish background allowed me to imagine myself in his shoes.

“The courage he had to act on his convictions inspires me to this day.”

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Summer launch The big transfer of videos to the national library will happen by the summer, despite challenges thrown up by the pandemic. One cost of the Covid crisis, however, is the interview stage of the project – which was meant to involve several more people – was brought to an abrupt stop.

“When the pandemic started, we were still interviewing and, in January and February 2020, we did 15 to 20 interviews and we did a handful in the course of summer when things opened up,” said Halivni. “But that was it, and when the autumn lockdown started, interviewing pretty much stopped.”

Halivni has gathered more interviews than he ever imagined since he graduated with a degree in history from Yeshiva University.

He began shortly after Steven Spielberg’s launch of the Survivors of the Shoah Visual

Harold Katz served in the Second World War

SCAN ME Chaim Savitsky, left, remembers the moment he heard about the 1917 Balfour Declaration

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Editorial comment and letters ISSUE NO.

1206

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

Keeping bad company The history of the Jewish Voice For Labour (JVL) group in relation to the antisemitism crisis under Jeremy Corbyn should mean no member of that organisation comes anywhere near chairing a Labour disciplinary panel.

But, as we reveal today, JVL’s Stephen Marks did exactly that last week, when he led a panel on Labour’s highest disciplinary body, known as the NCC. There will justifiably be anger among many in the community over this.

Questions will be asked as to why, despite pledging to “root out” antisemitism, Keir Starmer can allow such a situation to occur. In truth, Starmer is not responsible for deciding Labour disciplinary panels. The make-up of these panels is decided by votes cast by Labour members, often in elections held was before he became leader. Selection of elected officials to take part in hearings often relies on those among the select group available to take part in cases on a particular day, with little prior notice given.

There is change ahead, though. One of the key recommendations of the EHRC report, adopted by Starmer last October, was the implementation of an independent complaints system by his party to end the power and influence of the NCC in cases often involving claims of antisemitism.

As the EHRC report recognised, such a change to Labour’s machinery needs to be voted through at its annual conference. Until then, Starmer must ensure that those responsible for appointing elected officials onto its disciplinary panels on cases that involve claims around antisemitism steer well clear of those associated with groups like JVL.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

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

Four questions about apology I have four questions regarding last week’s story about the Church of England apologising for its ‘Haggadah’ book.

Why would any Jew feel upset at Christians wanting to enhance their own spiritual understanding of Easter by seeking an insight into the centrality of seder to Jews? Christians wanting to deepen their knowledge of their own religion by finding more about its roots in Judaism are to be applauded.

Why is the Shema not considered as suitable to be read by Christians, as suggested in the article? To read the prayer and hear it in Hebrew, as Jesus would have known it, must be a wonderful opportunity for them. The text of the Shema is found in Deuteronomy, part of the Torah known to Christians as the Old Testament, which is a respected holy text in both our

A pioneering prince Sketches & kvetches The actions of Prince Philip’s mother in saving Jews during the Shoah are widely known. What’s less known are the actions of the man himself who, while spending a year in school in Germany in 1933, helped a Jewish boy who was being picked on by fellow pupils as Nazism took hold in the country.

It was a story his son Prince Charles spoke about with great pride in welcoming the great and good of British Jewry to a Buckingham Palace reception in late 2019, and one that marked out a man whose true character and contribution too many perhaps only fully appreciated after his death last Friday.

Perhaps the achievement for which the country’s longest serving consort will be remembered will be his creation of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards which has enriched millions of young lives over decades. No one who tuned into the media coverage last weekend would have been left in any doubt that a key driver of the scheme was Jewish refugee Kurt Hahn, HRH’s mentor.

Many even in our own community were not familiar until last week about his pioneering work in the interfaith arena or his long-time support for Jewish causes like JLGB, Nightingale or his opening of Hertsmere Jewish Primary School.

While Prince Charles’ close ties and appreciation of Anglo-Jewry are often reported, it’s clearer than ever today where our next king might have drawn his inspiration. We wish the Queen and the entire Royal Family long life.

THIS WEEKEND'S SHABBAT TIMES...

Shabbat comes in Friday night 7.44pm

Shabbat goes out Saturday night 8.51pm

Sedra: T azria-Metzora

faiths. For any Jew to feel this is inappropriate ‘cultural appropriation’ just shows ignorance.

Why would any Jew be offended when others can relate to the history of the Israelites being redeemed from Egypt? Our story of enslavement, redemption and freedom has been a powerful one to which many in human history can relate.

Why make anyone feel in the wrong for ­trying to learn at a demonstration seder about the Jewish understanding of Pesach? Building bridges between people of different faiths has been one of the great positive achievements in my lifetime. The Council of Christians and Jews also produced similar resources. I know of such seders from the 1970s.

Fiona Hulbert Woodford Green

AFRICAN JEWS SET TO RIGHTS I was interested to read your article telling the remarkable story of the continent’s Jewish ­communities (Jewish News, 8 April 2021).

I have spent time in Uganda visiting the Abayudaya Jewish ­community in Mbale in the east of the country, where I celebrated Shabbat and Chanukah.

It was such a wonderful experience.

Basil H Mann, Isleworth

SYMPATHY FOR THE QUEEN “So, with Covid rules relaxing a little, does that mean I can start to ‘bidi-bidi-bum’ again?”

Following last week’s sad news about the passing of Prince Philip, never before have the words ‘Long may she reign over us’ been more appropriate.

Martin Levin, By email

As Magen David Adom celebrates its 90th year, we wish the State of Israel many happy returns on Yom Ha’atzmaut 73.

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I write in response to last week’s article about the veteran Tory Sir Alan ­Duncan’s claim that he was prevented from becoming a government minister by Conservative Friends of Israel.

It may be deduced from his diary, and indeed his speeches in the House of Commons, that he believes in the rights of the Palestinians over other people in the Middle East.

Leila Cumber, Hendon

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I recently lost my husband after more than 50 years of marriage so my heart goes out to Her Majesty who must be feeling utterly bereft. She is in my prayers.

Alice Morris, By email

15 April 2021 Jewish News

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Editorial comment and letters

Poll Lunacy

MIND-BENDER

The phrase ‘We can’t go on like this’ sits uncomfortably on the lips of many Israelis, following a fourth election in two years. This electoral merry-go-round has the legs to continue ad infinitum.

The need for reform is paramount to achieve a workable majority, be it through the coming together of parties under umbrellas or a voting procedure aligned to MKs answerable to a constituency. Israel requires urgent action through a stable government. Currently, it is a rudderless ship.

Stephen Vishnick, Tel Aviv

Bristol University political sociology lecturer Professor David Miller’s right to free speech is not questioned, but his right to continue as a educator of young minds, bending their way of thinking, certainly is.

There are too many universities in this country that allow teaching professionals to make use of their influential roles to infect the minds of students, as Miller has done by accusing Jewish students of being “pawns of a racist regime engaged in ethnic cleansing”.

Sidney Sands, By email

Covid caution EASTERN BLOCK I fully agree with the contents of Emma Adams’ letter (The worst is behind us, Jewish News, 8 April). Too many Jewish deaths (and those of people of all faiths and none) have occurred during this pandemic. A minority might now relax and behave inappropriately going forward, post-vaccine, assuming the worst is over.

Social distancing, wearing a face covering and regularly washing hands should continue regardless in the months to come.

JD Milaric, By email

I was most amused to read that Jews in the former Soviet Union are the world’s most voracious matzah-eaters, consuming nearly three times as much as the average Israeli soldier (Jewish News, 6 April 2021).

Matzah is my year-round cracker of choice, lighter and tastier than Jacob’s Cream Crackers and other high street brands. But even my consumption cannot compare to the Azerbaijanis, who average almost three pounds each during Pesach.

Philip Melfield, By email

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Opinion

‘Liz, listen to this, they do kosher expeditions!’

NEIL MARTIN

CHIEF EXECUTIVE, JLGB

I

n 2006, not long after I started as JLGB chief executive, I received an invitation to a garden party at Buckingham Palace to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award.

Since the award was created in 1956, when JLGB was asked to be part of the pilot group, with the support of the Pears Foundation, taking on the challenge of the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award has become a rite of passage for more than 25,000 Jewish teenagers, with many receiving their Gold Award from the Duke.

Several JLGB representatives were invited but, as we queued at the palace gates, I noticed my ticket was a different colour from the others, and it said: ‘Royal Tea Tent’.

As 8,000 people mingled in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, eagerly awaiting the Royal party to arrive, I made my way to the Royal enclosure. There were no more than 20 people in this gigantic tent and, as I went to sample the

famous tea and cucumber sandwiches, I realised I was standing next to the moon-landing astronaut, Buzz Aldrin, and the first man to run a mile in under four minutes, Sir Roger Bannister.

“What brings you here?” Sir Roger asked me.

I started to explain about JLGB and our work with the DofE Award when sensed a tall figure right behind me listening to what I was saying.

To my surprise, there stood Prince Philip.

“Carry on!” said the Duke of Edinburgh with a hurried excitement, so I explained the needs of the Jewish community, and how we provide kosher and Sabbath-friendly expeditions for Jewish schools, synagogues and community centres. “Fascinating!” he said, just as the Queen walked in. Without a moment’s hesitation, he grabbed her by the arm, and I swear I heard him say: “Liz, come and listen to this, they provide kosher expeditions!”

The next thing I know, I’m holding court with Buzz Aldrin, Sir Roger Bannister, The Duke of Edinburgh and now the Queen, telling them about the barriers young Jewish people face in accessing everyday youth provision, and that JLGB proudly provides single-gender provi-

sions for Orthodox schools and adapted expeditions for special educational needs charities.

The interest Prince Philip showed that day was truly genuine, as was his support of the Jewish community his entire life. The Duke himself was, of course, inspired to create the Duke of Edinburgh’s Award by his mentor, Dr Kurt Hahn, a German Jew who opposed and fled the Nazis, and was a key figure in the development of experiential education who felt there was a real need for a youth programme that developed the mind, body and spirit.

This translated into what would become the different sections of the Award: skills, volunteering, physical and expedition where participants choose activities they are passionate

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THE INTEREST PRINCE PHILIP SHOWED THAT DAY WAS TRULY GENUINE

about to build their own programme of selfimprovement. It comes at the perfect time in a teen’s adolescence to help shape their character and give them the determination, independence and tools they need to transition into adult life.

Many a career path has been defined, and a life changed, by a single choice made during their award journey, including the next generation of astronauts and record-breaking athletes, and not to mention the beneficiaries of countless volunteering hours that have been given in the Duke’s name to support charities.

JLGB was recently privileged to announce HRH Prince of Wales as our patron, and I hope we will now continue to honour his father’s legacy. The phenomenal impact of the Duke of Edinburgh will live on through the millions of young people who have been empowered with the skills, confidence and resilience they need to realise their potential and make a positive difference in their communities and wider society.

We send our deepest sympathies to Her Majesty The Queen, HRH The Prince of Wales and all the Royal Family.

Duke’s passing leaves a hole in our nation’s fabric FORMER BUCKINGHAM PALACE EMPLOYEE

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he differentiating factor of a Royal engagement with the Duke of Edinburgh was laughter from the guests. His humour and irreverence are well-documented, and I had a close up view of this in my three years working at Buckingham Palace, whether he was speaking to young or old, aristocracy or celebrity, Brit or foreigner.

The Duke’s death leaves a hole in the fabric of the nation, as the Queen’s companion and steadfast support over 73 years of marriage.

The Duke had a powerful and natural connection with the Jewish community. I think that was based on three things.

The first was the influence of Kurt Hahn, a German Jew who escaped the Nazis and came to the UK, establishing Gordonstoun, the Scottish private school. Prince Philip, who had been born in Corfu and was part of both the Greek and Danish Royal Families, became one of Hahn’s early pupils at the school.

Hahn was a formative influence on the young Prince. He advocated stretching young people to their potential, encapsulated in his

motto: “There is more in you than you think.”

He also thought freedom and discipline were not mutually exclusive, and both were necessary ingredients to mould young people’s character. Although Hahn converted to Christianity in 1945, his German Jewish roots were a strong part of his identity.

The second link the Duke had with the Jewish community was through his mother, Princess Alice, who sheltered Jews during the Holocaust. She hid a family, the Cohens, at her house in Athens during the war. In 1994, she was made a Righteous Among the Nations and the Duke visited Israel for the ceremony.

The lesson of Princess Alice’s heroic action seemed to leave an indelible mark on the Prince. It gave him an appreciation of humanity’s capacity for scapegoating and prejudice, and he showed empathy to the victims of this.

This came to light when, as a young boy, he came to the rescue of a fellow Jewish pupil at school in Germany, who was picked on and

ZAKI COOPER

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THE JEWISH NARRATIVE OF BOUNCING BACK FROM SETBACK WOULD HAVE FOUND FAVOUR IN HIS EYES had his hair cut off. Decades later, the Prince of Wales said: “I shall always be proud of my father’s act of compassion.” The Duke’s experience and family history meant he had a particular interest in engagements with survivors.

The third connection the Duke had to the Jewish community was an alignment of values.

Through conversations I’ve had with people in the know over the years, I am convinced the Duke was admiring of Jewish values of hard work and resilience along with a can-do spirit.

The Jewish story of bouncing back from setback and persecution would have found favour in the eyes of the no-nonsense Duke. He channelled his vision through his charity, the Duke of Edinburgh Awards , which he founded in 1956 and operates in 144 countries including Israel. Of course, Jewish schools have participated and Jewish philanthropists have supported this famous charity.

The Duke has engaged with Jewish charities, visited Jewish schools and worked with Jewish figures over the years. One of his most interesting areas of work was in convening an interfaith dialogue between Jews, Christians, and Muslims in 1984, together with Sir Evelyn de Rothschild and Crown Prince El Hassan of Jordan. He also founded the Alliance of Religions and Conservation, and it’s no surprise that his eldest son and grandson are so engaged in environmental work.

I have my own memories of the Duke.

My mind wanders to the annual meeting the Duke had with the cricket county champions at the Palace, a Council of Christians and Jews gala dinner in 2011 or a visit to a Hindu school at the start of Jubilee year in 2012, which he seemed so much to enjoy.

I saw him and the Queen work side by side.

He would often lighten the mood and was an important foil for the more formal Queen. My favourite anecdote about the Duke (courtesy of Barry Hyman) relates to when he visited the Sternberg Centre in the 1990s and was shown the interfaith room, with his hosts telling him they worked hard on Jewish-Christian relationships.

“Really,” he replied, “and what about Jewish-Jewish relationships?”

www.jewishnews.co.uk

15 April 2021 Jewish News

On Thursday 22nd April the Board of Directors of the KKLJNF will vote on a resolution to determine whether the KKL-JNF can purchase land in the West Bank for the purposes of expanding settlements.

The KKL-JNF is an institution that claims to act on behalf of the entire Jewish people.

This decision will entrench occupation and lead to unending conflict and violence for Israelis and Palestinians.

We are calling on all organisations that have a seat on the Board of Directors – listed below – to vote against this resolution next week which sets back the chances of a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

As a Jewish community that supports a peaceful resolution to the conflict, we have a duty to oppose this dangerous move.

Arzenu Bnei Brit International Derech Eretz Eretz Hakodesh Hanoar Hatzioni Herut Olami Kahol Lavan Lavi Olami Maccabi World Union Masorti Olami Mercaz Olami Na’amat Shas

Wizo World Avodah World Confederation of United Zionists World Emunah World Likud World Mizrachi World Organization of Orthodox Synagogues and Communities World Sephardi Federation World Union for Progressive Judaism World Yisrael Beiteinu Yavneh Yesh Atid This advert has been paid for by Yachad Ltd

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Opinion

Justice, injustice and fundamental humanity JENNI FRAZER

L

et me introduce you to Dr Ramy Abdu, a professor of law and finance who divides his time, according to his social media bio, between Gaza and Geneva. He’s the chair and founder of a couple of think tanks that look at the nexus between human rights and commerce. So we are looking at an educated person, right?

But not every person possessed of a decent education is necessarily possessed of decent, humane instincts.

I raise Dr Abdu’s profile because of some highly emotive social media posts of his relating to a Palestinian who was filmed, sobbing with heartache, next to his mother’s grave. Rushdi Abu Mokh spent 35 years in an Israeli prison — but his mother died two years before his release last week.

Abu Mokh, to the horror of some commentators in Israel, was released and received a hero’s welcome in his hometown of Baqa al-Gharbiyye, northern Israel.

Dr Abdu relates Abu Mokh’s history thus:

“In 1986, Abu Mokh was sentenced to life imprisonment for allegedly ‘plotting, with a cell of other people, to kidnap an Israeli soldier and transfer him to Syria’. The cell’s goal was to conduct a prisoner swap with Israel. But the mission failed, and the soldier was killed”.

Don’t you just love that use of the passive voice: “the soldier was killed”? Nothing to do with me, guv, it just happened while I wasn’t looking. You might even say Abu Mokh was there but not involved – in fact, you might certainly say that, because he repeatedly rejected having taken part in the soldier’s murder.

Funny, then, that Abu Mokh was widely recognised as one of the highest-paid recipients of monthly grants from the Palestinian Authority (PA), part of a controversial programme that honours those who carry out terrorist attacks against Israelis.

Why, I wonder, would the PA shell out thousands of dollars over the years to someone who was an also-ran in a failed mission?

Let’s look at the victim. He was a 19-yearold young soldier who was caught by Abu

Mokh’s gang, all members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP).

They were all, also, Arab Israeli citizens.

In 1984, the PFLP cell caught Moshe Tamam at the Netanya junction as he made his way home from his base. He was later killed near the West Bank city of Jenin.

But poor Tamam wasn’t simply kidnapped and killed. He was tortured, castrated and mutilated before his death. It took three days.

The cell members were caught and sentenced to life imprisonment in 1986.

Because, perhaps, he believed Abu Mokh’s insistence he had not taken part in the killing, in 2012 President Shimon Peres commuted

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POOR TAMAM WASN’T SIMPLY KIDNAPPED AND KILLED. HE WAS TORTURED

his sentence, and his alone, to 35 years.

With that action, some may say, he showed more humanity to Abu Mokh than Mokh and his band of murderous accomplices did to the unfortunate Moshe Tamam.

Now the bereaved and shocked Tamam family is calling for, at a minimum, Abu Mokh’s Israeli citizenship to be revoked.

What happened to Moshe, their beloved son and cousin, is surely not less shocking than a mother failing to be reunited with her prisoner son?

Dr Abdu, obviously calling for denunciation of shocking Israeli “inhumanity”, and showing Abu Mokh weeping over his mother’s grave, has conveniently forgotten what happened to Moshe Tamam.

If Abu Mokh had shown a scintilla of remorse over the fate of a teenage boy during his prison term, I might have a bit more sympathy. There is justice, injustice, and basic humanity. A bit more of that, and a bit more attention to the shortened life of Moshe Tamam, is what’s required here, not pictures of a sobbing ex-prisoner in a cemetery.

Why BAME is rather an unhelpful term for Jews MATTHEW PATRICK

JEWISH LABOUR PARTY ACTIVIST

I

n the past few years, progress has undoubtedly been made on diversity issues, although there is still a long way to go. The fact that many now know that the term “BAME” refers to black, Asian, and minority ethnic communities tells its own story.

But we are still so primitive in the way we talk about ethnic minorities. The very term used to try to advance racial equality just lumps everyone who is not white British together, as though experiences are the same or even similar.

Members of other minority ethnic groups have explained why this does not help them – most recently the Race Commission told the government to ditch it – but I have come to the view that it doesn’t work for Jewish people, either.

I didn’t always think this. In fact, I did not used to think of myself as a member of a BAME community at all. I did, however, recognise that as a Jewish person, I could not undo my Jewishness, by renouncing religion and falafel (though I would never do that!).

The mental contortions required to realise

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IT TOOK A LOT OF ABUSE TO REALISE THAT I SHARE THE EXPERIENCE OF BEING AN ETHNIC MINORITY

that I was part of an ethnic minority but not include myself as a BAME person make me cringe now.

The thing is, I am caught in the perennial dilemma for a Jewish person in modern Britain: I am white, but I am Jewish. I have the privilege of being a straight white man – most of the time.

Unlike many of my family and friends, people don’t generally assume I am Jewish.

They feel far more exposed than I do to everyday antisemitism because of how they appear.

But when I grew up in Birkenhead, on the Wirral, I was the only Jewish person in my school (apart from my mum, who joined as the librarian – thanks for that, mum!).

When people found out, I was picked on and racially abused (I still find writing that difficult). People pointedly asked my mum – in front of me – “what is a Yid?” and made comments about my family probably being

rich. Later, as a Labour councillor, I had farright death threats at street stalls and open hostility for being Jewish.

It took me a long time, and a lot of abuse, to realise that I share the experience of being an ethnic minority, but that experience is quite unlike that of other ethnic minorities.

It isn’t a competition – there is no hierarchy of racism – and any attempts to pit minorities against each other must be resisted.

The point is, we all face different battles in our shared struggle.

The term BAME does not do the job. It feels like something employers and the BBC do not think applies to Jews, and yet by definition it must.

Indeed, Jews have been considered an ethnic minority since the Race Relations Act, and the abuse I’ve faced has made me painfully aware of how conditional our integration in British society is. And yet I have never ticked the “BAME” box for

An anti-racism protest in Brighton

a job, because I have never felt it included me.

It is an unhelpful amalgamation of what are a range of very different experiences, needing different approaches.

The Labour Party should lead the way, to deepen understanding and to find an inclusive and effective approach.

Because one thing is clear: BAME manages to group everyone together and still leave out Jewish people.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

15 April 2021 Jewish News

A big thank you For the past ten months, JDA has worked flat out to make sure all our most vulnerable clients have food, medication and everything they need to stay safe during COVID-19.

And not only are they all healthy and stable, they’ve been able to stay connected with their JDA friends, had regular visits from our support staff and even had their challahs delivered fresh each Friday morning!

And our efforts have not gone unnoticed.

Tobi, one of our professional interpreters just taught a 93 year old to Facetime!

Many of our Deaf clients have dementia, learning disabilities or frail mental health. JDA’s innovative support services have been featured on national TV - and Deaf charities all over the country have been learning from us how we’ve kept such high risk people free from Coronavirus, healthy, happy and out of hospitals and care homes.

...to JDA staff and volunteers

...and to you, our supporters

But this has only been possible because of our support workers who have been working unbelievably hard to look after those in our community who have no one else to get them through.

Running JDA’s emergency services during lockdown is costly. But they must continue and there is no question of cutting corners when lives are at stake.

And they’ve been aided by a team of volunteers who have spent their days keeping the spectre of loneliness and isolation away from our clients.

020 8446 0502 www.jdeaf.org.uk

The JDA is a family made up of clients, an outstanding workforce, selfless volunteers and our incredibly valued supporters who provide the fuel to keep us running. Thank you so much for bringing us this far and please help us to keep providing the specialist services our community need.

Registered Charity No. 1105845 Company Limited by Guarantee 4983830

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Opinion

Not everyone is ready to talk mental health NAOMI LERER

CHIEF EXECUTIVE, NOA

F

or a long time there has been discussion about whether talking more about mental health was a help or a hinderance. One real concern is that by discussing mental health, particularly with teens, it can entrench behaviours and trigger or deepen more harmful thought processes.

It is well-known that those at risk of or suffering from eating disorders can use these discussions to provide motivation and ideas on how to deepen dangerous eating patterns.

Reports of suicide can increase others’ suicidal ideation. This is a widely held fear among educators and parents, but will very much depend on certain personalities and other environmental factors. However, the historic silence on mental health challenges and the sweeping under the carpet of those suffering from poor mental health is a stain on our collective conscience and easily recognis-

able as causing far more harm to those suffering with mental health and their families.

It is important to separate two issues. The first is talking about mental health on a national and communal level. In this regard, I believe there is absolutely no question that increased conversation serves to destigmatise and normalise mental health. People, particularly adolescent girls, can feel very isolated with their mental health challenges. As one girl I know says: “The less we talk about mental health, the scarier it becomes.” It is crucial we shine some light on the topic, demystifying it and, rightly, placing it as a health issue, much like any other.

This will allow people to know they are not alone and enable them to access the support they need at the earliest possible stage.

The more nuanced question centres around increased conversation on an individual basis.

While continuous, unstructured discussions on certain issues can escalate conditions and cause feelings to take on a life of their own, through speaking about emotional distress with friends and family in a helpful way, girls leverage their social support to manage and contain their

pain. Certainly, talking with a professional can be crucial for someone’s recovery and is, in some cases, life-saving. Such discussions can help prevent rumination, a repeating pattern of harmful thoughts that overtake all consciousness, that is particularly prevalent in girls and women. When someone is willing and able to engage, a therapist can help release someone from a stuck thought pattern and help reorder and contain thoughts.

However, we need to realise that not everyone is ready for talking therapies.

Adolescents, in particular, may not be ready to articulate or share their inner world in a clinical environment, despite parents and/or their schools believing this is the best thing for them.

We need to take a more adolescent-centred

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IT IS CRUCIAL WE SHINE LIGHT ON THE TOPIC OF MENTAL HEALTH ISSUES

approach and to work creatively to meet adolescents where they are at. This may mean using non-verbal or alternative therapies such as art, music or equine therapy. It may mean engaging them with activities such as personal training, therapeutic cooking or art projects or simply giving them a safe space to be themselves.

We need to move at their pace.

Statutory services, and we as service providers, are doing adolescents a great disservice if we try to impose a one-size-fits-all approach to mental health challenges. We need to be more creative, more flexible. We need to listen more to what teens want and need rather than rolling out one model and pathway to everyone.

In this way, by leading communal conversation about mental health and, at the same time, enabling and empowering adolescents to lead their own journey to recovery, we can create a way forward towards a more hopeful future for us all.  Noa provides practical, emotional and therapeutic support for adolescent girls in the Orthodox Jewish community

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15 April 2021 Jewish News

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Community / Scene & Be Seen

1 TASTE OF KISHARON

Kisharon Noé school in Hendon welcomed (virtually) nine teachers training at the London School of Jewish Studies for sessions on special needs education. The trainees observed lessons, had sessions on communication and autism, and learnt techniques for managing challenging behaviour in children with learning disabilities. Deputy headteacher Lyna Panas said: “The trainees benefit from our expertise in communicating and supporting pupils with special educational needs in mainstream. We also give the trainees a small taste of what Kisharon Noé School does to support our community and our pupils.”

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And be seen!

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

SUCCESSFUL BAKE

More than 70 households took part in a Chai Cancer Care virtual shlissel challah-plaiting workshop led by Allegra Benita (‘Challah Mummy’). It is customary to bake shlissel challah (shlissel means ‘key’ in Yiddish) for the first Shabbat after Pesach, and the shape is thought to symbolise unlocking good fortune and blessings. “Shlissel challah is a very special time, when we can really celebrate and elevate our traditional challah,” Benita said.

Chai chairman Louise Hager said the centre took the workshop online this year after traditionally holding it at the centre for a number of years.

3PESACH IN HOSPITAL Almost 3,000 kosher meals were delivered to patients in 34 London hospitals for Pesach by the charity Hospital Kosher Meals Service (HKMS), which has supplied kosher meals to UK hospitals since 1968. Patients were offered up to three meals per day from a menu that included vegetarian options. “This Pesach was extremely demanding given it was a three-day Yom Tov paired with the challenges of Covid,” said the charity’s Michael Freedman, adding that not only did the team deliver thousands of meals, but it also secured three new hospitals to provide services.

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4ETHEL’S BIG DAY

Ethel Fedor celebrated her 105th birthday at Jewish Care’s Lady Sarah Cohen House near East Barnet. She was visited by her daughter Rosalind Jackson, received a birthday card from the Queen, and had a Zoom call with 20 close family members. Ethel, who was born on 5 April 1916 in Shoreditch, is now a full century older than her youngest great grandchild, five-year-old Alfie.

She said: “I don’t know anyone who’s reached 105, so it seems like I’ve achieved something!” She met late husband Percy through a shared interest in cycling.

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

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15 April 2021 Jewish News

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Real lives / Weekend

My home is… also your home!

Kari Colmans speaks to 88-year-old Sylvia and 25-year-old Olivia, who have staved off lockdown isolation thanks to Homeshare Living’s innovative scheme

M

atchmaker, Matchmaker, make me a match. Find me a find, catch me a catch.

Although they may not be quite the pair Yente imagined, 25-year-old Liverpudlian Olivia and 88-year-old Sylvia from Willesden, north west London, are living the domestic dream.

They were brought together by Homeshare Living, a social enterprise outfit that matches older homeowners with a spare room who are looking for companionship and practical support with younger (thoroughly vetted) ‘sharers’ searching for affordable accommodation, among other things.

As we chat over Zoom, the pair enthuse about this scheme, which has the potential to benefit everyone.

With her sight declining, and after a couple of bad falls, it was one of Sylvia’s daughters who came across Homeshare Living online after growing concerns she shouldn’t be living alone.

For Olivia, on the other hand, it was totally by chance. Having moved to London fairly recently, she was living alone in a flat in Crouch End and feeling increasingly isolated.

About to call it quits and move back north, homesharing offered her a chance to stay near London alongside someone who could make her house feel like home.

“I was struggling to connect and was desperately seeking a companion.

I looked online… and here we are.”

While some of Sylvia’s large brood of three children, five grandchildren (and eight great-grandchildren) had their reservations, their minds were soon put to rest by Homeshare Living founder Sarah Kaye, who was there to guide and support all parties.

“We undertake detailed checks, including thorough interviews, many character and professional references, and of course enhanced DBS police checks to ensure we can facilitate homeshare safely, and that we make the right match,” explains Sarah.

Following an initial six-month stint last January, Olivia is back for a second stay. “I really craved that presence of someone else: that uplifting feeling when you come home from a long day at work and there’s somebody to ask how your day was. Someone to exchange words with around the

Sylvia and Olivia share a passion for women’s rights – and now a home

dinner table.”

While Olivia’s criteria were rather vague for a suitable match, Sylvia had more particular requirements.

“I wanted someone friendly, helpful and lively. When you get to my age, your friends start dying off. I wanted somebody full of energy: full of life.”

After a year of social distancing and relentless lockdowns, loneliness has become endemic. But the two have been a lifeline for one another: “There are both old and young people that

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have absolutely nobody,” says Olivia.

“With loneliness and mental health such hot topics, the greatest help is having someone to talk to. Having someone to listen, who is really available to hear what you’re saying, is everything. Homesharing is meeting in the middle for both parties: it’s a companion for the younger body as much as the older.”

The pair spend much quality time together, from reading fashion magazines, to watching films and docu-

WITH LONELINESS AND MENTAL HEALTH SUCH HOT TOPICS, THE GREATEST HELP IS HAVING SOMEONE TO TALK TO

mentaries and often spend Sunday afternoons scouring the papers for what they’re going to binge on next.

“We also keep ourselves to ourselves sometimes,” she says. “We both enjoy our own space, too.”

The two also can’t help but get into a good debate. “Sylvia is very much head of the table here, even though it’s just me!” jokes Olivia.

From politics to religion, it seems they have more to say to one another than most married couples.

“We are both campaigners at heart,” says Sylvia with a smile. They share a passion for women’s rights and love to educate themselves and each other, through sharing their vastly different experiences.

While Sylvia married and started a family young, and then went back to education later – getting a Master’s degree at Brunel University – Olivia is open-minded on marriage, and is currently focusing on her career as a marketing executive, although hopes to start a family one day.

“For me, a partner in that sense is like a dessert: a luxury,” she laughs, as Sylvia smiles supportively, if not a little amusedly, next to her. “It can be nice sometimes but it’s not a necessity. I’m not always in the mood!”

While Sylvia used to be an active campaigner and has always passionately stood up against racism and discrimination in all forms, she doesn’t have the physical energy anymore.

“It makes for some great conversation though,” says Olivia. “She throws fuel on my fire and helps me turn our words into action.”

What advice would they give to others looking to homeshare? Sylvia suggests always meeting up first under the agency’s guidance, to ensure you actually get on, as well as having your close family’s support.

Homeshare Living’s Sarah is also keen to point out that once two people are vetted and paired, the team will always be on hand for advice and support and check in throughout the stay.

“Just be open minded and allow a new energy to flow in,” says Olivia.

“Be an optimist. Slow down. You’ll end up seeing twice as much.”

Details: www.homeshareliving.co.uk, call 020 3137 6421 or email info@homeshareliving.co.uk

A look

Inside Go, Go, Go Joseph!

Hit musical returns to the West End stage

Win an interactive night in with the Morpheus Show!

In their prime! Seven Hollywood stars who have portrayed Israeli premiers

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Weekend / Entertainment

BABY NEWS

MUSICAL

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

Rachel Riley

Countdown presenter Rachel Riley teased her fans with a cute conundrum to announce she is pregnant with her second child.

The 35-year-old is married to professional dancer Pasha Kovalev, 40, after the pair met on BBC’s Strictly Come Dancing in 2013.

Riley – who is already mum to one-year-old daughter Maven – shared the news over Twitter to her 670,000-strong legion of followers.

She wrote: “A special teatime teaser! And your clue is… Riley had this to thank for the reason her clothes no longer fit her… And it’ll only get worse till Autumn! Happy, happy days for our little family @pashakovalev and future big sister Mave.”

The TV personality, who is also a campaigner against antisemitism, revealed the answer to her hilarious conundrum, jumbled up as “Fitt Riley”, was the more than apt word “fertility”.

Singer Alexandra Burke is set to play the role of the narrator in the revamped version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, which returns to the West End from 1 July.

Jason Donovan will reprise his role as Pharoah, while Jac Yarrow will again wear his Dreamcoat in the role of Joseph, when the Andrew Lloyd Webber hit opens at the London Palladium.

Burke, who rose to fame winning The X Factor in 2008, has sold more than five million

IN THE PIPELINE

The Days of Abandonment Natalie Portman is set to star as a woman left bereft after her husband suddenly ends their marriage in HBO Films’ The Days of Abandonment.

The 39-year-old Israeli-born actress will also executive produce the feature, which has been adapted from Elena

Ferrante’s best-selling novel by writerdirector Maggie Betts.

Portman plays Tess, a woman who abandoned her own dreams for a stable home life, but is in turn abandoned by her husband, throwing her world into disarray.

The Days of Abandonment explores a woman in crisis, who must struggle to understand motherhood and female identity while experiencing the darkest moments of her life.

Portman has a busy schedule ahead, having been recently been cast in forthcoming television series Lady In The Lake, alongside Lupita Nyong’o, while the Academy Award-winning actress will also return to the big screen as romantic interest Jane Foster in Taika Waititi’s Waititi Thor: Love and Thunder, scheduled for release next year.

GADGET OF THE MONTH:

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@Daniel_Elias

records, while her many West End credits include the lead roles in The Bodyguard, Sister Act, Chess and Chicago.

Donovan was originally in the show when he made his defining stage performance as the title character of Joseph in the 1990s, in a soldout 18-month run that produced a number one single and best-selling soundtrack album, while Yarrow received critical acclaim when he made his professional stage debut playing Joseph in 2019.

Released as a concept album in 1969, the stage version of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat has become one of the world’s most beloved family musicals and features songs that have gone on to become pop and musical theatre standards, including Any Dream Will Do, Close Every Door To Me, Jacob and Sons, There’s One More Angel In Heaven and Go Go Go Joseph.

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31

Film / Weekend

Anthony Hopkins

Lynn Cohen

Barry Morse

Ingrid Bergman

Lior Ashkenazi

Peter Finch

Simon Russell Beale

In their prime As Helen Mirren reveals she will soon play Golda Meir in a new biopic, here are seven other stars who have portrayed Israeli leaders over the years

special and a Golden Globe in a similar category.

Jewish actor Leonard Nimoy was also nominated for an Emmy for his performance as Morris Meyerson, Meir’s husband, who died in 1951.

Anthony Hopkins

Peter Finch

Menachem Begin in Sadat (1983)

Yitzhak Rabin in Victory at Entebbe (1976)

Rabin in Raid on Entebbe (1977)

Victory at Entebbe was the first of three 1970s films based on the Israeli army’s rescue mission of more than 100 hostages from a Ugandan airport in 1976 (another was made in 2018 – see below.) Palestinian terrorists hijacked a plane heading from Tel Aviv to Paris and held nearly 250 hostages for a week before Israeli commandos flew in, killing the Palestinians and dozens of Ugandan soldiers who supported the hijacking.

The cast was loaded with big names. Hopkins, then 39 and better known to British audiences, portrayed Rabin, who was in his first term as prime minister. Richard Dreyfuss played Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother, Yoni, who died in the raid; Kirk Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor were a Jewish couple and the parents of a daughter played by Linda Blair; and Burt Lancaster was featured as Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defence minister.

The director was Marvin Chomsky, a Jewish Emmy winner and cousin of the famed linguist and political theorist Noam Chomsky.

NBC’s TV movie version of the story aired a month later, in January 1977, with far fewer stars in the cast. Still, the movie has gone down as the final film in the acclaimed career of Peter Finch, who was the only actor at the time to posthumously win an Academy Award, for his lead role in 1976’s Network.

Five days after Raid on Entebbe premiered, Finch died of a heart attack at age 60.

Ingrid Bergman Golda Meir in A Woman Called Golda (1982) Peter Finch’s role was not the only performance on this list to be posthumously praised.

The legendary Ingrid Bergman’s last acting role was as Meir in the syndicated TV film, A Woman Called Golda, a biopic about her improbable rise to power. The film was released in April 1982; Bergman died of breast cancer in August.

The next year, Bergman was awarded the Emmy for best actress in a miniseries or TV

Barry Morse Barry Morse was an often overlooked English actor who had thousands of credits to his name, many of them TV appearances. The most wellknown was a starring role on the 1960s crime drama, The Fugitive.

Here he played Begin, Israel’s sixth prime minister, in a two-part, four-hour made-for-TV movie about the life and changing political philosophy of Egyptian President Anwar Sadat, who had been assassinated in 1981, just two years after striking a historic peace deal with Israel.

The film follows Sadat from the Yom Kippur War he helped wage to his peace negotiations with Begin, which led to a treaty in 1979.

Egypt banned the film, not appreciating the casting of a black non-Arab actor, Louis Gossett Jr., as Sadat, in addition to its overall portrayal of the nation’s late leader.

Lynn Cohen Meir in Munich (2005) One of Steven Spielberg’s most lauded films, Munich dramatised the story behind the Mossad’s mission

Helen Mirren, top, will play Golda Meir, inset

to exact revenge for the Munich Massacre at the 1972 Olympics, where Palestinian terrorists tortured and killed 11 Israeli athletes and coaches.

Among the star-studded cast (Eric Bana, Daniel Craig, Ciarán Hinds) was Cohen, a lesser-known Jewish actress, as Meir. Cohen, who died earlier this year, also played the recurring character Magda in Sex and the City and starred in the recent horror flick, The Vigil, which features Yiddish and centres on an Orthodox ritual gone wrong.

Lior Ashkenazi Rabin in 7 Days in Entebbe (2018) This widely criticised version of the Entebbe story focuses on the conflicted experiences of the two Germans who allied with Palestinian terrorists to hijack the Paris-bound plane, played by Rosamund Pike and Daniel Bruhl.

Rabin is portrayed by veteran Israeli actor Lior Ashkenazi, who has broken out internationally after being a star for decades in his native country. He played a prominent role in the epic Israeli series Valley of Tears about the 1973

Yom Kippur War and streaming on HBO Max.

Simon Russell Beale David Ben-Gurion in Operation Finale (2018) Since the 1980s, Simon Russell Beale has been known as one of the UK’s finest theatre actors, but he has seamlessly transitioned into Hollywood roles over the past two decades. He’s been in dramas such as The Deep Blue Sea, My Week With Marilyn and The Death of Stalin.

In 2018 Beale played David BenGurion, Israel’s first prime minister, in Operation Finale. The film follows Mossad’s efforts to track down the infamous Nazi mastermind Adolf Eichmann (played by Ben Kingsley), who by 1960, the year in which the film is set, had escaped Europe to hide in Argentina.

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Business / Payment tech

candicekrieger@googlemail.com

With Candice Krieger

TAKING THE PAIN OUT OF BEING SELF-EMPLOYED An app called Osu, Japanese for ‘push’, helps self-employed by automating tasks such as sending and chasing invoices and accepting payments, its founders tell Candice Krieger

T

hree former colleagues have teamed up to launch a revolutionary payment app to help the selfemployed run and grow their businesses.

Launched last year by Israelis Noam Nevo and Alon Zion, together with British-Israeli Daniel Scott, Osu is transforming the way the self-employed accept and manage their payments, enabling them maximise their time and earnings. Akin to a virtual PA, the app works behind the scenes to automate tasks such as as sending invoices, accepting payments and chasing customers – the traditional pain points for many.

Osu, which means ‘push’ in Japanese, does not charge transaction fees, meaning users get 100 percent of every sale they make and everything is done instantaneously so they aren’t left waiting days to receive their money.

CEO Nevo, a former PayPal tech lead, says: “With more than four million self-employed

professionals in the UK – almost It has also received funding from a half of whom operate entirely series of prolific Angel investors, alone and cite chasing including Charles Delingpayments as one of their pole of ComplyAdvantage, biggest daily frustrations Will Neale of Grabyo and – we spotted a gap in the Michael Pennington market for a payment of Gumtree. support app that could Nevo and Zion simplify the day-to-day – the former finance hassle of getting paid by cusdirector of Matomy Media tomers and eliminate transac– had worked together as tion fees. The Osu app allows co-founders of a money transfer self-employed professionals to system for financial institutions, get fully paid, fast.”

Osu founders Daniel Scott, which Scott, a seven-year veteran This is something Nevo Noam Nevo and Alon Zion of The Boston Consulting Group, acknowledges is increasingly joined later on. But, aware of the important at a time when the self-employed are difficulties faced by freelancers when it comes already taking a hit due to the pandemic. And to payments, they saw the need for a streamhe is not alone in seeing the potential. The app lined tool focusing solely on the self-employed. recently closed a £2.25 million seed round, led “I understood the importance of tracking by early-stage experts Creandum, backers of and managing finances within a start-up and Spotify, Kahoot and Klarna, to help it grow tenhow losing sight of payments can quickly affect fold this year from 1,000 to 10,000 customers. general day-to-day operations,” recalls Nevo.

“The constant chasing and management of this process pushed me to create a better approach.”

Subscribers can increase their bottom line in the first month. And those with annual sales of £25,000 taken by card payments, will save £500 on transaction fees and 10 hours in reduced management and admin time per month.

The self-employed are key to getting the economy moving again, but the sector was left particularly exposed during Covid.

“For every positive story about a thriving self-employed business or start-up, there is another about someone struggling to survive,” says Nevo. And the struggles are reflected in the statistics. The number of solo self-employed – sole traders with no employees – in the UK dropped by five percent compared with 2019, including a fall of eight percent in construction and building, 20 percent in road transport and 11 percent in teaching and education professionals. Many have been unable to access benefits such as sick pay, holiday allowance, income protection or mental health support.

“The lack of support has been further highlighted, with up to three million self-employed being unable to claim grants under the Self Employment Income Support Scheme (SEISS).

As many as 1.5 million have gone for almost 12 months without financial aid, leading to escalating debt levels.

“It’s incredibly important the self-employed – when they can get back to ‘usual’ operating levels – can maximise the time they spend on customer work. They can’t afford to lose this time to invoice management, chasing late payments or wading through other distracting business admin.”

According to Nevo, more than half of the solo self-employed earn less than £300 a week, compared with just one third of employees.

“This emphasises how important it is that if you’re self-employed you should be able to get paid without it costing you time and money.”

Osu’s head office is in London, while the

Osu helps sole traders manage their finances

research and development team is in Tel Aviv.

Why target the UK market? “The UK is the most advanced fintech market in the world. It is at the forefront of Open Banking regulation and has a payment infrastructure that makes offerings like ours possible. This, coupled with the size of the UK market, made it a natural choice for us. “ According to data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the UK ranks towards the top half in terms of the self-employment rate. This position, rather than appearing in the top five or 10, reflects the relative stability of the UK economy versus countries that have very high rates of selfemployment such as Columbia and Greece.

Israel is not far behind the UK. But what is “most interesting” says Nevo, “is the very low rate of self-employment in the US. The US is by far the largest market when it comes to absolute numbers and spend on payment and business management tools. As the self-employment rate in the US grows, the growth in absolute numbers is astounding – and it’s why you see so many start-ups going after the US market. For us, the US is a market we would like to serve in the future but, like Israel, there is no Open Banking regulation in place.”

In the meantime, the team is focused on developing the app and introducing new features such as direct communication with customers, calendar integrations, bookings and mini-steps to help users generate an online presence – tools Nevo acknowledges could help see the number of self-employed overtake the number of employed in the next few years. www.payosu.com

15 April 2021 Jewish News

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ALBERT EINSTEIN HOUSE, PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY Considered by many to be the greatest physicist in history, Albert Einstein was of GermanJewish descent, his parents being liberal Ashkenazi Jews. Forced to flee Germany during the Second World War, he settled in the United States, where he eventually died at Princeton Hospital in 1955 at the age of 76. Tourists flock to look at his house, located at 112 Mercer Street in Princeton, New Jersey, although it is no longer open to public tours.

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KAHAL KADOSH BETH ELOHIM, CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA Also known as the Congregation Beth Elohim, this synagogue is among the oldest in the USA, dating as far back as 1749. Located in Charleston, South Carolina, it was founded by Sephardi Jews of Portuguese and Spanish descent.

The synagogue is a marvel of architecture, a clear example of Greek Revival building. It is often called the spiritual heart of Charleston’s Jewish community and is also important as the purported birthplace of Reform Judaism.

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THE BETH SHOLOM SYNAGOGUE, ELKINS PARK, PENNSYLVANIA The Beth Sholom Synagogue deserves a special mention, if only for the unique architecture, the likes of which is rarely found in religious structures. From the outside, it almost resembles an alien structure, ready to ascend to the heavens.

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the oldest Jewish residence in the whole of North America.

Built in the early 18th century by Luis Moses Gomez, the son of a wealthy Jewish merchant, the Mill House alternatingly functioned as a family house, a popular trading post, and even a headquarters during the Revolutionary War. The house still stands today, near Newburgh, New York.

PARK CIRCLE HISTORIC DISTRICT, BALTIMORE, MARYLAND The Park Circle Historic District in Baltimore is one of the earliest Jewish suburban neighbourhoods established in the USA. Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe began to settle in the area, moving from East Baltimore, in the early 20th century. Some of the older buildings still stand today, such as the Shaarei Zion Synagogue.

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GOMEZ MILL HOUSE, NEWBURGH, NEW YORK Everyone knows about the house of Albert Einstein, yet comparatively few know about the Mill House, despite it being

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

If not us, then who?

You’re blind. You’re in hospital, where you catch Covid and are moved to a Covid ward. You don’t know where you are or why, as no-one in the hospital can communicate with you - because you’re not only blind, you are also deaf.

For David, this was a very real and terrifying experience. The doctors were considering ventilating him and needed to explain that his chance of survival was just 50/50.

It was time for JDA to move mountains!

We fought hard for permission and found one brave sign language interpreter to go into the covid ward and sign on David’s hands, enabling the doctors to tell David what was happening to him.

Then we set up braille equipment at the hospital so that the doctors could send David messages from their phone and he could read them in braille and reply. Now David could communicate for himself, understand what was happening and express his wishes.

We’re pleased to say David has made a full recovery and is at home being helped by regular visits from JDA’s dedicated carers.

020 8446 0502 www.jdeaf.org.uk

Clutched in his hand was a piece of paper with JDA’s phone written on it. Thankfully an observant nurse called us.

A message to you our supporters JDA’s life-saving work - keeping the most vulnerable members of our community safe, strong and stable - is intensive and very costly.

But if we’re not there to step in and fight, then no-one else will be.

Please keep helping us to do what only we can at this most critical time. We’ve never needed your support more than now.

Thank you and Happy Pesach from all of us in the JDA family!

Registered Charity No. 1105845 Company Limited by Guarantee 4983830

15 April 2021 Jewish News

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35

Orthodox Judaism

SEDRA

Torah For Today

Tazria-Metzora

What does the Torah say about: Keeping your sons’ foreskins

BY RABBI JEFF BERGER According to the NHS, 95 percent of people aged 11 to 30 will experience acne caused by a hormonal imbalance. But knowing the cause of this condition doesn’t prevent its occurrence or help those affected feel any less self-conscious.

By contrast, Tazria-Metzora goes to great lengths to define the outbreak and purification process for tzara’at – non-contagious skin lesions. Still, a metzora – the person affected – was considered the highest level of ritual impurity.

After the condition was confirmed by a Kohen, the affected person tore their clothing (a mourning ritual) and warned others to keep away. They left camp to dwell alone for periods of seven days, until the ailment was reassessed.

After the tzara’at cleared, the purification process involved two birds; one was slaughtered and its blood was mixed in water. Before

being set free, the second living bird, along with a piece of cedar wood, scarlet thread and hyssop, was dipped in the crimsoncolored water and sprinkled on the metzora. Later, a separate blood ritual was performed on the right earlobe, thumb and big toe.

Metaphorically, metzora birds are linked to the tenth plague, when the Egyptian first born were killed while the Israelites, who painted their doorposts with blood, were freed.

We learnt this past year that being forced to self-isolate involves significant vulnerability. As humans, we try to explain things, to give an illusion of control. One lesson from Metzora is that what lies below the surface of our skin is what matters most, as well as there being moments beyond comprehension.

◆ Rabbi Jeff Berger can be reached at rabbijefflondon @gmail.com

BY RABBI ZVI SOLOMONS Last week, presenter Stacey Solomon shocked fans by revealing she had kept her sons’ foreskins after their circumcison, although Jewish custom is to have them buried. So, what does the Torah say about burying the foreskin after a brit milah?

The burying of a foreskin is connected to halacha on burial more generally. Jews and Muslims have the custom of hurrying our dead to the grave; for us it is highly disrespectful to unnecessarily postpone burial.

The origin of this may well have to do with the heat of our homeland, Israel. However, in Deuteronomy 21:23 we are told that a criminal must be taken down from a pole on which he was hung within a day of execution: “His body shall not remain all night upon the tree, but thou shalt surely bury him the same day; for he that is hanged is a reproach unto God; that thou defile not thy land which the Lord thy God giveth thee for an inheritance.”

The rabbis argue that since this is deemed a basic sign of respect for a criminal, all the more should we show this respect to the innocent who die.

The body, being the clothing of the soul, is not to be destroyed or disfigured. This is why we try to avoid autopsies and why we bury limbs and other human remains after surgery or removal.

When Stacey Solomon (pictured) kept her sons’ foreskins after circumcision, one has to ask, why? She surely had no fear that if she buried them they would grow into a juniper tree, like the folk tale from Brothers Grimm. Most mohelim carry around

a small phial containing earth to fulfil the burial requirement. Could the mohel have given her an inappropriate tip? I think not.

Fashionable fads such as eating placenta fricassée may have more to do with this, although I doubt Ms Solomon was motivated by any nutritional medical or taxidermal notions.

All these would be unacceptable in halacha, save in the rare instance of their proving a cure to a life-threatening disease.

While the ‘Auto-Icon’ of Jeremy Bentham, whose dressed skeleton resides on the ground floor of UCL’s Student Centre, may be designed to stir thoughts and question religion, perhaps a better explanation of Stacey’s retention of her sons’ foreskins is she has done so for her own reasons. ◆ This paper requested Rabbi Zvi Solomons of the Jewish Community of Berkshire to write about halacha connected to Stacey Solomon’s revelation

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Jewish News 15 April 2021

Progressive Judaism

Progressively Speaking

The Bible Says What?

Forget vaccine passports, shuls should be open to all

‘The Torah has no end!’

BY RABBI SANDRA KVIAT There is no real ending to our Torah.

We never get the ‘happily ever after’. Instead, in our communities, after each cycle we roll back and begin again. And again.

Moses is shown the Promised Land. He stands on the top and surveys it from one end to the other. He is allowed to glimpse his life’s work, but no more than that.

We as readers join in the mourning, the lament and the eulogy. We say: “There was no one like Moses and never will be, who stood panim al panim, face to face, with God”.

And then the Torah finishes before the Israelites can themselves enter the Promised Land.

This sense of an unfinished ending permeates the whole Biblical narrative. Yet this is not considered a problem in Jewish tradition – rather, it is seen as a strength. There are no true endings, but always an ending with a beginning.

Looking closely at the rituals,

we don’t actually read the last word of the Torah and then immediately begin to roll and start again. There’s a brief but important pause, after the death and before the creation, after the last lamed has rolled off our tongues and before the first bet is recited from Genesis.

And in this brief pause, we stop, and together we say: Chazak chazak v’nitchazeik. Be strong, be strong and let us be strengthened/ let’s summon our strength.

This past year of Covid lockdowns has been relentless. So it is no wonder many of us are feeling depleted, looking ahead but worrying about the relentless merry-go-round.

We might not be ready yet to return to a new beginning. To jump from the end, to roll back, and start again. Sometimes a pause is all we need.

◆ Rabbi Sandra Kviat serves Crouch End Chavurah

BY RABBI SHULAMIT AMBALU I love ethical problems and Covid certainly presents plenty of them. The questions our institutions are thinking about are among the hardest they will ever have to face. Should you need to show evidence of vaccination or immunity to be able to enter a synagogue? I know that a lot of people will say ‘yes’. But I am firmly opposed.

Some people feel that the requirement to show a vaccine passport will give us a role in enforcement. Synagogues, mosques churches and all the rest, all playing a part in creating the social climate that rolls out the work of government. There are others that fear a backdoor route to identity cards and policy creep.

Arguing from halachah, one could make the claim that no requirement for a vaccine passport is possible until the exact impact of the vaccine on transmission is known.

But I base my thinking on none of these opinions. For me, the synagogue and other Jewish communal spaces are not workplaces. They are not leisure centres or cinemas. This is not a trip to a restaurant, the theatre or the gym. Quite simply, the synagogue is a home.

It might not be a home you come to very often. But it is still home, and

it should be open to everyone. It is up to us to put in place those measures to make our homes safe. We recognise the reality of risk.

In fact, as Jews we are only too aware that entering our synagogues is not a risk-free act, hence why we are so used to looking after our own security in our communal spaces.

But for me, security risks withstanding, our doors must be open. With limited numbers, pre-booking, masks, hand sanitisers and whatever else; all playing a part in creating a safe space.

Jewish people are quite good at dealing with risk – and the risk of protecting the openness of our communal home is one I would rather take. ◆ Shulamit Ambalu is principal rabbi of Sha’arei Tsedek North London Reform Synagogue

Trustees, Jewish Museum London

Jewish Women’s Aid is the only charity in the UK working with Jewish women, and their children, affected by domestic violence.

Trustees, Jewish Museum London

We are currently looking to recruit a:

Trustees, Jewish Museum London The Jewish Museum London (JML) is seeking to appoint four new Trustees as the Chair, Nick Viner, appointed in Summer 2020, develops a diverse, inclusive and forward-looking Board, capable of addressing the challenges of the future, following a period of considerable change.

Qualified Counsellor (BACP/UKCP accredited) The Jewish Museum London (JML) is seeking to appoint four new Trustees as the Chair, Nick Viner, The Jewish Museum London plays a vital role in telling the story of Jewish life, history and culture in appointed in Summer 2020, develops a diverse, inclusive and forward-looking Board, capable of 14 hours per week (over 2 days) Britain and in challenging prejudice, provoking questions and encouraging understanding. The addressing the challenges of the future, following a period of considerable change.

Museum’s collections are made up of over 40,000 objects that cover themes such as migration, From £25,000 pro rata

The Jewish Museum London plays a vital role in telling the story of Jewish life, history and culture in refugees, personal testimony, minority communities, faith and both material and ephemeral culture.

Britain and in challenging prejudice, provoking questions and encouraging understanding. The The work of the Museum is centred around a passion for bringing these themes to life and caring for Museum’s collections are made up of over 40,000 objects that cover themes such as migration, JWA’s counselling service provides a free person-centred face-to-face and telephone / Designated Collection of culture.

Jewish ceremonial art, considered to be among the finest in the world. refugees, personal testimony, minority communities, faith anda both material and ephemeral remote counselling to women experiencing The all forms of domestic abuse. work of the Museum is centred around a passion for bringing these themes to life and caring for New Trustees will have the opportunity to be involved in shaping JML for the future against the a Designated Collection of Jewish ceremonial art, considered to be among the finest in the world.

backdrop of Covid 19, and the increasing reinvention of museums around the world. With the The post holder will be based at JWA’s head office in Barnet, work with 9-10 clients a New Trustees will have the opportunity to be involved in shaping JML for the future against the emphasis on community engagement and on the contribution that JML can make to tolerance of week and will support evaluation and monitoring of the counselling service.

You will backdrop of Covid 19, and the increasing reinvention of museums around the world. With the diverse and minority communities, JML is keen to ensure its Board members reflect what JML receive regular clinical supervision and CPD opportunities. emphasis on community engagement and on the contribution that JML can make to tolerance of represents. in the areas of legal, museums and heritage, audience diverse and minority communities, JML is keen to ensure its Board membersExpertise reflect whatparticularly JML

We are looking for a compassionate, non-judgemental and motivated individual whoof legal, museums engagement and marketing and digital is welcomed. represents.

Expertise particularly in the areas and heritage, audience engagement and marketing and digital is welcomed. is passionate about supporting abuse survivors. You will already have experience of To qualify for these Trustee roles you will need to bring to the Board your professional expertise, working with vulnerable clients, ideally with women. understanding of need to bring to the Board your professional expertise, To qualifyGood for these Trustee roles you will enthusiasm and commitment to the mission and values of JML, eager to support the institution in and commitment the mission and values of JML, eager to support the institution in domestic abuse dynamics and knowledge of theenthusiasm Jewish community istoessential.

developing its future strategy, and in realising its ambition to be an outstanding local, national and

developing its future strategy, and in realising its ambition to be an outstanding local, national and international player. international player. You do not need to be Jewish, but you do need to understand theYou role do JMLnot can need to be Jewish, but you do need to understand the role JML can playdebate. in some of the major social issues which are affecting public debate. play in some of the major social issues which are affecting public

Please go to www.jwa.org.uk to download an application pack and form, or contact Suzi, Office Manager on info@jwa.org.uk or 020 8445 8060

More information is available on www.jewishmuseum.org.uk and from Liz Amos of Liz Amos

information is available on www.jewishmuseum.org.uk and from Liz Amos of Liz Amos 3004 4702.

Closing date: 26th April Associates 9:00amon: liz.amos@lizamosassociates.com or +44 (0)20 More Associates on: liz.amos@lizamosassociates.com or +44 (0)20 3004 4702.

Interviews: 4th May CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: 4th May 2021 (close of business).

CLOSING DATE FOR APPLICATIONS: 4th May 2021 (close of business).

This post is open to women only. Permitted under Schedule 9, part 1 of the Equality Act 2010.

Registered charity number: 1047045

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15 April 2021 Jewish News

Ask our

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Professional advice from our panel / Ask Our Experts

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

This week: Independent living apartments, a diagnosis of baby deafness and signing a will during Covid times LISA WIMBORNE CHARITY EXECUTIVE

JEWISH BLIND & DISABLED

Dear Lisa I’ve lived by myself for a while but have felt even more isolated over the past year.

I’m starting to become frailer and my disabilities are getting worse. I’m considering applying to Jewish Blind and Disabled but wondered if it would help reduce how isolated I feel?

Melanie Dear Melanie I am sorry to hear that you have been feeling isolated in your current home. A move into a Jewish Blind and Disabled flat will not only provide you with an accessible new home but you will be welcomed into a warm, supportive

SUE CIPIN CHIEF EXECUTIVE

JEWISH DEAF ASSOCIATION Dear Sue My daughter has just had her first baby, Sophia – my first grandchild! The doctors have told her that Sophia is deaf. There is no deafness in our family, so I really find it difficult to believe. My daughter is refusing to talk about it all. What can I do to help?

Hilary

Dear Hilary First, mazeltov – and to baby Sophia, a big warm welcome to the world!

This is a joyful and also very difficult emotional time for all of your family.

But there is help here for you.

Our family services worker will provide a listening ear, someone who understands, with years of experience and a wealth of knowledge.

She can provide emotional and practical support right through, from this early diagnosis stage, helping to guide you and all the family through how to adjust, communicate with Sophia, to critical decisions about everything from the most suitable nurseries, to

Jewish community. In normal times, our communal lounges are hubs of activity and a place where tenants can meet and participate in a wide range of activities and classes. While this hasn’t been possible, we have established a range of measures to ensure tenants don’t feel cut off. We now have a weekly varied programme on Zoom and have helped many tenants be able to use Zoom and the internet.

All of our developments have lovely communal gardens and as the weather improves and restrictions lift, tenants are looking forward to spending time together in the gardens in a Covid safe manner.

We also have a befriending scheme where tenants are matched with volunteers who call them regularly for a chat to alleviate isolation.

Our 24/7 onsite house managers check in on tenants twice a day should they wish, to make sure everything is okay and ensure you feel supported and connected.

possible medical interventions, such as cochlear implants, to schooling.

We are here for you, now, and for as long as you like. In time, when your daughter is ready, we will be there for her too.

Every family who makes this call says it’s such a relief to be able to talk to someone who understands, who has been in the same situation, who can put them in touch with many other families who have received the same ‘bolt out of the blue’ news, and has felt similarly shocked.

We can also offer practical, positive help, instantly. Please, don’t hesitate, call Jody at JDA on 020 8446 0502 – it will help.

Flights to Israel are becoming possible again!

If you are making Aliyah or just need to ship some odds and ends, books etc. to Israel……..

Just call me!

Stephen Morris Stephen Morris Shipping Ltd 020 8832 2232 (Direct line) www.shipsms.co.uk

ISRAEL ADVERT 2 100X84.indd 1

CAROL ADDELMAN DIRECTOR OF LEGACIES

KKL EXECUTOR AND TRUSTEE COMPANY Dear Carolyn My wife and I have recently purchased our first property and would now like to write our wills.

Given that Covid-19 restrictions are easing in England, what is the procedure for preparing and signing wills?

Gideon

Dear Gideon Office closures, social distancing and self-isolation measures have made it more challenging for all those involved in will drafting and those wishing to sign wills.

Many practitioners have arranged to meet via video link to discuss client instructions based on a questionnaire sent out beforehand and followed up with correspondence including a draft will and explanatory note.

For a will to be valid, it must by witnessed by two independent witnesses present at the same time.

Currently this must be done while maintaining a twometre separation, which can prove difficult or even impossible in certain conditions.

However, temporary legisla-

11/04/2021 18:40

tion allows the signing of a will to be witnessed remotely by video link to help enable people to put a valid will in place.

This relaxation of the rules may come to an end with the further easing of lockdown in May and then towards the end of June, so it would be best to sign and have the wills witnessed in person. More and more offices will be opening with safe access for clients so if you start the process now, you are likely to be able to attend offices to execute the wills or ask a neighbour when you go into their home.

KKL has been serving the community with executorship and trustee services for over 70 years. For more information, please call 0800 358 3587 or email enquiries@kkl.org.uk

38

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 15 April 2021

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

BREAST, GROIN & HERNIA SURGEON

FINANCIAL SERVICES (FCA) COMPLIANCE JACOB BERNSTEIN Qualifications: • A member of the APCC, specialising in financial services compliance for: • Mortgage, protection and general insurance intermediaries; • Lenders, credit brokers, debt counsellors and debt managers; • Alternative Investment Fund managers; • E-Money, payment services, PISP, AISP and grant-making charities.

RICHDALE CONSULTANTS LTD 020 7781 8019 www.richdale.co.uk jacob@richdale.co.uk

EMPLOYMENT LAW AND DATA PROTECTION

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.

SIMON MARSH Qualifications: • Consultant General Surgeon with specialist interest in dealing with both breast cancer and non-cancer breast conditions.

• Surgical Director of the Gilmore Groin and Hernia Clinic experienced in hernia surgery, including “non-mesh” hernia repair and Sportsman’s Hernia.

• Local anaesthetic surgery including lipomas, cysts and skin cancers.

EMMA GROSS Qualifications: • Specialist in claims of unfair dismissal, redundancy and discrimination.

• Negotiate out-of-court settlements and handle complex tribunal cases.

• HR services including drafting contracts and policies, advising on disciplinaries, grievances and providing staff training.

• Contributor to The Times, HR Magazine and other titles.

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

108 HARLEY STREET 0207 563 1234 www.108harleystreet.co.uk info@108harleystreet.co.uk

SPENCER WEST LLP 020 7925 8080 www.spencer-west.com emma.gross@spencer-west.com

DIRECTOR OF LEGACIES

JEWELLER

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.

In close contact with clients to ensure all legal and pastoral needs are cared for.

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.

KKL EXECUTOR AND TRUSTEE COMPANY 0800 358 3587 www.kkl.org.uk enquiries@kkl.org.uk

JEWELLERY CAVE LTD 020 8446 8538 www.jewellerycave.co.uk jonathan@jewellerycave.co.uk

•

Got a question for a member of our team?

Email: editorial@jewishnews.co.uk

Design and supplying Kitchens for over 15 years

TRAVEL AGENT

COMMERCIAL LAWYER 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.

LOVATT LEGAL LIMITED 07753 802 804 adam@lovattlegal.co.uk

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

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

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

• Specialist in Israel travel, cruises and kosher holidays.

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

• Frequent travel broadcaster on radio and TV.

SUE CIPIN Qualifications: • 20 years+ hands-on experience, leading JDA in significant growth and development.

• Understanding of the impact of deafness on people, including children, at all stages.

• Extensive services for people affected by hearing loss/tinnitus.

• Technology room with expert advice on and facilities to try out the latest equipment.

Hearing aid advice, support and maintenance.

WEST END TRAVEL 020 7644 1500 www.westendtravel.co.uk David.Segel@westendtravel.co.uk

JEWISH DEAF ASSOCIATION 020 8446 0502 www.jdeaf.org.uk mail@jdeaf.org.uk

REMOVALS MANAGING DIRECTOR

PRINCIPAL, PERFORMING ARTS SCHOOL

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

• Chosen mover for four royal families and three UK prime ministers.

• Offering proven quality specialist advice for moving anyone across the world or round the corner.

LOUISE LEACH Qualifications: • Professional choreographer qualified in dance, drama and Zumba (ZIN, ISTD & LAMDA), gaining an honours degree at Birmingham University.

• Former contestant on ITV’s Popstars, reaching bootcamp with Myleene Klass, Suzanne Shaw and Kym Marsh.

• Set up Dancing with Louise 19 years ago.

STEPHEN MORRIS SHIPPING LTD 020 8832 2222 www.shipsms.co.uk stephen@shipsms.co.uk

DANCING WITH LOUISE 020 3740 7900 www.dancingwithlouise.co.uk Info@dancingwithlouise.com

15 April 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

39

Professional advice from our panel / Ask Our Experts

ACCOUNTANT

KITCHEN CONSULTANCY

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.

SHANTI PANCHANI Qualifications: • Experienced designer with 25+ years’ experience in German and English kitchens.

• We provide a full-circle approach: from designing and supplying to installing your new kitchen including appliances and speciality worktops.

• Our suppliers are flexible in design, ensuring the customer remains the priority.

• We have been supplying kosher-friendly kitchens for over 15 years.

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

THE KITCHEN CONSULTANCY 07738 067 671 www.thekitchenconsultancy.com shanti@thekitchenconsultancy.com

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

INTERNATIONAL PAYMENTS SPECIALIST

IT SPECIALIST

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

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.

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.

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.

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

MAN ON A BIKE 020 8731 6171 www.manonabike.co.uk mail@manonabike.co.uk

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

ISRAELI ACCOUNTANT

INSURANCE CONSULTANCY

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.

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

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.

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

• Offers mock interviews and workshops to maximise job prospects.

• Expert in corporate management holding director level marketing, commercial and general management roles.

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

If you would like to advertise your services here email: sales@ jewishnews.co.uk Struggling to hear the TV? Missing out on family phone chats?

Hearing just not what it used to be?

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.

LEON SMITH Qualifications: • Career spent in running one of the country’s largest care homes for older people (Nightingale Hammerson) • Extensive experience in political lobbying on matters relating to older people • Experience in housing matters related to older people and current board member of JLiving

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

SWEETTREE HOME CARE SERVICES 020 7644 9522 www.sweettree.co.uk info@sweettree.co.uk

Get the very best out of life

Jewish Deaf Association

40 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

15 April 2021

10 Golders Green Road London NW11 8LL Opposite Cafe Nero

Suits from £79.50 REOPENING SPECIAL OFFERS, CRAZY PRICES! Overcoats from £79.50

SPORTS JACKETS AND SUITS ALL ½ PRICE Trouser Bargains £25

KNITWEAR OFFERS £15 ANY 2 FOR £20 Raincoats from £49.50

SUMMER CASUAL JACKETS FROM £20 LIGHTWEIGHT CHINOS £20 EACH 2 PAIRS FOR £35 Large Sizes a RAINCOATS FROMspeciality £29.50 Open everyday & Sundays til 5:00pm

t ver d a his tie. t E ng bri a FRE e r as Ple in fo

We accept

Need cash fast?

Sell your gold and coins today!

9 ct per gram £14.65 14 ct per gram £22.86 18 ct per gram £29.31 21 ct per gram £34.19 22 ct per gram £35.79 24 ct per gram £39.07 Platinum 950 per gram £23.57 Silver 925ag per gram £0.47 Half Sovereigns £143.17 Full Sovereigns £286.34 Krugerrands £1215.24 We also purchase any sterling silver candlesticks and any other sterling silver tableware

We wish to purchase any Diamond & Gold Jewellery

Can’t choose the diamond ring you are looking for?

Come and see us in our North London showroom for the best engagement ring selection.

We can create the design of your dreams... and at a wholesale price!

We can supply any certificated GIA or HRD diamond of your choice.

Jewellery Cave Ltd, 48b Hendon Lane, London N3 1TT T: 020 8446 8538

Personal & confidential Customer Service Price Offered Instantly Same Day payment A free valuation from our in house gemmologist and gold experts on anything you may wish to sell.

If you are thinking of selling, the price of diamonds has never been higher! In any shape, size, clarity or colour.

WE PAY MORE than all our competitors.

Try us, and you will not be disappointed!

E:jonathan@jewellerycave.co.uk www.howcashforgold.co.uk

Open Monday to Friday 10am to 4pm (anytime) and Saturday 9am to 1pm (by appointment)

15 April 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

41

Fun, games and prizes

THE JEWISH NEWS CROSSWORD 1

2

3

4

5

6

Spew lava (5) Be very good (at) (5) Shoulder gesture (5) Con man (7) Sticky substance derived from certain trees (3) 20 At which time? (4) 21 Position, rank (6)

9

10

11

13

14

17

12

15

19

20

21

8 Make mistakes (3) 9 Because of (5,2) 10 Second attempt (5)

ACROSS 1 Disunion, split (6) 4 Field, domain (4)

V K E M H A R O U B P E M

F T N

I

10

T F E W U S F J U

I

I

K

T G M G Y G K D N M N L

L

D O

I

K O E Z N A C O S E N S P I

I

R G V

I

7

Y B R A E M R M J

4

E E S A U C E R C

11

A

10

INFUSE JASMINE KETTLE LEAF LEMON MILK

MUG PEPPERMINT SAUCER SPOON STEW STRAINER

Last issue’s solutions Crossword ACROSS: 1 Wavy 3 Appeal 8 Fallacy 9 Rat 10 Metropolis 13 Technology 17 Elm 18 Skittle 19 Frugal 20 Tsar DOWN: 1 Waft 2 Valve 4 Ply 5 Enrol 6 Latest 7 Patron 11 Pelvis 12 Itself 14 Cymru 15 Gates 16 Weir 18 Sea

6

SUGAR TEA BAGS TEAPOT

8 4 1 3 7 6 2 9 5

5 7 3 8 2 9 1 4 6

23

25

23

24

23

18

11

25

25

15 11

6

7

20

3 2 5 9 1 8 7 6 4

1 8 7 4 6 5 3 2 9

6 5

2 8 3 4 7 6 7 2 4

16

23

6

25

15 20

21

6

22

15

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.

5

7

9

3

21 6

15

26

12

10

9

21

21

1

21

1

5 2

8

8

3

20 6

5

2

22 22

21 11

4

9

8 21

3

1

13

23

21

20 6

5

7

11

7 2

26

20

3

5

SUGURU

19

22 20

23

4 3 9

9

15

4 14

11

3 11

15

26 9

20

6

11

9

4

2

11

3 21

6

6

7 11

9

4 22

11

11

17

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

P A

Suguru 4 6 9 7 3 2 5 1 8

4

6 8 8 9 5 2 3

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

Sudoku 6 9 2 1 5 4 8 7 3

P

22

17 25

5

15

6

25

H

23

10 25

13

J U

15

26 6

J H E R B A L

S R N E E R G N B N S X P BEVERAGE CUP DRINK GINGER GREEN HERBAL

15

15 6

D A C G P T A Q T V T

21

11

Z C

U G A U A

I

10 11

26

K L N B L R A R O R L N Q I

11

6

M R E P P E P F E

L E W E A S E

3 6

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 10, 11 and 13 with their letters in the grid will help you to guess the identity of other letters.

The words relating to tea 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.

S T E W T G S V A Y

5 7

1

CODEWORD

WORDSEARCH

X E H S U L

8

DOWN 1 Arrant, absolute (5) 2 Religious dissident (7) 3 Fable or fairy tale (5) 5 Fluffy mat (3) 6 Take on as your own (5) 7 Bitter yellowish fluid produced by the liver (4) 12 Righteous, law‑abiding (7) 13 Nudge (5) 14 Full duration (4) 15 Jack ___, nursery rhyme character who could eat no fat (5) 16 Recreations (5) 18 Function, purpose (3)

16

18

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

11 13 15 17 19

7 8

SUDOKU

7 1 4 5 9 3 6 8 2

9 5 6 2 8 1 4 3 7

2 3 8 6 4 7 9 5 1

2 3 2 4 1 3

1 4 1 3 5 2

3 2 5 2 4 1

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

H

Wordsearch 5 1 3 1 3 2

2 4 2 4 5 4

1 3 1 3 2 1

2 5 1 4 1 2

1 4 3 2 3 5

3 2 5 1 4 1

5 1 4 2 5 3

4 2 5 1 4 2

3 1 3 2 3 1

P F Y P W D S S K T I Y S

O I M W B V J E P B U T M

B U L P A Q M D C I E N O

J X G S D E U A H P V X H

B A L A N C E L S N R O W

E N I T U O R B O S N V T

Y Z D Q P T E I T T E C I

Codeword P S E K F R T A I E S R G

G Q K R P A E J G L T F C

Q C K A T I Z T I N F L S

D V O O T N U D A M I X I

W A R S D E E P S K L F I

R I N K L R S H J N S Z L

K I L L J O Y B N U N S SWAMP Y WO A B X I F R I A R P L A D G S L Z OOK E E P S I D P U T R E F Y J P E F A S E QU E L C A R S E H E B B E D V E R

A N J O F U O I NG O I T OON R E R X Z U ROR L D T K I N E A D I C T

N Y G L JWD Z I R E K X O M U B H T Q V C S A P F15/04

42

Jewish News 15 April 2021

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Business Services Directory ANTIQUES 44

The Jewish News 22 September 2016

www.jewishnews.co.uk

BUSINESS SERVICES DIRECTORY

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

House clearances Single items to complete homes 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

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

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

Full house clearances organised.

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

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

ARE YOU BEREAVED?

Stirling of Kensal Green Established over 60 years.

Know who you are dealing with.

Top prices paid

All quality furniture bought & sold.

Antique – Reproduction – Retro Furniture (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 Single items to complete Please contact Gordonhomes Stirling

020 8960 5401 or 07825 224144 CHURCH STREET ANTIQUES ‐ 8 CHURCH STREET NW8 8ED

͔͚͛͜​͚ ͚͕͘ ͛͘​͘ (ANYTIME) Email: gordonstirling65@gmail.com 0207 723 7415 (SHOP) closed Sunday & Monday

STUART SHUSTER ‐ e‐mail ‐ stuart@churchstreetantiques.net

MAKE SURE YOU CONTACT US BEFORE SELLING

WESTLON HOUSING ASSOCIATION 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

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

Sheltered Accommodation For further details and forms, We have an open waiting list for ourapplication friendly and comfortable pleasesheltered contact Westlon Housing Association onpeople warden assisted housing schemes for Jewish in Ealing, East Finchley andjohnsilverman@btconnect.com Hendon. We provide 24-hour 020 8201 8484 or email: warden support, seven days a week; a residents’ lounge and kitchen, laundry, a sunny patio and garden.

PEST CONTROL For further details and application forms, please contact Westlon Housing Association on 020 8201 8484

Charity Reg No. 802559

PLUMBSAFE (UK) LTD “Better Safe Than Sorry”

Jami supports and represents people with mental illness across Fast & Efficient House the Jewish community.

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SAFE AND DISCREET PROFESSIONAL PEST CONTROL

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15 April 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

43

Business Services Directory SILVER

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44

Jewish News 15 April 2021

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