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In towns and cities:

VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY 13 May 2021

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2 Sivan 5781

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Issue No.1210

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@JewishNewsUK

On the border:

A Torah scroll is rescued from a torched shul in Lod, where a state of emergency was declared. Inset: Palestinians riot in Jerusalem

Smoke over Gaza City after an Israeli airstrike.

Inset: The Iron Dome anti-missile system intercepts Hamas rockets over Ashkelon

Brink of war Israel fights on two fronts

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

News / Israel-Hamas: On the brink

Rockets from Gaza

by Michael Daventry mike@jewishnews.co.uk @michaeldaventry

A bewitching, terrifying light show played out above Tel Aviv on Tuesday night. Under the gaze of smartphone cameras in their thousands and residents in their millions, the flares darted, swerved and collided across the night sky.

They were portents of war, the most serious exchange of fire with Hamas in seven years, and of Kristallnacht, the word used by one mayor to describe Israel’s worst rioting this century. Unleashed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad from their bases 60 kilometres along the Mediterranean, the rockets were not exclusively fired towards Tel Aviv.

The coastal city’s young, liberalminded population did help amplify the pictures of Israel’s sophisticated Iron Dome missile defence system picking out the rockets as they hurtled through the sky.

But towns far closer to the launch sites bore the brunt of the barrage.

Over 150 rockets rained down on Ashkelon, a mere 20 minutes’ drive from the border with Gaza, in the space of five minutes. Ashdod and Sderot suffered heavily. Some travelled as far south as Dimona and as far north as the outskirts of Jerusalem. The total number of missiles launched in less than 48 hours exceeded one thousand. They killed seven Israelis. One was an IDF soldier serving close to the border. One was a six-year-old boy. The others —

including two members of an Arab family — died when rockets struck their homes or vehicles.

Israel responded from the air.

It said its strikes on targets across Gaza killed over a dozen Hamas and Islamic Jihad commanders responsible for the rocket launches. Health officials in the territory said 53 Palestinians had died in all, many children. It is the worst loss of life for both sides since the seven-week war in 2014. Yet this conflict has morphed into something different: a war being waged not just across Israel’s borders, but within.

Gaza helped propel this crisis to front pages around the world, but the underlying story of tension between Israel’s Jews and Arabs has been simmering for days, if not weeks. It bubbled to the surface last weekend in Jerusalem, amid plans by right-wing Jewish groups to stage their flag-waving march to celebrate the city’s capture in 1967.

Their annual parade through the Muslim quarter never happened. It was called off amid heavy fighting between Israeli police and Palestinian protesters in Arab-majority neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem, in the Old City, even inside the mosques on the Temple Mount.

But it was the scenes in the central city of Lod, southeast of Tel Aviv, that prompted mayor Yair Revivo to decry the sudden collapse of peaceful cross-communal coexistence into a “civil war” overnight.

Synagogues were attacked and cars set alight by protesters furious

at the death of an Arab man, allegedly at the hands of a Jewish gunman, during earlier demonstrations. Israeli flags were ripped from lampposts, some of them replaced with the Palestinian emblem.

Jewish congregants were pictured carrying Torah scrolls away for safekeeping. The scenes of destruction resembled Kristallnacht, Revivo said. Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, used even stronger language: “The sight of the pogrom in Lod and the disturbances across the country by an incited and bloodthirsty Arab mob, injuring people, damaging property and even attacking sacred Jewish spaces is unforgiveable.”

Authorities declared a state of emergency in Lod and called an overnight curfew on Wednesday.

The last time such restrictions were put in place on an Arab community in Israel was before the Six Day War. Yet before this week began, there was cautious optimism that Israel’s Jewish and Arab communities might be on the verge of history by joining each other in government.

The disparate opposition politicians who can agree only on their opposition to incumbent Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu were reported to be on the verge of a deal to exclude him from power for the first time in 12 years. It would have fused together Mansour Abbas’s United Arab List with Naftali Bennett’s right-wing Yamina, a previously unthinkable combination. But the rockets and riots put paid to that.  Editorial comment, page 16

‘Our prayers are with all who are suffering’

A joint statement issued by the Board of Deputies, the Jewish Leadership Council and the UJIA said the three organisations were “deeply concerned and saddened” at the violence and the “seemingly unremittent rocket fire against Israeli civilians by Hamas in Gaza”.

The statement, issued on Tuesday, continued: “British Jews have family, friends and colleagues in Israel, and our thoughts and prayers are with them, and with all those – both Israeli and Palestinian – who are suffering.”

It said the groups were working to support the people of Israel and the UK Jewish community, adding: “The city of Jerusalem and its holy sites are sacred to Jews, Muslims and Christians around the world.

“Time and again we have seen how tensions in the Middle East play out here in the UK, affecting community cohesion and community confidence. It is vital that all those with public platforms in the UK use language responsibly to reduce rather than inflame tensions.”

In a Yom Yerushalayim statement released before Hamas fired hundreds of rockets from

Gaza on Monday, newly-re-elected Board president Marie van der Zyl said: “We are deeply concerned by the ongoing tensions in Jerusalem. We call on all concerned to de-escalate the situation and to refrain from inflammatory actions and rhetoric. Decision-makers should act with empathy and compassion, and be guided by the simple but profound act of seeing each resident of Jerusalem as deserving of dignity. The Holy City should be no place for extremism or violence and should instead be a centre for peace and prayer. ” Earlier, the leftwing group Yachad had circulated an open letter to the Board calling for it to “speak out now against racism and violence in Jerusalem”.

The Zionist Federation accused Hamas of “hypocrisy”, saying the terror group “condemns Israel for its riot dispersal tactics at Temple Mount but launches rockets toward their holy city”. The We Believe In Israel group condemned the rocket attacks against Jerusalem are taking place now which could harm Palestinians as well as Israelis”.

A policeman reaches for his gun to protect an injured Israeli said to have crashed into a

TEST OF MORAL CLARITY

BY JEREMY HAVARDI

JOURNALIST & HISTORIAN

Right now, Israel is facing the latest in a long line of Iranian inspired Palestinian terror assaults on its civilian population.

More than 1,000 rockets have been fired from Gaza, with several Israelis murdered and many others injured. If not for the Iron Dome and the investment in safe rooms, the casualty count would doubtless be far higher.

Israel has hit back at the vast terror infrastructure inside Gaza, killing terror leaders and hitting many other targets which have been embedded in the civilian population.

This has meant, all too tragically, that some civilians in Gaza have died too.

Still, that has not stopped the usual hand wringing and false equivalence coming from western politicians who are supposed to count Israel as a strategic ally. The US State Department urged ‘de-escalation on all sides’ and welcomed the steps Israel had taken to avoid ‘provocations’, including changes to the Jerusalem Day celebrations.

Later, the White House condemned rocket attacks by Hamas and supported Israel’s ‘legitimate right to defend itself and its people,’ but then added that Jerusalem had to ‘be a place of co-existence’. Secretary of State Tony Blinken condemned Hamas’s terror while mentioning ‘provocative actions’ in Jerusalem in the same breath.

Who exactly do these leaders think they are fooling? Certainly not Hamas, which will be desperate for the West not to condemn its actions, nor Iran which expects such appeasement as the price for nuclear negotiation.

Such moral equivocation, whether from London or Washington or the EU, is a tonic to every terror group in the Middle East.

There is no excuse for failing to call out the parties that bear primary responsibility for this appalling conflagration, namely Iran and its terrorist proxies in Gaza. If western leaders cannot or will not do this, they are failing a clear test of moral clarity.

13 May 2021 Jewish News

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Israel-Hamas: On the brink / News

and civil war within

Palestinian on a pavement during stone-throwing clashes outside Jerusalem’s Old City

British Jews are targeted online There has been a rise of antisemitic incidents in the UK following the latest violence in Israel-Palestine, according to the Community Security Trust.

The body said it had seen a steadily rising number of reports of street incidents but a considerable increase in online abuse.

CST chief executive Mark Gardner told Jewish News: “This [increase] follows the pattern of previous Middle East conflicts and has the potential to get much worse, depending upon overseas events, and local incitement at demonstrations and on social media.

“We are fully monitoring this very volatile situation and urge the community to report antisemitism or suspicious behaviour to CST, but to call 999 in an emergency.”

CST had earlier this week put the community on alert urging communal organisations to follow security advice, including locking gates and reporting

A protest on Sunday in Whitehall

anyone conducting “hostile reconnaissance” near communal buildings.

The news came as Prime Minister Boris Johnson urged Israel and Palestinians to “step back from the brink”, saying the UK was deeply concerned by growing violence and civilian casualties.

Rocket attacks reached towns and cities including Ashkelon (pictured), Sderot, Lod, Tel Aviv and Jerusalem

HAMAS HAS NO EXIT STRATEGY

BY AVI ISSACHAROFF THE TIMES OF ISRAEL

On Monday, Hamas chose to embark on a foolish, arrogant misadventure. It might score some points with the Arab public but it will cost the Gaza Strip dearly. And its standing is unlikely to be boosted as the Gaza death toll mounts.

Hamas assumes the Israeli leadership will want to end this round of fighting as quickly as possible. That’s what its experience with Netanyahu governments has taught it.

The Israeli prime minister has created an almost surreal reality over the years in which the country has done no small amount to help enable Hamas to retain its rule over Gaza,

including permitting the distribution by Qatar of funding to alleviate some of the Strip’s acute poverty, while Hamas has generally avoided crossing red lines in its dealings with Israel.

But, on Monday, Hamas shattered the status quo, having determined that the benefits of doing so outweighed the costs. It reckons it will be portrayed as the defender of Jerusalem and of al-Aqsa Mosque, the restorer of lost Palestinian honour, while the rival Palestinian Authority is left looking ridiculous. But Hamas – which initiated and maintained the incitement regarding Jerusalem in

Emergency services comfort a woman in Ashkelon

recent weeks and set the city on fire – went too far.

When its absurd ‘ultimatum’ to Israel to withdraw by 6pm from Sheikh Jarrah and the Temple Mount Compound expired, it attained its desired victory pictures: the barrage of rockets it fired at Jerusalem prompted the evacuation of MKs from the Knesset plenum and halted the Jerusalem Flag March.

But Hamas does not have an exit plan. Whoever made the decision to fire those rockets appears to have failed to think this through, and it looks like a miscalculation.

A prolonged conflict with Hamas could give the Netanyahu government the oxygen it needs to torpedo the establishment up of a ‘change bloc’ coalition relying on the Arab Islamist party Ra’am.

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

News / Israel-Hamas: On the brink

PM: ‘Step back from the edge’

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

Boris Johnson has urged Israel and the Palestinians to “step back from the brink” as the conflict in the Middle East escalates. The prime minister added he was “deeply concerned” by the growing violence between Israel and Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip.

In a tweet on Wednesday Johnson wrote: “I am urging Israel and the Palestinians to step back from the brink and for both sides to show restraint. The UK is deeply concerned by the growing violence and civilian casualties, and we want to see a de-escalation of tensions.”

Responding to a question from an MP who expressed concern about the plight of the Pal-

Jeremy Corbyn at Monday’s Whitehall rally

estinians, the PM said: “I am deeply concerned by the scenes we are seeing... We all want to see urgent de-escalation by both sides. The position of this government is firmly behind his in that we continue to believe that a two-state solution is the best way forward.”

His intervention came amid alarm at the number of civilian casualties as fighting intensifies. Foreign secretary Dominic Raab said he had spoken to his Israeli counterpart and would be speaking to the prime minister of the Palestinian National Authority.

Raab tweeted earlier that he had already spoken to his Israeli counterpart to “condemn Hamas rocket attacks against civilians and urge de-escalation of violence in Israel and the OPTs [Occupied Palestinian Territories]”.

He added: “It is particularly important to end the violence as we approach Eid,” referring to the festival that marks the end of Ramadan.

Sir Keir Starmer had caused anger after he tweeted issuing a statement that condemned Israeli violence against worshippers in the alAqsa mosque but failed to acknowledge the barrage of rockets fired by Hamas into the Jewish state. The Labour leader’s tweet was made at 8.10pm on Monday, hours after news reports showed missiles fired from Gaza into Israel.

On Wednesday, Labour’s shadow foreign minister, Wayne David, attempted to clarify the party’s position in the Commons, saying Labour condemned the “indiscriminate” firing of thousands of missiles by Hamas.

Lisa Nandy, shadow foreign secretary, said: “Reports that Israeli air strikes on Gaza have killed multiple civilians, including children, are shocking. Along with the rocket attacks launched

by Hamas, we condemn all actions that endanger civilians in the strongest possible terms. Leaders on both sides must urgently seek a de-escalation

A pro-Palestinian protest in Whitehall on Tuesday, opposing Israel’s plan to move Palestinian residents of Jerusalem, with Israeli flags of counter-protesters in the foreground

of tensions. Israeli authorities must commit to ending the eviction of Palestinians from their homes and adhere to international law and Jerusalem’s sacred sites must be respected.”

Responding to an urgent question from the Liberal Democrat Layla Moran in the Commons, Foreign Office minister James Cleverley said the situation was “deeply concerning”.

“This cycle of violence must stop and every effort must be made to avoid the loss of life especially that of children,” he said, urging all sides “to refrain from any kind of provocation so that calm is restored as quickly as possible”.

Cleverley said the UK “unequivocally condemns acts of terrorism from Hamas” but Israel must ensure that its action is proportionate and in line with international law.

Moran, the Lib Dems foreign affairs spokeswoman, had read out the names of children

killed in Gaza the last week, telling the Commons: “My heart breaks for them and my heart bleeds for Palestine, for Jerusalem – the city of my family – for the worshippers attacked by extremists at the al-Aqsa mosque... and for all innocent civilians, Israeli and Palestinian.”

Former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn spoke at a Palestine Solidarity Campaign demonstration on Monday in central London, where he said the deaths in the region were “all because of the occupation of Palestine”. In his speech, he failed to condemn the actions of Hamas.

In an interview for ITV’s Calling Peston blog, Corbyn said his successor needed to be “stronger and clearer” over Israel, adding: “The question of Israel’s existence isn’t the debate – the PLO recognised Israel a very long time ago.”

Meanwhile in a protest at Chelsea Football Club an Israeli flag was set alight.

Photo feeds fake news

by Nathan Jeffay In Jerusalem

Fire raged by the al-Aqsa Mosque as Israelis danced at the Western Wall.

Captured in the same frame, the image is etched on to the minds of huge numbers of Palestinians.

Many think it confirms the claim that citizens of the Jewish state have ill will towards their holy site. It’s dynamite for the cause of Palestinian radicals, almost literally, as such an image can easily inspire violence.

In reality, it was a tree that had caught fire, not any part of the mosque, and the dancing was due to Jerusalem Day, not because of the flames.

“Yes, it’s out of context, but it goes

on social media with a banner saying the mosque was harmed, and this impacts people,” says Yoram Meital, head of the Chaim Herzog Center for Middle East Studies and Diplomacy at Ben-Gurion University.

Jerusalem Palestinians were on edge long before they saw this image, and long before the current violence.

There is anger towards both Israel and their own leadership over the fact that Palestinian elections have been cancelled. There are political grievances, and there are deep social and economic problems.

“Life is increasingly difficult, especially since the coronavirus crisis,” says Palestinian political scientist

Ghassen Khatib, a former government spokesman and currently professor at Birzeit University near Ramallah.

“Unemployment is high, dropout rates from schools are at 40 percent, and there are serious issues with housing.”

But most Israelis strongly reject his reading of how this volatile population engaged in violence. He insists it is purely reactive. Israel’s actions to stop large gatherings by the Damascus Gate for part of Ramadan, the controversy surrounding Sheikh Jarrah, and the Jerusalem Day Flag March caused a Palestinian reaction that has consisted purely of raw anger, he claimed.

“This is spontaneous,” he insisted.

“Political factions don’t actually have

strong influence among Jerusalem Palestinians, so people are not acting in response to politicians. Most of the young people in Jerusalem aren’t politically affiliated, so this is really spontaneous.”

Meital wonders how, based on

spontaneous anger alone, events became so big in just a few days. “The fact it happened in a very short span of time suggests that while the violence started as spontaneous, the politicians got to the heart of it very quickly, and it became more organised.”

FOOTBALL STARS VOICE SUPPORT FOR PALESTINIANS Liverpool star Mohamed Salah has called on Boris Johnson and other world leaders to end the “killing of innocent people” amid continued unrest between Israelis and Palestinians.

The Egyptian footballer, who also shared a picture of him standing on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, said “enough is enough” in a post on Twitter in which he mentioned the prime

minister’s official account, although he did not reveal what it was in reference to.

At least 30 people have died following weeks of tensions in Jerusalem and on the Gaza border, which has led to calls for a de-escalation on all sides from the international community.

The Liverpool forward tweeted: “I’m calling on all the world leaders including on the prime

minister of the country that has been my home for the past 4 years to do everything in their power to make sure the violence and killing of innocent people stops immediately. Enough is enough.”

Other Premier League stars, including his strike partner Sadio Mané, Manchester City players Riyad Mahrez and Benjamin Mendy

as well as Arsenal’s Mohamed ElNendy, also tweeted their support for Palestinians.

Former Arsenal midfielder Mesut Ozil was pictured wearing a ‘free Palestine’ shirt before a game for his Turkish side, Fenerbahce.

Many Israelis spent Tuesday night and Wednesday morning in bomb shelters, while casualties continued to increase in Gaza.

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13 May 2021 Jewish News

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Israel-Hamas: On the brink / News

3AM IN THE SHELTER AND MY BOY IS LEARNING FAST THE WALLS ARE RUMBLING

BY STEFAN KERNER

BY EYLON LEVY

BRITISH–ISRAELI JOURNALIST

It’s a strange feeling knowing someone is trying to kill you.

But on Tuesday night, huddled in my apartment block’s bomb shelter at 3am, as Hamas unleashed a barrage of rockets at the greater Tel Aviv area in an attempt to overwhelm our Iron Dome defence system – that’s what was happening.

In Tel Aviv, we have 90 seconds to reach shelter when the Red Alert siren goes off. That’s an eternity in Israeli terms.

But still, you find yourself doing the sort of survival planning you never banked on.

Install the Home Front Command app, keep your phone on full volume. Sleep in a t-shirt and shorts, despite the hot weather. Keep the bedroom door open, light on in the hall, and keys next to the door. So when the siren wails at 3am, you’re downstairs in 20 seconds.

Then when you go out in

the morning to run an errand, you have to think: if the siren catches me outside, where

Ten minutes after the siren, it’s safe to go home. But minutes later, another siren, and we’re back. News comes in: a rocket strike on an apartment block a kilometre away. Mercifully, no one is killed.

The hardest thing has been

BRITISH OLEH

We were expecting the rockets and prepared for it. Who would get which child and what we needed in the safe room when the sirens sounded. But when it came, nothing could describe the feeling. For the first time I felt genuine fear for my children’s safety.

Luckily, my youngest two fell asleep quickly but my five-

year-old was wide awake and aware that something was amiss. Why had we all rushed to the spare room and what were those bangs outside, he asked.

Life in north-west London doesn’t prepare you for that.

We explained that we were being well protected by Israel’s army and that we were in the room to be extra safe. Putting

on a brave face and maintaining a smile helped relax him and soon he too was asleep. After a while my wife and I returned to our room, leaving the children to sleep in the safe room.

A few hours later, the sirens went off again and we got up to go to the kids but found our boy had earlier climbed into our bed. This time he awoke on his own and started walking to the safe room, at the same time telling us to keep quiet so as not to wake up his siblings.

SIRENS STOPPED BEDTIME

BY LAURA PATER

FREELANCE WRITER IN ISRAEL The communal shelter where Eylon Levy spent the night

do I hide? Maybe just lie on the floor, hands protecting my head, keeping a safe distance from any cars that might explode from a rocket strike.

As I sit with my neighbours in the communal shelter, the walls rumble with every Iron Dome interception in the sky.

We are ready to welcome you to our homes.

seeing far-left groups in the Diaspora protesting on behalf of the Palestinians while we’re cowering for our lives, and our young men and women are risking theirs to eliminate this threat. If you, our friends and family in the Diaspora, don’t have our backs, who will?

There is a film scene when Lois Lane tumbles out of a building and is caught by Superman.

“I’ve got you,” he swoons.

Clinging on to her mid-air hero a still terrified Lois replies; “But who’s got you?”

That interaction sums up the way I feel as a British-born olah trying to parent my sabra kids, never more so than last

night, when sirens interrupted their bedtime routine.

“It’s ok,” my husband and I told them as they automatically assumed the brace position they are taught at school.

Meanwhile my teenage son was cycling to a Bnei Akiva meeting. Sensing my concern, he told me they would hold it in the miklat,the safe room.

Back home in the stairwell, our phones buzzing with concerned messages, I thought back to when I viewed our house in suburban, safe Raanana, nearly 14 years ago. The miklat had been knocked out to create a bigger kitchen. My husband had reasoned at the time: “If there are ever bombs falling on central Israel, you’ll be busy shopping in Fenwicks.”

I believe that Hashem has ‘got us’. I pray He turns his face to us and gives us peace.

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

News / Election results

Communal candidates fare well in local elections

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

Jewish candidates standing for all major parties claimed some success at last week’s local council, mayoral and London Assembly elections.

There were undoubtably strong performances by many candidates representing Boris Johnson’s party in areas known to have sizeable Jewish communities. But there were also clear signs of less outright anger at the state of the Labour Party now Jeremy Corbyn has been replaced as leader.

Meanwhile, the Lib Dems made some significant gains and a Jewish Green candidate secured a place on the London Assembly.

In line with the national UK story – in which Boris Johnson’s Conservative Party dominate headlines after taking the so-called Red Wall seat of Hartlepool from Labour while also gaining 13 councils and hundreds of councillors – the continued strong support for the Tories within the community was very apparent.

In areas of Leeds in the north-east, in Salford, Greater Manchester – with sizeable Jewish populations and candidates from the

Clockwise: Keir Starmer and his wife cast their vote, Nathan Boroda and Nick Mearing-Smith

community – and across Essex councils such as Chigwell and Havering and Redbridge, the Tory vote quite often increased.

An otherwise excellent campaign in the London Assembly contest in the Havering and Redbridge seat by Labour’s Jewish candidate Judith Garfield illustrated her party’s struggle to win back Essex voters. Tory candidate Keith Prince romped home with an eight percent rise.

Strong support for former Ilford Tory MP Lee Scott also ensured he has made a return to politics on Essex County Council. He won the Chigwell and Loughton Broadway ward with 63 percent of the vote.

Scott, who received antisemitic death threats while in Westminster, told Jewish News he was “honoured and delighted to be back in the front line of politics”.

A council by-election in Edgware, north-west London, held after the death of the late Conservative representative Brian Gordon, also illustrated the continued strength of the Tory vote in some areas of Barnet.

Tory candidate Nick Mearing-Smith gained nearly 63 percent of the vote as his party unsurprisingly held the Edgware seat.

In the Stamford Hill West seat, Hershy Lisser was easily elected as the Tory candidate. But there was controversy at the count when councillor Simche Steinberger attempted to accept the vote on Lisser’s behalf, and the returning officer blocked him from speaking from the dais as he was neither a candidate nor an agent.

In nearby Woodberry Down, where Labour won easily, Conservative candidate Ari Feferkorn was pipped to the second place post by just five votes by the Greens.

But it was not all one-way traffic for the Conservatives. Not since 2001 have the Tories lost as many as three of the seven seats on Hertsmere County Council, but as election results were made public on Saturday, it emerged Labour had picked up two seats, with the Lib Dems securing a notable victory in Bushey North.

Laurence Brass, a former Board of Deputies treasurer, was the Lib Dem hero in Bushey North after securing a 21 percent rise in party support to topple the Tory candidate Jane West.

The former judge, and the first Lib Dem to win a County seat in Bushey for 16 years, later

said: “There are some very significant local issues in Bushey and I know the large Jewish community who supported me in this election will expect me to represent their views, which I will certainly attempt to do.”

Hertsmere Borough council leader Morris Bright was among four from his party to maintain the Tory majority at county level after retaining his seat at Potters Bar West & Shenley.

The Lib Dems took St Albans North, with the Labour candidate and former Jewish Leadership Council Jeremy Newmark trailing in third place.

For Labour – rocked by criticism of Keir Starmer’s leadership – there were several signs of optimism.

In the Barnet and Camden constituency – home to 65,000 Jews – it was Labour candidate Anne Clarke who was elected onto the London Assembly with an impressive 13,000 majority over her Tory rival.

She had been backed by Jewish Labour Movement activists during her campaign and had made her opposition to former leader Corbyn clear while a local councillor.

Figures for the London mayoral vote confirmed Barnet and Camden had narrowly backed Sadiq Khan over Shaun Bailey.

Meanwhile, in the by-election in the Borehamwood Kenilworth seat – with Labour, Conservative and Lib Dem candidates all Jewish – it was the representative of Starmer’s party who would triumph in a seat with a large Jewish vote.

Dan Ozarow won his seat on Hertsmere Borough Council after beating Rabbi David Neifeld, the Tory candidate who represents United Synagogue on the Board of Deputies and is a rabbinic coordinator at the Kosher London Beth Din. Meanwhile, Zack Polanski of the Green Party was elected onto the London Assembly.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

13 May 2021 Jewish News

7

Election results / News

Khan thanks Jewish community

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

Labour’s re-elected London Mayor Sadiq Khan has thanked “supporters in the Jewish community” after winning a second term after beating Conservative rival Shaun Bailey.

Khan, 51, who became the first Muslim mayor of a European capital city when he was elected five years ago, failed to match his record-

breaking 2016 poll vote this time. Bailey performed better than expected in an election campaign dominated by the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic. Vote totals for the mayoral contest across the capital showed Khan gained 1,013,721 votes, while Bailey had 893, 051.

Khan told Jewish News: “I want to pay tribute to the many Jewish Londoners who are part of my team. I am proud that so many in the community continued to support me.

“The contribution of Jewish Londoners is one of the reasons we are one of the greatest cities in the world.”

Khan had been seen as the favourite, but failed to win more than 50 percent of first-round votes as Bailey increased the Tory vote share by 1.6 percent. The final result, including second preferences, saw Khan secure 55.2 percent while Bailey gained 44.8.

A breakdown of the mayoral vote in London’s individual constituencies showed

Mayor Sadiq Khan and Shaun Bailey toured Jewish areas of London ahead of election day

Khan narrowly beat Bailey in Barnet and Camden, with the mayor securing 67, 610 and the Conservative getting 65,822

votes. In neighbouring Brent and Harrow, Bailey secured a surprise victory over Khan on first preference voted.

The Green Party’s Sian Berry came third, while the Liberal Democrats’ Luisa Porritt was fourth.

‘Jew-Boy’ candidate wins Anti-vaxx candidate wears star A Conservative by-election candidate revealed to have shared a social media post in which he used the slur “JewBoy” triumphed in the Hillingdon by-election.

As the result of the Charville ward by-election was declared, it emerged that Darran Davies, the Tory candidate received 2,098 votes, while Labour’s Steve Garelick won 1,799 votes.

Jewish News revealed last month how Davies shared a post that featured an image of a male associate along with the words: “Wanted Jew Boy Reward $100.”

The Tory Party confirmed it had launched an investigation into the matter as Davies expressed “deep regret” for his actions and lack of judgement ahead of the 6 May byelection.

Davies directed the post towards a friend Richard Stevens, who had not been seen in the local pub for sometime.

Stevens’ Facebook page is littered with extreme postings against Muslims, including a threat to commit violence against people of Somalian heritage.

The election took place following the death of a local Conservative councillor.

A candidate standing for an anti-vaccination party in Scotland who arrived at an election count in Glasgow with a yellow star pinned to his jacket has denied making a Nazi salute along with another colleague.

Derek Jackson (pictured), standing for the Liberal Party, turned up outside the count on Friday with two followers wearing black suits, white shirts and black ties.

They all had a yellow star pinned to their

jacket fronts with “UNVAX” written on it. Jackson and another person posed for photographs with their right arms outstretched outside Glasgow’s Emirates Arena.

He was quizzed by reporters about his apparent Nazi salute but instead claimed it was a “love salute”.

Asked if the yellow stars on their jackets were related to the Nazi Holocaust, Jackson said they were protesting about Covid vaccinations.

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

News / Board election / Council win / JWA appeal

President re-elected after tight Board vote

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Marie van der Zyl has been re-elected as president of the Board of Deputies after defeating Jonathan Neumann in the Triennial President elections, writes Lee Harpin.

In a result that was far closer than many expected, van der Zyl received 161 votes from Deputies, while Neumann gained 125. The turnout for the presidential election was 95.98 percent, with 286 votes cast.

Speaking to Jewish News after her close-fought victory, the Board’s newly-elected president said: “It is time to move on – and to move on with unity as well.

“People need to come together – it’s been a very difficult, tense, political election and we all need to remember we are working for the benefit of the community.”

Van der Zyl said she recognised that the size of her majority in the election shows there was “polarised opinion” with the community.

She added: “It is my job as president to bring about harmonisation. We will have to work very hard together to rebuild trust and working relationships throughout the entire organisation.

“Polarisation is a worry; these results are political and they do show an increasingly polarisation in the community.”

Marie van der Zyl and, inset, Jonathan Neumann

Thanking deputies for electing her for a second term, she said: “I do not take your support for granted, after all you had a democratic choice.

“I have listened carefully to what you have had to say and we will look at improving plenaries and increasing deputy involvement.”

She said she would be “looking to restore collegiality which, at times, has been missing after the last few months.”

Neumann told Jewish News: “While there’s disappointment that we fell short, I’m delighted to have received more votes than any unsuccessful presidential candidate in the Board’s history. The narrowness of the margin shows there is a strong appetite for change.

“I’m proud of the positive, issues-based campaign we fought, and for the support

we received beyond the Board from swathes of ordinary Jews who do not feel represented by their leadership.

“The Board has many challenges ahead, and I wish the new team of honorary officers hatzlacha rabbah (good luck) in meeting them.”

Gary Mond, David Mendoza-Wolfson and Amanda Bowman were elected as vice presidents of the Board of Deputies.

Mond topped the poll and will be senior vice president.

Ben Crowne was elected as treasurer unopposed.

Interim chief executive Michael Wegier said: “I would like to thank all of the 286 deputies who voted in these elections, which is a testament to the vibrant democracy in our community.

“I would also like to express my gratitude to everyone who took part and who made the elections possible under trying circumstances.”

Mason wins

JWA £200K BID

The Jewish Labour Movement’s national secretary has been elected the new leader of Ealing Council.

Peter Mason has served as Ealing’s Cabinet Member for Housing, Planning and Transformation and will take up the post at the annual general meeting next Tuesday.

Mason, who represents Southall Green in Southall and Ealing, said: “I am determined to demonstrate to the residents of our borough that Labour is on their side.

“Under my leadership, Ealing will be an open, inclusive and transparent council that engages and involves residents in tackling the big challenges we face.”

Mason is a trained town planner, holding an MSc in urban regeneration from the Bartlett School of Planning.

He has been backed by the majority Labour Group to improve performance for the party, which saw its lead fall by four percentage points in the recent GLA election as the Tories, the Lib Dems and the Greens all made ground.

Jewish Women’s Aid has launched a £200,000 fundraising drive to expand the charity’s consent education programme in the wake of sexual abuse allegations of girls and young women by their peers.

Since March, the charity has reached out to all mainstream Jewish schools and youth movements and is working with Partnerships for Jewish Schools, UJS and Reshet to help “shape a culture of consent and respect” following anonymous posts detailing rape, abuse and harassment on victim support website, Everyone’s Invited.

CEO Naomi Dickson said: “What we’re hearing is that some girls feel scared, unheard and preyed upon, and boys feel accused and unsure how to respond.

“We have the experience and expertise at Jewish Women’s Aid to provide them with what they need: the tools to shape a culture of consent and respect, where sexual harassment has no place. But we can’t do that without additional funding, which is why we’ve taken the decision to call on the community for their support.”

www.jewishnews.co.uk

13 May 2021 Jewish News

9

Boycott legislation / Guardian criticised / News

BDS targeted in Queen’s Speech Boris Johnson’s government has unveiled a new legislative programme that includes measures to stop publicly funded bodies backing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel, writes Lee Harpin.

A Bill announced during the Queen’s Speech to the House of Lords on Tuesday was aimed at stopping public bodies “imposing their own approach or views about international relations” by “preventing boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against foreign countries”.

Councils will be banned from “taking a different approach” to the

national government on sanctions or boycotts – including the BDS movement against Israel.

The government said legislation was required to address concerns that “such boycotts may legitimise antisemitism”.

The move would ensure a “coherent approach to foreign relations” and that “public bodies were not pursuing their own foreign policy agenda with public money.”

A government briefing note added: “This will be in the form of preventing public institutions carrying out independent boycotts, divestments and sanctions against: foreign countries, or

NEWS IN BRIEF

SOLIDARITY LETTER Fourteen rabbis sent a letter of solidarity to Ilford Islamic Centre after Muslims were pelted with eggs while attending prayers.

Local politicians condemned the incident as an “act of hatred and violence” that has “no place” in the community. Police have launched an investigation.

The government said legislation was required to address concerns

those linked to them; the sale of goods and services from foreign countries; UK firms which trade with such countries, where such an approach is not in line with UK government sanctions.

“The measures will cover purchasing, procurement and investment decisions which undermine cohesion and integration.”

The prime minister had made a similar commitment to counter BDS in the December 2019 Queen’s Speech.

There have also been successful challenges made in the Supreme Court on attempts to prevent local government pension funds from taking divestment decisions that are not in line with national policy.

Guardian regrets backing Balfour The Guardian newspaper has been criticised for listing its 1917 support for Zionism as among its worst errors of judgements in its 200-year history, writes Joshua Salisbury.

The left-leaning daily marked its 200th birthday last week, and among the articles marking the occasion was one called ‘What we got wrong: The Guardian’s worst errors

of judgment over 200 years’. The piece, by chief leader writer Randeep Ramesh, surveyed the paper’s historic editorials

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deemed to be mistakes, including an editorial from editor CP Scott in favour of Zionism in 1917. “The Guardian of 1917 supported, celebrated and could even be said to have helped facilitate the Balfour declaration,” stated the piece. “Israel today is not the country The Guardian foresaw or would have wanted.” The Board of Deputies said it was a “breathtakingly ill-considered” statement.

CLIMATE PROMISE The Board of Deputies has backed a motion that declares a global climate crisis, pledging to take action to cut carbon emissions. It commits the board to play its part to “achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050”. It also encourages education initiatives to spread awareness of the climate emergency.

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

News / Dooley documentary / University criticism / Davies mourned

‘I have to ask questions and sit with them after’

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

Television presenter Stacey Dooley has been filmed spending 72 hours living at the home of the senior rabbi of Woodford Forest United Synagogue for a forthcoming episode of her documentary series.

Attempting to show the lifestyle led by an Orthodox Jewish family for her Stacey Dooley Sleeps Over series, the presenter is filmed residing with Rabbi Mordechai Wollenberg, his wife Blima and their nine children at their Essex home.

“The access felt quite privileged,” Dooley explained. “I don’t think it’s typical for an Orthodox Jewish family to allow cameras into their home. That felt like a real treat in itself, but I love how relatable and how warm and honest the family were about who they are and about how important religion is to them.”

During the episode, the couple discuss their commitment to

BRISTOL UNI ‘NOT SAFE’ Politicians this week wrote to the University of Bristol accusing it of not taking necessary action against antiJewish racism after a controversial professor was admitted back to campus.

Professor David Miller, a sociology lecturer, is under investigation by bosses at the top university after labelling its Jewish Society “pawns of Israel” and calling for an end to Zionism.

Despite the ongoing probe and widespread outcry, Miller is reportedly back on campus, prompting calls from MPs for him to be suspended.

In a letter to the university on Monday, the All-Party Parliamentary Group against Antisemitism told

Bristol’s vice-chancellor it was “inconceivable” if Miller was not suspended during the investigation. “Jewish students on your campus have made clear their feelings about the environment fostered by his remarks,” it states.

“While higher education institutions are rightly independent, you are demonstrating through your inaction and poor decisions that Bristol should not be considered a safe space.

“You are not acting in a consistent manner, in relation to how you have dealt with previous cases, and Jewish students will rightly be concerned about the ability of Bristol University to ensure their welfare.”

LDFI vice-chair mourned Stacey Dooley was filmed living with Rabbi Mordechai Wollenberg

the Chabad movement, the laws around kashrut and the reasons for having a large family.

Dooley said the aim of the series was to gain insight into the “grey” areas of life around issues such as religion and parenting.

She said: “Typically, when you’re making a documentary, you understand the main objective of the interview is that you have to hold people to account and make sure

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you put everything to them, even if it is a bit uncomfortable. But then you leave, and you go back to the hotel room and they go back to their homes.

“In this situation, I have to ask the questions, but I also have to sit down and have dinner with them an hour later. And I have to ask them how to use their shower. So there’s no denying that it sometimes feels very awkward. But that’s my job.”

The vice-chair of Liberal Democrats Friends of Israel (LDFI) and a long-standing representative on the Board of Deputies has died following a year-long illness.

Jonathan Davies (pictured), a former Barnet councillor in Childs Hill who stood for Parliament in Finchley and Golders Green on three occasions, died on 4 May. The Oxford graduate who worked as a financial services head at a city law firm was 59.

A tribute by LDFI published on the

Liberal Democrat Voice website said: “As well as being a Liberal to his core, Jonathan was incredibly proud of his Judaism and as a devout Zionist his love for Israel.

“He was a longstanding deputy on the Board of Deputies of British Jews and his contribution to the Liberal Democrat Friends of Israel and his local Jewish community is immeasurable.

“Jonathan was the organiserin-chief. He made sure LDFI ran like clockwork.”

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

News / Libel hearing / Terror charge / Suspended Tory

Riley ‘feared for job’

By Brian Farmer

Rachel Riley on her way into court this week S É JOUR

P

Countdown presenter Rachel Riley has told a High Court judge that she worried about the security of her job after an aide to then-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn described her as “dangerous” and “stupid” in a tweet.

Riley, a maths expert on the Channel 4 show, told Mr Justice Nicklin that Laura Murray’s tweet in March 2019 “incited” hate and caused people to try to get her sacked.

She told a High Court trial that her agent had arranged a meeting with a programming head at Channel 4, and she had to explain that Murray had “misrepresented” what she had written in an earlier tweet.

Riley, 35, who is suing Murray for libel, said the tweet caused “serious harm” to her reputation.

Murray says in her defence that what she tweeted was true, and reflected her honestly held opinions.

Mr Justice Nicklin is overseeing a trial at the High Court in London, which began on Monday and was due to end yesterday.

Riley, who studied mathematics at Oxford University, told the judge that she was Jewish and had a

“hatred of antisemitism”. She said she thought the Corbyn-led Labour Party was “fostering antisemitism”.

Murray posted her tweet on 3 March 2019 after an egg was thrown at Corbyn by a Brexit supporter when he was visiting Finsbury Park Mosque in north London.

She was responding to a tweet posted by Riley, the judge heard.

Riley had initially posted a screenshot of a January 2019 tweet

by Guardian columnist Owen Jones, about an attack on former British National Party leader Nick Griffin, which said: “I think sound life advice is, if you don’t want eggs thrown at you, don’t be a Nazi.”

She had added “Good advice”, with emojis of a red rose and an egg.

Later, Murray tweeted: “Today Jeremy Corbyn went to his local mosque for Visit My Mosque Day, and was attacked by a Brexiteer.

Rachel Riley tweets that Corbyn deserves to be violently attacked because he is a Nazi. This woman is as dangerous as she is stupid. Nobody should engage with her. Ever.”

Mr Justice Nicklin ruled at an earlier hearing that Murray’s tweet was defamatory.

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The judge concluded the tweet meant that: Riley had “publicly stated” Corbyn had been attacked when visiting a mosque; that he “deserved to be violently attacked”; by doing so, she had shown herself to be a “dangerous and stupid person” who “risked inciting unlawful violence”; and that people should not “engage with her”.

He has now been asked to consider whether it seriously harmed Riley’s reputation, and whether Murray had a defence of truth, honest opinion or public interest.

Riley said she was being sarcastic in her tweet and had not called Corbyn a Nazi. She said the response to Murray’s “libel of me” was a “concerted attack”.

The TV presenter said a campaign had been initiated to “get me”. Riley, who said she had a freelance contract, went on: “Channel 4 accepted my explanation, but this experience still made me feel vulnerable and worried about the security of my job.” She said her job depended on maintaining popularity with the audience and told the judge her reputation was her “brand”. The trial concluded on Wednesday.

NEWS IN BRIEF

UNITED SYNAGOGUE SURVEYS MEMBERS The United Synagogue is surveying its almost 40,000 members about returning to shul and the future of engagement online and offline – as lockdown restrictions ease.

Almost 3,000 have already filled out confidential forms, giving their views about everything from how congregations handled the pandemic’s many challenges to moving activities online, as well as what post-virus communities may look like. The survey launched on Monday, ahead of the easing of national restrictions on 17 May.

SHOAH SURVIVOR DIES, AGED 101 Holocaust survivor Faye Schulman, who lost most of her family to the Nazis and joined a group of partisan fighters and documented their work in photographs, has died aged 101. Schulman was born in Lenin, Poland, a town that bordered the Soviet Union. Her family was killed in 1942 when the Nazis liquidated the ghetto there. She joined the partisans after escaping to the forests and became a nurse, developing her photographs by night. She was liberated by Soviet troops in 1944.

‘Shoah denier student encouraged terrorism’ A university student allegedly wrote “we did not finish the job” in regard to the Holocaust on an extreme right-wing website, a court has heard.

Andrew Dymock, 23, wrote articles on the now-banned group System Resistance Network’s (SRN) website and received donations for the organisation, the Old Bailey was told.

Dymock, from Bath, is on trial on 15 charges, including 12 that are terror-related, all of which he denies. Prosecutor Jocelyn Ledward said he published an article on the SRN website in October 2017 while studying politics at Aberystwyth University in Wales that “constituted encouragement to commit acts of terrorism”.

In The Truth About The Holocaust, Dymock allegedly wrote: “The only guilt felt by the

Andrew Dymock arrives at the Old Bailey

Germanic race in regard to the Holocaust should be that we did not finish the job” and described Jews as “a cancer on this earth”, the jury heard.

The trial continues.

TORY WITHDRAWS FROM ROLE A Conservative councillor suspended and later reinstated over social media posts about the Holocaust has withdrawn his bid to be made leader of the party in Aberdeen, writes Lee Harpin.

Ryan Houghton was chosen by colleagues to lead the group at a meeting on Sunday, but objections had been raised as he had previously made controversial comments.

In the run-up to the 2019

general election he was suspended as candidate for Aberdeen North after a series of extreme social media posts were uncovered by newspapers in Scotland.

The suspension was lifted last June after he apologised for any hurt caused but insisted the comments were taken out of context.

Houghton had been suspended by the Tories over posts on a martial arts forum in which he suggested some

events around the Nazi regime’s persecution and murder of six million Jews had been “fabricated”. He also praised as “interesting” research by Adolf Hitler apologist David Irving.

Lib Dem group leader Ian Yuill told the Aberdeen Evening Express: “We will not be supporting Mr Houghton’s nomination as co-leader as we believe he still has questions to answer over his comments from several years ago.”

www.jewishnews.co.uk

13 May 2021 Jewish News

13

Elderly care / Sugar bereaved / Kiddish returns / News

Nightingale opens new £38m home

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

A £38million Jewish care home in Hampstead with 116 bedrooms opened this week.

Nightingale Hammerson’s new Hammerson House will welcome residents after three years of redevelopment at the site.

Combined with its sister site, Nightingale House in south London, the care homes will cater for around 250 residents – an estimated 30 percent of care beds needed for London’s Jewish community.

“The care of our older generation has never been closer to people’s hearts and many now recognise the importance this sector holds in our society,” said Nightingale Hammerson chairman Melvin Lawson.

But he warned: “It has also highlighted the significant gaps and shortfall in funding. We have found a way that can work for our two care homes, but we do require significant backing from our donors and supporters to top up the deficit in the cost of the care we provide.”

He added that government needed to make social care a “priority”.

The organisation promises “a vibrant programme of activities” at its site after the £38m redevelopment, with a “particular focus on providing cognitive stimulation through group sessions”.

It consists of four floors, encompassing six ‘households’, each specialising in different care provisions and each with its own living room, activities kitchen, dining room, winter terrace and ‘multi-sensory’ room.

Harvey Rosenblatt, president of the organisation, said he was grateful to donors for helping to achieve the redevelopment.

Hammeron House in Hampstead provides specialist care for older people

Lord Sugar says Kaddish KIDDUSH IS COMING BACK Lord Sugar has told how he recited Kaddish for his two siblings who died from Covid within weeks of each other.

Derek and Shirley, siblings of the businessman (pictured) died shortly after Christmas.

However, because the entrepreneur had flown to Australia to film a local version of The Apprentice, he was unable to attend their funerals in person owing to coronavirus rules.

“These experiences have been shared by so

many across the country in the past 15 months, of all backgrounds and all ages,” he wrote in the Daily Mail.

“Fame, fortune and status have been no barrier to this terrible virus or to the many tens of thousands of lives it has claimed.”

Sugar donated a six-figure sum to a campaign for Covid victims, writing that a location near St Paul’s Cathedral would be fitting because “while I may be of Jewish heritage, I believe remembrance has no barriers”.

“This means that the Kiddush is returning to United Synagogue shuls following United Synagogue can proceed Boris Johnson’s latest lock- as planned with our roadmap, permitting kiddush and other down announcement.

From Monday shuls will communal meals to restart inibegin to hold communal meals tially outdoors,” said Jo Grose, outdoors and more weddings communities director.

“We look forward to are likely after the limit was bringing back more programextended from 15 to 30 guests.

The easing of lockdown will ming and services for children also mean that groups of up to and young families as well as six people can meet indoors social activities and support for senior members.” for hospitality next week. groups Shavuotfrom commemorates receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. The soul of every Jew over all of time was present at Sinai.

Shavuot commemorates receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. The soul of every Jew over all of time was present at Sinai.

While rabbinic families may be able to host up to six people indoors, the United Synagogue’s guidance is that hospitality should take place outdoors where possible.

Guidance has been sent to shuls about serving Kiddush outside. If people are seated at tables, the Kiddush should be prepared beforehand with no shared items. Tables should have no more than six people.

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

News / IWM exhibit / School improvements

Shoah gallery set for autumn launch Part of a concentration camp barracks will go on display for the first time in the UK as part of the Imperial War Museum’s new Holocaust Gallery, writes Joshua Salisbury.

The artefact is likely to be the

last remaining part of Velten, a sub-camp of Ravensbrück and Sachsenhausen, which housed Jewish, Roma and Sinti women and political prisoners of various nationalities.

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alongside the Holocaust Gallery will be a Second World War Gallery, making the Imperial War Museum the first in the world to have dedicated spaces to the two subjects under the same roof.

The gallieries are due to open on 20 October 2021, after nearly seven years in the making.

Among the major donors to the galleries are Chelsea’s owner, Roman Abramovich, who held a fundraising dinner for the project at the club in partnership with Jewish News.

As well as the barracks, the gallery will showcase more than 2,000 photos, books, artworks and letters to tell

the story of the Shoah and the lives of its victims and survivors, and its connecting history with the war.

Lauren Willmott, senior curator on the Holocaust Gallery, told Jewish News that she hopes it will shed light on the extent of the camp system.

“Between 1933 and 1945, there were 44,000 camps established across Nazi Europe. Sometimes there was one prisoner for every five local inhabitants, so it hits home how visible the camp

The museum’s Holocaust Gallery (above) features portraits of survivors commissioned for Jewish News (inset)

system was. The idea no one knew what was happening just isn’t true.” The gallery will use the latest research, including archive material only available since the end of the Cold War.

Before the opening, the museum will embark on a £250,000 fundraising drive, which will go towards the conservation of the barracks and installation work.

Ofsted praises lettings overhaul

The Charedi school raided by police when it was used for an illegal lockdown wedding is now acting to improve its premises rental system, according to a report.

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of lockdown rules. The school said at the time that it was “absolutely horrified” by the event, which took place when its hall was leased by an external organisation.

Now Ofsted has found that the school’s governors are taking action to improve oversight of the school’s lettings.

“More robust systems and procedures

are now in place to ensure governors have direct responsibility for letting out the premises,” the inspection in April found.

“Governors recognise there is more work to do to ensure strong oversight.”

Ofsted noted that there had been positive changes to governance at Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls’ School.

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www.jewishnews.co.uk

Coronavirus news / News

Vaccines ‘deliver 97% protection’ Vaccines are 96.7 percent effective at protecting Israelis against Covid-related death, and 97.5 percent effective against serious illness, new research has shown.

The study, full of statistics on the vaccine that will generate hope worldwide, was published in leading peer-reviewed medical journal The Lancet.

“In Israel, we can see the reality of what vaccines do all around us, but this research is important in quantifying it and documenting it for others around the world to see, and understand the full benefits of vaccines,” Bar Ilan University epidemiologist professor Michael Edelstein told The Times of Israel.

The analysis was conducted by Dr Sharon Alroy-Preis, head of public health services at Israel’s Health Ministry, with international collaborators. It found that full vaccination, involving two Pfizer doses, is 95.3 percent effective in preventing infection. Pfizer’s clinical trials suggested this rate, but doctors were unsure whether it would be so closely replicated in the real world.

It is 97 percent effective in preventing symptomatic illness and 91.5 percent in protecting against asymptomatic infection.

The researchers found that vaccines are 97.2 percent effective against Covid-19-related hospitalisation. They stressed that vaccine benefits are felt across all ages, writing: “In all age groups, as vaccine coverage increased, the incidence of SARS-CoV-2 outcomes declined.”

Using the full name for Pfizer’s vaccine,

The vaccine offers ‘exceptional performance’

they stated: “Two doses of BNT162b2 are highly effective across all age groups in preventing symptomatic and asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infections and Covid-19-related hospitalisations, severe disease and death, including those caused by the [British] variant.

“There were marked and sustained declines in SARS-CoV-2 incidence corresponding to increasing vaccine coverage.

These findings suggest Covid-19 vaccination can help to control the pandemic.”

Prof Jonathan Gershoni, a vaccines expert from Tel Aviv University who was not involved in the study, told The Times of Israel: “Once again, the scientific community has critically evaluated the effectiveness of the Pfizer vaccine in Israel, and have confirmed its exceptional performance.

“It doesn’t only reduce the infection rate but, over several months, also significantly decreases the death rate.”

‘VITAL TO SUPPORT OTHERS’ Philanthropist and businessman Sir Lloyd Dorfman has explained the decision to turn an interfaith online memorial he funded for victims of Covid-19 at St Paul’s Cathedral into a permanent physical project, writes Lee Harpin.

Speaking to the JN Podcast, he said the “next step” for a memorial inside the cathedral was “particularly appropriate” because of the building’s “historic role as the nation’s remembrance centre for great events and great tragedies”.

Sir Lloyd CBE (pictured) said his involvement stemmed from his initial role helping Westminster Abbey with a new building project in which six of the 30 doners were from Jewish families.

He had been walking through the abbey with another “dis-

tinguished” donor when they discussed the importance of giving back to a country that had once welcomed the community onto its shores and allowed them to flourish.

With the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, an initial online Remember Me memorial project with St Paul’s – allowing the public to register for free the details of loved ones lost to the virus – was funded by the Dorfman Foundation.

Speaking about the importance of looking after the Jewish community, Dorfan added: “I think it is important we also play a role in supporting the wider community.

The Jewish community in this country punches way above its weight in the many projects we support... [It] was really important for our country – for those who had lost loved ones that this was done.”

Link between weight and Covid People with a higher body mass index (BMI) are more likely to test positive for the virus that causes Covid-19, new Israeli research suggests.

The study by the Chaim Sheba Medical Centre found patients classed as overweight – with a BMI of 25 to 29.9 – were 22 percent more likely to contract the virus than someone of “normal” weight

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with a BMI of 18.5 to 24.9.

That figure increased to 27 percent for those considered obese – with a BMI of 30 to 34.9 – and 86 percent for those classed as morbidly obese – a BMI at or above 40.

The research, which has been presented at the European Congress on Obesity, looked at the relationship between BMI and the likeli-

hood of testing positive for Sars-Cov-2, at the largest medical centre in the Middle East.

Obesity-related factors are believed to be associated with an increased risk of contracting various viral diseases.

Some 26,030 were tested as part of last year’s study, among whom 1,178 positive Covid-19 results were recorded.

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www.rosenwasser.co.uk Shavuot commemorates receiving the Torah at Mount Sinai. The soul of every Jew over all of time was present at Sinai.

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

Editorial comment and letters ISSUE NO.

1210

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

Fighting Hamas is one Send us your comments thing, civil war another RAF must now come clean PO Box 815, Edgware, HA8 4SX | letters@jewishnews.co.uk

A week is an age in Middle East politics. Seven days ago, Israel looked forward to being the coastal hotspot for vaccinated holidaymakers, boosted by wall-towall coverage about its famous beaches and party scene. This week, however, all too familiar images of death and destruction returned to our TV screens.

It’s a pattern all too familiar to citizens of Israel and Gaza but one we dared to hope wouldn’t reach the shocking scale of 2014. Those hopes were dramatically extinguished as Israelis ran for their lives to bomb shelters.

By Tuesday night more than 1,000 unguided rockets had been launched towards Israeli civilians and Israel had responded with hundreds of strikes against Hamas terror targets. This is a war in all but name and would have been declared as such if these dreadful scenes had played out elsewhere.

Tragically, the region is left mourning innocent lives lost on both sides.

Despite what some would have you believe, there can be no moral equivialence between a terror group striking at random with the aim of killing and maiming (something they would have achieved many more times if not for the Iron Dome) and a democratic government fulfilling its duty to defend its citizens. That’s no more or no less than we’d expect from our own government if London and Manchester came under such sustained attack.

Israel’s leaders might feel confident about degrading Hamas’ capabilities in the coming days and weeks, but how it will deal with the eruption of rioting in mixed cities nationwide will be a far more complex challenge.

It’s one thing facing a challenge from Hamas, quite another from within its own borders and among its own people. Such were the scenes in Lod on Tuesday night when synagogues and schools were burnt. President Reuven Rivlin even attached the word “pogrom” to the violence.

Readers of a certain age will recall the optimism surrounding Israel’s peace treaty with Egypt in 1979, followed little more than a decade later by the Oslo Accords and peace with Jordan. It was an era in which it seemed differences could be settled through civil dialogue.

How distant that feels today.

I was delighted by Francine Wolfisz’s report last week headlined: “Chaplains pray for 7,000 Jewish victims of prison ships sunk by RAF”.

If anyone doubts the strength of a community newspaper, this answered any questions. It was heartening to read that chaplains prayed for those lost – another 7,000 Jews killed, part of the six million cruelly murdered by the Nazis. As one individual, I offer these religious leaders gratitiude and thanks.

Now this is open in the general domain, I trust the presi-

dent of the Board of Deputies will approach the RAF to release the necessary papers for public recognition.

To withold the information for so long is quite shameful.

It should be rectified without further delay. I phoned the

Sketches & kvetches IRAN IS A BIG THREAT

An antidote we all need

Jami’s platform to mark the release of The Book of Hope on Tuesday felt serendipitous in the light of events in Israel. The ‘sense of possibility... for a better future’ is the message in the book of 101 essays collated by mental health campaigner and champion of the Jewish charity, Jonny Benjamin.

Among numerous Jami events held in Mental Health Awareness Week, this stood out because of the willingness by Jonny and mental health advocates Abbie Mitchell, Jonny Jacobs and Louisa Rosemental to share their personal tragedies and reveal how they found hope.

As an antidote to Covid and the Israel crisis, Benjamin’s book is one we all need.

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Sedra: B amidbar

Board one year ago and asked for someone involved to return my call, but heard nothing.

Well done Jewish News for sticking your necks out.

Hopefully the establishment will note your efforts.

Martin Cohen, By email

“So, it turns out Jerusalem IS one of England’s green and pleasant lands!”

I agree with the views of Simon Van Someren expressed in his letter, “Iran’s nuclear ambition,” published last week (Jewish News, 6 May 2021).

The political and religious leaders of this country seek the total annihilation of the country of Israel and the Jewish people.

The adage that “Attack is the best form of defence,” is apposite when it comes to dealing with Iran.

I also understand (but, if appropriate, stand to be corrected), that self-defence is permissible and even mandated by our Torah and Talmud in certain situations, when

human life is at stake.

Another basic tenet of Judaism, pikuach nefesh” (watching over a soul) – interpreted to mean that saving a human life is more important than any mitzvot/ preservation of human life overrides virtually any other religious rule) – can also apply here.

The existential threat that Israel faces from Iran more than justifies, as I’ve argued above, attacking and disabling the latter’s nuclear capabilities.

Israel, indeed the whole Middle East, will be safer and more likely to enjoy peace as a result of such actions.

JD Milaric, By email

MAGEN DAVID ADOM IS ISRAEL’S ONLY NATIONAL BLOOD AND MEDICAL EMERGENCY SERVICE As tensions continue to rise in Israel, MDA remains at the forefront of saving lives. To support the lifesaving work of MDA, please visit mdauk.org/donate Registered Charity No. 1113409

13 May 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Editorial comment and letters

Home service KADDISH WRONG Although I’ve attended shul during the pandemic, I’m unsure whether it is an enjoyable experience. You must wear a mask and can’t sing or talk to the congregation as everyone is socially distanced.

The windows are open to keep air flowing, so it’s quite cold. I miss the Kiddushim post-service, where I would socialise with friends. But, being Reform, I can watch the service on Zoom from my own home, have a cup of tea when I want, sing along as lustily as I wish and talk to friends in the chat room afterwards.

Kay Bagon, By email

How can the re-elected president of the Board of Deputies claim to be “passionate” about Israel, and yet “demand” respect for deputies who infamously said Kaddish for Hamas in a public ceremony next to Parliament – excusing such behaviour as being a legitimate opinion in the diverse Jewish community? The Kaddish prayer means the sanctification of God’s name, a prayer they recited in memory of terrorists from an organisation that murders its own as well as innocent Jews.

Walter S Grossman, Gants Hill

BOARD BLUES

Yes he Khan

Wanted: a Jewish body truly representing Anglo-Jewry that prioritises the protection of Jewish cultural life, ensures Jewish students are not harassed and supports the nation state of Israel and Jews worldwide. Not Wanted: A Jewish body that doesn’t seem to care about the concerns of the ordinary Jew, puts diverse causes ahead of Jewish ones, “criticises” Israel from a distance and behaves like an extension of the Labour Party.

D Rosenthal, Hendon

Congratulations to Sadiq Khan on being re-elected London’s mayor. I attended the Yom Ha’Shoah memorial event at Barnet Copthall Stadium in May 2016 – Mr Khan’s first public event following his first election victory. My brief conversation with him indicated a man whose heart and priorities are in the right place. Nothing he has said or done in the years since have made me doubt his sincerity. London still has a safe pair of hands at the helm.

Matthew Adams, By email

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

Opinion

Killings are bad enough without a keyboard war JENNI FRAZER

I

t was inevitable. But no less disgusting, even though we were expecting it: the keyboard warriors, out in force as soon as the first protests hit the streets of Jerusalem, casually and righteously assigning blame.

There was one person who simply posted a picture of the Nazi leader with the line “Dear Hitler, we miss you” – a peculiar message from those who apparently believe all Israelis are Nazis anyway. Another Hitler admirer repeated the hateful mantra that he had kept some Jews alive in order to show why all Jews deserved to be killed.

There was a man who opined: “My local supermarket stocks a bigger ‘arsenal’ of firepower every year around bonfire night. These tiny flares amount to almost nothing. Calling it an ‘arsenal’ is misleading.”

There was a woman who carefully explained to her girlfriend that “Israel” – in inverted commas – was not actually

a country but a colonial setter enterprise, stolen from the Palestinians.

And, of course, the glamorous celebrity sisters Gigi and Bella Hadid weighed in with their nugget of wisdom: “Politicians stutter neutral words in fear of being reprimanded, while the world remains silent to avoid offending the wrong people.”

Guess what, Gigi and Bella? I’m one of the “wrong” people.

I have spent the past few days glued to the news and feeling sick. Some of the reports are so simplistic they are laughable: it’s a numbers game, they would have us believe, and so if the Palestinians mourn 24 dead and the Israelis “only” six, well, that just shows Israel’s military supremacy, apparently.

It’s not a numbers game, of course. It’s not any kind of game, as the Arab-Israeli family in Lod, mourning the deaths of a father and his teenage daughter, killed by a Hamas rocket, would be the first to let us know.

There are those, regrettably, who are making political capital out of this torrid situation. Who does it help, for example, to

❝

WE NEED TO DIAL DOWN THE TEMPERATURE AND RECOGNISE THE LONG AND MALIGN HAND OF IRAN

show pictures of damaged Torah scrolls in a burnt synagogue, and insinuate that this happened in a “pogrom” perpetrated by local Arabs? In fact, that particular picture dates from two years ago, but its publication upholds the truth of the old journalistic mantra – “never spoil a good story for the sake of a few facts”.

It has not been edifying to see videos of hundreds of chanting young Jewish men (it’s always men, isn’t it?) in front of the Kotel, bellowing a song at the tops of their voices on Jerusalem Day. And what is that song? It is a Kahanist “revenge” favourite, whose lyrics, from the biblical story of Samson, include the words: “O God, that I may be at once avenged of the Philistines for my two eyes”. The unlovely spectacle

has been characterised as “fascism with a Charedi twist”.

Just two weeks ago –particularly in the north of Israel – there was an outpouring of warmth and support and good neighbourliness between local Arab-Israeli residents and the devastated survivors of the Mount Meron tragedy, with offers of shelter, food and drink.

Today, towns and cities with a mixed Arab and Jewish population burn like war zones, with Lod declared to be in a state of emergency and Akko set ablaze.

We all need to dial down the temperature and recognise the long and malign hand of Iran and its proxy, Hamas.

I want the loathsome keyboard warriors, with their talk of Hitler, to shut up – and, above all, I want the killing to stop.

13 May 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

19

Opinion

Starmer must ignore siren voices of hard left MIKE KATZ

JEWISH LABOUR MOVEMENT

F

irst, the good news. The London Assembly constituency of Barnet & Camden, which is the biggest Jewish ‘seat’ to be contested at any election, was comfortably held by Labour.

Jewish Labour Movement member Anne Clarke, who takes over the reins from Andrew Dismore – a true friend of our community – has big shoes to fill, but she’ll do a fine job.

Along with wins in Brent & Harrow and Enfield & Haringey for JLM supporters, we have strong representation in City Hall.

Of course, the big story in London is Sadiq Khan’s re-election. This is the first time Labour’s candidate won the mayoral vote in Barnet, the most Jewish borough in the country. That’s a real achievement. Together with wins for Labour candidates in Borehamwood and strong performances in Bury, it shows Labour has begun the slow and painstaking process of rebuilding trust with the Jewish community, across the country.

Khan has been a true friend of our community. We saw how his regard and respect was reciprocated when we went on a walkabout in Golders Green last month. Moreover, he’s been a real ally and supporter of JLM in our wilderness ears, fighting the awful stain of antisemitism in the Labour Party. He’s had our back and was never afraid to speak out when we asked. In short, he’s been a real mensch.

But more widely, these elections have been more than disappointing.

In England, Scotland and Wales, incumbency has mattered; understandably, having gone through a national crisis. Nevertheless, the fault lines of Labour’s electoral coalition have been exposed by these results, with support in many (but not all) traditional working-class areas in sharp decline. Keir Starmer has been wise enough to acknowledge this disconnect.

Thursday’s polls should prove to be the hangover to Jeremy Corbyn’s failed leadership rather than a prelude to the next general election.

That won’t be the case, though, if Starmer and his top team listen to the siren voices of the far left in Labour and the unions who –

❝

THESE POLLS SHOULD PROVE THE HANGOVER TO JEREMY CORBYN’S FAILED LEADERSHIP somehow, in the face of logic and the result of the disastrous 2019 election – say that what’s needed now is a return to the politics of Corbyn.

These are the people who will never accept the findings of the Equality and Human Rights Commission: that Labour discriminated unlawfully against Jewish members. They are ‘anti-racists’ who spewed hate against Jewish MPs, denying and downplaying antisemitism.

They are bullies who hate the fact that Starmer has started to root this poison out.

When left-wing commentators call for an immediate end to suspensions and the ‘witchhunt’, let’s call it what it is: letting purveyors of left conspiratorial antisemitism off the hook for

factional convenience. Starmer must continue to ignore these noises off and forge ahead on the mission he set out from day one of his leadership to show zero tolerance for antisemitism and detoxify the culture of the party.

The difference in how JLM, as the voice for Jewish members in the party, is treated now is night and day. We are respected and listened to, along with other communal organisations.

But we aren’t complacent. This is a long, hard road, and we need to see more progress – like rule changes at annual conference to finally introduce an independent complaints system.

Fixing Labour in the public’s eye after the shameful state his predecessor left it in will take more than one election. All polling evidence suggests that he is a net benefit; any opposition leader would have struggled to make their voice heard over last year. Pretending otherwise is yet another impossible demand from the far left.

We’re at a turning point. Giving ground now to the people who got it so wrong under Corbyn, morally and politically, would be a total disaster.

And if that means prioritising speaking to the country over maintaining party unity, so be it.

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

Opinion

Sometimes our children don't know how to ask RABBI DAVID MEYER EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, PARTNERSHIPS FOR JEWISH SCHOOLS

A

short time ago we celebrated Pesach with our families. As we do every year, we read of the four sons – the wise, the wicked, the innocent and the son who doesn’t know how to ask. They reflect the differing facets of our children. We’re all confident our kids are the wise ones, though on occasion they can appear wicked and, at times, innocent. However, as any parent could attest over lockdown, our children all seem to be blessed with the gift of the gab. So where are the children who don’t know how to ask and why have they been included in our seder?

At the first Partnerships for Jewish Schools (PaJeS) annual headteachers' conference more than five years ago, we asked school leaders to tell us the critical areas schools needed to address. One item that came to the fore was the

mental health and well-being of students and, as a result of the conference, PaJeS, in partnership with Place2Be, become one of the first UK organisations to run training in this area for pastoral leaders.

Today, mental health and well-being is a key element of any educational planning and, even before Covid, schools were struggling to deal with an explosion of mental health issues.

Today, things are even more challenging, and experts nationally are reporting a significant increase in cases of anxiety and depression, especially among teenagers.

When a child trips in the playground, every school knows how to respond. There are times when we help the child to stand and let him run away, there are instances where we send him to the office for a plaster, and there are occasions where we send him to hospital for an X-ray.

What is critical is that the school knows the best course of action.

The same is true with issues of mental health and well-being. There are times when the child must show resilience and stand on their own two feet. There are instances when

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THERE ARE TIMES WHEN OUR CHILDREN ARE TOO TROUBLED TO SPEAK. WE MUST TEACH THEM TO EXPRESS CONCERNS

the child needs school-based support. Then there are occasions when the child’s needs are more complex and external support should be utilised. However, with mental health and well-being, it is harder to identify the problem and be certain of the best way forward. When a child falls, they know they are hurt and cry for help but, too often with internal turmoil, the child doesn’t know how to interpret the pain or how to ask for help.

The Haggadah holds within it timeless messages. Perhaps the most poignant, especially at this time, is that the fourth son really does exist. There are times when our children

are too troubled to speak and not knowledgeable enough to ask for help. As the Haggadah explains, the solution is that we must teach them how to express their concerns.

This is a difficult challenge for educators, and PaJeS has been working to assist schools through a number of initiatives, including the Mental Health and Wellbeing Project and Heads Up Kids, which educate children about the importance of well-being.

PaJeS is particularly excited to be partnering with ORT UK, which aims to send 7000 copies of Esther Marshall’s book, Sophie Says It’s Okay Not To Be Okay, to children in Reception to Year 3 in Jewish schools. As an education charity, with more than 200,000 beneficiaries across the globe, ORT UK understands the importance of looking after children’s mental health to ensure they thrive in school and beyond.

Through these initiatives, and by parents and teachers working together, we must encourage our vulnerable children to speak while creating a safe and nurturing environment. This will enable them to move from darkness to light.

Scottish Jews should be wary of independence NICK HENDERSON

FORMER LABOUR PARTY ACTIVIST

D

ays after the Scottish National Party (SNP)’s fourth consecutive victory in the Scottish Parliamentary elections, the current crisis in Israel popped up in First Minister Nicola Sturgeon’s news feed.

Predictably, the Scottish Nationalist leader was quick to conflate the complex real estate ownership issues in Sheikh Jarrah/Shimon HaNatziv with rioting and violence on the Temple Mount. She accused the Israeli government of “attacking” mosques (the Israeli police were there to defend people’s rights to worship freely and safely during Ramadan, as well as prevent attacks on Jewish worshipers at the Western Wall directly below), while her justice minister, Humza Yousaf, condemned the “forced evictions taking place in Sheikh Jarrah”.

Someone clearly failed to tell the Scottish government that the Israeli Supreme Court, Arab justice included, has not yet ruled on the historical ownership of the concerned properties in Jerusalem, lawfully purchased by two Jewish organisations in the late 19th century and later seized under the Jordanian occupa-

tion of Jerusalem. The case has dragged on for years in the Israeli courts, and the reason for the evictions is due to the tenants never having paid rent on property given to them by the Jordanian “Custodian of Enemy Property”.

The rush to inaccurate judgement of Israel is a familiar story, one that British Jews have been suffering under for decades. But, unlike in England, where Corbynism has – at least for now – been routed from the mainstream, Scottish independence could very well usher in Corbynism on a national scale.

The seriousness of the situation facing Scottish Jews and the pro-Israel community north of the Tweed has come into sharper focus in this election. Nicola Sturgeon represents Glasgow Southside, my former home, and one of the most diverse constituencies in Scotland.

A fact that is often highlighted by the first minister, although the true diversity of Glasgow Southside also includes the Jewish community.

The area is home to Queen’s Park Synagogue, and Glasgow’s Jews made their impact felt across the southside, from Govan to Langside, leaving a much forgotten legacy behind.

The constituency is also home to Scottish Labour’s first Muslim leader, Anas Sarwar, who stood directly against Nicola Sturgeon for the seat. Although the SNP leader beat the Labour leader almost 2-1, the main battlefield

of Scottish politics are now firmly drawn in the demographics of Glasgow’s Southside constituency.

Not far down the road in Eastwood, Scotland’s most Jewish constituency, was once home to Scottish politics’ few defenders of Israel. Former Labour MP Jim Murphy won the Westminster version seat under New Labour and chaired Labour Friends of Israel.

In this election, Eastwood was won by the Conservative's Jackson Carlaw, a staunch Israel defender and former leader of what is the official opposition to the SNP in Holyrood.

The danger of pro-Israel opinions becoming synonymous with only one political party has been worrying both Democrats and Republicans in the United States for years, and those same fears have smashed into Scottish politics like a Trump motorcade on its way to Turnberry.

Certainly the other parties in Holyrood, namely the Scottish Greens, have elected to take an even more unbalanced and blatantly pro-Hamas view of Israel and Palestine.

Ross Greer, the Greens’ external affairs spokesman has often tweeted about Israeli “ethnic cleansing” and was instrumental in passing a Green motion de-listing Hamas as a terror group and cementing BDS

(Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) as the central plank of Green foreign policy.

The Greens now hold the balance of power in the Scottish Parliament. The SNP won 64 seats, one shy of an outright majority, and will be forced to rely on their pro-independence allies in the coming fight with Boris Johnson for a second Scottish independence referendum. Most concerning for Scotland’s Jews is the spectre of an independent Scotland led by Nicola Sturgeon, hounded by Hamas-supporting Ross Greer in parliament, and stalked by Anas Sarwar on the streets of Glasgow Southside. While the Scottish Conservatives, who will realistically never form the largest party in parliament, are the lone voice calling for simple balance.

Like the forgotten Queen’s Park Synagogue, Scottish Jews are being written out of the country’s political future. An independent Holyrood with power over foreign policy would be five minutes away from debating a national BDS law in light of the recent violence.

And what comes after a boycott? In the next round of inevitable provocations and Hamasled terror attacks, how much further will Scotland’s political leaders go in outdoing each other with their attacks on Israel?

Scotland’s Jewish community has much to fear in finding out that answer.

13 May 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

21

Community / Scene & Be Seen

1 CHEESY VICTORY

Jewish News today reveals the winner of the Choose Your Own Cheesecake competition, in partnership with the United Synagogue and COCO Bakery.

Hundreds of votes came in and the winning flavour – which will be made and sold at COCO Bakery ahead of Shavuot – is S’mores cheesecake! This makes four-year-old David Kaufman of Golders Green, Natalie Braham of Hendon and Rebbetzin Blima Wollenberg of Woodford Forest, the lucky winners. All three came up with the same idea independently. The trio will all receive a gift voucher to spend at the bakery as well as their own cheesecake. For every S’mores cheesecake sold, COCO Bakery will make a donation to support the vital work of United Synagogue Chesed, which supports vulnerable members of the community.The cheesecake is available to buy from COCO Bakery in Golders Green.

And be seen!

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

2 HEARTFELT MESSAGES

Pupils at Wohl Ilford Jewish Primary School have been writing notes and decorating flowers to Essex-based recipients of the Jewish Care Meals on Wheels service, in partnership with nonprofit organisation PJ Library.

Children have been enjoying Shavuot-themed stories in the classroom and sending heartfelt messages to locals with their Shavuot meal.

3 FLORAL DISPLAYS

Residents at Kisharon College and Norwood made colourful flower centrepieces to be put in United Synagogues for Shavuot. Light Up A Life, based in Finchley, distributed art packs, while artist Celine Mazal Fitoussi, together with project lead Esther Radnor, led the sessions during which residents created the flowers from their care homes.

4MAX CELEBRATES

1

Jewish Blind and Disabled tenant, Max Botchin, celebrated his 100th birthday on 2 May. Max, pictured with his letter from the Queen, enjoyed his special day outside with friends and family at JBD’s Cecil Rosen Court in Bushey.

5SANDRA HONOURED On Sunday afternoon an open-top double decker bus carrying a new Sefer Torah for the Seed synagogue paraded around Edgware. The scroll was dedicated by the Scott family (pictured) in memory of Sandra Scott.

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

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23

Theatre / Weekend

‘The West End only reopens when THE MOUSETRAP returns!’

Francine Wolfisz speaks to producer Adam Spiegel about reopening the world’s longest running show – which never missed a performance in 70 years until the pandemic

T

he moment West End producer Adam Spiegel has long awaited is so tantalisingly close. With the further easing of Covid restrictions from 17 May, theatres can finally reopen – but curtains up for Spiegel has an added layer of pertinence.

For next Monday sees the return of The Mousetrap, the longest-running show in the world that, until coronavirus came along, had only ever missed one performance in its nearly 70-year history.

“In fact, it’s performed through a variety of crises, since before the Queen came to the throne,” says Spiegel, who has served as the producer of Agatha Christie’s beloved murder mystery play since 2018.

“I've always felt that The Mousetrap is an important symbol of the West End, so it’s only right that, as theatres reopen, the show is going to be front and centre.”

There will be some changes, namely that every other row of seats has been removed at St Martin’s Theatre to reduce audience capacity to 200, while the actors on stage will also maintain social distancing.

An all-new cast has also been announced, featuring Strictly Come Dancing finalist Danny Mac, EastEnders actors Nicholas Bailey, Paul Bradley, Louise Jameson and Charlie Clements, children’s TV actor Derek Griffiths, The Crown actor David Rintoul, Emmerdale actress Susan Penhaligon and stage star Cassidy Janson.

But there’s been no tinkering with the suspenseful plotline, which revolves around seven strangers who find themselves snowed in at a country manor only to discover a killer is in their midst. As to the solution over “whodunnit”, the audience will be sworn to secrecy as they have been during every one of the show’s 28,000 performances since 1952.

To say Spiegel is excited to bring back The Mousetrap is an understatement. “Of course it's exciting,” says the head of Adam Spiegel Produc-

tions, who is also bringing back Hairspray at the London Coliseum from 21 June.

“You know, if you walk past the theatres right now, they just look like a miserable, dark place. But they're not designed to be empty. They're supposed to have people working in them, people enjoying it as a social environment. Now finally we’re back in rehearsal and we’ve got people going in and out on the stage door and people interacting. It feels like we’re finally getting the band back together.”

As much as Spiegel embraces the creative reasons for bringing back the show, there are economic ones too. He acknowledges the past year has been “financially painful” for everyone, but especially for the many actors, casual staff and freelance crew members who have “fallen through the cracks of the government support scheme”.

The 58-year-old, who lives in Norfolk with his wife Charlotte, says: “I honestly don't know how they’ve managed, people who signed rental agreements for properties in London on the basis of a job they had, only to discover that they no longer did. I don't know how they've been able to survive.

“One of my reasons for wanting to get The Mousetrap back open again is it puts a lot of people back into work. There are 70 people in that building, and Hairspray and my office has hundreds more. I have in that sense, a sort of responsibility to be part of reopening what we understood to be normal London life.”

Then there is the question of the “magic of live theatre” that Spiegel hopes to bring back. I ask why, over the past year, he didn’t experiment with virtual performances like other companies had?

“It didn't feel right for me,” he says. “I didn't want to do Hairspray as a digital streaming thing, because it would have been financially suicidal and I somehow don't really associate The Mousetrap with being watched on someone's computer screen. Other plays

Above and right: Rehearsals of The Mousetrap, which is welcoming back audiences next week

Adam Spiegel and his wife Charlotte

have done it very successfully and they tend to have been chosen because they were better suited to it.”

He adds: “I think part of the experience of going to the theatre is about its liveness, so if people can go back to theatres and what we understand to be ‘normality’, then I see no reason for theatre to need to adapt to the period from which it has just emerged.”

Spiegel does understand how digital streaming could become more of a regular fixture in our theatre experience, namely in bringing the capital’s National Theatre or Royal Opera House directly into the homes of people who live hundreds of miles away.

“What I hope does happen is that they create a world in which people who live in Aberdeen could go and see performances at the National in their local cinema or at home. That would be great.”

Spiegel formed his company in 1995 and has notched up several West End hits to his name, including Motown the Musical, Fame, Sister Act and Saturday Night Fever. It was a career, he jokes, that he “fell into, as I wasn’t very good at anything else”.

He says: “You don’t have to be trained for it, you don’t have to understand lighting design, you don’t have to be able to choreograph, but you do need enthusiasm.

That goes a long way as a theatre producer.”

Passion for the arts runs in Spiegel’s blood and his upbringing in a “reasonably showbizzy family”.

His father was film mogul Sam Spiegel, who was behind some of the most revered hits of Hollywood’s Golden Age, including The Bridge on the River Kwai, Lawrence of Arabia and On The Waterfront, while his mother, Betty Benson, was an actress.

The world of the stage, it seems, is where Spiegel feels most at home – and he’s hoping the easing of lockdown will encourage others to rediscover the theatre too.

“I sense it will take some time for people to overcome any reticence about getting on the Tube and coming into London. But I do hope the absence of theatre, this missing magic, will mean when people are allowed to, they will come flocking back.”  The Mousetrap opens from Monday 17 May, at St Martin’s Theatre, West Street.

Details: www.uk.the-mousetrap.co.uk, 020 7836 1443

A look

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Food: Side of slowcooked salmon with butter and soft herbs

Dying Matters: Losing a partner in the pandemic

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

Weekend / Entertainment

DOCUMENTARY

EXHIBITION

Saved by a Stranger

The Boys: Holocaust survivors in the Epping Forest district

The heartfelt story of how a German family helped to save the lives of identical twins during the Second World War is revealed in BBC Two’s Saved By A Stranger.

Presented by Anita Rani, the series sets out to reunite people caught up in traumatic events with those who helped them to get through them.

In 1933, twins George and Peter Summerfield were born to a Jewish family in Berlin, six months after Hitler became chancellor of Germany.

The young boys were close friends with the non-Jewish sons of their building’s caretaker, Mr Schädler, and all four would play football together.

But as the Nazi party steadily increased persecution against Jews, life for the family became very difficult.

On Kristallnacht, in 1938, when thousands of Jewish men were

arrested and sent to concentration camps, Schädler hid the twins’ father Franz in his basement, at great risk to his own safety.

The following year, with just days to spare before the outbreak of war, Schädler lent the family money to escape Berlin by train and come to London.

Now 87, George and Peter embark on a journey to be reunited with their childhood friends and to thank them for the great sacrifice their father made to ensure their safety and survival.

The episode airs on Thursday, 20 May, 9pm on BBC Two

DRAMA

The Commune An Israeli comedy drama series revolving around kibbutz life is set for a US remake with Orange Is The New Black writer Hilary Wesiman Graham at the helm.

The Commune, which revolves around a group of thirtysomething-aged friends who grew up together and reunite to deal with the fallout when their former kibbutz goes bankrupt, will be reimagined for American audiences as Idyllwild.

Weisman Graham, who most recently created Netflix’s lockdown drama Social Distance, has teamed up with Untitled Entertainment and Israeli companies HOT,

Sumayoko and ADD Content Agency for the new series.

The Commune, which originally aired on HOT 3, is the latest in a string of original Israeli shows that have undergone a US adaptation, including Homeland, The Baker and the Beauty, In Treatment and Your Honor.

IN THE PIPELINE

Succession Season 3 Adrien Brody is set to appear in the third series of Sky Atlantic’s satirical drama Succession.

The drama, which is in production in New York, revolves around a family on the verge of civil war as they jostle for control of Waystar RoyCo, global media and hospitality empire.

Brody, who won an Oscar for his lead role in The Pianist, will guest star as Josh Aaronson, a billionaire investor who becomes pivotal in the battle for control of the company amid uncertainty about the health of the family’s patriarch Logan Roy (played by Brian Cox).

Alexander Skarsgard is also set to join the cast, with returning actors including Jeremy

Strong, Kieran Culkin, Sarah Snook, Matthew Macfayden and Alan Ruck.

Brody, 48, whose other credits include Predators, King Kong and Midnight in Paris, will play the NBA coach Pat Riley in an upcoming drama about the Los Angeles Lakers in the 1980s.

He also features in Blonde, Netflix’s upcoming biographical film about the life of Marilyn Monroe.

A new exhibition will focus on the ‘littleknown’ story of child Holocaust survivors sent to Loughton after the Second World War. Epping Forest District Museum will host the special exhibition, which charts how in 1945 more than 700 orphans were brought over from Theresienstadt to the Lake District for rehabilitation, before being sent to hostels across the UK. The institutions include Holmehurst Hostel in Loughton, where 23 of the children – known as The Boys – continued to be cared for as they recovered from their experience in the concentration camps.

Sir Ben Helfgott, Gary Winogrodski, Roman Halter and Harry Spiro were among the children who arrived at Holmehurst.

Angela Cohen, chairman of the 45 Aid Society, said of the exhibition, which includes video testimonies from the survivors: “It tells the stories of those orphaned child survivors who were lucky enough to stay at Holmehurst hostel, where the staff and local community helped in their recuperation and recovery after the horrors they had experienced during the Holocaust.”

The free exhibition runs 17 May to 4 September, www.eppingforestdc.gov.uk/

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Real lives / Weekend

‘I was left alone with my grief’ Louisa Walters hears the experiences of two women who lost a partner during the pandemic

W

e went into lockdown and then I was left alone with my grief – but at a time like this you want to be with your close family and friends.”

More than a year on and during Dying Matters Awareness Week (which runs until Sunday), Jeanette Field is still coming to terms with losing her 83-year-old partner, Sidney Walters, during the pandemic.

She was largely cut off from her support network right when she needed it.

And Jeanette is certainly not alone in her experience. According to charity Independent Age, almost 300,000 people over the age of 65 have experienced the death of a partner since the start of the pandemic, a 17 percent increase on the average for the past five years.

Of these, an estimated 20,000 people will experience ‘complicated grief’, a prolonged period of acute grief that occurs when the ‘normal’ grieving process is interrupted.

The Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service (JBCS), which helps those affected by grief, has reported three times more requests for counselling since the pandemic began.

“The grieving process has been abnormal, so we have had to adapt our offering [online] to suit,” explains Trisha Curtis, who runs JBCS. “All the customs that are traditionally in place to support people have simply not been there. In many cases, people could not even be with their partner while they were dying – the last time they may have seen them is when they were being put into an ambulance. This is very traumatic.”

Jeanette, 82, recalls how, after Sidney's funeral – which took place just days before the first national lockdown – she returned home, shut the front door and barely saw another soul for months.

She and Sidney had met at a Jewish Care bereavement group, having each lost their spouse to cancer.

“I thought that, having been through this before when my husband died, I would cope better. But it was just as hard, and then some, because with so much time on my hands, all the memories from the first time came flooding back.”

Jeanette’s children did her shopping and made doorstep visits, and even though she had

Left: Jeanette Field is mourning the loss of her partner, Sidney Walters

Right: Jeannette and Alan Bryer were married for 61 years and, just months before Alan's death, had received a card from the Queen

no physical contact with them, they got her through the darkest days.

“Without them, I wouldn’t be here,” she says. One of her close friends, who lives round the corner, lost her husband the day after Sidney died. “We would have been such a support for each other if only we could see one another, but we just spoke on the phone.”

Her sentiments echo those of Jeannette Bryer, 81, whose husband of 61 years, Alan, died following a short battle with cancer.

Just months earlier, the couple had received a card from the Queen for their diamond wedding, but they were never able to celebrate their milestone anniversary owing to Alan’s illness.

He was cared for at a hospice during his last days and, fortunately, Jeannette and her daughter were able to stay there with him.

Reflecting on his passing during a time of Covid restrictions, Jeannette says: “I didn’t miss the shiva – I missed Alan. I cry every

time I talk about him, so not having a shiva saved me a few more tears.”

While she formed a bubble with her daughter and granddaughter, being cut off from her wider circle of friends and relatives has been especially hard.

“Alan and I were a busy, sociable couple, always out and about. We loved being out together – this was our time,” she says.

“I haven’t been able to see anyone since he died and this has made things so much worse.

Being stuck at home on my own has given me too much time to think and dwell on things.

“I have a friend in my apartment block who also lost her husband and we speak on the phone, but we haven’t been able to get together.”

When restrictions are lifted next week, one of the first people Jeannette wants to see is Alan’s sister, to whom she is very close.

“Alan’s family are part of him and I really need to see them,” she adds.

Despite being cut off physically from loved ones, Jeanette Field has found respite in playing bridge online.

“I play five nights and three afternoons a week,” she says. “At first, it was difficult playing with a new partner but needs must. I’m proud of myself for getting to grips with the technology. I don’t want to go out at night on my own, so I will carry on playing online.”

Meanwhile, a friend put Jeannette Bryer in touch with Jewish Care’s new Supportive Communities’ Knit, Stitch and Natter group, which has been taking place over Zoom and has proven a huge tonic for her grief.

“I’m knitting twiddle muffs for people with dementia and it’s enjoyable because you can add pretty little accessories to make them look really nice,” she says. “If I’m feeling down, I bring out the knitting. Although nothing takes away the feelings of sadness and loneliness, it is really therapeutic and can distract me for a while.”

Jeannette has also dropped into Jewish Care’s Chatty Café (on Zoom), which she and Alan used to attend together in person before the pandemic.

As restrictions ease, those who are grieving should soon be able to see loved ones again, while communal leaders anticipate having to provide support to those who wish to ‘mourn properly’.

“It was challenging and emotionally draining at times to see so many families standing bereft in the stillness of the open air of the cemetery,” says Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet of Mill Hill United Synagogue. “I believe many families did not have the right opportunity to grieve, and conversations with them reflect a sense of surrealism as it was all so sudden and all too often without an opportunity to say goodbye. As we return to some semblance of normality, it will hit once more, because life will never be quite ‘normal’ for them again.”

Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers of Edgware & Hendon Reform Synagogue says: “Technology has enabled people to grieve together in some form, but it’s really important that, when restrictions are lifted, we rabbis provide a space and a place for them to mourn properly and to support each other.”

For advice and support, contact Jewish Care Direct helpline: 020 8922 2222 or email helpline@jcare.org; or Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service: 020 8951 3881, jbcs.org.uk

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

T

he good-size tranche of salmon required for this recipe is something to splash out on and to savour for a special occasion.

Fish bought from a sustainable source is pricey – buy it with due environmental care, especially so given the grave situation of certain fish stocks. Wild salmon can be extremely expensive.

If you would rather use farmed salmon, buy fish that have been organically farmed. Here, the cooked salmon is delicate and very delicious – softly, softly – a tribute to the fish.

KED SALMON SIDE OF VERY SLOW-COO ERBS WITH BUTTER & SOFT H 1. Preheat the oven to 80°C/60°C fan/175°F/Gas Mark ¼ (or as low as your oven will go) and place a baking dish half filled with boiling water in the bottom of the oven.

2. Brush the salmon fillet all over with a little olive oil and lay it on a baking tray. Season generously with salt and pepper, then top with half the shallots, the lemon zest and the roughly chopped herb stalks.

SERVES 4–6

3. Bake for about 30 to 40 minutes, until the fish feels just firm to the touch and the white juices are just starting to break through the surface. Rest for 10 minutes and serve straight away, or let the salmon rest covered in foil for up to two hours.

INGREDIENTS 1 centre-cut (the thickest section) salmon or large trout fillet (about 600g/1lb 5oz) good olive oil 2 large shallots, finely chopped zest and juice of 1 unwaxed lemon 1 big bunch of soft herbs (such as tarragon, chervil or flatleaf parsley), leaves and stalks separated and roughly chopped 100ml (3½fl oz) white wine 200g (7oz) unsalted butter, diced and chilled 250g (9oz) green beans 100g (3½oz) asparagus tips 150g (5½oz) sugar-snap peas, trimmed salt and freshly ground black pepper cooked new potatoes, to serve

4. While the salmon is resting, make a butter sauce. Boil the remaining shallots and white wine together over a moderate– high heat in a small saucepan until there is only about two tablespoons of liquid left.

5. Remove from the heat and gradually whisk in the cold butter, a little at a time, waiting until most of the butter has melted before incorporating any more.

6. When you’re ready to serve, boil the beans in salted water for three minutes, then add the asparagus tips and sugar-snap peas and cook for two minutes more. Drain the vegetables, check the seasoning and keep warm.

7. Gently brush the herbs and shallots off the cooked salmon and sprinkle with a little lemon juice. Tear the fish into big flakes and arrange on a large platter.

8. Spoon over the vegetables, herb leaves and butter sauce.

Serve with any extra butter sauce and the potatoes on the side.

Extracted from Home Cookery Year: Four Seasons, Over 200 Recipes by Claire Thomson, published

by Quadrille Publishing, priced £30 (hardback)

of Temple Fortune

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Photo ©Sam Folan

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

Business / Luxury travel

candicekrieger@googlemail.com

With Candice Krieger

LIKE STAYCATIONS, ‘WORKATIONS’ NOW IN VOGUE As international travel resumes next week, luxury travel expert Rebecca Masri tells Candice Krieger about new trends that will emerge post-pandemic, including the rise of a phenomenon known as ‘bleisure’

T

he past year has anticipates one in three business been bleak travellers will add a leisure comfor the hotel ponent into at least one of their industry. business trips a year.

Covid-19 But Masri is well aware of brought travel the challenges the hospito a standstill. For many, tality industry faces in 2021 – ‘travelling for work’ has as hotels strive to overcome meant taking a few steps to the tremendous hurdles of the the kitchen table or makeshift past year. She predicts busihome office. ness travel will take the longest to Even with the successful recover, as people have adjusted Rebecca Masri vaccine roll-out, as international to remote working. travel resumes on Monday and According to reports, the United hotels welcome back clients, it is likely to Nations World Tourism Organisation expects take roughly three years for demand to return international tourist arrivals to be down about to 2019 levels, say reports.

85 per cent in the first quarter of 2021 comBut as hotels reopen, a tech-transformed, pared to 2019, representing a loss of some agile hospitality sector will emerge, as will new 260 million international arrivals when trends. Among them, the birth of “bleisure” – compared to pre-pandemic levels. combining business trips with leisure time.

Unsurprisingly, the vaccine roll-out and Luxury travel expert Rebecca Masri MBE consumer confidence will determine the speed explains: “The growth opportunities lie with of market recovery. According to research by leisure. We have already seen the average Deloitte, there will be a substantially reduced length of stay increase, as offices remain closed, number of overseas holidays in 2021. But there is more remote working, and people are counter to some projections, it suggests no signot necessarily restricted to holiday days.” nificant change in the type of holiday, no great Masri is the founder of Little Emperors, switch to the outdoors or away from luxury a private members’ hotel club, which counts hotels, and no shift away from all-inclusive. the Four Seasons, The Ritz-Carlton and Little Emperors offers its 30,000-plus Shangri-La among its portfolio. members access to preferential rates and She says: “The pandemic has shown us guaranteed leisure and corporate benefits at people can work from anywhere and we have 4,000 exclusive luxury hotels around the globe. seen some very appealing offers from hotels Company bookings were in fact ‘up’ in 2020 that want to encourage longer stays.” (more than 10,000 taken), and Masri predicts Little Emperors’ average length of stay this year to be the best one yet in terms of has increased from five to nine nights, and bookings, as members have more desire than 70 percent of bookings made over the past few ever to get away. months have been extended after the guest has As of 17 May, foreign travel for Brits will checked in. “‘Workations’ are popular, and reopen under a risk-based tiered traffic light I imagine this will continue to lead the return system; ‘green’, ‘amber’ and ‘red’ categories of leisure travel,” says Masri. based on a combination of risk factors.

The Global Business Travel Association With Israel included on the ‘green list’,

The Norman Hotel, Tel Aviv

alongside Portugal and Gibraltar, Masri acknowledges it presents an exciting opportunity for the country’s tourist industry. Little Emperors has already taken Israel bookings for September onwards.

Speaking before this week’s rocket attacks from Hamas and violence in Jewish-Arab cities, she said: “There are many reasons to travel to Israel, which will attract a new and hopefully repeat market.

“The hotel game is getting stronger too, with The Norman being our members’ favourite boutique hotel in Tel Aviv. In Jerusalem, the Mamilla has attracted many visitors and, pre-Covid, we had an increase already noted in first timers ticking Israel off their bucket list.

“We are particularly excited for the opening of Six Senses Shaharut. I hope this opportunity to host a new audience will help in the recovery for all the tourism that has been missed this past year. Since the borders opened with the UAE and particularly Dubai, Israel has a high benchmark of hotels.”

An avid traveller, Masri was inspired to set up Little Emperors in 2008. She was working at

Keyless mobile phone entry

Goldman Sachs in London at the time.

“The market took a tumble and the world headed into a global recession. I saw that the approved hotel list from the corporate travel programme at Goldman Sachs had also, in turn, changed significantly, with most luxury hotels being removed.

“Coupled with the rise is SMEs [small and medium enterprises] that did not have their own volumes for rate negotiation as people were laid off from larger firms, I identified an opportunity and, together with some university friends created Little Emperors.”

The company recently won the Four Seasons Preferred Partner Advisor Awards.

With both a web and app-based presence, the enterprise has become more of a ‘tech’ company. Bookings can be completed in four clicks.

And it’s tech that will shape travel going forward, as Masri explains: “When I started my tech journey at Little Emperors, I received some negative feedback from high-end luxury hotels concerned that tech would take away from the personalised experience people might expect. I was certain that technology

Six Senses, Shaharut

13 May 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

29

Luxury travel / Business

would in fact personalise the guest experience, using AI [artificial intelligence] to customise and tactically suggest relevant offers and infor-

mation. Now I can see a shift towards tech, as Covid has perhaps led people to want to ‘de-personalise’! Hotels are investing in their own apps – keyless entry, checking in and out on your app, in-app chats, in-room dining and restaurant menus.”

As for other shifts, she cites Covid-safe protocol. “Regular cleaning, with stronger products, masks, testing, fewer touch points, no more buffet breakfasts; these are all present in hotels as they reopen in a ‘new era’, and have become the ‘new normal’ way of travel.”

Masri says the crisis has led to a greater emphasis on wellness and mindful travel.

Algarve , Portugal

The Four Seasons, Hampshire

Non Executive Board and Sub Committee Recruitment We are the largest provider of sheltered housing to the Jewish community in the UK. We deliver services to around 450 properties; primarily sheltered housing with some other supported housing and general needs homes.

As we look to the future and in line with our commitment to strong governance we are now seeking to recruit additional non executive members for our various sub committees and the main Board. These are voluntary roles and require a commitment to attend quarterly meetings throughout the year. Meetings are held in the early evening.

Many of our sub committee members have progressed to become duly elected members of the main Board. All non executive members receive the support of the established senior executive team and we are proud that our non executive and executive members enjoy strong and positive working relationships.

We are looking for individuals who want to make a difference, understand our business and our regulatory framework and share our commitment to providing quality accommodation and associated services to our community. We need individuals who want to make an impact, understand the contribution that they can make but also have a strong understanding of risk.

We are interested to hear from individuals who work or have expertise in any of the following fields: • Social Housing Finance • Social Housing Property and Development • HR To find out more or for an informal conversation about the role please contact the Chief Executive – jgoodman@jliving.org.uk Applicants will be required to submit a full CV, Supporting Statement and will be required to participate in an interview.

“Health and well-being have been at the forefront of peoples’ minds and I can see hotels offering more wellness programmes.”

Outdoor experiences are more in demand, as well as culinary ones. This is a direct result of lockdown, where people have been confined to their homes and are now seeking adventure and activities.

Pre-pandemic, there was a shift towards new destination discovery, but Masri says this has not followed through. “Familiar favourites seem to be more popular. People may feel safer where they have been before. We have been forced to think about things such as hospitals in places that are not home, proximity to home

and local familiarity. Finally, there’s the obvious trend for flexible hotel cancellation policies.”

In 2015, Masri was awarded an MBE for her services to charity. Aged 15, she and a friend organised a play to raise funds for a bed for the Paediatric Intensive Care Unit at St Mary’s Hospital. She has since taken on work for Israeli charity Afikim, and the Tree of Life, a nonprofit foundation she founded.

In recognition of her impact, she was invited by the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to join the development board for the Legacy List, the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park charity. www.littleemperors.com

Baccarat Hotel, New York

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31

Orthodox Judaism

SEDRA

Torah For Today

Bamidbar

What does the Torah say about: Bill and Melinda Gates’ divorce

BY RABBI ALEX CHAPPER The 19th century French politician Pierre-Joseph Proudhon said: “When deeds speak, words are nothing.” This might help us understand why the Torah’s fourth book is called Bamidbar – “in the desert” – and, as it is read prior to Shavuot, why the Revelation at Sinai took place in such an environment.

It may be paradoxical that the Hebrew word midbar, meaning desert, has the same root as davar (word) and the same letters as medaber (speaking). For it is in the desert the Jewish people hear the word of God and yet such an uninhabited place is synonymous with silence, the quiet associated with the absence of speaking.

The power of silence is highlighted by the death of Aharon’s two sons, Nadav and Avihu. Moses explains to his brother why they died and Aharon is silent – a response that is highly commended and speaks volumes about his character.

BY RABBI ARIEL ABEL

We discover that not only is silence a sign of greatness, but we also realise where there is silence great things can happen.

The Torah was given with no background noise, and even the Jewish people limited their response to saying only, na’ase v’nishma – “we will do and we will understand.”

As King Solomon phrased it in Kohelet, “There is a time (and place) for everything; a time to be silent and a time to speak.”

Rashi says sometimes a person is silent and receives a reward, as it is said, “and Aharon was silent ... and Hashem spoke to Aharon”.

Far from being a desolate place, the desert and, specifically its silence, enabled revelation of God’s word and for the most powerful and everlasting bond between God and the Jewish people to be effected.

◆ Rabbi Alex Chapper serves Borehamwood and Elstree United Synagogue

According to reports, a divorce between Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda has been brewing for several years. So what does the Torah say about divorce, and its financial implications?

First, a note about marriage.

In Judaism, it is not money that determines a marriage. Rather, the value of Kiddushin, the sanctification of the wedding ceremony, often tendered in the form of a ring, is a promissory act achieving the exclusivity of a trustful spousal relationship.

Essentially, why a couple decide to divorce is their private matter.

When a marriage is over, so ought to be all the elements of its financial interdependence.

The Talmud calculates minimum amounts to sustain the financially weaker partner, which historically was usually the wife.

The basic amount of money

mentioned in a Ketubah and the Talmud for subsistence is not sufficient to pay the bills for any appreciable length of time in a modern economy.

Therefore, the Ketubah offered by the Israeli Rabbinate typically carries the insertion of an extra sum to try to ensure that, on the point of divorce, neither spouse will be unduly disadvantaged.

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•

Do you identify with the orthodox ethos of the school?

We are seeking to recruit Class Teachers with QTS who always ensure that the needs of the children are their main consideration. You will be a passionate and committed advocate for SEND children and comfortable teaching across the key stages.

Our classes are arranged within a pathway system depending on the needs of the children.

We are seeking creative, passionate, and inspiring individuals to provide an exciting range of multisensory learning and enrichment opportunities for our pupils that will inspire and motivate.

Working alongside our teachers and therapists, you will be responsible for the effective planning, teaching and assessment of our Jewish Studies curriculum.

Experience of working with pupils with SEN, ASD, PMLD or SLD is desirable as is an understanding of the EYFS framework. What is important is you have the drive, creativity and a passion for teaching and learning to join our wonderful team who work in partnership to ensure all our learners achieve their full potential.

Kisharon Noé School is a special school for students aged 4 – 19 years with a wide range of learning disabilities. This is an exciting time to join Kisharon Noé School. We have a fabulous new building in Hendon and our numbers are growing rapidly. We welcome any questions you may have on either of these opportunities, or if you wish to discuss the roles informally you can contact us via email at admin@kisharonschool.org.uk. Visits to the school are warmly welcomed.

CLOSING DATE: 22 MAY 2021 For an application pack please visit our website: www.kisharonschool.org.uk/vacancies Completed application forms should be sent to: recruitment@kisharon.org.uk Kisharon Noé School is committed to safeguarding the welfare of children and vulnerable young adults and expects all staff to share this commitment. An Enhanced DBS criminal check will be required

The extra sum of the “Ketubah” is factored into the settlement of assets between the couple, which is usually 50-50, and is also the usual practice of a “clean break” divorce in the UK. The Gates couple did not have a prenuptial agreement to refer to, although much of the work of future finances are said to have been agreed through a “separation document”.

To date, the exemplary work of the philanthropist couple through their foundation has sustained the impressive humility that has been a marking feature of this high-profile divorce.

The Torah ideal is to empower divorcees to move on and, for all the pain, it is hoped that, rich or not, this will be the case for Bill and Melinda Gates. ◆ Rabbi Ariel Abel is chaplin to HM Forces, Merseyside

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Jewish News 13 May 2021

Progressive Judaism

Progressively Speaking

The Bible Says What?

Shavuot teaches us to celebrate Jews in all their rich diversity

‘The Torah wasn’t given on Shavuot’

BY RABBI AARON GOLDSTEIN Of all the major Torah festivals, Shavuot is the most unrecognisable from the descriptions in our Bible.

For UK Jews observing Shavuot, beyond the tradition of eating lots of cheesecake, it’s centred on Zman matan Torahteinu – the time of the giving of our Torah, the Revelation at Mount Sinai. But nowhere does our written Torah link the festival to the giving of the Torah.

Rather, we get a largely agricultural celebration of the first fruits of the wheat harvest, a festival with the specific directions for animal sacrifice and one marked possibly in a more urban setting.

The accounts, written at different times by different people, reflect a harvest festival or Israelite cultic festival to which most in the UK would find difficult to relate owing to the variance of climate and super-city dwelling tendencies.

Instead, our Shavuot is an interpretation of the ancient rabbis, who created Judaism from the seeds

BY STUDENT RABBI LEV TAYLOR

of the written Torah. Trying to suit the lives of what was becoming an increasingly town-based and diasporic people, they changed Shavuot from an annual agricultural phenomenon to a festival grounded in a one-off historical event.

Today we are still evolving Judaism. The popularity of an all-night Shavuot study session (Tikkun Leil Shavuot) has only relatively recently grown in popularity, now often with its own Seder.

In the early 20th century, the early pioneers of the land reintroduced Shavuot as a first fruits festival to be spent in the fields with flowers, baskets and produce. This was my experience on Kibbutz Hasolelim.

The Bible says little about the Shavuot of today and its not the most popular of festivals, but what might come out of a lockdown with more people growing their own?

Let’s see what we might create.

◆ Rabbi Aaron Goldstein serves The Ark Synagogue

At the upcoming festival of Shavuot, we read the story of Ruth. According to rabbinic tradition, Ruth was a convert to Judaism.

When her husband died, Ruth told her mother-in-law, Naomi: “Your people will be my people and your God will be my God.” Naomi welcomed her into the Jewish fold and taught her the ways of our people.

When Ruth turned up as a foreign widow in Boaz’s fields, Boaz married her. He made a home for her and showed her kindness.

Together they raised a family, and the whole community rejoiced.

But what if these people hadn’t welcomed Ruth? What if Naomi had said: “We don’t take converts”? What if Boaz had said: “You’re not a real Jew”? What if the community had said: “That baby doesn’t look Jewish”?

Scripture tells us the answer.

Naomi was the great-grandmother of Jesse, the father of David. There

would have been no Davidic kingdom; no King Solomon; no Temple.

The Jewish people, as we know it, would not exist.

The last verses of Ruth are a polemic in favour of accepting converts. We owe the existence of our communities to converts and outsiders.

Yet, too often, we hear people question others’ Jewish status, try to nullify conversions, or dismiss people for not being Jewish ‘the right way’.

The story of Ruth lets us know that, by excluding people who want to be Jewish, you weaken the whole community. Welcoming converts and ba’alei teshuvah makes us all stronger.

Shavuot is a reminder that nobody has pure lineage, even the great King David. Torah teaches that we left Egypt as a “mixed multitude” and Talmud Kiddushin says that everyone comes from mixed backgrounds.

It’s time to celebrate Jews in all our diversity. ◆ Lev Taylor is a student rabbi at Leo Baeck College

THE JEWISH LEADERSHIP COUNCIL

Come and join our team!

The Jewish Leadership Council [JLC]’s mission is to support development and excellence in our member organisations, challenging them to lead the way in sustaining, building, and celebrating vibrant Jewish communities across the UK.

We’re recruiting for: Head of Strategic Collaboration – identifying and coordinating closer engagement between JLC member organisations and the wider community on areas that will improve and enable community sustainability

We are a small professional staff team that is goal driven and committed to working flexibly and creatively. We embrace personal and team development and see building relationships as a vital tool of our success.

Membership Manager – a new role focused on supporting our members ensuring their needs are understood and met

The roles we are recruiting for build on staff members who have previously held responsibility in these areas and also develop new areas of capacity in our team.

Yorkshire & East Coast Regional Manager – working in the region to serve the needs of our members and develop relationships with local representatives

Digital Content Officer – a new role focused on communicating our core mission and better servicing our diverse membership

These roles are advertised as full time positions. We would also welcome and consider applications from participants who are looking to work more flexibly including part time or with a job share.

For detailed information including salary, benefits and how to apply: please visit www.thejlc.org/vacancies Applications close on 4th June 2021 Supporting Jewish Schools

The Jewish Leadership Council is an equal opportunities employer and we welcome applications from all suitably qualified persons.

JLC09 recruit advert v4.indd 1

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13 May 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: Becoming fiscally resident in Israel, making aliyah and writing a CV after a long time...

LEON HARRIS UK/ISRAELI ACCOUNTANT

HARRIS HOROVIZ CONSULTING & TAX LTD

Dear Leon I want to spend more time in Israel now the pandemic is receding. At what point do I become fiscally resident there?

Joshua Dear Joshua In general, an individual becomes resident for Israeli tax purposes when their “centre of living” shifts to Israel, having regard to their overall circumstances – family, economic and social, including home, activities, economic interests and memberships. There is a rebuttable presumption of residency if you spend at least 183 days in Israel in any tax year (this ends

DOV NEWMARK ALIYAH ADVISER

NEFESH B’NEFESH Dear Dov I read with great excitement that Israel is soon going to open its skies to foreign tourists. If that is the case, would it be easier and quicker to make aliyah from within Israel?

Hila Dear Hila There is indeed a lot of speculation around tourists soon being allowed to enter

Israel. As of now, only vaccinated first degree relatives of Israelis living in Israel are allowed entry with a special permit.

Having said that, if and when the skies do open (no date is known as yet), I would recommend getting your approval through The Jewish Agency in the UK and making aliyah from there.

That way, you will be able to take advantage of the free aliyah flight and

31 December in Israel) or 425 days over three years with at least 30 of those days in the latest year. Flight days count as days in Israel.

You should also check the UK statutory residence rules, for example, and, if you are “dual resident”, there are “tie-breaker” rules in the UK-Israel tax treaty.

If you do become an Israeli resident for the first time or after 10 years away from Israel, you may enjoy a 10-year exemption from Israeli tax on non-Israeli income.

Borderline cases occur. Work done in Israel is not exempt even if done for a non-Israeli party.

A recent Israeli tax ruling says mere holidays to visit a friend may not trigger Israeli residency.

A recent court case ruled that living and working outside Israel while separated but not divorced from a wife and children in Israel also may not trigger Israeli residency. But all the facts must be considered – the court criticised an Israeli tax inspector for failing to do so.

additional luggage allowance but, more importantly, if you have the status of an olah chadasha (new immigrant), you will be able to register for health insurance at the airport, which means you will be covered straight away.

Documentation is going to be same whether you make aliyah from the UK or Israel and, as far as timings, as we do not know when tourist will be allowed into Israel, use this time to open a file with The Jewish Agency and get the wheels in motion.

Good luck and hope to see you in Israel soon as an olah.

ERIC SALMON CAREER ADVISER

RESOURCE Dear Eric I’m no youngster and it’s been many years since I applied for work. Where do I begin when putting my CV together?

David Dear David At Resource we’re finding yours is an all too common situation during these difficult times. CVs have changed over the years. The first thing to remember is your

Registered Charity No. 259480

Leave the legacy of independence to people like Hayley.

eNABLeD PLease remember us in your wiLL.

Visit www.jbd.org or call 020 8371 6611

CV shouldn’t – and doesn’t – require you to reveal your age.

So no date of birth, no mention of ‘O-levels’ or your school dates, for example, and no need to go back in detail over your early years in employment.

A brief overview within one paragraph will be fine.

It’s important you grab the recruiter’s attention from the start; you may be competing with many other candidates’ CVs. Use the first half page to provide essential contact information and an eye-catching profile briefly summarising who you are and at what you are skilled. Don’t waste this premium space with wordy information.

Then follow with three or four key achievements you’re most proud of, making them as recent and relevant to the

employer as possible – without alluding to long-ago dates!

For someone in your position, we at Resource may recommend you don’t present your layout chronologically. Instead, use a functional format that highlights skills and abilities in order of relevance to the role. It’s especially important if you can demonstrate significant work experience related to the employer.

Include your interests, keep to two pages and always write in the third person. Save sentences beginning with ‘I’ for your covering letter.

Finally, ask someone to double-check for spelling and grammatical errors. If it helps, phone Resource and arrange to talk through your job search with an advisor.

34

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Jewish News 13 May 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

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 020 8732 6101 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

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

CONSULTANT DERMATOLOGIST

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

DR LAURENCE LEVER Qualifications: • MBBS FRCP, private practice at 108 Harley Street The Skin Clinic.

• Consultant Dermatologist with a special interest in the management of malignant and pre-malignant conditions of the skin • Looks after all dermatological conditions, including dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis, acne, moles, warts, cysts, skin tumours/cancer/oncology, dermatological surgery.

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.

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

13 May 2021 Jewish News

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Professional advice from our panel / Ask Our Experts

FINANCIAL SERVICES (FCA) COMPLIANCE

ACCOUNTANT

KITCHEN CONSULTANCY

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

If you would like to advertise your services here email: sales@ jewishnews.co.uk

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JDA’s door-to-door hearing aid service is a lifeline at this time of isolation

E

G D I R

“ I had a chat with my best friend from school.

DB E R Y IN VER AY! W E SD O R N U TH

For the first time in years, she can hear properly on the phone. We love a little gossip.

Guess what, Shirley has remarried for the sixth time! ”

Thanks to JDA, everyone can have clean, working hearing aids and remain connected to their loved ones and the world around them at this difficult time.

To book an appointment: North London Email andrew@jdeaf.org.uk or call 020 8446 0214 Redbridge Email richard@jdeaf.org.uk or call 020 8551 7700

020 8446 0502 www.jdeaf.org.uk Registered Charity No. 1105845 Company Limited by Guarantee 4983830

13 May 2021 Jewish News

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Fun, games and prizes

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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 3, 9 and 13 with their letters in the grid will help you to guess the identity of other letters.

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

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Viral disease (3) Bottom of the ocean (6) Felt hat (6) Cereal crop (3) Small carpet (3) Tusked African pig (7) Church’s main table (5) Cut right through (5)

CODEWORD

WORDSEARCH

T A T O F F E E R

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

DOWN 1 Towers over (6) 2 Armed hostilities (3) 3 Annual periods (5) 4 Triangular river‑mouth (5) 5 Atomic (energy) (7) 6 Fruiting spikes of a cereal plant (4) 10 Perpendicular (7) 12 Recede (3) 13 ___ counter, radiation meter (6) 15 Less high (5) 16 Long stories (5) 18 Quarter, locality (4) 21 Juggernaut (inits)(3)

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SUDOKU

2 6 8 5 7 1 9 4 3

5 3 4 6 9 8 1 7 2

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

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Wordsearch 3 2 3 1 3 5

1 5 4 5 4 2

2 3 1 2 1 3

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3 5 3 1 4 1

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K R O T A S S L E Y P H A

Y E A N S C L R M Q U O D

R K C W G I C R M M P U H

E E G A F F E U A X Z F H

Codeword D A M T H G I S R E V O K

N Q P O N B P A T A W K S

U O T A O V X G F L C P J

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B C W D X E B R R B M A R

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I N F E R J N L O A B L U B B E R O M O R EMA T C H N O I E X T R A P S E E P T I D A L O A I T H E S E D U M V I S QU E E Z E

A C A R E F U O L B L O I S E R

K D AW O I E GA L D L A I L N Y A T E I V I QU E U S M I S S T E O Y A L

N B K E Z F A I TWX RG M C Y U P H V L D J S Q O13/05

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Business Services Directory ANTIQUES 44

The Jewish News 22 September 2016

www.jewishnews.co.uk

BUSINESS SERVICES DIRECTORY

Stirling of Kensal Green

Top prices paid

Antique – Reproduction – Retro Furniture (any condition)

Carer

Clothing

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

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

Antiques

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

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

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

Glass,Days/nights.

Bronzes, Ivories, Oriental & Judaica Antiques jackets etc.

Very reasonable rates.

Full house clearances organised.

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

Established over 60 years.

Know who you are dealing with.

Top prices paid

House clearances

All quality furniture bought & sold.

Antique – Reproduction – Retro Furniture

Single items to complete homes

(any condition)

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

MARYLEBONE ANTIQUES - 8 CHURCH STREET NW8 8ED

WE BUY ANTIQUES

07866 614 744 (ANYTIME)

www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk

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

Computer FOR APPOINTMENTS CALL SUE ON:

0800 840 2035 or 07956268290

Single items to complete Please contact Gordonhomes Stirling

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

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

020 8960 5401 or 07825 224144

Full house clearances organised.

CHURCH STREET ANTIQUES ‐ 8 CHURCH STREET NW8 8ED

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

͔͚͛͜​͚ ͚͕͘ ͛͘​͘ (ANYTIME) Email: gordonstirling65@gmail.com

www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk

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

CHARITY & WELFARE For small businesses & home users.

0207 723 7415 (SHOP)

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

Call Ian Green, Man on a Bike on

PORTOBELLO RD LONDON.

020 8731 6171 • www.manonabike.co.uk

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

MAKE SURE YOU CONTACT US BEFORE SELLING

WESTLON HOUSING ASSOCIATION

ARE YOU BEREAVED?

Sheltered Accommodation

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

During the pandemic, we offer telephone and online counselling.

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

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

Labels are forTURN, jars.

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

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

REGISTERED CHARITY NO. 1003345

020 8922 2222

Counselling Service in confidence

jcdirect@jcare.org

020 & 8951 3881 • 07765 693 160 CHARITY WELFARE

jewishcare.org/helpline

HOUSE CLEARANCE

E: enquiries@jbcs.org.uk

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.

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

SAFE AND DISCREET PROFESSIONAL PEST CONTROL

Clearance

We cover all aspects of pest control for residential and commercial properties.

Are you a Jewish woman experiencing domestic violence?

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

Including mice treatment and mouse proofing with We are here to help1 year guarantee. with free support, advice and information and confidential counselling.

Kosher Refuge available for women and0203 children 405 in need.5000 Email: info@inoculand.co.uk Free Confidential National Helpline 0808 801 0500 Web www.inoculand.co.uk advice@jwa.org.uk • www.jwa.org.uk

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

Give support • Get support • Get involved

We also buy good quality furniture, old books & Judaica.

All NW-London postcodes covered

07860 881505 or 0800 610 12 12

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

Call: 078 060 79299 Reg Charity No. 1003345

Not shabbat

PLUMBSAFEUK.COM

HOME & MAINTENANCE

Home & Maintenance

L

K

PLUMBSAFE (UK) LTD

No further, your

LOCAL PLUMBERS

Hall & Randall Plumbers

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

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

All NW-London postcodes covered

+ " ) "# ,! " " ! #

!

Not shabbat

) *" " - *'

07860 881505 or 0800 610 12 12

020 8953 2094 office

PLUMBSAFEUK.COM

office@hallandrandall.com

Home & Maintenance

STONEMASON

PROFESSIONAL A. ELFES LTD PAINTING, DECORATING memorials & New PAPER HANGING Additional inscriptions Over & 20renovations years experience Friendly, reliable & Clayhall Showroom 14 Claybury Broadway Ilford. IG5 0LQ T: 0208 551 6866

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

Email : info@garygreenmemorials.co.uk

Gants Hill service.

Edgware personal

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

STEPHEN: 07973 342 422 0207 754 4659 0207 754 4646

www.garygreenmemorials.co.uk

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

London 020 8485 8176

AUTOMOTIVE

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

18/03/2019 12:50:51

ADVERTISE IN THE UK’S BIGGEST JEWISH NEWSPAPER FOR LESS THAN

!

! # ! " " #

For all your heating and plumbing requirements

020 8207 3286 home 020 8386 8798 hallandrandallplumbers.com

LONDON

“Better Safe Than Sorry”

srindsmc@hotmail.com

www.memorialgroup.co.uk

£24 A WEEK

City and Guilds Electrician

MOTOR VEHICLES All types of electrical work undertaken PURCHASED Rewiring, extra sockets, BT points, Economy 7 CLASSIC OR CARS storage heaters, Shabbat time switches, security lighting, for vehicles overfinding, 10 CCTVportable appliance tests, LED spotlights, fault years old landlord testspreferably and house buyer’s surveys. withan low mileage For efficient reliable and friendly service.

Call Harvey Solomons on

020 8958 6495 / 07836 Contact: Anthony – 648 554

07850 590415

ADVERTISE IN THE UK’S BIGGEST JEWISH NEWSPAPER FOR LESS THAN £24.00 A WEEK

Marc today Email SalesCall ontoday 020 7692at 6943 sales@jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish

13 May 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

39

Business Services Directory SILVER

ANTIQUES

ANTIQUE JUDAICA & HEBRAICA Books, Manuscripts, Ephemera, Works of Art and Silver

ADVERTISE IN THE UK’S BIGGEST JEWISH NEWSPAPER FOR LESS THAN

HIGHEST PRICES PAID!

JCL Antiques Ltd. 07791 798492 joseph.landau@yahoo.co.uk

£24 A WEEK

CLEANING

Professional standard with elegant finishing.

End of tenancy, deep cleaning, post renovation cleaning services. We create a clean environment with our clean projects.

Email Sales today at sales@jewishnews.co.uk

Call us on 07907 017869 or email us via our website, www.cleanthecity.co.uk, to discuss your specific requirements – we are happy to provide a free quote.

OFFICE FURNITURE

LEGACY- LEAVE A GIFT IN YOUR MEMORY

JEWISH WAR VETERANS

Leave the legacy of independence to people like Joel.

& THEIR DEPENDANTS NEED

YOUR LEGACY

PLease remember us in your wiLL.

eNABLeD

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

visit www.Jbd.org

Registered Charity

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

Registered Charity No: 1082148

Need to furnish your home or office?

London’s leading supplier of new and reconditioned furniture.

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

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

Charity Reg No. 802559

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

HOUSE CLEARANCES legacy@cst.org.uk ► www.cst.org.uk ► 0208 457 3700 ►

Together

we protect our children’s future Please include CST in your will

Charity no. 1042391 and SC043612

COMPUTER Legacy advert 84x40.indd 1

16/04/2021 10:55

ADVERTISE IN THE UK’S BIGGEST JEWISH NEWSPAPER FOR LESS THAN

£24 A WEEK

Email Sales today at sales@jewishnews.co.uk

40 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

13 May 2021

COV I D- 19

M e e t i n g u p a g a i n?

S t i ck to 6 .

Stick to groups of up to six people or two households and keep a safe distance. Because the more people you meet, the more likely you are to get infected.

Let’s take this next step safely.