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Issue No.1216

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The real Ghislaine From heiress to accused P25

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Abi’s anthem Inspirational teen facing rare cancer records favourite song for charity

24 June 2021

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14 Tamuz 5781

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Issue No.1216

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@JewishNewsUK

The real Ghislaine From heiress to accused P25

Page 7

The Gaza by-election Labour support in freefall over ‘Zionist Starmer’ claims ahead of crucial Batley and Spen vote had concerns that Galloway “was exploiting it [Palestine] for his own personal gain.” But the man added: “It is a Muslim thing – we are all passionate about freeing Palestine. I wouldn’t Labour is hemorrhaging support among say it is a hatred of Israel. We just want to free previously loyal Muslim voters ahead Palestine. There can be two states.”

Meanwhile, another male insisted: “George of a crucial by-election over claims that Sir Keir Starmer’s party is “Zionist” and is a good thing – he is supporting Palestine.

Labour is not backing them, they support “supports Israel every way it can”. the Israelis in every way.”

A Jewish News investigaAsked why he felt Starmer tion discovered that in one had taken the party in this key area of the West Yorkshire direction, the man added: constituency of Batley and “The money – backhanders.”

Spen the NUMBER ONE He continued: “The media issue at stake for the majority is always trying blame Hamas of the electorate is Palestine. when it is definitely the Jews.”

Batley – the seat’s largest The use of antisemitic town and once an impregtropes among the voters of nable Labour stronghold – is Batley was occasional, rather now awash with pro-Palesthan frequent this week. Most tine posters, along with caminsisted they had “no problem paign material in support of with the Jewish people” and notorious anti-Israel activist George Galloway.

A poster in the town centre said the only thing they had a dislike of were “Zionists”.

One local, a former Labour “We respect the Jewish people, they are, voter, claimed: “I’m voting for George because of his stance over Palestine. Starmer has been like us, from the Abrahamic faith,” said one bought out by the Zionist lobby. They are the man. “I ran a garage and had lots of Jewish cliones who backed his campaign to take over ents, people from Leeds and other places. They from Corbyn. People aren’t stupid. You can were my friends.”

Another man condemned the “idiots from read about it on the internet.”

Another Batley resident admitted they Continued on page 2

By Lee Harpin in Batley and Spen lee@jewishnews.co.uk

George Galloway’s campaign poster is seen on the main road leading into Batley. All pics: Lee Harpin/Jewish News

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

Special Report / Batley and Spen by-election

Galloway’s banners are everywhere as he pushes Labour out of running to the Conservatives, who enjoy sigBradford” who brought shame on the nificant support in the area. pro-Palestine movement with their One local, who recognised car convoy through north London the likely outcome of the eleclast month. tion, said: “There is a joke Meanwhile, one female in among some Muslims that Batley said: “Zionism is not George Galloway is really a Judaism. They are completely Tory secret agent.” different.”

But as Jewish News spoke An opinion poll last weekend with voters in Batley is was predicted that the former Big clear many felt Galloway was Brother contestant could gain about in with a clear chance of winning six percent of votes cast in the Red Wall seat the seat and that he was the only canelection, with almost all Galloway’s supdidate to put the issue of Palestine port coming from ex-Labour voters. at the top of his agenda. And the But among the Palestineadvertising for his campaign obsessed voters of Batley, Galin Batley easily dwarfs that of loway has convinced many that his opponents. he is in with a real chance of vicThe Tory and Labour tory in next week’s poll. campaigns rely on tiny placLocal voters in Batley told ards affixed to lamp-posts.

Jewish News they believed where Huge banners in support of there had once been 90 percent Galloway are everywhere. support for Labour among Muslims, One banner outside a travel this had fallen below 50 percent. agent in support of Galloway’s In reality, a vote for the newly Fight is on: campaign campaign reads: “I will demand formed Workers Party, of whom Gal- posters in Batley and an end to UK arms sales and mililoway is leader, is likely to hand victory Spen this week tary co-operation with Israel.”

Continued from page 1

Labour leader Keir Starmer with the party’s candidate Kim Leadbeater in the constituency

A giant poster fixed to the side of a house, with a photograph of Galloway, fists clenched in a fighting position, has the slogan: “Starmer OUT”.

An election leaflet distributed by the former Respect Party leader’s campaign team suggested that it was a “two-horse race” in Batley and Spen between Galloway and an “unknown” Tory candidate.

Declaring himself “Pro-Palestinian always and without equivocation”, Galloway’s leaflet suggested that his rival “supports Israel over Palestine.”

A former Labour MP, Galloway used his antiZionist stance to land the Bradford West seat in 2012, only to be voted out as the Respect Party representative three years later to Naz Shah MP. Outside one of the largest mosques in Batley, two men offered a scathing verdict of the current Labour leader. They said that when Starmer arrived in Batley last month, he failed to notify the local Muslim electorate. The men suggest Starmer was scared of a possible backlash over his alleged position on Palestine.

More impressive, they suggested, was Boris Johnson’s decision to visit Batley’s Fox’s Biscuit factory, which stands only a few hundred metres away from their mosque.

While they said they could not bring them-

selves to vote Tory, the prime minister gained their further respect when he praised the success of the vaccine roll-out in Batley on the BBC Six O Clock News. “He has said silly things about Muslim women in the past, but he is not stupid,” said one of the men. “Boris has done two positive things for Batley in the recent weeks.”

Asked if the imams at the local mosque have been urging people to back Galloway on 1 July, both men issued a strong denial. They stressed that the leaders of the mosque have always refused to enter into offering political advice.

Despite the overriding interest in one foreign policy issue, Batley’s citizens stressed their affinity both to their local town and to the UK. The chatter among one group of men following afternoon prayers at the mosque was about that evening’s England Euro 2020 football match.

Meanwhile, a leaflet put out by Labour candidate Kim Leadbeater this month attracted criticism from some in the Jewish community, and from former Labour MP Ian Austin, because it emphasised her commitment to resolving the Palestinian issue, but failed to condemn Hamas.

But so important an issue is it to the locals in Batley town centre it would be hard to envisage a candidate attracting support at the polls without expressing some solidarity with the Palestinians.  Editorial comment, page 18

‘No racism’ in campaign George Galloway is “very clear there is a difference between anti-Zionism and antisemitism” his spokesperson has insisted.

Speaking to Jewish News following our report on strong pro-Palestinian sentiment in a key area of Batley and Spen ahead of next week’s by-election, the spokesperson also said there have been “no” incidents of antisemitism in Galloway’s campaign.

His aide said: “We have made clear in our daily briefings if anybody says anything

antisemitic, if anybody holds antisemitic views they are not welcome.”

Asked for Galloway’s view on whether Labour had become a “Zionist Party” under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, the spokesperson said: “I have not spoken to George today, but when I see him I will get him to reply to you.”

When told that some voters in the Batley area suggested Galloway was himself now a Muslim ‘revert’, the spokesperson said: “That is a matter between George and God. He

is a believer in God, but his faith is a matter between him and God.” The spokesperson also suggested claims that Galloway’s campaign would lead to a Tory victory on 1 July were wrong.

“We are in it to win it,” said the aide. “It is Labour who cannot win. Speak to any local Kirklees Labour councillor and they will tell you the party’s canvassing returns are so poor they cannot win.”

Labour has yet to respond to a request for comment on the party’s campaign.

24 June 2021 Jewish News

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Wall assault / ‘Zionists’ ruling / Survivor’s milestone / News

Envoy condemns Kotel attack on reform Jews An assault in which prayer books belonging to Reform Jews were torn up by a strictly Orthodox group at the Western Wall was an act of violence, Israel’s ambassador to the UK has said, writes Michael Daventry.

Tzipi Hotovely said she had written to her government following the incident this month, in which Women of the Wall members were accosted by a group of Charedi men.

Witnesses said the group began tearing pages out of the Reform prayer books before trampling on the volumes that had fallen to the group.

The issue was raised at last Sunday’s Board of Deputies meeting by

A man rips a Reform prayer book belonging to Women of the Wall, (Credit: Women of the Wall)

Joe Grabiner, the deputy for Alyth Reform Synagogue in Golders Green.

In a question-and-answer session attended by Hotovely, he said: “As a

religious Reform Jew my siddur has never been torn up on the streets of London. However, this is exactly what happened to the siddurim of fellow progressive Jews at the Kotel last week.”

Hotovely said at the Board meeting.: “We definitely, definitely, definitely support every Jew to practise what he believes.

“This is the policy of the government of Israel and we would like to see that every Jew will feel comfortable when he comes to Israel and I believe that with the new government, I’m sure, this policy will remain.”

PHARMACIST RULING QUASHED The High Court has ruled that a pharmacist and leader of the annual Al Quds Day march may have made antisemitic comments when he blamed “Zionists” for the Grenfell disaster, writes Jack Mendel.

The body ruled this week that the original decision by the General Pharmaceutical Council’s (GPhC) fitness to practise committee, that

Nazim Ali’s comments in 2017 were “offensive” but not racist, must be quashed and reconsidered.

This comes after an appeal by the Professional Standards Authority at the request of Campaign Against Antisemitism, after outrage at the initial decision by the GPhC in 2019.

Stephen Silverman, director of investigations at CAA, said: “The

High Court has agreed with us that the decision on whether Nazim Ali’s remarks at the pro-Hezballah Al Quds Day march in 2017 were antisemitic was woefully inept.

“We commend the Professional Standards Authority and the General Pharmaceutical Council itself for recognising the injustice of the earlier decision.”

LILY EBERT’S TIKTOK MILLION Auschwitz survivor Lily Ebert, 97, has reached one million followers on social video-sharing app TikTok. Her great-grandson, Dov Forman, tweeted: “‘When you listen to a witness you become a witness’ (Elie Wiesel). Over one million TikTok users are now Lily’s witnesses.”

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News / Rayner picture / Prince’s award / News briefs

‘What a farce!’ Rayner gets ‘photobombed’ by Corbyn

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

Labour deputy leader Angela Rayner has been photographed alongside Jeremy Corbyn for a promotional stunt – days after she launched the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM)’s antisemitism training sessions.

Rayner was pictured giving the thumbs-up sign alongside the former leader – who is still suspended as a party MP – and her Labour colleague Barry Gardiner, for the launch of his private member’s bill to stop the practice of hire and fire.

Jewish News understands that the photograph, posted on social media, sparked outrage among campaigners against antisemitism in the party, including senior figures within JLM.

Sources close to Rayner told Jewish News Corbyn had “photobombed” the planned photo stunt with her and Gardner. They said she did not speak to Corbyn and did not know he would be there when she accepted the invitation from the Unite union.

One Jewish Labour figure said: “That photo of Angela and Barry with Corbyn actually looked like they were trolling Luciana (Berger). What a farce.”

At the launch of last week’s JLM online antisemitism sessions, which were attended by thousands of Labour members, Rayner had restated the claim that under Sir Keir Starmer’s the party was “absolute” in its determination to tackle anti-Jewish racism.

Meanwhile, at an earlier JLM conference event, Rayner told attendees she believed Corbyn failed to understand how upsetting his comments around antisemitism could be. Corbyn remains suspended as

Jeremy Corbyn with Gardiner and Rayner

a Labour MP as a result of his public response to the publication of the Equality and Human Rights Commission report into his handling of antisemitism in the party.

PRINCE CHARLES RECEIVES CCJ’S INTERFAITH AWARD Prince Charles has been presented with a prestigious interfaith award recognising his efforts in building bridges between communities, writes Jack Mendel.

The heir to the throne received the Council of Christians and Jews’ (CCJ) Bridge Award at Spencer House in central London, at a ceremony attended

by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis. It was announced in 2020 but the presentation was delayed due the pandemic.

The gong was introduced in 2017 to mark CCJ’s 75th anniversary, recognising individuals who have made an “exceptional and leading contribution” to interfaith relations, particularly between Christians and Jews.

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Rt Revd Michael Ipgrave, chair of the CCJ and Bishop of Lichfield, said: “His Royal Highness has been a steadfast friend of all the faith communities, reflecting the duality of the monarchy’s role as supreme governor of the Church of England but also at the helm of a multi-faith country and Commonwealth. To borrow the words of Simon

& Garfunkel, he has been a bridge over troubled water.”

Zaki Cooper, CCJ trustee and founder of the Bridge Award, said: “The prince has been a long-standing champion of this important work between different religious groups, and also as a particularly steadfast friend to minority faith and ethnic groups.

Bercow denies any peerage discussion Former Commons speaker and Tory MP Jon Bercow has denied discussing the prospect of a peerage with Sir Keir Starmer after defecting to Labour. Bercow told Sky’s Trevor Phillips On Sunday: “I’ve had no discussion whatsoever, either with Keir Starmer or any other member of the Labour leadership about that matter.

There has been no barter, no trade, no deal whatsoever”, after he launched an attack on the Boris Johnson-led Conservative Party.

Zionist organisation removes top man The World Confederation of United Zionists, one of several groupings within the World Zionist Organisation (WZO), let go of its secretary-general, American-born Rabbi Dov Lipman, citing his dispute with two women who allege he sexually harassed associates.

Haaretz reported on Monday that the confederation’s chairman, David Yaari, notified the WZO of Lipman’s departure last month after the allegations were made public.

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24 June 2021 Jewish News

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Conference boycott / Councillor questioned / News

UK confirms Durban Conference boycott

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

The British government has confirmed it will boycott an international conference in New York over “historic concerns” about antisemitism and anti-Israel hatred.

Jewish News revealed earlier this month how Boris Johnson’s government would join the US, Australia and Canada in refusing to attend the 20th anniversary of the Durban Conference.

A government spokesperson has now confirmed: “Following historic concerns regarding antisemitism, the UK has decided not to attend the UN’s Durban Conference anniversary event later this year.”

Insiders said the decision was based around antisemitic action and speeches in and around the previous conferences.

A Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) spokesperson said the group “applauds this latest decisive action from the UK government in opposing antisemitism in whatever

Then UN head Kofi Annan addresses the Durban Conference in 2001

form it occurs”.

The Unesco-organised event had previously been blighted by one-sided attacks on Israel, including in a 2001 draft resolution that likened Zionism to “racism”.

The Jewish Leadership Council (JLC), Board of Deputies and the CFI groups had been among those to write to Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab in recent months urging the UK to boycott the event.

A letter sent jointly by the JLC

and the Board to the foreign secretary warned that despite being known as a conference against racism, Durban “is remembered by the international Jewish community as a hostile showcase for open antisemitism”.

The conference is scheduled for 22 September in New York.

The UK did not attend the 10th anniversary of the Durban Conference in 2011, following the same concerns.

COUNCILLOR FACES PROBE OVER ‘DESTROY ISRAEL’ POST A Labour councillor, who is also a serving magistrate, is facing an investigation after appearing to urge the destruction of Israel on Facebook, writes Joshua Salisbury.

It is understood that Cllr Abdul Khayum, a representative on Sheffield City Council, is being investigated by Labour over the posts.

Among them was a reposted graphic video, which appeared to read: “O Allah, destroy Israel. O Allah, have mercy on us Muslims.”

Another post shared a picture of a group holding the Palestinian flag and treading on the Israeli flag.

The caption appeared to read: “Even the real Jews are anti-Zionists.”

The posts appear to be from the personal page for the Firth Park ward representative.

According to the town hall’s register of interests, Khayum is a serving magistrate. Magistrates, who hear cases in court, can hand out prison sentences of up to six months’ and unlimited fines.

Sheffield City Council refused to confirm whether its officials were probing the Facebook postings.

The council’s code of conduct states members “must not conduct yourself in a manner which would reason-

Councillor Khayum and a post

ably be regarded as bringing your authority into disrepute”.

“All complaints received are taken seriously,” said Gillian Duckworth, director of legal and governance at Sheffield City Council.

“We are unable to confirm details of any complaint or individuals identified in order to protect all affected parties.”

Jewish News contacted Khayum for comment about the social media posts.

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

News / UK-Israel travel / Forced marriage

UK and Israel try to agree isolation-free travel plan

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

The UK and Israel could recognise Covid-19 vaccination certificates to allow those who have received both jabs to enter each other’s countries without the further need for isolation.

In a move discussed by health officials from both countries last week, it was suggested that those who had been fully vaccinated against the virus would need just one serological, or antibody, test in the first two days of arrival in either Israel or the UK. An Israeli official confirmed the plan, but said it was “still aspirational”.

In an appearance on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, Dr Susan Hopkins, lead epidemiologist for Public Health England, said: “We’ve talked a lot to countries like Israel who are ahead of us in the vaccina-

tion campaign and they are now really looking at allowing people to come into their country who’ve had two vaccines and not needing to isolate.

“And they are allowing their population to travel more.

“We need to be alert and will need to consider how we can measure the response of these vaccines to new variants that come along.”

All foreign arrivals have to undergo quarantine, as do Israelis who are not vaccinated or those who have returned from one of the six countries with high levels of the Delta or Indian variant, even if vaccinated.

The numbers testing positive on arrival are believed to be low as a result of the fact that two-thirds of Israelis are vaccinated.

In last week’s conference call, Israel requested further details on how to confirm Brits arriving at Ben Gurion airport have had both jabs.

An almost empty beach in Tel Aviv during one of Israel’s nationwide lockdowns

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FORCED MARRIAGE ADVICE TO BE WRITTEN IN YIDDISH Government advice on forced marriage will be translated in Yiddish to help at-risk Charedi women and men following a campaign by activists, writes Joshua Salisbury.

The move by ministers comes after a report by Nahamu, a group that aims to challenge “inward-facing extremism” within the community.

Government officials are also planning to update guidance on forced marriage given to professionals who may come into contact with those A bride-to-be during a Charedi wedding ceremony affected.

She added that officials would invite “We are grateful that ministers have recognised the pressing need to increase access Nahamu to twice-yearly meetings with to resources around forced marriage in the the government’s Forced Marriage Unit, Jewish community,” said Project Nahamu’s which runs a helpline for victims of forced marriages. founder, Yehudis Fletcher.

Nahamu’s report had found that “whilst the “Nahamu looks forward to contributing further to the conversation, in particular arranged marriages are rarely forced through where emotional and psychological pressure violence, survivors have reported a level of social coercion which arises from their insular is used to coerce young people into marriage.

“We will continue to confront these upbringing….Children are primed from early childhood that all matches are arranged harmful cultural practices.”

Writing in response to Fletcher, Minister by parents”.

However, others have claimed the report for Safeguarding, Victoria Atkins MP, said: “Forced marriage is an appalling practice and stigmatises strictly-Orthodox marriages.

Writing in Jewish News in Feburary, Chaya tackling it is a key priority for this government, no matter what community the victims come Spitz of the Interlink Foundation, said: “The rolled-up case study presented by Nahamu is from.”

Among the changes are translating a ‘What wildly remote from normal people’s experience or of what halacha permits. is Forced Marriage’ leaflet into Yiddish.

“Of course even a single incident is a viola“That should help to ensure that if someone within the Charedi community faces the pros- tion and a crime. But it is completely wrong pect of being forced into marriage, they know to put this forward as representative of a communal problem.” where to turn for support,” said Atkins.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

24 June 2021 Jewish News

7

Charity tune / Citizenship decision / News

Inspiring teen fighting rare cancer records charity song

by Josh Salisbury josh@jewishnews.co.uk @josh_salisbury

A teenager undergoing chemotherapy for a rare cancer has released a cover of her favourite song to raise money for charities supporting her.

Abi Jacobs, 13, from Borehamwood, was diagnosed in December with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia, a rare cancer that affects white blood cells.

Despite Abi undergoing intensive chemotherapy to treat the illness, she released a cover of Jealous by Labrinth for charity. With the help of family friend Dean Greenfield, Abi recorded the cover last Tuesday and has so far raised more than £6,000 out of her target of £50,000 for organisations including Camp Simcha and Chai Cancer Care.

“Since December, they’ve been doing various tests and treatments and chemotherapy,” said Abi’s father,

Adam. “She lost her hair five weeks after starting treatment. It’s been tough. She’s had nausea, inflammation on one side of her brain and severe headaches. But she’s coped incredibly well. She’s been a real inspiration to everybody through her focus and the way she’s tackled it.”

When the current round of chemo is finished, Abi will

Abi undergoing treatment in hospital and, inset, performing her version of Jealous

have to move onto a two-year phase of ‘maintenance’ chemo.

Charities and communal groups have rallied around to help the Jacobs family.

“We’ve had so much support, so we wanted to raise money to give back to them,”

Adam said.

Abi said: “Without these charities I don’t know what I would do. I’m really grateful.”

Among the support provided, Camp Simcha paid for Uber hospital journeys, Chai Cancer Care provided advice,

and members of the family’s synagogue cooked meals.

“It seems to have touched people and they just want to help,” added Adam.  To watch Abi’s cover or to donate visit https:// gofund.me/d6fc9917

Eva Schloss becomes Austrian once again Auschwitz survivor Eva Schloss has taken Austrian citizenship at the aged of 92, insisting: “Young people need to see we can be friends again,” writes Lee Harpin.

As the stepsister of Anne Frank, Schloss has lived in London for 70 years and has dedicated her life to making sure people never forget what happened in the Shoah.

She says the decision to become a citizen of Austria, which is open to all victims of the Nazi regime and their descendants, was not easy.

Confirming her decision to adopt the citizenship of her country of birth, Schloss, cofounder of The Anne Frank Trust, says she believes it was “morally the right thing to do”.

She will retain her UK citizenship too, but said: “The Austrians are sorry about what has happened. We can’t carry on the hatred and discrimination any more. The Nazis are not with us.”

Schloss took part in a small ceremony at the Austrian Embassy in London on

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Auschwitz survivor Eva said it was ‘the right thing to do’

Monday to adopt her citizenship. She was also awarded the Medaille für Verdienste um die Republik Österreich (Medal for Services to the Republic of Austria). It is similar in status to an MBE in the UK, which Schloss was awarded for her work for Holocaust remembrance.

Nazi troops marched into Austria on 12 March 1938, to incorporate the country into Germany. Aged nine, Schloss and her family fled Vienna for Amsterdam, but were betrayed and sent to Auschwitz, where Schloss and her mother were liberated by the Soviets in 1945.

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

News / Textbook incitement / JFS ‘inadequate’

MPs: Taxpayers must stop funding Palestinian hate Britain needs to act to make sure taxpayer money does not fund antiJewish hatred in Palestinian textbooks, MPs and communal figures have said, writes Joshua Salisbury.

The call follows the long-delayed publication of an EU-commissioned study into Palestinian Authority (PA) textbooks, which found incitement and antisemitic stereotyping of Jews.

While the report’s forward states the books adhere to UNESCO standards, it also found examples of “ambivalent – sometimes hostile – attitudes towards Jews and the characteristics they attribute to the Jewish people”.

A recent Jewish News investigation revealed how, over five years, Britain spent an estimated £105 million on Palestinian education professionals, including on the salaries of teachers who write the textbooks.

The UK and the PA have an agreement that commits the PA to curriculum reform. In 2017-18, ministers deemed the agreement was met, but admitted that the contents of the curriculum were not taken into account.

Ministers have also refused requests to publish the government’s annual internal reviews of the PA’s compliance with the “curriculum reform” target.

In RE textbooks, the review found “frequent use of negative attributions in relation to the Jewish people in, for example, textbook exercises suggest a conscious perpetuation of anti-Jewish prejudice”. In one exercise, students are asked to discuss the “repeated attempts by the Jews to kill the Prophet” and then asked to think of “other enemies of Islam”.

Another text “portray[ed] the ‘Jews’ as deceptive, cowardly and aggressive protagonists”, which also left it open to students to suggest “a violent solution to the conflict with the ‘Jewish Zionist occupation’”.

Conspiracy theories were also found, such as a claim that Israel removed the original stones from buildings in East Jerusalem and replaced them with “Zionist drawings and shapes”. Maps often do not display Israel, instead showing the area

between the Jordan river and the Mediterranean Sea as Palestine.

Chair of Conservative Friends of Israel, Stephen Crabb MP, said: “After a decade of prevarication and denial, it is essential that the UK now acts to end its facilitation of this extreme curriculum.

“British taxpayers will be understandably appalled to learn they have been paying the salaries of teachers to produce and teach this hatefilled material.”

Steve McCabe MP, of Labour Friends of Israel, In this Palestinian school textbook, physics students are asked to calculate urged the foreign secre- the forces at play when a slingshot is fired at Israeli soldiers tary to give a statement about the findings in the Commons. David Mendoza-Wolfson, also called Occupied Palestinian Territories.

“It is totally unacceptable for the UK on the government to ensure no tax- But responding to questions from Jewish News earlier this year, it did to be bankrolling the indoctrination payer cash funded anti-Jewish hate.

The government has long not address questions of whether aid of Palestinian children in this way,” insisted that UK aid money does money paid for salaries of teachers he said.

Board of Deputies vice-president, not go towards textbooks in the who write the textbooks.

Emily and Ittai Ben-Ze’ev together with Sammy Ezekiel would like to thank the Kehilla for their incredible generosity in raising money for The London Jewish Family Centre in the memory of Chana Hadassah Bas Shimon Ha ‘Levi (Hayley Kushner) on her 9th Yahrzeit.

With the £16, 555 that we raised we hope to dedicate the Children’s Therapy Room in her memory.

Wishing Sandy Weinbaum hatzlocha with her phenomenal work in the community.

JFS judged ‘inadequate’ and put into special measures by Ofsted Europe’s largest Jewish secondary school has been put into ‘special measures’ and judged to be ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted, writes Jack Mendel.

Although the north London comprehensive was praised for its academic achievements and breadth of curriculum, inspectors found that student behaviour was poor and there were significant gaps in its safeguarding provision.

Ofsted also found there was inappropriate behaviour, particularly sexual bullying via social media, that pupils were not “adequately prepared for life in modern Britain”, and that many reported that their peers were disrespectful.

In an interview with Jewish News, new interim head and former Ofsted chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, said the school “should come out of special measures pretty easily” .

The report said the school’s “leaders do not ensure that all pupils are safe from harm”, and that while “many pupils enjoy positive relationships with staff and other pupils… many others feel that leaders have not protected them from the behaviour of their peers”.

It criticised pupils for not observing “appropriate boundaries... Many pupils report sexual bullying, including via social media”. It rated

Sir Michael took over at JFS this month

the quality of education as “good”, while saying “not all pupils experience the necessary depth of content in some subjects”, in particular creative ones.

Chair of governors Andrew Moss said while Ofsted’s findings were disappointing, they had to be addressed.

A spokesperson for the United Synagogue said: “The serious failings found by Ofsted demand urgent attention.”

The announcement was made last week after a turbulent month that has included a visit by the education inspectorate and the sudden departure of former headteacher Rachel Fink.

OFSTED’S DAMNING VERDICT: ● JFS school leaders “do not ensure all pupils are safe from harm” ● Pupils don’t observe “appropriate boundaries” ● Student relationships damaged “by unchallenged, inappropriate behaviour…including sexual harassment” ● “Does not adequately provide for pupils’ wider

personal development”, including PSHE, RSE and LGBT issues ● School in special measures for “failing to give its pupils an acceptable standard of education“ ● Persons responsible for leading the school “are not demonstrating the capacity to secure the necessary improvement”

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24 June 2021 Jewish News

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

News / Rabbinic row / Fundraising fears / Legal costs

Rabbi quits over LSJS decision

by Josh Salisbury josh@jewishnews.co.uk @josh_salisbury

A senior research fellow at the London School of Jewish Studies (LSJS) has resigned in protest after a female teacher was sacked for gaining a rabbinic qualification.

Rabbi Michael Harris who serves at Hampstead Synagogue, which comes under the United Synagogue movement and under the auspices of the Chief Rabbi, announced his decision to resign in a statement on Tuesday evening.

It comes after an outcry over the school’s treatment of Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz, who was told she could no longer teach on an adult education course at the school because she had obtained a ‘rabba’ qualification from New York’s Yeshiva Maharat. She had taught at the school for 16 years.

Female rabbis are not recognised in mainstream Orthodoxy, and the Chief Rabbi has repeatedly said that while women should take part in senior roles in religious life, they cannot be a rabbi.

“I have today, with great sadness, resigned my senior research fellowship at LSJS,” Harris said in his statement.

“The removal of Lindsey TaylorGuthartz from her research fellowship seriously undermines LSJS’s credentials as an academic institution and I therefore have no alternative but to resign.”

The school, which follows the halachic guidance of Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, has said it had always been forthright with Taylor-Guthartz, advising she would not be able to keep her honorary title upon her graduation.

Taylor-Guthartz had volunteered not to use the title of ‘rabba’ while teaching, and had said she did not seek a communal position.

“I am so sad at this denial of the opportunity to take my teaching to new heights and to expand access to Torah learning for my beloved students at LSJS,” Taylor-Guthartz said last week.

Meanwhile, Taylor-Guthartz has said the time has come for Orthodox women to become rabbis. She told BBC Radio 4: “The Orthodox community must start embracing women rabbis.

This is already happening in America and Israel, the two largest Jewish communities in the world.

“There is a crying need for it here … There are many women who need to be able to talk to a woman who knows Jewish law, who can advise

The community is being asked to raise a glass in appreciation of British Jews who served in the armed forces. The Jewish Military Association (AJEX) and the Armed Forces Jewish Community have teamed up to honour current serving personnel as well as veterans and their families. Marking National Armed forces week, the organisations ask people to take a picture of themselves with a drink of their choice, and to say a l’chaim.

• Opinion, p22

More children are being monitored Rabbi Michael Harris, left, resigned his senior research fellowship after learning that Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz, right, can no longer teach at LSJS

them, who can help them.” But fellow panellist, Rebbetzin Rachie Binstock, who is “highly supportive” of women playing senior roles in the community, said most aspects of a rabbi role were already open to women.

“If we look at the range of work that a rabbi today does, women are already doing most of it,” she said.

Asked why women should not then take on “the ultimate role”, she said:

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“The title of rabbi today connotes the leader of a community in a synagogual context. And that’s problematic to Orthodoxy, it’s always going to be, because the synagogue is built as the place for male prayer.

“Women and men have different roles in prayer, different expressions of prayer... We don’t believe equality is sameness. Judaism celebrates difference.”

There has been an alarming rise in the number of schoolchildren being monitored for far-right extremism, figures from the Home Office reveal.

Out of more than 300 people identified in 2019-20 as being under surveillance for possible extremist views, 70 were 14 or younger, while 105 were aged between 15 and 20, according to The Sun.

GREENSTEIN IN DONOR CAMPAIGN A man the High Court recently ruled could fairly be called a “notorious antisemite” by Campaign Against Antisemitism has been at the centre of a bid to pressure a headteacher into backtracking over a pupil donation to the Red Cross, Jewish News can reveal.

Students at Stretford High School in Manchester raised £278.42 for charity to go towards helping the victims of last month’s conflict between Israel and the Palestinians in Gaza.

However, parents and anti-Israel campaigners objected to the funds going to the Red Cross, which aids both Israelis and Palestinians affected by violence.

Among those to join in the campaign against high school headteacher Nicola Doward’s decision to choose the Red Cross humanitarian charity was Tony Greenstein, expelled by Labour over allegations involving antisemitism.

Greenstein, who was recently ordered by the High Court to pay almost £70,000 after losing a

court case he brought against Campaign Against Antisemitism over being called a “notorious antisemite”, was among those to post inflammatory messages regarding the school head – including the claim on his blog that funds from the children “would be split between those who murdered and those who were killed”.

Sources have told Jewish News that at several UK schools there is growing concern children, who ask to raise funds for causes such as those involving the Palestinians, are being exploited by political extremists.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson last month wrote to headteachers to remind them of their legal requirements for political impartiality following a spate of incidents involving pro-Palestinian activism at schools.

Doward initially tried to stand by her decision to donate the money to the Red Cross, but it is now believed the school has yet to reach a decision on where to donate the money.

Community crowdfunds court costs

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A former Labour councillor has been forced to crowdfund the cost of defending himself against a failed libel lawsuit by anti-Zionist activist Tony Greenstein.

Josh Jones, a former shadow deputy leader at Dartford Council, was taken to court by Greenstein, who claimed Jones had labelled him a “Holocaust denier” during a 2018 meeting where the councillor was advocating stronger measures against antisemitism in Labour.

Former councillor Josh Jones

A High Court judge struck out the case, saying it had no reasonable chance of success.

But Jones says Greenstein

never stumped up the £20,000 bill, despite a court order, because he claims he cannot afford it – leaving Jones to pay.

The former councillor had managed to pay off £10,000 of the costs, before being issued with a final invoice by his lawyers. Persuaded by friends, he took to a crowdfunding website to cover the cost – and has now managed raise the full £20,000 in just three days.

“I’ve had all kinds of people messaging, the Jewish community rallying around.”

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24 June 2021 Jewish News

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

News / Anarchists charged / Holocaust education / Assault charges

Cafe boss charged with peace breach over ‘F*** police’ bags The Jewish owners of a cafe in Scotland decided to use their shop display to advertise their views on law enforcement.

For months, a bag emblazoned with the words “f*** the police” decorated the facade of The Pink Peacock in Glasgow, a hub for Jewish activists with an affinity for Yiddish and far-left causes, including anarchism.

The shop front also features a Palestinian flag and the slogan “Jews and Queers for a Free Palestine” and a poster promoting a Yom Kippur Ball, a party the owners threw in 2019 on the Jewish Day of Atonement because it’s “feasting and rejoicing in the Jewish anar-

The offending bag in the shop front of The Pink Peacocks

chist tradition” according to the poster.

On Monday, police in Glasgow confiscated the bag and charged one of the owners, 32-year-old Morgan Holleb,

of committing a breach of the peace – a criminal offence in that part of the UK. Two police officers seized the bag, calling it evidence, as Joe Isaac, another founder

of The Pink Peacock, filmed the incident.

On Twitter, the founders wrote that the incident was “an obvious attempt to intimidate us” – and it “won’t work”.

A police spokesperson told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency last Wednesday that the police attended following complaints by residents.

In the video filmed by Isaac, Holleb is seen replacing the English-language tote bag with another in Yiddish. It reads “daloy polizei”, which means “down with the police”.

The officers did not seem to mind the Yiddishlanguage bag.

Rabbi brick attack: two men deny charges Two men are to stand trial over the assault of a rabbi who was allegedly struck over the head with a concrete brick.

Rabbi Rafi Goodwin

(pictured) needed hospital treatment for head injuries after the attack in Chigwell, north-east London on 16 May, Essex Police said.

Abderrahman Brahimi, 25, and Souraka

Djabouri, 18, appeared at Chelmsford Crown Court last Wednesday, charged with wounding with intent to cause grievous bodily harm.

The pair, both of Tudor

Crescent, Ilford, are also charged with robbery and religiously aggravated criminal damage. They deny the charges and were remanded in custody to face trial at a later date.

HET RESUMES ‘LIFECHANGING’ PROJECT A ‘life-changing’ programme run for students by the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) will resume in Northern Ireland after government backing.

Since 1999, HET’s Lessons from Auschwitz project has taken 41,000 students and teachers from across the UK to the former Nazi death camp, which also involves hearing from survivors. Of those, 540 students have been from Northern Ireland.

The visit, which encourages participants to learn the history of the Shoah and its contemporary relevance, will now resume in the country after it was backed by the government’s education minister, Peter Weir.

“This is an important programme for Northern Ireland, both in terms of education and good relations,” he said.

“So I am keen to see a restoration of the programme so it is available to students here, and therefore I am

Tributes: Yartzeit candles

delighted to confirm my commitment to its resumption.”

The news was welcomed

by HET, which said it was “delighted” and “grateful” for the government support.

“Hundreds of students from across Northern Ireland have visited AuschwitzBirkenau as part of the Lessons from Auschwitz Project and thanks to this support from the Northern Ireland Executive, we will carry on providing this lifechanging opportunity,” said Karen Pollock, the charity’s chief executive.

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24 June 2021 Jewish News

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

Special Report / Babyn Yar

‘The Holocaust by bullets’

By Jenni Frazer @Jennifrazer

The first museum building on the site will be the ‘Kurgan of Memory’

‘Crystal WallADVERT of Crying’ by2020:Layout artist Marina Abramovic16:04 will be unveiled this year HALF PAGE JAN 1 09/01/2020 Page 1

As a child growing up in Ukraine, Natan Sharansky and his friends unwittingly played close to “Europe’s biggest mass grave” — Babyn Yar. Now the site, in the country’s capital, Kyiv, is set to become the biggest memorial of what Sharansky calls “the Holocaust by bullets”, the place where 1.5 million people, mainly Jews, were shot by the Nazis.

At a special briefing to announce plans to mark the 80th anniversary of the massacre, Sharansky, now chair of the supervisory board of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre, said: “Growing up in postSecond World War Ukraine meant growing up in ignorance.

“My childhood was spent next to killing fields like Babyn Yar and yet I knew nothing, as the mass murders which the Nazis had perpetrated were deliberately silenced by the Soviet authorities.”

He said the opening of the memorial would help challenge Holocaust deniers, and would be “a powerful

symbol” of two crimes – the event itself and the Soviet cover-up.

The Babyn Yar site will eventually be a complex of 12 buildings, each telling a different part of the complex story of the killings. International artists and architects have been vying to take part in the memorial, offering their own vision of how to commemorate the events of September 1941.

Almost certainly the best-known is the Serbian conceptual artist Marina Abramovic, whose “Crystal Wall of Crying” will be unveiled this year. One of the biggest art installations in Europe, it will be 40 metres long and three metres high, containing 75 quartz crystals in a wall of anthracite, the most common type of coal in Ukraine, connecting the installation with nature.

The first museum building on the site will be the “Kurgan of Memory” – a kurgan is a kind of burial mound raised over a final resting ground.

This building has been designed by architects SUB.

It will join three memorial installations unveiled last year, together with a symbolic synagogue, opened recently.

All the buildings are closely monitored by rabbis, to ensure the sanctity of the site is respected.

A state ceremony is due to take place in Kyiv on 6 October, announced by Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal, at Tuesday’s special briefing. Joined by the head of the president’s office, Andriy Yermak, the prime minister said the event would include participation from global leaders, Jewish world figures, Holocaust survivors and Ukrainian Righteous Among the Nations.

Shmyhal said: “Implementation and support of the initiatives to commemorate the events at Babyn Yar is testament to our sadness and awareness of the greatest tragedy on the European continent during the last century.”

Ukraine’s Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

World News / Virus concern / Trump view / Vaccine spat / Meron investigation

Jabs for kids debate as variant takes hold

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

Israel is set to discourage overseas travel and reintroduce rules on wearing masks indoors as cases of the Delta variant of coronavirus continue to creep higher.

The country had ended most restrictions following a successful vaccination programme whereby two-thirds of its population were inoculated. But the number of patients diagnosed with the variant has doubled since the weekend – and officials fear unvaccinated children are unwittingly helping to spread it.

Sharon Alroy-Preis, the head of public health in Israel’s health ministry, said the Delta variant had entered Israel through Ben Gurion Airport and was spread by individuals who had not kept to quarantine conditions.

Everyone passing through the airport will now be required to wear a mask.

Israel wants to vaccinate 12 to 15-year-olds

On Monday 125 patients were diagnosed, more than twice the number detected the previous day.

Children and adolescents make up the majority of the one-third of Israelis who have not yet been vaccinated.

On Monday, the Health Ministry issued a formal recommendation that 12 to 15-year-olds get vaccinated. It is now investing in outreach to get parents to bring their children in for shots.

Trump: Jews don’t love Israel enough Former US President Donald Trump has criticised American Jews, saying they “don’t love Israel enough” after he received only 25 percent of the Jewish vote in the presidential election last November.

He said: “Jewish people who live in the United States don’t love Israel enough. Does that make sense to you? I’m not talking about Orthodox Jews.”

Reflecting on the result of the last presidential election he added: “I did the Heights, I did Jerusalem, and I did Iran... I believe we got 25 percent of the Jewish vote, and it doesn’t make sense. It just seems strange to me.”

Trump, who has long been hailed as a hero by the Christian Zionist movement, made his remarks during an interview with Ami magazine, a monthly catering to the Orthodox Jewish community, which was published last week.

In 2019, Trump said: “Any Jewish people that vote for a Democrat … I think it shows either a total lack of knowledge or great disloyalty.”

PA CANCELS DEAL FOR ISRAEL VACCINE DOSES The Palestinian Authority (PA) has cancelled a deal whereby Israel would have given it one million Covid vaccine doses in exchange for a later shipment.

The PA made the move because

many of the doses were set to expire in the coming weeks, according to Haaretz.

By the time Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila announced the cancellation, 100,000 of the

doses had already been delivered.

The decision constituted a change of Israeli policy following months during which Israel was criticized for not helping Palestinians get vaccinated.

In return for the shipments, the PA was to send Israel shipments of Pfizer doses it is set to receive in the future. The deal had been initiated by the previous Israeli government and finalised by the new coalition.

Around 100,000 people attended this year

PROBE INTO MOUNT MERON STAMPEDE

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

Israel is to examine the circumstances that led to the deaths of 45 people during a stampede at a Lag B’Omer celebration in April after the new government announced an official inquiry.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said the new state commission of inquiry would consider safety shortcomings that caused the disaster at Mount Meron. Most of those killed were trampled to death as they funnelled through a narrow passageway descending from the site.

The victims were strictly-Orthodox Jews marking the yahrzeit of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai, the second-century sage whose tomb is visited by hundreds of thousands each year.

This year’s event was attended by around 100,000 people and was Israel’s biggest massattendance event since the pandemic.

Bennett said the state commission of inquiry was needed because “the government can do everything to prevent future needless loss”.

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24 June 2021 Jewish News

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

Editorial comment and letters ISSUE NO.

1216

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

A Gaza conflict

Labour would have struggled to retain the ‘Red Wall’ seat of Batley and Spen, even without George Galloway’s intervention. The party’s support base had been in steady decline long before Keir Starmer became leader.

But when Jewish News travelled up to the seat this week to speak to mainly Muslim voters in the key town of Batley, it was apparent that one issue mattered over all others for a further drastic dip in Labour support in recent weeks – Palestine. Locals were all too willing to share tropes about Starmer falling under the control of the “Zionists”.

In truth, Labour’s stance on Israel and Palestine has hardly shifted from that of previous leader Jeremy Corbyn. Although the Starmer led party have stressed a belief in a two-state solution with rather more gusto than the Islington North MP ever did. Sadly, what seems to have clouded the issue rather more, has been Starmer’s attempts to tackle rampant antisemitism in Labour. For some Batley voters, this appears to be a step too far.

Teenage blueprint

By speedily offering vaccines to all adults, Israel has already produced a blueprint for ending coronavirus restrictions – and other nations have copied it. Now Israeli society is pioneering another debate: should we make the jab compulsory for children? Early data shows that the Delta variant, which has only just emerged in Israel, is spreading most rapidly among the one-third of the population who haven’t been vaccinated. Most of them are under 18. Some parents, even those who have had the jab themselves, are wary. Others were pictured this week marching camera-shy teenagers down to the clinic.

Caution is an understandable response. Clear, targeted information from the experts is the best way to respond to it. Israel is having that national conversation right now, which means Britain, running a few months behind, should expect it later this summer.

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

Village is vital to wellbeing Ravenswood Village is a shining example of how a community provides for the most seriously learning-disabled in an amazing rural setting.

It has operated for well over half a century with incredible success, a model copied elsewhere.

For the past 15 months, the families of those at the village have not been able to visit their loved ones owing to Covid-19 restrictions. I can only imagine the further distress they must have felt receiving from the Norwood trustees notice of a consultation process that could lead to the closure of the village, which some think represents an outmoded model of care and not financially viable. This could be devastating to residents, some of whom have lived there for over 60 years, to their families and to the prospects for the loyal and caring 400-plus staff.

I understand the village receives substan-

Sketches & kvetches

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tial income from local authorities to cover the costs of its dependent constituents, but that after an undisclosed amount is taken towards head office administration costs, Norwood has to make up an annual deficit.

I have had a personal involvement with the Ravenswood residents, parents, families and staff going back nearly 30 years through the overseas bike ride challenges my company created and organised specifically for the village and which raised millions of pounds to help with this shortfall. The sponsors, donors and riders, including inspiring Ravenswood residents and family members, were clear that its intention was to provide additional financial support for the village.

I got to know many residents and their families and cannot stress enough how important the Ravenswood Village setting was to them. To have a safe environment giving them freedom to be outside and wander was vital to their well-being.

I came to the UK on the Kinderstransport when I was four. My parents were murdered in the Holocaust. Yet we were not the first group selected for extermination by the Nazis. Many with a learning disability were gassed in the late 1930s. A Jewish charity such as Norwood should be sensitive to the needs of those in our community to have the freedom of a rural and safe haven in the Berkshire countryside.

Sir Erich Reich, By email

“I’m very proud. I hear my grandson’s school has just been put into SPECIAL measures!”

Your newspaper has highlighted the possibility that Norwood’s Ravenswood Village may close (Jewish News, 10 June 2021).

The residents need, and their families expect, life-long care. I have seen the care, attention and love received by those fortunate enough to live there. It would be extremely sad to close this irreplaceable facility. As one person in your report put it: “It would be cruel and immoral to move anybody out of the village.” The families must be admired for their enduring determination to give their loved ones the best chance in life.

Norma Neville, Hendon

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

Opinion

New PM must stand firm against Bibi's chutzpah JENNI FRAZER

A

long time ago, O best beloved, I lived around the corner from Balfour Street, the official residence of the Israeli prime minister. In my day, that was Yitzhak Rabin, who had beaten Yitzhak Shamir in the election.

Now you could say many things about Shamir – and people often did – but the fiery right-winger had a healthy respect for the rule of law in Israel and, as such, I don’t recall a single moment of hesitation or suggestion that the Shamirs should not vacate Balfour Street.

After Rabin’s assassination in 1995, Shimon Peres moved briefly into the residence and was beaten in the 1996 elections by Benjamin Netanyahu. I am sure you will see where this is going. Peres moved out of Balfour Street in short order, Bibi and his family moved in… and even with a brief blip for the premierships of Ehud Barak and Ehud Olmert, it has begun

to look like the Netanyahu family regarded Balfour Street as their own private fiefdom.

It is worth pointing out that Netanyahu owns three other properties, two in Jerusalem and one in Caesaria. And yet the Israeli public have been treated to the shameful situation of the former premier and his family veritably squatting in Balfour Street, which, should it need repeating, is the official prime ministerial residence and thus paid for by Israeli taxes.

Naftali Bennett assumed office as prime minister three weeks ago and in that time the Netanyahus have made no move to leave Balfour Street. Indeed, in the week after Bennett took office, Bibi had the chutzpah to receive at the residence the former American ambassador to the UN, Nikki Haley, and the Christian evangelist Pastor John Hagee, as though nothing had changed.

It’s hard to tell how much of this petulant and churlish response is Bibi’s own, and how much is directed by his wife Sara, whose many unlovely behavioural issues have been well documented over the years. And the Netanyahus’ apparent determination to stay in

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NETANYAHU HAS CONDUCTED HIMSELF GRACELESSLY AND MEANLY THROUGHOUT THIS ENTIRE PROCESS

Balfour Street has been unwittingly supported

by Bennett’s announcement that, with four children in school in Ra’anana, he was not minded to move into the residence and would only want to use it for official receptions.

So Bennett cut Bibi far too much slack, and appears to have forgotten what Bibi generally does when you give him an inch.

Even now, Bennett has been generous in giving Bibi a cut-off date of 10 July to be out of Balfour Street, with the proviso that “no official meetings will be held at the residence” until Sunday, 11 July.

It’s honestly far more than Bibi deserves.

He has conducted himself gracelessly and meanly throughout this entire process, apparently modelling himself on his hero Trump, about who won the election or who could form a government.

Social media, as ever, has been alive with suggestions as to how to get the Netanyahus out of Balfour Street, ranging from “cutting off the water and electricity” to “playing very loud music outside” at unpleasant hours of the night.

When Rabin was prime minister parts of the Israeli public, no respecter of persons, was just as vocal in opposition to the Balfour Street resident. There was a demonstration every Saturday night, and I, a frustrated local resident, marched up to a local cop putting up the crash barriers, to complain that these repeated demos made life impossible for the neighbours.

The huge cop looked at me. “Let me give you some advice,” he offered. “Yes?” I said, eager for some way out of the weekly aggravation.

He smiled, avuncular. “Don’t get so excited.”

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21

Opinion

Bennett is poster child for modern religious Zionism CALEV BEN-DOR

SENIOR RESEARCHER, BICOM

I

t’s difficult to see from the official photograph but the new cabinet includes five kippah wearers belonging to four different parties. Opposition too comes from knitted kippot, with Bezalel Smotrich of the self-proclaimed Religious Zionist Party charging the government with excluding Jews and being dependent on terror supporters.

As spectrums go, religious Zionists span a wide one – from those who term the Pride Parade a gathering of ‘perverts’, to religious LGBT members. Other than their headcovering, does anything connect them?

The national religious community is primarily right-wing when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet major religious and cultural disagreements exist: over personal autonomy versus rabbinic authority; the integration of Western values into one’s personal life; and the relationship to the ‘other’ – the

non-Orthodox, LGBT community, Arabs, and non-Jewish world in general.

In his book Unravelled, Israeli journalist Yair Ettinger notes the community is “getting stronger, diversifying, radicalising and moderating, becoming both more and less sectoral”.

While it is no longer bound around one official theme “neither is it divided into two separate camps but rather scattered across a broad spectrum between conservatism and innovation”.

It is this social-cultural divide rather than the territorial debate that best explains the split between Naftali Bennett and his allies and the ‘Smotrich’s”. For the former, the Israeli leftwing are allies and partners towards building a better Israeli-Jewish society. For the latter, they represent the decadent, un-Jewish West.

In a conversation, journalist and author Yossi Klein HaLevi says most religious Zionists, including Bennett, are on the side of modernity. “They want an Israel that is connected to the West, that values secular education, that is cutting-edge in technology, and that is broadly democratic.” In fact, he argued, Bennett is likely to be more comfortable with those Israelis

committed to a sane Israel than he is to “fellow religious Zionists whose vision is a fundamentalist Israel ... at war with the world”.

Bennett is thus arguably the poster child for this territorially right wing but socially-culturally engaged group. It’s no coincidence that Bennett’s first political party was called Bayit Yehudi, a Jewish home. He included secular Tel Avivi Ayelet Shaked and later tried to co-opt ex-footballer Eli Ohana. He seeks engagement with wider Israeli society.

It’s also no coincidence that these moves drew the wrath of Rav Zvi Tau, one of the leaders of the more conservative camp. Rav Tau even issued a Halachic ruling that it was preferable to ally with the Islamist Mansour

Abbas’s Raam party than with the Israeli left.

That tension between these two groups will continue to play out. Yet the larger question is whether the national religious can, in Klein Halevi’s words “embrace the consequences of Israel as a democratic state”.

Zionism, according to Klein Halevi. “reconstituted Jewish peoplehood but also created a new people, the Israelis... Even as they rightly insist on affirming the centrality of Jewishness within Israeliness, they need to internalise that Israeli doesn’t necessarily equal Jewish.”

Ultimately, the extent to which the community can relate to and include the non-Jewish inhabitants of the Holy Land in the larger Israeli national tent may become its decisive test.

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THE BIG QUESTION IS: CAN THE NATIONAL RELIGIOUS EMBRACE THE CONSEQUENCES OF ISRAEL AS A DEMOCRATIC STATE?

Another virus milestone – this time a happy one MARIE VAN DER ZYL PRESIDENT, BOARD OF DEPUTIES

T

here have been many milestones through this pandemic, most of them grim. However, there is some happier news now with this week’s figures marking more than two months since the last recorded Jewish death from Covid-19.

This time last year the situation was very different. According to figures collated by the Board of Deputies from communities around the country, in the week ending 19 June 2020, we recorded the 500th Jewish death from the virus. This number had been reached in the three months we started collating the funerals of community members for whom Covid was mentioned on the death certificate.

It was a traumatic time for everyone in the country but the Jewish community was disproportionately affected. We estimate that at least three in every thousand members of the Jewish community have died from Covid.

If the country had suffered a similar loss, more than 200,000 people would have died compared with the figure of about 125,000 presented in government data.

Various explanations have been put forward

as to why we have suffered so disproportionately. The most persuasive of these are that the age profile of our community is older than that of the general population and at the start of the pandemic the Covid hotspots coincided with cities in which the bulk of the community lived – mainly in London and the south-east and large northern cities including Manchester.

The beginning of the epidemic also coincided with Purim – the definition of a superspreader event – which occurred just before the first lockdown. This may have given the virus the opportunity to spread faster among Jews than it would otherwise have done.

Although we were hit hard during the first period of the pandemic, we also acted decisively. It was important that community organisations present a united front in supporting the new rules and regulations.

There was a challenge in maintaining religious freedom throughout the pandemic.

In the initial emergency legislation, there was provision to allow local authorities to mandate emergency cremation. We collaborated with Muslim communities to ensure that the legislation was amended to take religious freedom into account. We worked with Milah UK and the Initiation Society to ensure that brit milah could continue throughout the pandemic.

The Board of Deputies arranged regular

roundtables for the Charedi community along with the Cabinet Office to secure Yiddish materials and other resources on covid security and vaccination promotion for the communities who at times found it more challenging to keep up with the fast changing rules.

We also went to great lengths to ensure that limits on numbers attending funerals and stone settings were lifted in a safe way.

The greatest factor in our recovery as a community was that we acted to protect ourselves.

In figures released in May, the over-70s in the Jewish community were the most vaccinated religious group in the country. In a survey, 96.9 percent of Jews in this age group reported that they had receive two doses of the vaccine.

We know from recent research that two doses of either of either the Pfizer or

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I URGE EVERYONE TO GET THEIR JAB AND OBSERVE THE RULES TO THE LETTER

It is two months since a Jewish Covid death

Astra-Zeneca vaccines are highly effective at protecting against serious illness and death, even against the Delta variant. Thankfully, Jews in the UK have understood and acted on this information. Had we not there would undoubtedly have been many more deaths.

Now is not the time to let down our guard.

The Delta variant is spreading quickly and I urge anyone who hasn’t already been vaccinated to get their jab as soon as possible and for everyone to observe the regulations to the letter.

However, thanks to the wonderful work of the scientists, the NHS and community volunteers, there is now hope. We mourn all of those who lost their lives before their time but we also look forward to a welcome return to normality.

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

Opinion

Raise a glass to Lt Mervis and our other war heroes FIONA PALMER CHIEF EXECUTIVE, AJEX

I

t's National Armed Forces Week (NAFW) – an annual event that has been around for nearly 20 years. It was introduced to be different in tone to remembrance events we traditionally have in November, focusing less on sacrifice and more on dedication and service.

As the chief executive of AJEX, I found this week a real opportunity to embrace and celebrate the wonderful variety of people from our community who have been part of the British Armed Forces, past and present.

We have often marked NAFW week by travelling to the National Memorial Arboretum (NMA) in Staffordshire to hold a ceremony at the AJEX Memorial there, as well as to talk to our members about the different anniversaries and people who are remembered there.

At many of the NMA memorials to specific regiments or military groups we can

reflect on the men and women who served in them.

For instance, at the Gallipoli Memorial, we often speak about London-born Leonard Keysor, who received the Victoria Cross in 1915 for his bravery during an action at Lone Pine, part of the Gallipoli campaign.

While his name is not on the memorial (and no other individual names are either), that site is very much part of his story and part of the AJEX story of commemoration.

At other parts of the site that hold more than 200 memorials, there are names; for example at the Special Operations Executive (SOE) Memorial, there are a number of names on brass plaques of Jewish women who served with the SOE. Some of these women perished, such as Denise Bloch, who worked in France for the SOE and was captured and later murdered at Ravensbruck concentration camp.

Being able to tell people about the extraordinary bravery of women such as Bloch – Jewish women who were able to take on the Nazis – is an incredibly important part of what AJEX seeks to do.

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WE WORK TO DEMONSTRATE HOW SO MANY JEWS WERE PART OF THE FIGHT AGAINST NAZISM AND SECURING FREEDOM

We work to inspire the next generations and demonstrate how so many Jews were part of the fight against Nazism and antisemitism – securing our freedom.

Other people’s names on NMA memorials include Lt Paul Mervis, whose name is listed on the Armed Forces Memorial.

This memorial takes centre stage at the NMA site, built on a mound and rising high above all the other memorials and it is the key place for remembering all those who have given their lives on active duty since the

Second World War. Lt Mervis’ name is on that memorial because, as an officer with the Rifles, he was serving in Afghanistan in June 2009 and was killed by an improvised explosive device while securing a school.

Telling people about a Jewish service man who was killed in Britain’s most recent conflict is a reminder that Jewish military participation is not just about the First or Second World War – it is very real and current.

National Armed Forces Week gives us a chance to tell these stories and many more so that we can remind people of the continual service of members of our community but also of the continued stores we have of bravery where individual men and women fought against the odds to do their duty.

These stories can inspire us today at a time when nothing in the world is as it used to be.

So, this week, I reflected on all those who have maintained the tradition of military service from our community and rather than wear a poppy I raised a glass to say L’chaim to them all.

Torah study should open doors, not slam them shut RABBI ERYN LONDON JOFA UK SCHOLAR IN RESIDENCE

I

'm appalled that Rabba Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz is no longer allowed to teach and has lost her research fellowship at the London School of Jewish Studies. This decision by the Office of the Chief Rabbi is one that hurts all Orthodox women in this country. It sends a strong message that, as women, we are encouraged to learn to the highest degree in every area of life we can think of, but if we learn too much Torah we will be kicked out, the door bolted shut.

Is this really the message we want to send to girls and women in the community? If so, why would girls and women want to stay? Torah study is not only for men. Synagogue is not only for men’s worship. Judaism is not a men’s only religion. Or at least it should not be.

When I have said this in the past, especially here in the UK, too many people have asked: ‘Why are you surprised?’ and ‘What do you expect?’ I expect more. I expect that rather than close doors, my Torah learning will open them.

I expect that if I am willing to compromise, others are willing to work with me. I expect that there is change, and hope the present environment is not going to be the case forever.

It took me about three years between first considering and actually starting to study to be a rabbi. I was scared about what it would be like to join this new world, to join in the fight I knew was going to take place. I knew my existence as a rabbi, or as clergy, or just as a woman who delved into Torah in a serious way, would cause others discomfort or anger. I knew finding a job would be hard. But, at that point, I also had hope. I felt like I could take on the world.

I had allies, friends, family, rabbis and teachers. I had hope because, even in 2012 there was more than one place I could study for smicha, so there must be people who believe this is possible.

Unfortunately, what I have seen is that as much as has changed since 2012, so much has stayed the same. People are uncomfortable

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with me and my colleagues. There still aren’t positions for us. There is very little movement or promotion within roles. People are more comfortable with women without formal religious qualification; women are still losing their jobs over learning more Torah.

I'm now asking more people to speak out.

I very much appreciate all the people who have told me: "I support you, but only privately."

This is no longer enough.

It is nice to hear: "I support you", but it’s not a good feeling when this is followed by: "But you are different from the other Orthodox female rabbis; you are [fill in the blank]". Yes, I am different from the other Orthodox female rabbis/clergy/maharats/rabbas/rabbaniot, but this is simply because I am myself. We all have smicha and so if that is what you have a problem with, then you should be against me too.

It is a funny world we live in when, as one gets more qualifications and further years of study, these qualifications and this knowledge

I'M ASKING MORE PEOPLE TO SPEAK OUT. PRIVATE SUPPORT IS NO LONGER ENOUGH

makes them less desirable in their field. In no other situation in the present day, other than being an Orthodox Jewish woman, does learning more close doors to you.

One would think that, by delving years into Torah study, this would make you more desirable. You would have a greater grasp on the texts, a greater knowledge of learning and interpreting. But for women choosing to continue their learning, this can be a black mark. Once associated with an institution of higher Jewish learning, especially one wanting to give credit where credit is due, doors close in our faces.

I am not going to wait for someone else to open the doors. I and others have taken change into our own hands. It is not an easy path to be on and we have to be on the lookout for overgrown areas, fallen trees and poisonous and dangerous animals around us. We will make it through, but we might arrive with a few more bruises than we had hoped. Progressing to a better place, a place of joy of Torah and Judaism, a place of respect for humanity, a place of disagreeing compassionately and with care, a place working towards greater equality.

But we need more than just private, kind words to support our journey.

24 June 2021 Jewish News

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23

Community / Scene & Be Seen

1 SPORTY FUNDRAISER

Four schoolboys have raised more than £3,000 for the Community Security Trust by jointly completing a gruelling triathlon. The ‘Sporty Boys’ – Zack Josephs, 10, Natan Corin, 11, Zach Rubin, 11, and Jacob Scott, 11 – decided to undertake the feat after the recent surge in antisemitism. On Sunday, one of the youngsters ran 10 km, one swam 100 lengths and two cycled 20km each. They had set out to raise £2,000 but have so far raised nearly £3,200. To see more, visit www.justgiving.com/ crowdfunding/kerrie-josephs

And be seen!

The latest news, pictures and social events from across the community

2WIJPS CEREMONY

Email us at community@jewishnews.co.uk

Year One pupils from Wohl Ilford Jewish Primary School were joined virtually by family and friends across the globe for their Chagigat Siddur, where children were given their first siddur (prayer book). After a performance by the children, which included songs and dances, they were each presented with a Chief Rabbi’s Family Siddur by the school’s acting headteacher, Lisa West.

3HEBREW FESTIVAL

The Festival of Spoken Irvit to strengthen Hebrew learning has returned after lockdown. The festival from JNF UK, which features actors performing Hebrew-language plays in schools and nurseries, takes place this week.

There will be 49 performances held at 20 venues, including JW3 and at Jewish schools and nurseries across the country. Pictured are schoolchildren enjoying one of the plays.

4SEPHARDI ROOTS

More than 900 people returned to their collective roots on Father’s Day by riding camels and ‘flying’ on a magic carpet, while eating many different types of hamin – the Sephardi traditional Shabbat stew – and learning traditional Middle Eastern songs.

The Hamin Fest in Enfield run by Sephardi organisation Chazak, was sponsored by the National Lottery Heritage Fund. Attendees tasted an assortment of culinary delights, such as freshlymade shwarma and pitta, while youngsters had the run of a full sweet store and were able to get henna tattoos.

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

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24 June 2021 Jewish News

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25

Television / Weekend

Who is the real Ghislaine Maxwell ?

An intriguing series delves into the life of the enigmatic heiress and accused madam of sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, discovers Francine Wolfisz

S

he’s the heiress of late media mogul Robert Maxwell, a socialite with enviable royal and political connections – and the accused madam of a convicted sex offender.

Ghislaine Maxwell is a woman seemingly born with a silver spoon in her mouth, now languishing in a Brooklyn prison awaiting trial on charges that she helped Jeffrey Epstein in his abuse of girls as young as 14.

For those who remember Ghislaine as a child, who attended Oxford University with her, or partied hard on the social scene, it’s hard to reconcile their understanding of her with the woman accused of grooming victims for Epstein.

But perhaps they never knew really knew Ghislaine at all.

Now, a new documentary attempts to delve deeper into the enigmatic heiress, with an intriguing three-part portrait of her life.

Ghislaine Maxwell: Epstein’s Shadow, which airs on Sky Documentaries on Sunday, features interviews with former friends, business associates and alleged victims, leaving by its conclusion “a mosaic which is pretty well-rounded”, according to executive producer Emma Cooper.

“You’ve got a woman who has been written about and we know has connections to a man who is very much talked about, and yet she’s still a mystery,” says Cooper, whose most recent credits include Netflix’s The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

“Barbara Shearer [the director] had been working on this for quite a few years and when I was approached, my starting question was, ‘who is she and how come there’s so little that we know about her?’ That is actually the line we follow throughout all three episodes.”

Cooper speaks of the “overlapping testimony” provided by her interviewees, who include Prince Andrew’s former girlfriend, Lady Victoria Hervey, former close friend Christopher Mason, and alleged victim Maria Farmer, resulting in “a really good basis to understanding who Ghislaine is”.

The series starts right at the beginning of

Ghislaine’s life. She was born in 1961 as the ninth and youngest child to Elisabeth, a French-born scholar and Robert Maxwell, a ruthless Czech-born Holocaust survivor, war hero and media baron.

Just two days before her birth, her 15-year-old brother Michael was involved in a car accident that left him in a prolonged coma until his death six years later.

The documentary shows how, for much of her early life, Ghislaine was effectively ignored while the family dealt with their plight. It was a factor in the young girl feeling neglected and developing anorexia.

At the age of three, Ghislaine sat on her mother’s lap and poignantly reminded her: “Mummy, I exist.”

From that moment, the Maxwells – who lived at the 53-room Headington Hill Hall in Oxford – did everything to lavish affection on their youngest, but it was with her father that Ghislaine shared an especially close bond.

When she was 21, Maxwell appointed Ghislaine a director of Oxford United Football Club, which came under his ownership in 1982 and it was she who accompanied him to soirées and networking events.

One interviewee notes how Maxwell “preferred to have her on his arm than Betty”.

He even named his luxury yacht after her – the very same boat that would later feature at the centre of his shock death in 1991, when he was found drowned just off the Canary Islands.

The mogul’s untimely death – which Ghislaine maintains was not an accident or suicide, but murder – triggered the collapse of his publishing empire as banks called in loans, exposing an even more heinous side to the whole story: that Maxwell had stolen more than £440million from his own companies’ pension funds.

As her Oxford contemporary Anna Pasternak says: “She was daddy’s little girl. But it all went wrong when daddy turned out to be a crook.”

With her brothers Ian and Kevin implicated in the pension fraud (although both were later acquitted of all charges), Ghislaine sought to start over a new life in New York as a socialite and, as Pasternak calls it, “finding a daddy replacement”. That man was

Epstein who, as the documentary reveals, was introduced to Ghislaine by her father.

As the series teases, the similarities between the two men were compelling. Both had an insatiable desire to make money, having come from impoverished backgrounds. Both were known for their unethical business dealings, with Epstein implicated by former business associate Steven Hoffenberg for his involvement in one of the biggest Ponzi schemes in American history – although, unlike Hoffenberg, he questionably never faced charges.

Intriguingly, both were also believed to be caught up in the murky world of espionage – including Maxwell said to be working for MI6, the KGB and Mossad – as well as arms dealing.

Cooper agrees that Epstein may well have stepped into the void as Ghislaine mourned her father. She proffers: “I don’t think it takes too much of a leap of faith that she transferred that very close relationship with Robert Maxwell to another man who could be seen as relatively similar to her father. People who knew both of them openly theorise about that. It’s an interesting connection to make and we allude to it.”

Pasternak offers further insight, claiming Ghislaine “came across as this raunchy extrovert – and you got the feeling she would have done anything to please a man”.

Thereafter, the documentary explores the allegations of enabling Epstein levelled against Ghislaine, who has been charged with enticement of minors, sex trafficking of children and perjury.

The picture that emerges of Ghislaine brings together an uncomfortable combination of a woman who has both been a victim and victimised others.

Farmer, an aspiring artist who was hired as Epstein’s secretary until, as she says, she was abused one night by both him and Ghislaine, has just one opinion about the alleged madam: “She’s a monster.”

Whatever conclusion viewers are drawn towards about Ghislaine, who is due to stand trial in November, one thing becomes increasingly apparent – that in attempting to answer who is the real Ghislaine Maxwell, more questions are brought to the surface, leaving one feeling she is an enigma that can never be fully unravelled.  Ghislaine Maxwell: Epstein’s Shadow airs on Sky Documentaries and NOW on Sunday, 9pm

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Turning lives around: How one charity has helped hundreds of young men overcome abuse and addiction

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

Weekend / Special report

‘I just felt like there was nothing left’...

Ace was in a downward spiral until he was introduced to The Boys Clubhouse, a charity helping hundreds of young Jewish men turn their lives around, discovers Claire Belle Freed

W

ith a voice brimming with enthusiasm and personality, Ace sounds like any other happy-go-lucky 20-year-old living a life filled with possibility.

But Ace’s reality was once frighteningly different. “People I used to look up to were the wrong people. It was pretty much surviving,” he explains. “I was surrounded by abuse, drugs and blackmail at home. I started drugs when I was about 11 years old. My birth dad used to give them to me.”

Ace’s home life was dysfunctional, dangerous and hopeless. “I don’t have any happy memories growing up. I’m just lucky to be alive.”

What followed was a painful collapse into violence and drugs, where school and home became a thing of the past and a life with gangs on the streets and homelessness seemed to be Ace’s future. And it wasn’t long before the hopelessness of his situation started to take over.

“I was 14 when I first ran away. I couldn’t stay at home. I was on the run for about three months. There were times when I would stay up all night, because I was scared for my life. I slept in scaffolding, on couches, I even slept in the synagogue a few times. If I’d have gone to bed on the street, I would have probably been killed.

I just felt like there was nothing left. I thought about suicide – how and where to do it.”

It was at that point that Ace was introduced to The Boys Clubhouse by a friend already benefitting from the Hendon-based charity.

“I had heard about Clubhouse, and my friend told me how amazing it was, and that they would help me. And they did. They changed my life.”

Founded by Ari Leaman in 2009, The Boys Clubhouse – which is launching an urgent fundraising appeal this week – is the first Jewish charity established to provide a safe, nurturing and inspiring environment for disadvantaged young men.

It exists for young Jewish men in crisis,

Many young men helped by The Boys Clubouse have experienced domestic abuse, addiction and homelessness

living without hope, who have dropped out of the education system, been physically or sexually abused, are struggling with addiction or have run away from home. Boys whose lives are in a downward spiral.

In the past 12 months alone, The Boys Clubhouse has received almost 200 referrals and provided housing and basic necessities for 52 young men. Around 100 receive long-term support from the charity.

“We’re well-known among the kids out there who might be in trouble and need help,” Ari tells me. “They come to us and ask for help.

They know about us through word of mouth, maybe from other boys who we’re already helping. What we offer is security, and from that we can rebuild trust and give the boys hope for their future.”

At The Boys Clubhouse, Ari and his team live by the words “belief” and “hope”, because when boys such as Ace come to them, they have no belief in themselves and no faith in their future.

“When we met Ace, it was like finding a wounded and lost puppy. He was confused and hurt, with no sense of direction,” Ari recalls.

But soon, with the help and support provided by Ari and his team of mentors and volunteers, Ace’s life was transformed. And he finally saw light at the end of the tunnel.

“Ari brought me food and clothes and he helped me find a foster home because he knew I needed a healthy environment. I had nothing before this and before Clubhouse.”

This was the first home environment Ace had ever been in that was loving and secure.

“They treated me as if I were one of theirs.

Like I was an equal,” he says. It was also the first family environment in which Ace was able to experience a home – with no fighting and no violence.

“The Boys Clubhouse helped me to trust people again. Spending time at my foster home and at the Clubhouse gave me the space and time I needed to recharge and revaluate. I still go to my foster home every Friday for Shabbat.”

As well as helping Ace find a safe and loving home, Ari and his team worked with him to complete his education. “Growing up, I didn’t get much education because of what was happening at home. The Boys Clubhouse set me up with a learning scheme,” he explains.

Through their contacts and networks, the team connect the boys with tutors who provide GCSE skills and courses so they can continue their education.

After attending sessions, Ace was able to achieve qualifications in English and maths, as well as a Level 3 personal trainer certification and completed a counselling course, so he can help boys and young men with a similar story to his own.

Six years on, Ace’s life has completely changed. He is full of hope and determination and speaks of his aspirations of supporting others in dark places.

He says: “Helping other people is like a cure

for me.” He is confident, happy, self-sufficient, living in his own flat and working at The Boys Clubhouse every day, running the gym and training other boys in personal fitness.

Now it’s Ace who mentors, inspires and motivates other vulnerable young men. “I want to give back. I feel I can help others so much because of my situation,” he explains.

“My drive is to show other boys anything is possible, even in the worst of circumstances.

Clubhouse gave me that opportunity by providing me with certain key skills, as well as giving me hope and trust.

“Clubhouse won’t give up just because you have. We’re there for you, whether you like it or not. I’m always going to be a part of it.”

Ace’s isn’t the only life the charity has transformed. The team has been instrumental in turning around the lives of dozens of young men at its Hendon headquarters and at a Clubhouse in Israel called The Cave.

Within the Clubhouse walls, no one is judged and everyone is welcome. Each case is taken on individually, because, as Ari says: “There is no stereotypical Clubhouse client.”

He explains: “We’re completely guided by the needs of each boy. We’re the end of the line for boys who have dropped out of the system.”  Details: www.theclubhouse.biz The Clubhouse is running a 36-hour urgent appeal on Sunday, 27, and Monday, 28 June. To donate, visit: www.charityextra.com/clubhouse

27

24 June 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Entertainment / Weekend

FILM

APPLE TV+

Everest

Tehran 2

Director Doug Liman hopes to scale new heights with his mountain climbing thriller, Everest, which is set to star Ewan McGregor, Sam Heughan and Mark Strong.

The film, which will begin shooting in the UK and Italy next year, tells the story of English mountaineer George Mallory (played by McGregor) who, during the 1920s, embarked on the first three British attempts to climb Mount Everest – some 30 years before Edmund Hillary.

Screenwriter Sheldon Turner will adapt the film from Jeffrey Archer’s novel, Paths of Glory, which details Mallory’s attempts to conquer the world’s highest mountain, as well as his intense rivalry with eccentric Australian climber George Finch (Heughan).

Strong plays Arthur Hinks of the Royal Geographic Society, who selects Mallory to scale the mountain.

Speaking earlier this week to Variety, Liman said: “My intention with Everest is to give the audience the experience, through Mallory and Finch, of what it’s actually like to

climb Everest. This will be a thrill ride for the audience.”

McGregor added: “I’ve wanted to play Mallory for years. I think it is because it is so very real. The adventure of it is quite hard to find these days.”

Mallory was part of a reconnaissance expedition in 1921 and took part in a second expedition a year later, in which his team achieved a record altitude of 26,980ft without supplemental oxygen.

In 1924, he and his climbing partner Andrew “Sandy” Irvine attempted to scale the mountain, but disappeared on the northDoug Liman east ridge. Mallory’s fate remained unknown for 75 years until his body was found in 1999. They were last seen 245m from the summit, sparking speculation they might have reached the top before they died.

Hollywood veteran Glenn Close is set to join the second series of Apple TV+ hit Israeli thriller Tehran.

Close (pictured, left) – who has been nominated for eight Oscars over four decades – will have a recurring role on the show as Marjan Montazeri, a British woman living in the Iranian capital.

Co-created by Fauda writer Moshe Zonder, alongside Dana Eden and Maor Kohn, the first series revolved around the story of Tamar Rabinyan (played by Niv Sultan, top right), a gifted young hacker for Israel’s intelligence

COMPETITION

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ENTE R je

Ewan McGregor

COMING SOON

Dangerous Liaisons Stage star and former EastEnders actress Maria Friedman joins Paloma Faith and Michael McElhatton in a star-studded cast for a reimagining of Dangerous Liaisons.

Based on Pierre Choderlos de Laclos’ classic 18th century novel, the Starz original series also features Lesley Manville, Kosar Ali, Alice Englert, Nicholas Denton, Nathanael Saleh, Hilton Pelser and Mia Threapleton.

The hotly-anticipated drama tells the origin story of how the Marquise de Merteuil (Englert) and the Vicomte de Valmont (Denton) meet as passionate young lovers in Paris on the eve of revolution. Driven to right the wrongs of their past, we follow as the couple rises from the slums of Paris and scale the heights of the French aristocracy, seducing and manipulating both the

Lesley Manville

Maria Friedman

nobility and each other to survive.

Friedman plays Berthe, an effervescent dressmaker for the great and good of Paris.

Tony Krantz (24, Blood & Oil)) will executive produce alongside Colin Callender (Wolf Hall), Bethan Jones (Les Misérables), Scott Huff (The Missing) and Christopher Hampton (The Father), while Barney Reisz serves as series producer.

Paloma Faith

IN THE PIPELINE

Love Child Rachel Weisz is reuniting with Colin Farrell (both pictured), her co-star in 2015’s The Lobster, for Todd Solondz’s new comedy-drama, Love Child.

Described as a darkly comic twist on the Oedipal story, Love Child follows a precocious child who schemes to rid himself of his brutish father so that he can be alone with his mother.

But plans go awry when a handsome stranger turns up on the scene.

Weisz is set to appear in Marvel’s

unit. After being drafted to join Mossad, she is sent on a perilous mission to Iran, where she is ordered to hack into a nuclear reactor.

But when her mission fails, Rabinyan finds herself stuck in the land of her childhood, where she rediscovers her roots.

The series also stars Shaun Toub as Faraz, the head of internal investigations with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and Shervin Alenabi as Milad, a young Israeli dissident and hacker who gets caught up in Tamar’s web of deception.

Filming is expected to commence in the coming weeks, with the series airing next year.

Jewish News and Nimax Theatres have teamed up to offer two lucky readers a family ticket to one of these fantastic shows: Billionaire Boy, What The Ladybird Heard, Wonderville Magic & Illusion or Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain Part Five!

A billionaire boy, one tiny Ladybird, magic and illusion and barmy British history – there’s something for everyone at Nimax Theatres this summer!

Nimax’s West End theatres are open with a very exciting programme of family productions and with Covid-19 secure procedures in place.

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Black Widow opposite Scarlett Johansson and Florence Pugh and will portray Elizabeth Taylor in forthcoming film, A Special Relationship.

Two winners will receive a family ticket (four tickets, minimum one adult) valid for any Monday to Friday performance from 15 July to 19 August to see one of the following: Billionaire Boy (Garrick Theatre), What The Ladybird Heard (Palace Theatre), Wonderville Magic & Illusion (Palace Theatre) or Horrible Histories: Barmy Britain Part Five (Apollo Theatre). Subject to availability. Travel and accommodation not included. No cash alternative. Nimax Theatres operates strictly under government Covid-19 guidelines. Prize is as stated, not transferable, not refundable and cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer or exchanged in whole or in part for cash. By supplying your email address, you agree to receive marketing information from the JN Media Group or any of its affiliates and carefully selected third parties. The promotion excludes employees of Jewish News and the promoter, their immediate families, their agents or anyone professionally connected to the relevant promotion. Proof of eligibility must be provided on request.

For full Ts and Cs, see www.jewishnews.co.uk. Closing date: 8 July 2021

28

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

Weekend / Books

War secrets of the JewishBritish military commandos Author Leah Garrett tells the amazing story of X Troop, a German-speaking refugee volunteer unit determined to outwit and outfight the Nazis. By Renee Ghert-Zand

X

TROOP is the fiercest British Second World War commando force you have likely never heard of. Formally known as “No. 10 (Inter-Allied) Commando, 3 Troop,” its 87 members were mainly Jewish refugees from Germany and Austria who were hell-bent on exacting revenge on the Nazis who had destroyed their families and home communities. Some commandos were themselves survivors of incarceration in Nazi concentration camps.

Sworn to secrecy about their true identities for their own safety, these brave young men assumed English noms de guerre. Only one person, a secretary at MI5, who worked in the casualty division, had access to the list of the men’s real names and places of origin.

After a year and a half of intensive training in Wales and Scotland, the X Troopers were assigned to the spearhead of Allied forces that invaded Europe and fought into the heart of the Third Reich. Using advanced combat and counterintelligence techniques, and their native German language abilities, they undertook dangerous missions to infiltrate behind enemy lines. In battle, they captured and immediately interrogated the enemy, providing invaluable information to the advancing Allied armies.

The X Troopers never fought as a joint force.

They were seconded individually or in small groups to various Allied troops and divisions.

Over half of them were killed, wounded or went missing in action.

“Nothing was going to stop them,” said Leah Garrett, author of a new book about this highly selective and motivated unit, whose exploits have largely been lost to history owing to their clandestine nature.

Published last month, X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos Who Helped Defeat the Nazis brings readers along on every step of these men’s journey from Central European teenagers to crack British commandos.

The page-turning account is replete with

astounding feats that were unknown until now, thanks to the author’s success in declassifying long-sealed, top-secret British military records.

Garrett, director of the Jewish Studies Center and director of Hebrew and Jewish Studies at Hunter College in New York, already had another book under her belt about Jewish Second World War fighters, the well-received Young Lions: How Jewish Authors Reinvented the American War Novel. Her experience researching and writing vividly about combat shines through in X Troop.

The book contains its share of famous names but, importantly, Garrett introduces the X Troopers, focusing primarily on three: Colin Anson (born Claus Ascher in Frankfurt), Peter Masters (Peter Arany, Vienna), and Freddie Gray (Manfred Gans, Borken, north-west Germany near the border with the Netherlands).

“I was able to gather the most information on these three. They are also a good trio to put at the centre of the story because they represent different personal backgrounds and varying war experiences,” Garrett said.

Anson was the only child of a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother. Baptised and brought up as a Christian, he was unaware he was half-Jewish until his father, Curt, told him when he was a young teen. In autumn 1937, after publicly speaking out against the Nazis, Curt was arrested and sent to Dachau concentration camp. Less than two weeks later, a Gestapo officer told the fam ily Curt had died of “circulation failure”, His ashes were posted to his widow and son – at their expense.

Following Kristallnacht in November 1938, Anson’s mother tried desperately to get him out of Germany. She finally succeeded in getting him on a Quaker-sponsored Kindertransport to the UK in February 1939. She remained behind and was reunited after the war with her soldier son, who survived gruelling battles in Italy.

Masters made it out of Vienna to the UK with

Manfred Gans (courtesy of USHMM); Peter Masters (courtesy of Anson family); Colin Anson (courtesy of Anson family)

The only photo of the full X Troop with dog mascot (courtesy of Masters Family Collection)

his divorced mother and sister after the Nazi Anschluss of Austria. They reunited with an aunt in London. Left behind was Masters’ maternal grandfather, who was the most influential Jewish figure in his life, taking him to synagogue and preparing him for his barmitzvah. Masters’ father escaped to Switzerland before the war.

On D-Day, Masters staggered through the waist-high waves, holding a bike in one hand and a tommy gun above his head, as he landed at Sword Beach. Through her research, Garrett discovered that – contrary to the accepted historical record – Masters and the other cyclist commandos were actually the first across the crucial Pegasus Bridge. “I was able to rewrite history with this! They were there, but no one knew it,” she said, excitedly.

Unlike most of the X Troopers, who came from assimilated backgrounds, Gans (aka Gray) was from an Orthodox Jewish family. Perhaps the most striking part of X Troop is the account of how Gans commandeered a jeep and driver at the end of the war and travelled two days straight from Holland through Germany to Czechoslovakia in search of his parents, who had escaped Germany to Holland (where they had citizenship) before the war. Miraculously, he found them alive in Terezin.

Even more extraordinary, Gans appealed to Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, who had returned from her government in exile in Canada. The princess granted him a meeting, at which she promised to get the Dutch Jews released from the camp. She made good on her pledge and helped relocate them to Eindhoven. Gans’ parents ended up immigrating to Israel, where one of their sons had settled before the war.

Not only did Gans survive dangerous battles, but his entire family – parents and three sons – remained intact by the end of the Holocaust. “Gans, Anson and Masters are exceptions, in that most X Troopers lost many more family members,” explained Garrett.

Ian Harris leading captured German soldiers in Osnabruck, Germany, April 1945 (courtesy of Imperial War Museum)

Gans and Masters eventually moved to the US, where they lived openly as Jews and shared their wartime experiences with their families.

Unlike Gans, Masters continued to use the last name he was forced to adopt upon joining X Troop. “All those who stayed in the UK kept the names they assumed as X Troopers. Who they were before the war did not really exist anymore, and it was too painful for them to go back to the Germany or Austria in their heads.”

Moreover, none of these men lived openly as Jews, and many converted and raised their families as Anglicans. Garrett chalks this up in part to the men’s assimilated backgrounds, and in part to perceptible under-the-surface antisemitic currents.

The memorial to X Troop’s fallen members erected in Aberdovey, Wales, where the men trained under their beloved commanding officer Bryan Hilton-Jones, makes no mention of their Jewish identities. According to Garrett, efforts by Jewish veterans groups have so far been unsuccessful in persuading the local council to at least amend the information about the X Troopers in the visitor pamphlet.

Garrett’s book corrects the record by fully recounting the X Troopers’ exploits and accurately reflecting who they were. The survivors all went on to live different kinds of lives, but were united in one fundamental way.

“Whether or not they ever spoke about X Troop, they all felt profound gratitude to the Brits for taking them in and giving them the opportunity to fight the Nazis.”  X Troop: The Secret Jewish Commandos Who Helped Defeat the Nazis by Leah Garrett is published by Chatto & Windus, priced £20 (hardback)

www.jewishnews.co.uk

24 June 2021 Jewish News

29

Food & Drink / Weekend

T

his recipe is based on fatteh, a dish from the southern Levant comprising toasted or stale flat breads layered with all number of flattering ingredients. I’ve used scrunchedup crispbreads, but you could just as well use good crackers or assertively toasted and torn pita breads.

The tahini marinade does something ludicrously good to chicken skin when you bake it, super-crisp and golden. The hummus here (homemade or shopbought, as you wish) is a non-negotiable bed on which to sink the accompanying fatteh ingredients.

This is a recipe to take your time to plate, building flavour and texture to rousing delight.

SERVES: 4

INGREDIENTS 12 cloves of garlic, 4 peeled and crushed, 8 peeled then left whole 2 tsp cumin seeds, toasted and ground 2 lemons 2 tsp paprika (sweet or hot, as you like) 120g (4¼oz) tahini 2 tbsp olive oil, plus more for the spring onions 8 boneless, skin-on chicken thighs 2 bunches of spring onions, cut into 3cm lengths salt and freshly ground black pepper 200g (7oz) hummus (shop-bought or homemade), to serve 4 good-size crispbreads or crackers, broken into bite-size pieces 1 small bunch of flat-leaf parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped Extracted from Home Cookery Year by Claire Thomson, published by Quadrille, priced £30 (hardback). Available now. Photography ©Sam Folan.

CRISPBREAD, H IT W S U M M U H N KEN O TAHINI BAKED CHIC VES OF GARLIC O L C E L O H W & S N SPRING ONIO

METHOD 1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the crushed garlic, cumin, juice of ½ lemon, paprika, half the tahini and all the olive oil. Season the chicken pieces with salt and plenty of black pepper, then add them to the marinade.

2. Cover and refrigerate for at least two hours (up to four hours).

3. To make the tahini sauce, mix 100ml (3½fl oz) of water and the juice of another ½ lemon into the remaining tahini and whisk until smooth. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside at room temperature.

4. Preheat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan/Gas Mark 6.

Line two baking trays with baking paper.

5. Put the marinated chicken on one of the lined baking trays and bake for 25–30 minutes, until the chicken is cooked through. Remove from the oven and rest it for at least 10 minutes before tearing or slicing into bite-size pieces.

6. Meanwhile, on the second lined baking tray, add the spring onions and whole cloves of garlic. Add a good seasoning of salt and enough olive oil to coat.

Cook for 15-20 minutes, until soft and charred.

7. To serve, choose a large, flat serving platter and begin building the dish, or make four individual servings. Smooth the hummus out all over the plate, then alternate with the chicken, crispbread, spring onion, whole roasted cloves of garlic and parsley. Spoon over the tahini sauce and serve immediately with the remaining lemon cut into wedges.

30

Jewish News 24 June 2021

Business / Foreign exchange With Candice Krieger

candicekrieger@googlemail.com

THE FX PAYMENT FIRM THAT WAS AHEAD OF ITS TIME The co-founder of a private foreign exchange company tells Candice Krieger why he believes entrepreneurs should follow their instincts and face any issues ‘head-on’

W

hen international payments pioneer Paresh Davdra set up his foreign exchange company 16 years ago, the term ‘fintech’ didn’t exist. Sending money abroad was costly and inefficient. But, determined to disrupt the market, Davdra and co-founder Rajesh Agrawal, the now deputy mayor of London, launched RationalFX, the UK’s first online foreign exchange service for private clients.

Fast forward to today, and the foreign exchange (FX) market is the largest financial market in the world. An average of $6.6 trillion (£4.7 trillion) is traded on foreign exchange markets every day.

RationalFX, the largest privately owned, self-funded FX house in Europe, has played a key part in the industry’s transformation, processing more than $10 billion (£7.2bn) in payments for some 200,000 clients.

Davdra, 41, says: “Rajesh and I were

working at another international payments firm, but felt we could offer an online platform that was more efficient.

I guess we were a little ahead of our time.

Did you know that we Paresh Davdra offered pre-paid cards in 2007? Revolut launched this product nearly 10 years later and is worth $7bn (£5bn).”

The duo also launched Xendpay in 2011, a platform that helps migrant workers send money home– again ahead of its time.

Both Davdra and Agrawal still own the business but have since stepped back from its day-to-day running; Agrawal to pursue his passion for politics, and Davdra to spend more time with his family – he is married to Jewish entrepreneur Karina Davdra, the founder of Stilla Crystals. But four months

Rajesh Agrawal

after stepping back, Davdra was diagnosed with cancer, aged 38. “I spent most of 2018 in the hospital undergoing chemo and surgery – I am super-lucky to have beaten cancer and be completely clear. I am now living in Portugal, enjoying the sunshine and work remotely when I need to.”

Davdra says overcoming cancer has made him appreciate life more. “I am no longer getting to a stage where I have sleepless nights over the business. I tend to take it much more in my stride, because you know what… everything is going to be alright.”

Self-made Davdra comes from humble beginnings. He set up RationalFX aged 24 with no savings, three student bank accounts with overdraft facilities, two credit cards and a car worth about £8,000, which he sold. “Rajesh had taken a personal loan telling the bank he was going to buy a car.”

The pair didn’t take a salary for 18 months.

“I was in about £40,000 personal debt by then.” But Davdra was ambitious, determined and, by his own admission, “super naïve”.

He had inherited a strong work ethic from his family, who came to the UK from Uganda as refugees in 1972.

“They worked extremely hard to provide a great life for me and my sister. We have a large and close family and have grown up with these values. Nothing is given to you, and if you want something, you have to work hard for it. But if you are determined, you can achieve anything. The Ugandan Asians are statistically the most successful migration of people to the UK – I am super proud of that.”

Davdra acknowledges the Jewish community is of a similar disposition. “I believe we share the same family values and have a big community spirit. There tends to be a genuine want to help one another.

“Work ethics are also there – nothing is

given to you and you have to graft for what you want.”

Davdra says he would love to do business in Israel one day. “I have been on holiday to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem and it was by far the

best holiday I ever had.”

The pandemic has been challenging for the company which, like many other businesses, has had to make difficult decisions.

“But we have been lucky that we have such a strong team and when the going gets tough, the tough get going.”

For entrepreneurs who have struggled this year, he advises: “It’s easy to let it all get on top of you. Don’t bury your head in the sand either. Face your issues head-on, be positive and you will find a way to move forward.”

When it comes to current FX trends, Davdra says the pandemic has “distracted from a real issue, which has been Brexit”.

He explains: “There have been significant changes in regulation and licensing and a lot of our focus has been on that. We are still seeing a large number of companies in fintech receiving funding.

“The industry is still growing and becoming more sophisticated with the help of technology. I think we will see an acceleration as companies start to normalise and get used to the new ways of working.”

For now, Davdra is enjoying his “new life in Portugal”, helping his wife with her successful business selling healing crystals, which she launched during the pandemic.

“I’m mostly packing boxes,” he laughs. To others looking to launch a business, he says: “I think gut feelings are super-important and if you feel passionate about something then don’t over think it – just go for it. Remember you don’t have to know everything from day one, the fun part is dealing with obstacles as this helps you learn and grow.”

On the RationalFX link-up with Jewish News, he says: “We are excited to build more bridges with the community. We will save people money and create long-lasting relationships. I think this will evolve and grow.”

FEE-FREE TRANSFER FOR JEWISH NEWS READERS RationalFX provides bespoke and flexible FX strategies for businesses and individuals. Our experienced team will get your money where it needs to be quickly, fairly and securely. Transfer in over 50 currencies to more than 170 countries and get local and global insights you won’t get elsewhere.

Get in touch and quote ‘Jewish News’ to get your first international transfer fee-free*. *RationalFX T&C’s apply. Only valid for Jewish News readers. Offer valid on first transfer with RationalFX and cannot be used in conjunction with any other promotions.

As part of the offer, RationalFX is removing its transfer fee.

24 June 2021 Jewish News

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31

Orthodox Judaism

SEDRA

Torah For Today

Balak

What does the Torah say about: Antisemitism

BY RABBI JONATHAN TAWIL In this week’s parsha, we read the story of Balak and Bilaam’s failed attempts to curse the Jewish people. Balak sends messengers to Bilaam offering great riches and honour for his services to curse the Jewish people.

Bilaam told the messengers that since the godly spirit rested on him only at night, they should stay overnight. God’s answer is unequivocal: “Do not go with them. You must not put a curse on those people, because they are blessed.” In the morning, Bilaam said God forbade him from going and intimated it was because the ministers were too low-ranking.

He implied that if Balak was serious, he would send his highest-ranking officials and offer him a lot more money.

Desperate, Balak dispatched his most distinguished officers with promises of grandeur and greatness for Bilaam. He reminded them that God forbade him from going, but said he would ask God again. Sure enough, that night God appeared to

Bilaam and this time told him he may go, but must do whatever God wants.

But then God gets angry with him.

Did God change his mind? What was Bilaam supposed to do?

Our sages explain the hardest word is “no”. Deep down, we all want to be liked, so we worry saying “no” will change the way others view us. The word “no” is sometimes hard to hear!

Bilaam had asked God once and God had said no. That should have sufficed. Yet Bilaam asked a second time in case God had changed his mind. He had not accepted the Divine refusal and wanted to hear “yes”.

God speaks once and if we refuse to accept what He says then God does not force His will upon us. As the sages of the Midrash put it: “Man is led down the path he chooses to tread.”

Eventually, Bilaam comes to the realisation “no” can be said and heard by those who care the most.

◆ Rabbi Jonathan Tawil is director and founder of TAL

BY RABBI MENDEL KALMENSON Antisemitic attacks in London last month reached the highest level ever recorded. What does the Torah say about antisemitism?

The Talmud says that Mount Sinai was named so because it initiated the nations’ hatred (sinah in Hebrew) of Jews. At Sinai, the Jewish nation was tasked with being “a kingdom of priests” and serving as beacons of morality to the world. Consequentially, the Jews became the subject of the oldest hatred in history.

Hitler summed up this sentiment chillingly: “The struggle for world domination is between me and the Jews... The Jews have inflicted two wounds on the world: Circumcision for the body and conscience for the soul. I come to free mankind from their shackles.”

Historically, there have been two contradictory reactions to the Jewish people: Judeophobia – hatred directed at the voice of

conscience Jews represent, or on the other extreme, Judeophilia – admiration and the desire to learn from and emulate the Jewish people. There is thus created an irrational aura of simultaneous fear/suspicion and awe/infatuation around the Jewish people in the eyes of the world.

Judaism is a distinction from which Jews cannot hide. History has demonstrated assimilation doesn’t help prevent antisemitism, as evidenced ny the fate of 20th century German Jewry, who had

integrated into the highest echelons of society. In fact, assimilation serves only to advance the cause of the antisemite in ridding the world of its moral torch-bearers.

Commenting on the presence of the Jews in the development of society, Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook observes that all of the great civilisations throughout time appeared on the stage of history, made their contribution and moved on. The Jewish people, however, emerged onto the stage of ancient history and are still standing, stuttering – for we have yet to clearly articulate the message we are here to say.

Instead of going underground to hide our Jewish identity, let’s proudly proclaim to the world the message we were summoned at Sinai to deliver. ◆ Rabbi Mendel Kalmenson serves Beit Baruch and is executive director of Chabad of Belgravia, London

Avigdor Hirsch

Torah Temimah Primary School

We’re recruiting!

Come join us this September – we have the following exciting opportunities to become part of this warm, welcoming school.

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Primary Class Teachers (two posts): QTS/QTLS, Main/Upper Pay Range (Inner London). One maternity cover post, one permanent.

Full time preferred, but we may consider part time.

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EYFS Practitioner & Key Person: Level 3 advantage but not essential. Competitive salary. Full time or close to f/t.

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Teaching Assistants: KS1/KS2, Level 3 advantage but not

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Secretary/Admin Assistant: Part time, 5 days/week.

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Break time supervisor: 10.00–3.30 Mon.–Thur. Competitive salary.

If you want to be part of a very warm, welcoming, family-friendly, high-achieving and supportive school, with children who are motivated and eager to learn, and where professional development is built in – well, that’s us! We offer attractive working conditions, a terrific staff team, Inner London salaries, good location & travel connections, and easy parking. Ofsted say we’re ‘Good’ – parents and colleagues say we’re “fantastic!”

Please contact us a.s.a.p. to discuss any position or to ask for an application pack. Call Mrs Dinah Herman on 020 8450 4377, or email secretary@torahtemimah.brent.sch.uk.

Applications welcomed a.s.a.p.: applications may be processed as received.

Torah Temimah is committed to safeguarding and promoting the welfare of all children and expects all staff and volunteers to share this commitment. Appointments will be subject to references and a satisfactory Enhanced DBS check.

Parkside, Dollis Hill, London NW2 6RJ Tel.: 020 8450 4377 email: admin@torahtemimah.brent.sch.uk ‫מנהל‬: Rabbi E Klyne MA (Ed) ‫שליט"א‬ Headteacher: Rabbi Y Freeman BSc

EDUCATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST Norwood’s Education department are seeking a motivated and inspiring Educational Psychologist to join us part-time from August 2021.

Some of the main responsibilities: 1. To work collaboratively as part of Norwood’s Children Service’s multidisciplinary team with a view to improving children and young people’s educational outcomes and life chances.

2. To deliver a holistic and effective Educational Psychology service to schools and families, with a focus on consultation and promoting inclusion.

Essential Requirements: • A degree in Psychology (or its equivalent) which confers Graduate Basis for Recognition with the British Psychological Society • Successful completion of a further degree on an accredited vocational course for the training of Educational Psychologists • HCPC registration Benefits: • The opportunity to work for a leading UK charity • Competitive salary & benefits package • A challenging and varied role • A supportive team • 1pm Friday finish and additional leave during Jewish festivals Please note: We reserve the right to close the advert, once we receive sufficient applications, so recommend an early application.

This post is subject to an enhanced Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) disclosure.

Norwood is a disability confident employer. This means we are committed to employing people with disabilities.

Patron: Her Majesty The Queen.

Registered Charity No: 1059050.

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

Progressive Judaism

Progressively Speaking

The Bible Says What?

‘The 12 spies should have been women’

What does Israel’s new government mean for Progressive Jews?

BY RABBI AARON GOLDSTEIN “With my knowledge from seeing into the future, it would be better to send women who cherish the land because they don’t count its faults.”

(Midrash from Keli Yakar, 17th century, imagining God giving advice to Moses) When Moses sends out the 12 spies – a group of Israelite chieftains containing one man from each of the 12 Tribes – to scout out the land of Canaan, they come back with a negative report. The follow-up is a disaster: a calamitous attempt to win back God’s favour and 40 years in the wilderness until the slave-generation who knew Egyptian bondage had died. But what might have happened if the scouts had been women?

The midrash from Keli Yakar suggests God thinks there were no pessimistic, fearful, worried women amongst the Israelites; or at least the 12 that God would have chosen had the vision to see past the immediate issue of conquest – perhaps a

primary male focus – to the essence of the land.

Putting aside for a moment contemporary concerns for the Canaanites, the people who the Israelites would supplant, the women were able to perceive in the land, the promise that God had given to the Israelites. As we see today – from Belarus to Libya to western Black Lives Matters movements – it has been women who have led protest. Protest to change a status quo or to fight for justice, not to conquer.

In every generation, there is more we can do and it takes time for a society founded on male-dominance to attune and appreciate gender equality. We still have not reached that goal.

It makes it all the more important to listen to the words and vision of women, not just hear their voices.

Advice that may have helped Moses.

◆ Aaron Goldstein is Senior Rabbi at The Ark Synagogue

BY RABBI MARK GOLDSMITH Shammai, Jewish teacher par excellence in the first century, gave a sound piece of advice to anyone looking to make a difference: say little but do much (Avot 1:15).

This is what we hope of the new Israeli government formed by Yair Lapid and Naftali Bennett. The action we need, as always, is one that is consistent with Jewish values as we understand them.

We need this government to work on the tough task of ensuring no one is left behind in Israeli society, whether Jew or non-Jew. We need this government to pursue justice and peace so it walks forward with efforts for peace with the Palestinians, inside and outside of Israel, and with the Arab nations that surround the Jewish state.

We celebrate the diversity of this government; its inclusion of so many interests in Israel matches the pluralism that is central to our Judaism.

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It is time Israel became a country that is hospitable and respectful of all Judaism and not only the narrow interests of strict-Orthodoxy. It is time for Israel to have a constructive place in government for the 20 percent of its population that is Arab.

This government may achieve both. We are impressed that the new government rapidly turned rhetoric into action by sharing more thanone million doses of Covid vaccine with the West Bank and Gaza.

Both Prime Minister Bennett and Foreign Minister Lapid understand that the Jewish diaspora

matters to Israel as much as Israel matters to the diaspora.

We journey through the 21st century together and we cannot park our Jewish values when we work with each other: they have to be part of our relationship.

Mr Lapid gave a moving address at this year’s World Union for Progressive Judaism Conference in May. He spoke of his own involvement in Israeli Reform Judaism through the Beit Daniel Synagogue in Tel Aviv and was clear that the struggle of Progressive Judaism to build Jewish pluralism in Israel is his struggle too.

We look forward to today’s Israeli government acting to bring prosperity and progress, Jewish and secular pluralism, peace and mutual respect between Jews and Arabs to our Jewish state. ◆ Mark Goldsmith is Senior Rabbi at Edgware and Hendon Reform Synagogue

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24 June 2021 Jewish News

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Vaccinated staff help protect our homes against Covid-19 L

ooking for a care home which is safe as possible in the current pandemic? Then you could do no better than to join us as a resident in one of the homes in the Springdene Group, one of the premier care organisations in north London.

We’re delighted to announce that our staff are undergoing a programme of vaccination against Covid-19. In addition, they are subjected to daily testing to avoid infections being brought into the homes.

This, combined with exemplary and scrupulous hygiene controls, make a Springdene home as Covid-secure as it is possible to be. Not only do we have a rigorous regime of cleaning and disinfecting, but we use special ozone-generating machines, which are highly effective in sanitising the air.

Naturally, there are generous supplies of personal protective equipment, which is worn at all times. You can rely on the fact that at Springdene we are managing against the risk of the virus in the most effective way.

New residents can be sure of a warm reception. Our homes have been established for more than 50 years, run continuously by the same family. All our homes – Spring Grove in Hampstead, Spring Lane in Muswell Hill and Springview in Enfield – are rated as good by the Care Quality Commission. Residents enjoy hotel-style luxury, with their own spacious room, complete with full en-suite facilities, personal telephone and wi-fi.

50 YEARS OF CARE

There are three delicious meals a day, and a varied choice of menus.

And there are lots of regular activities, including quizzes, short stories, art competitions and poetry readings, live-streamed concerts and filmshowings on a big screen, as well as walks in delightful gardens.

‘We’ve a great team, offering terrific care and everyone is brilliantly looked after,’ says CEO Jeremy Balcombe. As our motto says: ‘Life is for living!’

50 Spring Lane YEARS

170 Fortis Green, Muswell Hill, London N10 3PA OF CARE

One of the finest and best-appointed homes for older people in North London, Spring Lane is just a short distance from Muswell Hill Broadway and is ideally located in a residential area close to local shops and public transport. With 63 spacious residential rooms, it offers a happy and stimulating home environment in a luxury setting.

Spring Grove

Springview

214 Finchley Road, London NW3 6DH

Crescent Road, Enfield, Middlesex EN2 7BL

The ultimate in comfort, Spring Grove was purpose built in 1992 to luxury hotel standards. With 40 single and three double rooms, it is situated on the Finchley Road near to Swiss Cottage and is close to local shops, cultural facilities and a tube station. It has large terraces and attractive, well-planted gardens.

To arrange a visit, or for more information, just call

0208 815 2000

or visit

www.springdene.co.uk

Springdene Jewish News_full page_Vaccine ad.indd 1

Standing in tranquil surroundings, Springview is a purpose built home, situated near to Enfield Town with its local shops and public transport. It is adjacent to green belt countryside with views overlooking Enfield golf course and beyond.

With 59 rooms the home has recently undergone a major refurbishment and residents enjoy superb facilities.

Springdene CARE HOMES

16/03/2021 17:08

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

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24 June 2021 Jewish News

Ask our

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: Moving into mobility apartments, adjusting to hearing aids and tax-saving tips for property investors LISA WIMBORNE CHARITY EXECUTIVE

JEWISH BLIND & DISABLED

Dear Lisa My wife died from Covid at the end of last year. I have a disability and haven’t been coping well, but the thought of moving seems daunting. I don’t feel safe alone in my flat and am feeling very isolated. I have heard about Jewish Blind & Disabled but am not sure it is right for me. What do you advise?

Robert Dear Robert I’m so sorry to hear about your loss and wish you a long and healthy life.

Sadly, we have had several people in a similar situation to you who have moved

SUE CIPIN CHARITY EXECUTIVE

JEWISH DEAF ASSOCIATION Dear Sue I’ve recently been issued with hearing aids. So many noises are bothering me, such as my footsteps and taps running. I keep taking out the hearing aids, but I’m not sure if that’s the right thing to do.

Hilary Dear Hilary Most people will experience a period of adjustment after

being given their first hearing aids. Your hearing loss might have progressed slowly and, over time, you might have gradually stopped hearing some everyday sounds you once took for granted. Once you’ve got used to not being surrounded by these noises, it can be quite a shock to have them suddenly returned!

As good as it is, amplified sound can’t precisely replicate your natural hearing. Your brain, expecting the sound signals it recognises, will be confused at first and might want to reject what it doesn’t know. If you keep taking out the hearing aids, you may elongate that period of confusion, making it harder to acclimatise to them. I would suggest wearing them throughout the day to give your brain the

35

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into one of our developments in the past few months. While its difficult for me to say if a move is right for you without knowing more about you and your situation, what I can say is that we offer accessible, independent living with the option to be part of a warm, supportive, Jewish community on your doorstep.

We do our best to make sure the move-in process is as smooth as possible and can help with organising things such as removals.

Our communal lounges and gardens are now open and there are many opportunities, should you wish, to meet new people and socialise.

We consider a range of factors when reviewing applications and flats are allocated to those most in need.

To find out more about whether a move to Jewish Blind & Disabled is appropriate, I would suggest getting in contact with our team on 020 8371 6611.

information that this is the new normal, as there won’t be an alternative to prefer.

Do return to your audiologist if any sounds are very uncomfortable or if any part of the hearing aid is hurting – small adjustments may be necessary and dealt with quickly. Some situations might still be challenging, such as when you’re trying to have a conversation in a noisy restaurant.

There is a range of devices you can use with your hearing aids to help block out background noise, enabling you to easily focus on what you want to hear. If you’re struggling to hear the television or don’t always hear the doorbell or phone ring, your local council should be able to provide you with helpful equipment.

ADAM SHELLEY ACCOUNTANT

SOBELL RHODES LLP Dear Adam I’d like to purchase a residential investment property as a buy to let. Are there any tax-saving tips for property investors and developers?

Lauren Dear Lauren You could consider holding property investments jointly with family members, spouses and civil partners, so you take advantage of their tax allowances, exemptions

Charity No. 1106331

and lower rate tax bands to save income tax, capital gains tax and inheritance tax.

There are other structures worth exploring, especially considering the interest restrictions on property loans and additional capital gains tax rates that apply to individual investments.

You should evaluate whether it is tax advantageous to use a limited company for your property investments to take advantage of the lower company tax rates. You can consider the use of an investment company to fund property investments instead of using an existing trading company (if you have one).

You can also consider the use of trusts to hold properties or shares in property investment companies to tax

efficiently pass wealth to the next generation.

Especially early on, ensure you know the distinction between revenue and capital expenditure to minimise the tax you pay on rental income and subsequent capital gains.

As it stands, if you buy the property before 30 September 2021, you can take advantage of the temporary reduction in stamp duty land tax rates and potentially save up to £15,000.

Whichever structure you decide to invest in property, ensure you know the net of tax income it will generate, how gains on sales will be taxed and ensure it fits in with your expectations and requirements. Always take professional tax advice before buying or selling a property to minimise your tax bills.

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Jewish News 24 June 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

TELECOMS SPECIALIST BENJAMIN ALBERT Qualifications: • Co-Founder and Technical Director of ADWConnect – a specialist in business telecommunications, serving customers worldwide.

• Independent consultant and supplier of Telephone & Internet services.

• Client satisfaction is at the heart of everything my team and I do, always striving to find the most cost-effective solutions.

ADWCONNECT 0208 089 1111 www.adwconnect.com hello@adwconnect.com

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 Struggling to hear the TV? Missing out on family phone chats?

Hearing just not what it used to be?

Get the very best out of life

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

Jewish Deaf Association

COMMERCIAL LAWYER

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

24 June 2021 Jewish News

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37

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 naomifeltham93@hotmail.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

DIRECTOR OF HOMECARE AND OPERATIONS

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.

MATT MILLS Qualifications: • Started his career as a support worker, including residential and dementia care, as well as supported living for adults with learning disabilities, mental health needs and autism.

• Completed a range of care qualifications, achieving a Level 5 Diploma in leadership and management in Health and Social Care.

• He is passionate about supporting people to live independently within the community, and being involved in their lives in a positive way.

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

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Jewish News 24 June 2021

The first deaf person I met was my beautiful baby Layla.

“ When Layla was diagnosed deaf at birth,

we were in complete shock and didn't know what to do.

JDA was there for us when we needed them most.

They've shown us we're not alone, helped us to cope and given Layla the best start in life. ”

Your donation will help Layla and all children with hearing loss get the very best out of life.

020 8446 0502 02 k www.jdeaf.org.uk Registered Charity No. 1105845 Company Limited by Guarantee 4983830

24 June 2021 Jewish News

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The yellow items can 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.

D D M J

1 6 5 3 9 3 2 1 5 2 6 3 6 4 8 2 5 3 7 3 5 4 3 9 7 6 5 2

CODEWORD

WORDSEARCH

I

4 7

DOWN 1 Long prison stretch (4) 2 Courtesy form of address (7) 3 Concealing (6) 4 Long protruding tooth, like that of an elephant (4) 5 Argument in favour (3) 6 Make better (6) 11 Small variety of orange (7) 12 Ford saloon model (6) 14 Part of a tea service (6) 17 Collar fastener (4) 18 Regard as (4) 20 Furthermost edge (3)

16 17

BANANA BUTTER CANARY CHICKS

Write (something) quickly (4,3) Oven for baking pottery (4) Russia’s Ivan, eg (4) Navigation assistant (inits)(3) Sugar‑topped (4) Palo ___, Californian city (4) One who doubts generally held beliefs (7) 21 Application (3) 22 Totted up (5) 23 Dominion (5)

14

15

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

8 9 10 13 15 16 19

6

8

9

SUDOKU

9 1 8 6 3 2 4 5 7

7 4 3 8 5 9 2 1 6

4 2 1 3 2 1

1 3 5 4 5 4

2 4 2 1 2 3

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

Wordsearch 3 1 3 5 4 1

2 4 2 1 3 2

3 1 3 5 4 1

2 1 2 1 5 3

3 5 4 3 4 1

1 2 1 2 5 3

3 5 3 4 1 2

4 1 2 5 3 4

2 3 4 1 2 1

Y R P D N U G A R K T O S

D S R R Z E S A E R C I H

E U L B I D J E N S Z F E

N O T T O C Y G G E G U M

I S B S S T E E I A K E H

M S T O N E W A S H E D L

P S R I L O F W E Q B Z S

Codeword V W O I T L T O D O L T K

C X U Y A C R T O E E D S

J H S R C I H T U K B N F

M S E A M S L I C B A V T

X S R J P E F O N E L L G

N M S Q G C P B J G L P H

C E X R A G OG E F R A S T E I D L B Y

N S U S P OM I W O A I N F A L L J C T K O L E H E A D R R E I E N D MU T O E U B BOR N Q R C A U E A HOR R I V R C L GON E H E A

P O V E E R E S E I N S U I T F I V T E

M P T Y Z C D

AMHWB D Y S Z Q X K C F P N V L G I E U T O J R24/06

40 Jewish News

24 June 2021

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Business Services Directory ANTIQUES 44

The Jewish News 22 September 2016

Stirling BUSINESS SERVICES DIRECTORY Antique – Reproduction – Retro Furniture Top prices paid (any condition)

Hille, G Plan, etc.

CarerEpstein, Archie Shine,Clothing

WE BUY ANTIQUES VERY HIGH PRICES PAID. FREE HOME VISITS. All Antique Furniture Hille & Epstein Diamond Jewellery, Gold, Silver, Paintings, Porcelain, Glass, Bronzes, Ivories, Oriental & Judaica Antiques etc.

Full house clearances organised.

Please look at our website for more details

www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk FOR APPOINTMENTS CALL SUE ON: 0800 840 2035 or 07956268290 OPEN 8am TO 9pm 7 DAYS. PORTOBELLO RD LONDON.

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

FURS WANTED Auxiliary Nurse Cash paid for Mink House clearances Available to support

jackets, coats, you in your home. boleros, stoles, Single items to complete homes also fox coats, Days/nights. jackets etc.

MARYLEBONE rates.

ANTIQUES - 8 CHURCH STREET NW8 8ED Very reasonable Wardrobes cleared Call 0208 958 2939 614 744 (ANYTIME) Call 01277 352 560 or 0749507866 026 168

0207 723 7415 (SHOP)

Computer

closed Sunday & Monday

STUART SHUSTER - e-mail - info@maryleboneantiques.co.uk Man on a Bike will get MAKE SURE YOUfast!

CONTACT US BEFORE SELLING you working

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

For small businesses & home users.

CHARITY & WELFARE

of Kensal Green

Antiques

Established over 60 years.

Know who you are dealing with.

All quality furniture bought & sold.

Best prices paid for complete house clearances china, books, WEincluding BUY ANTIQUES clothing etc. Also rubbish clearance VERY HIGH PRICES PAID. FREE HOME VISITS. service, lofts, sheds, etc All Antique Furniture Hillegarages & Epstein

Bereavement Counselling for adults and children individually. Support Groups available.

During the pandemic, we offer telephone and online counselling.

Contact Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service in confidence.

0208 951 3881 enquiries@jbcs.org.uk | www.jbcs.org.uk

Full house clearances organised.

020 8960 5401 or 07825 224144

www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk

FOR APPOINTMENTS CALL SUE ON:

HOUSE CLEARANCES 0800 840 2035 or 07956268290 OPEN 8am TO 9pm 7 DAYS.

Labels are for jars.

Refer yourself or a loved one

by YOU BEREAVED? ARE Not people. calling 020 8458 2223 or visit Counselling for adults & children who are www.jamiuk.org

experiencing loss. Support groups offered.

REGISTERED CHARITY NO. 1003345 Call The Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service in confidence

020 8951 3881 • 07765 693 160 E: enquiries@jbcs.org.uk

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

“Better Safe Than Sorry”

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 |

Email Sales today at sales@jewishnews.co.uk

All NW-London postcodes covered

07860 881505 or 0800 610 12 12

IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHICH WAY TO TURN, REMEMBER OUR HELPLINE. For confidential advice, information and support don’t forget Jewish Care Direct.

020 8922 2222 jcdirect@jcare.org

jewishcare.org/helpline

We hav warden a in Eal warden

For furth West

Charity Reg No. 802559

Jami supports and represents people with mental illness across the Jewish community.

A Wi

#jamithinkahead

w

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

Not shabbat

Reg Charity No. 1003345

HOME & MAINTENANCE

Home & Maintenance

WESTLON HOUSING ASSOCIATION Sheltered Accommodation 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 support, seven days a week; a residents’ lounge and kitchen, laundry, a sunny patio and garden.

For further details and application forms, please contact Westlon Housing Association on 020 8201 8484 or email: johnsilverman@btconnect.com

Contact: Anthony – 07850 590415

MAKE

Give support • Get support • Get involved

PLUMBSAFEUK.COM

MOTOR VEHICLES PURCHASED CLASSIC OR CARS for vehicles over 10 years old preferably with low mileage

PORTOBELLO RD LONDON.

S

Charity & Welfare

PLUMBSAFE (UK) LTD

AUTOMOTIVE

C

Please lookgordonstirling65@gmail.com at our website for more details Email:

020 8731 6171 • www.manonabike.co.uk

CHARITY & WELFARE

CHARITY & WELFARE

Ep Dini D

Diamond Jewellery, Gold, Silver, Paintings, Porcelain, Please contact Gordon Stirling Glass, Bronzes, Ivories, Oriental & Judaica Antiques etc.

Call Ian Green, Man on a Bike on

ARE YOU BEREAVED?

Anti

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

Home & Maintenance

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

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 |

All NW-London postcodes covered

07860 881505 or 0800 610 12 12

020 8953 2094 office

!

Not shabbat

020 8207 3286 home 020 8386 8798 hallandrandallplumbers.com

“Better Safe Than Sorry”

office@hallandrandall.com

PLUMBSAFEUK.COM

STONEMASON

PROFESSIONAL PAINTING, DECORATING & PAPER HANGING

Over 20 years experience Friendly, reliable & service. personal The specialist masons in creating bespoke Granite and Marble Memorials for all Cemeteries. competitive rates Very 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

STEPHEN: 07973 342 422 srindsmc@hotmail.com

Email : info@garygreenmemorials.co.uk

www.garygreenmemorials.co.uk

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

18/03/2019 12:50:51

City and A. ELFES LTDGuilds Elect

All types of electrical work un

New memorials Rewiring, extrainscriptions sockets, BT points, Economy 7 Additional storage heaters, Shabbat time switches, securi & renovations LED spotlights, fault finding, CCTVportable ap landlord tests and house buyer’s surveys.

Gants Hill Edgware

12 Beehive Lane 130 High Street For Hill, anIG1 efficient reliable and friendly Gants 3RD Edgware, HA8 7EL Call Harvey Solomons on Telephone Telephone

0207 754 4646 0207 4659 020 754 8958 6495 / 07836 648 554

www.memorialgroup.co.uk

24 June 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

41

Business Services Directory SILVER

ANTIQUES

INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER

Inspirational speaker available to book

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

HIGHEST PRICES PAID!

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

Enhance your special event.

With a unique & meaningful presentation or speech by Elie Schwartz Contact me 07973696548 Or email eitzeh4u@gmail.com

OFFICE FURNITURE

CLEANING

Professional standard with elegant finishing.

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

Need to furnish your home or office?

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.

London’s leading supplier of new and reconditioned furniture.

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

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 Legacy Classified advert v1.qxp_Legacy 16/06/2021 10:57 Page 1

Registered Charity No: 1082148

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

KASHRUT ALERT

HELP US CONTINUE TO BE THERE FOR OUR COMMUNITY WITH A GIFT IN YOUR WILL. Call our Legacy Team on 020 8922 2840 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

HOUSE CLEARANCE 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

Dave & Eve House Clearance Friendly Family Company established for 30 years

Quality care in your home for independent living.

Outstanding live-in and hourly care in

Providing outstanding care and helping basedindependently in Primrose Hill, peopleLocally to live at home for PillarCare’s friendly, experienced 20 years

your home at flexible, affordable rates. team have been helping people live

Outstanding live-in andin their hourly care in as independently as possible

COMPUTER Legacy advert 84x40.indd 1

HOME CARE

own homes since 1999. Our fees your home at flexible, affordable rates. are fully inclusive with care service

16/04/2021 10:55

provision 365 days a year.

Outstanding live-in andOutstanding hourly care live-in in and hourly care in

We clear houses, flats, sheds, garages etc.

No job too big or too small!

Rubbish cleared as part of a full clearance.

We have a waste licence.

We buy items including furniture bric a brac.

For a free quote please phone Dave on 07913405315 any time.

find out more 020rates.

7482 2188. your home atToflexible, affordable yourcall home at flexible, affordable rates.

020 7482 2188

pillarcare.co.uk

enquiries@pillarcare.c

020 7482 2188

pillarcare.co.uk 020 7482 2188 www.pillarcare.co.uk | enquiries@pillarcare.co.uk

020 7482 2188

pillarcare.co.uk

42

Jewish News 24 June 2021

www.jewishnews.co.uk

A show of hands from our members.

A show of support for Shelter.

Each year at the AGM, we give our members the chance to have a say in how we do things. It’s a togetherness that helps shape the future and what being part of a mutual is all about. This year, for each vote cast, we’ll give 10p towards Shelter up to the amount of £50,000. We’ve supported them since 2001 because tackling issues in the wider community has always been a subject close to our heart. Like Shelter, we believe everyone should have a place they can call home.

Look out for your voting pack in the post or email, then cast your vote at nationwide.co.uk/AGMvote

20 years tackling homelessness together

Registered charity (263710 England and Wales, SC002327 Scotland). Housing Rights in Northern Ireland (NIC 105735). 5% of funds raised will be donated to Shelter Cymru. 5% of funds raised will be donated to Housing Rights.

Nationwide Building Society. Head Office: Nationwide House, Pipers Way, Swindon, Wiltshire, SN38 1NW.