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It came to pass!

VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY 12 August 2021

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4 Ellul 5781

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Issue No.1223

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A-level students celebrate stellar exam results despite difficult year Page 11

King of the Jews?

Revealed: Elvis’ kosher ancestry Page 26

@JewishNewsUK

The great divide Does our community still have a centre ground?

Special report, pages 6 & 7

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

News / Labour whip / Ofcom powers / Halimi murder

Plan to reinstate Corbyn ‘won’t get party support’ Jewish community for the hurt he has caused over his response to the antisemitism crisis under his leadership of the party.

A party source confirmed: “The steps Corbyn needed to take to become a Labour MP again were set out in the letter he received from the chief whip when he was suspended.

The ball has been in his court.

“A motion from the CFLP using Corbyn’s name to try and drum up interest in it, certainly isn’t going to bring about his return as an MP.” Corbyn was suspended from the party last October after suggesting antisemitism was “dramatically overstated for political reasons” in a response to the damning findings in a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission. His statement remains up on his Facebook page.

The former leader attacked the suspension as a “political intervention” he would strongly oppose. His party membership was reinstated after 19 days, but he has not had the whip

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

Reports that Jeremy Corbyn could be reinstated as a Labour MP as a result of plans by a left-wing group have been dismissed as “utter nonsense” by senior party sources.

A report in The Observer newspaper cited a proposal by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) calling for power over disciplinary cases to be handed back to members as a mechanism to restore the whip to the former party leader.

It was claimed that Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer could face embarrassment at next month’s annual conference if the motion, which attacked Labour MPs as being “not accountable”, was passed in a vote.

But party sources have told Jewish News that “only Jeremy Corbyn” can bring about his return as a Labour MP. This would involve him having to make a full and proper apology to the

PRECIOUS STONES

restored in the Commons, meaning that he sits as an independent MP. He has said “those who deny there has been an antisemitism problem in the Labour party are wrong”.

Jewish News revealed last month how the CLPD motion was passed by Leeds Central constituency Labour party (CLP) and it has been circulated around CLPs across the country.

While senior Labour figures confirm the CLPD motion is likely to be moved by left-wingers at next month’s conference, they say it is “utter nonsense” to suggest it would gain enough support to pass.

“There are at least 40 other different constitutional changes set to be heard at this year’s conference,” said a party insider. “Someone will inevitably stand up and move the CLPD motion. But it won’t pass – there just aren’t the levels of support across the entire party for ideas being put up by supporters of a regime from the past.”

Sources also point out that the proposal to hand power to members

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– with the conference able to confirm or reject disciplinary decisions that are “of concern to delegates” – would appear to be legally unsound.

“It would cause obvious issues in sexual assault claims and other sensitive allegations,” said a party source.

Charlotte Nichols, Labour MP for

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The broadcast regulator Ofcom should be handed “preparatory powers” so it can begin to monitor online content, a leading Conservative MP has said, writes Lee Harpin.

Andrew Percy – co-chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Antisemitism – made his plea in the wake of last week’s TalkSport “Jew” comment scandal.

In a discussion about Harry Kane’s future at Spurs, a caller to the radio station said of chairman Daniel Levy: “He’s a Jew, he’s not going to let him go for nothing, is he?” Footage of the incident was broadcast on TalkSport’s YouTube site but was ‘dumped’ from the live show as a result of a seven-second delay system.

An Ofcom spokesperson told Jewish News that the incident was being “assessed” as a “matter of urgency”. But a senior Ofcom source has now conceded that the regulator is “unlikely” to be able to take any action because under current laws it does not have the powers

to monitor online platforms. “We need regulation now,” said Percy, the MP for Brigg and Goole, who is himself Jewish. “We would not accept this type of ‘get out of jail free card’ for racism anywhere else.

“We have the prospect of the Online Safety Bill. We need to make haste and get this on to the statute books as early as possible. We should be giving Ofcom preparatory powers so it can get moving as the online regulator.”

Digital and Culture Secretary Oliver Dowden has promised social media giants will “feel the fire” if they allow hate speech broadcasts, but the legislation may not arrive until 2023.

Percy added: “There has been no penalty for YouTube for facilitating the dissemination of anti-Jewish racism. There has been no comment from YouTube, no apology and no correction. For all their challenges in this area, at least TalkSport acknowledged the issue and is seeking to address it.”

HALIMI SISTER’S ISRAELI COURT BID The sister of an Orthodox Jewish woman murdered in Paris will file a criminal complaint in Israel against her killer, after French authorities said he was not responsible for his actions.

Sarah Halimi, 65, died in 2017 after Kobili Traoré attacked her in her home while shouting “Allahu Akbar”.

He later pushed her out of the window of her Paris flat on to the street below.

In April, France’s highest court ruled that Traoré was not criminally responsible for Halimi’s death because he had succumbed to a “delirious fit” after smoking cannabis.

This week Halimi’s sister, Esther Lekover,

sought to draw on an Israeli law that allows citizens to file complaints about antisemitic crimes committed abroad.

The Times of Israel reported Lekover’s bid was unlikely to advance because France does not extradite its citizens to other countries.

Lawyers representing Halimi’s family also plan to refer the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

French President Emmanuel Macron has promised a new law to prevent assailants avoiding trial because of drug use. But it will not apply retrospectively, meaning Traoré cannot be convicted in France for Halimi’s death.

12 August 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

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Data scandal / News

PR expert named in ‘UAE’ data leak from Israeli spyware firm

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

A leading Jewish community figure in the UK has been named in a data leak of individuals who may have been spied on by authoritarian governments.

The Pegasus spyware scandal revolves around claims that powerful surveillance technology, made in Israel, was used by agents of at least 10 governments, and up to 50 other clients, to target persons deemed to be of interest.

Reports in multiple media outlets, including the Washington Post and Guardian newspapers, confirmed that PR expert Shimon Cohen’s phone number was discovered alongside those of hundreds of business leaders, prime ministers and human rights activists.

Israeli defence minister Benny Gantz has said allegations that spyware developed by the NSO Group was used against public figures worldwide were being taken “seriously”.

The leaked database at the heart of the Pegasus project reportedly contained the mobile phone numbers of French President Emmanuel Macron, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa and Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan.

Gantz met with his French counterpart on 27 July after Macron’s number was reportedly on a list of potential targets for surveillance

by Morocco. The White House has also raised concerns with Israel over the Pegasus spyware allegations.

The NSO Group says the Pegasus surveillance systems is licensed only to governments, to fight terrorism and serious and organised crime. The company also said it was “a technology company” and that it did not operate the Pegasus system or routinely have access to the data of its government customers.

But multiple newspaper reports detailed claims that Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue member Cohen and others had been targeted by agents of the government of the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Cohen, chairman and founder of international agency The PR Office, has not commented on the allegations, but it is claimed he was targeted over his role as communications adviser for bespoke security firm Quest.

The firm – chaired by former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Stevens – had been employed by Princess Haya bint al-Hussein, ex-wife of the emir of Dubai, Sheikh Mohammed bin rashid al-Maktoum, after she arrived in London at the start of 2019.

According to reports, shortly before the princess arrived in London, and continuing into at least the summer of 2019, the phone numbers of people around her began to appear on the database seen by the Pegasus project.

Cohen’s phone number along with that of Quest CEO Martin Smith, which had for several years provided Haya with her private security, were on the list along with John Gosden, a racing trainer and friend of Haya’s.

Forbidden Stories, a Paris-based nonprofit media organisation, and Amnesty International initially had access to the leaked list of 50,000 phone numbers identified as those

of people of interest by clients of the NSO Group. It revealed that human rights activists, journalists and lawyers across the world have been targeted by authoritarian governments across the globe.

Among the 10 countries named in reports as possible NSO customers were Mexico, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain.

Reports claim that after an analysis of the leaked data by experts used by Amnesty International was undertaken, the principal government responsible for selecting the UK numbers appeared to be the UAE. Asked to comment on the claims, the UAE embassy in London directed Jewish News to a statement put up by the country’s foreign ministry on its website.

“The allegations made by recent press reports claiming the UAE is among a number of countries accused of alleged surveillance targeting of journalists and individuals have no evidentiary basis and are categorically false,” it said.

Till Dunckel, a German lawyer representing Sheikh Mohammed, told the newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung that his client emphatically denied any involvement, and also denied instructing others to carry out surveillance on his behalf.

Jewish News understands that the British security services have acted over claims that UK citizens, including Cohen, were allegedly spied on. Reportedly, if the spy agency becomes aware a Briton is subject to foreign surveillance, it will take action to alert the victim.

Lady Uddin, the first Muslim woman in the House of Lords, was also reportedly on the leaked data list linked to the UAE. “If espionage is taking place against the highest of sovereign British institutions, questions arise regarding whether our government was aware,” she said.

Reports also told how the British government had issued a coded rebuke to the UAE last month following the first revelations of the Pegasus project. A government spokesperson said: “It is vital all cyber actors use capabilities in a way that is legal, responsible and proportionate to ensure cyberspace remains a safe and prosperous place for all.”

Cohen is a leading media relations and reputation management specialist who has advised a wide range of clients, from governments and multinational corporations to public and voluntary sector organisations.

Ram Ben-Barak, the head of the Knesset foreign affairs and defence committee, said Israel was establishing a committee to review the allegations against NSO Group.

Ben-Barak, a former deputy head of the Mossad spy agency, said that when the panel completes its review, “we’ll demand to see the results and assess whether we need to make corrections”.

NSO has called the charges made in the investigation part of an effort “to smear the whole Israeli cyber industry”.

Princess Haya bint al-Hussein and, inset, Shimon Cohen of The PR Office

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

News / Investigation launched / Festival upset / Antisemite jailed / Pervert sentenced

WPC’s anti-Jewish ‘hate tweets’ probed A serving female police officer is under investigation after allegations of antisemitic posts on social media.

The officer was said to have joined the force in 2016, but had posted on Twitter since 2012 under a different name, writes Adam Decker.

Most of the tweets from the account were mundane, but some were insulting to Jews, reported the Mail on Sunday.

The newspaper reported that the female constable’s comments during the 2014 Gaza conflict included: “Dirty Zionist. Jahannam [hell] is awaiting,” and “Israel have no limits. Scumbags I can’t wait for the day they get severely punished.”

She also allegedly wrote: “Zionists have no hearts!

They’ll get what’s coming to them subhanallah [glory be to God].”

In an apparent comparison between the Holocaust and the Israel-Palestine conflict, the officer reportedly wrote: “It’s alright when Israel does it #Holocaust RemembranceDay.” The Met Police confirmed that an officer within its Taskforce, which deals with public order, had been placed on restricted duties while an investigation is underway.

A referral was made to the police watchdog, the IOPC, but it recommended an internal investigation take place.

A spokesperson said the “concerning” posts were being treated “very seriously” and that there was “no place within the Met for any racist, homophobic or any otherwise hateful attitudes”.

“The Met’s DPS [directorate of professional standards] will now conduct

File image of policewomen patrolling Westminster

a thorough investigation to establish the full circumstances behind the social media posts,” the spokesperson said.

“The officer, who is currently serving within the

Taskforce, has been notified of the investigation and placed on restricted duties.

“While this process is at such an early stage we are unable to provide further comment.”

WILEY A NO-SHOW AT MUSIC FESTIVAL Disgraced rapper Wiley failed to perform as billed at a music festival last Saturday, after organisers were urged to drop him from the line-up, writes Jack Mendel.

The musician was due to perform at Chelmsford’s New World Fest, despite causing uproar last year with a series of antisemitic social media posts. Organisers confirmed to Jewish News he did not make the scheduled appearance.

Wiley, whose real name is Richard Cowie, spent several days last year making controversial comments online, including accusing Jewish people of being “racist” and “cowards”, and asked if it was antisemitic “to say Jewish people have power”.

In another tweet, he said: “If you work for a company owned by 2 Jewish men and you challenge the Jewish community in any way of course you will get fired.”

After being banned by Twitter and reported to the police, he wrote on Facebook:

Wiley did not perform

“Who called the police? Are you from Golders Green? I am coming to sit down with you in Golders Green…”

He was banned from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram, in addition to being dropped by his record label and manager, John Woolf, who is Jewish.

The police later dropped its investigation after it became apparent he had been outside the UK’s jurisdiction at the time of sending the messages.

Last Friday, a spokesperson for Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “It is extraordinary a festival would think it appropriate to try to rehabilitate an unrepentant antisemite on its stage.”

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A radio host who compared Jewish people to rats and labelled the Holocaust a hoax in vile antisemitic radio shows has been jailed for 32 months, writes Adam Decker.

Graham Hart, 69, of Penponds, Camborne, was handed the jail sentence at Truro Crown Court last Friday. He had pleaded guilty to eight counts of inciting racial hatred at the same court in June.

Comments on the shows between 18 July 2016 and 24 December 2020, on which Hart was either a presenter or guest, reportedly included questioning the Holocaust and labelling Hitler “the greatest man of the 20th century”.

He was also reported to have said: “Let’s get rid of the Jews. It’s time for them to go…

I’ve had enough of these people now… the chaos that they cause” and “It’s always these same people that are behind everything. So, they’ve got to go.”

Hart’s counsel had argued he had read things on the internet that he had come to believe and got drawn in “deeper and deeper”.

But Judge Robert Linford said Hart “set out to whip feelings of hatred to members of the Jewish faith”.

Alongside the prison sentence, the radio host was banned from broadcasting for 10 years.

Campaign Against Antisemitism, which drew the police’s attention to Hart’s comments, praised officers DC Sean McDonnell and DI Daniel Massey from Devon and Cornwall Police for their work.

“The offences he committed constitute some of the most extreme hatred towards Jews we have ever encountered,” said the group’s Stephen Silverman.

“It is vital the Jewish community is protected from this man, which this sentence achieves.”

‘UPSKIRT’ TUBE PERVERT CAUGHT A pervert tourist from Israel caught filming up a woman’s skirt at Bank Underground station has been jailed, writes Joshua Salisbury.

Martin Stone, 62, was sentenced at Highbury Corner Magistrates’ Court last Thursday, after pleading guilty to one count of voyeurism.

The previous day at around 11.30am, a plain clothes officer spotted Stone secretly recording a woman while standing behind her on the station escalator.

After following him, the officer discovered Stone watching a video he had taken of the woman’s legs and skirt on his phone.

Stone was arrested and police seized two mobiles, a ‘spy’ camera pen, a camera and

two Oyster cards. CCTV footage also showed the voyeur following his victim.

When quizzed, Stone confessed to covering up the flash on his phone with Sellotape to avoid being caught – but declined to answer if he received sexual gratification from his behaviour.

Detective Chief Inspector Sarah White of the British Transport Police condemned Stone’s “vile predatory behaviour”.

“Upskirting is a sickening invasion of privacy and this result sends a clear message on how quickly we will act against this disgusting form of sexual offending,” she said.

The court ordered all SIM and memory cards from his phones and cameras to be destroyed.

12 August 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

5

Delayed justice? / News

At least 12 Nazi suspects pursued

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

German prosecutors are preparing at least 12 cases against suspected Nazi war criminals as they continue their pursuit of elderly men and women who worked in the death camps.

A 100-year-old man and a woman aged 96 will face trial in the autumn while a further 15 cases are examined in states around the country.

Nearly all cases are for charges of being an accessory to murder by working at death camps.

The 100-year-old will stand trial in Brandenburg, eastern Germany, for his service at Sachsenhausen where he was allegedly an accessory to 3,518 murders as a guard between 1942 and 1945. He is also said to have been involved in the shooting of Soviet prisoners of war in 1942 and assisted the murder of other prisoners with the poison gas Zyklon B. The 96-year-old woman is accused of being a secretary at the Stutthof camp. She will be tried at a juvenile court in the northern state of Schleswig-Holstein because she was a teenager at the time.

Ivan Demjanjuk (on stretcher) in court in 2009 and (inset)) his ID card. Prosecutors are preparing more than a dozen cases

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Education Trust, commented: “The passage of time is no barrier to justice when it comes to the heinous crimes of the Holo-

caust, and it is right that even now, the German authorities are pursuing cases relating to these dark acts.

“The Holocaust was a unique episode in our history where six million

COME ON IN! We’ve missed you!

men, women and children were systematically murdered simply because they were Jewish. Many who survived were the only survivors of their families, towns and communities.”

Pollock added: “We hope that these trials will help to ensure that the truth of the past is known, especially for the next generation, as well as bringing some comfort to the survivors who are still with us.”

The individuals facing trial have not yet been named because of rules in Germany that protect the identities of suspects.

The investigations come after Ivan Demjanjuk, a guard at the Sobibor extermination camp in German-occupied Poland, was successfully convicted a decade ago as an accessory to 28,000 murders.

His case set a precedent for other prosecutions.

Thomas Will, who leads the central German agency investigating Nazi war crimes, said there were nine formal investigations and a further six preliminary probes against further suspects under way.

There is no statute of limitations for murder and accessory to murder under German law.  Editorial comment, page 15

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

Special Report / Where is the centre ground?

A communit

Our diverse community has long argued over a wide range of issues, not least concerning Israel and other highly politicised topics.

Like wider British society, the community has its left-wing and its right-wing. That bit is not new. What is new, it seems, is a sense that shifts are under way, that left and right are moving further and further apart, that the centre has narrowed or disappeared, that our community is becoming unleadable, that politically we have grown morbidly intolerant of each other and that tools to fight antisemitism are now being used by some to fight those with different views on Israel.

Is that a correct reading, we wondered, or is it just paranoia, an altered sense of reality cooked up by social media? It is several years since Jewish News took the community’s pulse on the left-right divide. Now feels like a good time to do so again. Report by Stephen Oryszczuk

THE JCORE VOTE The Board of Deputies this year unveiled a landmark report into racial inclusivity in the Jewish community.

Months in the making and much heralded as a first-of-its-kind effort, the Commission made a series of recommendations on how best to help Jews of colour.

Excluding the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE) from Board membership was not one, yet with the ink on the Commission’s report barely dry, that is exactly what happened last month. Why, after so much was made of the Commission?

To some, the JCORE vote was less about race and more about whether its leadership liked the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, or if a JCORE intern attended the Kaddish for Gaza in 2018.

Richard Cooper, representing Portsmouth and Southsea Hebrew Congregation, wondered aloud whether JCORE “gives help and comfort to the enemies of the Jewish people and of Israel”.

There was something else. JCORE said it was “outward-looking”, but that was a problem for Jerry Lewis, a former Board vice-president, who said he had “never seen them do anything of any great value to us as a Jewish community”.

To others, the vote was evidence of a deepening communal rift, between a splintering and radicalised left and an organised and energised right, out to stop left-wing progressive groups such as JCORE from having a seat at the table.

Joseph Cohen, who co-founded Campaign

Against Antisemitism and now runs the Israel Advocacy Movement with a large online following, pays “zero attention to the Board” but said the JCORE vote popped up on his radar. “What kept coming up was the people involved and their stance on Israel,” he says. “It wasn’t about their stance on racism. It had more to do with the individuals than with the values of the organisation or the change it was trying to create.”

That doesn’t surprise JCORE’s Dr Edie Friedman, who founded the organisation in 1976. “Divisions in our community reflect divisions in society,” she says. “Recent years have been particularly divisive, with differing opinions on Israel, what constitutes antisemitism, and how best to combat racism.”

Laura Janner-Klausner, a prominent Reform rabbi, thinks the JCORE result came down to ignorance, “not down to any broader issue”, but Hannah Weisfeld, founding director of the left-wing Zionist group Yachad, disagrees.

“Israel still defines everything,” she says. “The JCORE vote was all about Israel. A past employee once did something anti-Israel, a trustee once shared a platform with someone who bad-mouthed Israel... It wasn’t about racism.”

For Keith Kahn-Harris, a sociologist at the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR) who wrote the go-to book on Jewish communal battlelines over Israel in 2014, the JCORE vote revealed the paradox of the Board of Deputies.

“Unlike in a democratic parliament, deputies can vote on who to exclude as constituents,” he says. “Voting not to admit JCORE is like MPs voting not to recognise the constituency of Sunderland South.”

THE STATE OF THE LEFT JCORE’s natural supporters are progressive, with progressive values, says Daily Mail City editor and veteran of Jewish communal politics Alex Brummer, in discussion about the Jewish left and any generational differences.

“There have always been big Jewish names on the old left,” he says: “You saw them around Corbyn’s team. It goes back to the 50s. They’re a permanent presence, permanent extremists if you like, not just here but in the US too.”

The “younger woke generation are more socially conscious, more into social equality than some people have traditionally been in the Jewish community,” he says. This is “particularly strong” in the Reform movement.

“Kids who’ve been through RSY… pick up different values to kids growing up traditional Orthodox: social equality, gender equality, racial equality, a fairer society, giving something back. JCORE supporters would probably come under that.”

For Paul Charney, outgoing chair of the Zionist Federation, “the new woke generation automatically sits in that left-wing pocket” and “their priority is to see Israel as an open, liberal society, with social equality, whether you’re Jewish or not”.

By contrast, he says “the older generation thinks Israel must maintain a Jewish majority, which is the exact antithesis of what democracy is, but it’s also an anomaly that democracy in Israel can only withstand if there’s a Jewish majority”. Oldies, he says, “know that without a Jewish majority, you’re just not safe in the Middle East”.

Cohen thinks the young may be misunderstood on Israel. “I often hear that they’re critical, but that’s not shown in the data,” he says, before adding that there is “a move away from being passionate about Israel, Judaism, Jewishness, with a drift by some to assimilation… that’s the real problem for the community.”

Others on the right see the new left-wing Jewish generation less flatteringly, with Likud UK chair Zalmi Unsdorfer describing “a large plurality of godless, faithless Jews, with apartheid views, who couldn’t care less what happens to Israel”.

They “probably correlate to critical race theory and all

the other things the young are prognosticating”, Unsdorfer says. “It’s not just Judaism and Israel, it’s everything.”

Cohen says today’s left-wing Jewish critics “make a lot of noise, shock their parents, and dominate the news cycle by taking direct action”, but adds that they “lose support as they become more critical of Israel”.

For Jewish barrister Adam Wagner, who specialises in human rights, their criticism is understandable. “I don’t think the temperament of a typical Jewish 20-year-old has changed,” he says. “The politics has changed. The occupation has changed.

“When I lived out there on a kibbutz 20 years ago, there were still the entrails of a peace process. There was something to protest for, not just protest against.

“Today, there’s a generation of young British Jews trying to find a vision for Israel that fits with their liberal ideals.

That’s more difficult than it was 20 years ago, because who do they get behind? Where’s the vision? Where’s the hope?

“I imagine they’re equally uncomfortable at university.

I really don’t think they’ll just accept the occupation – it’s a terrible, immoral situation and very hard from a liberal perspective because of what’s happening in the occupied territories.”

For Britain’s Jewish centre-left looking beyond Israel, activists are making it hard for them to reconsider the Labour Party, which is now under new management.

“There is still pushback from online activists like Labour Against Antisemitism and Gnasher Jew towards any Labour figure, regardless of where they stand, if they remained a member during the Corbyn years,” says KahnHarris. “It’s difficult to know who these activists’ constituencies are, whether they’re sizeable or not.”

THE STATE OF THE RIGHT There seems little of controversy in Yachad deputy Amos Schonfield’s view that most communal groups belong to “a mainstream or sensible right” that is broadly conservative, pro-immigration but a bit cynical of a wider progressive agenda. Yet time and again, in conversations with figures from both the left and the right, both on and off the record, several themes kept emerging: • The 2014 war in Gaza gave birth to several now-strong grassroots groups – most notably Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) – who were strident, focused on taking on antisemitism through the courts in a way that hadn’t happened before. These were formed by those who felt the Board’s response to Hamas attacks was not strong enough.

• Corbyn’s tenure emboldened and ‘mainstreamed’ right-wingers active online, some of whom hold views that would have been seen as problematic before.

• In the past three years, the right-wing ‘caucus’ at the Board has grown not in number but in organisation, displaying better preparation ahead of key votes and fronting seemingly viable candidates for key roles.

• The right has an increasingly urgent problem to address with its racist fringe, not least because well-known far-right figures such as Tommy Robinson are attaching themselves to right-wing community activists in public.

• Prominent right-wingers are being accused of deliberate divisiveness.

A deputy from a mainstream left-wing organisation and member of the Board’s defence division, speaking anonymously, describes a group of deputies on the political right – known as ‘The Caucus’ and coalesced through WhatsApp – as “basically a bunch of vigilantes, with no concern for Jewish communal unity”.

“They’re extremely ideological, use the language of security and defensiveness, and see everything as a threat.

It’s an extremely binary worldview. You’re ‘supporters of Israel’ or ‘opponents’, the latter being anyone who criticises any Israeli policy.”

Interestingly, Wagner says the occupation can now be

12 August 2021 Jewish News

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Where is the centre ground? / Special Report

ty divided “isolated” from Jewish communal left/right positions, “particularly now it’s taken on a real religious-extremist aspect, this hilltop youth approach to settlements, a Greater-Israel, just-read-the-Bible approach indulged by Netanyahu and Bennett”.

He says “that is something a lot of British Jews, no matter where they are on the political spectrum, find very concerning, and is not something they support”.

Leading progressive campaigner Andrew Gilbert advises viewing the community’s right-wing against a backdrop of Trump, Corbyn, Brexit and Bibi. “We’re moving out of those paradigms,” he says. “We’ve been fighting fires that aren’t going to be there soon.” Figures on the right, he adds, have started using the IHRA definition of antisemitism “as a kind purity test” and are taking aim at Yachad, which won Board membership several years ago with more than two-thirds of the vote. “The centre and left don’t understand the [rightwing] argument that Yachad isn’t part of the mainstream Jewish community,” he says. “The right-wing group at the Board fixates on it. They don’t see Yachad as any different to Jewish Voice for Labour.”

THE CORBYN EFFECT Almost everyone agrees that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour leadership affected the politics of the community, and most say things “shifted right” as a result.

Kahn-Harris says the broad consensus against Corbyn even suppressed communal conflict for a while. “It was a defining issue on both the Jewish right and left, prompting new alliances and coalitions.” Wagner agrees that Corbyn had everybody “singing from the same hymn sheet… You had people like me, on the liberal left, and people on the right, like the ZF, all saying the same thing”.

One of the reasons he became so involved in the Labour antisemitism issue, Wagner says, was because he “felt like there had to be a voice on the human rights perspective from the left, not just from the centre or the right”.

The Jewish community was seen as never having wanted the pro-Palestine Corbyn in power, Wagner adds, “so it needed a broad communal church [to tackle left-wing antisemitism] which is why I worked with the CAA to get the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) involved. It needed an organisation on the left to show what was going on. It couldn’t come from the Conservatives, the ZF, or even the Board since all were seen as right-wing. It had to be from the left otherwise they’d always feel it was political. That’s why the Corbynite left hate me – they couldn’t say that about me. I’d headed a socialist youth movement and lived in a socialist commune, unlike most of them.”

A SPLINTERED LEFT Hannah Weisfeld says Yachad’s membership “remains strong”, but that “what we’re seeing now is a whole new generation who don’t have the patience to play nice in this ridiculous community. Take Na’amod. Many began with us, but they got fed up with the community, the direction it took, the impact Corbyn had on the way we talked about Israel.

That’s why we’re seeing a further fracturing now. There’s a whole gang of them who think the Board is a racist joke and if you work with them then you’re basically racist.

“They think the work we do, trying to actively change [Zionist organisations like the Board and the ZF] from within, is a waste of time and possibly counter-productive.

So, there’s now a splintering of the progressive Jewish left. I don’t think it’s severe, but it exists.”

Few disagree with that, and others pick up the theme.

Kahn-Harris says Boris Johnson’s 2019 election win was “heart-breaking” to young left-wing Jews yearning for a socialist government. That led to a realignment, he says. “The young Jewish left suddenly became more antagonistic to the

Labour right. For them, the Jewish community’s possible part in the election of Johnson was very difficult to deal with.”

Kahn-Harris adds: “A distinctively different Jewish left has now emerged. Groups like Na’amod and Jewdas are less avowedly secular than the Jewish socialist left, more connected into Jewish communal life. They also have a disproportionately high number of engaged Jews. Many are machers [organisers]. So, in the Reform, Masorti and Liberal communities, they have a disproportionate influence.”

Yet while the left of Jewish politics may well have splintered, this does not mean that the Jewish left and centre are not capable of “getting their act together when it matters,” advises one well-placed Jewish leader. “I don’t think it’s split,” they say. “At the recent Board election, the left and the centre didn’t put a candidate up against [President] Marie [van der Zyl], which would have let the right in. When push comes to shove, they’re sensible, because the right is knocking at the door.”

POLES APART Yachad director Weisfeld stridently argues that Israel – through its policies – has “destroyed” the British Jewish community. “For me, the Jewish people cannot survive and thrive with a nation-state doing what it’s doing in the name of the Jewish people,” she says. “For others, that’s the only way the Jewish people can survive. Where’s the common ground there? I think Israel is destroying – and I don’t say this with any glee – I think what Israel’s done to the Jewish community is to destroy it.”

Rabbi Andrew Shaw, chief executive of Mizrachi UK, says two decades ago the Jewish left and right disagreed on Israel “but we all loved Israel and knew who our enemies were.

We’d debate the two-state solution but were united on those central points. Today, the Jewish left have become almost self-hating”. Expressing “concern about youngsters today,” he adds: “The political left has turned them anti-Israel. I wasn’t surprised by Kaddish for Gaza. I saw it coming.”

Rabbi Janner-Klausner, meanwhile, says that, on Israel, “the right has moved further to the right and the left has moved further to the left”, a sentiment few disagree with.

“It’s a reaction to what’s happening out there,” she says.

“When you have an occupation, whatever happens is going to be corrosive and terrible.”

Charney agrees only to a degree. “The left has gone more left. I don’t think the right has gone more right,” he says.

Shaw agrees, seeing it as part of a bigger picture. “Across the world, the left has been radicalised,” he says. “It’s very antiIsrael, very antisemitic, very poisonous. The Jewish left has just absorbed that and connected to it, shockingly. The left has become synonymous with an extreme anti-Israel view.”

THE VANISHING CENTRE What would a Jewish political centrist believe today? How would you describe the Jewish political centre-ground in 2021? Who are the centrists? Do they even exist?

That most British Jews support Israel is rarely disputed.

Beyond that, things get tricky, and optimism fades. “I don’t think the ability to find a communal centre ground on Israel is shrinking,” says Yachad’s Weisfeld. “I think it’s gone. It’s literally impossible. What would the centre be? People caring deeply about the future of Jews? That’s about where it ends.”

Asking a senior and highly involved figure where the political middle ground is today, the answer is stark: “There isn’t any.” Antisemitism pushes people to the right, the left push further left, leaving “virtually no centre ground.”

Does that make the Jewish community unleadable?

“Almost. To find consensus in it, a leader has to be of differing persuasions, such as socially liberal but right-wing on Israel, which is what we’ve got now [in reference to Board president Marie van der Zyl]. Is that what you’d call ‘centrist’ today?

Probably.”

Cohen, whose social media profile has steadily grown, says this vanishing centre comes down, in part, to the way we interact and communicate online. “Centrist positions are less impactful than noncentrist positions,” he says. “Look at Brexit, Trump, Israel. If I put out a positive video, it’s far less likely to get shared by lots of people than something negative inducing fear.Similarly, activists create content and engage in actions that they know will create stories and get a reaction. The more support it gets from their own side, and the more negative attention it gets from the other side.”

THE LATEST BATTLEGROUND At the Board, those who believe that deputies are waging war between ‘left’ and ‘right’ camps say the next big battle is underway, and depending on who wins it later this month, several sources say it could presage a communal lurch to the right in three years’ time.

That “battle” is for the vice-chairmanship of the Board’s all-important Defence Division, which will be decided in the coming days and weeks. It is the position from which all recent Board presidents have emerged. “The right have their man – Jonathan Neumann – and they’re desperate for him to win it, so that he becomes the likely winner of the presidency in 2024,” says one well-placed source. The other candidates are Ephraim Borowski from Scotland, and James Harris, a centre-right former Jewish student leader.

Nominations for the vice-chair of the Defence Division closed on Monday. Two weeks earlier, 40 people had applied for the division’s 16 available positions. “It’s virtually unheard of,” says someone with a close view of proceedings.

“And it shows exactly what’s going on.”

• Don’t miss part two of this special report, entitled Divided Over Division, in the 26 August edition

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

News / Cancer survivor / Leeds primary / Charity inquiry

‘I owe my life to a run in the park’

by Jack Mendel jack@jewishnews.co.uk @mendelpol

A woman’s chance encounter with the surgeon who treated her for breast cancer may have saved her from the disease for a second time.

Nicky Marks was going for a run near Woodside Park earlier this summer when she bumped into Victor Jaffe, who operated on her 13 years ago.

“He just appeared in front of me. It was too big an opportunity not to say something,” Marks said. She told him: “I’m really sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to tell you that I’m one of your survivors”.

Marks told the surgeon she had had a mammogram last year and he advised her to go for another one that week. This encounter may

have saved her life – as the radiographer later gave her the unwelcome news: “We found something on your mammogram.”

“I was like, ‘here we go again,’” Marks said.

But she realised she had a choice, explaining: “I can either go into complete meltdown, devastation and depression, like I did with the first, or I can go, ‘No, we have to turn this into a positive.’”

After taking up running to get fitter during the pandemic, she decided to run 5K every day until her surgery, raising money for Alyn, an Israeli charity supporting vulnerable children that her parents helped establish.

So far, she has raised more than £8,000 and Marks said her initiative was “something that’s keeping my mind off waking up every morning thinking, ‘I’ve got cancer.’ Instead, I wake up every morning thinking, ‘who am I running with

Primary looks to have broken law A Jewish primary has been told it “appears to be in breach of the Equality Act” for teaching boys and girls differently .

Leeds Menorah School was recently rated inadequate by Ofsted as concerns were raised about teaching standards and safeguarding.

The report outlined that: “Boys are taught about Jewish criminal and civil law. Girls are not.

Leaders said this is because the subject will help the boys and is “less relevant” to the girls, as the boys will need this for their higher education.

“This separation by sex appears to be in breach of the Equality Act 2010. Staff say that, although this is not a written policy, boys and girls are expected to sit separately in lessons.”

Inspectors also found the school did not teach about LGBT relationships, and only a “minority of parents supported the teaching about all protected characteristics, including sexual orientation and civil partnerships”.

The school and Partnerships for Jewish Schools have been approached for comment.

today?’ Everybody has joined in; it’s gone crazy.

For the next two weeks, I’ve got somebody running with me every day and people are messaging me constantly.”

Marks, who is from Southport and now lives in Barnet, said people appreciate “she didn’t collapse in a heap because she was diagnosed”. She added: “I think it’s just hit a nerve with people.”

The Southgate Progressive Synagogue member enlisted her three children in fundraising, as well as close family in Israel.

Her 28-year-old musician son, who works on a cruise ship, is donating all his tips to the cause, while her 16-year-old other son, who fundraised for Alyn for his barmitzvah, is also doing the Couch to 5K challenge. Her 27-yearold daughter who lives in the US and is a hairdresser, is also donating tips.

Nicky Marks had a positive encounter

PROBE INTO MANCHESTER CHARITY The Charity Commission has opened a legal inquiry into a Manchester Jewish charity over alleged unexplained loans of £1.7 million to those connected to the trustees.

The probe is into the MB Foundation, also known as the Mossad Horav Aryeh Halevy, over “serious financial and governance concerns”.

The foundation, which operates in Bury and Israel, says its aim is to give grants to relieve sickness and poverty. The charity was previously investigated by the watchdog in a class

inquiry, after failing to submit annual accounts for the 2014 and 2015 financial years.

The watchdog said “subsequent scrutiny” of the accounts raised concern about the trustees’ handling of conflicts of interest. It said the charity carried out transactions with companies and individuals linked to the trustees, who are brothers, or their relatives – including four loans to a linked company of over £1.7 million.

The probe will investigate the trustees’ decision making around loans and investments.

12 August 2021 Jewish News

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Indian meeting / Emergency costs / News

Top medical services take insults to court

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

One of Israel’s top medical charities has been ordered to pay thousands in compensation for defaming Magen David Adom (MDA), the country’s emergency response service.

United Hatzalah was ordered to pay 250,000 shekels (£55,000) after a court found three of its officials had defamed MDA in public remarks and the media.

MDA said the ruling had been “just and necessary”, but Hatzalah said the judge had reduced the penalty to one-tenth of the 2.6 million shekels originally sought, and awarded it compensation separately for statements made about it by MDA. Both organisations provide an emergency response service within Israel, but have clashed in recent years – including over the telephone number Israelis should use to call an ambulance.

The heads of both organisations suggested after last week’s ruling that they hoped to move on. Eli Bin, Magen David Adom’s director-general, said: “We are so sorry we had to go to court, but we were

Primary plans big after land purchase A Finchley Jewish primary school will expand after successfully buying land next to the school building from Barnet Council.

The trust which runs Sacks Morasha Jewish Primary School on Stanhope Road purchased the land last week and now hopes to incorporate it into the school playground while finalising plans.

The development comes nine years after the land was first bought by the council,

with school trustees and council officials negotiating intensely over the past year.

Elliot Goodman, Foundation Governor, hailed the “milestone” in the school’s history, saying it would pave the way for a “prosperous future”.

The trust chairman, Jeremy Newman, added: “We have spent many years working to secure this land and look forward to enhancing the school and its facilities for the benefit of pupils.”

HIGH COMMISSIONER OF INDIA MEETS WITH BIJA United Hatzalah was ordered to pay compensation to Magen David Adom

not able to bear the damage to the good name of Magen David Adom and the good name of thousands of our employees and our volunteers who work day and night to save lives.”

United Hatzalah’s president Eli Beer said: “We are saddened public money that is intended to save lives is being needlessly wasted in legal proceedings.”

MDA has long criticised Hatzalah for

promoting its 1221 phone number instead of Israel’s official medical emergency number, 101. In July, officials rejected a bid

by MDA to shut down United Hatzalah’s 1221 emergency phone number.

After that decision, Beer said MDA had to “learn there is no monopoly on lifesaving”. But critics say the existence of separate hotlines for emergency medical response could put lives at risk.

A delegation from the British Indian-Jewish Association (BIJA) has been received by the Indian High Commissioner to the UK to discuss education and hate crime.

At the meeting, with High Commissioner Gaitri Issar Kumar at India House in central London, delegates talked about community relations. The High Commissioner was also briefed on the group’s latest initiatives, including raising more than £120,000 for Covid relief in India.

“We were so grateful for the hospitality shown by the High Commissioner,” said BIJA co-chair Zaki Cooper.

“She shared some wonderful memories of her visit to Israel, when she worked for the president of India, and described being moved by the spirit of Israel.”

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

World News / Kosher controversy / American envoy

Girls deplaned over food rules Dutch police at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport removed 18 strictly-Orthodox Jewish girls from a Delta-KLM flight bound for New York allegedly because they failed to comply with Covid-19 measures about eating at proscribed times.

The girls were part of a group of about 50 people traveling from Kyiv, Ukraine, with a stopover in Amsterdam, the NIW Dutch Jewish weekly reported.

On the Amsterdam-New York leg of the journey, which was operated by Delta Airlines in partnership with KLM, some of the girls began to eat their own food outside the designated meal time, allegedly because the flight did not carry food that complied with their community’s strict kosher standards.

When the girls failed to comply with requests to put away their food, flight attendants called police to remove the passengers.

“A group of passengers declined to follow the instructions of our staff and were escorted out of the airplane,” Delta told NIW. The group was denied its request to board a later flight that would have got them to New York before the start of Shabbat. Rabbi Yanki Jacobs of the Chabad on Campus in Amsterdam provided the girls with some glatt kosher food.

Relatives of the girls claimed the flight attendants were rude and impatient.

Herman Loonstein, a prominent lawyer from the Dutch Jewish community, volunteered to represent the girls in talks with Delta.

For Shabbat, the girls were transferred to Antwerp. They headed back to the United States the following day.

PRESIDENT’S BROTHER TO BE ISRAEL’S US ENVOY Michael Herzog, a brigadier general who has a longtime relationship with an influential Washington think tank, will be the next ambassador to the United States, according to Israeli media reports.

Prime Minister Naftali Bennett and Foreign Minister Yair Lapid have settled on Herzog, the brother of President Isaac Herzog, for the role, the Jerusalem Post reported.

Israeli1 media confirmed Michael Herzog is Naftali pick HALF PAGE ADVERT JANBennett’s 2020:Layout 1 09/01/2020 Other 16:04 Page

the selection.

Herzog, the son of the late Chaim Herzog, who also served as president, was the head of strategic planning for the Israel Defence Forces and an adviser to multiple peace negotiating teams since the 1990s.

Since 2004, he has been a fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, which has close relations with Republican and

Democratic administrations as well as with successive Israeli governments. He is currently an international fellow living in Israel.

One of Herzog’s most influential works, a 2006 analysis discounting the likelihood of moderating Hamas, was written for the institute.

Herzog would succeed Gilad Erdan, who will retain his other posting as ambassador to the United Nations.

Azerbaijan puts diplomats in Israel

Azerbaijan has opened its first diplomatic office in Israel, three decades after the countries initiated diplomatic relations.

Azerbaijan’s trade office in Tel Aviv, which was opened on Thursday, is a stepping stone to the central Asian Muslim country opening an embassy in Israel, according to the Jerusalem Post.

The countries began their diplomatic relations in 1992, and Israel has an embassy in Baku, Azerbaijan’s capital.

Footballer drawn into racist mural

After a Dutch football star left his team to sign with a rival club that has fans who affectionately call themselves ‘super Jews’, he was drawn into an antisemitic mural in Rotterdam. Steven Berghuis, 29, signed on Monday with Ajax, which is seen as having ‘Jewish roots’. He was drawn with an enlarged nose, a kippah and a concentration camp shirt with a yellow star and text that read: “Jews always run away.”

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12 August 2021 Jewish News

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A-level results / News

Their level best!

School in Ilford, student Alessandra Catana was recognised for winning a place to study history at Cambridge alongside other top perA-level students at Jewish schools formers.

Hailing the fact that 69 percent performed well above the national average as exams were cancelled of grades were at A* to A, headfor a second year running due to the teacher Hannele Reece said: “I’m so proud of all our students in year 13.” pandemic.

At JFS, 63 percent of all grades Teachers used mock results, coursework and in-class assess- were awarded at A* to A, with ments to determine grades, with nearly 33 percent achieving A*s. more than two-in-five sixthformers Five students will go on to study at (44.8 percent) awarded A or Oxford or Cambridge, and four have secured places for medicine or vetA*grades on Tuesday.

But Jewish schools more than erinary medicine.

High-fliers at the comprehenbucked the national trend, with Yavneh College in Borehamwood sive include Yoni Benyamini, Joel achieving a whopping 84 percent of Braun, Jody Brickman and Natalie Shapiro, who all earned a string of all entries graded A* to A. Students Gabrielle Adda, Scott four straight A* grades.

Anna Joseph, interim joint Cowen, Georgia Reback, Joel Shamash and Sam Wagman were recog- principal, said: “Reflecting the JFS nised for achieving 4 A*s each, while motto, they have brought ‘light four Yavneh students have secured and honour’ to themselves and the school community.” places at Oxbridge.

At Immanuel College in Bushey, Executive headteacher Spencer Lewis said: “I’m so proud of the a private school, 59 percent of all grades Yavneh College students results were graded A*.

Among those enjoying a string of have been awarded, they worked incredibly hard and they deserve top grades were Gideon Futerman, these excellent grades.” who gained seven A*s at A level Meanwhile JCoSS in East Barnet and an A* at EPQ. posted a record-breaking 71 percent He is off to study earth sciences at Oxford. of grades at either A* or A. Students Isaac Antscherl, Aran “In a cohort who have had Haber, Jacob Inwald, Lucy Ritter their education so seriously and Ari Weiler-Ofek all received disrupted by the pandemic, our four A* grades. students have shown remarkHeadteacher Patrick Moriarty able resilience, fortitude and said: “We are delighted that these commitment,” said Immanuel excellent results recognise the huge College headmaster Gary Griffin. strengths we have seen in them over Around 50 percent of grades seven years and their dedicated, at both Hasmonean Boys’ and resilient hard work over the two Hasmonean Girls’ were A*. years of these courses.”

Students will largely go on to At Kantor King Solomon High study at a seminary or yeshiva, before taking up places at “prestigious” universities, including Cambridge and other Russell Group institutions.

Debbie Lebrett, headteacher at boys’ school, and Kate Brice, head at the girls’ school, said: “We are especially delighted by the progress students have made both academically and personally during their time at Hasmonean.”

Meanwhile, at the King David School in Manchester, 50 percent of all grades were A*.

The school said it was equally proud of those who did not score top results.

Dylan Karass at King Solomon High School

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

A majority of students at Jewish schools were awarded at A* or A

Clockwise from above: Alessandra Catana from King Solomon, who will study history at Cambridge; Gideon, Robert and Matty at Immanuel; Natasha Schiffman and Stephen Burack at King Solomon

“We value all our pupils and celebrate all their achievements equally,” it said in a statement.

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

Special Report / Tokyo Olympics review

Stars show their metal

Emily Burack profiles Jewish athletes who won Olympic medals Jewish highlights of the Tokyo Olympics kicked off with basketball superstar Sue Bird serving as one of Team USA’s two flag bearers at the opening ceremony. The lasting accolades, though, are the medals that winning athletes took home. Here are the Jewish athletes who clinched a medal, in chronological order.

Avishag Semberg won bronze in taekwondo for Team Israel on day one of the competition.

Semberg, 19, was third in the women’s under-49kg category, giving Israel its first medal of the Tokyo Olympics and its first ever in the sport.

“I said to myself, ‘I want this medal more than she does,’ and I did it … I have an Olympic medal at 19, it’s a dream come true,” Semberg said following her win.

Because of the pandemic, Semberg did not stay in Tokyo long afterwards, and she was greeted at Ben Gurion Airport with a festive reception and big celebration.

Jessica Fox of Australia won bronze in women’s kayak slalom on day four of the competition. Two days later, she took gold in women’s canoe slalom.

Fox, considered by many to be the greatest paddler of all time, was the only athlete to win a medal in both canoe slalom and kayak slalom. She finished a disappointing third in the kayak race, but rallied for the gold in the historic canoe event; it was the first time women’s canoe slalom has been contested at the Olympics.

Fox had previously won two Olympic medals: silver in 2012 and bronze in 2016.

Her mother, Jewish Olympian Myriam Jerusalmi, won bronze at the 1996 Olympics in kayak slalom. Jerusalmi now coaches her daughter.

Lilia Akhaimova won gold with T e a m

Artem Dolgopyat of Israel

Russia in the women’s team gymnastics competition on day four of the Games.

Akhaimova, who competed in her first Olympics, earned the top score on vault during the women’s gymnastics team finals, helping propel the Russian Olympic Committee, aka Team Russia, to the gold medal.

After a disappointing showing in individual judo events, Team Israel defeated the Russian Olympic Committee in the inaugural judo mixed team event. The win was emotional for many on the team.

Sagi Muki said: “Everyone here gave their heart and soul.”

The bronze was Israel’s sixth medal in judo.

Israeli men’s gymnast Artem Dolgopyat took home the Olympic gold medal in floor exercise, giving Israel its secondever gold in any Olympic event. The 24-yearold Israeli is one of many Jewish gymnasts competing at this year’s games.

Born in Ukraine, Dolgopyat immigrated with his family to Israel at the age of 12. “I don’t know what it will be like when I go back to Israel – until now, I definitely wasn’t well known or recognised,” he said.

“I want to continue to be modest and not think about the things around me and just do my work.”

He’s already shifted his sights to

Avishag Semberg celebrates her win

Linoy Ashram poses with her gold medal

the 2024 Olympics in Paris, hoping to repeat his golden success.

Elsewhere, there was gold medal win for Israel’s Linoy Ashram in the rhythmic gymnastics individual all-around final, edging out three-time world champion Dina Averina to end two decades of Russian dominance.

Meanwhile, American Jewish athlete Alix Klineman won beach volleyball gold.

Young Israel’s first Olympics in 1952 A fledgling Israeli team was able to participate in its first Summer Olympics in 1952 thanks to a charitable donation from the Jewish National Fund, new documents reveal, writes Michael Daventry.

The country, barely four years old at the time of the Games held in Helsinki, was lacking in financial resources and could not afford to send a full athletic delegation.

But a contribution from the KKL-JNF worth 1,000 Israeli pounds (1,000 pounds sterling, equivalent to approximately £35,000 today) helped ensure a team could compete.

The letter from the Olympic Committee of Israel, discovered in the KKL-JNF archives, thanked the contribution of the then-chairman Avraham Granot.

It speaks of “heartfelt wishes from the first Israeli delegation to the Olympic Games” and was signed by athletes including runner David Tabak and springboard diver Yoav Raanan.

In addition to athletics and diving, Israel competed in basketball, shooting and freestyle swimming.

But the country was not to win its first medal at the Olympics until the Barcelona Games in 1992.

This summer’s Tokyo Olympics have already proved to be the country’s most successful medal tally.

“We are thrilled to reveal a historical document dating back to 1952’s summer Olympics,” said Ricky Dadon, KKL-JNF’s head of archives.

“At that time, the Israeli Olympic Committee requested financial support from KKL-JNF and, of course, like always, KKL-JNF was up to the task.”

“We are proud of the way things turned out and certainly are proud of where we are today.

KKL-JNF sends its congratulations to all of the Israeli athletes competing and we wish them much success in the future.”

Participants run the 100m in the 1952 Games. Inset: The JNF document

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12 August 2021 Jewish News

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Heritage sites / Cemetery tidy / Campus racism / Soviet exhibition / Diaspora News

German Jewish sites added to UNESCO list The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has added Jewish sites in Germany to its famous World Heritage list.

Committee members recognised the German cathedral cities of Mainz, Speyer and Worms for their role as centres of European Jewish culture in the Middle Ages. It is the first UNESCO recognition of Jewish cultural heritage in Germany.

Jewish communities in the three cities, which form part of what was once known as “Jerusalem on the Rhine”, made significant contributions to Jewish language, religious studies, and religious architecture, the committee said.

Researchers and historians have shown that the Jewish communities living here in the early Middle Ages also had direct links to the Crusades.

The Jewish sites comprise the Speyer Jewry-Court, with the structures of the synagogue and women’s shul, the archaeological vestiges of the yeshiva, the courtyard and the intact underground mikveh, which is noted of being of “high architectural and building quality”.

The property also comprises the Worms Synagogue Compound, with its in-situ post-war reconstruction of the 12th century synagogue and 13th century women’s shul, the community hall Rashi House, and the monumental 12th century mikveh.

The series also includes the Old Jewish

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An Orthodox rabbi has been appointed to Western Australia’s Supreme Court for the first time.

Chabad Rabbi Marcus Solomon, who was a teacher before entering law in 1991, said it was ‘a tremendous honour’.

The state’s ninth chief justice, Sir Albert Wolff, was the first Jewish judge appointed to the bench.

Adidas has chosen a strictlyOrthodox mother as the face of its new campaign. Beatie Deutsch, who became one of the world’s best female runners five years ago and qualified for the 2020 Olympics, only races in modest attire, and ran the Tel Aviv Marathon while seven months pregnant with her fifth child.

Worms Synagogue Compound now features on UNESCO’s World Heritage list

Cemetery in Worms and the Old Jewish Cemetery in Mainz.

UNESCO said the four component sites “tangibly reflect the early emergence of distinctive Ashkenazi customs and the development and settlement pattern of the communities, particularly between the 11th and the 14th centuries”.

The buildings served as prototypes for later Jewish communities across Europe, in particular their religious buildings and cemeteries.

The UNESCO list now counts more than 1,000 sites in 167 countries, with Germany boasting 51, the third highest of any nation after Italy (58) and China (56).

Budapest cemetery clean-up An international volunteer force has descended on one of the world’s largest Jewish cemeteries in the Hungarian capital of Budapest for a much needed clean-up operation.

Young helpers from countries such as Israel, the United States, Canada and Belarus have been busy reclaiming large sections of Kozma Street Cemetery from nature, after years of neglect.

They aim to restore the burial site to its former glory and learn about the history of Budapest’s Jewish community.

WORLD NEWS IN BRIEF

The Jewish cemetery on Kozma Street

Speaking to EuroNews, Israeli volunteer Chani Kolan said she got involved partly because of her Hungarian

connection. “I have roots here,” she said.

“My great-grandparents moved from Hungary to the States before the Holocaust, so I have also learned about my roots.”

The 77 hectare cemetery has been operational for almost 130 years and more than 300,000 people are buried there.

It evidences a once-thriving Jewish population, with Jews having been granted full civil rights in Hungary about 150 years ago.

Perestroika in Haifa An exhibition marking the start of the major migration of Soviet Jews to Israel in the early 1990s has opened in the Israeli city of Haifa, where many settled.

Named after Mikhail Gorbachev’s policy of restructuring the Soviet economy, ‘Perestroika in Haifa’ charts the seismic changes unleashed on the USSR, triggering its disintegration as well as a mass exodus of Russian-speaking Jews.

Millions have since moved to Israel, most notably in the 1990s.

Analysts agree the influx had a major impact on the Jewish state, not only in terms of its population numbers but also on its culture and attitude towards immigrants.

Haifa “stood out because of the size of the community that made its home there”, say the exhibition curators, noting how half of Haifa’s museums are staffed by Jews with Soviet heritage. Their presence began to be felt throughout the city, on Russian-language signs, in shops, and in workplaces.

Yitzhak Rabin welcomes Russian immigrants in April 1994

The exhibition, sponsored by the Genesis Philanthropy Group, highlights “the women and men behind the scenes, the ‘mothers and fathers’ of every exhibition, the maintenance staff, accounts and marketing, the ticket office, curators, and more”.

A Chabad emissary tasked with overseeing kosher certification across Turkey is charting his exploration of the country on Twitter. Mendy Chitrik said he wants to show a history that ‘falls between the cracks’ for Jews who see the world as divided between an Ashkenazi and Sephardic diaspora.

The dilapidated remnants of a former synagogue in the Bulgarian city of Vidin will get a £4 million make-over, despite only 12 Jews living there. Bomb damaged, reduced to a shell, and overtaken by nature, the 19th century synagogue on the Danube is to become a cultural centre and community hub.

HILLEL AND ADL LINK UP OVER JEW-HATE Two of the biggest American Jewish organisations have teamed up over anti-Jewish racism on campus by distinguishing themselves from Israel advocates who equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

Hillel International and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said they would work together to create a college-level curriculum on antisemitism and jointly document antisemitic incidents on US campuses.

Bucking a recent trend, however, they said that not every student vote endorsing the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Israel would be registered, and that a proBDS resolution on its own does not count as antisemitism.

“Anti-Israel activism in and of itself is not antisemitism,” an ADL spokesperson told JTA. “Situations vary widely with BDS; we will carefully evaluate each one and make a determination based on our criteria for antisemitism.”

The student who maps Manhattan’s old shuls A Texas student is gaining online followers after deciding to showcase on Twitter the locations of former synagogues across Manhattan, typically depicting one every day.

Amy Shreeve is behind a Twitter account called ‘This Used to Be a Synagogue’ (@Old ShulSpots), which charts the delis and nail salons of today while educating readers as to the synagogues there before.

The history student started the account as an academic project on memory and location after accessing a public database from the Ackman & Ziff Family Genealogy Institute at the Center for Jewish History in Manhattan.

The database lists more than 1,000 names and

A synagogue used to be here

addresses of past and present Manhattan synagogues and Jewish organisations. Shreeve “geocoded” the details to automatically show Google Streetview images of the sites.

She told JPost she was “curious about naming patterns and mapping out where people came from” and “interested in thinking about the geography of Eastern Europe and seeing how people organised in New York based on where they came from”.

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

Editorial comment and letters ISSUE NO.

1223

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

No best-before date

Prosecutors in states across Germany are in a battle against time.

Within just a few short years – perhaps months – old age will have claimed the last of those who may have assisted Nazi genocide.

One of the latest suspects set for trial over alleged Third Reich war crimes is so old that court sessions requiring his presence will be limited to two hours a day. The 100-year-old defendant has not been named, as is German custom in criminal trials, but the indictment is quite clear: prosecutors say he was an accessory to murder at a concentration camp near Berlin.

Last week, it emerged that more than a dozen other indictments are in the works. All suspects are nonagenarians, some in ill health.

Other prosecutions have collapsed because the suspects are suffering from dementia and cannot possibly defend themselves in court.

There will be those who ask what the point is in pursuing the elderly and the infirm. Should there not be a sense of compassion and dignity for their twilight years?

But, like the suspects, a large but dwindling number of Holocaust survivors are alive too. They witnessed the horrors of the darkest days of the Second World War. They were denied compassion and dignity.

They now deserve to witness as much justice as possible.

Then there are today’s young people, likely the first generation not to have an opportunity to hear first-hand testimony from a survivor.

We must teach them that justice is always a cause worth pursuing, however late.

Germany is responsible for some of the worst crimes in history, yet has done more than any other country in the pursuit of atonement. It would not be right to stop now.

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

Naive to expect action You report that 84 percent of Jew-hate is ignored online. This probably comes as no surprise to most of us, nor does the reported self-congratulatory, oft-repeated flimflam emanating from the usual social media non-suspects – Facebook, Twitter, et al. In fact, it makes for quite nauseating reading.

Many of us, with good reason, see the likes of Facebook as the enemy in that it provides the platform for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of Jew-haters, Holocaust deniers and other equally despicable individuals and organisations to spew bile.

We Jews are under attack from all sides (a cursory read, week by week, of Jewish News

Sketches & kvetches

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UPSET BY THE BIG NOSES Down from Manchester for a family simcha, I picked up a copy of Jewish News (5 August 2021). I was – no, I am – offended at the depiction of a Jewish solicitor in the cartoon.

I complained to Top Gear many years ago for making a reference to ‘Jewish noses’.

While it was intended as humour the then editor was horrified and apologised.

What I don’t expect is for a Jewish publication to show imagery that is deliberately used by antisemites.

If we publish things like this, it’s easy for others to say it’s alright.

Robert Cohen, Gatley

BOYCOTT HARMS ISRAEL

benny@jewishnews.co.uk

marc@jewishnews.co.uk

will attest to that fact), yet are we to believe that it’s really unavoidable that Facebook has to be the worst offender?

After all, there is an influential Jewish ‘insider’ in the heart of the Facebook camp, and I speak not of Mark Zuckerberg (pictured).

Many of us are of the opinion that, when it comes to action of any sort against antisemitism, nothing will make a difference. If that is also true in this case, this then suggests Facebook’s Jewish vice-president doesn’t have quite the influence we imagine.

On the other hand, it could just be a matter of naivety to expect noble gestures in defence of our people to radiate from big business.

Michael White, By email

It would seem the Jews who support the Ben & Jerry’s boycott are the very same ones who blame Israel for the situation in the West Bank, calling it an “occupation”. This ice cream brand has delivered a victory to the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, the sole aim of which is to harm Israel and undermine its existence. Long may it fail.

Sidney Sands, N12

12 August 2021 Jewish News

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Editorial comment and letters

Antiques Buyers WE BUY ANTIQUES VERY HIGH PRICES PAID. FREE HOME VISITS.

JCORE’s rejection I refer to the letter of 5 August by former deputy Laurence Brass, regarding the Board of Deputies’ rejection of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (JCORE).

The vote for JCORE was 52 percent in favour of it joining the Board. That was the Brexit majority, but our rules require two-thirds voting in favour.

We do not demand any organisation adopts the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) descriptions of antisemitism, but we do expect bodies who wish to join us are at least comfortable in the knowledge that the Board has

adopted it. JCORE, by contrast, promotes the position that it has never considered IHRA. May I suggest it does consider it and the fact that IHRA is designed to highlight any genocide.

JCORE is free to reapply, but I cannot see how it would be selling its soul to accept that IHRA plays an important role in rooting out racism and anti-religious prejudice. All the other groups applying to join us had no problem with that.

Nobody denies that the work it does is a prime example of tikkun olam in action.

Richard Cohen, Deputy for Loughton

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Barry Hyman, Bushey Heath

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

Opinion

Political activists have colonised social media ALEX BRUMMER

CITY EDITOR, THE DAILY MAIL

T

he Ben & Jerry’s boycott of Israeli settlements was perfect high summer fare. Amid the torrent of comment in the Jewish press and elsewhere, one bit of advice from a normally wise columnist brought a wry smile.

If you can’t bring yourself to buy a tub of cookie crunch any more, go for a caramel Magnum instead. Since Magnum is a leading Unilever ice cream brand – just like Ben & Jerry’s – that would be like jumping from the fridge into the deep freeze.

The ice cream row is far from frivolous. It touches a number of nerve ends. Principally, it is a reminder that Israel settlement policy is monumentally divisive. If ever a two-state solution can be extracted from the current morass there will be a great deal of dismantling and bulldozing to be done as there was when Ariel Sharon pulled out of Gaza in 2005.

The settlements are toxic and may be a blot on Israel’s global reputation. But take them away and the same boycott forces that rally

against settlements remain. They will light the flames of anti-Israel extremism in Britain’s education and acting unions and in the State House across the US would quickly find new reasons to stigmatise Israel.

The frightening aspect of this are the uncontrollable forces driving anti-Israel sentiment.

Israel has a head start on everyone else when it comes to Covid vaccine policy. Central banks around the world monitor Israel for clues on the global economy. Yet for all the positivity hidden forces stoke public sentiment.

Abuse of Israel and Jews on social media is nothing new. Here in Britain, many of those in Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party were outed for their anti-Israel, antisemitic ideas as a result of Twitter postings. At a forum on antisemitism held at Stamford Bridge last month, it was no real surprise to learn club owner Roman Abramovich is a target of hate. Tweets included “@premierleague Keep matchfixing for the Jew Abramovich”. As ghastly as this is, Abramovich has never sought to hide his Jewish background. As the major benefactor to the Imperial War Museum’s rebuilt Shoah exhibitions and galleries he is front, back and centre.

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THE TARGETING OF NINE TO 13-YEAR-OLDS WITH ILL-INFORMED MESSAGES IS PERNICIOUS What was really alarming was the testimony of Sharon Nazarian, senior vice president for International Affairs at the Anti-Defamation League in the US. Most of us think of the social media site TikTok as a place of harmless fun filled with teenage dance and music, escapade videos and sub-teenage pursuits.

China-based TikTok is much more than that now. It has been colonised by political activists and was one of the lines of attack fuelling populist feeling in Vermont against occupation and settlements, leading to Ben & Jerry’s boycott.

Nazarian argued that the targeting of nine to 13-year-olds on TikTok with uncensored, illinformed messages about Israel was one of the most ‘pernicious’ developments on the whole anti-Zionist, antisemitic landscape. TikTok is capturing young minds, leading to anti-Israel sentiment in schools and in conversation.

It moves from social media to the family

dinner table, school debating society and is in danger of creating a new generation of Israel haters. How long before this teenage army moves beyond ice cream to other targets?

Unlike Twitter and Facebook, which make an effort at monitoring, what goes out on TikTok has been largely unrecognised because it is thought of as harmless fun for the young. It keeps them entertained, yet it has become a site with a rotten heart.

Beijing recognises all is not well. It recently caused a near crash in the shares of another short-video group Kuaishou, which it accused of ‘negatively influencing the nation’s youth’.

Parents, regulators and anti-boycott activists need to recognise a hidden hand that is poisoning the minds of youngsters across the world. This unseen force may prove more dangerous than car convoys of ignorant louts parading down the Finchley Road.

Our duty to protect our planet – if not now, when?

RABBI DAVID MASON MUSWELL HILL UNITED SYNAGOGUE

E

arlier this week, the IPCC, or Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, released a scientific report on the state of climate change. The IPCC is an international body of scientists and politicians, and this report confirmed much of what we already knew – but significantly, a confirmation based in scientific knowledge.

Our planet is continuing to warm, and humans are most responsible for this change.

So far, the IPCC attests to a 1.1ºC rise of average global temperatures above pre-industrial levels; and this rise will continue as a result of

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IF RISING SEA LEVELS CAUSE COASTAL AREAS TO BE UNINHABITABLE, THAT SHOULD CLEARLY BOTHER US

the present rate of human-caused emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. The tree coverage and seas of our world, cannot any more absorb these gases. They are remaining in the atmosphere and warming our world, leading to a growth in the frequency of extreme weather patterns. Anyone looking at news these days cannot miss the reality already of such weather. Just think Greece, Turkey, Germany, Belgium and even here at home.

In this Jewish month of Ellul, the month during which we begin to reflect on our own sense of self, leading up to Rosh Hashanah, we cannot escape a reckoning of how we are, as a species, pulling our planet towards peril.

Will the planet be destroyed? Probably not, although that is not a bet anyone should want.

But one of the reasons behind the Biblical commandment to have children is to settle the world. The prophet Isaiah claims: ‘God did not create emptiness; He created the world to be settled’ (Isaiah 45:18).

It is clear the fulfilment of the world is through the structures of life that exist on it.

So if rising sea levels cause coastal areas to be inundated and uninhabitable, that should clearly bother us. If sections of nature are endangered, that should also bother us. We know that living a life of belief also requires a significant amount of stability and so the instability and chaos that will pass over

our world should be anathema to how we feel as a religion and a people. We want people to flourish in God’s world, not to become immigrants because of extreme and destructive weather.

We, as a people, have something that can nurture our role in supporting the prevention of climate change.

We are very much a community-minded Greenhouse gas emission in the atmosphere is warming the world people. And our commuenergy could do to reduce our carbon nities can become hubs for considering and emissions. Of course, this would not come learning about how we affect our climate. anywhere near what is needed in the UK. But We can learn together about climate wouldn’t it be great if we could lead the way, change. We can reflect on the attitudes of be out in the front of the path towards net the Torah and the rabbis to the protection of zero greenhouse gas emissions? The Board of our world. We can, through the EcoSynagogue Deputies has put down a marker in the sand, project, encourage our synagogue to play its aiming at net zero carbon emissions by 2050. part. Why not use the ‘energy’ of the recent I firmly believe that in our communities, report and the upcoming COP26 summit in we can do so much and work together to pave Glasgow to get your synagogue to register a path that fulfils the message of Creation; for EcoSynagogue’s Environmental Audit? that we are here on earth “to work it, and to Think how many buildings there are in the protect it”. As Hillel famously said: “If not UK that service Jewish communities and now, when?” of what greater energy efficiency and green

12 August 2021 Jewish News

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17

Opinion

New memorial will tell UK’s story, political warts and all MARC CAVE

DIRECTOR, NATIONAL HOLOCAUST CENTRE & MUSEUM

L

ondon’s new Holocaust Memorial will be like the latest Apple MacBook Pro. It will catch the eye, come with a slick operating system and offer incredibly powerful memory. It will advance the state of the art, helping to move Holocaust education way beyond schools – like Apple Inc moved itself – and into the adult mainstream.

But it’s the software inside the hardware that will count most: the educational content.

Shortly before the pandemic, the UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation’s team visited us to pick our brains for the day in rural Nottinghamshire. The content they had in mind for the London Memorial’s learning centre sounded just right for its location, opposite parliament.

As Lord Pickles has always said, it will tell the story of Britain’s role in the Holocaust “warts and all” – and these warts are indeed political ones. They reside on the body of the House of

Commons, where hard evidence of Hitler’s death camps went ignored from 1941. The London memorial, then, is a political statement by the British state. Not the Jewish community. Inside, it will teach valuable lessons about the political actions and inactions of this country’s leaders in the 1930s and 1940s. And that is laudable.

Another success factor is how this content will link with everyone else’s. A MacBook without connectivity is not much of a MacBook.

What an amazing opportunity to link to the riches inside other gleaming pieces of publicly accessible hardware such as the Imperial War Museum, the Wiener Library and the one I have the privilege to run, the National Holocaust Centre and Museum.

If the new London Memorial is located at the heart of British power, perhaps we are at the heart of the British audience. We are in the centre of the country. We cater for a hugely diverse cross-section of the British public, as one of Arts Council England’s ‘National Portfolio Organisations’. We are visited by Muslim faith schools, Christian church groups, Jewish youth groups and tough ex-mining Midlands families. We are a safe space for honest conver-

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sations. Maybe it’s the tranquillity of beautiful memorial gardens, poignant sculptures and a thousand white roses. Or the inspiring Memorial Hall and two highly thoughtful permanent exhibitions. Or the friendly people. But this space has always produced reflection and reconciliation between Christian and Jew, Jew and Muslim, left and right, young and old.

Last week, as I flicked again through the photo albums of our early days, lovingly compiled by the matriarch of our founding family, Marina Smith, I was reminded that for 26 years we have not only been a home from home for Holocaust survivors but a place for them to talk to hundreds of thousands of children; for three chief rabbis and several

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THE MEMORIAL WILL TEACH LESSONS ABOUT THIS COUNTRY’S POLITICAL ACTIONS

archbishops; for persecuted minorities and reformed extremists.

Yes, we have superb school programmes and miraculous digital inventions such as The Forever Project, but it is that very softest of softwares – this human dialogue – that remains so powerful. In an age of hate speech and hateful marches, it is a place of peace (hence the name of the charity that operates our museum being Beth Shalom).

In a post-truth world of Holocaust distortion, it is a haven of truth. It is the loving creation of a Christian family, affectionately nurtured by some of the Jewish community’s biggest, kindest hearts from Sir Trevor Pears to the Ronson family to our chairman and everyone’s favourite uncle, Henry Grunwald.

As we build ever more concentric circles online around this wondrous physical core, its calm, humanitarian beauty is a valuable counterpart to and ally for the shock and awe of London.

Here’s to the next upgrade: a networked Holocaust education system using the best bits of each organisation, de-duplicating the other bits, and with ongoing ‘software upgrades’ to be shared by all.

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

Opinion

How hot-desking could help fire up your career EMMA MAY

INTERIM CEO, WORK AVENUE

I

t can be difficult to think back to life before Covid-19, but one of the biggest stories in the business world – both Jewish and secular – has been the rise of the flexible workplace.

This hugely growing sector fitted business needs as companies, start-ups and individuals looked for places to work that matched their size, growth potential and personal situations.

Especially popular in our community, with its high number of entrepreneurs, they allowed people to use shared workspaces, permanent desks and/or serviced offices in one or multiple locations – avoiding both the huge costs associated with having your own premises and the stress of trying to work from home.

The poster boy was Adam Neumann, the Israeli-American businessman who co-founded WeWork.

A religiously observant Jew, with a tonne of charisma and charm, Neumann led WeWork to become the leader of the pack – growing exponentially across the globe in every major city. The business world couldn’t get enough of the company and, at its peak, WeWork was

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A MEMBERSHIP OF 50 IS NOW GROWING AGAIN AND THE HOT-DESKERS ARE COMING BACK

valued at more than £30billion. Then it all went wrong.

First WeWork overstretched. Its ambitious plans and attempts to go public meant that the company’s huge losses were revealed, leading to further investigations that found complex dealings and potential conflicts of interest.

In late 2019, under pressure from all sides, Neumann announced he was stepping down as CEO in the company’s “best interest”. Next came the pandemic.

No longer could we share anything, let alone workspaces. Everyone was working from home… and finding they kind of liked it.

So what comes next? Will we return to shared workspaces or continue to make do in our homes?

Looking at WE Hub, the Jewish communi-

The Work Avenue team with former chief executive Debbie Sheldon (top row, third left)

ty’s first shared workspace, gives us an insight.

Still operating during the pandemic but with many changes to be Covid safe, most crucially only being open to permanent desk members, ‘freedom day’ saw it carefully open up its hot-desking too.

A loyal membership of 50, which remained throughout the pandemic, is now growing again and the hot-deskers are coming back.

They are being drawn by the opportunity to network in shared spaces, bounce ideas around

and create opportunities to grow and develop – as well as having somewhere to host meetings with clients.

People’s caution over Covid, the ‘new normal’ of working from home and the very public fallout from WeWork means it may take some time to get back to how things were a few years ago. But I truly believe that, for many in our community, such shared workspaces remain the best option for their business to truly take off.

For many refugees, illegal routes are the only option EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, JEWISH COUNCIL FOR RACIAL EQUALITY

❝

e recently marked the 70th anniversary of the adoption of the 1951 Refugee Convention.

This event should be met with pride (Britain was one of the original signatories of the convention), but also sadness that the situation of refugees throughout the world is more precarious than ever.

This UN treaty, adopted by more than 145 countries, defines who is a refugee, the responsibility of nations to grant asylum and the rights of those who have been granted asylum. It sets out the status of people not granted asylum and of those who do not qualify as refugees. One of the most important principles of this treaty is that a refugee cannot be returned to a country where they face serious threats to their life or freedom.

So, how should we, in the Jewish community, mark this anniversary? Two points stand out.

The first is that this law, like other human rights conventions, came about in the shadow of the Holocaust, a monstrous period that resulted not only in millions of deaths, but in an unprecedented number of refugees. The second is

that prominent Jews were involved in creating human rights legislation and fostering an atmosphere where human rights, such as the right to claim asylum, became part of the international community’s DNA. Jewish lawyers are disproportionately prominent in their involvement and engagement in championing human rights law today – of which we should be proud.

Refugees are ordinary people, just like you and me, who have survived extraordinary circumstances just because of where they happen to be born, what they or family members believe, and under what kind of political regimes they live. Let me tell you about two such people.

In 2006, Gulwali Passarlay was a 12-year-old boy in rural Afghanistan, caught in a war zone.

After his father was killed, his mother paid a smuggler to take him and his brother to safety in Europe. Separated from his brother, he endured a dangerous 12,000-mile journey through 10 countries. He survived imprisonment in Iran, being thrown off a moving train in Bulgaria and

DR EDIE FRIEDMAN

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REFUGEES ARE ORDINARY PEOPLE WHO HAVE SURVIVED EXTRAODINARY CIRCUMSTANCES almost drowning on an overcrowded boat, where they were without food and water for 50 hours.

He somehow made it to the notorious “Jungle” migrant camp in Calais and, after many failed attempts finally reached Britain, hidden in an unrefrigerated lorry carrying bananas.

After years navigating through Britain’s asylum and care systems, he was granted the right to stay. He was selected to carry the Olympic torch on its journey to the London 2012 Games. Gulwali, a Manchester University graduate, uses his experience as an author and TEDx speaker to campaign for fairer asylum laws.

The second is Dr Waheed Arian. Fleeing civil war in Afghanistan, he was smuggled to Britain arriving alone as a traumatised 15-year-old.

Within a few years, he earned a place to study medicine at Cambridge. In addition to being an A&E doctor, he spent the past year working on the front line fighting Covid and created a charity to use telemedicine to help in conflict zones.

Not all refugees will be as professionally

successful as Gulwali and Waheed, but many contribute to the UK’s social and economic infrastructure and all deserve the opportunity and the right to claim asylum in the UK. Parliament has before it the draconian Immigration and Borders Bill, which makes the right to claim asylum dependent on how a person has arrived in the UK, rather than the reason for seeking asylum. The government says it is doing this to stop the dangerous journeys too many asylum seekers make over the Channel.

People desperate to escape persecution do not have the luxury of being able to take legal routes to find refuge, especially when there are very few safe routes. For so many people fleeing for their lives, risking all to cross the Channel may be their only option. Many of us in the Jewish community will have family who fled to the UK by whatever means they could.

The most honourable way to commemorate the 70th anniversary is to ensure the UK has in place fair, humane and workable procedures to deal with today’s refugees. JCORE will reach out to individuals and organisations within the community to campaign against these proposals and ask the government to give us an asylum system that is fit for purpose.

We hope you join us.

12 August 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

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Community / Scene & Be Seen

1 CAMEO APPEARANCE

More than 150 people attended a fun day organised by Camp Simcha earlier this month with activities including a 60ft assault course and rodeo bull.

The outdoor event in Hertfordshire was the first of its kind for the charity since the pandemic began. The Stern family, from Prestwich, were among those attending, and five-year-old Ari, pictured, said: “I had so much fun and loved being a scary tiger.” Also pictured is Sholly Greenberg.

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And be seen!

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

ADVENTURE WEEK

Summer camps run by JLGB returned last week after being cancelled last year, with Jewish youngsters from across the country taking part in a week of adventure. Activities included archery, climbing and zip wire, while skills were developed through sessions such as swimming, steel drumming and wacky science experiments.

Younger participants attended for the first half of the week, with older age groups attending for the second half to ensure Covid safety.

Email us at community@jewishnews.co.uk

3BLOOD MOBILE

A new life-saving ‘blood mobile’ was donated to Magen David Adom (MDA) in Israel thanks to generous donors in the UK. The vehicle was the first of six donated to MDA by UK supporters, at a cost of £135,000 each. It was presented to the Millennium Centre in Israel by Batya and Barry Segal and Vision for Israel, a charity providing community support. Segal, pictured, was also the first to give blood in the vehicle.

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4TEE-RIFFIC DAY

More than 100 golfers raised more than £60,000 for Chai Cancer Care at the seventh biennial Golf Fore Chai day at the Hartsbourne Country Club. The winning men’s team comprised Mark Posniak, Matthew Plax, Andrew Wolfson and Simon Berg. The winning ladies team comprised Caroline Arnold, Sara Lauder, Sara Brett and Sharon Miller. Jo Fogel, chair of the organising committee, said: “I am completely overwhelmed by the incredible amount of money we’ve raised.”

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

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Book / Weekend

Nicky’s legacy for a new generation Youngsters are learning about how Sir Nicholas Winton helped rescue 669 Czech children from the Nazis thanks to a new illustrated biography, writes Rich Renorio

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descent that converted hen Vera, a young to Christianity.

Jewish girl, was He received a broad growing up outside education before going of Prague in 1938, into finance. He originally she had little on her mind besides planned to devote the winter her grandmother and love of of 1938 to another physical animals. But her blissful childactivity – skiing. Yet a friend hood would change forever with named Martin Blake urged the emerging crisis brought him to come to Czechosloabout by her country’s neighvakia instead, to help deal bour, Nazi Germany. with the refugee crisis that When Vera’s parents learnt about followed the Anschluss and an opportunity for Jewish children Kristallnacht – both grimly to escape to the UK organised by illustrated. an Englishman named Nicholas “He, because of who Winton, they sent their nine-yearhe was, moved very, very old daughter out on a train. Ultimately, 669 mainly Jewish children Sir Nicholas kept quiet about his role quickly,” Sis said.

He notes there were many were saved by the transports out others in Czechoslovakia who helped refugees. This of Czechoslovakia. point is reiterated by Winton’s daughter, Barbara, Winton, who kept quiet about his role, was and historians. surprised on live television decades later as fellow “He couldn’t possibly have done it himself,” said members of the studio audience revealed themselves Barbara, author of a biography of her father. “Someto be children whose lives he helped to save. body had to be in Prague organising the trains” and Now his moving narrative is told in Nicky & Vera, assisting with other components of the project in a new book by award-winning children’s author and Czechoslovakia and beyond, from “lists of children, illustrator Peter Sis, released earlier this year. It has briefing parents, organising foster homes in the UK. been named on a summer reading list for children “A lot of people were instrumental,” Winton said,

by The Times and The Sunday Times. naming fellow Britons Trevor Chadwick and Doreen Collectively, those saved became known as Warriner, adding that Warriner’s work landed her “Winton’s Children” – one of whom, Vera (Diamanon Hitler’s watch list. “I knew Nicholas Winton was tova) Gissing, is the real-life protagonist of the book. a hero,” Sis said. “Because he also lived a long life, he Winton, who died in 2015 at the age of 106, saved became the face of something. He became almost a others who would go on to be noteworthy achievers, mythical hero who somehow saved all these people. including British politician Lord (Alf ) Dubs, genetiI found out there were other young people around cist Renata Laxova and a co-founder of the Israel Air him – Chadwick was one.”

Force, Hugo Marom, who was born in Brno, the same Laura Brade, a scholar at Albion College in hometown as Sis. Michigan, called Winton “really part of a constellaThe author, who now lives in the US, was visiting tion of actors who came to Prague in the aftermath his former homeland with his son in 2009 when of the Munich agreement”. he happened upon a celebration of Winton’s 100th According to Brade, in Prague, Winton connected birthday in Prague. with Warriner, the chairwoman of the British Sis himself became a refugee later in life, fleeing Committee for the Refugees of Czechoslovakia, his then-communist country while working on a film who showed him refugee camps. “He forms a partnerproject during the Olympics nearly 40 years ago. ship with her,” she said. “He decides he can be useful…

He became a multiple Caldecott honoree and helping organise the transport of the children.” recipient of a MacArthur fellowship, with previous After three weeks in Prague, Winton had to return titles about Galileo, Charles Darwin and Tibet. to his job as a stock trader by the end of January 1939.

After Sis set out to write a book about Winton, In London, Brade said, Winton, his mother and he was aided by another chance discovery: Gissing’s a small staff “took care of permits, visas, payments memoir about her escape from Czechoslovakia to the Home Office to allow children to come to “I’m trying to bond for younger audiences,” Sis England, of course working with Czech committees said in a recent interview. “There’s the contrast of as well. The Prague-based Jewish refugee committee the life of a girl, the danger of coming, the expectawas very involved with the children… It was really tions, in the time of great uncertainty.” a collaborative effort.”

In the character of Winton, he said, “My objecBrade expressed concern that some individuals tive from the beginning was to show someone… who involved in the rescue have been “written out asked, ‘How do I help someone when I see something of the story”. She and fellow scholar Rose wrong, say this is wrong and do something about it?’”

Holmes wrote a 2017 article about this subject, Before Winton was a rescuer, he was an Olympic“Troublesome Sainthood.” level fencer. In masterly strokes, Sis depicts his “We tried to untangle all the actors involved in upbringing. Winton was born into a family of Jewish

Above and below: Illustrations from Nicky & Vera, a new children’s book by Peter Sis

the rescue,” she said. “There were a lot of women involved – Czech [and] British women, who stayed in Prague, doing a lot of really dangerous work assisting refugees in Nazi-occupied Bohemia and Moravia,” which became a Reich protectorate in 1939.

“Warriner was accused later of having communist ties,” said Brade. “She was interrogated by the British government. People with questionable political histories [or] leanings, were sort of written out of the story – Doreen Warriner, Trevor Chadwick, Czech women like Marie Schmolka, Hannah Steiner. All died by the time Winton’s story gained public traction in the ’80s.”

As the rescued children entered their golden years, they welcomed “finally having somebody to thank”, Brade said. “That played a role in focusing on one person as the hero.”

Asked what made Winton do what he did, she replied: “I think he’s the kind of person who, when he encountered a situation like this, he was motivated to act…[If I knew] what motivates altruistic people to do what they do, we would have a very different world.”  Nicky & Vera: A Quiet Hero of the Holocaust and the Children He Rescued

by Peter Sis is published by W W Norton & Company, priced £14.99. Available now.

This article was originally published by Times of Israel

A look

Inside Smart move: Tech That reviews Google Chromecast

Food: Beef fried rice with vegetables

A little more conversation! Elvis Presley’s Jewish roots

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

Weekend / Entertainment

COMING SOON

BOOK

Shining Vale

All About Me!

The Politician actress Judith Light has joined the cast of Starzplay original series, Shining Vale.

The chilling half-hour series from Jeff Astrof and Sharon Horgan is a horror comedy about a dysfunctional family that moves from the city to a small town into a house where terrible atrocities have taken place.

But no one seems to notice except for Pat (played by Courtney Cox), who is convinced she’s either depressed or possessed, the Jeff Astrof symptoms of

Comedy legend and film-maker Mel Brooks has written his first memoir at the age of 95 and promises to reveal never-before-told anecdotes about his career.

All About Me! My Remarkable Life In Showbusiness will be published by Penguin Random House in both the US and the UK at the end of November.

Brooks’ memoir charts his meteoric rise from growing up in the Depression era to receiving the National Medal of Arts.

Whether serving in the United States Army in the Second World War, or during his burgeoning career as a teenage comedian in the Catskills, Brooks was always mining his experiences for material, always looking for the perfect joke.

His iconic career began with Sid Caesar’s Your Show of Shows,, during which he worked alongside the greats of his era: Carl Reiner, Neil Simon and Larry Gelbart.

After co-creating both the megahit 2000 Year Old Man comedy albums and the classic television series Get Smart, Brooks’ stellar film career took off. He would go on to write, direct, and star in The Producers, The Twelve Chairs, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, Silent Movie, High Anxiety and Spaceballs, as well as produce groundbreaking and eclectic films, including The Elephant Man, The Fly and My Favorite Year.

Brooks then went on to conquer Broadway with his record-breaking, Tony-winning musical, The Producers.

In showbusiness, Brooks is known as an EGOT, meaning he

Judith Light

both afflictions being exactly the same.

Light will play Joan, Pat’s Lithium-infused mother, who has long battled mental illness, and her daughter, whom she blames for her condition. Joan is vain and hyper-critical, taking any opportunity to recall her prized youth or belittle Pat. Of all the horrors Pat faces, becoming Joan is perhaps the most frightening.

The cast also features Greg Kinnear, Mira Sorvino, Merrin Dungey, Gus Birney and Dylan Gage.

DRAMA

American Crime Story: Impeachment The first-look trailer for a new drama about Monica Lewinsky’s much-publicised affair with US President Bill Clinton was unveiled this week.

American Crime Story: Impeachment, which Monica Lewinsky stars Beanie Feldstein as the 22-year-old White House intern opposite Clive Owen as Clinton, is set to air in the US next month, with a UK date yet to be finalised.

The new clip shows Monica walking through the grand halls of the famed Washington DC residence before entering the Oval Office.

“Mr President,” the president’s secretary says, before adding: “M. Lewinsky’s here to see you.”

The series is based on Jeffrey Toobin’s best-seller A Vast Conspiracy: The Real Story

Beanie Feldstein

Of The Sex Scandal That Nearly Brought Down A President.

Lewinsky herself is producing the show, which also stars Edie Falco as Hillary Clinton and Sarah Paulson as prominent American civil servant Linda Tripp, who secretly recorded confidential conversations between herself and the young intern.

These tapes were later used as evidence in the trial, with Clinton eventually being impeached as president in December 1998.

Impeachment also stars Margo Martindale, Anthony Green, Betty Gilpin and Colin Hanks.

GADGET OF THE MONTH: Chromecast with Google TV

Available from: store.google.com, Argos, Currys and John Lewis. RRP from £59.99

NIL POINTS: • Support for installing all Android apps in the Google Play Store would be a nice addition

PLUS POINTS:

NETFLIX

• Easy to set up with most modern TVs

The Lost Daughter Netflix has snapped up worldwide rights for The Daughter, the directorial debut of Maggie Gyllenhaal (pictured).

The drama, which follows a single mother named Leda (played by Olivia Colman) whose beach holiday takes a dark turn when she begins to confront the troubles of her past, is set to premiere at the Venice Film Festival next month.

Olivia Colman, Jessie Buckley, Dakota Johnson, Peter Sarsgaard and Paul Mescal star in the feature film, which Gyllenhaal adapted from the eponymous 2006 novel

has the rare acclaim of having won an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar and Tony.

He says: “I hope fans of comedy will get a kick out of the stories behind my work and really enjoy taking this remarkable ride with me”

by Elena Ferrante.

Gyllenhaal, 43, is the older sister of actor Jake Gyllenhaal. She told Deadline: “I’m thrilled to be working with Netflix again.

“They have supported so much of the work I am proud of and this is no exception. Netflix has consistently championed film-makers that excite and inspire me and I’m delighted to be included in that company.”

Rounding out the cast are Oliver JacksonCohen, Ed Harris and Dagmara Domińczyk.

The film was shot last year in Greece.

• Supports Dolby Vision, meaning what you watch will look and sound even better • The remote is a nice addition and very easy to use • Chromecast can now run a limited number of Android apps • The Google assistant is built into the remote, meaning you can search for different programmes, films, apps and more • The interface is easy to use and responsive

BUY OR NOT BUY: ★★★★★ With its affordable price tag compared to the competition, the Chromecast with Google TV is a no-brainer for people looking for an easy-to-use, feature-packed streaming device.

Reviewed by: Daniel Elias

@daniel_elias

12 August 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

23

Jewish roots / Weekend

Elvis Presley, King of the Jews The large crate sat unopened in a 20,000-square-foot warehouse for more than four decades, concealing a little-known fact about one of America’s cultural icons, writes Dan Fellner.

Inside was the headstone of Elvis Presley’s mother, Gladys, which had been stored in the Graceland archives along with 1.5 million other items since 1977. And on the upper left side of the long-unseen marker – designed by Elvis himself – is a Star of David. Yes, the King of Rock and Roll had Jewish roots.

The headstone, which was taken from storage only in 2018, is now on display at the sprawling complex in Memphis where Elvis lived from 1957 until his untimely death 20 years later at the age of 42. It sits in Graceland’s Meditation Garden, just outside the mansion and a few feet from Elvis’ own grave.

Stories of Elvis’ Jewish heritage have long been in circulation, but when it comes to a legend like Presley – whose death is not even considered settled fact in some quarters – it’s not always easy to separate fact from fiction. With the headstone now on public display and

an accompanying sign proclaiming “Gladys’ Jewish heritage”, any lingering doubts can finally be erased.

Elvis’ maternal great-great-grandmother was a Jewish woman named Nancy Burdine. Little is known about Burdine, but it’s believed her family immigrated to America from what is now Lithuania around the time of the American Revolution. According to Ancestry.com, Burdine was born in Mississippi in 1826 and died in 1887.

Burdine’s greatg r a n d daughter was Gladys Love Smith, who married Vernon Presley in 1933. Two years later, Gladys gave birth to Elvis in Tupelo, Mississippi. The family moved to Memphis when Elvis was 13.

Elvis was especially close to his mother, Elvis Presley who died of heart in the film failure in 1958 aged Jailhouse Rock

The gravestone of Elvis’ mother Gladys, pictured inset

46. Initially, Elvis had her buried in a public Memphis cemetery. Her headstone was marked with a cross. But six years later, he replaced the headstone with one designed to his specifications. The new marker featured a Star of David on one side and a cross on the other, with “Sunshine Of Our Home” engraved in between.

There is evidence Elvis’ Jewish lineage meant more to him than just a symbol on a headstone. He gave generously over the years to a variety of Jewish organisations, including the Memphis Jewish Community Center, a donation honoured with a plaque that hangs in Graceland today. Elvis’ personal

library included several books on Judaism and Jewish history.

During the final years of his life, Elvis was frequently photographed wearing necklaces with the Star of David and the Hebrew word chai, meaning life. He bought the chai necklace in 1976 and had it designed with 17 diamonds.

It is kept in a cabinet at Graceland next to the keys to his famed 1955 pink Cadillac.

“He would often make a joke, ‘I don’t want to get left out of heaven on a technicality,’” says Angie Marchese, Graceland’s vice president of archives and exhibits. “So he would wear a Star of David, a chai and he would also wear a cross.

He wanted to keep all his bases covered.”

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

Weekend / Food

ITH BEEF FRIED RICE W ES FROZEN VEGETABL 1. Cut the beef into ½-inch cubes. Put a large frying pan over high heat. When it’s hot, add 1 tablespoon oil, swirl to coat the bottom and add half the vegetables; sprinkle lightly with salt and pepper. Cook, undisturbed, until they thaw and release from the pan, but are still crisp, two to three minutes. Adjust the heat if the mixture threatens to burn. Use a spatula to transfer them to a platter. Let the pan heat up again and repeat with the remaining vegetables.

TIME: 20 MINUTES

3. Put the remaining 2 tablespoons oil in the frying pan, followed by the garlic and ginger. When they’re fragrant, about 15 seconds later, begin to add the rice, a bit at a time, breaking up any clumps with your fingers and stirring it into the oil. When all the rice is added, let it cook, undisturbed, until it starts to sizzle and brown, adding a little water if necessary to prevent burning, then push it to the sides so the pan is exposed at the centre; break in the eggs, scramble with a fork until set, then incorporate them into the rice.

INGREDIENTS 12 ounces boneless beef steak 5 tablespoons good-quality vegetable oil 2 cups frozen vegetables (such as peas, edamame, corn, green beans or carrots, alone or in combination; do not thaw) Salt and pepper 1 tablespoon chopped garlic 1 tablespoon chopped fresh ginger 3 cups cooked long-grain rice, chilled 2 eggs ¼ cup rice wine, beef stock or water 2 tablespoons soy sauce 1 tablespoon dark sesame oil

Extracted from Dinner For Everyone by Mark Bittman, published by Clarkson Potter, an imprint of Penguin Random House, priced £30 (hardback)

4. Return the meat and vegetables to the pan and stir with the spatula to combine. Add the rice wine and cook, stirring, for about a minute. Add the soy sauce and sesame oil, taste, adjust the seasoning and serve.

Photos by Aya Brackett

MAKES: 4 SERVINGS

2. Put one tablespoon of oil in the pan, swirl again and, when it’s hot, add the steak. Again season lightly with salt and pepper and cook, undisturbed, to let the bottom brown and crisp, about 30 seconds. Then cook, stirring occasionally, until the beef is no longer pink, two to three minutes total. Transfer to the platter with the vegetables.

12 August 2021 Jewish News

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25

Orthodox Judaism

SEDRA

Torah For Today

Shoftim

What does the Torah say about...

Mental health in sports

BY REBBETZIN SHOSHANA LANDAU The concept of a Jewish sovereign is introduced in this week’s parsha as the Jewish people are poised on the cusp of entering what will become their homeland.

Only recently enslaved and homeless, we are about to become a nation state, a geopolitical entity with autonomous rulership. It will take several generations until the first of the kings of Israel is in place, but the dream is introduced as a benevolent concession from the ultimate King.

God recognises that the human desire for hierarchy will propel us to demand a sovereign ‘like all of the surrounding nations’, and so provides guidelines for a possible Jewish sovereign. The monarch must come from within the Jewish nation and culture, and not be a foreigner.

They should not have an obvious focus on wealth or seek too much fortune outside of monarchic duties. They are cautioned against seeking excessive marital attachments, but should be a

paragon of morality, commitment and dedication. They must also have their own Torah constantly to hand – a spiritual compass that travels with them.

Everything they do must be imbued and directed by the laws and morals of the Torah, the word of God. In a nutshell, the monarch should be constantly oriented towards spirituality, with limited excesses and distractions, and with a sensitivity and kinship towards their subjects.

When we look to our country’s Queen and all she represents – a symbol of this country’s culture, a lifetime of commitment to her marriage and relationships, unshakeable alignment to her religious values and morals – we witness that a functioning monarchy even in the modern day has echoes of the model described in the Torah.

Wholesomeness and integrity like this shines even in the face of challenging familial or political environments.

◆ Shoshana Landau is rebbetzin of Barnet United Synagogue

BY RABBI ARIEL ABEL Naomi Osaka, Ben Stokes, driven them straight back into Michael Phelps and Simone Biles the arms of the Pharaoh.

Yom Kippur is a day of selfare top sports professionals who have taken time out over mental infliction that includes, for health concerns. So, what does anyone over bar and batmitzvah age, deprivation of food and the Torah have to say about this?

Mental health governs drink. However, that does not concerns about the most serious equate with self-harm. institutions and important Proverbs proclaim: ““Lev nafsho”, literally, the historical events in the Torah. yodea marat nafsho The mental state of bitterness of one’s spirit.

This places mental health the Israelites on in a league of its own. The leaving Egypt was so paramount to feelings of the individual as to God that they were whether they can bear hunger, taken on a roundaor perhaps even the bout way to avoid fulfilment of other mitzvot, even against encountering the mitzvot Philistines. doctors’ opinion is a Our ancestors valid discussion in the 20th century’s were so mentally rabbinic responsa. exhausted that However posiengaging in battle tive it is to have with this fearambition, one must some enemy Naomi would have Osaka take time out and

not push oneself unhealthily to achieve.

Pharaoh infamously chided Moses, who campaigned for a three-day holiday for the Israelites to celebrate before God, telling him: “You are lazy, simply lazy, that is why you say, let us go and serve God!” It is the little Pharaoh in us that threatens to push us beyond reasonable effort.

The principle of knowing when to desist from work pressures is embedded in our heritage’s guiding principles.

As Maimonides points out regarding the observance of Shabbat, that when it comes to safeguarding the sanctity of life, it is better to render one Shabbat secular and not incur fatal injury; even Shabbat and Yom Kippur do not stand in the way of our health. ◆ Rabbi Ariel Abel is based in Liverpool

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Progressive Judaism

Progressively Speaking

The Bible Says What?

‘King Eglon was so fat his assassin’s sword disappeared in his body’

As we finally come together again, what’s the future for communal life?

BY RABBI SYLVIA ROTHSCHILD The Book of Judges has some violent and gory stories, but possibly the strangest is the assassination of the Moabite King Eglon, who had oppressed the Israelites for 18 years.

Repeatedly, Israel does wrong in the sight of God and, just before our story, we have the tale of their eight-year oppression by the King of Aram-Naharaim after they had practiced Baal worship and turned away from God. Otniel, younger brother of Caleb, was chosen by God to save them.

Once free they had peaceful times for 40 years until Otniel died and again the people forgot their history and covenant with God. Now Israel was again subjugated by a foreign power and cried out to God, who God chose the left-handed Benjaminite Ehud, son of Gera.

Ehud takes a present to Eglon, but hidden strapped to his right thigh was a double-edged sword measuring a cubit long. He offers

the present and the verse ends with the words: “Eglon was very fat”.

Then he sends away the other Israelites and says to Eglon: “I have a secret present too”. The king dismisses his entourage and when Ehud says: “It’s a message from God,” Eglon stands up.

Instantly, Ehud draws the hidden sword and buries it deep in the fat of the king. The sword disappears into his body, severing the bowel, which empties. Then Ehud leaves, locking the doors behind him.

A moment of ‘comedy’ comes now – the servants wait to the point of embarrassment to go into the king because they believe he is on the toilet, rather than enduring an agonising death. Finally, they go in and find him lying dead. After a battle with Moab, the Israelites are free, enjoying peace for 80 years.

◆ Sylvia Rothschild has been a Reform Community Rabbi in south London for 30 years

BY RABBI YUVAL KEREN Over the past few weeks, our Progressive communities have finally been coming together, with many holding in-person services and celebrating simchas for the first time since March 2020.

That first Covid-19 lockdown came as a big surprise. Everything – from Shabbat and festival services to religion schools and synagogue council meetings – had to be migrated online.

But many members enjoyed this ‘new normal’ and many communities saw attendances and engagement increase. Now Freedom Day has passed, what comes next?

Some are still wary of returning to public worship, while others found a great deal of comfort and meaning in joining the community from the safety of their homes. This leaves us with a few social and technological challenges and opportunities.

The social challenge is the formation and reformation of friendships, and maintaining a sense of a

community. The Zoom community was a good replacement at a time we needed to keep a distance, yet it can never be a complete replacement for face-to-face meetings, shaking hands and chit-chat at Kiddush time.

As soon as we are able to be back in the buildings, we will need to spend some time gradually rebuilding this missing aspect of our community life.

The technological challenge is also a great opportunity.

For some time to come, we will need to balance the mix between those who join us in the building, and others who will join us online. Each

will have a slightly different experience of our services, social events and meetings. The challenge will be to ensure both groups feel they belong and are included as much as possible.

We need to treasure the opportunities technology presented us during the pandemic. We can now easily include sick members who can join Shabbat services from their hospital beds, friends from Australia who can join us for a batmitzvah service, and the elderly aunt from the US will not miss our wedding day. Another great advantage is our ability to share liturgy and study materials on screen.

As we emerge from the pandemic, we must take the opportunity to make sweet communal and technological lemonade out of the sour lemons of Covid-19. In other words (using Samson’s riddle to the Philistines), we should strive for something sweet to come out of a painful experience. ◆ Rabbi Yuval Keren serves Southgate Progressive Synagogue

THE TEL AVIV FOUNDATION (UK) IS SEEKING AN OPERATIONS LIAISON (BASED IN LONDON) RESPONSIBILITIES OF OPERATIONS LIAISON

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www.jewishnews.co.uk

12 August 2021 Jewish News

Hamas [noun] 1 a terror group dedicated to the destruction of Israel. 2 been responsible for four wars and more than six thousand civilian deaths.

3 its military wing was proscribed under the Terrorism Act 2000. 4 its so-called ‘political wing’ remains outside of that legislation while openly promoting violence against Jewish and Israeli targets.

Hamas is a terror organisation.

This August the Israel Britain Alliance will start a new parliamentary campaign to insist that the UK Home Secretary proscribes Hamas under the Terrorism Act 2000.

Please register your support now at www.israelbritain.org.uk.

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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.

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12 August 2021 Jewish News

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£8.35/g 9ct Professional advice from our panel /14ct Ask Our Experts £12.98/g

Ask our

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

This week: Independent living for younger people, taking up dancing again and colleagues making pro-Palestine comments misconception that we only support older people. We are here for adults aged 18+ living LISA WIMBORNE CHARITY EXECUTIVE with physical disabilities and/or impaired JEWISH BLIND & DISABLED vision. We have a wide range of people living in our apartments and currently our tenants Dear Lisa range in age between 30 and 100.

My daughter is 29 and has recently been left We are dedicated to enabling people like in a wheelchair following a car accident. your daughter to maintain their much-prized I am concerned that she will have no choice independence and we provide developments but to live with us long-term. I’ve heard of mobility apartments adapted to individual about Jewish Blind & Disabled but wasn’t needs so people can continue to live indepensure if you were only for older people. Would dently behind their own front door. my daughter be considered for a flat and are Our house managers are on-site round the there younger people who live in flats? clock, seven day a week, 365 days a year, which Laura means you and your daughter would be able to relax knowing that someone is always on hand Dear Laura if needed.

I’m sorry to hear about your daughter’s Each of our developments is unique and accident. The good news is she can live indewelcomes Jewish communities with a range pendently with 24/7 support to hand in one of events, activities and classes on offer should of our unique developments. It is a common tenants wish to join.

LOISE LEACH PRINCIPAL, PERFORMING ARTS SCHOOL

DANCING WITH LOUISE Dear Louise I know gyms are open again, but I still can’t bring myself to dance with others in a crowded room. I’m not strictly shielding, but my partner has a health condition that puts him in the high-risk category. I gained some pounds during lockdown and live in Finchley.

What can I do?

Sharon

Dear Sharon What you describe is a common problem right now. So many of us have family members at risk when catching Covid. Still, we also want to lead an active, healthy lifestyle. That’s why we’re now offering hybrid classes: you can either attend in person or work out from home via Zoom.

We found that many members use this second option because it is so convenient, not just for Covid reasons: mums with babies don’t need a babysitter, others are selfconscious and prefer to work out in private and some of our ladies discovered us during lockdown and live abroad or out the area.

EMMA GROSS But if you want to get the buzz and community feeling of a live class, just pop by as I can see you live locally!

Our classes still operate in a Covid-safe way, with ladies dancing on a set spot on the floor, three metres apart from the next person, and with all the windows and doors open.

Stick with it, though, and you’ll shift those pounds in no time! It’s super flexible and allows you to work out no matter what situation you find yourself in that day.

EMPLOYMENT LAW AND DATA PROTECTION

SPENCER WEST LLP Dear Emma I’m struggling at work as most of my colleagues are pro-Palestinian and often make inappropriate and judgemental remarks about my religion and love of Israel. I feel quite intimidated and have begun to feel very isolated. My employer said it’s freedom of speech, but I feel I’m not allowed to have a voice. What can I do?

Dalia

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Dear Dalia I’m so sorry. Religion or belief is one of nine “protected characteristics” covered by the Equality Act 2010 and you should not have to deal with this harassment in the workplace.

Harassment is a form of discrimination that occurs when a person engages in unwanted conduct related to religion or belief when that conduct has the purpose or effect of violating another’s dignity or creating an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating or offensive environment for them.

It sounds to me that this is what you are experiencing.

There is also an aspect of direct religious discrimination at play, as your colleagues are singling you

out because of your religion of belief. Direct religious discrimination occurs where, because of religion or belief, a person treats another person less favourably than he or she treats or would treat others.

Employers have a duty to protect you from discrimination in the workplace.

If you feel discriminated against, you should speak to HR or raise a formal grievance.

If this doesn’t work, then you have the right to bring a claim against your employer for religious discrimination.

To reassure you, it would be unlawful for your employer to victimise you because you have made or intend to make a religion or belief discrimination complaint.

30

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Ask Our Experts / Professional advice from our panel

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

Email: editorial@jewishnews.co.uk PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST

BREAST, GROIN & HERNIA SURGEON

EMPLOYMENT LAW AND DATA PROTECTION

TREVOR GEE Qualifications: • Managing Director, consultant specialists in affordable family health insurance.

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

• Excellent knowledge of health insurers, cover levels and hospital lists.

• LLB solicitors finals.

• Member of Chartered Insurance Institute.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DIRECTOR OF LEGACIES

JEWELLER

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

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

Member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.

• •

JONATHAN WILLIAMS Qualifications: • Jewellery manufacturer since 1980s.

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

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

KKL EXECUTOR AND TRUSTEE COMPANY 020 8732 6101 www.kkl.org.uk enquiries@kkl.org.uk

JEWELLERY CAVE LTD 020 8446 8538 www.jewellerycave.co.uk jonathan@jewellerycave.co.uk

•

Got a question for a member of our team?

Email: editorial@jewishnews.co.uk

COMMERCIAL LAWYER ADAM LOVATT Qualifications: • Lawyer with more than 11 years of experience working in the legal sector.

Specialist in corporate, commercial, media, sport and start-ups.

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

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

LOVATT LEGAL LIMITED 07753 802 804 adam@lovattlegal.co.uk

CONSULTANT DERMATOLOGIST

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

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

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

SUE CIPIN Qualifications: • 20 years+ hands-on experience, leading JDA in significant growth and development.

• Understanding of the impact of deafness on people, including children, at all stages.

• Extensive services for people affected by hearing loss/tinnitus.

• Technology room with expert advice on and facilities to try out the latest equipment.

Hearing aid advice, support and maintenance.

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

JEWISH DEAF ASSOCIATION 020 8446 0502 www.jdeaf.org.uk mail@jdeaf.org.uk

Flights to Israel are becoming possible again!

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

Just call me!

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

ISRAEL ADVERT 2 100X84.indd 1

REMOVALS MANAGING DIRECTOR

PRINCIPAL, PERFORMING ARTS SCHOOL

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

• Chosen mover for four royal families and three UK prime ministers.

• Offering proven quality specialist advice for moving anyone across the world or round the corner.

LOUISE LEACH Qualifications: • Professional choreographer qualified in dance, drama and Zumba (ZIN, ISTD & LAMDA), gaining an honours degree at Birmingham University.

• Former contestant on ITV’s Popstars, reaching bootcamp with Myleene Klass, Suzanne Shaw and Kym Marsh.

• Set up Dancing with Louise 19 years ago.

STEPHEN MORRIS SHIPPING LTD 020 8832 2222 www.shipsms.co.uk stephen@shipsms.co.uk

DANCING WITH LOUISE 075 0621 7833 www.dancingwithlouise.co.uk Info@dancingwithlouise.com

11/04/2021 18:40

12 August 2021 Jewish News

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31

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

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

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

TELECOMS SPECIALIST

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.

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.

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

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

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

10 Golders Green Road London NW11 8LL Opposite Cafe Nero

Suits from £79.50 REOPENING SPECIAL OFFERS, CRAZY PRICES! Overcoats from £79.50

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SHIRT BARGAINS! £10 EACH OR 3 FOR £20

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We accept

Will services, estate planning and friendship, all at no charge KKL, JNF UK’s legacy department, has been serving the Jewish community for over 70 years. Our highly qualified team combines first-rate executorship and trustee services with personalised pastoral care. We can take on the role of close family when needed, keeping in regular contact with you and taking care of any Jewish needs in accordance with your wishes.

For a no-obligation and confidential consultation, and to find out more about supporting JNF UK’s vital work in Israel, please get in touch.

Call 020 8732 6101 or email enquiries@kkl.org.uk

KKL Executor and Trustee Company Ltd (a Company registered in England No. 453042) is a subsidiary of JNF Charitable Trust (Charity No. 225910) and a registered Trust Corporation (authorised capital £250,000).

JN Half Page - KKL - Friendship Advert.indd 1

11/02/2021 15:15:34

12 August 2021 Jewish News

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Fun, games and prizes

THE JEWISH NEWS CROSSWORD 1

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ACROSS 1 Throw out (5) 4 Glossy fabric (5)

7 Distend with air or gas (7) 8 Fireside mat (3)

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CANDLES GOOD LUCK

ANNIVERSARY CARDS BIRTHDAY

CONFETTI MUGS

CALENDAR

FAMILY

PAPER

Last issue’s solutions Crossword ACROSS: 1 Bask 3 Karate 8 Oil drum 9 Get 10 Deep-freeze 13 Unexciting 17 Boa 18 Pungent 19 Bye Bye 20 Eyed DOWN: 1 Blow 2 Salve 4 Aim 5 Argue 6 Either 7 Tropic 11 Rating 12 Hubbub 14 Erase 15 Needy 16 Stud 18 Ply

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8 6 3 5 9 7 1 4 2

9 3 7 1 4 2 5 8 6

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

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

In this finished crossword, every letter of the alphabet appears as a code number. All you have to do is crack the code and fill in the grid. Replacing the decoded numbers 3, 5, 14 and 26 with their letters in the grid will help you to guess the identity of other letters.

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

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CODEWORD

WORDSEARCH

U C O N F E T T

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

Handled beaker (3) Father or mother (6) Existing from birth (6) Thus far (3) Compete (3) Quiet (7) Leave ___ Now, Will Young hit (5) Australian wild dog (5)

DOWN 1 Puzzle, riddle (6) 2 Goblin (3) 3 Lady and the ___, Disney film featuring animated dogs (5) 4 Young ox (5) 5 Despotic form of government (7) 6 Keeps pestering (4) 10 Root used as a stimulant (7) 12 Fitting, suitable (3) 13 Artist’s workplace (6) 15 Resource (5) 16 Inlay firmly (5) 18 Maintain (4) 21 Large vase (3)

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SUDOKU

1 5 2 7 8 6 4 3 9

6 8 4 9 5 3 7 2 1

4 2 4 1 3 2

3 1 5 2 4 1

2 4 3 1 3 2

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

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Wordsearch 3 1 2 4 5 1

4 5 3 1 2 4

3 1 2 5 3 5

4 2 4 1 3 1

1 5 3 5 4 2

3 4 2 1 3 1

2 1 5 4 2 4

3 4 3 1 5 1

1 2 5 2 3 2

S P T F T H U N D E R B A

Y T U B L I Z Z A R D N B

D S N D E A D V L O O I C

W T J E D S S P T R T A K

B O X U R L M H A G S W V

I R T M H R E K F H I Q R

Z M A B K M O S J L M U D

Codeword F O O R P R E T A W O R T

R N C E A P C Q R P I O V

P E N L O D U J N Z L K D

Z M I L T E W W Z A I Y F

F A A A E N O L C Y C U N

H O R D S D E H X S X C G

P P L A H Y E A R N D E Q J U I S P S

B U R A O A C I C R OW L B I T

F OR L U N A S N T H K E S S I

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

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Jewish News 12 August 2021

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Business Services Directory ANTIQUES 44

The Jewish News 22 September 2016

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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.

Hille, G Plan, etc.

CarerEpstein, Archie Shine,Clothing

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

Carer 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 07866 958 2939 614 744 (ANYTIME) Call 01277 352 560 or 07495 026 168

Computer

0207 723 7415 (SHOP) 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

CHARITY & WELFARE

Networks, virus problems, broadband, wireless systems, new computers and everything else you may need.

For small businesses & home users.

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 including china, books, WE BUY ANTIQUES clothing etc. Also rubbish clearance VERY HIGH PRICES PAID. FREE HOME VISITS. service, lofts, sheds, garages etc

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 CLEARANCE 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

Sheltered Accommodation

For all your heating and plumbing requirements

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.

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

Not shabbat

PLUMBSAFEUK.COM

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

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

Give support • Get support • Get involved

w

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

Reg Charity No. 1003345

HOME & MAINTENANCE

L

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PLUMBSAFE (UK) LTD

No further, your

LOCAL PLUMBERS

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

MOTOR VEHICLES PURCHASED CLASSIC OR CARS for vehicles over 10 years old preferably with low mileage Contact: Anthony – 07850 590415

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All NW-London postcodes covered

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020 8953 2094 office

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“Better Safe Than Sorry”

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hallandrandallplumbers.com

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

IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHICH WAY TO TURN, REMEMBER OUR HELPLINE.

Home & Maintenance

!

Not shabbat

020 8207 3286 home 020 8386 8798

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.

MAKE

WESTLON HOUSING ASSOCIATION

“Better Safe Than Sorry”

HOUSE CLEARANCE

PORTOBELLO RD LONDON.

S

Charity & Welfare

PLUMBSAFE (UK) LTD All NW-London postcodes covered

C

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

020 8731 6171 • www.manonabike.co.uk

CHARITY & WELFARE

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

Ep Dini D

All Antique Furniture Hille & Epstein 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

office@hallandrandall.com

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STONEMASON

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Over 20 years experience Friendly, reliable & The specialist masons in creating bespoke Granite service. personal and Marble Memorials for all Cemeteries. competitive rates Very Clayhall Showroom 14 Claybury Broadway Ilford. IG5 0LQ T: 0208 551 6866

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Email : info@garygreenmemorials.co.uk

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

18/03/2019 12:50:51

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12 August 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

35

Business Services Directory SILVER

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36

Jewish News 12 August 2021

www.jewishnews.co.uk