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VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY 14 October 2021

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8 Cheshvan 5782

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Issue No.1232

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@JewishNewsUK

The heroes who fought fascism in the Swinging Sixties Page 9

Spreading the word!

Young writers’ contest Page 24

Culture clubbed Normal People author sparks outrage after refusing Hebrew translation of new book Bestselling author Sally Rooney has been accused of “antisemitism in a new guise” after refusing to allow an Israeli company to publish her new novel in Hebrew, writes Lee Harpin. The Irish writer confirmed she had declined an offer from the Modan publishing house to translate Beautiful World, Where Are You and labelled Israel an apartheid state based on a “system of racial domination”. Rooney’s first two novels, Conversations With Friends and Normal People, were both published by Modan in Hebrew. Beautiful World, published in September, has already topped the book sales chart in the UK. In a statement released on Tuesday, the 30-year-old attempted to deny she had enforced a ban on the novel being translated into Hebrew. The self-declared Marxist said Hebrew-language translation rights were “still available” but only “if I can find a way to sell these rights that is compliant with the BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] movement’s institutional boycott guidelines”. But Israel’s diaspora minister, Nachman Shai, has strongly condemned Rooney’s actions saying: “The cultural boycott of Israel, antisemitism in a new guise, is a certificate of poor conduct for her and others who behave like her.” Meanwhile, Board of Deputies vice-president David Mendoza-Wolfson accused the author of taking part in a “masterclass of disingenuity” by saying that she would not allow her book to be published in “the language of the Jewish people unless it is permitted by those who advocate the destruction of the world’s only Jewish state”. Labour’s Dame Louise Ellman joined the criticism of Rooney, saying:”It is very disturbing that the world’s only Jewish majority state is being singled out.” On the Jewish-American site Forward Dr Gitit Levy-Paz, a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, wrote: “The very essence of literature, its power to bring a sense of coherence and order to the world, is negated by Rooney’s Continued on page 11

RED AND ROCKY, WITH REMNANTS OF FALAFEL There is one corner of an Israeli desert that will forever be Mars after scientists began a month-long simulation of what it will be like to live on the red planet. The team of six stationed themselves this week in the Ramon Crater, beneath a rocky step in the Negev, to prepare for future missions to the planet, 154 million miles away. Meanwhile, Jewish Star Trek actor William Shatner (centre, inset) launched into space yesterday on Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin. Video report at jewishnews.co.uk

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

News / Crime figures / Malmö Forum / UN resolution

Hate crime against Jews UK's pledge rises against overall drop on memorial perceived, by the victim or any other person, to be motivated by hostility or prejudice towards someone based on a personal characteristic”. The statistics showed there were Hate crimes against Jews in 2,703 hate crimes recorded against England and Wales have risen Muslims in England and Wales in again, while overall offences against the year to March. During the previctims of all religions have fallen vious year, there had been 3,089 by 18 percent, according to statistics incidents. For Christians, there were released this week. 521 crimes, compared with 531 in Home Office statistics showed 2019/20. that during the year ending March Sikhs suffered 112 hate crimes as 2021 there were 1,288 offences com- Overall crimes involving religion fell by 18 percent opposed to 202 the previous year, mitted against Jewish people, in andHinduswerevictimsof166crimes, 672 offences were recorded against the which religion was recorded as being a rise from 114 the previous year. Jewish community. relevant to their case. Overall, reported hate crimes were A Community Security Trust (CST) The previous year’s figures had revealed there were 1,205 hate crimes spokesperson said: “It is alarming religious shown to have risen by nine percent to against Jews – constituting a seven hate crime disproportionately affects the a record number of more than 124,000 Jewish community ... and especially that across England and Wales since the start of percent rise in incidents. But the figures for this year ended before anti-Jewish hate crime has gone up at the coronavirus pandemic. A Home Office spokesperson said: a whole spate of attacks on Jews in this a time when most religious hate crime “While the biggest driver for the increase country as a result of the conflict between has fallen. “These figures do not even cover the in recorded crime is general improvements Israel and Hamas, which took place in May. The overall number of religion-related period in May this year when anti-Jewish in police recording, along with increased hate crimes fell from 6,856 in 2019/20 to incidents reported to CST hit record levels. victim willingness to come forward, we cannot be complacent. That is why we have This trend needs to be reversed.” 5,627 in 2020/21 – a drop of 18 percent. Hate crime is defined by the Home committed to publishing a new hate crime Those statistics were a sharp rise from the year up to March 2018, when Office as “any criminal offence which is strategy later this year.” by Lee Harpin lee@jewishnews.co.uk @lmharpin

27 May 2020

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16 Sivan 5781

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We’ve never been so focuse d on fighting racism, so wh y the deafen ing silence as antisemitism spirals out of control? • Hospital probes ‘cutt

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last year would have marked the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War and the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, and the 20th anniversary of the Stockholm Declaration (which led to the establishment of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) and the designation of 27 January as Holocaust Memorial Day). Fifty countries and 30 organisations were invited to the Malmö Forum at which King Gustav XVI and Queen Sylvia with other members of the Swedish Royal Family played a key role. Sweden will chair the IHRA in 2022 and will use its chairmanship to follow up on pledges made at this year's event The secretary-general of the Council of Europe, Marija Pejčinović Burić, also spoke yesterday.

UN HAS DOWNPLAYED ANTISEMITISM, SAYS UK

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A UK delegation led by Lord Pickles has taken part in the Malmö Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism in Sweden. Eric Pickles was accompanied at yesterday's event by Lord (John) Mann and Michael Newman, chief executive of the Association of Jewish Refugees. The conference had been due to take place in 2020 but was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. In their pledge to the conference, the UK delegation promised the building of the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Westminster by January 2025. There was also a promise on the need for Holocaust education to enhance the learning about the Shoah among the UK's younger generation – and a pledge on online safety legislation. The forum recognised how

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British diplomats have intervened to prevent a United Nations body from passing an anti-racism resolution by consensus because of concerns the document downplayed antisemitism. The declaration by the UN Human Rights Council, which is routinely accepted once every two years, was passed again on Monday. But for the first time. several nations, including Britain, voted to oppose it. It contained multiple references to a 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa, that was mired in controversy over accusations it singled out Israel over alleged human rights concerns. At the time, the US and Israel walked out of the meeting because participants drafted a conference declaration that denounced Israel’s treatment of Palestinians. Several countries including Britain have since boycotted events to mark Durban’s anniversaries, including this year. Simon Manley, the UK’s permanent representative to the UN and the World Trade Organisation, said the UN had

The UN Human Rights Council passed an anti-racism resolution

“downplayed the scourge of antisemitism” for too long. Britain called for a roll call vote at the Human Rights Council to prevent the resolution from passing by consensus. Nine other countries also opposed it, including France, Germany and Poland. “We remain resolute in our commitment to combating all forms of racism, racial discrimination and xenophobia and related intolerance... at home or abroad,” Manley said. Austria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands and Ukraine

also opposed the resolution. It passed by 32 votes to 10. Foreign secretary Liz Truss said: “The UK remains steadfast in its commitment to tackling racism around the world. “The resolution presented to the Human Rights Council contains a number of references to the Durban Conference, from which the UK has repeatedly disassociated itself due to historic concerns over antisemitism. Discrimination and intolerance has no place in society and we encourage countries to uphold their human rights obligations.”

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14 October 2021 Jewish News

Social media / News

Report: Web hate out of control Antisemitism is “rife” across social media, with young people being introduced to hateful content via platforms such as TikTok and Instagram, new research says. A report by campaign group Hope Not Hate found that antisemitism is commonly and widely spread through conspiracy theories online, with a major spike during the pandemic. It found that Google searches for an antisemitic conspiracy theory that claims a secret global elite is controlling world events reached their highest level for 15 years in March 2020, while a forum on message board site Reddit dedicated to conspiracies, many containing antisemitic tropes, grew by 500,000 users between February and November last year. The research, entitled Antisemitism in the Digital Age: Online Antisemitic Hate, Holocaust Denial, Conspiracy Ideologies and Terrorism in Europe, found that the most extreme and violent anti-Semitic content was found on more niche platforms such as Telegram, Parler and 4chan. However, it warned that potentially millions of young people are being introduced to conspiracy theories and antisemitism via Instagram and TikTok, on which Hope Not Hate said the theories were also prevalent. The research was carried out in collaboration with Germany-based anti-hate group the Amadeu Antonio Foundation and Swedish anti-hate group the Expo Foundation. According to the report, there are “millions” of results for hashtags relating to antisemitic conspiracy theories on Instagram, while on TikTok a collection of just three hashtags linked to antisemitism were viewed more than 25 million times in six months. The research noted that almost 70 percent of global Instagram users are aged 13 to 34, while 69 percent of TikTok users are aged between 16 and 24. “It’s simply astounding that despite 10 years of attempts to eradicate hate speech, we were able to find antisemitism on every social media platform we investigated,” Hope Not Hate’s head of research Joe Mulhall said. “While social media companies have been struggling to get their act together, a new generation of social media users have been introduced to antisemitic ideas they would be unlikely to encounter elsewhere. “The reality is that a lack of action from technology platforms has not only introduced people to hate speech but has now created online spaces where antisemitism is allowed to flourish, with tragic and long-lasting effects, leaving Jewish communities exposed to the risk of terrorism. “Enough is enough. It’s now time that we see a strong commitment to banning and moderating any and all forms of antisemitism and hate speech across the tech sector.” Both Instagram and TikTok have been contacted for comment.

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

News / Party leaks / JVL suspensions

Labour to name former staff it says leaked antisemitism report by Lee Harpin lee@jewishnews.co.uk @lmharpin

Labour is set to name five former party employees it claims were responsible for leaking a controversial internal report into antisemitism which largely exonerated Jeremy Corbyn from blame. Documents to be filed at the High Court Labour are poised to name Seumas Milne, Karie Murphy, Georgie Robertson, Laura Murray and Harry Hayball as those involved in the leaking unredacted version of the document, lawyers acting for the accused claim. The circulation of the Labour commissioned Report – entitled “The work of the Labour Party’s Governance and Legal Unit in relation to antisemitism, 2014 – 2019 – sparked anger after it disclosed names and details of complaints and complainants. Many antisemitism complaints were submitted by Jewish Labour members. In a press release on Monday, Carter-Ruck, the legal firm representing the five individuals named, said they “strenuously deny, and have consistently denied, any involvement or com-

plicity in the leak whatsoever.” The firm said the five “also deny having any knowledge of who was responsible.” Milne was Corbyn’s director of communications, while Murphy was the ex-leader’s chief of staff. Robertson worked in Labour’s press office, while Hayball was a Momentum activist. Murray, meanwhile, was another close adviser of Corbyn’s. As such, Carter Ruck added, the individuals will vigorously defend themselves in the proceedings and seek full reimbursement of their costs of doing so from the party. The five individuals accused of the leak have been interviewed by an external investigator, and by Martin Forde QC, commissioned to produce a report into the leaking by Keir Starmer. A spokesperson for the former Labour Party employees said: “The individuals entirely reject these baseless claims. They did not leak the report. They fully cooperated with the Party’s investigation by an independent external investigator, and with the inquiry led by Martin Forde QC. “They understand that neither of those investigations concluded that they were responsible.

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“The party has already acknowledged in court that it cannot be certain who leaked the report and that its ‘case’ against them is circumstantial. But it is now trying to make them foot the bill for legal action brought against it. “The party should be focusing on the deeply troubling evidence contained with the leaked report, rather than trying to wrongly scapegoat and victimise former staff who documented it and who have not been accused by either of the independent investigations.” The leaked paper was originally intended to be submitted by Labour to the EHRC’s investigation into antisemitism in Labour. But lawyers for Labour said the report was not helpful for the ongoing investigation at the time so was never submitted. After the document was leaked, intially to Sky News in redacted form and then to proCorbyn websites without redactions, Labour were left facing a string of legal claims, some from Jewish members furious their confidential complaints had been leaked. Other submitted legal claims over data breaches, leaving Labour with the prospect of huge legal payouts. Earlier this year at the High Court Labour said it did not want to name the persons responsible for the leak – unless they were ordered to by a judge.

However Emilie Oldknow – a former Labour executive whose Whatapp messages were revealed in the report – has taken legal action against the part over its leaking. Oldknow’s legal representatives described the report as a “one-sided factional attack” on ex-employees. The leaked dossier was an attempt to portray Labour staff who were opposed to then leader Jeremy Corbyn as having hindered efforts to tackle antisemitism. The document, dated March 2020 and leaked in April 2020, claimed some Labour Party staff did not want Mr Corbyn to win the 2017 general election. The 860-page report included WhatsApp messages from named individuals, appearing to make derogatory comments about Mr Corbyn, party policy and the membership. But it was leaked in an unredacted version – including the names and details of complaints made by Jewish members and non-members of the party about individual cases of alleged antiJewish racism. The names, including those of Jewish members alleging serious wrongdoing, were widely circulated online, including on farright websites. Numerous individuals have taken legal action over alleged breaches of data protection laws. Jewish News has contacted Labour for comment.

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John McDonnell has expressed concern that some members of the pro-Jeremy Corbyn Jewish Voice for Labour now being expelled or suspended from Labour are “elderly.” The former shadow chancellor – who insists he has always believed that “one antisemite in Labour is one too many” – said in an interview with a left-wing website, it was “disturbing” so many JVL members were among those being sanctioned under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership.

While JVL members make up a fraction of the total number of people being sanctioned by Labour, McDonnell claimed in the interview with the Trotskyist group Alliance For Workers Liberty‘s website: “I do find it ironic and disturbing that there is such a large number of Jewish members who have been expelled. “Moreover, some of the JVL members being expelled are quite elderly and the way they have been treated is again disturbing.”

14 October 2021 Jewish News

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Genetic disorders / Animal slaughter / News

Charity screening for more disorders by Jack Mendel jack@jewishnews.co.uk @mendelpol

A leading charity researching Jewish genetic disorders (JDGs) has expanded the number of conditions it tests from nine to 47. Jnetics’ will for the first time offer testing for 15 disorders prevalent in Sephardi and Mizrahi communities, and 28 among Ashkenazim. Four conditions are common among people from both communities or who have mixed heritage. It is thought up to one-in-five Jews of Ashkenazi origin are healthy carriers of a severe recessive Jewish

genetic disorder, the charity says. Carriers are usually unaffected by JDGs, but if they have a child with another carrier, there is a one in four chance the child will inherit it. Screening identifies those at risk of passing on one or more disorders. Jnetics CEO Nicole Gordon said: “The grouping has been increased to include further conditions prevalent in the Ashkenazi community, and for the first time we will include conditions prevalent in the Sephardi and Mizrahi communities. We are encouraging any young Jewish adults with at least one Jewish grandparent to come forward and be tested. “Currently, so many health issues

are beyond our control. Screening for Jewish genetic disorders and managing the risk of having a child with one of the severe life-threatening and or life-shortening disorders we screen for is not.” Among the most prevalent disorders for Ashkenazi Jews are Canavan disease and familial dysautonomia, which affect the nervous system, and cystic fibrosis. Conditions impacting Sephardim more actually include acute infantile liver failure, Costeff optic atrophy syndrome, which is a neurological disorder, and Glycogen storage disease type III, which harms the liver, muscles and tissues.

The parents of the three Kayser girls underwent genetic screening

Lauren and Richard Kayser, who are both Tay-Sachs carriers, underwent Jnetics screening before their first daughter was born – she was unaffected by the condition. They

had a type of IVF treatment for their subsequent two girls and are encouraging others to be screened, to “avoid finding yourselves in the traumatic situation we had to experience”.

TORY SUPPORT FOR REDUCING NON-STUNNED ANIMAL SLAUGHTER Senior Conservative parliamentarians are considering backing an MP’s attempt to reduce the levels of non-stunned animal slaughter in the UK and to introduce the mandatory labelling of kosher and halal meat, writes Lee Harpin. Conservative MP Chris Loder is planning to lay an amendment later this month to the new

Animal Welfare Kept Animals Bill, which would be aimed at reducing the number of animals killed for meat without first being stunned. Loder’s bid is popular with a growing number of MPs who wish to use the UK’s exit from the European Union to rewrite our regulations on slaughter, with particular focus on non-stunned.

Sources told Jewish News environment minister Victoria Prentis and Conservative deputy leader Dominic Raab were among those weighing up whether to back the move. One leading communal figure said they believed there was a “battle ahead” over the issue. Advertising his amendment during a fringe

event hosted by the Conservative Animal Welfare Foundation at last week’s Tory conference, Loder said: “It will be the opportunity for us to discuss with the government how we can reduce the absolutely disgraceful numbers of more than 93 million non-stunned slaughters each year in this country.”

Rabbi Sacks zt”l - One Year On Learn some of his key ideas from two brilliant teachers he inspired

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James Brokenshire: 1968–2021 / News

‘James was a man who cared deeply’ Jewish leaders have paid heartfelt tributes to former communities secretary James Brokenshire following his death, aged 53, writes Jack Mendel. The ex-government minister and MP for Old Bexley and Sidcup died with his family by his side after losing a long battle with lung cancer. During his tenure as communities secretary from April 2018 to July 2019 he visited Buchenwald concentration camp and was a vocal supporter of the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre to be built by Parliament. In 2007, he took part in the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET)’s Lessons from Auschwitz project as an MP, attended Holocaust Memorial Day in 2019, and represented the government at the powerful memorial service for six Shoah victims, laid to rest at Bushey cemetery. Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl said: “A dedicated public servant, we remember with gratitude his strong support for our community as secretary of state for housing, communities and local government and throughout his career. May his memory be for blessing.” Claudia Mendoza, co-chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “We were fortunate to work with James in his various capacities. He was always generous with his time, committed to the Jewish community and solutions driven. The outpouring of affection and sympathy we

IMMANUEL COLLEGE SIXTH FORM

ADMISSIONS James Brokenshire at Buchenwald concentration camp

have seen is a testament to his dedication as a public servant and our thoughts and prayers are with his loved ones.” HET chief executive Karen Pollock said: “James was a was a good man of the highest integrity who we will sincerely miss... He enjoyed spending time with Holocaust survivors and our young HET ambassadors and offered his support at any opportunity. We have lost not only a dedicated public servant, but a dear friend.” Olivia Marks-Woldman, chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said: “He was ... a very decent man who cared deeply about Holocaust education and commemoration.” Brokenshire also supported the Duke of Cambridge’s unveiling of a state of Frank Foley, a British spy who was

known as the ‘British Schindler’ and tweeted at the time that it was “particularly special to be there with my father-inlaw Michael Mamelok, who was one of those he saved”. The ’45 Aid Society and the Association of Jewish Ex Servicemen and Women – The Jewish Military Association, paid respects, as did prime minister Boris Johnson, who called him the “nicest, kindest and most unassuming of politicians”. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said he was “a thoroughly decent man, dedicated and effective in all briefs he held”. In a statement, his family praised his political work, adding: “Most importantly, he was a loving father to his three children, a devoted husband to Cathy and a faithful friend to so many.”

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I have known James, Cathy and the family for 22 years. He was my nearby MP then, in later years, my boss when I was his special advisor but, mostly, he was one of my closest friends. We had many happy and interesting times together. James, Cathy and the family attended our daughter’s wedding in Jerusalem and visited Buchenwald, from which James’ father-inlaw and his family survived. He was a special person. I have never known a politician who was so loved by all sides of the House of Commons. It is hard for me to write these words as I still cannot accept he is no longer with us. He battled cancer with dignity and bravery. Me and my wife, Estelle, will be here for Cathy and the family.

One story sums up James to me. On our visit to Buchenwald, we said Kaddish and then sang Hatikvah. Halfway through it I cried and James came over, put his arms round me and said: “I understand and will make sure the memorial in Westminster happens.” Sadly, he will not be here to see it, but I know when it is built he will be looking down and be proud. It was a difficult time after I lost my seat in Parliament, but James was there for me. When he phoned and asked me to go back into government as his special adviser, it was an honour to do so and a very happy time. He was the best boss and we made a difference. He then encouraged me to go back into full-time politics, and I am now an Essex county councillor and cabinet member for highways and transport. James will always be remembered. He has always been there for me and his loss to the country but, more importantly to his family is vast. His legacy will live on. May he rest in peace.

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

News / Chelsea minyan / US role / Mock trial

Breakaway minyan SW3 holds ECO CHIEF TO SHAPE first Shabbat service in Chelsea US POLICY A split has emerged between Chelsea Synagogue, an affiliate of the United Synagogue, and a breakaway group calling itself SW3, which launched a modern Orthodox minyan last Shabbat, writes Jenni Frazer. According to Aron Freedman, who is behind SW3, 83 people took part in the inaugural service, held in the private rooms of the Bluebird Cafe in the neighbourhood’s King’s Road. The service, led by Rabbi Yossi Fachler, was followed by a kiddush lunch catered by Tony Page. Freedman, whose initiative has been quietly supported by the United Synagogue, said: “I was inspired to create SW3 because I felt there was a need for it in this part of London. “I wanted to create an authentic Shabbat atmosphere in the heart of SW3, and I was so

Chelsea’s famous King’s Road

pleased to see so many men, women and children come and enjoy the service and kiddush-lunch. The fact people stayed to chat for an hour and half showed me how welcome this initiative was.” He said people had told him that they were

“yearning for Yiddishkeit” in the area. A second Shabbat event, to celebrate Chanucah, will be held on 4 December. But Freedman also told Jewish News that after repeated unsuccessful attempts to work with the long-established Chelsea Synagogue, he had decided to start his own minyan, dispirited at low numbers and a frequent failure to achieve enough men for a minyan at Chelsea’s services. Nigel Gee, Chelsea’s chairman, denied that there had been too few people. “We have had great turnouts in shul since we re-opened,” he said, adding: “There is no bad news in Chelsea.” He said concerns about Covid had led the synagogue executive to be “very careful” about the numbers of people attending services.

Court clears Noah over flood warning Noah was put on trial with senior lawyers arguing for the prosecution and defence at a London School of Jewish Studies event. The ‘court’ debated whether Noah was partly to blame for the demise of life on Earth since he had warning of the coming flood. Defending Noah was Dr Harris

Bor, a barrister at Twenty Essex Street, and Joanne Greenaway, CEO of LSJS. Prosecuting were barristers Anthony Metzer QC, at Goldsmith Chambers, and Rachel Marcus, at 1 Crown Office Row. The mock trial, attended by 200 people in person and online, was presided over by Rabbi Dr Harvey

Belovski of Golders Green Synagogue, an expert in Jewish law. Joanne Greenaway, defending, said: “I’m not only delighted to have got Noah off on all charges but also that we had so much fun in the process.”  To view the recording (£10), visit: lsjs.ac.uk/videos.php

The biblical character’s trial

An “ambitious” new role has been introduced by the United Synagogue focussing on climate change. Naomi Verber joins as head of environmental policy, drawing on her experience designing and running Europe’s first kosher eco-hotel. Verber, who worked as a management consultant for 15 years, will analyse its activities and programmes before developing a strategy to guide the US with its environmental policies, and better engage the community on the issue. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis last week told the ‘Carbon Zero, If Not Now When?’ event at the Jewish Museum that climate change “threatens our world”. He was speaking ahead of the COP26 climate change summit in Glasgow at the end of this month. Michael Goldstein, president of the United Synagogue, said it must “play its part to improve our environmental impact, and with this ambitious role we are committed to take steps to inspire and engage our rabbinic and lay leaders and our communities, on this crucial issue”. Verber said she looked forward to engaging with the community, “to learn from what you’re doing and share practical ideas for action”.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

14 October 2021 Jewish News

British fascism / Special Report

The real Ridley Road

England in the 1960s was not always safe for Jews. Nicole Lampert talks to vigilantes who helped keep them safe, often at their own cost Like Vivien in Ridley Road, Barrie Milner was a hairdresser. In the evenings and weekends, however, he was more popularly known as ‘the head-butter’. He honed his skills at school in Hoxton, East London, where, as the only Jewish kid, he was called a ‘dirty Yid’ repeatedly unless he stopped the bullies first using either his fists or his head or, often, both. When Cambridge-educated neo-Nazi Colin Jordan announced the new fascist political party, the National Socialist Movement, in 1962, Barrie was only too glad to join the 62 Group. “I once headbutted Jordan,” admits Milner, now 79. “Grabbed him by the lapels and boom! I’m not proud of it, but I did what needed to be done. We knew how low fascism could go, so we had to go low too. We’d seen what the Nazis had done.” The 62 Group were central to a period of history few of us know about; when neo-Nazis spat out their Jew-hatred in Trafalgar Square, in the East End and in Birmingham, and attacked synagogues, while the authorities appeared to simply watch on. Now, Ridley Road is shining a light on them. The BBC series series, starring Eddie Marsan, Tracy-Ann Oberman and Rory Kinnear as Colin Jordan, follows the story of Vivien Epstein, played by newcomer Aggie O’Casey, a Jewish hairdresser from Manchester who infiltrates Jordan’s world in a bid to find her lover, an undercover member of the 62 Group, who has gone missing. While the story is fictional, there were plenty of men and women who disguised themselves as Nazis to infiltrate the world of the people who hated them most in order to stop Jordan and his army of fascists who marched under the banner ‘Free Britain from Jewish Control’. It wasn’t the first time vigilantes from the Jewish community had felt they needed to take action. In 1946, Jewish ex-servicemen, returning to England from fighting the Nazis and liberating the death camps, only to find that fascists were now on their doorstep – with synagogue arsons and Jewish areas vandalised with paint saying ‘Perish Judah’ – realised they had to fight force with force and set up the 43 Group (there were originally 43 of them). The group fought for 10 years, driving the fascist menace underground. But not for long. Jules Konopinski, who was a teenage member of the 43, was one of the founding members of the 62. A handbag designer, he was driving from his Surrey home to his work in the West End on Friday, 30 June 1962, when he saw a rally was being set up in Trafalgar Square. There was a giant stage with a banner reading: ‘Free Britain from Jewish Control’. For Konopinski – whose immediate family in Germany had narrowly escaped the Holocaust but who had lost almost all his other relations in the gas chambers – arriving in England in 1938, this was a sign the group needed to be reunited. That evening, a meeting of 20 was convened in Croydon to decide what to do. Westminster Council refused to countenance cancelling the

Aggie O’Casey as Vivien in a scene from BBC1’s Ridley Road

rally – the National Socialist Movement was a new political party and so had no black marks against its name. And even if they were going to scream out their poison about Jewish people, that was free speech. So those 20 called their friends, who called their friends. They had a new name, based on the year of their founding; the 62 Group. By the time the rally started, at 3pm on 2 July, there were 5,000 people there, and only 800 of them were fascists. “We wanted to stop them being underground so we made sure the press was there,” recalls Konopinski, now a sprightly 91-year-old. “We were surprised by the emergence of Colin Jordan’s group and were stunned to find out they even had a big headquarters in Notting Hill. We needed to find out who they were. And so there was a battle. It went on all over the streets, even spilling into the backstreets of Covent Garden.” The fascist threat was back and it wasn’t just Jordan. His former friend and now rival John Tyndall helped set up the Greater Britain Movement before going on to be chairman of the National Front – and in 1982 starting up the British National Party. Meanwhile, Oswald Mosley, having taken a back seat in fascist politics, was back in Britain and trying to win a parliamentary seat. The 62 Group had their hands full. Kono-

pinski, who attracted childhood friend Harold Pinter among others to the group (Pinter narrated films the group made), was one of the heads of the 62 Group and there were dozens of local chapters, based loosely on how the 43 Group had worked. Intel was key; if they knew there was a 62 Group member Barrie Milner, right meeting happening, not The Jewish authorities were never keen only would they get to the venue first and turn the stage over and lock the door, but they’d also on their tactics; labelling them hoodlums. But go to train stations to tell travelling would-be while the 62 Group faded from attention, their work continues. fascists to go home – with force, if required. The Community Security Trust was founded “We’d go to places like Charing Cross if we knew people were coming and we’d hide behind by members of the 62 Group, including Gerald the pillars until they got off the train,’’ recalls Ronson, who was famous for being particularly Konopinski. “We would then make sure they good with his fists. Searchlight, the magazine set knew that it wouldn’t pay to come to the fascist up by member Gerry Gable, continues to expose meeting in London. And yes, we’d beat them fascists, but this time working with the police. While the fascist menace isn’t as dangerous up if we had to.” Milner recalls the days when he would go to work as a hairdresser with a face as it once was, antisemitism has not gone away. full of cuts and bruises. “But we did it because But former members of the 62 Group continue to protect us. we had to.”

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 14 October 2021

News / Sacks’ legacy / Climate warning / JFS roles

‘Lord Sacks was my rabbi too,’ says Blair by Sandy Rashty

Tony Blair praised Israeli democracy, called for a return to centrist politics and attacked the “plague” of social media at an event on Monday. At the Spencer House event hosted by the Rabbi Sacks Legacy Trust, the former prime minister also paid a heartfelt tribute to the late Chief Rabbi, whom he described as a friend,

mentor, teacher and “my rabbi”. In conversation with journalist Matthew d’Ancona, Blair said he would “would talk about Israeli politics” with Jonathan Sacks, who died aged 72 last November after being diagnosed with cancer. “Israel has managed to continue to make progress because there is a core of things that hold people together and because they are prepared to debate vivaciously,” he said. “In the end

that is a strength, not a weakness, in democracy, provided the core – which I think is a profound attachment to Israel’s security – remains in.” Blair, who served as prime minister from 1997 to 2007, called for a return to centrist politics in the UK and the USA. He said there was a “demand” from voters, but little “supply” from political parties. The inaugural Sacks Conversation at London’s Spencer House “Most elections are won from the centre,” he said. “It is a supply you do undermine democracy because you delproblem – because activists in political parties egitimise them as political actors.” pull their parties further to the left, or further Blair also described social media as a “plague to the right. The question is how you deal with for politics”, but praised the Abraham Accords, the supply problem in circumstances where, the US-brokered declaration encouraging peace all over the western world, traditional polit- between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, ical parties have got a bad dose of ideology.” Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan. Blair, who said that under his premiership The event was also attended by Blair’s wife, he deliberately kept policies brought in by barrister Cherie Blair. Delivering the inaugural former Tory prime minister Baroness Mar- lecture, he talked at length about his friendship garet Thatcher, said: “One of the great ironies with Rabbi Sacks, saying: “A lot of what I used to of 21st-century politics is at the very moment do with Jonathan was, frankly, learn from him.” when the solutions to the world’s problems Speaking to the international audience, Blair have never been more practical, the world has said Rabbi Sacks was a teacher, guide, mentor got a bad dose of ideology. and friend. “It was the teacher role, which for “It’s a shame because in politics I found those me, stands out… He was a Jewish rabbi, but he things got in the way.” was also a rabbi for the universe. His teaching He added: “When you are conducting poli- was grounded in Judaism, but never contics of blame, and one group of people want to be strained by it. I regard him as my rabbi too. I victims of another group of people, it’s a totally know he will continue to inspire future generacounterproductive thing. It’s never how you get tions, Jewish or not.” on in life. You get on by working with people.” He added: “In a world often dominated by Criticising former Labour boss Jeremy debate within the frequently poisonous conCorbyn, whose leadership was riddled with fines of social media, his calm reason… accesaccusations of antisemitism, Blair said that ide- sible manner and intellectual curiosity, reminds ological entrenchment and refusal to work with us of how conversation, even over the most senanother political party “worries me sometimes”. sitive subjects, should be conducted.” He continued: “It did when the Labour Party Rabbi Sacks’ widow, Lady Elaine, thanked was under its previous leadership; if you end up participants and organisers, saying it had been seeing your opponents in that light, ultimately “an emotional year”.

ABCC8-RELATED HYPERINSULINISM BARDET-BIEDL SYNDROME BLOOM SYNDROME CANAVAN DISEASE CARNITINE PALMITOYLTRANSFERASE II DEFICIENCY CONGENITAL AMEGAKARYOCYTIC THROMBOCYTOPENIA CONGENITAL DISORDER OF GLYCOSYLATION IA CYSTIC FIBROSIS DIHYDROLIPAMIDE DEHYDROGENASE DEFICIENCY FAMILIAL DYSAUTONOMIA FANCONI ANAEMIA C FUMARASE DEFICIENCY GALACTOSEMIA GLYCOGEN STORAGE DISEASE 1A GLYCOGEN STORAGE DISEASE TYPE VII JOUBERT SYNDROME 2 MAPLE SYRUP URINE DISEASE TYPE 1B MUCOLIPIDOSIS IV NEMALINE MYOPATHY 2 NIEMANN PICK DISEASE POLYCYSTIC KIDNEY DISEASE, AUTOSOMAL RECESSIVE PRIMARY CILIARY DYSKINESIA SMITH-LEMLI-OPITZ SYNDROME TRYOSINEMIA TYPE 1 USHER SYNDROME TYPE IF USHER SYNDROME TYPE IIIA WALKER-WARBURG SYNDROME ZELLWEGER SYNDROME SPECTRUM (PEX2-RELATED) GLYCOGEN STORAGE DISEASE TYPE II/POMPE DISEASE SPINAL MUSCULAR ATROPHY TAY SACHS DISEASE USHER SYNDROME TYPE 2 FRAGILE X SYNDROME ACUTE INFANTILE LIVER FAILURE ASPARAGINE SYNTHETASE DEFICIENCY COSTEFF OPTIC ATROPHY SYNDROME CYSTINOSIS FANCONI ANEMIA, COMPLEMENTATION GROUP A GLYCOGEN STORAGE DISEASE TYPE III INFANTILE CEREBRAL CEREBELLAR ATROPHY MEGALENCEPHALIC LEUKOENCEPHALOPATHY WITH SUBCORTICAL CYSTS METACHROMATIC LEUKODYSTROPHY MITOCHONDRIAL COMPLEX I DEFICIENCY OMENN SYNDROME PROGRESSIVE CEREBELLOCEREBRAL ATROPHY 1 PROGRESSIVE CEREBELLO-CEREBREAL ATROPHY 2 WOLMAN DISEASE/ CHOLESTERYL ESTER STORAGE DISEASE ZELLWEGER SYNDROME SPECTRUM (PEX6-RELATED) Registered Charity No. 1134935

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Chief’s climate crisis warning The Chief Rabbi has warned climate change “threatens our world” ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, writes Joshua Salisbury. At an event called Carbon Zero, If Not Now When? at the Jewish Museum last Sunday, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis urged both individual and collective action. He told the EcoSynagogue event: “No one is an island, no one can say this has got nothing to do with me – we have to bear the responsibility individually and collectively for this horrifying situation which threatens our world and which threatens our grandchildren and our great grandchildren. “All of us together must play our part in guaranteeing that we fulfil

our religious obligation to do what we can.” An expert panel discussed the subject, featuring Jonathan Waxman, an entrepreneur, and Dr Michal Nachmany, a climate policy and governance expert. Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, the co-chair of EcoSyngogue, said: “Judaism tells us that we shall teach our children, but there won’t be Torah to teach our children if there isn’t a world in which they can live.” Marie van der Zyl, president of the Board of Deputies, said it was “one of the most important subjects not just for the Jewish community, not even just for humanity but for the entire planet”.

JFS APPOINTS ACTING HEADS JFS has appointed acting joint headteachers as it steps up the search for a permanent hire, writes Jack Mendel. Paul Ramsey and Anna Joseph will succeed Martin Tissot, who took up the position temporarily at the start of the school year. Ramsey joined JFS in September from St Albans’ Verulam School, where he spent 21 years, including 11 as headteacher. Joseph joined JFS in 2017, became assistant head in 2018, and was recognised for ‘promoting excellence in literacy in a secondary school’, at Jewish News’ 2019 Jewish Schools Awards. They will continue to be supported by Dame Joan McVittie and former Ofsted chief inspector Sir Michael Wilshaw. In a letter to parents, Andrew Moss, JFS’ chair of governors, also confirmed that Ofsted would “con-

duct a monitoring visit to the school in the short term”. The school was placed in special measures earlier this year and judged ‘inadequate’ by Ofsted with concerns about safeguarding and bullying. The letter said JFS is in the final stages of appointment a new permanent headteacher, which is of “paramount importance”, and said it had “received a great deal of interest in the position” and will conduct interviews this month. Moss added: “A tremendous amount of hard work has been undertaken by all staff” after the Ofsted report, and “considerable progress has been made on the ground and in particular (but not only) safeguarding has received a great deal of attention and focus”. He also updated parents about the proposal for JFS to join the Jewish Community Academy Trust. He

Joint head: Anna Joseph

said the school’s board met trustees of the Trust and representatives of the United Synagogue, under whose auspices it is run.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

14 October 2021 Jewish News

Irish antisemitism / Jewish Nobel / Dreyfus howler / News

Adopt IHRA, Ireland urged by Joshua Salisbury josh@jewishnews.co.uk

A shocking new report has raised concerns about antisemitism in Ireland after finding antiJewish tropes are commonly found in activism against Israel. The research by activist David Collier found examples of what it called “rampant antisemitism in anti-Israel activism”, with some activists becoming radicalised online. The 200-page study found examples of antiIsrael activists using antisemitic tropes in their campaigning, stating: “The word ‘Zionists’ has been unconscionably distorted. “Many of those featured knowingly use the word mendaciously and despicably. Their usage incontrovertibly crosses the line into antisemitism. You can see a radicalisation process, they start off relatively normal, and then get radicalised,” said Collier. “But it happens the other way as well, some [start] rabid antisemites and slowly they start talking about ‘anti-Zionism.’ They learn how to speak the language.” Among the examples given in the lengthy report include activists appearing to suggest that the infamously antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion was not a hoax, and a member of the Irish Parliament sharing a post alleging “Mossad interference” in the British General Election. The report calls for Ireland to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism and for an “educational drive” to tackle antisemitism.

Members of the Trinity BDS Campaign holding Palestinian flags (Source: Algemeiner.com)

Lost in translation Continued from page 1 choice to exclude a group of readers because of their national identity.” Dave Rich, director of communications at the Community Security Trust, said: “Hebrew isn’t an Israeli state product or invention. It’s a Jewish language and cultural boycotts are unavoidably boycotts of people not governments.” The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel said Palestinians “warmly welcomed” the author’s decision, while others said she had been misrepresented. The Labour MP Zarah Sultana showed her support for Rooney’s actions by tweeting her name with a heart symbol.  Editorial comment, page 18

“It is absolutely possible to both support

the Palestinians as well as the right of Israel to ABCC8-RELATED HYPERINSULINISM BARDET-BIEDL SYNDROME BLOOM SYNDROME exist behind safe and secure borders,” it states. CANAVAN“This DISEASE CARNITINE PALMITOYLTRANSFERASE II DEFICIENCY CONGENITAL is the message the Irish public should be hearing loud and clear.” AMEGAKARYOCYTIC THROMBOCYTOPENIA CONGENITAL DISORDER OF GLYCOSYLATION IA In response, the chair of the Jewish Representative Council Ireland, Maurice Cohen, CYSTIC FIBROSIS DIHYDROLIPAMIDE DEHYDROGENASE DEFICIENCY FAMILIAL DYSAUTONOMIA called on all political parties to adopt IHRA and FANCONI ANAEMIA CIrish FUMARASE DEFICIENCY GALACTOSEMIA GLYCOGEN STORAGE DISEASE for the government to appoint an envoy on is now offering testing antisemitism to the European Commission. 1A GLYCOGEN“The STORAGE DISEASE TYPE VII JOUBERT SYNDROME 2Jnetics MAPLE SYRUP URINE need for the above measures is urgent,” for 47 genetic disorders. he said. “They will not be covered in the proDISEASE TYPE 1B MUCOLIPIDOSIS IV NEMALINE MYOPATHY 2 NIEMANN PICK DISEASE posed new legislation on racism.” POLYCYSTICJackie KIDNEY DISEASE, AUTOSOMAL RECESSIVE PRIMARY CILIARY DYSKINESIA For more information about the Goodall, the executive director of the Ireland Israel Alliance, said she welcomed the SMITH-LEMLI-OPITZ SYNDROME TRYOSINEMIA TYPE 1 USHER SYNDROME TYPE IFprogramme USHER enhanced screening report “because it exposes a dark underbelly of horrific levels of antisemitism that disguises visit jnetics.org/screening SYNDROME TYPE IIIA WALKER-WARBURG SYNDROME ZELLWEGER SYNDROME SPECTRUM itself as anti-Zionism and which is evidenced (PEX2-RELATED)within GLYCOGEN DISEASE TYPE II/POMPE DISEASE SPINAL MUSCULAR our political andSTORAGE academic spaces, on our streets and elsewhere”. ATROPHY TAY SACHS DISEASE USHER SYNDROME TYPE 2 FRAGILE X SYNDROME ACUTE INFANTILE LIVER FAILURE ASPARAGINE SYNTHETASE DEFICIENCY COSTEFF OPTIC ATROPHY SYNDROME CYSTINOSIS FANCONI ANEMIA, COMPLEMENTATION GROUP A GLYCOGEN STORAGE DISEASE TYPE III INFANTILE CEREBRAL CEREBELLAR ATROPHY MEGALENCEPHALIC LEUKOENCEPHALOPATHY WITH SUBCORTICAL CYSTS METACHROMATIC LEUKODYSTROPHY MITOCHONDRIAL COMPLEX I DEFICIENCY OMENN SYNDROME PROGRESSIVE CEREBELLOCEREBRAL ATROPHY 1 PROGRESSIVE CEREBELLO-CEREBREAL ATROPHY 2 WOLMAN DISEASE/ Scarlett Johansson and the head of Pfizer are among six CHOLESTERYL ESTER STORAGE DISEASE ZELLWEGER SYNDROME SPECTRUM (PEX6-RELATED) Registered Charity No. 1134935

Vote online now for next Nobel laureate

names on the shortlist for the 2022 ‘Jewish Nobel’. Voting for the annual $1m Genesis Prize award opened to the global public on Monday, with six finalists announced by the Genesis Prize Foundation. The gong honours individuals for their achievements, contributions to humanity and commitment to Jewish values, with film-maker Steven Spielberg scooping 2021’s prize, for his work on Shoah education. Finalists this year include Albert Bourla, chairman and CEO of Pfizer, which helped vaccinate the world against Covid, the actors Sacha Baron Cohen and Scarlett Johansson, US fashion designer and philanthropist Diane von Furstenberg, and UK-based Israeli author and academic Yuval Noah Harari. The sixth name is Nazi hunter and human rights activist Serge Klarsfeld of France. Co-founder and chairman

BBC CRITICISED FOR ‘SPY DREYFUS’ DESCRIPTION The six finalists shortlisted for this year’s ‘Jewish Nobel’

of the Genesis Prize Foundation, Stan Polovets, said it was “an invitation to reflect on the meaning of Jewish achievement, how it impacts the world and shapes our modern identity”. He added: “Six extraordinary finalists represent Jewish talent in all its diversity: age, gender, geography, and professional achievement. We invite you to make your voice heard and vote for the 2022 Genesis

Prize Laureate.” Last year, 200,000 Jews on six continents each cast their vote for one of the finalists. The Genesis Prize Committee has the ultimate discretion in selecting the laureate. The 2022 laureate will be announced early in 2022, with a ceremony in the middle of next year, Covid permitting.  You can cast your vote here: https://bit.ly/ GPVote21JewishRel

The BBC has corrected the description of a programme that labelled Alfred Dreyfus, a soldier wrongly convicted of treason, as a “notorious Jewish spy”. Complaints were made about the new BBC Four French historical crime drama Paris Police 1900 this week, including from the head of Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) and Jewish actress Tracy-Ann Oberman. The programme is set against the backdrop of rumours that Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer wrongly convicted of spying, had been released from Devil’s Island, where he was sent after being found guilty. HET’s Karen Pollock tweeted: “I don’t understand how these things aren’t checked and somehow get through.” The BBC said it had changed the description of him on iPlayer, and a spokesperson said: “The sentence was not intended as an historical state-

Paris Police 1900 is inspired by real-life events

ment, but to reflect the rumours towards the Dreyfus case we see in the drama – which also depicts the rise of antisemitism.” The programme was created by graphic novelist Fabien Nury and is inspired by reallife event and delves into the dark side of the French capital.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 14 October 2021

News / Wheelchair innovation / Foundation role / Abuse trial

NHS installs Israeli-invented wheelchair docking stations

The docking system at an Israeli hospital

Two NHS hospitals will be the first in the UK to introduce an innovative wheelchair docking station thanks to a partnership with an Israeli company, writes Joshua Salisbury. Wheelchair-sharing stations from Israeli company Wheelshare will be installed at the Northumbria Specialist Emergency Care Hospital, and North Tyneside General Hospital. The 24/7 and free-of-charge wheelchair docking stations aim to end the problem of patients or visitors needing wheelchairs and not being able to find one at the right time. “We’re really pleased to be leading the way on this and becoming the first hospitals in the country to install this technology, as we look to ensure the best possible experience for patients and visitors to our sites,” said Damon Kent,

managing firector of Northumbria Healthcare Facilities Management – the Trust’s estates subsidiary. Nir Tobis, from Wheelshare, said traditional hospital provision of wheelchairs often resulted in low availability and issues for patients finding a chair when needed. “Our innovative docking stations offer a user-friendly solution and we pride ourselves on providing a service that really makes a difference to patients, visitors and staff, ensuring they can easily access a chair so their visit to hospital is as smooth as possible,” he said. The docking system will have a round-theclock maintenance helpline to ensure the chairs are fit for purpose. The system will be trialled for 12 months in the first instance.

Shoah Foundation educator steps down A British-born Holocaust educator of Southern California, has been is stepping down as chief executive a world leader in recording Shoah of the USC Shoah Foundation. testimony using technology. Stephen Smith penned a heartIn this open letter, Smith said felt letter to ‘survivors of the Shoah Spielberg made “two promises to and genocides the world over’. you when he established the Shoah The foundation, established by Foundation. The first was that your legendary director Steven Spiel- testimonies would be preserved in berg based at theJAN University perpetuity. The 16:04 second promise HALFand PAGE ADVERT 2020:Layout 1 09/01/2020 Page 1

was that we would teach with your testimonies around the globe. “Today, hundreds of universities and millions of school students learn from you every year.” Smith, who founded the UK Holocaust Centre in Nottingham with his brother James, announced that after 12 years at the helm of

USCSF he would be leaving and said it had been “the greatest honour of my life to work with you, to bring light to our world through your voices”. Smith will continue to serve as executive director emeritus and Dr Kori Street will become interim executive director.

CROWN COURT TO TRY MEN OVER CONVOY Four men charged with yelling antisemitic abuse from a car in a ‘Convoy for Palestine’ protest will be tried by a crown court jury. Mohammed Iftikhar Hanif, 27, Jawaad Hussain, 24, Asif Ali, 25 and Adil Mota (pictured), 26, all from Blackburn, Lancashire, were said to be part of a convoy travelling through St John’s Wood. Hanif and Ali, both of Pringle Street, Hussain, of Revidge Road and Mota, of Leamington Road Blackburn, are charged with using threatening, abusive or insulting words, or behaviour, with intent, likely to stir up racial hatred. They appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court and spoke only to confirm their names and addresses. Their lawyers indicated they would all be denying the charges. Kathryn Selby, prosecuting, said flags were waved from the car on the road that houses the Jewish Centre and witnesses heard chants including ‘f*** all of them, f*** the mothers, f*** the daughters’. They were bailed ahead of a plea and trial preparation hearing at Wood Green Crown Court on 3 November.

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14 October 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Minyan role / Baroness complaint / News

Trans woman makes a minyan A transgender woman agreed to be the tenth male in a synagogue minyan after the rabbi ruled it was acceptable as she was born a man. The unnamed woman was included in the 10-person minyan (the minimum number of males required to comprise a Jewish congregation) at Liverpool’s independent Princes Road Synagogue on Tuesday, 21 September, the first full day of Succot, the Jewish Telegraph reported. The synagogue’s Rev Yigal Wachmann told the newspaper: “According to Jewish law, she can be counted in a minyan and we

The rabbi at Liverpool’s Princes Road agreed to include her

were one person short. We took into account her sensitivities. I asked her permission so as not to

offend her. She was fine with it.” The newspaper said she sat in the synagogue’s ladies section for the service and quoted Dayan Gavriel Krausz, former head of the Manchester Beth Din, who said she could be included in an all-male minyan provided she adhered to the tenets of the religion. However, he is quoted as stating: “A man cannot become a woman just by an operation. If you are born a man, you are a man,” and called cross-dressing “despicable” and added “he” could be included, but “should not get an aliyah”.

BBC MILLER REPORT ‘BIASED’ Crossbench peer Ruth Deech has complained to the BBC over its “inaccurate” and “biased” reporting of the sacking of Bristol University’s professor David Miller, writes Joshua Salisbury. The sociology professor was finally sacked by Bristol last week after a long, drawn-out disciplinary process, sparked after he accused the Jewish Society of being “pawns” of a “violent, racist foreign regime”, and called for an “end to Zionism”, among other comments. The inflammatory tirade led to Jewish students reporting a surge in abuse sent to them as a result of the academic’s comments. But in reporting the incident, the BBC claimed in a headline Miller had been fired over comments about Israel. Speaking to Jewish News editor Richard Ferrer on the Jewish News Podcast, Deech said: “The headlines the BBC and other press gave the incident are almost as damaging. The BBC reported

it as ‘professor sacked for talking about Israel’. That’s inaccurate and biased because it gives the impression that you can’t talk about Israel and that free speech is under attack. “That’s simply not what he was dismissed for, even by the university’s own standards.” The peer said she had also made a separate complaint to another media organisation over its coverage, and was waiting to see the outcome of the BBC complaint. Miller has reportedly vowed to fight his sacking, and still has an internal right of appeal. In a statement last week, the university claimed an independent report from an unnamed QC found that Miller’s comments were not unlawful, but also said he “did not meet the standards of behaviour we expect from our staff ”. The BBC has been contacted for comment.

Limmud question stumps The Beast The Chase star Mark Labbett was left stumped in the final moments of the ITV quiz show last week when confronted with something he’d never heard of before: Limmud. Labbett, nicknamed “The Beast” for his fearsome frame and general knowledge, was thrown when host

Bradley Walsh asked: “The charity Limmud is associated with what religion?” He needed to answer the question correctly to try to prevent his rival team of four from walking away with a £20,000 prize. But he hesitated before venturing: “Islam”.

Limmud, the British-Jewish educational charity that organises an acclaimed annual winter learning festival over the Christmas and new year period, wrote on its Facebook page: “The Beast is welcome to come along to our next event and brush up on his Jewish

What is the difference between life and death? 15 seconds. 40cm. 42mm.

general knowledge.” The incorrect answer meant the question was thrown to his rivals, who deliberated for a few seconds. One team member suggested the word sounded like Hebrew, leading to them agree on the correct answer was Judaism.

Mark Labbett answered question incorrectly

Only one mile from Gaza and under constant threat of terror, Sderot’s residents have only 15 seconds to find shelter when the siren sounds. Makif Gutvirt Klali High School is too old and does not meet local safety requirements or protection from rockets. Imagine being a student in this school, knowing you only have a few seconds to try and get to safety in a building that is not safe. Sderot’s new, rocket-proof high school will include 40cm thick reinforced ceilings and walls and 42mm glazed windows. Becoming a place of safety – not fear. JNF UK is working to raise funds for this vital and ambitious project.

Please make our vision a reality. By supporting this appeal you can ensure the safety of the children of Sderot.

DONATE NOW www.jnf.co.uk/rhjn3 Registered Charity Number: 225910

Freephone 0800 901 333

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

Special Report / Holocaust exhibition

New look at Shoah history through unseen objects and unheard voices by Jenni Frazer @JenniFrazer

It’s the little things that catch at the heart: a bridal wreath sent to Britain on the Kindertransport; the pearl tie-pin deposited at a London branch of Barclays Bank by Marek Kellerman, a brush salesman from Bratislava, who never returned to retrieve it; a caption showing that one young Jewish woman’s parents sent her off to Britain to be a domestic servant, armed with the twin “necessities” of a cookbook and an evening dress, primed to be ready for any occasion. Then there are bigger things: Gena Turgel’s wedding dress from her marriage in Belsen after liberation; an original railway carriage, typical of those used to deport the Jews of Belgium to the camps; an entire wall of more than 100 documents showing the paperwork mandatory for just one family to leave Austria; and, in front of the railway carriage, a row of almost unreadable “last letters”, flung from trains by Jews on their way to death camps that are impossible to look at without tears. The Imperial War Museum (IWM)’s magnificent new Holocaust and Second World War galleries open to the public, with free entry, from Wednesday, 20 October, and each features

Preservation technician Emily Thomas cleans a rail wagon of the type used to transport victims to camps

“unseen objects, untold stories, unheard voices”. Even for the Jewish visitor who believes they have a familiarity with the Holocaust, there is so much to discover in the new galleries. With their

opening, IWM becomes the first museum in the a hint of the catastrophe waiting in the wings. And simultaneously we are introduced to world to house dedicated Second World War and Holocaust galleries under the same roof, the theme of “totems” – life-size figures whose allowing visitors to understand the connection pictures appear throughout the exhibition, enabetween the progress of the war and the indus- bling us to meet them eye-to-eye. It is a striking thing to do and is at its most chilling in a display trial-scale genocide against the Jews. The project has been six years in the making showing the most senior Nazis, those closest and cost £30.7 million. The attention to detail to Hitler. Here is Goebbels, with Goring and is incredible: many of the Holocaust rooms are Himmler close by. Some of the material has been lent to the brightly-lit spaces – because, as one of the curators told Jewish News, “We wanted to show that IWM by Yad Vashem and the Wiener Holocaust the Nazis did nothing in secret. Their crimes Library. Those familiar with the latter’s collection of Nazi “board games” will be unsurprised took place in open daylight.” Many of the thousands of artefacts, films to see its loan of the repulsive game, ‘Juden and pictures were in the museum’s previous Raus’ (Jews Out), in which players had to collect Holocaust collection, but many more are a Jewish figure and dispatch them to Palestine. The IWM curanew and differtors believe the ently displayed. For Holocaust was not example, a section inevitable up until on “book-burning” Operation Barwould perhaps prebarossa and the viously have shown Nazi invasion of books on the floor the Soviet Union or pictures of book in June 1941. But bonfires. Now the as the tide of war “books” (wooden began to turn facsimiles) are against the Axis restored to the powers, the frenzy shelves, so the The exhibition’s life-size figures of senior Nazis to kill Europe’s visitor can pick out works by, say, Sigmund Freud, and discover the Jews grew and grew, first with their walling up in ghettos and then with their transport by train author’s fate. Another of the objects is a tallit that Rabbi to the death camps. And the cries of the victims – and those about Nicky Liss of Highgate Synagogue helped to install, alongside specialist conservators at to become victims – are louder on the exhibition the museum, including a textiles expert. The walls. One man writes: “Shall we go? and if so, prayer shawl is accompanied by a quote from how?” Herta Nathorff, a paediatrician, says bitschoolboy Klaus Langer in November 1938, terly: “Father says he didn’t want to sell the company. The name – it should go under, with us.” about the Kristallnacht pogrom. Of all the thousands of images in this extraorWe begin – and, bearing in mind many visitors will be schoolchildren aged 14 plus – in the dinary permanent exhibition, one picture is most heartwarming way, showing Jewish fami- seared in the mind of one of the curators. “It’s lies enjoying their lives before the war. Here a young woman holding a baby. It’s the last are thousands of ever-changing pictures and moments of their lives. She’s waiting to be shot.” The museum is publishing a book of untold films of Orthodox and secular Jews in central Europe, laughing and messing about in boats, or personal stories, The Holocaust, by IWM like Graziella Falco from Milan, celebrating her historian James Bulgin, also on 20 October. batmitzvah. There are football matches, swim- Personal stories feature in the illustrated mers and skiers, musicians, people shopping Total War, A People’s History, by Kate Clements, or strolling by a beach. In other words, you and Paul Cornish and Vikki Hawkins, published in me; people going about their daily lives with not partnership with the IWM.

14 October 2021 Jewish News

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Herzog visit / Millwall poster / Hate book / Chelsea fan / News

Israeli president will visit UK next month by Justin Cohen Justin@jewishnews.co.uk @CohenJust

Isaac Herzog is set to make Britain one of the first foreign stops of his presidency with a visit next month, Jewish News can reveal. The 11th president of Israel, who only took office this summer, will touch down in London for a trip that will include a glittering dinner honouring the life and legacy of former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, who died last November aged 71. The event is hosted by The Genesis Prize Foundation. Herzog is also expected to attend an intimate tea at Stamford Bridge to view an exhibition of artwork of leading athletes athletes who were killed in the Holocaust. The 49 Flames project was sponsored by Roman Abramovich and media partnered by Jewish News. Although it’s not believed to be a full state visit, Herzog will follow in the footsteps of his Dublin-born father, Chaim, who travelled to the UK when he served as the sixth president of Israel. Herzog has often spoken with pride about his father’s British links, which

Israeli president Isaac Herzog has spoken with pride of his father’s British links

included signing up to fight with the British army against the Nazis. The current president attended a Jewish News reception at the British ambassadors residence in 2018 to mark the launch of our aliyah 100 project, in which both his father and uncle were featured. He said at the time visiting the residence aged eight when his father was

knighted brought home the “special connection” between the two nations. He added: “Aliyah is something you carry with you throughout your life and your children’s lives. “We can’t escape our British roots and are proud of them, although sometimes we can be critical of the ancient motherland.”

Club removes neo-Nazi poster A “disgraceful” antisemitic poster put up by Millwall football hooligans has been removed by the club and reported to police, writes Jack Mendel. The club took down a sign that had the words Achtung Juden [Jews beware], the Tottenham Hotspur symbol and blood. The poster included the symbol of hooligan group Millwall Berserkers, which has previously posted the neoNazi odal rune on its Instagram page, a Nazi-style eagle and death threats to the left. After the club reported having removed the poster from a cycle path by its stadium, near Bermondsey station, it said: “Millwall Football Club has a zero-tolerance policy against discrimination of any kind. This is a disgraceful action, which the club immediately reported to the British Transport Police. “Millwall will provide full and comprehensive cooperation with their investigation and any individual or group

The antisemitic poster

identified will be banned from the club for life.” Paula Griffin, who noticed the sticker and shared it on social media, said she has got “used to some pretty nasty stickers that the club apparently seems fit to leave there… Seems to have reached a new level of hate when people in England feel they can post up such antisemitic stuff as this”. Spurs has a historic connection to the Jewish community, and rival London clubs have been accused of using antisemitic rhetoric. Millwall Supporters Club has been asked to comment.

AMAZON’S DENIAL PROFIT that is deemed to be offensive on Amazon is profiting from the sales of the grounds of race and sexual a book written by the leader of a farorientation and that it will not right group, which includes the claim that white people are “pushed” to promote individuals found guilty feel guilt over the “alleged extermiof violence. But Collett’s book nation of six million Jews”. appears in the political science catThe Fall of the Western Man,, egory on its website, an investigawritten by Patriotic Alternative tion by The Times revealed. The tech giant provides a printleader Mark Collett, is being sold for between £15 and £20 by the to-order paperback book service tech company. for writers in its Kindle Direct PubDuring its 324 pages Collett’s lishing service. Under the terms and conditions Amazon keeps book states that Hitler’s Nuremat least 30 percent of royalties. berg rallies were “something Caption here please Projections show that writers that one would have been proud to be part of”. Elsewhere in the book he suggests give up 85 percent of the books’ sale price. The Fall of the Western Man has nearly 150 the “established Holocaust narrative” has been reviews on Amazon, with two-thirds giving it made an “almost unquestionable truth”. Amazon has claimed that it bans material four or five star ratings.

Fan admits Nazi tweets A Chelsea fan posted antisemitic tweets aimed at Tottenham supporters, including pictures of Auschwitz and a Nazi salute, a court has heard. Nathan Blagg, 21, is facing a possible jail term after pleading guilty at Westminster Magistrates’ Court last Friday to seven counts of sending offensive messages. Prosecutor David Roberts said there was a “racially aggravated” element to the offences between 29 September 2020 and 5 February this year because of their “antisemitic nature”. The court heard that Blagg posted a picture of the train tracks to Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz on Twitter with the message: “Spurs are on their way to Auschwitz.” Another post featured an image of former health secretary

Matt Hancock holding a microphone purportedly saying the same words. Other tweets sent by Blagg included a photo and a video of Nazi salutes being performed, while one message read: “Yids tomorrow, which means for the next 48 hours I can tweet as much antisemitism as I want without being told off.” The following day, Blagg, from Retford, Nottinghamshire, tweeted: “Gas a Jew, Jew, Jew.” He also retweeted a fake picture of former Chelsea midfielder and manager Frank Lampard celebrating over a mass Holocaust grave. Maeve Thornton, defending, said Blagg, who works in road construction, now understands how wrong his behaviour was. Sentencing was adjourned until 5 November for reports.

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

World News / Ice cream aftermath / Peres claims / Merkel visit / Sher mourned / World Cup

Ben & Jerry: claims are ‘absurd’ The founders of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream say they stand behind the company’s decision to stop selling its products in the West Bank. But for Jerry Greenfield, being accused of antisemitism is “painful”. For Ben Cohen, it’s “absurd”. “I think Ben & Jerry’s and Unilever are being characterised as boycotting Israel, which is not the case at all,” Greenfield said in an interview with the Axios show that aired on HBO on Sunday. “It’s not boycotting Israel in any way.” The Jewish duo, who founded the company in 1978, no longer own it but remain its most recognisable public faces. They had previously defended the West Bank decision in a New York Times article shortly after the move took place in July, but the Axios interview gave them a chance to expound on the human side of the aftermath. “I understand people being upset... it’s a very

Ice cream pair Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield

painful issue for a lot of people,” Greenfield said. They were also asked how it felt to be “wrapped up in accusations of antisemitism”. “It’s absurd,” Cohen said. “What, I’m antiJewish? I’m a Jew! All my family is Jewish, my friends are Jewish.” Ben & Jerry’s had long been engaged in social

issues when it pulled its product from the West Bank, after months of pressure from pro-Palestinian activists following Israel’s latest armed conflict with Gaza. The decision prompted calls to boycott Ben & Jerry’s and its parent company Unilever, along with accusations of antisemitism from some pro-Israel activists. Arizona divested nearly $200 million from Unilever in September, and other states have since reviewed their investments in the conglomerate. Unilever has also said in public statements that it does not believe Ben & Jerry’s is boycotting Israel, and it plans to keep selling within the borders Israel established after the Six-Day War in 1967. However, Israeli law outlaws business that boycotts the West Bank, so it remains to be seen whether the company will be allowed to follow through with its plan.

‘Peres sexually assaulted me’ A former member of the Knesset has alleged room, “and my legs were shaking when I left there, that the late president Shimon Peres sexually it repulsed me”. The former MK, who worked assaulted her twice in the 1980s, including one closely with Peres for many years afterwards, time when he was prime minister. said that for two years after the incident she Colette Avital told Haaretz newspaper that avoided seeing him. She also alleged that Peres she was summoned to Peres’s office, while he had sexually assaulted her several years before was serving as prime minister in 1984. The pair in Paris, where she served as a senior diplomat. discussed jobs she could hold in his adminisColette Avital: Asked why she worked with Peres again, tration after her return as a diplomat in Paris. accusations she said: “I didn’t imagine he would try again. As she got up to leave, Avital told the paper, During that time I admired him, in terms of “He pressed me against the door suddenly and tried thinking, talent, and his creativity. For me, he was the to kiss me.” She said she pushed him away and left the model of an open and thoughtful Israeli statesman.”

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Merkel in Shoah promise to Israel Outgoing German chancellor Angela Merkel has promised her country will preserve its postHolocaust commitment to Israel. Making her eighth and final visit to Israel as she concludes her 16-year term, she met Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and was scheduled to tour the Yad Vashem memorial. “The topic of Israel’s security will always be of central importance and a central topic of every German government,” Merkel said during a meeting with Bennett. Attending a session of his cabinet, she added: “It is a gift of history, to which Israel contributed much, that Germany can sit here at a table with you today since the history of the Shoah is a singular event for which we continue to bear responsibility in every phase of history, including in the future.”

AMERICA’S NAZI HUNTER DIES The United States’ chief Nazi hunter who helped deport dozens of Nazis from the country has died, aged 74. Neal Sher, who led the Justice Department’s Office of Special Investigations (OSI) for 11 years and was director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee,died

Neal Sher died aged 74

in Manhattan, his widow, Bonnie Kagan, told friends. The dapper Sher cut

a dashing figure during the 1980s. At press conferences he would unveil former Nazis living contented lives in American suburbia. Sher worked for the OSI first as a litigator from 1979, the year it was set up, and then as its director from 1983 to 1994.

Goal of World Cup in Israel looks achievable A future World Cup tournament hosted by Israel and its neighbours is a step closer to reality thanks to the Abraham Accords, FIFA’s president Gianni Infantino has said. He claimed during his first official visit to Israel that a jointly hosted tournament was a possibility as world football’s governing body considers expanding the format for the men’s and women’s games. There has been speculation that some tournaments could be held annually. “Why can’t we dream of the World Cup in Israel and its neighbours?” he asked at the opening of the Friedman Centre, a think-tank launched in Jerusalem by the former US ambassador to Israel David Friedman. “With the Abraham Accords, why should we not do it here in Israel with her neighbours in the Middle East and the Palestinians?” Infantino also pointed to Israel’s national team, in which Jewish and Arab Israelis routinely play alongside each other, as an example of coexistence inspired by sport.

FIFA’s Gianni Infantino (left) and David Friedman in Israel

The first FIFA World Cup in the Middle East is set to take place in Qatar at the end of next year, amid widespread criticism of the nomination process and the host’s human rights record. But the philanthropist Sylvan Adams told a separate event on Tuesday that an Israeli-hosted event could be held as early as 2030. He told the Jerusalem Post’s annual conference that he was in contact with FIFA about the possibility of organising a

regional World Cup at the end of this decade in Israel. “I am willing to help, as I did with the Giro d’Italia [cycle] race, but we need the government’s help,” he said in remarks addressed to finance minister Avigdor Lieberman. No host has yet been awarded for the 2030 FIFA World Cup, although several candidates have emerged – including a possible joint bid that would unite the four nations of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

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14 October 2021 Jewish News

Jewish News meets... Michael Wegier

‘We’re not a community of extremes’ Newly-appointed Board of Deputies chief executive Michael Wegier says anyone trying to drag the 260-year-old umbrella organisation of British Jews away from the centre ground on his watch ‘will find trouble’, writes Lee Harpin

ew Board of Deputies chief executive Michael Wegier has described himself as a “passionate moderate” – and revealed his determination to ensure that the communal organisation continues to reflect what he believes is the majority opinion among UK Jewry. In his first big interview since being appointed to the role at the Board, Wegier conceded that he was “concerned” there has been a “sharpening of views on both left and right” within the community recently, particularly over issues such as Israel. But he also stressed his belief that the “majority of British Jews” retain opinions and political views well away from the extremes – and insisted that the Board needed to position itself to reflect this. Wegier also admitted he had previously underestimated how influential a body the Board was, both to Jews in this country and those abroad, and to wider civil society. Asked by Jewish News about the often thorny topic of relations with the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) communal body, Wegier said he did not believe a merger with the Board was a “desirable option” nor was it “even on the cards right now”. He also expressed some relief that after the progress made under Sir Keir Starmer’s leadership, the Board’s role was to now “watch closely” the path taken by Labour, rather than to react angrily as had been the case under Jeremy Corbyn. Wegier, born in Palmers Green, north London, is a communal leader, educator and former chief executive of the United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA). He was appointed in April as interim chief executive at the Board, following Gillian Merron’s departure to the House of Lords. His full-time appointment in the role, which he said was “not a foregone conclusion” , was confirmed last month. Six months after starting at the Board, Wegier’s obviously passionate belief that most Jews do not attach themselves to extreme positions shone through as he spoke. But over

the past 12 months, he also conceded that he had become “very concerned” that “quite bitter” arguments had emerged among some British Jews. There had been, he said, tensions within the Board itself as elections were held in May for the role of president after the incumbent Marie van der Zyl faced an unexpected challenge from Jonathan Neumann. Then, in May, the conflict between Israel and Hamas exposed further tensions over Israel’s relations with the Palestinians. “I really don’t like the fact that sometimes these arguments have become a little bit too bitter,” said Wegier. “That did come out in the Board election. “My inclination is to be quite centrist. I am very strongly committed to the Jewish people, to Israel, to Zionism. But on all of those issues I am a centrist. I don’t think extremes are good for the Jewish community, or indeed the Jewish people.” Saying he will “of course” work with anyone in the community, he adds: “Anyone who tries to drag the Board in either direction [left or right] is going to get into trouble.” Wegier said he had now set himself the mission to “decrease the tension around the politics of Israel”, although he is not of the view that recent internal arguments within the community are unprecedented. “Things flare up from time to time,” he reflects, highlighting the split among UK Jewry in the 1920s over the merits of Zionism. With the rise of the Nazis, the Second World War and emergence of Israel as a state, things would calm down again. But tensions re-emerged after the Six Day War of 1967 and the 1982 Lebanon War, then calmed once again when the Oslo Accords appeared to offer the prospect of peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Observing that there has once again been “a sharpening of views on both left and right”, he pointed to those involved with what he describes as “advocacy groups” as being among those who are “pretty sharp in their opinions”. While he applauds the “passion and energy” of those on the left and

Michael Wegier speaking at a Jewish News event in Tel Aviv in 2018 and, inset, with Board colleague Phil Rosenberg

right, Wegier said there needed to be attempts made by organisations such as the Board to “do what we can to lower the tensions”. In a clear rebuke to the hot-heads, he added: “All of us should have the interests of the Jewish people and of Israel in our hearts.” Wegier’s experience in communal organisations in the UK, Israel and America, means he is well-qualified to make such assessments. In total he had spent about 15 “wonderful” years at UJIA, half of these as chief executive, also as director of programmes and as an educator. Prior to that he served as chief executive of the Melitz Educational Centres in Israel. For three years he had taught at Baltimore’s Jewish Community Centre in the United States. Growing up in Palmers Green, Wegier’s parents had been members of the Brownlow Road shul, which he says had been “my community” before he made aliyah in 1990. He met his Chilean-born wife, Daniela Greiber, in Jerusalem, while they both worked for the Jewish Agency. Their three children now all live in Israel, the eldest studying at Tel Aviv university, the middle child on an internship at Deloitte, having just graduated, while their youngest daughter is doing a gap year, a mechinah, also in Tel Aviv/Jaffa. Wegier concedes that after 15

years at UJIA it was time to move on, and he praised the work already done over the past 18 months by his successor there, Mandie Winston. The offer of the interim CEO role at the Board happened suddenly but he quickly settled into the role, and understood what the Board represented. “I came to realise just how important it is,” he says. “I don’t only mean in the Jewish community. “I now see just how much political, civil society and faith communities really do care about what the Board does and says. I have to say, I didn’t really have a strong enough awareness of that from the outside.” In one of his first major projects, Wegier worked with colleagues at the Board to launch its first ever awareness and fundraising campaign. The #WeStandForEveryBODy campaign is aimed at improving the community’s understanding of its work and increasing the proportion of shul members who pay the annual communal contribution, its main source of income. Wegier says the Board’s finances are “stable” but the organisation also needs to do “some bespoke fundraising”. “The campaign is just one stage. Our financial model is built on synagogues and other organisations paying to join as members.” The Board’s other real strength, he says, is the fact that unlike many Jewish organisations across the

globe, “our democracy is absolutely essential to the core of who we are”. Wegier praises the Board’s “small professional staff” members but reflects on the fact the “overwhelming majority of people who are involved are there because they have been elected by their communities”. He points to the fact that the Board has just one Deputy from the Charedi community as something that could be improved – although he says the body does reach out and listen to the wider opinion of the strictly Orthodox communities. And there is acknowledgement that some members of the community can feel very Jewish in themselves, without belonging to a shul, or being involved with any communal organisations. “It is not a zero sum game,” says Wegier. “The Board is not a perfect representation of British Jewry, but it’s pretty damn good.” Just as important is Wegier’s working relationship with the Board president. Wegier says he has found van der Zyl “a pleasure to work with, adding: “Marie has very strong opinions on certain things. I would say we agree on most things, and occasionally we will disagree respectfully. “That’s exactly how it should be between a president, or the chairperson and her chief executive.” He is keen to avoid the arguments that have blown up around the Board’s working relationship with the Jewish Leadership Council. Ruling out a merger in the shortterm, he says: “They are a network made up of different communal charities and organisations – their job is to reflect them. We are a democratic elected body. It is two different types of organisations.” He did, however, add: “I am absolutely in favour of collaboration, of working together, of not duplicating resources.”

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

Editorial comment and letters ISSUE NO.

1232

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

We’d like to have a few Send us your comments words about morality Don’t forget the terrorism PO Box 815, Edgware, HA8 4SX | letters@jewishnews.co.uk

Sally Rooney no doubt thinks she’s as refreshingly woke as a tub of Ben & Jerry’s vegan-friendly ice cream. Not so. The popular Irish author is more broken than awoken. In denying the Israeli company she previously employed the rights to translate her latest book, Beautiful World, Where Are You?, into Hebrew, Rooney lamented: “I do not feel it would be right to accept a new contract with an Israeli company that does not distance itself from apartheid.” The literary world will surely not wait long for this paragon of virtue to cancel the translation of her novels into Mandarin, Russian, Turkish, Arabic and every other tongue spoken in states where free speech is punishable by imprisonment or death. Reserving dubious ire for just one language out of the 46 her books are read in doesn’t just defy morality but simple common sense. To be on entirely safe ground, Rooney might consider miming her next novel. It’s been written before in these pages but bears repetition: Israeli society pays a heavy price for the status quo in the West Bank, where almost 500,000 settlers live in territory identified by countries, including the UK, for a future Palestinian state. A 2017 poll showed only 37 percent of Israelis support settlers. There are many reasons why settlers feel emboldened, not least the horse-trading of Israeli coalitions and internecine conflict and Iraniansponsored terrorism at the heart of the Palestinian national movement. This frustrating, complex, heartbreaking stalemate is not helped – perhaps it’s even exacerbated – by senseless selective indignation.

How wrong and misguided can a Jew be? Alas, your columnist Danielle Bett (Jewish News, 30 September) is just one of many. Palestinian terrorism and violence is real and existed well before the 1967 ‘occupation’. This fact does justify every checkpoint and every curtailment of movement and is not used as an excuse for Israel’s military presence. Mahmoud Abbas and virtually every Palestinian cannot bring themselves to recognise Israel as the land of the Jews; the Lib Dems’ Layla Moran (inset) knows too well the cost of such an acknowledgement. It is therefore disingenuous of her to claim she supports Israel alongside Palestine. We know the kind of Israel she supports, as she is also for the return of Palestinian refugees.

Sketches & kvetches

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It is curious that the one international law Danielle Bett et al never mention is the one that gave the Jews 22 percent of Palestine, an area from the river to the sea: the 1922 League of Nations law endorsed unanimously by its 51 members on the basis of the Jews’ indigeneity and millennia-old association with it. This law remains valid. Using the futuristic ‘Israel-Palestine’ does not change the fact that there has never been a national entity called Palestine, nor does it reflect the current reality on the ground. Carving out Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the Jewish nation, and handing it over to a new and hostile entity would be an act of folly and an abrogation of morality and justice. Eda Spinka, Hendon Danielle Bett, communications director of Yachad, calls on us to recognise Palestinian “suffering” to enable the “dream of a two-state solution” for peace. Yet the vast majority of Israelis now reject that “solution” because they have seen that giving up land to people openly calling for Israel’s destruction brings terror and real suffering to Israeli citizens, as Gaza proved. Former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir famously said that the barrier to peace is ideological, not territorial, namely the refusal of the Arabs to accept that Jews have the right to sovereignty in any part of the Middle East. Let Yachad first get the Palestinian Authority to remove articles in its charter calling for Israel’s destruction, as Oslo demanded, and remove the vile antisemitic and anti-Israel indoctrination in Palestinian schools before lecturing Israel on peace. The rest of her diatribe is just a propaganda exercise for the Palestinian Authority and Hamas, divorced from the truth. A supporter of Israel does not consistently criticise Israeli policies …. demonisation in real terms. Yachad’s Twitter feed reveals that the organisation has nothing good to say about the world’s sole Jewish state. James R Windsor, E11

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Editorial comment and letters

FEELS GOOD TO STANLEY SET FOR BE BACK IN SHUL 170TH DONATION For Simchat Torah at Edgware and Hendon Reform Synagogue, there were about 50 in the congregation wearing masks. As the choir, separated by polyglass, sang, the scrolls were paraded around for the first time in 18 months, handed from person to person and carried with gloved hands. The return of the Kiddush was welcomed with the long-awaited arrival of individual portions of cakes, crisps and fish goujons. It felt great to be back with the community. Kay Bagon, Radlett

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Yachad tells part of the story Hannah Weisfeld of Yachad expresses the views of many, but is it the whole story (Jewish News, 7 October)? She suggests the “two-state solution” is the remedy for the suffering of the Palestinians. Does she advise imposing this on them when their leaders have repeatedly announced that they will never accept the existence of a Jewish state? Is she aware Palestinian leaders have refused to accept their own state at least six times?

She criticises Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Does Jordan’s 19-year annexation and occupation of Judea and Samaria, ethnic cleansing of all Jews living there, and renaming the land ‘West Bank’ turn land designated unanimously by the League of Nations as a Jewish homeland, turn historic Jewish land into Palestinian land? A problem can only be fixed if the true cause is addressed. Nomi Benari, Hendon

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Bravo to students who refused to be cowered MARIE VAN DER ZYL PRESIDENT, BOARD OF DEPUTIES

n the 1970s and 80s, in the wake of an infamous UN resolution on Zionism, far-left activists attempted to ban Jewish societies from campuses around the country, under the guise of ‘anti-racism’. In a couple of cases, they succeeded.” But Jewish students and their allies fought back. It was a profound comfort to British Jews then, reeling from near-constant delegitimisation attempts, to know that those representing the future of our community were determined to fight against this prejudice and injustice. And indeed, some of the key voices defending Jewish students and Jewish societies on campus back then are among our most prominent communal figures today. Unfortunately, it seems as if every generation must re-learn lessons taught just a few decades before. The latest example has come from Bristol, which recently saw the culmination of a protracted battle between those who would deny Jewish students and their organisations any legitimacy, and those

willing to challenge this bigotry. Once again, Jewish student leaders, both in Bristol’s Jewish Society and in the Union of Jewish Students, stood up and refused to back down. We at the Board, along with other communal organisations such as the Community Security Trust and Jewish Leadership Council, will always do what we can to support and protect Jewish students, but I want to take the opportunity to praise Edward Isaacs, president of Bristol JSoc, and Nina Freedman and James Harris, the present and former presidents of UJS. They have been at the forefront of this fight, ensuring that Bristol University did not shelve a matter it clearly would have preferred to forget. The university has made the right decision, albeit one which should have been made in six minutes rather than six months. In sacking David Miller, it has finally made clear that there is a limit to what academics can say under the guise of “free speech”. And for those defending Miller under the guise of “free speech”, it is perfectly clear from his many statements that he would like nothing more than for such Jewish societies to be expunged from campus. If you are going

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THE UNIVERSITY HAS MADE THE RIGHT DECISION, ALBEIT ONE THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN MADE IN SIX MINUTUES RATHER THAN SIX MONTHS

to shelter under the umbrella of free speech, at least develop some consistency. Those who claim that what Miller said was not ‘unlawful’ are, as ever, missing the point. Many things that are not ‘unlawful’ are nonetheless hideous and fall far short of the standards expected of an educator at a prominent university. In the end, however, Miller’s sacking was not due to teaching bizarre conspiracy theories falsely identifying Jewish communal institutions and individuals as part of an insidious web of anti-Muslim hatred. It was not due to this supposedly doughty fighter against Islamophobia actively promoting conspiracy theories about the mass murder of Syrian civilians by the Assad regime. It was not even due to his belief that interfaith projects such as a synagogue and a mosque joining together to make chicken soup for

the needy is a “trojan horse” to “normalise Zionism in the Muslim community”. It was because he directly targeted the Jewish Society at the university he taught at, alleging that its very existence was in order to “promote Israeli diplomatic objectives in the UK” and subsequently describing Jewish students around the country as “political pawns” of Israel. Jewish students suffered as a result of such attacks; but they stood tall and fought back – and they have been successful in their efforts to hold Miller to account. Time and again, young Jewish students have shown an extraordinary degree of strength and perseverance when it comes to standing up to bigotry. They are our community’s future, and we can count ourselves fortunate indeed at the prospect.

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

Opinion

Sweet moderation is at the heart of this nation ALEX BRUMMER

CITY EDITOR, THE DAILY MAIL

uring the years of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, it was possible to think that all the anti-Israel, antisemitic kooks were of the left. The most frightening aspect was that Labour, one of Britain’s major parties, allowed anti-Jewish rhetoric and attitudes to penetrate its very sinews. Worryingly, it came close to beating Theresa May in 2017. Viewers of the prime time BBC1 production of Ridley Road are reminded that antisemitism historically is associated with the right in Britain. Those of us of a certain age cannot but remember the angst that Colin Jordan and neo-Nazi paramilitary thugs engendered in the 1960s. The main target may have been immigrants from the Caribbean, but Jews were very much the enemy. A telling scene from the show was the opening of the first Tesco supermarket in the East End seen by Jordan’s followers as an affront to good old-fashioned British stallholders and enterprises. Going back to Oswald

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DAVID CESARANI FOUND THAT THE ULTRA-RIGHT HAS NEVER POSED AN ELECTORAL THREAT

Mosley and the British Union of Fascists in the 1930s, there have been a succession of nutty right-wing fanatics, some of whom have drawn succour from the upper ranks of British society. Since Jordan, there has been Nick Griffin of the British National Party who, armed with his Cambridge education, managed to win a seat in the European Parliament and inveigle his way onto Question Time. More recently, Tommy Robinson, of the anti-Islamic British Freedom Party, has featured. The latest such neo-fascist voice is Mark Collett of Patriotic Alternative, who was exposed by The Times after Amazon agreed to print and presumably distribute his hate-filled book, The Fall of Western Man. The late historian, professor David Cesarani, found that in Britain – in contrast to much of the continent – the ultra-right has never posed an electoral threat. The odd by-election may have been won or well- challenged, but at a

national level it has been toast. Contrast this with the EU. In Hungary, the Jobbik party, with some openly antisemitic members, has shown enough political clout to drive Viktor Orban’s ruling Fidesz ever further to the right. In spite of efforts to confront its Nazi past, anti-immigrant sentiment has driven the rise of the Alternative for Germany, while in Austria the right-wing Freedom Party holds 30 seats in government. And in France, Marie Le Pen’s National Rally, previously the National Front, is being challenged from the right by former talk show host Eric Zemmour. Even Michel Barnier has embraced some nationalist rhetoric. The lesson to be drawn is that the UK is genuinely different. The tendency of UK politics is triangulation, with politicians moving to the centre. As a Brexit supporter from within the Tory Party, Boris Johnson was considered right-wing. In government, he has moved

into Labour’s space with the growth of bigger government in the pandemic and his advocacy of a ‘high wage’ and ‘high skilled’ economy. In spite of Keir Starmer’s achievement in squeezing the antisemitic and anti-Zionist tendency to the Labour Party fringes and the (thankfully) miserable record of right-wing movements in the the UK, the Jewish community remains obsessed by antisemitism. It is impossible to control hate speech on social media. This column recently included data showing how subliminal messages on TikTok were poisoning attitudes towards Israel and across the world. It is very important that the community contests the ugly views of Bristol University’s David Miller and his ilk and puts safety in our synagogues, schools and social gatherings first. Small terror cells can cause frightening damage. Yet the UK’s Jewish minority has reason not to see antisemitism under every rock as we sometimes do. We have well-organised and well-placed Jewish leadership groups spanning the generations. Right-wing fanatics and extremists in the Labour Party come and go but as an electoral force they, so far, always have been vanquished.

14 October 2021 Jewish News

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Opinion

Every precious item in new exhibit tells a timeless story RABBI NICKY LISS HIGHGATE SYNAGOGUE

t Sir Martin Gilbert’s memorial service in 2015, the late former Chief Rabbi, Lord Jonathan Sacks, told the following anecdote: “It must have been 15 years ago, just before the (original) Holocaust Exhibition was opened in the Imperial War Museum (IWM). The organisers had decided in their thoughtfulness to invite the Holocaust survivors to a dinner just a couple of weeks before the exhibition was opened, so they could see it first. “I was dreading that moment; I thought it would open up the trauma all over again. I didn’t know how they were going to face that evening. That night, Sir Martin and myself were the speakers. I needn’t have worried; they were exuberant. It was as if they were at a wedding. They proceeded to talk non-stop through my speech, through Martin’s speech. “I asked them, why are you so cheerful? They said to me, ‘You don’t realise, until this exhibition was opened, we didn’t know who would care for our memories when we are no

longer here. But now the exhibition is there, we feel safe, that burden has been lifted from us.’” It is this sense of permanence, a sense of being remembered, and of being heard that has driven the design and now delivery of the new IWM London Galleries some 21 years later. The mission of telling the story of the Holocaust is more important than ever. And the many additional artefacts, individual personal stories and direct survivor testimonies together with digital and interactive interpretation, enhance the telling of the story and understanding its scale, incredibly well. Over the past three years, I have had the privilege to play a small role advising the curators – whose thoughtfulness, care and sensitivity has been truly outstanding on how religious objects should be treated and displayed. It was also the role that led to the overwhelming responsibility in helping to organise the burial for six Holocaust victims at Bushey New Cemetery in January 2019. I learnt to appreciate that every item has a story. Some we discovered and some are yet to be discovered. We hope visitors to the galleries might be able to help by recognising the prov-

enance of an object or the face of someone in a photograph. Items to look out for include a mini Sefer Torah and Siddur housed by its owner in a repurposed nail box. There is the fragment of a large Sefer Torah that was unnervingly opened to the words lo tishkach (never forget) and a Rosh Hashanah card sent in the Warsaw Ghetto in defiance of the Nazi propaganda on the other side. And then there is a tallit that was found outside a synagogue in Vienna on the morning after the November Pogrom (widely known as Kristallnacht) in 1938, and which I installed into the new galleries with the support of specialist textile conservators. There are, however, two items, that stand out to me – a tefillin bag and a millstone. The set of tefillin was found by Walter Friend, an American soldier, on the body of a concentration camp inmate who died on a forced march. We will never know his identity, but I continue to be inspired by his determination and courage to wear his tefillin despite the dire situation in which he found himself. I now think of his soul when putting on my own tefillin. The other item, a millstone, demonstrates the extra mile the Nazis went in their attempts

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THEY SAID: ‘WE DIDN’T KNOW WHO WOULD CARE FOR OUR MEMORIES WHEN WE ARE NOT HERE’ to destroy not only us but our history. The millstone is a repurposed matzeivah, tombstone of the matriarch of a family, as indicated by an engraving of candlesticks and the words ‘Our dear mother’. Sadly, the stone is cut before her name is mentioned. The first part of her epitaph remains and, when I looked at the verse used, my heart missed a beat. It is the same verse, as is used on the Shoah window in Finchley Synagogue, where it refers to the Holocaust victims: “Over these do I weep; my eye continuously runs with water…” (Lamentations 1:16). We continue to weep. We cannot bring the dead to life, but we can keep their memory alive and, through the new galleries, we have the opportunity to visit, to learn, to reflect and to be inspired.

The time has come to be intellectually honest AVRAHAM BURG

FORMER LABOUR PARTY SPEAKER IN THE KNESSET

his week, world and Jewish leaders assemble in Malmö, Sweden, for the International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism. This conference, which could be an important benchmark in building understanding of antisemitism and how it operates, will fail. This is because its principles are based on the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism, a definition that some have pushed hard throughout Europe by both the Israeli government and Jewish organisations for political purposes. Much like the way a lighthouse is nothing without the light it offers for navigation, this definition offers more darkness, obfuscation and misdirection than guidance. Whether by circumstance or design, the IHRA definition and working examples, such as any description or analysis of Israel as a ‘racist endeavour’ or “applying double standards’ to Israel’s actions when compared to other democratic countries, as inherently antisemitic, have become an obstacle to an effective strategy for

countering antisemitism and racial injustice. If a more accurate understanding of antisemitism is not informing our world leaders, then we are all in for a world of danger. There is antisemitism in the world! Sometimes it can seem that as long as there are Jews in the world, there will also be hatred of Jews. In actuality, the world doesn’t even need Jews for us to be a useful scapegoat. Antisemitism is an ideology that has almost everything; it is old and new, found where there are many Jews and where there are few, religious and political, personal and institutional. All anti-racism struggles are by definition political, and the fight against antisemitism is no exception. But the instrumentalisation of the antisemitism issue under successive Israeli governments, to serve goals of Israel advocacy, has added an unprecedented degree of controversy and disingenuity to this difficult terrain. Benjamin Netanyahu, who was a master at creating imaginary demons, frightened Israelis and Jews around the world, wanting us to believe that we are permanently living through 1938. He manufactured an absurd conflation between criticism of Israel and antisemitism. It is a terribly cynical use of the memory of the victims of the Shoah and the vital lesson that all of humanity must learn from the

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OCCUPATION CRITICISM IS JUST AND REQUIRES AN HONESTY THAT MANY ISRAELI LEADERS CHOOSE TO AVOID

horrors of the Second World War. The more you expand the definition of antisemitism to include petty and deceptive politics, or to negate universal values and human rights (as applied to Palestinians), the more you yourself deny antisemitism and undermine efforts to credibly counter it. According to the IHRA, support for granting basic freedoms to the Palestinian people based on an anti-colonialist political position could be an example of modern-day antisemitism. This, of course, is a gross distortion. Any struggle against hatred in general, and against antisemitism in particular, must also morally and logically support the demand for the independence of the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination. So why is this distortion still being made?

Simple: political interests. Israels’ government refuses to talk peace, and there is nothing more effective than changing the subject of conversation. It is much easier to talk about fighting antisemitism, than it is to respond to a legitimate critique of Israeli policy or to justify permanent occupation and denial of rights. Criticism of the occupation is poignant, just and requires an intellectual confrontation that Israel’s leadership is not prepared to go through. It is easier for us to brand critical friends or decent opponents as antisemitic and hateful, thus nullifying their challenges. And so the following absurdity is created. Many of Israel’s most vocal critics are Jews. Jews unwilling to accept Israel’s actions towards Palestinians. And yet, according to the logic of Netanyahu, the IHRA and even the Swedish prime minister, these Jews are in fact, antisemitic. Really?! Thus the organisers and participants of the Malmö Forum are contributing to this trend of turning antisemitism into a weapon, directed against people pursuing legitimate debate and democratic politics who have a different opinion from the Israeli government. This weakens the struggle against real antisemitism, which not only exists but manifests itself in murderous ways and is on the rise.

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

Opinion

Open letter to survivors of Shoah and genocides STEPHEN SMITH EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, USC SHOAH FOUNDATION

ot a day goes by when I do not see your faces, hear your voices, read your words and learn from your pain and wisdom. You have spoken with courage, fulfilling your promise to be a witness. Your legacy, forged in unimaginable suffering, is a permanent reminder that evil is possible, but that it ultimately does not prevail. You have shown that truth will triumph. You have restored 1.9 million names, people that you talked about, that may otherwise have been lost to history. You talked about 60,000 places where you lived and suffered, and you shared 780,000 photos as evidence of the life you have led. All of those treasures are secure at USC Shoah Foundation and situated in an academy of learning, so the world will listen to you, and learn from you. We will treasure your words, and protect them with all our hearts. Steven Spielberg made two promises to you when he established the Shoah Foundation.

The first was that your testimonies would be preserved in perpetuity. This is a promise we have been able to keep thanks to the generosity and infrastructure of USC. The second promise was that we would teach with your testimonies around the globe. Today, hundreds of universities and millions of school students learn from you every year. Now those promises have been fulfilled, it is time for me to move to a new phase in my life and professional career. Your testimonies are safe in perpetuity; they will always be used for education, for fighting hate in all its hideous forms. I will continue with the important work of memory in the private sector to help people everywhere preserve their life stories. But I will always be a part of USC Shoah Foundation’s global mission. It has been the greatest honour of my life to work with you, to bring light to our world through your voices. We have expanded our reach and our collections and strengthened our roots. Today, our archive includes over 56,000 testimonies, from survivors of the Holocaust and of genocides in Armenia, Rwanda, Guatemala, Cambodia, Myanmar and elsewhere. Your stories are used for research and teaching, for training and inspiring future

leaders. A decade ago, 15 universities used our archive; today, we reach 175 universities and, at any one time, over 2 million students have access to your testimonies at their fingertips. I know how much you care about the next generation learning from you, which is why our education programme is our highest priority. USC Shoah Foundation reaches classrooms in more than 90 countries, with resources in 14 languages in our education platform IWitness. The number of teachers in our network has also grown from several hundred a decade ago to 250,000 today. And 10 years ago, there were just a handful of high school students who saw your testimonies using classroom resources such as DVDs; now eight million K-12 students have listened to your testimonies this year (so far), with millions more to come every year. We have done remarkable work together to develop new technologies that let us tell your stories even more effectively. In addition to all of that, on YouTube last year, members of the public watched 180 million minutes of testimony. We have proved people do want and need to hear and learn from you. All of these innovations help us achieve greater impact. I’m looking forward to serving in a voluntary

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IT HAS BEEN THE GREATEST HONOUR OF MY LIFE TO WORK WITH YOU, TO BRING LIGHT TO OUR WORLD THROUGH YOUR VOICES

capacity as executive director emeritus. I’ll stay involved at USC as visiting professor of religion to continue my research and publishing within Holocaust and genocide studies. Your voices are needed more than ever. The overwhelming tide of hatred, or the neverending recurrence of genocide, has at times made me want to give up. But when I’ve felt unsure about what I can achieve, I’ve always thought of you. You had no choice but to survive, to keep living. You could have hated, you could have given up on the world. But you did not. You kept going, you kept loving. I will always endeavor to follow in your footsteps. From the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Where’s our outrage at violence against women? NAOMI DICKSON CEO, JEWISH WOMEN’S AID

here’s a stark disconnect between two parts of my work. I have listened in horror when consulting on homicide panels to explore the untimely deaths of Jewish women owing to domestic abuse, but have also had to listen to community members telling me they just don’t believe Jewish men abuse women. For more than 20 years I have had the privilege of supporting women who have experienced domestic abuse and sexual violence. In that time, I have met Jewish women who have been strangled, burned and raped. Women who have had their get refused, women who have been insulted, shouted at, told they are stupid, that the abuse they suffered was their fault. One woman told me she’d been beaten and kicked regularly because the playroom wasn’t tidy enough. She’d been told it enough times that she had come to believe it. I have met too many women who were bright, confident and bubbly but broken by years of sustained abuse. If you are told you are stupid, ugly and worthless every day you start to believe it. I have also spent the better part of the past

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I’VE BEEN SHOCKED BY THE SILENCE IN OUR COMMUNITY FOLLOWING THESE DEATHS 20 years convincing Jewish people – mainly men, it has to be said – that domestic abuse is as much of a problem in our community as it is elsewhere. And that yes, Jewish men are often the perpetrators. I have enough evidence to back this up, with Jewish Women’s Aid supporting around 700 women each year. Last week, I read the impact statement of Sarah Everard’s mother – she wrote eloquently and painfully about the brutal impact of Sarah’s death on their family. She spoke about a young woman who had potential, who was contributing to society, whose loss will be forever mourned. I read about the killing of Sabina Nessa, a schoolteacher who had touched the lives of hundreds of pupils and would have gone on to teach hundreds more. I, together with many others, mourned

objectified and blamed for their loss and was filled with the abuse they suffer. There sorrow and with anger. is a clear and researched link I have been shocked by between those who objectify the silence of our community women, who consider us to following these deaths. I have be of less worth, and who go been amazed at the lack of on to physically abuse and voices speaking out after the ultimately to murder. headlines highlighting that Women who experience since Sarah Everard died on 3 sexual violence or domestic March, 79 other women died abuse feel humiliation in at the hands of men in the UK. speaking out and are still Where is the outrage, the call waiting far too long before to action? seeking the support they need These women were just on Sarah Everard and to which they are entitled. their way home when their It’s not their shame – the shame belongs to lives were brutally stolen. They were walking on their perpetrators. the streets of London, where I live, and where We need to create a community where we thousands of Jewish women live, and where the tackle the causes of misogyny head-on, where majority of UK Jews live. Our community is perpetrators of abuse are not tolerated, rightly proud to be involved in civil society. We where women can reach the support they are a community of activists, of changemakers and campaigners. We speak out not only against need and are confident to reach out for it, and where we are educating our young people to antisemitism but against all forms of racism. create a better, more equal and safer future We support national healthcare charities and for women. foodbanks. We volunteer and donate to charity. We make huge efforts to improve society. Now  If you need support or are is the time to support this cause too. concerned about a friend or family We have a normalised porn culture in member, visit www.jwa.org.uk or call society spilling into our community, our youth groups and our schools, leading to women being 0808 801 0500

14 October 2021 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Community / Scene & Be Seen

1 THE GIFT OF GIVING

The charity GIFT celebrated its first ‘Givefest’ event recently – featuring carnival rides, inflatables, and even an assault course. ‘Giving stations’ at the family fun day encouraged participants to give back to the community, while stallholders taught attendees how to make packs for the homeless and paper poppies for care homes among other things. Vanessa Aaron, one of more than 500 attendees, said: “It’s amazing to have an event where you can give back.”

And be seen! The latest news, pictures and social events from across the community

2RUNNING SUPPORT

Mandy Myers, Danny Myers and Lee Bladon raised more than £2,000 for Camp Simcha by running the Royal Parks half marathon. The overnight respite project they helped fund, Evie’s Night Owls, was established by Lee and hiswife Sam in memory of their daughter Evie, who experienced oxygen deprivation during her birth. She suffered severe brain damage, before dying aged three. The family had been supported by the charity. “It is a truly wonderful charity in memory of a very special little girl,” said Mandy.

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3CARING TEAM

Also participating in the half marathon were nine runners for Jewish Care, who raised more than £12,500. The team included the charity’s director of fundraising and community engagement, Adam Overlander-Kaye, as well as its community engagement manager, Rachel Miller, and Rob Sher, chair of Young Jewish Care. Jordan Laban ran for Jewish Care as the charity had supported his grandmother when she was living with vascular dementia, while Alex Klein and friends Debra Breindal and Michal Provisor also took part.

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4FOOD CAMPAIGN

Eytan Wittenberg, 12, from Borehamwood recently ran a food drive collecting nonperishable food from family and friend and the wider community, and donating it to the Borehamwood Foodbank for his barmitzvah. He said: “I love food and can’t imagine having to go without, so as well as a month-long campaign with posters, videos and messages to collect food from my family, friends and neighbours, I fasted for 13 hours throughout the collection day.” The Foodbank packaged up the food and will give it to people in need during the next twice-weekly Foodbank sessions.

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

Jewish News-WIZO UK / Young writers’ competition

All write on the night!

Four budding writers were named as the winners in our third annual Young Writers’ Competition, held in conjunction with WIZO UK and PJ Library

tanding up to bullies, overcoming a fear of dogs, dealing with antisemitism and being strong in the face of self-doubt were the themes of this year’s winning entries in our Young Writers’ Competition. For the third year running, Jewish News teamed up with WIZO – the Women’s International Zionist Organisation – and PJ Library, which distributes stories celebrating Jewish values and traditions to more than 8,000 children across the UK, and asked young writers to pen their thoughts on the theme of courage. A panel of judges, including WIZO UK’s Emma Yantin, Sara Miller and chief executive Maureen Fisher, Jewish News features editor Francine Wolfisz and director of PJ Library in

the UK Lauren Hamburger, selected a shortlist from 130 entries from 26 schools. Guest judge, television writer and children’s author Ivor Baddiel then selected the final winners, who were revealed last week. Daisy Williams, 10, from Brodetsky Primary School, Leeds, won first place in the primary school category for her short story, It’s All About Courage, with Abi Zinkin, 11, from Etz Chaim Primary School, Mill Hill, named as runner-up for her thought-provoking piece about bullying. For the secondary school category, Maya Garren, 14, from Hasmonean High School for Girls, Mill Hill, took first place for The Gauntlet. Daniel Shaw, 12, from City of London School for Boys was named as the

WINNER, PRIMARY SCHOOL CATEGORY: DAISY WILLIAMS Age 10, Year 5 at Brodetsky Primary School, Leeds

It’s All About Courage

This story is set in a stunning place, Where the ducks swim in beauty, The birds ﬂy with grace. 6-year-old Danny was next to the lake, Hugging his mum, afraid a dog might escape. You see, when it came to Danny, dogs were not his best, He was scared one may bite him, which made him quite stressed. Later that evening, Danny sat down. His once-smiling face was paused in a frown. His mum noticed and said, “Are you okay? What’s been bothering you today?” When Danny told his mum why he had cried, She understood and pulled him aside. “Oh darling, it’s okay to have a fear. Now let me wipe away that tear.” “The only problem is you haven’t given it a chance.” She smiled at him with a loving glance. “Okay”, said Danny, “let’s go to the park.” “I’ll give the dog a stroke, and maybe it’ll bark!” The next day, a small dog stood by Danny’s feet. He took a deep breath whilst his heart skipped a beat. “Wow, you are a cute one, now I understand”, Said Danny, as he felt the fur on his hand. Danny was feeling amazing and proud. “I can’t believe I did it’, he shouted aloud. Try and be brave, even if you are scared. Once you’ve done it, you’ll wonder why you cared.

runner-up for his reverse poem, Courage In Two Directions. At a special event held last Thursday evening, the winners were presented with an iPad for themselves and their schools, while the runners-up received a PJ Library Goody Pack in the primary section and book vouchers in the secondary category, as well as a selection of books for their schools. WIZO UK chair Annabel Stelzer said: “Education is at the heart of what WIZO does and I was delighted to be part of an evening that not only encourages talent from schools in this country, but also promotes a literacy programme used in WIZO’s day care centres developing childrens’ language and reading skills, strengthening family bonds through the shared experience of reading. The theme of ‘courage’ felt particularly apposite and the winning entries were both unique and creative.” Jewish News editor Richard Ferrer said: “Now in its third year, the entries continue to be stronger than ever and we never cease to be amazed by the imagination of our young writers. This initiative, supported by WIZO UK and PJ Library, provides children with the unrivalled chance to express their thoughts, unleash their creativity and inspire others.” Lauren Hamburger, director of PJ Library in the UK, said: “The Jewish story has always been a rich and varied one. The PJ Library team

always love to hear a new story. It was so exciting to be part of the judging team and read the winning entries, which created magic with their words.” Youngsters shortlisted for each category received a certificate of commendation. They were: Adam Singer, 11, Year 6, from HJPS, Katie Singer, nine, Year 4, from HJPS and Rebecca Bloom, 11, Year 6 at Menorah in the primary school category; and Daniel Pesin, 13, Year 9 at Westminster School, Rachel Jacobs, 14, Year 10 at JCoSS, Talia Goldberg, 16, Year 11 at Hasmonean High School for Girls and Abigail Rowe, 16, Year 11 at Hasmonean High School for Girls in the secondary school category. WIZO is the largest independent social welfare organisation in Israel, supporting more than 800 projects across the country at every stage of life. These include children’s day care centres, emergency centres for babies and children at risk, youth villages for vulnerable teenagers and more than 100 after-school programmes. The charity also provides additional services, including support for single-parent families, foreign language groups for immigrants, shelters for victims of domestic violence and a retirement home.

RUNNER-UP, PRIMARY SCHOOL CATEGORY: ABI ZINKIN Age 11, Year 6 at Etz Chaim Primary School, Mill Hill Daisy, 10, with parents Rich and Naomi

Ivor says: “It flows really well and I like its simplicity. I also like that it teaches us how courage can mean different things to different people…for someone, patting a dog is the easiest thing in the world, for someone else the hardest, so courage is about overcoming your fears, whatever they might be.”

Thunk, thunk. The ball slipped out of Mya’s hands and dropped to the ground, where it rolled to the edge of the climbing frame and popped against the jagged edge of the ﬁrst step. Sasha sighed, then rolled her eyes at Mya. “You’re useless at sports,” she exploded, walking menacingly towards Mya. Straight away, Sasha’s gang moved closer, lining up behind Sasha. “You are the worst at everything, you couldn’t catch a cold if you tried, and…” The bell rang for the end of break. I ran up to Mya and put my arm around her, comforting her and telling her that all Sasha does is pick on people and tell lies, but Mya shook her head and said, “But she’s not lying, I can’t catch and everyone knows it, I’m the worst at everything, she’s right.” Mya broke away from me and ran into the classroom. I gritted my teeth. That was the worst thing about Sasha. She always got inside your head, and made you believe that she was right. I pulled open the classroom door and stepped inside. I was slowly dozing off, and the teacher was facing the board, fully absorbed in her display. Mya and I sat in the front row, Mya concentrating hard on her maths problem. I sensed movement behind me. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Sasha move towards Mya’s long ponytail with a pair of school scissors. I clenched my ﬁsts, stood, and whirled around, grabbing the scissors. “Why do you always pick on people?” I said, “You are no better than a slug crawling up someone’s shoe, you vicious bully.” Her smug face crumpled at my hostile stare. I sat back down. After that school was never the same, I was an outcast, but I wasn’t alone. Ivor says: “Well written, relatable for children and I particularly liked the bit about bullies getting in to your head and making you believe what they say about you. It’s a very important aspect of bullying – that it’s not just about the direct pain of a bullies’ words or physical attacks, but how they can make you feel they are right and there must be something wrong with you, almost as if you deserve to be bullied.”

14 October 2021 Jewish News

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Photos by Gary Perlmutter Photography

Young writers’ competition / Jewish News-WIZO UK

Above: Author Ivor Baddiel with Ariella Garren (sister of Maya, winner of the secondary category), Daisy Williams and Daniel Shaw. Left: WIZO UK chair Annabel Stelzer, JN features editor Francine Wolfisz, PJ Library director Lauren Hamburger, Ivor Baddiel and WIZO UK CEO Maureen Fisher

WINNER, SECONDARY SCHOOL CATEGORY:

RUNNER-UP, SECONDARY SCHOOL CATEGORY:

MAYA GARREN, Age 14, Year 9 at Hasmonean High School for Girls

Courage in two directions

The Gauntlet

Rain pattered against the windows. The girl had sat there for thirty minutes… only ten to go. A backpack weighed on her lap brimming with knowledge. Ariella Garren, with Hasmonean High School for Girls headteacher Kate Brice A maroon sweater and a black and Ivor Baddiel, received the prize uniform skirt marked her as a highfor her sister Maya school student, on her way home. A delicate chain hung from the girl’s neck, a silver pendant of two overlapping triangles - in today’s London, a badge of courage. An angry mutter broke through her daze, but her eyes remained glued to the window. They had been glaring at her since they boarded at stop ‘H,’ the three teenage boys sitting at the back of the bus. Blazing eyes burned holes through the back of her neck as these strangers sent their hate her way. From daily experience, she knew: the real danger is in acknowledging them, giving them importance they do not deserve. So, unseeing, her eyes blandly registered the stops. Buildings blurred by, soon replaced by small white and brown cottages, painted watery shades of grey by the mottled cloudy sky. The ‘ding’ of the bus announced the stops as they passed by, but still the boys remained. A screen up ahead of her displayed the security cameras, providing her a clear view of the seething teens, puffed up with hot gas and self-righteous anger. The Vale, proclaimed the bus’s computerised voice. At the last minute, the girl stood up, hooking her backpack over one shoulder and darting out of the doors, barely avoiding the snick as they closed. Through the cheap see-through plastic, their glowers seemed to follow her home. *** The bus arrived the next morning, waiting as the girl rushed out of her house, head held high as her silver pendant swung around her neck. Ivor says: “Really well written, nice pacing and a strong voice that comes across in the great use of language. I love ‘backpack brimming with knowledge’, ‘angry mutter’, ‘buildings blurred by…’. I like the power of ‘her eyes blandly registered the stops’, when we know that in fact she is really very scared.”

DANIEL SHAW, Age 12, Year 7 at City of London School for Boys

Courage is just a word And don’t try and tell me that No matter what happens Fear can’t be controlled It is not true that People love me And I know with great faith that I AM different Too different I am not Daniel with his father Amazing Rabbi Andrew Shaw and brother Yoni I am weird I am not. I am not in G-d’s image And don’t try to convince me that We are all special In our own way. They say ‘Be strong’ It echoes cowardice ‘Just go with the ﬂow’ Always wins Perseverance It is a lie ‘Give up.’ The reality Creates My attitude This world is scary Even if One can try to withstand it But fail Goodness can all Be gone Evil ‘The Prevailer.’ Now read the poem from the bottom line up. Ivor says: “A great achievement and it works, a really clever way to illustrate two sides of courage, how the way we look at things, our perspective, is very important.”

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

Weekend / Entertainment

EXHIBITION

NETFLIX

This Fascist Life

Stay Close

A new thought-provoking exhibition at The Wiener Holocaust Library looks at the rise of the far-right in Europe after the First World War. This Fascist Life: Radical Right Movements in Interwar Europe, hosted in collaboration with the European Fascist Movements 1918-1941 Project, opened last week and runs until February 2022. Fascist political parties, militia and movements emerged across Europe in the years after the First World War. United by ultra-nationalist ideas and similarities of style and action, these movements shaped – and in some places remade – politics and society. They mobilised on the streets to attack their opponents and to support the accession to power of fascist parties in countries such as Italy, Germany and Austria. Later, they helped to enable German occupations and the Nazis’ policies of persecution and genocide across Europe.

First-look images of Harlan Coben’s new Netflix thriller Stay Close were released this week. The eight-part mystery series, which airs in December, is based on Coben’s best-selling novel of the same name and is made by the same team behind another adaptation of his works, The Stranger. An official synopsis reads: “Three people living comfortable lives each conceal dark secrets that even the closest to them would never suspect; Megan (played by Cush Jumbo), a working mother of three; Ray (Richard

Drawing upon The Wiener Holocaust Library’s unique archival collections, the exhibition focuses on the experiences of rank-and-file members of fascist movements and examines their motivations and activities. For more details about the exhibition, visit wienerholocaustlibrary.org

OPHIR AWARDS

Let It Be Morning

A film about an Arab-Israeli man forced to grapple with his identity as both Palestinian and Israeli has been chosen as Israel’s entry for best foreign film at the 2022 Oscars after sweeping the board at the Ophir Awards. Let It Be Morning is based on a book by Sayed Kashua, one of Israel’s most prominent Israeli-Arab writers, and follows a Palestinian citizen of Israel as he tries to return home to Jerusalem after visiting the village where he grew up to attend a wedding. When the Israeli army blocks the road back to Jerusalem, the man is forced to remain in

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14 October 2021 Jewish News

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14 October 2021

Weekend / Interview

After Cable Street, victory made way for violence…

Just days after the historic stand against fascism came the Mile End Pogrom – the worst incidence of anti-Jewish violence witnessed during the interwar period. Alex Davis revisits this event, 85 years on

ack in 2016 when I met Willie Myers, it was hard to imagine the serene figure in front of me as anything but gentle and welcoming. With typical pride, the 94-year-old Ilford great-grandfather pointed to pictures of his family while offering up biscuits. And yet, as the conversation turned to Cable Street, a transformation occurred. His eyes suddenly exuded an energy unaltered by the passage of time and his commitment to defending his community became unashamedly clear. “I was 14 when my anti-fascist involvement began,” he recalled. “A friend convinced me to join the Young Communist League and I began feeling it was my duty to oppose Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists. We all did.” Formed in October 1932, the British Union of Fascists (BUF) claimed a peak membership of 50,000 in mid-1934. Yet, by 1936, it had fallen into steep decline. Increased violence, grossly demonstrated during a mass rally at London’s Olympia, and the movement’s growing antisemitism began deterring much of its conservative support. Even the media largely ignored the rising radicalism of this weakening force in British politics. But when the BUF announced its intention to march through the East End on 4 October 1936, its residents took notice. Willie joined a crowd of at least 100,000 anti-fascist protestors seeking to prevent 3,000 or so black-shirted members of the BUF marching through the predominantly Jewish quarter of London. The crowd was diverse: a united front of Jews, communists, Irish dockers and trade unionists. What followed was a violent confrontation, not between the two belligerents as is commonly believed, but between the anti-fascists and the 6,000 police officers, who were under orders to protect the marchers. In total, around 80 anti-fascists were arrested and at least 73 officers injured. But the fascists did not pass and Cable Street’s legacy was born.

Defeat in victory?

Although the anti-fascists were quick to praise their own efforts, most scholars now accept that Cable Street was, at best, a symbolic

Police clash with anti-fascists at the Battle of Cable Street. Right: The newspaper of Oswald Mosley (inset)’s British Union of Fascists

demonstration of popular hostility against fascism and antisemitism. An important marker, yes, but in reality, the consequences were dire for the Jewish community. The following weekend witnessed the worst incidence of anti-Jewish violence in the interwar period, the infamous Mile End Pogrom. Around 150 to 200 fascist youths smashed up Jewish shops and houses, even throwing an elderly Jewish man and young child through a window. The backlash wasn’t limited to London: similar episodes occurred in Leeds and Manchester. Antisemitism worsened to such an extent that the Jewish People’s Council, the leading force in East End Jewish anti-fascism, warned the following summer of the fascist “terrorism which appears to increase week by week”. The historical record also reveals that Cable Street renewed sympathy towards the BUF. The violent response by those opposing Mosley was successfully spun as an illegal blockade of a march organised with police permission. The result was significant: the BUF’s membership increased by several thousand and the party mustered a remarkable 18 percent of the popular vote in local elections the following March. Perhaps most revealingly, almost exactly one year later, a near identical battle took place in Bermondsey, just one mile south of the river. Again, more than 100,000 anti-fascists faced a column of approximately 3,000

Blackshirts, with the violence leading to 113 arrests. Its very existence stands as stark evidence against the finality of Cable Street.

Inspiring a new generation

Why, then, has Cable Street entered popular memory as the turning point in the defeat of British fascism? If the Battle seemingly made little difference to the anti-fascist struggle of the 1930s, shouldn’t it be a mere footnote in history? Sitting with us in Willie’s home is his grandson, Natan Doron. Now a senior policy adviser to the Mayor of London, Natan speaks eloquently of his grandfather’s influence on him. “My grandpa’s generation did the heavy fighting and their struggle resulted in opportunities for future generations. It has formed an important part of my own politics. Cable Street taught me you have to fight for change and progress isn’t inevitable.”

So perhaps the significance of Cable Street lies in its influence on subsequent generations. But what of the fighting itself? The violence forms an important, but perhaps uncomfortable, part of the Cable Street story. It mustn’t be forgotten that the ‘heroes’ of Cable Street fought directly with the Metropolitan Police. Admittedly, the anti-fascists believed the establishment’s tolerance of Mosley’s fascists made the police a legitimate target, but can violence ever be justified? “I think violence should be a last resort, but I wouldn’t hesitate to fight back even today if it was necessary,” says Willie. A veteran of the militant 43 Group, goes further. Maurice Podro, who died aged 91 last year, fought the resurgence of fascism in post-war Britain. At the time of his interview in 2016, his response was unambiguous. “I am a firm believer that you

The commemorative Cable Street mural in Shadwell, East London

fight violence with violence. I don’t see it any other way.”

Drawing the right lessons

But if you don’t believe in violence as a solution, what lessons can be taken from Cable Street? According to a spokesman for anti-racism organisation Hope Not Hate, “Cable Street showed how important it was to forge common unity in the face of organised hatred, and to stand up alongside vulnerable communities.” Unity in the face of adversity is a strong message. But it must be peaceful, according to historian Daniel Tilles. He admired the courage of the anti-fascist protestors, but warned of drawing the wrong lessons from Cable Street. “Farright movements rely on a victimhood narrative and create conflict to drum up interest,” he explained. “By starving them of attention, they remain rooted to the fringes.” Today’s fascists are, fortunately, far smaller in influence. It’s hard to imagine 300 – let alone 3,000 – right-wing sympathisers marching through Golders Green. Or is it? My discussion with Willie concluded with his chilling warning, referencing then-UKIP leader Nigel Farage. “When I shut my eyes and listen, all I can see is Mosley staring back at me.”  A version of this article originally ran in 2016 to mark the 80th anniversary of the Mile End Pogrom

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ND TAHINI ZA’ATAR SALMON A

Food & Drink / Weekend 1 Preheat the oven to 220°C fan. 2 Pat dry the salmon and sprinkle with salt and pepper. In a small bowl, combine the za’atar and sumac, then sprinkle this all over the top of the salmon to create a crust. 3 Place a large ovenproof sauté pan on a medium-high heat and add a tablespoon of oil. Once hot, add the spinach and a pinch each of salt and pepper and cook for two to three minutes, until just wilted.

SERVES 4 PREP TIME: 5 MINUTES COOK TIME: 20 MINUTES

4 Top with the salmon, skin side down, and drizzle the top of the fish with two tablespoons of oil. Bake for five minutes.

INGREDIENTS

5 Meanwhile, in a small bowl whisk together the tahini, garlic, 2½ tablespoons of lemon juice, a good pinch of salt and 100ml of water until smooth and quite runny.

4 salmon fillets (600g), skin on and pin bones removed 2 tbsp za’atar 2 tsp sumac, plus ½ tsp extra for sprinkling

5 When ready, remove the pan from the oven and pour the tahini all around the salmon (but not on the fish at all). Bake for another five minutes, or until the fish is cooked through and the tahini is bubbling. Spoon over the remaining tablespoon each of lemon juice and oil and top with the coriander and extra sumac.

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14 October 2021 Jewish News

Jewish News 14 October 2021

Business / Overseas start-ups

candicekrieger@googlemail.com

With Candice Krieger

‘WE ARE A BRIDGE BETWEEN EAST AND WEST’ The director of an investment and financial services group tells Candice Krieger why China is a particularly great opportunity for Israeli start-up companies

hina has become a red-hot market for Israeli companies, says seasoned investor and operator David Grunwald, a former Google leader. According to Grunwald, group strategy director at venture capital (VC) firm ARIE Capital, “the opportunity is massive”. He notes: “China has a rapidly-developing population of nearly one and a half billion people, with growing purchasing power and a vast middle class – something unthinkable a few decades ago. “In many ways, its companies and consumers are now more digitally savvy than those in the west, and the rise of its domestic tech sector has been widely covered. That said, there are areas of technology where Israeli businesses in particular can offer something new – in the medical devices, clean tech and deep tech worlds, for example.” Grunwald, 41, recently left leading online luxury fashion platform Farfetch, where he

was vice president, to join ARIE Capital, an investment and financial services group with an Israel/UK-oriented VC arm to help startups land and expand in China, including through its second China-oriented fund, ARIE Ventures China. He says: “The Chinese are fascinated by the ‘Startup Nation’, while for Israelis, China represents a huge and receptive market. ARIE provides David Grunwald place for growth; however there are a much-needed ‘translation layer’ for pronounced cultural, business and technical/ companies looking to expand into China.” regulatory differences needing to be bridged – Grunwald, who lives in Woodside Park with which is where ARIE Capital comes in.” his wife Talia, a teacher at Alma Primary, and Founded in 2014 by experienced financiers their three children, points out that as a small Stephen Margolis and Simon Tobelem, the country with a large start-up ecosystem, Israeli company is also an advanced cross-border busitech has needed to look overseas for markets. ness banking platform, a UK EIS [Enterprise “China is a huge and potentially receptive Investment Scheme] fund, and has several promising technology companies under incubation. Doug Krikler, ex-chief executive of The Portland Trust, joined the business in October as group director of business development. Have there been any concerns about doing business with China amid human rights abuses including against Uyghurs? “As a company with a strong Jewish heritage, a diverse workforce and interest in Israel, we are very conscious of human rights issues in all markets where we have a presence,” says Grunwald. “We have a well-established business ethos based on respect for each other regardless of our gender, ethnicity, sexuality, religion, or nationality, and this is carried over into the companies we invest in, the partners we work with and the approach we take to business. “When it comes to China, we are helping fast-growing businesses from Israel and elsewhere to find new opportunities, partnerships and customers. As such we have a role in being a bridge – driving mutual understanding between east and west.” Grunwald wasn’t tempted to follow his father Henry – an eminent QC and also former In these difficult times our readers can’t find you president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and a founder and first chairman of without a personal introduction. the Jewish Leadership Council – into law. “I’ve been drawn to tech ever since my parents We can provide the opportunity by creating sharp bought our first home computer in 1986 and I taught myself to code simple computer games and interesting editorial in an original layout as a seven-year-old.” that tells the story of your company. He set up a web design agency with a couple of friends aged 17 and, in the 1990s at the start Presented in print and online with links to of the dotcom boom, worked for a medical your website or service. start-up through university. Grunwald then completed a graduate program in consulting when the first internet bubble burst and opporCREATE YOUR BESPOKE ADVERTORIAL NOW tunities in the online world dried up. and spread the word about you. At 24, “to the despair” of his parents who saw him leave a secure, well-paid city job, Grunsales@jewishnews.co.uk or call 0207 692 6929 wald co-founded an online retailer selling highend home electronics, which was bootstrapped

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out of a small Hampstead flat. He sold it and returned to consultancy, working on strategy projects in the digital sector, including on the early days of BBC’ iPlayer – a career highlight. In 2010, he joined Google. “I arrived in a nascent division taking small business advertising products to market via partners, and within four years was running a team looking after revenues worth hundreds of millions of dollars.” A few years later, he was asked to join Google for Entrepreneurs and led a team that developed its worldwide partnerships with start-up accelerators, incubators and funds to boost entrepreneurship and connect Google to growing start-up ecosystems. “We had a line into the leadership of Alphabet –in particular Eric Schmidt, our often-present sponsor – and it took me all over the world.” The start-up landscape has changed considerably over the past few decades. “In the early 2000s, being a tech founder wasn’t considered a normal career path for those setting out. London was practically a desert for entrepreneurship at the time; tech hubs and coworking spaces weren’t ‘things’ yet and there was nothing resembling a start-up community here. “While being a start-up founder remains a difficult career choice, it is far more acceptable for graduates and there are many more routes to advice and funding. If anything, the needle may have moved too far in the other direction – ideas that probably wouldn’t pass muster in a less ‘frothy’ era are getting funded.” What does Grunwald, who has read thousands of pitches, think makes a good start-up? “Nothing replaces strong execution. Develop an idea, work with intelligent people, deliver a product and find your first customers. The [pitches] I’m most likely to invest in or help are those that have concrete progress. Founders can define success in their own terms – it doesn’t always mean revenue – but need to prove to the world they can get things done.” He warns that founders “need to be extremely careful with whom they share their value”, adding: “That means holding onto equity, finding mentors and advisors who can help them to execute and grow, and avoiding unnecessary distractions, including the glut of less useful start-up programs out there.” www.ariecapital.com

14 October 2021 Jewish News

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Orthodox Judaism

SEDRA

Torah For Today

Lech Lecha

What does the Torah say about: Panic buying BY RABBI ARIEL ABEL

BY RABBI BORUCH M BOUDILOVSKY I grew up hearing about my father’s early life in Kiev and aliyah to Israel in the 1970s. After being granted permission against all odds while studying at Leningrad University, my father left for Israel. He would never again see most of the family he left behind. What is fascinating is that he was prepared to risk so much to live in a country about which he knew so little. He only knew where it was and that it was home. Upon arrival in Haifa, he was given a small room in an absorption centre where he settled in with his few belongings. After returning from a day trip to Jerusalem, he found his room was broken into and the few belongings he had, including family pictures, were stolen. This completely shocked him! How can a Jew steal from another Jew in a Jewish country? The reality of modern Israel made my father proud and simultaneously shocked and disappointed. Although he had arrived home, it wasn’t what he imagined it should be. The gap be-

tween dream and reality is not unique to my father’s experience. It seems that part of aliyah, whether contemporary or historical, are the challenges and disappointments that often follow. Perhaps this was the experience of Abraham, the founding father of our nation and the very first oleh (Jewish immigrant) in history. Abraham travels to the land of Israel with a blessing from God to protect him and make him “a great nation”. But, six verses later, “There was a famine in the land, and Abram descended to Egypt”. (Genesis 10).The first aliyah in history is shaped by a hopeful dream and an immediate setback. The Torah warns us not to confuse a land of milk and honey with a life of milk and honey, but nevertheless it does not neglect the dream of a blessed life in the land. Instead, it reminds us it is our duty to create and enable that blessed life.

◆ Rabbi Boruch M Boudilovsky serves Young Israel of North Netanya

Following scenes around the UK of motorists queuing for petrol – and at times fights breaking out on the forecourt and emergency services not getting through to their destination – what does the Torah say about panic buying and putting one’s own needs first before others? When Samaria suffered a terrible famine nearly 29 centuries ago, Elisha brought tidings of relief to the region. Besieged by the Arameans, extreme deprivation set the price of a donkey’s head at 80 pieces of silver; women conspired to kill and eat their own children. Elisha declared the famine would soon be over, and the king’s officer laughed at him. “Verily will God make windows in heaven…?” he mocked. Elisha promised him that although all would experience relief from starvation, the officer would not.

Indeed, the Aramean camp was abandoned when they misapprehended an attack; and the price of a measure of fine flour tumbled, as prophesied, to only one shekel, in modern money at the very most, £2 for a kilo of the best wheat flour and £1 for barley flour. The people, on hearing the miraculous news of the windfall, stampeded the store of flour brought out for purchase. Panic buying taken to the extreme, the rude officer who had disrespected Elisha was crushed underfoot and never got to enjoy the end

of the terrible famine. Recent petrol and other limitations and rationed supplies have resulted from the lack of supplying drivers, not supply. Whether it is bad planning, greed or the result of failed politics, or a combination of some or all of these, good governance is required to feed the nation. This includes doing whatever it takes to hold back the people from panicking. Panic buying of Pesach products last year led to a shortage of matzah in parts of the UK; Liverpool was rationed to two boxes of matzah per household. Thus, a festival of faith was reduced from a festival of faith to a festival of panic. The Exodus, which shapes our faith, requires disciplined calm and mutual respect, not frenzy, in the keeping of mitzvot. ◆ Rabbi Ariel Abel is based in Liverpool

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Jewish News 14 October 2021

Progressive Judaism

Progressively Speaking

The Bible Says What? ‘Working hard doesn’t always bring rewards’

Survivors of sexual assault must never be made to feel shame

BY RABBI DEBORAH BLAUSTEN When Adam is punished by God in the Garden of Eden for eating from the tree of knowledge, he is told by God that he will now have to toil for everything he needs throughout his life. The notion that we need to work for the things we have is so simple and obvious it perhaps goes unquestioned, yet in the image of perfection that the garden represents, man’s meaning does not come from work, but rather from existence. Does Torah really suggest that having to work for what we need is bad? Surely that’s how we learn to appreciate things? What does that mean for those of us who derive value from our vocations? Or who enjoy the fruits of our labour? Perhaps Shabbat can help us look differently at this, because Shabbat is understood as a glimpse of the world to come, a return to a more perfect world,

and on Shabbat we cease from all work. Rabbi Gunther Plaut wrote of this, saying: “We must once again understand that doing nothing… can be as important as, and sometimes more important than what we commonly call useful. “Formerly a person who did not work was considered useless; what we need now is a purposeful uselessness, an activity (or non-activity) which is important in that it becomes an essential protest against that basic unrest which comes from competition without end.” Plaut’s teaching is that we humans have inherent value even when we’re not working, and when we’re not defined by our ability to produce or toil. Work can give us joy, but we must not make our joy, or our sense of our value, dependent on our work.

◆ Rabbi Deborah Blausten serves Finchley Reform Synagogue

BY RABBI LEA MÜHLSTEIN There are many conversations happening in schools, synagogues, social media and society in general about endemic violence against women, sparked by the murder of Sarah Everard. According to the Office of National Statistics, at least onein-five women is a survivor of sexual assault – myself included. What helped me survive my assault without significant emotional scars was the fact I had been brought up in such a way I did not feel shame even for a second. I was never made to feel embarrassed about being attacked. It seems so obvious. And yet, from Biblical times until today, society has suggested to women and LGBTQI+ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex] individuals they should feel shame about their own sexuality and when they experience violence. The list of the arayot, the sexual prohibitions in our Torah (Leviticus 18), equate sexual relations with a

menstruating woman and same-sex relations with incest and bestiality and yet it is silent on the crime of rape. The sacred nature of our sacred texts is indeed often overshadowed by misogyny, homophobia and transphobia fuelled by toxic masculinity, documenting what women and LGBTQI+ individuals endured at the hands of men throughout time. We must examine how we, our faith tradition, the Jewish community, our synagogue and as individuals have perpetuated the harm our sacred texts have caused. It doesn’t mean we should turn our back on

our tradition; rather, we must make an extra effort to challenge harmful texts and instead teach those texts that can be inspiration for change. We must provide an environment to hear, to listen and to learn. We must see the survivors, hear their words and stand with them. We must reckon with ourselves. We must be uncompromising in holding perpetrators and enablers to account – providing them with opportunities to seek teshuvah (repentance) and, at the same time, respect the rights of those harmed not to forgive. But most of all, we must eradicate shame from our emotional dictionary. When the road seems to curve too steeply uphill, may Margaret Mead’s wise words be a source of strength: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” ◆ Lea Mühlstein is senior rabbi at The Ark Synagogue

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Our trusty team of advisers answers your questions about everything from law and finance to dating and dentistry. This week: Supported living eligibility, restrictive covenants at work and children attending dance classes with friends LISA WIMBORNE CHARITY EXECUTIVE

JEWISH BLIND & DISABLED

Dear Lisa My mum isn’t blind and doesn’t see herself as disabled. She doesn’t need a stick or a wheelchair to walk, is fiercely independent and has a thriving social life. However, she does have a long-term condition and I can see it is progressing. While she won’t admit it, she is struggling in her current home, especially getting in and out the bath and with the stairs. Would she be eligible for a flat with Jewish Blind & Disabled? Ruth Dear Ruth Your mum’s situation is a very familiar one. Many of our tenants don’t see themselves

tunity. Is this enforceable? Lisa

EMMA GROSS EMPLOYMENT LAW AND DATA PROTECTION

SPENCER WEST Dear Emma I work in a senior role for a major UK retailer. After more than 15 years, I would like to hand in my notice as I’ve been offered a better paid job with another major retailer. Looking at my restrictive covenants, it seems as though I cannot work for any of the other top five retailers for two years, which would prevent me from accepting this oppor-

Dear Lisa First, in my experience, unless a company is going to lose a significant sum of money, covenants such as these are rarely enforced and are used simply as a deterrent due to the obscene cost involved in injunctive proceedings and litigation. No matter what is in your contract, your employer cannot stop you taking a job unless it has a fundamentally detrimental impact on their business. Additionally, a non-competition (or noncompete) restriction can be unreasonable if it lasts longer than necessary. Moreover, following the pandemic, it is becoming

as disabled and have a range of reasons for coming to live in a Jewish Blind & Disabled development. They are, indeed, fiercely independent but benefit from our adapted apartments with 24/7 onsite support, providing peace of mind knowing support is on hand if there is an issue. For someone who is really sociable, our developments offer the best of both worlds – the privacy of your own home and the ability, should you wish, to be part of our unique communities with the opportunity to participate in communal life and the events and activities on offer. All of our developments have beautifully maintained gardens and attractive communal lounges where tenants can gather. If you want to find out more and to see if your mum could be eligible, the first step is to fill out our application form, which you can find online, or you can call us on 020 8371 6611 for a copy to be posted to you.

increasingly difficult for employers to prevent their staff from seeking alternative employment. The economic climate is not what it used to be, and it is accepted that everyone needs to earn a living. It sounds as though your employer has extended these restrictive covenants much wider than is reasonably necessary to protect their legitimate business interests. Not only does this covenant prevent you from accepting many of the jobs for which your experience qualifies you, the two-year length would most likely be seen as unreasonable and therefore unenforceable. I advise that you negotiate either a waiver or a reduction in the restrictions.

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DANCING WITH LOUISE Dear Louise My daughter would like to go to ballet and hip-hop with a friend who has been dancing for many years. She has been put in the same hip-hop class as her friend, but is in a different grade for ballet. Now she doesn’t want to join in. I really want her to do the ballet as I know that it is the base of all dance. Do

Dear Sharon I totally understand your position and we see this often when friends of existing students want to join. When it comes to hip-hop, this can be arranged according to age as opposed to experience or ability, as each child can enjoy the class at their own pace. However, with ballet (same for dance gymnastics), it does make a difference when it comes to level. I always encourage our new students to not be put off if girls their age are in more advanced groups. I explain

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Fun, games and prizes

THE JEWISH NEWS CROSSWORD 1

12 13

ACROSS 1 Animosity (5) 4 Implicit (5)

7 Less messy (paint) (3-4) 8 Historical period (3) 9 Sort, kind (3)

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 with their letters in the grid will help you to guess the identity of other letters.

M O T N E M E V A P L H D L S

O H Z A S D B S C L

A H U T S R S D A C F N T

K L A S N M E A G E N B E J

S R

T X V S D F O C R S

S W A

I T

B H

A Y V S P E R G C T

ADVERTS BENCH BUS INFORMATION

Last issue’s solutions Crossword ACROSS: 1 Ache 3 Impose 8 Devolve 9 Ebb 10 Accredited 13 Accelerate 17 Gum 18 Tinfoil 19 Sludge 20 Ream DOWN: 1 Aide 2 Havoc 4 MBE 5 Overt 6 Embody 7 Floral 11 During 12 Haggis 14 Cymru 15 T-bone 16 Slum 18 Tog

P O T S F H

PASSENGERS PAVEMENT QUEUE ROAD

ROOF ROUTE SEAT SHELTER

4 7 5 2 3 9 6 8 1

1 8 3 4 7 6 9 5 2

9 6 8 7 4 5 1 2 3

23 18

23 6

11 19

SIGNS STOP TIMETABLE WAITING

20 13

7 5 2 1 6 3 4 9 8

8 4 7 6 9 2 3 1 5

5 26

2 24

4 3 5

3 2

15 5

26 6

20 3

3 1 2 5

14 5

See next issue for puzzle solutions.

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

Suguru 3 1 4 9 2 8 5 6 7

Sudoku 6 2 9 5 8 1 7 3 4

O J

F Z U I

E L

N G R N T O M

Q U E U E Q G R P G

3 6

B P O V K U T N I

W T Z G U M R B D M R T U N E E

O E F E A E O T V Q W E S

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

The listed words relating to a bus stop 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.

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.

CODEWORD 12

SUGURU

WORDSEARCH N A O Y X B Q X K P Y E W

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

DOWN 1 Naturally illuminated (6) 2 Electrically charged particle (3) 3 Spooky (5) 4 Become narrower at one end (5) 5 Radio reception problem (7) 6 Afterwards (4) 10 Related (7) 12 Large rounded vase (3) 13 Monarchs (6) 15 Desert watering place (5) 16 Unoccupied (5) 18 Shallow place across a river (4) 21 Make a mistake (3)

18 19

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

11 Expression of surprise meaning ‘I have found it’ (6) 14 ___ for tennis?, phrase often used in drawing-room comedies (6) 17 ___ de nil, pale green colour (3) 19 Rowing pole (3) 20 Unmatched (7) 22 Extinct birds (5) 23 Spun threads (5)

SUDOKU

5 3 6 8 1 7 2 4 9

2 9 1 3 5 4 8 7 6

3 1 4 5 4 1

2 5 2 1 3 2

3 1 3 5 4 1

Wordsearch 2 4 2 1 2 3

3 5 3 4 5 4

1 4 1 2 1 2

1 4 1 5 1 2

2 5 2 3 4 3

3 1 4 1 5 1

5 2 3 2 4 2

3 4 1 5 1 5

1 2 3 4 3 4

C B D B R E G R U B E G F

S E U N L R K P N U T G F

K E B T F O B Z A J T E M

U M I Y T T O Y R E E H Y

Z D S R B E O M B B U R X

U L C B R S R O E B G G Z

V B U R E E B C R R A T T

Codeword A H I O L N B I S T B B L

O S T C Q G E K J I E E P

Q A S C O O N C C A G E M

D A C O N L I A N A N A B

A X W L V O R S B J L U D

N O K I W B R E A D N B Q

A O H S UR F A S A G A T L A S U L AG F T E O I N J E I I SQU I D S S R U S E A E S Y

S O B S C I NG L AW E R I I E S E X T O L T Z L L AGS H I P A N U C T E D G I N R D OV E R S E E P R K R N I MA T I NG C S M O

CDNMGUB T X S P J F 14/10 H LWE AQO Z I Y RK V

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The Jewish News 22 September 2016

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