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Guardian angels Magen David Adom UK helps bring 52 Ukrainian orphans to Britain Page 3

FREE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR 24 March 2022

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21 Adar Sheni 5782

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Issue No.1255

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@JewishNewsUK

The students are revolting • • • •

NUS quietly drops its commitment to IHRA Anti-Israel rapper chosen to front major campaign Vice president questions Jewish identity and can’t even bring herself to write the word ‘Israel’ Prime Minister warns campuses are ‘tolerant of systematic antisemitism’ EXCLUSIVE

by Lee Harpin @lmharpin

National Union of Students (NUS) leaders have quietly dropped a commitment to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, placed anti-Israel rap-

per and conspiracy theorist Lowkey at the heart of a major campaign and even questioned the very idea of Jewish identity.

A Jewish News investigation into the NUS, under the leadership of outgoing president Larissa Kennedy, has discovered she openly backed a move by a top university to “revoke its adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism” last November.

Above: British rapper Lowkey makes a speech and sings at a ‘Free Palestine’ protest.

Inset: NUS president Larissa Kennedy at a Stop The War demonstration earlier this month.

Jewish News has been alerted to the apparent change in stance by the NUS – which represents around 600 students’ unions nationwide – in regards to the IHRA definition by an expert in student union affairs, who has worked within the higher education sector for nearly a decade.

The source, who is Jewish and asked not to be named, said: “I strongly suspect NUS has

abandoned the IHRA definition without telling anyone and is hoping nobody notices. If you search the NUS website, almost every reference to it has disappeared except one or two from the first half of 2020. It’s not in the National or Liberation Conference policy documents, it doesn’t seem to be a requirement to sign up to for election any more and isn’t discussed anywhere.”

The NUS president had, it can be revealed, signalled her own opposition to the IHRA definition on 23 November last year on social media.

That same day, a student activist tweeted it was “sick” (good) that Queen Mary University of London had managed to pass a motion calling on both the student union and the university to “revoke their Continued on p16

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

News / Terror killings / Israel visit / JN hustings / Green welcome

Four die in Israel’s worst terror attack in six years

by Jeremy Last jeremy@jewishnews.co.uk @JeremyLastLJN

Israeli security forces have been put on maximum alert after four people were killed in Be’er Sheva on Tuesday, in the deadliest terror attack on Israeli civilians for almost six years.

The terrorist, who was shot dead by a passer-by, was a former school teacher who was freed from prison in 2019, after serving four years for forming a group that planned to travel to Syria and join the Islamic State.

Muhammad Abu Alkiyan, 34, an Israeli citizen, was also convicted of teaching children and mosque-goers content inspired by Isis.

The last time four Israeli civilians were killed in a terrorist attack was in June 2016, when two gunmen opened fire in the Max Brenner restaurant at Tel Aviv’s Sarona Market.

In Tuesday’s attack, Abu Alkiyan stabbed a woman at a petrol sta-

A passer-by shoots the assailant as another intended victim flees

The four victims (clockwise from top left): Laura Yitzhak, Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky, Menahem Yehezkel and Doris Yahbas

tion then got in his car and ran over a cyclist before killing a man and a woman outside a shopping centre, also with the knife.

It was the third stabbing attack in Israel this week: a 35-year-old man

was stabbed and wounded in Jerusalem on Saturday and two policemen were injured when they were stabbed in east Jerusalem on Sunday.

Defence minister Benny Gantz confirmed that the incident had

prompted the security establishment to raise the alert levels in Israel.

“We are on high alert against all threats in all areas,” he said. “We will make sure that anyone who supports the latest attacks will pay a price.”

The victims were named as Doris Yahbas, 49, a mother of three, Laura Yitzhak, 43, another mother of three, Rabbi Moshe Kravitzky, a father of four, and Menahem Yehezkel, 67.

Footage shows Abu Alkiyan standing at a roundabout outside the BIG shopping centre looking around while holding the knife in the air, having already killed four people.

Before police got to the scene, he was approached by an armed local bus driver, Arthur Chaimov, who tried to convince him to drop the knife.

As Abu Alkiyan lunged at Chaimov, another armed civilian shot him dead.

Labour’s Middle East man JN to host election hustings has a ‘busy’ visit to region Labour’s Bambos Charalambous has revealed that he was “delighted to visit Israel this week” – his first visit to the region as shadow minister for the Middle East, writes Lee Harpin.

The Enfield Southgate MP said the UK’s relationship with Israel was “hugely important” to “both Labour and to the country and as a whole”.

He added that the “busy itinerary left me with a deeper understanding of Israeli perspectives, as well as the opportunities and challenges faced by the broader Middle East region”.

Charalambous had flown to Israel with Labour Friends of Israel chair Steve McCabe MP, with the pair visiting Yad Vashem and taking part in a wreath-laying ceremony.

They had meetings with deputy foreign minister Idan Roll and other officials and had party meetings with Israeli Labor parliamentarians.

Charalambous and McCabe were also given a briefing with Professor Boaz Ganor, founder and executive director of the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism.

Both Labour MPs personally expressed their sympathy and solidarity to their Israeli Labor counterparts on Tuesday with regards to the terror attack in Be’er Sheva in which four people were murdered.

The pair are due to meet tomorrow with Abie Moses, national chair of the Organisation for the Victims of Terrorism in Herzliya, where the matter of Israel’s security was set to be discussed further.

Bambos Charalambous and Steve McCabe survey Israel’s border with Syria this week

Charalambous told Jewish News: “I have had important discussions about the work of people-to-people groups, economic ties and innovation, relations with the Arab world, Israel’s security concerns, the path back to a peace process, as well as reaffirming the importance of our sister relationship with the Israeli Labor party.”

The shadow minister added: “I made clear that the [UK] Labour Party remains steadfast in our commitment to a negotiated two-state solution based on international law and human rights, with a safe and secure Israel alongside a sovereign and viable Palestinian state.”

The party leaders hoping to take control of London’s councils this May will go head-to-head in seven exclusive hustings supported by Jewish News next month, writes Justin Cohen.

The hustings – hosted by the London Jewish Forum, Jewish Leadership Council and Board of Deputies with Jewish News as media partner – will take place across five London boroughs in partnership with synagogues.

Barnet looks set to be the tightest council election in the capital, with Labour hoping to take the council for the first time. Hustings will be held in Hendon (4 April), New Barnet (7 April) and

Edgware (12 April). Conservative Council leader Daniel Thomas will go up against Labour’s Barry Rawlings and Barnet Lib Dem leader Gabriel Rozenberg at the New Barnet hustings.

Finchley residents will get the opportunity to meet the candidates standing in surrounding wards at a meetand-greet event on 26 April.

In Enfield, Labour council leader Nesil Caliskan will be quizzed in Southgate alongside Conservative Joanne Laban on 11 April. The borough’s political scene has been fraught with debate on low-traffic neighbourhoods and defections from the Labour Party in recent years.

On 5 April, JW3 will play host to hustings for Camden Council’s elections, with Labour Council leader Georgia Gould up against Conservative Oliver Cooper, and leaders from the Liberal Democrat and Green parties.

There will also be hustings for Redbridge and Haringey on 6 and 26 respectively.

London Jewish Forum co-chairs Adrian Cohen and Andrew Gilbert, and director Daniel Kosky, said: “Whether it be on low-traffic neighbourhoods, council tax, potholes, or Jewish issues, we look forward to facilitating the Jewish community’s involvement in the upcoming elections.”

‘JEW PROCESS’ CLLR GOES GREEN A Wirral councillor, expelled from Labour over support for a proscribed group that downplayed antisemitism allegations, has been allowed to join the Green Party, writes Lee Harpin.

Jo Bird, who joked about “Jew process” as she claimed antisemitism was given more attention than other forms of racism, was confirmed as a Green councillor for Bromborough, Port Sunlight and New Ferry on Tuesday.

Mike Katz, the Jewish Labour Movement’s national chair, tweeted in response: “Seems the Green Party really isn’t at all fussy about who it takes in as a member and a councillor.”

Pat Cleary, leader of the now six-strong Green group on Wirral Council, welcomed Bird to the party, saying: “Passionate, effective, hardworking people like Jo are very welcome in the Green Party.”

Bird said: “I stood to promote justice and equality, protect lives and livelihoods, enhance jobs, services and our environment and oppose cruel cuts.

“I’m becoming a Green councillor because the Green Party is better for Bromborough and better for me. The Greens are doing excellent work for Wirral people all year round.”

24 March 2022 Jewish News

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PUTIN’S WAR ON UKRAINE

MDA assists in largest airlift of child refugees to London The largest airlift of child refugees from Ukraine touched down in London yesterday, following an operation involving British humanitarian Sally Becker and the UK branch of Israel’s medical emergency service, writes Justin Cohen.

Most of the 52 youngsters aged two to 15 were taken to safety in Poland by Dnipro Kids, a charity established by fans of Scottish football club Hibernian that supports orphanages in Ukraine, after the invasion by Russia.

Another 20 children from the same city were last week taken over the border by Becker, who became known as the Angel of Mostar in the early 1990s for her work evacuating injured youngsters and even arranging ceasefires in Bosnia.

Following an intervention by the barrister and TV personality Robert Rinder, who heard about their plight while broadcasting from the ‘Angel of Mostar’ Sally Becker with some of the young Ukrainians allowed to come to the UK border last week, Magen David Adom Daniel Burger, CEO of MDA UK, hailed “the Ukrainian medics. “I’ve always (MDA) UK contacted Virgin Atlantic respected the amazing work most unbelievable efforts” of Dnipro Kids and CEO Shai Weiss and, within they do globally. I’m hoping Becker’s Save a Child in getting the children to hours, the airline had agreed this will be just the start safety. to fly the group to the UK. He said before takeoff: “This mammoth of collaborating.”

Under the name Project Becker – who began operation has only been possible thanks to so Light, the group have been her work in war zones many people’s generosity and we can’t wait to brought from Warsaw to after watching TV news welcome the group on board the flight.

London before spending “Lifesaving is Magen David Adom’s reason showing people under the next two months fire in Sarajevo and being for being and we wanted to support Ukraine in in Scotland. reminded how others had any way possible. From supplying ambulances “The children have failed to come to the aid and medical aid to making this brilliant rescue found themselves caught of Jews during the Shoah – flight happen, we are doing all we can to help the up in a conflict not of their travelled to Ukraine after war country and its citizens.” making and beyond their underBlackford said: “I’m delighted that by broke out to help doctors use a new standing,” Save a Child founder Becker told Jewish News before take- Robert Rinder, left, app connecting medics in besieged working together we have been able to overcome areas to a network of 250 paediatric the unnecessary barriers imposed by the Home off. “By going to the UK they will at the airport Office, and I am grateful to all involved. I hope specialists around the world. be able to live without fear of being The app, developed by Save a Child, which the home secretary will... work to ensure an killed by a shell or a bullet until the war is over also funds the journey for children needing life- approach that supports missions such as this.” and they can go home.”

He also called for all visa requirements to be With accommodation secured on the saving treatment in another country, had been banks of Loch Lomond, the Home Office gave developed since its origins as a WhatsApp group waived for Ukrainian refugees.

Last week, deputy prime minister Dominic the green light last Thursday for the group linking those tending to children fleeing Isis to and their legal guardians to come to the the children’s department of Hadassah in Israel. Raab pointed to safeguarding issues governing She said: “We saved many lives. I was orphans to explain why clearance for the miscountry, after lobbying by Becker alongside SNP Westminster leader Ian Blackford, who going to show doctors in Ukraine how it sion had taken time.

Becker said she plans to return to Ukraine to raised the issue in the Commons last Wednesday. worked... I got a call from our project man“There’s no way we could have moved ager about 20 orphans still trapped in Dnipro. assist in other cases where children are trapped, them without their help,” said Becker of MDA, They got out on a train then on to a coach I including in Odesa, but expects they will be which has sent armoured ambulances to help arranged to get them over the border to Poland.” placed in the care of local authorities there.

WJR RESCUES 15,000 FROM UKRAINE WAR World Jewish Relief chair Maurice Helfgott has revealed that the charity has so far rescued 15,000 people from the war in Ukraine but there is an urgent need to get food and medical supplies into the country, writes Lee Harpin.

Addressing a meeting of the Board of Deputies, he also confirmed that more than 1,500 people “principally but not exclusively from the Jewish community” had registered an interest through WJR in taking refugees into their home in the UK. But Helfgott revealed that his charity had taken a “constructive view” of the government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme “to make it effective as possible while trying to influence for as much positive change”.

He told Sunday’s Board meeting: “We are identifying individuals and families who are known to us in Ukraine or fleeing for Ukraine whom we hope to match through the scheme.

“The way it works is far from perfect and far from clear. And many, many details still need to be worked out. “ Detailing WJR’s work, Helfgott reminded Deputies of how the charity was founded in the 1930s by the British Jewish community to help with rescues from Germany and Austria.

But outlining the response to the conflict in Ukraine he said: “We have been able to help rescue 15,000 people so far. And our number one priority is to continue to do those rescues.

Just this weekend there is an active rescue going on.”

He also revealed that the charity had set up a “supply chain from Britain, from Spain from Poland, through a hub into Lviv and then on as far south and as far east as we possibly can, using our partners to deliver a combination of cash, medicine and urgently needed food”.

Helfgott said in the UK his charity has been working with the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council and others “directly with the government to help shape the humanitarian response, welcoming refugees and to make sure that is as good as it can be”.

He told Deputies to relay the message to their synagogues that the best means to help those in Ukraine was through cash donations.

President Marie van der Zyl said the community was “incredibly grateful” for the work carried out by WJR.

Progressive fund raises £1m The World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ) has received more than £1 million in donations to its Ukraine Crisis Fund, established to tackle the humanitarian crisis in the country and to support its refugees, writes Adam Decker.

The fund, in partnership with the European Union for Progressive Judaism (EUPJ), assists across a spectrum of needs, including transport and security for Ukrainians seeking safety across borders, direct financial assistance to those in need and support to refugee centres and congregations in Europe facilitating the relocation of Ukrainian refugees.

More than 6,000 individual donors from 26 countries have so far contributed.

Rabbi Igor Zinkov, of the Lib-

eral Jewish Synagogue, and Deborah Blausten, of Finchley Reform Synagogue, have been in Poland as part of their roles working with the fund. They visited the WUPJ/EUPJ-funded Refugee Centre near Warsaw, another nearby centre run by the JDC/Polish Jewish Community, a local group supporting refugee children and Ec Chaim Progressive Synagogue, where Rabbi Stas Wojciechowicz and his congregation are part of a crisis group that coordinates all support efforts.

Rabbi Zinkov said: “Many of those who donate have written to us to say: ‘It’s good to be able to do something, however small.’

“I understand them. It is painful and scary to watch the war, humanitarian

catastrophe and refugee crisis unfold.

You want to scream, cry and pray for its end. But the war does not end despite our voices, tears and quiet conversations.”

While it is a Jewish international fund, he said: “Now we must do everything we can to help and support those in need – people in Ukraine and Ukrainian refugees. Although the fund is Jewish, we help everybody.”

Jewish refugees from Kyiv and Odesa were able to celebrate Purim in Oldenburg, Germany, after being helped to safety there by the fund.

Sonja Guentner, EUPJ chair, expressed her gratitude to donors to the fund.  To donate to the WUPJ Ukraine Crisis Fund, visit www.wupj.org

Jewish Ukrainian refugees celebrate Purim in Germany

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

PUTIN’S WAR ON UKRAINE

Babyn Yar centre investigates war crimes

The scene at Babyn Yar two weeks ago after a near-miss from a Russian shell

The Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Centre near Kyiv is colaunching a new unit to help investigate Russian war crimes in Ukraine, writes Stephen Oryszczuk.

Babyn Yar is the ravine by which more than 33,000 Ukrainian Jews were shot and killed by occupying Nazi soldiers over just two days in 1941, and was itself damaged in an attack by Russian forces earlier this month.

This week, the BYHMC said it would launch the unit with French non-governmental organisation Yahad-In Unum, led by Father Patrick Desbois, who investigated the killing of Ukrainian Jews by Nazis during the Holocaust.

The new unit will aim to “discover the horrors of the [Russian] crimes committed on a massive scale, day-after-day, against the Ukrainian civilian populations in Mariupol, Kharkiv, Mikolayiv and beyond”.

It will collect as many filmed testimonies as possible of the victims of war crimes, examining the charge that civilians – including women, the elderly, and children – have been targeted without any link to military targets.

“Innocent citizens trying to leave cities are killed by bullets in their cars or in the street,” they said in a joint statement. “Schools, kindergartens, and hospitals are

targeted by Russian missiles. The voice of a witness is a cry thrown to the sky. It must be heard by the International Criminal Court.”

Countries such as Germany have already begun investigations, and Desbois said eyewitnesses would be “key to confront the denial of Putin and his helpers”.

Yahad-In Unum investigated the ‘Holocaust by Bullets’, including the shooting and killing of Ukrainian Jews by Nazi soldiers, by building a special methodology and interviewing more than 8,000 witnesses.

“I never thought that, in 2022, I would need to once again be investigating war crimes on these same lands,” Fr Desbois said.

ISRAEL SENDS SPECIALIST MEDICS TO RUN FIELD HOSPITAL Israel this week sent more than 80 medical staff to operate a field hospital on the Ukrainian border for those injured in – and fleeing from – the deadly Russian invasion.

Operation Shining Star, which will last for at least four weeks, is being led by doctors from the Sheba Medical Center in Ramat Gan, with support from Israel’s foreign ministry and the Israeli embassy.

It includes a medical laboratory, an X-ray room, an ultrasonography room and an isola-

tion ward, and is staffed by clinicians including paramedics, emergency care physicians, paediatricians, surgeons, dentists, gynaecologists, and experts in infectious diseases.

Yoav Bistritsky, the charge d’affaires of Israel’s embassy to Ukraine, said: “This team will bring to Ukraine the best knowledge, the most innovative opportunities that this country has ever seen. We promise to keep supporting Ukraine in the coming future too, and we hope to see peace in this land.”

Israel’s efforts are being led by doctors from the Sheba Medical Centre in Ramat Gan

UKRAINE CRISIS APPEAL

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24 March 2022 Jewish News

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5

PUTIN’S WAR ON UKRAINE

‘Israel’s betrayed Ukrainians’ A leading Ukranian politician has accused the Israeli government of “betraying” people attempting to escape the brutal Russian invasion of her country by placing strict limits on the numbers of refugees now allowed to remain there.

Speaking to Jewish News, Alyona Shkrum, elected People’s Deputy of Ukraine, compared the suffering now being experienced by her people at the hands of Vladimir Putin’s troops to that which took place under the German Nazis.

The Cambridge Universityeducated lawyer and MP for the Batkivshchyna party said: “It is very surprising to us. We don’t understand why Israel

President Volodymyr Zelensky addresses the Knesset

has limited the number of people that can come.

“Now you need a sponsor to get in – we had visa clearance with Israel, which they have

stopped. Obviously Ukrainians feel betrayed by that.

This is a nation that suffered so much during the Holocaust times. For sure they could help

the people who are suffering the same.”

In Israel there has been widespread criticism of the government’s response to the refugee influx – both those eligible for Israeli citizenship under the Law of Return and those who are not.

Shkrum revealed she had received messages from activists and politicians inside Israel who were appalled by their government’s response.

“It’s a huge… a problem that needs to be resolved,” she said.

Shkrum was one of four Ukranian MPs flown to the UK this week to discuss ways in which Western nations can act against Russian aggression.

UK ENVOY TO UKRAINE: WE SHARE SAME VALUES The UK’s ambassador to Ukraine has told a Board of Deputies meeting that the people of the war-ravaged country are “fighting for strong and democratic values that we as Jews share”.

Jewish envoy Melinda Simmons said in a speech that she Values: Melinda Simmons believed it was “democratic values that are the threat to president Putin, not the present, not the potential for NATO membership, not the presence of foreign troops…. the presence of a strong and confident democratic country on his border. ” She added: “That’s what they’re fighting for. And those democratic values, those are our values too, our government, our country, that we, as Jews camp on, that define us. That’s why we’re supporting them the way that we are.”

Simmons, who was made envoy to Ukraine in 2019, was given a lengthy ovation from Deputies.

Finkelstein confirms involvement in Chelsea bid Newspaper columnist and former government adviser Danny Finkelstein has confirmed his involvement in a consortium seeking to buy Chelsea Football Club, writes Lee Harpin.

Finkelstein, a long-time Chelsea fan, tweeted a statement in which he said he was “delighted” to be part of American deal-maker Todd Boehly’s

attempt to purchase the London club.

The Jewish journalist also appeared to confirm the involvement of former Jewish Leadership Council chair Jonathan Goldstein in the bid.

He described the Cain International investment chief as a “brilliant man who knows his football”.

Goldstein, a Spurs fan, was linked

to the bid last week. “We’d be lucky to have him,” Finkelstein said.

Finkestein’s statement came after Bloomberg reported Boehly plans to appoint him and celebrity PR officer Barbara Charone as non-executive board directors at Chelsea if his bid for the club in successful.

The club is being sold by Russian

billionaire Roman Abramovich after he was sanctioned by the UK government in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine amid intense scrutiny of his ties to President Vladimir Putin.

Finkelstein has previously provided advice to Conservative prime ministers John Major, David Cameron and Theresa May.

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

PUTIN’S WAR ON UKRAINE

‘We have lost everything,’ say the Jews of besieged Mariupol

by Natalie Gryvnyak in Ukraine

A rabbi formerly based in the besieged and bomb-battered southern Ukrainian city of Mariupol has described how people are hemmed in by Russia’s “iron walls” as its invading forces continue to fire on desperate residents.

Speaking to Jewish News, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Cohen also detailed how Jewish Ukrainians were among those sheltering in the city’s theatre – the site of their annual Chanukah celebrations – when it was struck by a Russian missile this week.

Few accounts have emerged from Mariupol in recent days, owing to Russia’s destruction of the city’s infrastructure, including its mobile and internet connections.

Most information now comes through the satellite phones of aid workers.

Since the 1990s, just after the fall of communism, Rabbi Mendel Cohen has helped to re-establish Jewish life in the strategically important port city on the Sea of Azov.

This week, however, he told how his

beloved home had been blitzed by Russian shelling.

He said up to 50 Jewish families were among those who left in the 160-car convoy that was the first to evacuate the city several days ago.

“Some had to leave their relatives,” he explained. “It has divided families. I know one Jewish lady who had to leave her mother.”

Reflecting on the damage, he added: “No city now can be compared with Mariupol as to the destruction and bombings. We have an iron curtain around the city. Only a few can find a signal and just quickly report that they are still alive. You can hear their cries as they phone.”

On the bombing of the theatre, he said: “It was a special place, a place of joy. For 10 years, it was where we celebrated Chanukah. I know some Jewish families who were sheltering in there when it was destroyed.”

He added: “Our community is being scattered. Everyone is in basements with no connection, either through their phone or through other people, with no one to go and

Flats in Mariupol destroyed by Russian forces. ‘Some had to leave relatives,’ the rabbi said

see if they are OK. Where is the world?

Where is the no-fly zone?”

Before the Russian invasion, the city was home to 430,000 people, which included a 16,000-strong Jewish population. Although tens of thousands have now fled, many others are stuck in an area that was once home to up to 90,000 Jewish residents in its 19th century heyday.

Rabbi Mendel Cohen said that people were evacuating towards the mainland cities of Zaporizhzhia or Dnipro, but that it was dangerous, with convoys of cars Rabbi Menachem Mendel Cohen in Mariupol constantly being hit. “People can’t get out,” he said. “Those who drive risk their years. I am 35; we need to start all over again.” lives trying to escape.”

He said it had been impossible to leave the One member of Mariupol’s Jewish community who was lucky to get out is Roman, whose city for many days because humanitarian corapartment and two cars were destroyed. ridors – while promised – did not materialise He escaped with a neighbour in their car, owing to constant Russian shelling.

“I think the number killed [in Mariupol] driving through several small villages around is higher than the official numbers say,” he the city at huge risk of being fired on.

“We were in a hopeless situation,” he added.

“There are no proper bomb shelters. Those recalled.

“Together with my wife and 13-year-old being used are simple basements. They colson, we drove along roads laid with mines. lapse like boards after a hit.

“Nothing was prepared in Apartments were destroyed as we advance of the war. Iron fragdrove. I never expected to live ments are flying all over, through such a situation. so people walking or My child survived three crossing the road are shellings. Our village hit and do not surwas destroyed. We vive. tried to find other “In each apartplaces to stay in.” ment, many famiThe city now has lies gather together no gas for heating, so they can be with no running water relatives.

This and no electricity, means that there is he said. enormous loss of life He recalled how if a bomb hits it. he left his phone “People feel abancharging in the car as he doned. They are deprived went towards the house of light and basic necessities. before an explosion tore Where is the mayor? Where is through the building behind him. the Red Cross?”

“My car was just outside the Rabbi Mendel Cohen Rabbi Mendel Cohen said he gate of the maternity hospital planned to leave Ukraine if he when it was bombed,” he said, referring to an attack that made news reports survived. “After a couple of days of coming to our senses, we will go to Israel because I have around the world.

“We have lost everything, everything that an Israeli passport,” he said. “I just want to we managed to collect and built over many wake up from this.”

CAMP SURVIVOR, 96, IS KILLED IN KHARKIV

Boris Romantschenko in the uniform of a political prisoner

A 96-year-old who survived four Nazi concentration camps has been killed during a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.

Boris Romantschenko, who had been detained at the Buchenwald, Peenemunde, Dora and Bergen-Belsen camps, was killed last Friday in the block of flats where he lived.

His death was revealed by the Twitter account of

Germany’s Buchenwald concentration camp memorial, who said it had been told of Romantschenko’s death by his granddaughter.

On the day of Romantschenko’s death, President Vladimir Putin held a rally in Moscow where he again claimed Russia was fighting “neo-Nazis” inUkraine.

The German camp’s Twitter account stated: “Boris

Romantschenko survived the concentration camps Buchenwald, Peenemünde, Dora and BergenBelsen.

“He was killed last Friday in a blast at his home in Kharkiv, Ukraine.

“He was 96-years-old. We are stunned.

“According to his granddaughter, he lived in a multistory building, hit by a shell.

“Boris Romantschenko

worked intensively on the memory of Nazi crimes and was vice-president of the Buchenwald-Dora International Committee.”

The Auschwitz Memorial Twitter page said Romantschenko was killed by a bullet that hit his house.

He was was born on January 20, 1926, in Bondari near the city of Sumy in northeastern Ukraine.

24 March 2022 Jewish News

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PUTIN’S WAR ON UKRAINE

2,000 more refugees welcomed into Israel Israeli rescue organisation United Hatzalah this week said it has flown more than 2,000 Ukrainian refugees to Israel as part of its Operation Orange Wings, writes Jeremy Last.

Refugees have been brought from Romania, Moldova and Vienna, to where they had fled after the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine a month ago.

They were transported on a specially-chartered series of rescue flights from Iasi, in Romania, Chisinau, in Moldova, and Vienna, in Austria.

Each flight has 100 to 160 refugees onboard and is staffed by United Hatzalah medical personnel, who accompany the refugees as well as provide humanitarian aid and medical air, even mid-flight when necessary.

The rescue organisation said it was planning to expand Operation Orange Wings to other locations in order to bring more Ukrainian refugees to Israel in the coming days.

President and founder of United

Zelensky gives new details of family’s Holocaust fate Volodymyr Zelensky this week provided new information about his family’s tragic Holocaust history.

The Ukrainian president told CNN that his great-grandparents died when the Nazis burned their village.

Speaking through a translator, Zelensky said, as he has many times before, that his grandfather and his grandfather’s brothers all enlisted in the Soviet Red Army, and only his grandfather survived.

But he also offered details about what happened to his grandfather’s parents, which have not previously

been reported in English. “His father and his mother were killed in a terrible fire,” he said.

“The Nazis set ablaze the entire village where they lived and where my grandfather was born.”

Zelensky did not name the village, but massacres by fire were part of the Nazi army’s playbook in Ukrainian territory and elsewhere.

Zelensky did not specifically mention the Holocaust during the in-depth interview broadcast on Monday or the fact that his grandparents were both Jewish.

Polish president says Ukraine attacks similar to those by Nazis United Hatzalah flew in Ukrainians as part of Operation Orange Wings

Hatzalah, Eli Beer, said: “I am proud of what our volunteers and our organisation have done.

“The need for humanitarian assistance and medical care for the refugees is immense. We are doing our part in providing that assistance to hundreds of thousands of refugees who have made their way into Moldova.

“Our teams will remain on the ground providing aid in Moldova and bringing refugees to Israel from Moldova and surrounding countries as long as there is a need to do so.”

Since the start of fighting on 24 February, more than 13,000 Ukrainians have arrived in Israel.

Some 3,650 are eligible to immigrate under Israel’s Law of Return.

Poland’s president has compared Russia’s attacks on Ukraine to Nazi forces during the Second World War, saying that besieged Mariupol looks like Warsaw in 1944 after the Germans bombed houses and killed civilians “with no mercy at all”.

Andrzej Duda, who hosts president Joe Biden later this week in a Warsaw rebuilt from the ashes of that war, spoke as traumatised people bearing witness to the horrors inflicted on Ukraine by

Russian forces continued to flee. They arrived by the thousands in Poland and other neighbouring nations.

The United Nations refugee agency announced a staggering milestone on Tuesday: more than 3.5 million refugees have now left Ukraine, with Poland taking in the lion’s share – more than 2.1 million – followed by Romania with more than 540,000 and Moldova with more than 367,000. Slovakia and Hungary have also welcomed refugees.

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

PUTIN’S WAR ON UKRAINE

Ukraine’s iron lady Former Israeli prime minister Golda Meir, who was born in Kyiv, is a hero in her native country’s fight against Russia, says Philissa Cramer

A Ukrainian soldier with the biography Golda

The most prominent Jewish figure in Ukraine right now is the country’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. The runnerup may well be another country’s famous Jewish leader.

Golda Meir, the fourth prime minister of Israel and a native of Kyiv whose family fled amid antisemitic violence, has loomed large ever since Russia launched its war on Ukraine late last month.

Her words have appeared in proUkrainian memes, been quoted

by Ukrainian diplomats and even been pulled from the backpack of a battle-ready Ukrainian soldier.

Almost as soon as the war began, memes riffing on a quote often attributed to Meir, adapted to the current conflict, began circulating online.

“If Russia lays down its weapons, there is no war. If Ukraine lays down its weapons, there is no Ukraine,” read one widely shared

tweet, which its author attributed to “a Ukrainian Christian”.

The author later clarified that the comment came from a Facebook post by an American missionary who had been living in Kyiv and who fled to Hungary and then returned to the USA this week.

But it is actually an adaptation of a quote widely attributed to Meir, who led Israel during and after the 1973 Yom Kippur War, which Israel won at great cost weeks after Egypt and Syria, which had amassed troops on Israel’s borders for months, invaded from multiple directions.

“If the Arabs put down their weapons today, there would be no more violence. If the Jews put down their weapons today, there would be no more Israel,” goes the quote. Benjamin Netanyahu, then speaker of Israel’s government, uttered those words in a speech to lawmakers in 2006.

Ukraine held little romance for Meir, whose family was poor and unhappy in Kyiv and then, later, in Wisconsin, where they settled after emigrating in 1906. She often recounted the memory of seeing her father batten down their home in preparation for a pogrom that ultimately did not take place.

“I can hear the sound of that hammer now, and I can see the children standing in the streets, wide-eyed and not making a sound, watching the nails being driven in,” one of her biographers, Francine Klagsbrun, wrote in 2017’s Lioness: Golda Meir and the Nation of Israel.

In the Burkett biography that the Ukrainian soldier carried, Meir is quoted offering another indictment, saying, “The Russia I knew was a place that men on horses butchered Jews.”

In Israel, Meir followed an improbable trajectory from poor immigrant to foreign minister, and

Inspirational: Golda Meir

then prime minister. Like Zelensky, she became renowned for how she laid out her country’s predicament to her countrymen and to the world.

“We say ‘peace’ and the echo comes back from the other side, ‘war,’” she once said, according to her New York Times obituary, in a comment that bears resemblance to ones in Zelensky’s recent public addresssr. “We don’t want wars even when we win.”

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

News / Murder trial / Fans investigated Synagogue issues Uyghur manifesto A London synagogue has become the first to issue a “manifesto of solidarity” with the Uyghur Muslims and to set out an action plan for ways to help them. Magen Avot, a relatively new United Synagogue community in Hendon, has spearheaded support for the Uyghurs, who are subject to oppression in China. The manifesto suggests ways to challenge the “business as usual” response when dealing with companies that sell produce almost certainly made using forced Uyghur labour.

JTeen celebrates first anniversary Young people’s support network Jteen has celebrated its first anniversary with a dinner for its counsellors, therapists and management.

The organisation recently established a schools programme offering interactive assemblies and workshops on a range of topics and, due to demand, will extend the programme in the coming year.

MP murder suspect ‘surveilled’ Freer The man accused of murdering the veteran Conservative politician Sir David Amess turned up at a constituenct surgery hosted by Finchley and Golders Green MP Mike Freer just one month before the attack, a court has heard.

Ali Harbi Ali, 26, denies the murder of the Southend West MP on 15 October 2021 as he held a constituency surgery in an Essex church.

Opening the case before the Old Bailey jury, prosecutor Tom Little QC said Amess, 69, The late David Amess, left, and north London MP Mike Freer was “assassinated” by Keir Starmer and Ben “To that end, from at least a “committed, radiWallace. The jury May 2019 he researched and calised Islamist terwas told the suspect planned potential attacks on rorist”, who stabbed also visited the home members of parliament and him to death in an of Michael Gove to the Houses of Parliament.” apparent attempt to The jury heard Amess was carry out “reconavenge the bombing fatally attacked by Ali, who of Syria. The QC also Ali Harbi Ali on the naissance trips”.

Little told the tricked his way into a meeting said Ali carried out day of the attack court the suspect with him before sending a research on Freer, who became an MP in 2010, as had “for a number of years message to family claiming it well as visiting the Wikipedia been determined to carry out was “revenge… in the name of pages of Dominic Raab, Sir an act of domestic terrorism. Allah”. The trial continues.

Arsenal will ban fans who sang ‘vile’ song Arsenal FC has vowed to ban any club members found to have been part of a group of football fans filmed chanting a virulently antisemitic song on a train near Birmingham last weekend.

The clip, posted on Twitter, appears to have Football ‘fans’ caught on video been captured on a train packed with Arsenal sup- uals found guilty are members porters on their way to their of our club, they will have their terminated team’s match at Aston Villa memberships immediately and will receive last Saturday, 19 March.

In it the group sing an anti- stadium bans. We will not Tottenham song ending with stand for this kind of behavthe words “F***ing Jew”. One iour and are continually trying person is heard saying “Love to improve the way that we identify and deal with offenthat one” as others laugh.

The clip is being investi- sive and abusive incidents.”

A Tottenham Hotspur gated by West Midlands Police, after officers were alerted to condemned the incident, describing the chant as “vile”. the incident by Jewish News.

“Antisemitism in any form An Arsenal spokesman said: “We are appalled seeing is wholly unacceptable and we this footage and hope the West support all efforts to kick it out Midlands Police and British of the game,” a spokesman said.

Transport Police can identify “We hope that those individthe individuals and bring them uals conducting this vile chant are identified and dealt with in to justice as soon as possible.”

“If any identified individ- the strongest way possible.”

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

News / Textbook row / MP anger

EU freezes €2m Palestinian aid

by Jenni Frazer @JenniFrazer

The EU has frozen more than two million euros of funding to the Palestinian Authority because of the PA’s refusal to clean its school textbooks of

race hate and antisemitism — and the PA has blamed the Israel-based educational research body IMPACT-se.

Riyad al-Maliki, the PA foreign minister, told Voice of Palestine radio the aid had been frozen since early 2021.

Al-Maliki was speaking ahead of a visit next week by the EU commissioner Oliver Varhelyi, whose department oversees aid to the PA. The Palestinian leader said the PA rejected the aid-for-reform condition.

In media articles in the past week, PA politicians blamed IMPACT-se for the freeze. The education ministry’s curriculum head, Tharwat Zaid, said of the terrorists who appear in the as “heroes” and martyrs, that they were people to which the Palestinians were entitled.

Chief executive of IMPACT-se Marcus Sheff said: “The PA brazenly con-

Books contain ‘race hate’

tinues to produce antisemitic and violent textbooks, written and taught by EU-financed Palestinian civil servants… the PA does not seem inclined to offer the EU a way out.”

POLITICIANS SPEAK OUT ABOUT RACIST ABUSE Dame Louise Ellman, a campaigner against antisemitism in Labour, and the MP Nusrat Ghani, who recently revealed concerns about Islamophobia in the Tory Party, have discussed their experiences together at an online event.

Interviewed by Board of Deputies vice-president Amanda Bowman, both spoke about the hostility they faced from their own memberships.

Ellman told the audience of the event – hosted by the Board and the Alliance of Jewish Women and the Organisations – that “things changed for me pretty radically when Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party.

The former Liverpool Riverside MP said initially she was abused by crowds who descended on party meetings who took exception to her views on the Middle East.

Then the tactics changed.

“They started the policy of othering me and I noticed people didn’t look at me straight anymore.

“My name wasn’t used and I was referred to as the MP, or Mrs Ellman,” Ghani revealed she also suffered at the hands of racists when she was elected in 2015.

She said: “I have to think twice about my safety, my daughter’s safety and my family’s safety.”

Manchester Jewish body has revamp Manchester’s Jewish Representative Council (JRC) has undergone a revamp, with the establishment of a dedicated management board. For the first time the Alliance of Charedi Representatives has named three people to the board, which will be formally appointed after the AGM on 23 May. The new board is aimed at reflecting

the diversity of the Jewish community in Manchester.

Chaired by Mark Adlestone, its members will each have responsibility for one area of the JRCs work, from antisemitism and security, youth and interfaith, to leadership development and Israel and public relations.

Mark Adlestone said: “We have

already established strong links across the community and wider society.

“There is undoubtedly an exciting future as we work to deliver on our farreaching programme on all aspects of communal life.”

Marc Levy has been seconded from the Jewish Leadership Council to be chief executive of the JRC.

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13

Manager accused / Charity support / News

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis was confirmed as having tested positive for Covid through a lateral flow test yesterday.

A spokesperson for Mirvis, who is in his mid60s, confirmed the positive test result and said he was “feeling well” while awaiting the result of a PCR test.

In the meantime, as a precautionary measure, the Office of the Chief Rabbi has cleared his diary for the coming days, including cancelling foreign trips.

Last month, Mirvis mourned the lives lost during the pandemic, as the Jewish community reported its thousandth victim of Covid.

He said: “As the world slowly begins to return to a more familiar rhythm of life, may the memory of those we lost continue to serve as an inspiration to us all to cherish the gifts of good health, a fulfilling life and loving relationships.”

Pandemic takes toll on teen girls The number of teenage girls in Israel being diagnosed with depression has nearly doubled since before the pandemic, and their use of antidepressants and antipsychotics has rocketed by 40 percent and 68 percent respectively.

This is according to recently-published data on more than 200,000 Israeli 12- to 17-yearolds, which appears to indicate that the pandemic has had a markedly more severe impact on the developing minds of girls.

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Former Chelsea FC manager Avram Grant

open secret” in the industry but Grant has said the programme makers were offering “distorted, unbalanced, and unfair picture of my private life”.

In a statement, he added: “My relationships with women have always been conducted with respect and consent. I have never intended to hurt anyone. I’m sorry with all my heart if anyone was hurt by me and I regret it.”

Grant took over from Jose Mourinho as Chelsea manager in 2007, steering them to the European Champions League final, before being fired shortly afterwards. He has also managed Portsmouth, West Ham, Israel and Ghana, in a coaching career that ended in 2017.

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DEPUTY IS SUSPENDED OVER TWEETS The Deputy for Southend & Westcliff Hebrew Congregation has been suspended by the Board for more than two years after he repeatedly labelled Palestinians “Nazis” and “child abusers” in a series of social media posts.

In a statement, the Board of Deputies confirmed Peter Baum’s suspension up until May 2024 for “tweeting unacceptable content”.

Baum’s suspension is in place until the end of the current triennium, but he will be able to apply for the suspension to be lifted after six months, subject to a sincere apology and a meaningful change in his behaviour.

President Marie van der Zyl said: “The values expressed in the tweets are wholly inconsistent with his role as a Deputy and undermine our work to challenge racism and antisemitism.”

A formal complaint was submitted about Baum’s conduct in January after he made inflammatory comments about Palestinians.

After an investigation, Baum was warned about his conduct and told much stronger sanctions would follow should he continue to espouse “racist views”. But a new complaint to the Board submitted in February outlined how he had continued to “express the most appalling racist views” in online posts. A Board investigation into Baum’s conduct upheld two complaints this week.

There were messages of support for Baum on social media, with claims he was a victim of “cancel culture”.

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Former Chelsea Football Club manager Avram Grant is facing new sexual assault allegations from three more women who this week aired their claims on Israeli TV, writes Adam Decker.

It comes just weeks after the Israeli manager was accused of sexual harassment by several other women, including young female journalists, who said he offered to help them with their careers before pouncing. The alleged incidents cover many years, the most recent of which was 18 months ago.

One woman, who was serving in the Israel Defense Forces at the time, said he asked her to take her clothes off at his apartment and tried to kiss her forcefully. Grant has previously said his relations with women have “always been conducted with respect and consent”.

Following the Channel 12 documentary, the 66-year-old apologised for any “upset” caused by his behaviour, but this week’s new allegations threaten to further tarnish his reputation in the sport and beyond.

He is accused of forcing himself on an 18-year-old in her car, while another said he took her by car to a parking garage before asking what she would be “prepared to do for money”.

When she said she would not have sex with him, he reportedly said he would “compromise and settle” for oral sex.

Others say Grant sent them unwanted sexual messages, while one woman said he tried to push her head towards his exposed genitals.

His behaviour has been referred to as “an

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Avram Grant faces new sex allegations

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

Special Report / Cost of living crisis

JW3 food bank provides meals and also ‘much-needed contact’

by Jenni Frazer @JenniFrazer

The relentlessly cheerful José da Silva, from Brazil, rolls up at JW3 to be greeted by the food bank team. He drives a City Harvest refrigerated van, and twice a week turns up at JW3, the Jewish community centre for London, with around 60kg of food in each delivery – so 120kg a week.

This is the beginning of the food trail, an extraordinary operation begun by JW3 when the pandemic forced it to close the Finchley Road building to the general public. But it became clear to the team that pandemic or no pandemic, there were all too many people in the London Borough of Camden, JW3’s home base, who needed food – either raw products that they could cook themselves, or hot ready meals.

And the recipients cover every demographic one could think of, and more: old people, disabled, vulnerable and shielding, refugees, asylum

seekers, and poorer members of both the Jewish and non-Jewish community. To the JW3 team, who the recipients are doesn’t matter. If they need food, JW3 will do its best to supply it.

Strictly speaking, the food trail begins a lot further back, before José appears with his van.

City Harvest is a London-based charity that delivers more than one million meals a month to those facing food poverty.

It has managed to persuade big companies, such as Amazon, Sainsbury, Tesco and Costco, to donate surplus produce to the charity. The van deliveries José brings will be a selection from the donor companies. “We often get wonky vegetables that the supermarkets can’t sell,” says Bryony McIvor, who is the JW3 food bank co-ordinator.

Once unloaded from José’s van, the food is separated in various palettes.

Some goes into big fridges at the back of JW3’s piazza, an area more familiar in normal times to large-scale projects such as the winter skating rink or the summer beach. But there are capa-

cious storage cupboards edging the piazza, and that’s where some of the stock goes.

Inside the JW3 building is where the grocery bags are assembled. Georgie Friend, the centre’s social action and volunteers co-ordinator, tells me they work with the charity FEAST, which determines how much is required for recipients.

It works across the London boroughs of Barnet, Camden, Haringay and Islingto nand its volunteers cook around 4,000 meals a month. JW3’s cook volunteers are mainly FEAST people.

JW3 volunteers fill plastic bags with enough vegetables and non-perishable goods to make 15 meals for each recipient. The day I visited, the team were filling up 112 bags: and the produce, which varies from week to week, can include onions, potatoes, eggs and tinned soups.

“Sometimes it’s seasonal,” says Georgie, “and sometimes it’s just what City Harvest brings.

We never know what we’re getting.”

In JW3’s upstairs kitchen, the FEAST partners are cooking up a storm. Generally they arrive at around 9.30 am and head straight for the storage fridges to see what is available.

“You know the TV programme Ready, Steady, Cook? That’s us,” a FEAST volunteers grins, as she flash fries a huge pan of vegetables, destined to be partnered with rice. Elsewhere they have made marmalade cakes. “Because we never know what we’re getting, we have to be incredibly creative when we decide what we’re going to make. We have to cook for around 60 people [per session].”

In a side room, the seemingly never-ending process of washing-up is taking place.

What are they short of? “We never have any sugar – that’s why we have to improvise with marmalade. We’re always looking for donations, particularly things like foil, oil, baking trays, plastic boxes for the meals, even kitchen equipment like hand mixers.” And plastic bags.

The former demonstration kitchen of JW3 where the Wednesday and Thursday cooking takes place and it’s not really set up for this kind of cooking. Despite its constraints, the prepara-

Above and inset: Volunteers at JW3 cook large batches to make up meals that will be distributed to those in need

tion has to be done there, because the ground floor restaurant kitchen is kashrut-supervised, while upstairs is vegetarian only.

By 12.30pm the cooking is done and the meals are being packed up for delivery and distribution. The hot food recipients are on a list devised by FEAST, while the grocery bags go to those on a Camden Council list.

Now the pandemic is slowing down, the plan is to try to restart communal dining inside JW3, bringing recipients in to eat together. Whatever happens, the food trail has become an integral part of JW3’s social action work. And what is important, says Georgie, is that it’s now a welloiled operation. “There is likely to be a huge new influx of [Ukrainian] refugees,” she says – but no one who ends up in Camden will go hungry.

Recipient Friedrich F said: “I am so grateful for this service. The person who brings it is always cheerful and friendly, his name is Mike. When I hear Mike on the phone I come alive again!”

Charles S said: “We really enjoy your lovely food. It’s really important. The people who come are so lovely that it is more than food. You get all the contact. Especially at such a difficult time, it meant a lot.”

JW3 chief executive Raymond Simonson said: “I am deeply upset that, in modern Britain, a country not short of wealth, there are so many families struggling with the impact of food poverty in the face of rising costs. And I am extremely disturbed by how the numbers of people needing to access such food services continues to grow rapidly by the week.

“Yet at the same time I feel a sense of pride at the impact our services are able to make since we set them up. I’m inspired in particular by the incredible tireless chesed work of all the volunteers involved, collecting or donating food, cooking meals, packing or delivering food parcels to hundreds of people in need.”

24 March 2022 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

15

Fixsler support / Care award / Chesed programme / News

Alta’s dad backs new charity Alta Fixsler’s father Abraham has said he “fully supports” a new charity being set up by a Muslim family for children with neurological conditions and hopes the Jewish community gets behind it.

Alta was a youngster from a Chasidic family in Manchester who suffered serious brain injuries after being deprived of oxygen for a prolonged period at birth. She could not breathe, drink, or eat without medical help.

Her parents sought the courts’ permission to transfer her to Israel for treatment not available in the UK but British judges ruled instead that it was in her best interests to be placed on a palliative care pathway and she died late last year, aged two.

Now two Muslim parents, whose daughter Tafida developed a serious and sudden neurological disorder, are setting up the charity in her name, with support from Jacob Lyons, who is active in Jewish communal politics, as well as Abraham Fixsler.

Tafida was five when, in February 2019, she was put on life-support after suffering a brain injury. Later that year,

Alta Fixsler and her parents. She died after life support was withdrawn

Barts NHS Trust tried to block her from being taken abroad for treatment, arguing that stopping it was in her best interests. She is now being treated in Italy. Her condition is unknown.

“Alta’s situation would have been similar to Tafida’s if she had been

allowed to go abroad for treatment,” said Abraham this week, speaking to Jewish News.

“I support the charity because no one should go through what we’ve been through, what Tafida’s parents went through. The centre will be a very

important thing to have in the UK. It doesn’t matter what religion you are, you want to keep your child alive, to give them a chance to live.”

The Tafida Raqeeb Foundation will launch in London on 22 March with the aim of raising £25 million to build a specialist paediatric neurology centre in north London to take advantage of recent advances in medical technology.

The aim is to “reduce disability and improve function in children to maximise their potential” and to “facilitate new learning and assist in regaining skills”. Treatments used will include hyperbaric oxygen therapy.

“I’ll do my best to support it and I believe the Jewish community will also support it,” Fixsler said. “No one wants what happened to us to happen again.”

Tafida’s mother Shelina Begum felt the need for better intervention. “Anything could happen at any time to any one of us, as the pandemic has shown,” she said. “A sudden brain injury could happen to your child as it happened to my Tafida and it was completely out of the blue.”

Nine hold all-female megillah readings At least nine United Synagogue shuls held women-only megillah readings during Purim, the organisation said. Once considered taboo, femalefocused activities have become popular in recent years. Although Orthodox Jewish law does not permit women to lead prayers or sing in front of men, it does not ban female-only reading of the Purim scroll.

Sanitiser trio win £80k from Dragons

A Jewish trio who developed a revolutionary hand sanitiser gel have secured investment on hit BBC show Dragons’ Den, broadcast last week. Husband and wife Josh and Rachel Cummins and cofounder Lee Hoppen walked away with £80,000 from Peter Jones and Touker Suleyman for a 20 percent stake in their firm, Let’s Sanitise.

Fourth national award for creative, UNITED SYNAGOGUE BRACING FOR MORE NEEDING SUPPORT stereotype-busting care worker A care worker who shot to fame after recreating famous album covers with pictures of older residents has won a fourth national care award.

Robert Speker was recognised for his “refreshing ‘positive-risk taking’ approach” at the Great British Care Awards 2022 finals in Birmingham.

The 42-year-old was presented with the Care Home Activity Organiser Award by broadcaster and journalist Kate Garraway on 18 March.

The judges commended him for “breaking down stereotypes with residents to ensure they always lived their lives to the fullest, by clearly

Robert Speker recreates album covers with residents

going above and beyond in every aspect of the service he provides to residents”.

Speker, a native of Newcastle, works for care provider Loveday and Co. He previously worked at Sydmar Lodge

in Edgware and as a support worker at Kisharon.

Speker said: ““When collecting the award, I remembered all my residents who succumbed to Covid and dedicate this award to them.”

The United Synagogue has said that the number of Jewish families struggling to make ends meet ahead of Pesach has risen by 20 percent.

The organisation’s Chesed department now supports “well over 700 families” around this time of year, compared to a pre-pandemic average of less than 600, as it cited the “double blow of lost income during Covid and the rising cost of living”.

Pesach food parcels given to families-inneed contain products like grape juice, fruit juice, cheese, tuna, smoked salmon, tea and coffee, jam and butter, salt and pepper, plus chocolate and biscuits. The price of many of these items has risen steeply.

As inflation hit 6.2 percent this week, the charity said it was “bracing” itself for even greater demand after the holiday, when the energy price cap is removed and fuels costs

are expected to rise by more than half. “US Chesed needs to raise £500,000 to support its work and meet this additional demand,” it said, ahead of an online fundraising campaign on Sunday and Monday, with all donations matched.

“Many we’ve been supporting for two years were already struggling to make ends meet because of the pandemic,” said Michelle Minsky of US Chesed.

“For two years, we’ve been quietly supporting hundreds of Jewish families with a weekly food parcel containing soup, tinned vegetables, pasta and rice, fresh items like cheese and milk and some household items such as toiletries.

“We anticipate an event bigger demand next month when fuel costs are expected to rocket. We need to help hundreds of families this Pesach and beyond.”

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

News / Campus concerns

NUS has ‘dropped’ commitment to IHRA antisemitism definition Continued from page 1 adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism.”

The successful motion added it “calls on both bodies to adopt the Jerusalem Declaration instead, which would provide a safer environment for BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions movement] activism on campus”.

Among 16 individuals to “like” the activist’s tweet was the NUS president herself.

In January 2020, seven months before Kennedy became president, NUS responded positively to a government announcement of an extra £500,000 to help tackle antisemitism on campus.

A statement at the time said: “NUS is in full support of all efforts to tackle antisemitism and has adopted the IHRA definition of antisemitism. It has... teamed up with the Union of Jewish Students to create an online hub of resources in order to educate and support students’ unions in their activities of commemoration. This hub will be maintained ... into the future.”

An ally of Kennedy’s at the NUS helm has been Sara Khan, who was promoted to the new vice-president liberation and equality role.

In tweets posted last May and seen by Jewish News, Khan appears to question the very idea of Jewish identity.

She wrote: “Is it kind of... antisemitic to homogenise all Jews into an ‘ethnoreligion’? like, both erasing Palestinian Jews, & letting white supremacist/settler Jews off the hook?” In a further post, she said she “did some learning” and concluded “Judaism as an ethnoreligion refers to the shared heritage of all Jews as identity is passed down through maternal lineage but this is not the same as being a single ethnic group.” She then surmised: “Imagine thinking the billions of Muslims whether South Asian or Arabic or Eastern European were the same

Outgoing NUS president Larissa Kennedy

ethnic group. I can’t.”

Khan has also carefully avoided spelling the word “Israel” in numerous tweets, instead choosing to write “Isra*l”.

Further evidence shown to Jewish News also confirmed both Kennedy and Khan had played a leading role in “facilitating” a launch event on 16 May last year for the NUS Decolonialise Education campaign in which rapper and conspiracy theorist Lowkey gave the keynote speech.

The official NUS social media account praised the pair for “facilitating a brilliant weekend”, adding that Lowkey had “really set the tone for this incredible festival”, which took place online.

NUS leaders were criticised last week over the decision to invite Lowkey, a conspiracy theorist, to perform at an NUS centenary event. Amid protests from UJS and the Board of Deputies it was confirmed last Friday that he had pulled out.

But it is understood Kennedy was among those defending the decision to invite Lowkey

– who recently suggested the mainstream media had “weaponised the Jewish heritage of the president of Ukraine to try to stave off genuine inquiries into the groups fighting in Ukraine” – allegedly telling student representatives she was “more concerned about who she might hurt if the event was cancelled”.

Boris Johnson, meanwhile, has warned UK universities have “for far too long been tolerant of casual or indeed systematic antisemitism”.

Responding to a question from Andrew Percy – who co-chairs the All Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism – the prime minister added: “I hope everybody understands the need for rapid, and indeed irreversible change.”

He said it was important the UK had an antisemitism task force “devoted to rooting out” the problem “in education at all levels”.

Decolonise Education is aimed at forcing every UK university to look into issues such as funding from countries with poor rights records.

Khan has tweeted that “you do not support ‘decolonising education’ if you’re invested finan-

cially and ideologically” in what she said was Israel’s “apartheid, settler colonialism and genocide”. She concluded: “Decolonisation is not a metaphor; it’s indigenous sovereignty, and you aren’t ‘decolonising’ if you don’t support BDS and Palestinians.” Jewish News has been shown examples of how it singles out Israel and the BDS movement as an example of positive decolonising campaigning.

Jewish News approached the NUS, Kennedy and Khan for comment over the allegations – and asked them to confirm they were committed to the adoption of the IHRA definition. An NUS spokesperson responded on Tuesday: “Thanks for emailing. We won’t be commenting on this.”

The government’s independent antisemitism adviser, Lord John Mann, said he was “shocked and appalled” by the conduct of the NUS leadership and their failure to commit to IHRA. Mann said he would urgently look into the matter. Jewish News has sent him its dossier of evidence.  Editorial Comment, Page 20

ANGER AT ‘ISRAELIS LUST BLOOD’ WRITER A Palestinian writer and poet who has made repeated allusions to Israel “eating” the organs of Palestinians and of having “a particular lust for Palestinian blood” was a feted guest of 21 campus student societies in the UK this week, writes Jenni Frazer.

Mohammed El-Kurd, 23, and his twin sister, Muna, have become media stars in the past year as a result of his vehement verbal and written attacks on Israel.

He lives in both the disputed Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah and in the United States, where he was studying for a master’s degree.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, El-Kurd has compared Israelis to Nazis, negated the historic Jewish connection to the land of Israel and vilified Zionism and Zion-

ists. In tweets last year, he wrote: “Fascists.

Terrorists. Colonisers. There is no morally defensible argument for supporting Zionism.

It’s bloodthirsty and violent. It is spineless.

Free Palestine.”

He also wrote: “Across the country Zionists are beating, gassing, shooting, lynching Palestinians. They’re unhinged. The videos we’re seeing are reminiscent of the Nakba.

State-settler collusion emboldening an unquenchable thirst for Palestinian blood & land. Terrorist, genocidal nation.”

El-Kurd was taking part in a campus tour of north America last week to hammer home his message.

On Monday, under the umbrella of Students for Justice in Palestine, he was an online guest for 21 different UK campus gatherings,

with at least one live audience at City University in London.

Jewish students were horrified at El-Kurd’s appearance. In a statement, the Union of Jewish Students said it was “utterly appalled” at his invitation.

It said: “He has engaged in antisemitic tropes such as the blood libel, and now he is able to spread these views, seemingly without challenge. Instead of campus being a place of dialogue, discussion and learning, this event fosters a hostile environment where many Jewish students will feel incredibly unsafe.

“Activism should never come at the expense of a religious minority and we call on the university to act to better ensure the safety of their Jewish students, alongside the rest of their campus community.”

Media stars: Mohammed El-Kurd and his twin Muna

www.jewishnews.co.uk

24 March 2022 Jewish News

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

World News / Rabbi mourned / Billionaires quit / Israel ranking

Half-a-million mourners flock to rabbi’s funeral An estimated half-a-million mourners attended the funeral of one of Israel’s most prominent strictly-Orthodox leaders after he died last Friday, aged 94.

Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky, the author of Derech Emunoh and Derech Chochmoh, collapsed at his home in Bnei Brak after falling ill. Despite their efforts, a local medical team was unable to resuscitate him and he died a few hours later.

The influential Charedi rabbi and scholar was buried on Sunday.

Hundreds of thousands of people thronged to Bnei Brak to pay their last respects to him, with hundreds breaking through police barriers to enter the cemetery.

Born in 1928 in Pinsk, a city now located in Belarus, Kanievsky became one of the widely accepted leaders of the Charedi community after the death of Rabbi Aharon Yehuda Leib Shteinman in 2017.

Thousands of people would visit Kanivesky at his home to ask for advice

BILLIONAIRE TRIO STEP DOWN FROM GPG BOARD Russian billionaires Petr Aven, Mikhail Fridman (inset) and German Kahn have stepped down from the board of Genesis Philanthropy Group, a major funder of Jewish causes founded by the trio, after they were sanctioned in recent days and weeks by the EU and the UK. The billionaires are among the oligarchs targeted by Western sanctions over their long-standing ties to the

regime of Russian president Vladimir Putin.

With Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now in is fourth week, the crackdown on Russian businessmen and financial institutions has given rise to uncertainty among Jewish charities that have increasingly come to rely on them for funding.

Genesis announced the trio’s departure in a widelydistributed email that did not mention sanctions.

ISRAEL RANKED NINTH HAPPIEST COUNTRY Devoted: Mourners at Rabbi Chaim Kanievsy’s funeral last weekend

and blessings but he attracted controversy during the Covid-19 pandemic.

In the early stages of the crisis, he reportedly told followers that one of the best ways to defeat the virus was to avoid lashon hara (gossip).

After Bnei Brak residents became disproportionately ill with Covid, he said all his followers should abide by the Israeli Health Ministry’s guidelines on Covid-19.

However, when most schools closed in 2020 he advocated for his community’s educational institutions to remain open.

Israel is the world’s ninth happiest country according to the World Happiness Report, a project of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Solutions Network.

The country has moved up the rankings in recent years, going from number 14 in 2020 to 11 in 2021. The report, which celebrates its 10th anniversary, says it factors a

country’s GDP, social support, life expectancy, “freedom to make life choices”, citizen generosity and perceptions of corruption into its ranking.

Each country’s response to Covid-19 was also a factor in the ranking, the report noted. Israel was one of the first countries to successfully vaccinate a large percentage of its population.

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

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Editorial comment and letters ISSUE NO.

1255

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

Helping us all to help the refugees

As we went to press last night, Jewish News was set to co-host an online event with World Jewish Relief (WJR) for those wanting to provide support to Ukrainian refugees. The event, entitled Hope & Homes, was to feature opening remarks by the Chief Rabbi and a panel comprising WJR chair Maurice Helfgott, Rachel Griffiths from Citizens UK and Sara Nathan from Refugees at Home.

In recent days, there has been a groundswell of practical support for those fleeing Putin’s war. Helfgott revealed this week that WJR has so far rescued 15,000 people from the conflict and confirmed more than 1,500 “principally but not exclusively from the Jewish community” had registered an interest through it in taking refugees into their homes in the UK. Meanwhile, thanks to British humanitarian Sally Becker and the UK branch of Israel’s medical emergency service Magen David Adom, the largest airlift of child refugees from Ukraine so far – 52 youngsters aged two to 15 – landed at Heathrow yesterday.

These are dark and painful days for millions of people who weeks ago were going about their daily lives: shopping, socialising, commuting to work, taking children to school. Now their lives and their country lie in ruins.

How best to support them here in the UK remains a difficult and perplexing question for many who would like to lend a hand to families caught in the conflict. We hope our online event with WJR, which should now be available to view across our social media platforms, answers some of those crucial questions and inspires even more people to act.

NUS is a shadow of its former self The National Union of Students celebrates its 100th anniversary this month.

Unfortunately, few Jewish students will wish to join in with the festivities.

Over the past few years, a once proud organisation has deteriorated into something resembling a circus, at best blind to Jewish students’ concerns and at worst an active participant in excluding them.

As our report this week reveals, the NUS, under its current leadership, has turned a blind eye to the internationally-recognised definition of antisemitism, while two of its leaders have used social media to make their views on issues involving Jewish students clear. It must embark immediately on root-and-branch reforms, commit to the IHRA definition and begin to engage meaningfully with the Union of Jewish Students again.

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

Past repeats Dream team I agree with Stephen Vishnick’s letter regarding president Putin’s long-held intentions (Jewish News, 17 March). His plan has been crystal clear for many years – certainly since the illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014. He has engaged in a game of Russian roulette in which he deemed the odds to be in his favour with little risk; sadly, to date, he’s been proved right. In Ukraine today, “There but for the grace of God go I” applies to every other sovereign nation that Putin believes he has a right to invade.

He has behaved as have other despots historically. He is a 21st-century bully who can probably only be stopped in his terrible tracks by force. The world has, for once, largely acted in unison to the threat. We must be prepared, however, to realise that his behaviour could lead to a bigger conflagration unless he is stopped.

JD Milaric, By email

As a life-long Chelsea fan and, dare I admit, Jewish Chronicle reader, news that the newspaper’s unknown moneybags owner is weighing up a bid for my club (Jewish News, 17 March) was like all my Chanukahs coming at once.

I’ve never been a fan of Roman Abramovich, despite the glory he bought us. His business practices have long seemed problematic, so he was rightly sanctioned over his links to Putin.

But you can imagine my delight when you reported that The Jewish Chronicle owner was poised to jump in. That joy lasted barely 10 seconds before the Purim spiel coin dropped. I don’t suppose a late Jewish News bid is on the cards?

Darren Besamin, By email (Chelsea is a tad out of our league, Darren, but we are scrambling for loose change down the back of the JN sofa to buy Maccabi League Division 2 club West Hendon Wallabies – Ed)

MOVE REFUGEES INTO NUS GOES OUT OF ITS OLIGARCHS’ HOMES WAY TO BE INSULTING I note Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis’ call for the community to give “their full support” to the government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme to provide homes to Ukrainian refugees fleeing war but, sadly, I cannot share my one-bedroom flat with someone fleeing the horrors Russia has visited on their country.

There are a great many people with big hearts but small homes. The government’s scheme should encompass the millions of pounds worth of properties scandalously owned by Putin’s mates that lie empty.

I’d love to see Ukrainian families moving in to Mayfair and Belgravia. That would make my heart sing.

Thank heavens I am no longer a university student.

The insults and horrors Jewish undergraduates have to face on campus these days turns my stomach and breaks my heart.

How could the National Union of Students have invited rapper Lowkey, loud supporter of former Labour MP Chris Williamson and former Bristol lecturer professor David Miller, to headline its centenary celebration event unless it deliberately wanted to insult and alienate Jewish people? The NUS goes out of its way, time and again, to make Jewish students feel unwelcome. What wickedness.

Emma Slaffer, By email

Simone Yavner, By email

LET’S ALL HOST OR SUPPORT UKRAINIANS Too few were given sanctuary in the UK via the Kindertransport back in the 1930s and not enough was done to alleviate their suffering.

Poverty and the constant prospect of being bombed were genuine reasons not to provide the

*

maximum amount of help back then, whereas now we can all help displaced Ukrainians.

If we aren’t hosting someone, we can send a donation to charity.

Norma Neville, Hendon

24 March 2022 Jewish News

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Editorial comment and letters

Sketches & kvetches

‘A second invasion of Ukraine was called off today when an army of single Jewish women discovered Volodymyr Zelensky is already married.’

Moral failures at the heart of new online safety laws DANNY STONE

CHIEF EXECUTIVE, ANTISEMITISM POLICY TRUST

I

t was a very big day for the UK’s digital world last Thursday, as the government’s Online Safety Bill was finally published. We are finally at the dawn of a new era in which technology companies will no longer make their own rules.

In general, it is welcome to see the text that will now form the parliamentary battleground for the effort to hold social media and other digital platforms accountable for the hatred spread online daily. We know that Ofcom will take on the mantle of digital regulator. It will produce codes, assess compliance and will have (now improved and clearer) powers both to fine companies and to hold senior managers to account for failures. So far, so good.

The Bill has also sought to draw the government’s line on the balance between freedom of expression and tackling harms. From my perspective, it may not go far enough in some areas, and in others leaves loopholes hardened racist provocateurs can potentially jump through.

To give specific examples, at present, certain platforms will be responsible for

preserving ‘journalistic’ content or that of ‘democratic importance’. Unfortunately, as both Hope Not Hate and I pointed out repeatedly to those scrutinising the Bill, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon (Tommy Robinson) defines himself as a journalist. The Bill might well enable his media company to have special privileges in relation to contesting platform decisions about its content. So, too, any racist candidate signing up to stand in an election – or a misogynist seeking to oppose the Women’s Equality party, could argue that their speeches are ‘content of democratic importance’. This is a significant gap and leaving the platforms to decide what the definitions are, undermines the purpose of the Bill.

Of equal gravity is the failure to understand properly the dangers of harmful content on high-risk, high-harm but small platforms and that caused by search engines. There are two categories of service the Bill will provide for.

Category one platforms have additional duties

❝

and are defined by ‘size and functionality’. The definition of functionality does not include risk; in fact, risk is absent as a determinant of category – a serious problem for the Bill. Yet the joint committee that reviewed the draft Bill recommended risk – not size or functionality – be the key factor on applying categories, as did parliament’s Petitions Committee.

The government maintains that size is key.

This is hugely worrying. The Community Security Trust’s Hate Fuel report reveals that smaller, niche platforms contain some of the most violent, horrific and toxic antisemitic or other racist content that can both inspire real world harm but, in some cases, still be legal.

No extra duties for these platforms?

No responsibility to address the harms parliament will say Facebook or Twitter must address? No. We just let neo-Nazis, Holocaust deniers and racists enjoy their choice of niche platform. This is a structural and arguably moral failure of the current

FACEBOOK AND TWITTER WILL HAVE DUTIES TO ADDRESS HARMFUL CONTENT BUT GOOGLE? NO

Bill will give Twitter new responsibilites

drafting and one that I, alongside many other stakeholders, will seek to address.

There is also a complete blind spot in relation to search engines. Facebook and Twitter will have duties to address legal but harmful content. Google? No. This despite its search bar and algorithms sometimes showing antisemitic or offensive content.

This is a once-in-a generation opportunity to change the way we do business. I do hope readers will play their part in calling on their MPs to make this legislation the worldleading law it could and must be. We have a fight ahead.

22

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

Opinion

Ukraine devastation puts ‘Partygate’ in perspective ALEX BRUMMER

CITY EDITOR, THE DAILY MAIL

T

he responses are oh so predictable.

When Tory grandee and minister Jacob Rees-Mogg had the temerity to suggest what many of us have been thinking, that the war waged against Ukraine put the sins of Downing Street and ‘Partygate’ in some perspective, there was outrage both faux and real.

No one in the Jewish community could ever take for granted Covid, lockdowns and the fallout. We all lost friends and acquaintances to the pandemic. One of the most disturbing sights for me during Covid was attending a slimmeddown funeral at the New Bushey Cemetery for a friend taken from us by coronavirus, and seeing the serried ranks of newly-dug graves.

Yet to be furious about alleged breaches of lockdown when Europe is under military threat shows how distorted our privileged Western value systems have become. The savage Russian flattening of Mariupol, including a maternity hospital and an arts school providing shelter,

is distressing in the extreme. Heart-rending images of three-and-a-half million mainly women and children fleeing war, leaving behind elderly parents and spouses, makes the lockdown deprivations seem minor.

A cousin, an Auschwitz survivor, says she has barely slept since Russia began reducing parts of Ukraine to rubble. It brings back horrendous memories of her own flight from her home in Hungary (now in Ukraine) and separation from her parents (my grandparents) on the train platform leading to the gas chambers.

The brutal war being waged by Vladimir Putin has been explained in many ways. It is sometimes described as Russia’s desire for a return of lost empire and prosperity. Others say Putin is determined to teach Nato a lesson for daring to remove buffer states and

bring its borders so close to the motherland.

His campaign is also seen as a consequence of Western strategic weakness exposed by acceptance of Russia’s intervention in Syria, the humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan and concessions made to mad mullahs in Iran developing nuclear weapons capacity.

There is an alternate view that the West has brought the war of the worlds upon itself. An obsession with secular consumption, political correctness, the woke agenda and condemnation of anyone who dares challenge people’s right to assign their own gender are all looked upon as evidence of a 21st century decadence.

Writing in The New Statesman, the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, suggests Putin is driven by religious and cultural motives and sees himself as the

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THE SAVAGE FLATTENING OF MARIUPOL IS DISTRESSING IN THE EXTREME

protagonist for integral Christian culture.

He cites Putin’s close ally, Patriarch Kirill of Moscow, as a source for the self-righteousness with which the Russian leader is pursuing his war in Ukraine. In a sermon delivered on 6 March, the start of Lent, the Patriarch argued that the campaign was justified because the Orthodox Church has to defend itself ‘against Western corruption’. Gay pride marches are singled out as a leading symptom.

Williams writes that, in spite of “high recorded levels of prejudice against LBGT+ people in Ukraine, recent policy has liberalised and Kyiv has a high-profile activist community and annual parade”. He says the Patriarch particularly is exercised because Kyiv is where Russian Christianity was born.

Launching a barbarous war against the people of Ukraine and their enjoyment of freedoms cannot be justified or accepted. Religion as a weapon of war, as Jewish communities around the world know to their cost, is a fearful and terrible weapon. It is pure evil in the hand of an unbridled autocrat seeking to claim moral cause for indiscriminate death and mayhem.

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23

Opinion

In times of war, huge lies camouflage huge crimes MICHAEL MCCANN

DIRECTOR, ISRAEL BRITAIN ALLIANCE

I

t is sometimes difficult to write about an ongoing wrong when there is a live obscenity dominating the headlines.

So, let me say straight up, I stand with the Ukrainian people against Putin’s war.

And while this war has seriously exposed the deficiencies of the collective known as ‘the West’, there’s evidence we are getting our act together. But as Putin continues his brutal, illegal and devastating war against Ukraine, we shouldn’t be afraid to draw parallels with other conflicts and learn.

In Putin’s war, the truth was a casualty before it began. How many times did he tell us he was not about to attack Ukraine before doing exactly that?

But his subterfuge didn’t succeed because the West called him out. Intelligence on the Russian build-up wasn’t absorbed and then secreted away by our security forces.

Every time Putin said: Nothing to see here,

Ben Wallace or Jens Stoltenberg said: Not true, and denied him his fig leaf of justification.

Enormous lies have the potential to hide enormous crimes. So, as we approach the latest instalment of fiction prepared ‘Putin style’ by the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and their comrades in the anti-Nato Stop the War group, it’s well past time to expose the calumny that Israel is an apartheid state.

There is no apartheid in Israel. People of all creeds and backgrounds are free and Israeli soldiers and police officers exist to protect life, not endanger it.

In the latest democracy index ratings, Israel scored higher than Italy, Spain and the mighty land of the free, the United States of America.

To suggest, therefore, that Israel is an apartheid state is risible, but that doesn’t mean the assertion can be ignored.

Putin’s lies about Ukraine were designed to camouflage a crime, and those who promote the fiction of apartheid seek to hide decades of crimes committed against many people, including ordinary Palestinians.

Those crimes were committed by Arab, then

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IT’S WELL PAST TIME TO EXPOSE THE CALUMNY THAT ISRAEL IS AN APARTHEID STATE Palestinian, leaders who were offered a state, refused it, lost all the wars they started, refused to negotiate peace, deliberately denied haven to their own people and manufactured a displaced nation before blowing up women and children.

And after all these self-inflicted wounds, they want to be seen as the victims and, counterintuitively, as the victors in negotiations.

Like Putin’s war, Israel Apartheid Week is just one more lie, one more piece of camouflage for the failures of Arab and Palestinian leaders.

So why do our politicians fall for this story?

It’s probably a mixture of dislike for the Jewish state, ignorance of history and a desire to support the perceived underdog.

However, their failure to remove the blinkers denies the next generation of Palestinians freedom.

Palestinian children are being taught to hate Jewish people, and university students in the UK are being offered the same menu via Israel Apartheid Week. Hate, violence, death, repeat.

If people want to listen to conspiracy theorists, that’s fine. But they can’t be allowed to do so under a banner that is untrue and at its core is antisemitic.

That’s why the latest IBA partner campaign will focus attention on the universities across the UK that have failed to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, and we’ll ask our politicians to remedy this deficit.

We’re not allowing Putin to get away with lies in a conflict that is weeks old; why have we allowed Palestinian leaders to get away with lying for decades?

Reputations are still protected ahead of children’s wellbeing YEHUDIS FLETCHER POLITICAL & SOCIAL ACTIVIST

T

he King David High School in Manchester is a jewel in the crown of north-west Jewry.

There is no doubt that enormous personal effort and expense has been invested in building it up to be a centre of academic excellence. That is an achievement for which we should be grateful, and of which we should be proud.

Critique does not undermine any of that.

I am a King David parent. Perhaps not a typical one, but a King David parent nonetheless.

The Ofsted report, which downgraded the school from outstanding to inadequate, did not come as a surprise. The first murmurs of difficulty began in 2019, with the school successfully challenging a previous inadequate rating on one specific point – whether or not girls attending the Yavne stream are suffering discrimination.

This interesting and important question of law – with its wider policy implications – is low on my priority list. In real life, the majority of the girls who want to enjoy the benefits of the main school can switch seamlessly, and many do. Those who are prevented from doing so are

restricted by parental choice, and this is not a reflection on the school.

What is far more important to me are the safeguarding failures found by Ofsted.

My only surprise here is that Ofsted managed to garner, within a two-day inspection, such an accurate view of the gaps in safeguarding. Ofsted found that safer recruitment policies had not been implemented, and leaders were unable to offer a satisfactory explanation about how they had managed allegations against adults who may be a risk to pupils.

The report referred to a “legacy of chaotic safeguarding practices” that left some pupils and parents with little confidence in the school’s safeguarding arrangements. While I value the importance of institutions such as King David, it may be counterproductive to be seen to attempt to silence criticism – either

❝

A SAFE CHILD IS A CHILD WHO CAN LEARN AND FUNCTION BETTER

by internal denial or endless legal challenges.

While unintentional, it speaks to a tendency to protect the reputation of institutions at the expense of the safety and wellbeing of children.

Ofsted’s report called for a strengthening of the culture of safeguarding. Safeguarding is not a box to tick, an afterthought or a technicality. It is an attitude that must permeate every moment, every interaction, every conversation. It is a minimum standard that should be regarded as the starting point for good practice.

We must move away from treating safeguarding as an impediment to our institutions’ smooth functioning and appreciate that good safeguarding is good for all of us. A safe child is a child who can learn and function better.

My sympathy goes out to all the hardworking staff and lay leaders at King David, who have to face the stark realities this downgrade brings. Morale will no doubt be affected by Ofsted’s harsh pronouncements, especially as they have been delivered after so much effort has gone into making improvements since the inspection was conducted.

The new executive head teacher has started to make notable inroads into the tasks, and the atmosphere at school is palpably different since he joined. It is a shame the report, delayed by legal challenges, does not reflect the positive impact his leadership has already provided.

I hope that after a period of reflection, the school’s governing body will choose to invest its efforts into using the report’s litany of failings as a guide to the changes that must be made.

They are not alone – after similar failings were found at JFS, a complete overhaul of leadership, policies and practice have led to swift improvement.

I believe King David can do better, without losing or changing its character. It is time to aim for more than academic excellence, without negating or denigrating the effort it has taken to get to this point.

Ambition does not indicate failure: it indicates capacity. We should have high ambitions for a new culture of safeguarding within our community schools. The tenacity that has taken King David from a failing school threatened with closure to the best comprehensive in the north-west and the seventh best non-selective school in the country is testament to the school’s capacity for even more growth.

With the ambitious and determined executive head teacher at the helm, there is every prospect that King David can surmount the challenges this Ofsted inspection has placed in its path, and emerge a stronger, safer and better school.

He must be supported by the governing body in achieving this desirable outcome.

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

Opinion

In a disaster it’s best to give money, not goods HANNAH GAVENTA HUMANITARIAN WORKER

T

he media attention on the invasion of Ukraine has brought about global aid both for refugees fleeing the country, and those who are still in Ukraine in need of support.

In the past decade, I have responded to emergencies across the globe on behalf of Jewish and Israeli non-governmental organisations. I have often stayed in countries to support long-term and resilient rebuilding with local communities. It has always been a point of pride when the Jewish community is recognised for this international development work.

In the humanitarian community, we have learnt to deliver aid efficiently, with local private sector and government partners and, most importantly, by listening to our beneficiaries and the communities we are supporting.

On a 2018 trip to Guatemala leading a mission for IsraAID a few days after the eruption of the Fuego volcano, I visited emergency

shelters for Guatemalan refugees who had fled the devastation. Families were torn apart.

Villages were completely covered by ash and their surviving citizens were in temporary shelters relying on aid to survive. The outpouring of national and international goodwill was remarkable. Donations flooded to the shelters, where the refugees were staying.

In the chaos of an emergency, it is vital there is coordination between communities, government and agencies. We must talk with each other and our local partners to deliver appropriate aid in a timely, ethical and efficient way.

For the first few weeks in Guatemala,there was limited coordination. The temporary shelters were completely overwhelmed by the outpouring of support and the masses of donations of goods. Six months later, most of those donations were in landfill, unused and wasted.

Extensive needs assessments and discussions with clients and communities must be done to understand their priorities. It could be food, clean water, temporary shelters, psychological support or other services and needs.

Many of us feel we are privileged and are

❝

THE SHELTERS WERE OVERWHELMED BY THE DONATIONS. SIX MONTHS LATER, MOST WERE IN LANDFILL

moved to support when an emergency happens.

However, have we thought carefully about the donations we are collecting? Have we spoken to refugees in shelters and asked them what they’d like? Have we collected products that are up to international regulations and standards? Have we thought about the financial and carbon costs of transporting our donations across the world? Have we thought about how we measure the impact of these donations to adapt when we realise the goods are not relevant? Have we thought about what is needed in six months, a year, in five years, when the media attention has left people to fend for themselves?

These questions form the basis of all impactful and effective humanitarian aid.

I have often seen the bin bags full of donations sitting in warehouses months, or even years, after an emergency without people and resources to sort through clothes and goods.

Items that were so passionately and generously donated are not going to where they are needed, and sometimes are even flooding the local market, exploiting local economies.

Please listen to us when we say it is better to donate money rather than goods.

Your monetary donations allow us to also think about the long-term solutions, to pay psychologists who are experts in emergency trauma to support long-term mental wellbeing, to help communities rebuild and recover and to deliver only the aid that is needed, not what is unsolicited and inappropriate for the context.

Even more importantly, we deliver this aid in partnership with refugees and communities in need and with dignity and respect, centring their voices and enabling the most impact.

Please help us do our work effectively and efficiently by donating funds, not goods.

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Scene & Be Seen / Community

Purim round-up The latest news, pictures and social events from Purim celebrations across the community Email us at community@jewishnews.co.uk

Students at Birmingham JSoc’s Rio Carnival Purim party

Baking Hamantashen at Bushey United Synagogue

Norwood residents celebrate

Jewish Care’s Purim Zumba at Yavneh Primary School

Raising money for Camp Simcha

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Community / Scene & Be Seen

The cast of Who Killed Haman? at Kol Chai, Hatch End Reform Community

Simi with a Camp Simcha fundraiser

Pupils at Sacks Morasha Primary School read the Megillah

Spieling for Camp Simcha

Celebrating at Ohel David Eastern Synagogue

Norwood’s Rabbi Stanley Coten reads the Megillah Pupils at Wohl Hillel Ilford Jewish Primary school

Purim in Stamford Hill (Photo: Henry Jacobs)

Children at Aleph Centre Cheder at Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue

Jewish Blind and Disabled Purim party at Cherry Tree Court

Hamantashen baking at Cockfosters & N Southgate Synagogue

Mill Hill East Synagogue Rabbi Bentzi Mann and family at its Purim Carnival held at Copthall School

Children decorate cards for mishloach manot parcels at Kol Chai, Hatch End Reform Community

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

JDA – we will support you like no-one else can “ My cancer has spread.

But I’m not afraid because my wonderful JDA family is keeping me feeling calm and loved. ”

Anne is Deaf and uses sign language. She has been living with cancer for many years and we have supported her every step of the way. So when the doctor gave her bad news, we were beside her, interpreting, gently explaining and holding her hand.

Anne has chosen palliative care. We are making sure she is comfortable and giving her all the love and care she needs.

We will do all we can to ensure she never feels alone or frightened.

But if she does, we’ll be there.

Please show you care by making a donation today.

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

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Inside A look

Shylock at the Globe Who, what & where Cake for Mum

of FASHION

As glamorous as the fashion magazine from which it takes its name, Harpers in Edgware celebrates its 50th birthday next week. Louisa Walters chatted to owner Karol and her daughters, Katy and Lucy

E

dgware was a rather different place in 1972 when a young Karol Solomons rose to the request of a family friend to partner him in the opening of a suburban boutique. The unit had been a kosher wine shop, and had Fagin’s book shop, Nurseryland and Please Mum childrenswear, Loppylugs record shop, Stanley Posner curtain shop, Jimmy’s salt beef bar and The Almond Tree café as its neighbours. “It was very much a village, and I took a chance opening a continental ladieswear shop,” says Karol.

Alan Gottlieb had wanted to open a childrenswear shop but Karol, who was working in fashion PR at the time, told him that French ladies’ separates were going to be the next big thing. Continental clothes were only available in West End stores, and Karol saw an opportunity to bring them to the suburbs. At a party, she met a girl whose mother had a shop in Paris – this was how she was introduced to brands in France.

Karol had trained as a nutritionist after gaining a degree in dietetics from Newcastle University, but fashion was in her blood. Her parents, Hymie and Gertie, ran a fashion department in a store in Sunderland and Gertie

Harpers of Edgware in the 1970s

shops were open and Edgware was attended Valentino’s first fashion busy, it was a day for her girls. show in Rome.

“Sunday was Fun Day, and “We never advertised, but we could choose an outing,” word got out that a new shop says Lucy. “Whether it was in Edgware was stocking going to the cinema or these amazing trousers you Maxwell’s in Hampstead, couldn’t get anywhere else,” Mum took Katy and me out says Karol. “There were every week, although I’m sure queues for the fitting rooms sometimes she would have just on the first day we opened.” liked to put her feet up.”

With its distinctive purple In 1986, Harpers opened a logo (it was changed to green in the second branch in St John’s Wood, 1980s) and much-coveted carrier bag Karol, Katy and Lucy bringing the inimitable style to a whole – “all my friends wanted one!” says new clientele. Karol’s husband, Sydney, ran this Lucy – Harpers quickly gained a loyal following. branch but, after 24 years, they decided to close “I loved going to friends’ houses after school it to focus on Edgware. Sydney retired and he is because their mums were at home and they now training to be a golf pro. always had nice things for tea, but it was normal When she was 21, Katy moved to Paris, where for me to go to the shop after school and to work her bilingual skills served her well in a blosthere on a Saturday, and I loved it,” says Katy. soming fashion career. She eventually met the “My friends helped out in the shop, too, and man who became her husband and had two chilwe loved dressing up in the clothes. I often did dren. She was well located to do fashion buying my homework in the office.” for her mum’s shop and now she travels between Her younger sister, Lucy, says: “I was the two cities every week. five when Harpers opened and I don’t really In 1996, Harpers was looking for a new remember anything about it, but I also can’t member of staff and Lucy, who had two young remember a time without it.” children and was working as a French and She was never that interested in the shop and Spanish teacher, was looking to earn some extra when she did spend time there, it would be out money to keep things afloat while her husband’s the back studying. new business was growing.

In the beginning, Karol only bought what she “I went in very reluctantly and was assured I liked, and so the stock was very much her style. would just be doing admin and would not have As Katy grew older and joined the business, she to be on the shop floor with the customers,” she started to exert her influence. “We shop in Paris, says. “The biggest thing for me was having to New York, Milan and LA,” says Katy. “We both ‘look nice’ every day! It didn’t take long for me have an unusual eye and we always choose the to venture out of the office and I soon found my things no other shops have bought.” rhythm and actually enjoyed giving people their From the get-go, Karol worked six days a ‘Pretty Woman’ moment.” week, relying on au pairs to help out when the As she got more involved, she started to girls were young. On Fridays, she left at three to proffer her own opinions – and criticisms – on make Shabbat dinner. When shops were allowed the clothes, so Karol and Katy insisted she join to open on Sundays, Karol hired someone to them on buying trips. “We each have our own, work in the shop because, although the kosher

very different styles,” says Katy. “Karol is into colour and everything she wears is extremely flattering. I am feminine, on-trend and love fringes and frills. Lucy is into bohemian, cool, casual and comfortable clothes. In this way, we have a great range of styles in the shop and something to suit all our customers.”

Lucy has been there 26 years, but is still seen as the ‘new girl’, as everyone else has been there longer. “It’s testament to Mum how long the staff have stayed working for her. Many customers have known me since I was a little girl and I have watched their daughters grow up and become customers too,” she says.

Karol has always resisted setting up a website and selling online as she is passionate about retaining the element of personal service.

Lockdown presented the biggest challenge she has faced in 50 years. “It was Katy’s idea to do Instagram lives and that saved us. It was reassuring for our customers to see us and we loved being able to connect with them. We sold a lot of leisurewear during the lockdowns and cut right back on the amount of formal clothes we bought – and we haven’t really gone back.,” she says.

“I have learnt so many lessons from Mum – work hard, be independent, enjoy every moment, recharge your batteries with wellearned holidays, put on your lip gloss before going home to your husband, make chicken soup, say I love you, speak to your children every day,” says Katy.

At 84, Karol has no intention of retiring and is the only member of staff (there are 10 in total) to work six days a week. “When I’m tired, I pour myself a V&T, put on my lipstick and carry on,” she says.

“My mum is the most inspitational, hardworking, focused and driven woman I have ever met,” says Lucy. “She has instilled a strong work ethic in both Katy and me. It is a privilege to be her daughter – on Mother’s Day, that is all I could wish for my children to say of me.”

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JN LIFE

The Trial Scene from The Merchant of Venice (act IV, scene I) by Richard Smirke

Conrad Cohen asks if it is time to reclaim Shakespeare’s Jew-play and reviews The Globe’s new production of The Merchant of Venice

As part of its new season in its indoor, candlelit Elizabethan-style theatre, the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse at Shakespeare’s Globe tackles the Bard’s most troubling play, The Merchant of Venice. The play’s titular character, a Christian merchant called Antonio, borrows several thousand Venetian ducats from the Jewish moneylender, Shylock, who doesn’t charge the same interest as lenders of other faiths, which prompts Antonio to say: “Hie thee, gentle Jew. The Hebrew will turn Christian, he grows kind.”

Did you spot Shakespeare’s gift for wordplay? Gentle sounding like gentile? Well, that’s present throughout the play. And so is the overt antisemitism. Which begs two key questions: Why did Shakespeare write it?

And why produce it now?

I’m currently researching the impact of The Merchant of Venice in Jewish theatre and anthropology, so I know we first need to look at Shakespeare’s influences and Elizabethan society’s attitudes to Jewish people.

Famously unoriginal, Shakespeare tales are inspired, nay, ‘borrowed’ from a variety of sources and the origins of The Merchant of Venice is found in several earlier works, which

Adrian Schiller as Shylock in the latest production at The Globe

include the same antisemitic stereotypes Shakespeare used. Look at the English play The Jew and the Italian novella Il Pecorone and you’ll understand. Another big influence was Christopher Marlowe and his explicitly antisemitic play, The Jew of Malta, which contains the same subplot: Jewish moneylender’s daughter falls for a Christian.

But why were Elizabethan playwrights so obsessed with Jews? It’s seriously odd at first, given that no Jews had been allowed to live in England since Edward I’s Edict of Expulsion in 1290, which was one of the first pogroms in European history. But perhaps that’s the point. Without any Jewish community, the figure of ‘the Jew’ in England became somewhat of a myth, a bogeyman with which to frighten naughty children.

Fuelled by the blood libel, whereby the Jewish community of Norwich was falsely blamed for the death of a local Christian boy in 1144, like the trolled on Twitter, our reputation as slanderous bloodthirsty Jews followed us around England and Europe,

before spreading to the Middle East, where it persists today, with malicious accusations of Israel stealing organs. You can’t miss it in The Merchant of Venice framed as Shylock and Antonio’s bond, which stipulates that should the merchant default on his loan, he must forfeit: “A pound of flesh to be by him cut off nearest the merchant’s heart.”

So despite the efforts of modern productions to frame Shylock as an empathetic character, nothing can shake the blood libel in Shakespeare’s text. Even reimagined versions of the play by Jewish playwrights Arnold Wesker (The Merchant) and Edward Einhorn (Shylock) struggle with this inextricable fact of the story.

History is part of the problem, as despite the Edict of Expulsion, Jews did exist in Elizabethan England, mostly as Sephardic merchants enclaved in London or converted Italian Jews shipped over by Henry VIII in 1540 who obviously knew how much we love a cruise! But that’s not all. In 1594, we get

The Conspiracy of Dr Lopez, which sounds like a Netflix series, but refers to Roderigo Lopez, a court physician of Jewish descent who was accused of attempting to poison Queen Elizabeth I, and subsequently brutally executed in front of a jeering crowd. This event prompted a resurgence of national anti-Jewish sentiment; in keeping with the zeitgeist, Shakespeare wrote The Merchant of Venice.

So, with all that context, how is Shakespeare’s Globe tackling this play today? It’s no surprise that Jewish director Abigail Graham wrestles with Shakespeare’s text in a similar way to Jacob wrestling the angel in Vayishlach. Just as Jacob discovered wrestling with an angel is like wrestling with God, no matter how you cut and paste Shakespeare’s text, it remains antisemitic at its heart.

Not content with dumping Shylock with the blood libel, Shakespeare’s play robs him of humanity when grieving for his daughter, Jessica, who runs away to marry the gentile Lorenzo and convert to Christianity. On the

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WHO IS RIGHT FOR THE ROLE, ASKS BRIGIT GRANT When William Shakespeare created Shylock, he may have intended to insult Jewish people. Or not. Regardless, the money-lender in The Merchant of Venice is the ‘rift’ that keeps on giving.

Deliciously offensive, the play’s most controversial character is also the most interesting – barring Portia, the Venetian Judge Judy – and, as such, it’s a part many actors want to play, whether or not we want them to.

Jewish opinion about who gets the gig is of little consequence, according to David Baddiel’s Jews Don’t Count, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have one.

And out came the opinions when black American actor John Douglas Thompson took to the stage stateside as Shylock in a new production of The Merchant by the Shakespeare Theatre Company. Is there really a problem with Thompson portraying an

Orthodox Jew who lends cash in the 15th century?

Cue Sarah Silverman yelling “Jewface” from the balcony as Thompson is not Jewish, but neither was the late John Gielgud or Laurence Olivier when they lent ducats or Patrick Stewart, Jonathan Pryce and Al Pacino some time later.

US critics have analysed, but largely embraced, Thompson’s Shylock, who “evokes slavery with greater resonance like no other”. For in

Shakespeare’s predominantly Christian Venetian world, Shylock was tantamount to a slave as a secondclass citizen forbidden to interact or practice most occupations.

Bath-born Thompson may be the first black Shylock in New York in nearly 200 years, but Ira Aldridge was the first in Britain in 1831. Also American, he left the US because of racism and it speaks volumes for us that he got his pound of fleshy Shakespearean roles on the Eng-

lish stage. Ira could also be a Jewish name, but he wasn’t, but the antisemitism, racism, xenophobia and classism in 15th century Venice meant life was unpleasant if one was Jewish or black. Some think the play – which pitches merchant against stereotype – has run for too long, so even casting Larry David as the lender wouldn’t help. On the other hand, Eddie Redmayne as Shylock might bring them round. But imagine the ducat price for tickets.

Clockwise from left: John Douglas Thompson prepares to cut his pound of flesh; Al Pacino weighs it up as the moneylender in 2004; Patrick Stewart weighs up his ducats; the first black Shylock, Ira Aldridge, as Othello; Jonathan Pryce holds his gold close in 2015. Inset: Anthony Sher as Shylock

plus side, Adrian Schiller is the first Jewish actor to be cast as Shylock by the Globe and he does a brilliant job expressing his anguish in the scene where Jess take takes flight.

But, alas, Schiller is stuck with Will’s words, which tell us Shylock is more concerned about his gold than his daughter.

Eleanor Wyld as Jessica deftly conveys, with great nuance, the conflict felt by a daughter who mirrors so many by wanting to marry out, but there are other problems for a Jewish audience, most obviously the inclusion of the

Kol Nidre prayer at the play’s conclusion.

For Shakespeare’s audience, Shylock being forced to convert to Christianity to get out of his bond was a happy ending. His baptism means his soul is saved and he gets to go to heaven! Dismantling the horrific act of forced conversion doesn’t quite translate in Graham’s production, as using of one of Judaism’s most beautiful prayers feels like a tokenistic trope rather than a genuine reclamation.

Shakespeare wrote The Merchant

of Venice as a comedy and not as a tragedy like his other major ‘racist’ play, Othello, so the production is full of laughs and joyful communion, but it feels distasteful when followed by a scene with antisemitic bullying.

Perhaps that is Graham’s intention though: to indicate that antisemitism still exists, not just in obvious tragedy, such as the Holocaust or the recent attacks on Jewish communities around the world, but in more subtle and insidious ways that must be addressed too.

Has the time come to figure out what to do with The Merchant of Venice once and for all? I wish I knew, but the Globe’s latest attempt demonstrates that old adage of ‘two Jews and three opinions’, and the best way to ascertain yours is to see it.  The Merchant of Venice runs at the Sam Wanamaker Playhouse until 9 April.

Conrad Cohen is head of drama at St Margaret’s School in Bushey

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WHO WHAT WHERE OSCARS

Something’s Coming There was a time when the Oscars was truly a Jewish affair. How could it not be with Carl Laemmle (Universal) Adolph Zukor (Paramount) and Shmuel Gelbfisz (Samuel Goldwyn) running the studios? Nice Jewish girl Norma Shearer was the first to win Best Actress for The Divorcee in 1930 and there’ve been many Jewish winners since: Barbra Streisand (Funny Girl), Daniel Day-Lewis (Lincoln) and Joaquin Phoenix for Joker in 2019. Deaf actress Marlee Matlin won for Children of a Lesser God in 1986 and returns this year in the film CODA, which is multi-nominated at Sunday night’s ceremony.

Our presence includes Amy Schumer as one of the hosts, with Jamie Lee Curtis, Zoë Kravitz and Mila Kunis as presenters. Among

Beautiful gift for Mum

Watch with Mother

the nominees is Best Actress hopeful Kristen Stewart (inset) for Spencer, who discovered via a DNA test her biological maternal grandparents were Ashkenazi. Andrew Garfield has a Best Actor nom for Tick, Tick...

Boom! and its editors, Andrew Weisblum and Myron Kerstein, are also up for a gong.

Composer Hans Zimmer is up for his Dune score and Steven Spielberg (above) has Best Director and Best Film noms for West Side Story. If he wins, it will be his third (and possibly fourth) Oscar; the odds are on Jane Campion, but it ‘Could be, who knows...’

Tea time

She’ll tell you that she can’t afford the calories, but all mums love an afternoon tea, especially when taken by their kids. The Ham Yard Hotel, Charlotte Street Hotel, The Soho Hotel, Haymarket Hotel and Covent Garden Hotel are all gorgeously pretty, with delicious sandwiches, cakes and pastries served on beautiful, patterned china. If you can’t get a booking at a time to suit, buy Mum a voucher to use another time. www.firmdalehotels.com

Watch a film with that special lady. For the mum who likes a shiva – This Is Where I Leave You, which stars Jane Fonda as a newly-bereaved widow and the dysfunctional children who make up the shiva minyan. Joining Jane in grief are Tina Fey and Jason Bateman and a rabbi with the nickname ‘boner’. She’ll see the funny side.

For the mum who says: “You never call” – The Guilt Trip. Barbra Streisand is the star and plays the parent of Seth Rogen and they go on a road trip, but neither you nor your mother will be asking: “Are we there yet?” because it’s a warm and fuzzy film for huggers.

For the mum who loves to kvetch: Sophie’s Choice. Just kidding, but it’s a film with legitimate kvetching. She will enjoy Helen Hunt as an ove-worked waitress with a sick kid and the now-retired Jack Nicholson as an author with OCD and a dog. That’s As Good As It Gets.

Real Estate Show BEAUTY

If you still haven’t organised a gift for mum, it’s not too late. An online gift card for Pai skincare will go down a treat and I know this because I’ve tried this brand out and I love it! Pai founder Sarah Brown says becoming a mum made her work smarter. “Before motherhood, I worked every waking hour, but having children forced me to become more deliberate in my work and decisionmaking. As women, we are so busy thinking about everyone around us, we forget to look after number one.” Building a skincare routine into your day is a way of carving out a little time for yourself. The routine the Pai experts set up for me using the products they advised on during a free consultation has become an integral part of my day, to which I always look forward.

The cleansing cloth is possibly my favourite item – my face feels beautifully clean, giving me a feeling of youthful energy. Louisa Walters www.paiskincare.com

MOTHER’S DAY

FILMS

Multi-tasking performance art Seder, on 20 April, is an awe-inspiring multidisciplinary piece combining poetry, jazz drumming, sound and dance to explore the themes of ritual, retelling and survival. It is based on Adam Kammerling’s poetry collection of the same name, which focuses on the Holocaust survivor and Kindertransport evacuee Walter Kammerling and his family, but intertwines other experiences. www.southbankcentre.co.uk SHOW

ISRAEL

After a three-year hiatus, the Israeli Real Estate Event is back in London this Sunday. If you are considering aliyah, thinking about purchasing a holiday home, or are interested in investing in Israel, you probably have many questions. Here’s your opportunity to find the answers.

At the biggest, most comprehensive Israel real estate event, you’ll gain knowledge and receive the most up-to-date information from experts on buying for housing or investment, taking out a mortgage, legal issues, aliyah, retirement communities and more. Learn the differences between banking in the UK and in Israel, what you should know before taking out a mortgage, when to opt for private over branch banking and more. Get the inside story about the most popular Anglo communities across Israel, including where it’s most worthwhile to buy and the character and nuances of each city, town and community.

The Israeli Real Estate Event is at Kinloss this Sunday March 27 from 10.30am – 6pm. Entry is free. www.realestateisrael.org

This Month in Jewish History

By Jewish News historian Derek Taylor

On 16 March 1190 an antisemitic mob in York attacked the Jewish community. This date was Shabbat Hagodol, which comes just before Pesach. They took shelter in Clifford’s Tower, a part of York Castle, which was founded in 1068 by William the Conqueror. It’s a Motte and Bailey Castle – the Motte is the high ground and the Bailey is the walled courtyard. One of the mob promised that any Jews who came out and converted would be spared; some did and were promptly murdered. Most of the Jews took their own lives, with the fathers killing their families and then themselves, rather than fall into the hands of the mob. The death toll is estimated at 150. In memory of the events, daffodils are planted on the banks of the Tower each year as they resemble Stars of David. The Chief Rabbi and the Archbishop of York unveiled a memorial plaque in 1978. The Chief Rabbi found no evidence York had been cursed by the contemporary rabbis, but for centuries it was said Jews shouldn’t stay in the city overnight.

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JN LIFE

BAKE A CAKE FOR

These little loaf cakes taste like summer on a plate and are the perfect project for novice bakers.

The sponge is made with fresh lemon zest and Greek-style yoghurt, making it light, lemony and moist. The pastel lemon icing adds extra zing and the dried edible petals add a striking finishing touch.

Lemon & Yogurt Loaves For the loaf cakes 210g (7½oz) caster sugar 105g (3½oz) unsalted butter, softened, plus extra for greasing finely-grated zest and freshly-squeezed juice of 1½ unwaxed lemons 2 large eggs, at room temperature 150g (5⅓oz) plain flour, sifted, plus extra for dusting ¼ tsp salt ¼ tsp bicarbonate of soda ¼ tsp baking powder 115g (4oz) Greek-style yoghurt

For the sugar glaze 2 tbsp smooth apricot jam 150g (5⅓oz icing sugar, sifted freshly squeezed juice of ½ lemon pink food colouring paste (optional) 1 tsp dried culinary lavender 1 tbsp dried edible flower petals (such as dianthus, viola and cornflower) black pepper

You will need 12 x mini loaf baking tins (about 8 x 4 x 4cm/3¼ x 1½ x 1½in) To make the loaves

1. Preheat the oven to 175ºC fan/375ºF/Gas 5.

2. Grease the tins with butter, then dust with flour.

3. Put the sugar, butter and lemon zest into a bowl and cream together until pale and fluffy. Beat the eggs, then gradually add them to the butter mixture, making sure they are fully incorporated.

4. Combine the flour, salt, bicarbonate of soda and baking powder and add to the mixture in three batches, mixing well between each addition.

5. Add the lemon juice and yoghurt to the batter and mix well. Divide the batter evenly between the loaf tins, filling each one about three-quarters full.

6. Bake in the preheated oven for 15–20 minutes, until the tops are golden and spring back to the touch.

7. Rest for about 15 minutes in the tins, then unmould and leave to cool completely on a wire rack.

To make the sugar glaze

1. Heat the apricot jam in the microwave or in a small saucepan until very hot and smooth.

Brush the top of each loaf cake with a thin layer of the jam and leave to set.

2. Mix the icing sugar with enough of the lemon juice to make a thick, runny glaze.

3. Mix a small amount of pink food colouring into the icing to make a pretty pink shade. Be careful not to add too much colouring – paste colour is more concentrated than liquid colour.

4. Spoon or pour the coloured icing on top of the cakes and allow it to drip down the sides.

5. Sprinkle with the lavender and edible flower petals while the icing is still wet.

Recipe from A Year in Cake by Peggy Porschen (Quadrille, RRP £22) Photography ©Paul Plews

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

Business / Eco-friendly products

candicekrieger@googlemail.com

With Candice Krieger

THE COMPANY TURNING WASTE INTO CAR PARTS The co-founder of a business offsetting the carbon footprint of everyday products for the likes of McDonald’s and Mercedes-Benz tells Candice Krieger why the environment is everything

A

n Israeli clean technology company that turns household waste into ecofriendly material has partnered with Mercedes-Benz to create parts that are used in the exterior and interior of its vehicles.

UBQ Materials also supplies its material to manufacture thermoplastic trays for the world’s largest independent McDonald’s franchisee, Arcos Dorados, with restaurants in Latin America and the Caribbean.

Founded in 2012, UBQ Materials takes unsorted household waste and converts it into a fully recyclable substitute for oil-based plastics, wood and concrete. The material, UBQ™, can be used to manufacture thousands of products and has already been adopted by global brands in automotive, retail, consumer products, construction and various other industries.

Most recently, it is featured throughout the new VISION EQXX, Mercedes-Benz’s allelectric vehicle.

“The demand for alternatives to conventional raw materials has never been higher,” says Tato Bigio, cofounder and co-CEO of UBQ Materials. “At the Tato Bigio core of UBQ is a fierce desire to change the meaning of waste in today’s world” “As we become more conscious of environmental preservation and climate impact, the mystery of where all our trash ends up becomes a more haunting question. Seeing it pile up in the Earth’s oceans, in public spaces, in evergrowing landfills, is simply unacceptable.”

Bigio says that, until recently, attempts to

transition away from a linear model of disposal and towards a circular model were only partially effective. “Closing the loop on billions of tonnes of municipal trash is a tall order, so we were never interested in cutting corners.”

UBQ carried out nearly seven years of stealth mode testing, earning certifications and credentials, engaging with the scientific community to create a clean, efficient and competitive technology. “So, by the time we went to market, we knew we were addressing the issue from start to finish at the highest standards.”

Today, UBQ works with companies and brands including Mainetti, Mercedes-Benz, Motherson and Keter, as well as other large global brands responsible for thousands of everyday products. While UBQ is not approved for direct food contact, it has a wide array of uses in the food industry, including trays, shopping carts, baskets, bins, crates and various products related to logistics. The company recently announced it would be running a pilot for shipping pallets with PepsiCo, one of the world’s largest food and beverage companies.

UBQ Materials plans to expand into Europe with a new large-scale plant in the Netherlands.

How does the conversion process work?

“After receiving the waste and sorting out metals and minerals that are sent to recycling, we run it through a refinement process in preparation for the conversion process.

“At this stage, the waste becomes the ‘feedstock’ for our patented reaction process, which breaks it down to its more basic natural components. At the particle level, these natural components, such as sugars, cellulose, lining and various natural fibres, will form the building blocks of the novel UBQTM thermoplastic composite matrix.”

Bigio has more than 25 years of experience in international business development and financing for leading Israeli companies in the

industrial and renewable energy sectors. He co-founded and managed Merhav Renewable Energies (MRE), where he developed and implemented large-scale wind, solar and bioethanol projects around the world. Before the 2008 sale of MRE, Bigio served as the president and CEO of Ampal-American Israel Corporation, an investment company traded on the NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv stock exchanges.

He is a long-standing member of the Board of the Israel-America Chamber of Commerce & Industry and holds an MBA and BA in business from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

Bigio believes “cleantech” will shape the future for a sustainable world and bridge the gap to a truly working circular economy. “We’re proud to provide the material but, when it comes to forging a more sustainable future, industry itself will be the driver of change.”

He adds: “Time is against us in the race against climate change. At the same time, we have never been more equipped to fight against it. Whether imposed externally (through legislated mandates) or internally (through sustainability development goals), the responsibility to lead the change has shifted towards industry.

“Manufacturers across the board have the opportunity to set new benchmarks by meeting net zero goals and maximising transparency into operations. McDonalds, PepsiCo, Mercedes-Benz and other international OEM [original equipment manufacturer]’s, brands, and compounders are already implementing these changes along their value chain. We look forward to more companies joining the fold.”

How long before all brands are traditional plastic-free? “Plastic consumption and demand show no signs of waning, so the bigger issue is where, and in what form, these products end.

Instead of fighting a losing battle against their existence, we need to address their end of life.”  www.ubqmaterials.com

Some of the products created by the substance UBQ™ by UBQ Materials

24 March 2022 Jewish News

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Orthodox Judaism

MAKING SENSE OF THE SEDRA In our thought-provoking new series, rabbis and rebbetzins relate the week’s parsha to the way we live today

BY RABBI GARRY WAYLAND TEACHER AND EDUCATOR FOR US LIVING AND LEARNING

Spirituality comes from self-sacrifice The book of Vayikra is almost entirely legal. Starting with lists and laws of the sacrifices, it runs through an array of legislation covering purity, forbidden relationships and broad societal principles.

It culminates in the framework for Jewish society and land – the laws of shmita and yovel, which govern the resting of the land, freeing slaves, cancelling of debts and returning property to its ancestral owners. The singular story that we learn about in this week’s parsha, Shemini, is an invaluable lesson in itself as well teaching us about the book of Vayikra as a whole.

The stage was set: the culmination

of many months’ preparation, the dream of a liberated nation coming into physical form in the Mishkan, the portable sanctuary. The technical details we had learned about were at last to be seen in action.

After completing their final acts in dedicating the Mishkan, ‘Moshe and Aaron came out, and blessed the people: the glory of God was visible to the entire people. A fire burst forth from before God, and consumed the offering and fats on the alter; the people saw, sung joyously, and bowed on their faces.’

The height of joy, yet it was almost immediately marred. Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, offered an ‘alien fire’ before God; shockingly, another fire comes from before God, but this time it consumed the priests and not the portion. Our sages explore their

motives and the necessity for such a punishment; their unbridled enthusiasm – motivated or enabled by arrogance or ambition – meant they faced the consequences of coming within a hairsbreadth of the Divine.

Aaron, the first Kohen gadol (the high priest at the centre of the Mishkan) struck with the death of two sons, in public view, for what seems to be an enthusiastic breach of protocol.

‘And Aaron was silent.’ Stoic.

We vacillate between our desire for independence and the wish to be so much bigger than we really are.

The laws of Vayikra say a desire for transcendence has a path: the opportunity for mistakes facilitated by the sacrifices, the laws of communal holiness, as well as laws and principles governing relationships.

Spirituality is not a feeling, a state

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Aaron’s sons, Nadav and Avihu, offered an ‘alien fire’ before God

of mind or a sense of euphoria. It comes from the self-sacrifice of living in harmony with the Creator, creation and the created – sincere prayer, hours spent contemplating divine wisdom, self-sacrifice for those in need, or a conscious effort to not be defined by past failings.

Aaron’s sons may have felt spiritual, and acted in the heat of the moment, yet this ersatz feeling is nothing compared to the Aaron’s silence – the momentary disconnect, disbelief, the gap before processing the enormity of tragedy, coming after his years of dedication to God and Man.

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Jewish News 24 March 2022

Progressive Judaism

LEAP OF FAITH

BY RABBI RENÉ PFERTZEL KINGSTON LIBERAL SYNAGOGUE

What would Esther do about opening up her home to refugees?

Have you ever had an Esther moment? When Mordechai found out what Haman was planning to do to the Jews, he informed Esther and asked her to appeal to the king and to plead for their people. But this was a perilous matter: should the king not extend the golden sceptre to allow a person in his presence in the court, the law said, he or she should be put to death.

But the situation was very pressing and Esther decided to take the risk. Mordechai told her: “If you keep silent in this crisis, relief and deliverance for the Jews may come from another quarter, but you and your family shall die. And who knows, maybe it is for a situation like this one that you have become a queen?” (Esther 4: 14) What is indeed the purpose of the story of Esther if not to talk about a courageous woman who stood up against a tyrannical power to save her people?

There are times when we can’t be too cautious and we need to take risks. These moments are, dare I say, the very reason

why we are here. We often wonder what is our purpose in life. Why are we here? What is the meaning of this apparent chaos and mess? Then the universe sends us a lesson: here are people unjustly thrown out of their homes and countries who are in desperate need of support and compassion.

That is what I call an Esther moment. No time for too much reflection, just a compelling call to do something to alleviate human suffering. A war in a world of mega-communication and the omnipresence of images cannot remain hidden.

We see and read heartbreaking stories of people from Ukraine and cannot remain idle. We’ve seen many responding to the calls to help, whether financially or more practically with specific items and, more recently, with the opening of the government scheme Homes for Ukraine, to host refugees fleeing the war zone. We have received many offers from British households to host Ukrainian refugees, and at Liberal Judaism we are working out a system to match both communities, so we can offer a sanctuary to those in need.

That is the Esther moment for our community and our country. We cannot remain silent any more; we have to overcome the human tendency to selfishness and open our homes and hearts to others. We have rediscovered the interconnectedness of all living creatures. May it be an Esther moment for all humankind.

A stimulating new series where our progressive rabbis consider how biblical figures might act when faced with 21st century issues

We see heartbreaking stories of people fleeing war in Ukraine

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Ask our

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

This week: Shipments delay to Israel, monitoring employees’ web-browing and changing health insurance provider STEPHEN MORRIS REMOVALS MANAGING DIRECTOR

STEPHEN MORRIS SHIPPING LTD

I am reading of massive delays at the ports.

How does this affect a possible aliyah shipment to Israel?

Rebecca Dear Rebecca There are indeed delays at the ports and, in general, these have been caused by the shipping lines reducing capacity, for example, by placing vessels in dry dock. A shortage of capacity has allowed the lines to increase rates in view of the increased demand for the available space. Joe Biden exposed this in his State of the Union address to the US people recently, but it will take time for prices to come down.

EMMA GROSS EMPLOYMENT LAW AND DATA PROTECTION

SPENCER WEST LLP Dear Emma I’ve recently recruited a new salesman and have noticed that he’s always looking at dubious websites. I’ve spoken to him about this and he’s promised to stop. As an employer, am I entitled to monitor my employees’ use websites in the office? Is there a right to privacy in the workplace?

David

Dear David Employees’ use of email and the internet (including their activities on social network sites and blogs) can lead to performance issues, damage to the employer’s reputation, loss of business and various legal liabilities.

However, employers can only monitor employees’ actions to prevent liability arising in certain circumstances and there need to be specific policies in place.

Monitoring employee use of email and the internet involves the processing of personal data which, according to the GDPR, may not be processed unless there is a lawful basis for doing so.

Employees must also be informed of the basis and the

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£8.35/g 9ct £12.98/g Professional advice from our panel /14ct Ask Our Experts £16.70g 18ct £8.35/g 9ct £19.48/g 21ct £12.98/g 14ct £16.70g 18ct £20.41/g 22ct £19.48/g 21ct £22.26/g 24ct £20.41/g 22ct £16.74 £8.35/g 9 ct 9ct £22.26/g 24ct £26.11 £12.98/g 14 ct £22.50/g Platinum14ct £22.50/g Platinum £33.47 £16.70g 18 ct 18ct £0.25/g Silver £0.25/g Silver 21ct £19.48/g £39.05 21 ct £81.16 Half Sovereigns £20.41/g £40.88 22ct 22 ct Half Sovereigns £160.48 Full Sovereigns£81.16 £44.63 £22.26/g 24ct 24 ct 1oz Krugerands £690.85 £21.34 £160.48 Platinum 950 £22.50/g Platinum Full Sovereigns £0.43 £0.25/g Silver 925 Silver £690.85 1oz Krugerands Half Sovereigns £81.16 Half Sovereigns £163.53

For Israel, we have only used ZIM as our preferred carrier for the past 20-plus years and enjoyed favourable rates that we passed on to our clients. In recent months, they have repeatedly increased rates and so we have been forced to approach other lines.

Fortunately, as the largest shipper of household and personal effects from the UK to Israel, we are able to obtain containers and space on vessels reasonably quickly, and there are signs that the overall situation may well improve by the end of Pesach this year.

Sea freight rates should begin to drop eventually and, when they do, we will immediately pass on those savings to our clients.

The bottom line is to speak to me as soon as you know your plans for making aliyah and I will make things run as smoothly as possible from then onwards and ensure that your shipment arrives at your new home so you can start your new life with one less worry!

purposes for which it will be processed.

The Employment Practices Code contains guidance on monitoring at work, including that workers have a legitimate expectation of privacy and that monitoring must only be carried out if it is proportionate to do so and that workers are informed.

It also recommends encouraging workers to mark personal emails as such in the subject line.

I would recommend adopting an IT and communications policy that outlines the standards employees must observe when using these systems, when you will monitor their use, and the action you will take if they breach these standards.

TREVOR GEE PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST

PATIENT HEALTH Dear Trevor My wife and I have just received our health renewal from the insurer (name supplied), and the price has soared through the roof. I understand that by changing our insurer, the price can reduce dramatically but I am concerned about making a new health declaration.

Should I be?

Leonard and Maxine

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Dear Leonard and Maxine The issue is whether to make a health declaration, as it is just one available option when taking out a policy with a different provider.

This is because it determines the cover you receive.

If you decide to make a medical declaration about your medical history, this does not mean that everything becomes excluded.

I am amazed at the conditions a new provider will cover.

Understandably, a new insurer may not want to inherit all conditions, but I know of one client with an aortic valve who has been offered full cover.

I always look at which insurer can improve the client’s cover and minimise

the premium. Recently, a client who is diabetic obtained cover from potential flare-ups. Another client who has prostate issues continued to obtain full and much cheaper cover from another insurer.

It is the underwriters who decide, but our role is to represent you, and they do exercise discretion. In addition, previous cancer will not necessarily prevent a client receiving better priced full cover.

Do remember that all of our work is free, so it is always worth having a review of your scheme at any time of the year. Book in for our free Health Policy Clinic; you may be surprised by how much you can save for the same or even better cover!

38

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Ask Our Experts / Professional advice from our panel

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

Email: editorial@jewishnews.co.uk Got a question for a member of our team?

Email: editorial@jewishnews.co.uk

PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST

PC, Mac, WiFi, Laptops & Desktops Remote Support and On-Site Man on a Bike IT Consultancy Call now 020 8731 6171 www.manonabike.co.uk

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Call Patient Health today, as we have helped countless people like you to obtain private health cover, to significantly reduce their premiums, and very often, provide higher cover for less

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

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

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

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

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

VACANT PROPERTY SECURITY

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

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

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

• LLB solicitors finals.

• Member of Chartered Insurance Institute.

STUART WOOLGAR Qualifications: • CEO of London’s largest guardian company with more than 20 years’ experience • Well-known and highly regarded British security industry expert • Specialists in securing and protecting empty commercial and residential properties • Clients include small private landlords to major national property companies and managing agents, as well as those in the public sector

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

GLOBAL GUARDIANS MANAGEMENT 020 3818 9100 www.global-guardians.co.uk info@global-guardians.co.uk

JEWELLER

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EMPLOYMENT LAW AND DATA PROTECTION

JONATHAN WILLIAMS Qualifications: • Jewellery manufacturer since 1980s.

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

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

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

DIRECTOR OF LEGACIES

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

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

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

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

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

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

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

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

Member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.

• •

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

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

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

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

Hearing aid advice, support and maintenance.

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

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

•

REMOVALS MANAGING DIRECTOR

PRINCIPAL, PERFORMING ARTS SCHOOL

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

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

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

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

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

• Set up Dancing with Louise 19 years ago.

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

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

24 March 2022 Jewish News

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Professional advice from our panel / Ask Our Experts

FINANCIAL SERVICES (FCA) COMPLIANCE

ACCOUNTANT

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

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

ADAM SHELLEY Qualifications: • FCCA chartered certified accountant.

• Accounting, taxation and business advisory services.

• Entrepreneurial business specialist including start-up businesses.

• Specialises in charities; Personal tax returns.

• Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation Volunteer of the Year JVN award.

LISA WIMBORNE Qualifications: Able to draw on the charity’s 50 years of experience in enabling people with physical disabilities or impaired vision to live independently, including: • The provision of specialist accommodation with 24/7 on site support.

• Knowledge of the innovations that empower people and the benefits available.

• Understanding of the impact of a disability diagnosis.

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

SOBELL RHODES LLP 020 8429 8800 www.sobellrhodes.co.uk a.shelley@sobellrhodes.co.uk

JEWISH BLIND & DISABLED 020 8371 6611 www.jbd.org Lisa@jbd.org

INTERNATIONAL PAYMENTS SPECIALIST

IT SPECIALIST

LEE SHMUEL GOLDFARB Qualifications: • Hands-on service, with full and personalised support for international transfers.

• Get the most out of your currency exchange with regards to pension income, when purchasing your first house in Israel or benefitting from an inheritance from aboard.

• UK leader in financial exchange and partner to brands such as St James Place and Hargreaves Lansdown with industry-beating Trustpilot score.

IAN GREEN Qualifications: • Launched Man on a Bike IT consultancy 15 years ago to provide computer support for the home and small businesses.

• Clients range from legal firms in the City to families, small business owners and synagogues.

• More than 18 years’ experience.

CURRENCIES DIRECT 0786 0595 890 / 0207 847 9400 www.currenciesdirect.com/jn lee.goldfarb@currenciesdirect.com

MAN ON A BIKE 020 8731 6171 www.manonabike.co.uk mail@manonabike.co.uk

ISRAELI ACCOUNTANT

Email: sales@jewishnews.co.uk Registered Charity No. 259480

Leave the legacy of independence to people like Hayley.

INSURANCE CONSULTANCY

LEON HARRIS Qualifications: • Leon is an Israeli and UK accountant based in Ramat Gan, Israel.

• He is a Partner at Harris Horoviz Consulting & Tax Ltd. • The firm specializes in Israeli and international tax advice, accounting and tax reporting for investors, Olim and businesses.

• Leon’s motto is: Our numbers speak your language!

ASHLEY PRAGER Qualifications: • Professional insurance and reinsurance broker. Offering PI/D&O cover, marine and aviation, property owners, ATE insurance, home and contents, fine art, HNW. • Specialist in insurance and reinsurance disputes, utilising Insurance backed products. (Including non insurance business disputes).

• Ensuring clients do not pay more than required.

HARRIS HOROVIZ CONSULTING & TAX LTD +972-3-6123153 / + 972-54-6449398 leon@h2cat.com

RISK RESOLUTIONS 020 3411 4050 www.risk-resolutions.com ashley.prager@risk-resolutions.com

ALIYAH ADVISER

If you would like to advertise your services here

eNABLeD PLease remember us in your wiLL.

Visit www.jbd.org or call 020 8371 6611

CAREER ADVISER

DOV NEWMARK Qualifications: • Director of UK Aliyah for Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organisation that helps facilitate aliyah from the UK. • Conducts monthly seminars and personal aliyah meetings in London.

• An expert in working together with clients to help plan a successful aliyah.

LESLEY TRENNER Qualifications: • Provides free professional one-to-one advice at Resource to help unemployed into work.

• Offers mock interviews and workshops to maximise job prospects.

• Expert in corporate management holding director level marketing,

NEFESH B’NEFESH 0800 075 7200 www.nbn.org.il dov@nbn.org.il

RESOURCE 020 8346 4000 www.resource-centre.org office@resource-centre.org

DIVORCE & FAMILY SOLICITOR

TELECOMS SPECIALIST

VANESSA LLOYD PLATT Qualifications: • Qualification: 40 years experience as a matrimonial and divorce solicitor and mediator, specialising in all aspects of family matrimonial law, including: • Divorce, pre/post-nuptial agreements, cohabitation agreements, domestic violence, children’s cases, grandparents’ rights to see grandchildren, pet disputes, family disputes.

• Frequent broadcaster on national and International radio and television.

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

• Independent consultant and supplier of Telephone & Internet services.

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

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

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

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24 March 2022 Jewish News

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Fun, games and prizes

THE JEWISH NEWS CROSSWORD 1

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ACROSS 1 Stale and covered in a fungus (6) 4 Sit-down wash (4)

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

Area of very wet land (5) River that flows through Berlin (5) Electronic device used for reading (1-4) Defending players (5) Tales (7) Rower’s paddle (3) Elevate (4) Good supply (6)

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

DOWN 1 Female title (5) 2 Experience (7) 3 Dump, discard (5) 5 Boat which saved the animals (3) 6 Door joint (5) 7 Fruit seeds (4) 12 US animal with a bushy ringed tail (7) 13 Upright tripod (5) 14 Weave together (4) 15 First name of the owner of TV’s Fawlty Towers (5) 16 Ownerless animal (5) 18 Rotten (3)

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I

L P A H C D W

O C R A W F O R D E N L D H A U T D

I

E

L E V A R A M I

26

G E O S O Y

Y G T A R A E F R T N N I

I

T E R R

C D L B G H C U

I

N S E A

25

22

I

E

L N R M S K E O D

H B A C A L ASTAIRE BACALL BERGMAN BOGART BRANDO

L

CAGNEY CHAPLIN CRAWFORD DAVIS DIETRICH

Last issue’s solutions Crossword ACROSS: 1 Aloof 4 Model 7 Rub-down 8 Owl 9 Cos 11 Dragon 14 Quoits 17 Fur 19 Urn 20 Collect 22 Today 23 Youth DOWN: 1 Africa 2 Orb 3 Fjord 4 Mania 5 Drop-off 6 Lilo 10 Stunned 12 Rat 13 Crutch 15 Itchy 16 Silly 18 Suet 21 Emu

26

MONROE PECK STEWART TRACY WAYNE

7 9 8 1 6 4 2 5 3

6 4 5 3 2 9 7 8 1

9 7 4 8 1 6 3 2 5

14

3

5

12

19

21

16

3

1

5

26

18

B

9

12

16

23

23

15 19

21

9

3 8

9

4

16

16

15

20

15

8

3

21

10

5

21

16

14

23

12

26

3 1 6 2 9 5 8 7 4

4 2 3 9 8 1 5 6 7

3 1

1

21

3

9 26

5

6

4

M

12

26

26

9

4

4

24

3 1 4

3 16

16

21

16 4

3

15

14

20

1

2

14

15

A

3

4

5

6

16

17

18

B

M

4

5

5 1

14

19

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

Suguru 8 5 2 4 3 7 6 1 9

2

22

18

5

16

18

13

26

4

6

1

22

18

23

16

A

21

20

12

17

15

23

9

23

22 15

15

21

1

9

16

22 15

20

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

Sudoku 2 3 1 5 7 8 4 9 6

2

11

26

T P E C K O FONDA GARBO GARLAND GRANT HEPBURN

15

22 16

5 15

16

H S P Y C A R T E R O B N T E

9

16

N L S N W A O S M O

18

5

7

N E A E

F N O U A G A

18

21

R S B A G R T R E M T G B I

12

12

A

I

T P

18

1

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.

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.

L M S E A

4 3

SUGURU

The listed movie legends 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.

I

5 9

2

WORDSEARCH U K O V S S U

4

1 8 7 6 5 3 9 4 2

5 6 9 7 4 2 1 3 8

1 5 1 3 4 1

2 3 4 5 2 5

4 1 2 1 4 1

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

Wordsearch 2 3 5 3 2 5

1 4 1 4 1 3

3 2 5 3 2 4

4 2 1 4 3 4

1 3 5 2 5 1

2 4 1 3 4 3

1 3 2 5 1 2

2 5 1 4 3 5

1 4 3 5 2 1

C O O K E R R R T E O L E

H J E V O T S E L U D G L

S R E C I U J D T G T N T

E A P O F I A N R S N M T

B G U A N L P A E E A M E

L H D C O N T L V V I O K

E M W I E E S O I C E E T

Codeword N S E H R P O C R A L I T

D C F B I F A O L D I S S

E A I H A S W N D N A O I

R L N U G A K I H S B R A

P E K I V A R T U R E E N

B S N E M G R E M A E T S

E A RW I N R AN T I U G P L AGU L OB E Y O ANORA A O I NN U E Z N S AD D E

G R E U E I N V A D E J A B U ODD O I K CA I NDO U U N S U

ME D Y I E S I V E E I RGON U S A S H Q U S E D A X L E A F O L R E T Y

W S V D R T P L F O Z 24/03 J G MKU X NA E H CQB Y I

42

Jewish News 24 March 2022

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Business Services Directory HOUSE CLEARANCE

ANTIQUES

Stirling of Kensal Green

Top prices paid Antique – Reproduction – Retro Furniture (any condition)

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

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Established over 60 years.

Know who you are dealing with.

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House clearances

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Best prices paid for complete house clearances including china, books, clothing etc. Also rubbish clearance service, lofts, sheds, garages etc

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07866 614 744 (ANYTIME) 0207 723 7415 (SHOP)

Please contact Gordon Stirling

closed Sunday & Monday STUART SHUSTER - e-mail - info@maryleboneantiques.co.uk

020 8960 5401 or 07825 224144

MAKE SURE YOU CONTACT US BEFORE SELLING

Email: gordonstirling65@gmail.com

CHARITY & WELFARE

We clear houses, flats, sheds, garages etc.

No job too big or too small!

Rubbish cleared as part of a full clearance.

We have a waste licence.

We buy items including furniture bric a brac.

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

HOME & MAINTENANCE

ARE YOU BEREAVED? Bereavement Counselling for adults and children individually. Support Groups available.

During the pandemic, we offer telephone and online counselling.

Contact Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service in confidence.

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Labels are for jars.

Not people.

Refer yourself or a loved one by calling 020 8458 2223 or visit www.jamiuk.org REGISTERED CHARITY NO. 1003345

CHARITY & WELFARE

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

UTILITIES

Are you happy paying big household bills?

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call Jeff on 07958 959 822

STONEMASON

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

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Email : info@garygreenmemorials.co.uk

www.garygreenmemorials.co.uk

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

18/03/2019 12:50:51

Gants Hill

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Edgware

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

24 March 2022 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

43

Business Services Directory LEGACY- LEAVE A GIFT IN YOUR MEMORY

JEWISH WAR VETERANS

Leave the legacy of independence to people like Joel.

YOUR LEGACY

PLease remember us in your wiLL.

& THEIR DEPENDANTS NEED

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eNABLeD

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

visit www.Jbd.org or caLL 020 8371 6611

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

Registered Charity No: 1082148

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Together

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

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COMPUTER

HELP US CONTINUE TO BE THERE FOR OUR COMMUNITY WITH A GIFT IN YOUR WILL.

Legacy advert 84x40.indd 1

16/04/2021 10:55

Call our Legacy Team on 020 8922 2840 for more information or email legacyteam@jcare.org Chancellors House, Brampton Lane, London, NW4 4AB Tel: 020 8903 8746 | Fax: 020 8795 2240 www.bfiwd.org | email: info@bfiwd.org

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Need cash fast?

Sell your gold and coins today!

9 ct per gram 16.74 14 ct per gram £26.11 18 ct per gram £33.47 21 ct per gram £39.05 22 ct per gram £40.88 24 ct per gram £44.63 Platinum 950 per gram £21.34 Silver 925ag per gram £0.43 Half Sovereigns £163.53 Full Sovereigns £327.05 Krugerrands £1388.02 We also purchase any sterling silver candlesticks and any other sterling silver tableware

We wish to purchase any Diamond & Gold Jewellery

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44

Jewish News 24 March 2022

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Kisharon offers education, opportunity and support for people with learning disabilities and their families throughout life’s journey.

At the heart of all our services lie Jewish values and beliefs.

Your donation this Pesach Enabling the people we support to thrive

Donate today at kisharon.org.uk/donate-now Charity Number 271519

PERFECT PESACH GIFTS Shop at EQUAL and support Kisharon Impress your friends and family at your first in-person seder since 2019 with our beautiful range of hand made seder plates, kiddush cups and matzo plates.

Visit us in-store at: 818 Finchley Road, London NW11 6XL or call us on: 020 8457 5000