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Guilty pleasure

FREE WEEKLY NEWSPAPER OF THE YEAR 14 April 2022

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13 Nisan 5782

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Issue No.1258

‘I’ve cleaned up my party’

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It’s love at first sound

Howard The Baddiel brothers Jacobson on their new dating reveals why show, Romeo & Duet P32-33 he was ashamed of his parents Pages 30 & 31

@JewishNewsUK

Senior Tory is suspended over Nazi uniform Enfield branch chair investigated after JN uncovers obscene Waffen-SS picture perverse themes expressed... I can’t absolutely rule it out.”

It is understood Davis was originally The chair of the Enfield Southgate scheduled to stand for Enfield Southgate Conservative Association has been Tories as a candidate in the local elections suspended pending an investigation on 5 May. over claims he was photographed Sources said he had been pencilled in as a dressed in a full German Nazi Waffenpossible candidate in the Oakwood ward in SS uniform, writes Lee Harpin. the north London council, which is home to Colin Davis confirmed to Jewish News a sizeable Jewish community. on this week that his north London local A profile of Davis, which had appeared party had decided to take action, but added: on the Enfield Southgate Conservatives, “I am unable to comment, unfortunately.” website had been taken down on Tuesday.

A photograph, which was sent to Jewish But a day earlier, the party had confirmed News this week, appeared to show Davis that Davis was “busy running popular camdressed up in full Nazi regalia, in the back Davis as an SS officer paigns of national relevance and starting to garden of a property.

A source familiar with the picture alleged that it had campaign for the May 2022 local elections”.

Davis added he was “born and bred” in Enfield and been taken during the 1980s and had been found at a property previously lived in by Davis and his former wife. said: “We face a hostile Labour held Borough Council Asked to explain the photo ahead of his suspen- and an equally hostile representative in Westminster.”

On Monday, the Jewish Leadership Council and sion, Davis had initially told Jewish News that he could not recall dressing up as a Nazi, and denied being into far- Board of Deputies hosted a hustings event at Cockfosters and Southgate Synagogue. right politics.

Ahead of his suspension, Davis had also told Jewish However, he conceded: “I have no recollection Continued on page 2 of this at all. Yes, there were various wild parties, very

EXCLUSIVE

Labour leader gives Jewish News his most revealing inteview yet – see pages 4, 5, 6 & 22

THE UK JEWISH COMMUNITY NATIONAL HOLOCAUST COMMEMORATION 27TH APRIL 2022 • SEE PAGE 9 FOR DETAILS

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

News / Westminster memorial

Shoah memorial ‘will still be built’ The government’s envoy for post-Holocaust issues has promised a national memorial will still be built next to Parliament, despite a High Court decision quashing permission for the structure, writes Justin Cohen.

Planning was granted last July by then minister Chris Pincher following a public inquiry after the government ‘called in’ the decision in November 2019 rather than have it determined

by Westminster City Council.

But last week, Mrs Justice Thornton ruled that there was “an enduring obligation” to retain land “as a public garden and integral part of the existing Victoria Tower Gardens”, adding: “Accordingly, the appropriate remedy is to quash the decision, so as to enable further consideration of the implications of the London County Council (Improvements) Act 1900 for the proposed scheme.”

The London Historic Parks and Gardens Trust has been opposed to a Holocaust memorial being built in Victoria Tower Gardens, a triangular Grade II-listed park next to Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster. The charity brought the court case against the government, arguing that the project was the “right idea, wrong place” and that the planning permission decision-making process was flawed.

At a hearing in February, the trust focused its arguments on the evaluation of other sites and the development’s possible impact on the heritage setting, including the Buxton Memorial, which celebrates the abolition of slavery. Cam-

An impression of the proposed memorial

Robert Jenrick, Sir Ben Helfgott, Ed Balls, Sir Eric Pickles and Sir Ben’s grandson Reuben

paigners said the memorial’s proposed location risked affecting the park “irrevocably” and had raised concerns over the alleged impact on trees, potential flooding, and heritage monuments.

Lawyers for the government argued that there was “no error of law” in the decisionmaking process and that policy had not been “misinterpreted or misapplied”.

The memorial was due to open in 2024, but

Pickles acknowledged that last week’s decision was likely to result in a delay. “The decision will delay the memorial but will not prevent the memorial next to Parliament,” he said.

“The decision by the court was on technical grounds not on suitability of the location.

The government is committed to building a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in Victoria Tower Gardens.”

Olivia Marks-Woldman, chief executive of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, called the decision “deeply regrettable”. She added: “A permanent physical Holocaust memorial for generations to come is vital.”

Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, said: “This is very disappointing news.

“Holocaust survivors are elderly, and their numbers are dwindling... Many hope to see the opening of the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre standing proudly next to Parliament, serving as a warning from history of what can happen when antisemitism and hate is left unchecked.”

Co-chairs of the APPG on the Holocaust Memorial Bob Blackman MP and Lord Austin said: “The memorial is hugely important for our nation and needs to happen now.”

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BY OLIVIA MARKS-WOLDMAN

HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY TRUST

Respect for those in authority has plummeted – surveys show that people distrust politicians, the police and even doctors. We have also seen disagreements between people – usually, but not only, online – take place with vitriolic language, a lack of nuance or context, and those involved taking increasingly extreme positions.

These situations show us how fragile our civilised society is, how vulnerable to division.

Last week, the High Court agreed with campaigners that the proposed UK Holocaust Memorial should not go ahead in Victoria Tower Gardens. But a national memorial to the Holocaust will keep alive the memory of the Shoah and show its relevance to everyone – regardless of age, ethnicity or faith. News bulletins provide us with daily reminders that intolerance, racism

and identity-based persecution have not gone away. So, at a time when the world is increasingly vulnerable to divisions and prejudices, we are clear that by reminding ourselves of the worst human beings can do to each other, we can seek to prevent future atrocities.

Hearing a survivor share their experiences is a privilege. But they are elderly and not going to be with us forever. A permanent physical Holocaust memorial represents a powerful reminder to us – and future generations – of human capacity for unspeakable cruelty. The proposed Learning Centre would remind us of the genocides in Cambodia, Rwanda, Bosnia and Darfur.

Museums and centres dedicated to educating people about the evils of Nazism have been built all over the world. It is a surprising omission that the UK has no such memorial in the centre of our capital city. As we mark 77 years since the end of the Holocaust, I want to know that a physical memorial will be here in 77 years’ time, long after my lifespan has ended.

SENIOR TORY’S NAZI OUTFIT Continued from page 1 “I have a long history of representing all the principles for which the Conservative Party stands. I have in the past served as a councillor.

I have done all sorts of things. I have exposed extremism wherever it is to be found.

“On the other hand, like Voltaire, I have tended to defend those whose own extremism has sometimes manifested itself in extreme types of intolerance. That doesn’t include defence of Nazism.”

Asked if he could recall ever dressing in Nazi regalia, he said: “There used to be an awful lot of

wild parties in the 1980s. I certainly can’t recall all of them. I do not recall parading around... at the time I suspect I was a serving member of the British Army reserves.”

Davis was a consultant for Carters Solicitors and, according to its website, head of military law with “a national law firm”. The company ended the relationship 11 months ago. Former Enfield Southgate Conservative MP David Burrowes, unseated in 2017, also works for Carters Solicitors. He is tipped to stand again in the constituency at the next election. Carters said it was “sickened” by the photograph.

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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Lockdown fines / Court case / News

Johnson has to go, says bereaved son A spokesman for Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice has branded Boris Johnson a “national disgrace” and called for his resignation after the prime minister was fined for breaking lockdown rules, writes Jordan Tyldesley.

The Metropolitan Police said this week that a total of 50 fixed penalty notices have been issued by the ACRO Criminal Records Office in relation to events in Downing Street. Johnson, his wife Carrie and Chancellor Rishi Sunak are among those fined for breaking lockdown laws between 2020 and 2021.

David Garfinkel, of Covid-19 Bereaved Families For Justice, lost his 76-year-old father Ivor to the virus and has spoken and written extensively in the media about the painful sacrifices his family have made.

The 49-year-old from Edgware told Jewish News: “Boris Johnson and his partying pals have to go. For months he and the rest of the Tory party have defended the indefensible.

“Those in power and those complicit in ‘partygate’ have prevaricated and lied. To the nation. To the Commons. To each other. And to us. And while all this has been going on the majority of the Tory party stayed silent – either hoping it would go away or they could choose the moment to make political capital. They are all a disgrace.

“Never in modern memory has there been a government of such incompetence, from its handling of Covid to the cost of living crises. This fine and law-breaking only proves what Covid Bereaved Families have been saying for a long time: that this man is not fit to lead and is a walking public health disaster.”

‘BAFFLING’ MOVE TO DROP CHARGES

Boris Johnson and, inset, Ivor Garfinkel

Recalling his bereavement, the father of two added: “It took us a week to get my dad admitted to hospital despite being a shielder with a known underlying autoimmune condition – 18 months after the pandemic started and when A&Es were not even busy. We followed all the rules. But I couldn’t be with him throughout all of this.

“My dad died alone. This prime minister is a national disgrace.

He has broken the law. A law he created. He lied to the House of Commons. He lied to all of us. It’s time he did the honourable thing and resign.”

A decision by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) to drop racially or religiously aggravated elements against a man who attacked identifiably Jewish victims in London last summer has been described as “baffling”.

Abdullah Qureshi, 28, pleaded guilty at Thames Magistrates this week to a spate of assaults in the Stamford Hill area over two hours on 18 August last year.

But when the charges were originally brought, they included one count of racially or religiously aggravated wounding or grievous bodily harm, four counts of racially or religiously aggravated common assault and one count of racially or religiously aggravated criminal damage.

By the time the case reached Thames Magistrates, the racial and religious elements of the charges had been dropped, and instead, Qureshi, of Dewsbury, West Yorkshire, pleaded guilty to four counts of common assault, one count of criminal damage and one

count of wounding or grievous bodily harm. He will be sentenced in May. All the victims, ranging from a child to a 64-yearold man, were identifiably Orthodox Jews. The Campaign Against Antisemitism has denounced the CPS decision as “betraying Jewish victims”. Its Investigations director, Stephen Silverman, said: “In a violent spree, Abdulla Qureshi attacked innocent Jews as he came across them in the street… It is disgraceful that, once again, the CPS has proved to be the weak link in our collective effort to secure justice and protection for British Jews”.

Dave Rich of the CST told Jewish News the victims were only made aware of the CPS decision when the court session began. “We have been supporting one of the victims of the assaults and he told us immediately. We have now raised this matter with the CPS at the highest level and asked for an investigation as to why this decision was made.”

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

Jewish News meets... Sir Keir Starmer

‘Apologies were needed over my role in Corbyn’s team, but judge me by my actions now’ Sir Keir Starmer tells Jewish News’ political editor Lee Harpin his party has undergone a seismic shift under his watch – and shares his seder secrets Sir Keir Starmer has admitted “apologies were necessary” over his role in Jeremy Corbyn’s top team during Labour’s antisemitism crisis, but has urged the community to judge him now on his “actions taken” as party leader.

In an exclusive interview with Jewish News, Starmer insisted there had been a “considerable shift” in Labour’s ideology as a result of his leadership, both in the “battle against antisemitism” and through his zero- tolerance of MPs and party members challenging his emphatic pro-Nato stance in response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Demanding recognition of the scale of the changes he has instilled in the party since replacing Corbyn two years ago, the leader of the opposition claimed: “I think every MP, every member, and every supporter now knows very, very clearly where this party stands, on antisemitism and on Nato.

“Whether it’s antisemitism or this false equivalence in relation to Russian aggression and the actions of Nato, I think it’s been very important for me to lead from the front, to be very clear what this Labour Party under my leadership stands for, and what we will tolerate, and what we won’t tolerate.”

Asked whether he felt he still needed to apologise to the community for the years between 2016 and 2020 – the period during which he served as Corbyn’s shadow secretary of state for exiting the European Union – Starmer said: “I think apologies were necessary, but equally, if not more important, is what action has been taken in relation to deal with antisemitism. And I hope people can see that the words I used have been matched by the actions I’ve taken.”

In a wide-ranging conversation, Starmer also admitted that the next month’s local elections in England and Wales, which include Jewishpopulated councils such as Barnet, and Bury in Greater Manchester, would provide a clear indication on the success of his attempt to win back the community to Labour.

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“I take nothing for granted, I know I’ve got to earn every vote,” the human rights lawyer replied when asked if he believed his party could finally triumph in Barnet and hold onto the Red Wall seat of Bury. “But to me, it matters whether those who stop voting for Labour because of antisemitism feel now that they’re safe and confident in voting for Labour, because that’s the test I set myself.”

Starmer said he wanted to thank the community for giving him the “space to bring about change”, after he pledged to “tear up antisemitism by its roots” in the party, in his first speech after becoming leader.

“I knew I had to follow that up with action,” he said. “Lots of Jewish colleagues and friends and many in the community said to me: ‘I like the words Keir, but I need to see the action.’

“That’s what we were doing in the past two years. And I hope people have seen the action we’re taking, and I’m very grateful to so many people in the Jewish community who gave me the space to show I was going to bring about that change.”

Turning his attention to issues outside of the UK, Starmer spoke of his revulsion, both at the actions of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and of those who have committed terrorist atrocities in Israel over the past two weeks.

Asked for his thoughts on the Palestinian groups such as Hamas, which had issued statements celebrating last Thursday’s terror attack in Tel Aviv that killed three and injured several others, Starmer said: “We should all be condemning those acts without reservation. And I do. I think of the individuals and their families and their communities that are affected by this.

Nobody, but nobody, should be supporting that.”

Starmer spoke to Jewish News after his appearance last Friday at a London Labour campaign event for party members, designed to spur them on ahead of next month’s local government elections.

It was no coincidence the event took place at

I WANT PEOPLE SUCH AS LUCIANA BERGER, WHO LEFT THE LABOUR PARTY, TO FEEL IT CAN BE A HOME FOR THEM ONCE MORE

In a wide-ranging conversation with political editor Lee Harpin, the Labour leader discussed his two-year

Barnet College because, although Labour won’t officially admit it, the Council is viewed by party chiefs as one of the key “could win from the Tories” at the elections on 5 May. On the local doorsteps, Labour is aiming to capitalise on widespread concerns over a cost of living crisis, claims the Conservatives are no longer a low-tax party, and continued anger over the Downing Street “Partygate” scandal.

As the election draws nearer, Starmer’s political opponents, some from within the commu-

nity, have once again attempted to highlight his past record serving in Corbyn’s top team.

There are repeated claims Starmer failed to speak out properly against the former leader as Jewish MPs, such as Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman (who has subsequently rejoined the party), were hounded out of Labour by antiJewish racists.

Photographs from the Corbyn era can be used to show Starmer looking relaxed alongside the former leader, although claims they

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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Jewish News meets... Sir Keir Starmer were friends at any time appear to be wide of the mark. Asked by Jewish News if he considered Corbyn a friend, Starmer’s quickfire response was a one-word answer of “no”.

And a scan through records of newspaper reports from the Corbyn era confirms that Starmer did make some noise over the ongoing fallout with the Jewish community, including in a shadow cabinet session the day after the Enough Is Enough protest in Parliament Square on 27 March 2018, during which he berated the then leader for failing to engage properly over the issue.

That April, Starmer had attacked Unite general secretary Len McCluskey after he claimed Corbyn was being “smeared” with antisemitism claims. Starmer hit back, suggesting that those

have got an issue with antisemitism in the party, we’ve got a problem that there is antisemitism.

We’ve got a bigger problem that some people don’t acknowledge it. “ A senior BBC source also confirmed to Jewish News that on more than a dozen occasions Starmer appeared on programmes such as Radio 4’s Today and, when questioned on Corbyn’s failure on anti-Jewish racism, he failed to come to the leader’s defence.

But others, including MPs who were familiar with Corbyn’s shadow cabinet, continue to suggest

Watch the interv iew at jewish news .co.uk

transformation of the party, Nato and the war in Ukraine and his revulsion at terror attacks in Israel

who denied the party had an issue with antisemitism were “part of the problem”.

In an appearance on BBC’s Andrew Marr Show in October 2019, when asked by the presenter if he was suggesting Dame Louise Ellman had been wrong to quit Labour after citing Corbyn’s failure on antisemitism, Starmer admitted: “I am not saying she is wrong.”

But he told Marr he believed “personalising” the issue purely around Corbyn would not “take us far.” Starmer then conceded to Marr: “We

Starmer was often “too timid” and “too much like a thoughtful lawyer” in his showdowns with Corbyn on the issue.

“It is incorrect to say Starmer did not speak out at all on antisemitism,” one senior Jewish Labour figure said this week. “It would be more accurate to say he failed to speak up loudly enough at a time when Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman decided enough was enough and walked out of the party.”

Another former MP insisted: “The fact

Luciana has yet to rejoin Labour, as many expected her to do, speaks volumes.”

Starmer reiterated to Jewish News this week that, after he became leader on 4 April 2020, he had not been slow to apologise for what had previously gone on. “The first thing I did as Labour leader was to apologise to all our Jewish communities in relation to antisemitism,” he stressed.

“I wanted those to be the first words I uttered as Labour leader. I repeated that at the Labour Friends of Israel lunch [in November 2021], and again recently [in an interview last week].”

As he has done previously, Starmer also hailed the return of former Liverpool Riverside MP Ellman as “a clear signal to me we’d made progress”.

Asked if he felt he could have done more to try to convince another high-profile casualty of the party’s antisemitism crisis, Luciana, to return to the Labour fold, Starmer said: “Look, I think there’s plenty of discussions to be had with Luciana and others who felt driven from our party, because of antisemitism.

“And whether it’s Luciana or anybody else, I want those who felt that they couldn’t be part of the Labour Party any more, to have the confidence, to feel it’s a home for them, and therefore that’s the spirit in which I’d have any conversation with Luciana or any other of the people who have moved away from the Labour Party.”

Berger, who quit Labour in February 2019, eventually stood unsuccessfully as the Liberal Democrat candidate in Finchley and Golders Green later that year. Until now, a telephone call from deputy leader Angela Rayner urging her to discuss her view of Labour without Corbyn at its helm, had not been enough to instigate any return to the party.

One former senior Labour organiser called on Starmer to “do more” to bring MPs previously supportive of Corbyn in line with his ideological stance.

“Yes, Labour must always represent a broad church of opinions,” they added. “But had some of Starmer’s more rebellious Labour MPs been councillors, they would already have been expelled from the party. He’s done the highprofile stuff, but he doesn’t seem willing to take on some of the other MPs who still hang around with really dangerous people.”

But to dwell only on the antisemitism issue as a measure of both Starmer’s credibility and ability would seem dangerous and misguided.

If his first 18 months in charge of Labour were dominated by the national response to the Covid issue, the past few weeks have dragged politicians, as well the public, into the appalling spectre of Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine.

Starmer said it was “absolutely abhorrent” to watch Putin level the “Nazi” slur at Volodymyr Zelensky, the Jewish president of Ukraine, while the Russian troops faced allegations of committing war crimes.

His condemnation of Putin stands in stark contrast to the actions of the former Labour leader, who, still with the party whip removed, has refused to distance himself from the antiNato stance of the Stop The War group to which he remains attached.

“Putin needs to be held to account and everybody who acts on his behalf needs to be held to account,” the Labour leader said.

He added he was “strongly supportive of military equipment being provided to Ukraine in their courageous defence of their cities and their country”. Starmer also said he was “strongly supportive of even stronger sanctions.” He added: “I also want to be clear that what’s happening in Ukraine are war crimes.

From the top: Starmer sits beside Jeremy Corbyn as part of the former leader’s shadow cabinet; Starmer addresses Labour Friends of Israel at last year’s party conference; welcoming back Dame Louise Ellman into the party after she quit over Corbyn and lending a hand during last year’s Mitzvah Day at JW3

“I want to ensure that, if we do speak with one voice, they are hunted down or they know from this day onwards that they will never Continued on the next page

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

Jewish News meets... Sir Keir Starmer have a good night sleep again, knowing they will be held to account in the International Criminal Court.”

Acknowledging that the Jewish community in the UK has been at the forefront of efforts to welcome refugees from the war in Ukraine, Starmer breaks from his call for one national voice to criticise the response of Boris Johnson’s government.

While accepting the premise of providing homes from desperate Ukrainians here, he says the Homes for Ukraine scheme is “too narrow, too slow, and frankly too mean”.

He added: “I want to see the generosity of the British public matched by the genuine support of the government in relation to this.”

On his approach to Israel, and the unresolved, and unfortunately still violent, conflict with the Palestinians, Starmer’s approach again stands in stark contrast to his predecessor.

Asked for his thoughts on the anti-Zionists who claim Israel has no right to exist, or even call for the destruction of the Jewish state, he says sternly: “I have no truck with that at all, I want to see a safe and secure Israel.”

Even amid the current wave of violence in Israel, Starmer said he still harboured hope for a two-state solution to the conflict, including the eventual formation of a “sovereign Palestinian state”. He added that while “progress had been halted”, he did not think “we should lose the ambition to make progress”.

He said he would also listen to those Jewish voices that continued to speak out over the impact of the Israeli government’s settlement policy. “In the speech I gave to Labour Friends of Israel, I made very clear my support of Israel

Jewish News’ Labour Party hustings during Starmer’s successful leadership bid

and determination to tear-up antisemitism,” said Starmer. “But there was a passage in the middle of that where I said, if we’re going to be friends, we need to be honest.

“And I dealt with the question of settlements

and other issues that need to be resolved.”

He also confirmed that his first visit to Israel as Labour leader, postponed last year after he contracted Covid, is now being rescheduled.

He said his “extended family in Israel” meant

❝

I’VE MADE VERY CLEAR MY SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL. IF WE ARE FRIENDS, WE MUST BE HONEST. THAT MEANS DEALING WITH THE ISSUE OF SETTLEMENTS

that “we’re very close through the family to what’s happening on the ground”.

Turning to the topic of seder night, Starmer, whose wife Victoria is Jewish, revealed he was “looking forward” to spending tomorrow evening with “family and friends”. He said they both wanted their son and daughter “to know the tradition, know the family history – and therefore we have these special moments”.

He reconfirmed how the family was used to “quite often” hosting Friday night Shabbat dinners at which prayers were said. “My wife’s father’s family is Jewish and he comes very often to us on a Friday night,” he said.

Discussing the Pesach menu, Starmer said he was a fan of matzah, but on bitter herbs he admitted: “Whether they would be first on my list is another matter.”

He opened up about his thoughts on another big question being mulled over by north London’s Jewish community – who will grab the fourth place Champions League slot in the Premier League: his beloved Arsenal, or their bitter rivals, Spurs. Speaking one day before Arsenal slumped to a home defeat against Brighton, and Spurs romped to victory away at Aston Villa, Starmer said: “So you have left the toughest question for last. It’s going to be Arsenal.”

The politician, a season ticket at the Emirates, revealed he would be attending the 12 May game at Tottenham’s stadium against Arsenal with family and with David Lammy, Labour’s shadow foreign secretary, a massive Spurs fan.

Although he said there was “usually a unity of messaging” with Lammy, he admitted to having “a feeling the messaging might go in different directions” at the match.

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14 April 2022 Jewish News

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

News / Conservative investigation / ‘Racist’ chants

Bury Tories probe ‘Israel ignorance’

by Lee Harpin @lmharpin

The leader of the Bury Conservative Group has announced an investigation into the “ignorance regarding the state of Israel” among prospective local election candidates in his party.

In an unprecedented statement, councillor Nick Jones said he was “appalled” by revelations about social media posting by a succession of candidates ahead of the May election on issues relating to Israel and the Palestinians.

Jones then insisted that the local Tory Party “are friends of Israel and we fully support the IHRA [International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance] definition of antisemitism”. He added there was “no place for antisemitism within the council group”.

His announcement, made on Tuesday evening, came after further revelations about candidates selected to represent the Tories in Bury – where there is a large Jewish population – came to light.

Shahbaz Mahmood Arif, standing as a candidate in the Redvales ward in the

Bury Tory Group leader Nick Jones

Greater Manchester council, was revealed to have written “Jews r at it again” in a 2017 social media post relating to an incident involving Islamic State in Libya.

Jewish News can also reveal that Arif backed George Galloway’s Workers Party in last year’s by-election in Batley and Spen.

Arif shared a post by Galloway that labelled Sir Keir Starmer a “Zionist” and praised the former Respect Party leader as the only candidate “fighting for Palestine”.

On Monday, Bury Conservatives revealed that they were no longer endorsing a local election candidate over social media posts accusing Israel of false atrocities. Issuing his statement, Jones said: “I am appalled at such ignorance regarding the state of Israel and I have asked the Conservative Association to investigate these matters immediately.

“As a party, we accept different views but it’s how these views [are] expressed when the line is crossed is our challenge and investigation must be robust. As these statements have come to the attention of the association, I welcome that they have been dealt with robustly and on the day of them arising.

“The Conservative Council Group on Bury Council are friends of Israel and fully support the IHRA definition.”

Jones added that the state of Israel “is a beacon of democracy where Arabs have the same rights as the Jewish community and Christians”.

WEST HAM FANS TO FACE RACIAL HARASSMENT TRIAL Two West Ham fans are facing a trial accused of directing chants towards a man in Orthodox Jewish dress while on a departing flight to a European match.

Lee Carey, 55, and Jak Bruce, 31, were on a flight from Stansted to Eindhoven in the Netherlands on 4 November last year, Chelmsford Magistrates’ Court heard.

Essex Police said the supporters were travelling to a game against the Belgian side Genk.

Carey, of Romford, east London, and Bruce, of Dart-

ford, Kent, both deny a public order offence. They are charged with intentionally causing Aharon Wiliger harassment, alarm or distress, which was said to be racially aggravated. They are due to stand trial at Chelmsford Crown Court on 10 May. They both have bail conditions not to attend or travel to any designated football match while proceedings are ongoing.

They must also not comment or post anything on social media pertaining to the proceedings.

The fans are accused of distressing a strictly Orthodox man

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News / Hustings event / UJS award / Nato role Patron Her Majesty The Queen Reg Charity No. 1059050

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‘Lib Dem Party: a refuge for bigots?’

Barnet councillors clashed at local election hustings held by the Jewish community, writes Jenni Frazer.

At the event, the Barnet Council leader Daniel Thomas, Conservative, attacked Liberal Democrat councillor Gabriel Rozenberg for his embrace of councillor Helene Richman, who defected from the Tories to the Lib Dems in recent weeks.

Thomas, brandishing a copy of a Jewish News story in which Richman was reported to have complained about her running mate being Charedi, and additionally claimed the residents of her ward were antisemitic, told Rozenberg that unless he took steps to suspend Richman, “the Liberal Democrats will be seen as a safe refuge for bigots”. Richman later apologised for her remarks, but Rozenberg refused to respond to the challenge, declaring that Thomas’ remarks “speak for themselves”.

The only Jewish-related question at the event was on how to tackle rising antisemitism in the borough. The Labour leader of Barnet Council, cllr Barry Rawlings, said “quite a bit more” needed to be done, but prefaced his remarks by saying he believed “I should apologise for the way in which the Labour Party in previous years allowed antisemitism to take root”.

He said there had been “a massive change” in recent years and that Barnet Labour was “proud” of its record, citing his taking of a

group to the Jewish community’s ‘Enough is Enough’ demonstration outside Parliament, and the cross-party council support for adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.

Rozenberg said he had sat down with CST recently and found some “disturbing” factors, including that “the trust level between the Jewish community and the police has deteriorated in the last few years”.

Thomas suggested people travel from “outside Barnet to come and spread their antisemitism”, a claim he later made in response to questions about the crime rate, saying many criminals found it too easy to enter the borough, commit a crime, and then “get back on the train”.

The hustings were sponsored by Shaare Zedek Synagogue, Barnet Synagogue, the Board of Deputies, the London Jewish Forum, the Jewish Leadership Council and Jewish News.

Stone wins UJS award

FORMER UK ENVOY NAMED FOR NATO ROLE

The director of the Antisemitism Policy Trust has said he was “honoured” to be awarded the UJS Alumni Inspiring Dedication to Community Award at last Thursday’s student awards.

Former Union of Jewish Students (UJS) Campaigns director Danny Stone told Jewish News: “Working at UJS was one of the greatest jobs I ever had. Having a platform to both work with and inspire activists, but also to head major anti-racist campaigns in the sector was something I will never forget.”

He dedicated his award to former chair Alan Senitt, who, he said, “remains such an important beloved part of my UJS life”.

The Alumni Inspiration Dedication to Community Award was established by UJS in honour of the former chair of Lloyds Bank and former chair of UJS trustees, Sir Victor Blank.

The award is given to a member of the UJS alumni community who has dedicated their time and energy to the Jewish community and has inspired others to do the same.

Former award winner, ex-Labour MP Luciana Berger tweeted her congratulations: “You should have had it first, so very deserved.”

A former British ambassador to Israel has been named the UK’s permanent representative to Nato.

The UK’s joint delegation will be led by David Quarrey, currently the prime minister’s inter- Senior diplomat national affairs adviser David Quarrey and deputy national security adviser. He will take over from Dame Sarah MacIntosh this month.

Boris Johnson approved Quarrey’s appointment on the recommendation of Foreign Secretary Liz Truss.

The Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO) said Quarrey was one of the UK’s most experienced senior diplomats.

He served as UK ambassador to Israel from 2015 to 2019, director for the Middle East and North Africa at the FCDO, and director for foreign policy in the National Security Secretariat in the Cabinet Office. He has completed postings in India and Zimbabwe and at the UN.

Top: Cllr Richman. Left: Barnet Council leader cllr Dan Thomas

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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Trainee scheme / Neo-Nazi jailed / News

Doctor to train Ukraine medics A Hendon doctor who has raised thousands of pounds to help people through the Covid pandemic has now turned her attention to practical help for Ukraine.

Sharon Raymond, a GP who is director of the Crisis Rescue Foundation (CRF), previously the Covid Crisis Rescue Foundation, has launched a “bespoke” medical programme for trainee doctors in Ukraine.

The aim, Raymond says, “is to take the pressure off Ukrainian medical school lecturers, trying to deliver online lectures to Ukraine medical students who’ve been displaced from Ukraine to locations globally”.

The CRF is working closely with Ukrainian medical school lecturers to build the programme. It is hoped that those who register for it will receive Ukrainian medical accreditation, although many students plan to join the NHS workforce once they complete their studies.

Because of the Russian invasion and the disruption of the war, some of the Ukrainian lecturers have had to leave shelters to teach their students and, all too often recently, their lectures have been disrupted by air raids.

To help the Ukrainian professors, CRF has signed

Patron Her Majesty The Queen Reg Charity No. 1059050

GR WI OW NO TH ING RW OO D Director of the Crisis Rescue Foundation, Dr Sharon Raymond

up around 250 experienced medics, professors and academics. They are giving around seven lectures daily, which are getting an enthusiastic response from the estimated 2,000 medical students, some still in Ukraine, and others displaced globally.

Raymond said: “CRF is also running lectures for war-zone medicine for those clinicians on the front line in Ukraine.”

One Ukrainian professor, expressing gratitude to CRF, said: “You are doing a fantastic job,” while another wrote: “Thank you for eve-

rything you are doing for Dnipro and for all people who are trapped in this situation”.

One medical student said: “Our immense gratitude to you and your task force, doctor.

“As budding students in the field whose foundation is nothing but altruism, you all are setting a great example for us to follow.

“We only hope to have an opportunity to repay the debt that we owe to you, to our future generations of doctors and healthcare professionals, and help them in a time of crisis just like you are.”

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Neo-Nazi teen jailed for two years A teenage neo-Nazi who glorified and encouraged far-right terrorism against Jews and Muslims has been locked up for two years.

Thomas Leech (pictured), 19, believed conspiracy theories that the Jews were planning the “Great Replacement” of the white race through extinction and the “Islamicisation [sic]” of Europe, Manchester Crown Court heard.

The autistic youngster had become an isolated, lonely and vulnerable figure who rarely left his home and his far-right online activities “filled a void”, the court was told. After being arrested by counterterrorism police, he is reported to have told officers: “I am a Nazi.”

Police found he had posted a “call to arms” for the white race, glorifying far-right killers Anders Breivik and Brenton Tarrant.

Leech, of Derby Road, Preston, admitted at an earlier hearing three counts

of encouraging acts of terrorism and two counts of stirring up religious or racial hatred, between March and November 2020. He also admitted possessing indecent images of children.

Locking him up for two years, Judge Alan Conrad QC said: “The offences you committed are deeply disturbing.”

Earlier Joe Allman, prosecuting, said posts by Leech on online platform Gab, said to be popular among the far-right, were found by the Community Security Trust.

“The cumulative effect... is a call to arms... inciting others who shared his world view to commit mass murder.

“They are replete with evidence of antisemitism.”

Leech posted that the Holocaust was a hoax, Jews controlled the world, Third Reich imagery and antiMuslim content, the court heard.

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News / Warning letter / School concern / Class reassurance

Ex-NUS presidents express safety fears More than 20 former leaders of the National Union of Students (NUS) have signed a warning letter to outgoing NUS president Larissa Kennedy and the organisation’s trustees expressing “serious concerns” about the “safety and treatment of Jewish” undergraduates, writes Lee Harpin.

The sternly-worded warning – signed by columnist David Aaronovitch and exLabour MPs Phil Woolas and Stephen Twigg – states: “We are writing to you privately as former presidents with serious concerns about anti-

semitism, the safety and treatment of Jewish students at NUS events and within your democracy, and the way in which the NUS is responding to these concerns.”

The letter, which has been leaked to Jewish News, has gained the support of 22 former NUS presidents – including Labour cabinet ministers Jack Straw, Charles Clarke, the MP and former BICOM head Lorna Fitzsimons, current shadow health secretary Wes Streeting, and Sky News host Trevor Phillips.

The letter refers to the decision to invite the conspiracy

President-elect: Dallali

theorist and rapper Lowkey to give “a keynote at NUS conference”. It also notes how NUS representatives failed to attend a recent session of the Education Select Committee Westminster, to face ques-

Outgoing: Kennedy

tions over antisemitism on campus.

It calls on Kennedy and the trustees “to act urgently” and issue “a full and unreserved apology” to Jewish students and the Union of Jewish Stu-

dents. It then demands an independent investigation be launched “into antisemitism within the organisation.”

Meanwhile, Education Select Committee chair Robert Halfon has written to the Charity Commission calling for a statutory inquiry into the NUS and its trustees over antisemitism allegations.

The Harlow MP said he was “particularly concerned about antisemitic events that have taken place within the NUS over the past several years – and which comes following decades of concerning trends”.

In a dossier, submitted by

Halfon alongside the Campaign against Antisemitism charity, it was highlighted how “one of the most alarming recent incidents” had involved NUS’s invitation to Lowkey to perform at its centenary event. He added: “The NUS has allowed a culture of discrimination and harassment against Jewish students...”

The NUS said it was “taking antisemitism allegations seriously”, adding: “We have unreservedly apologised for the concern and worry caused in recent weeks.” A meeting by its board was due to take place yesterday.

Illegal schools crackdown IMMANUEL: NO CLASS CHANGE that fail to meet basic national standards.

Latest figures show Ofsted has identified at least 170 illegal schools in the UK – some run

by Strictly Orthodox community leaders who prioritise male education and fail to adhere to the national

curriculum in subjects such as history and sex education.

Zahawi said: “We will be introducing new legislation requiring councils to maintain a register of children who are not in school… alongside stronger powers for Ofsted.”

The new chair of governors of Immanuel College has told parents “a restructuring process affecting a small number of teaching colleagues” is about to conclude, but has assured them that “that there will be no noticeable change to the teaching provision”.

In his letter, Daniel Levy also reassured parents there would be no noticable change to “the set sizes, and the commitment to teaching excellence

across the whole curriculum, or, the safeguarding and wellbeing of all the family at Immanuel”.

His letter follows that of interim headteacher, Mike Buchanan, who confirmed “long overdue structural changes” for a “firm financial footing”.

Acknowledging “this has been a really difficult time” for all, Levy said a number of people had expressed interest in supporting the school.

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Ofsted: greater access

Unregistered Jewish schools face unannounced Ofsted inspections under new government plans.

Education Secretary Nadhim Zahawi has warned of lifetime bans for those found guilty by magistrates of running illegal institutions

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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PUTIN’S WAR ON UKRAINE

‘Righteous’ Lidiya, 97, rescued from Ukraine by Jewish charity

by Jenni Frazer @JenniFrazer

A Ukrainian woman named as Righteous Among the Nations by Yad Vashem was rescued from the war on Monday by the British aid worker Jonny Daniels, and his charity, From The Depths.

Lidiya Savchuk, now 97, was one of 15 remaining Righteous from the Ukraine still living in the country. There are said to be 139 Righteous still alive, spread around the countries of the former Soviet Union, Poland, Greece and Germany.

In the face of the pandemic, From The Depths has been concentrating on helping the Righteous in the countries where they lived, with Daniels visiting them on a regular basis and bringing them care packages. But the outbreak of the war between Russia and Ukraine changed matters drastically.

“Along with being named Righteous Among the Nations for saving Jews during the Holocaust,” says Daniels, “such people are also given honorary citizenship of Israel. So we offered people the opportunity to leave, and we’ve already helped some people, families of the Righteous, to go to Israel, where they’ve been taken in by families of those who the Righteous had saved.”

Almost no one wanted to leave, he said, saying that if the worst came to the worst they would prefer to die at home. But Lidiya changed her mind when it became possible for her and

Lidiya Savchuk was one of 15 remaining Righteous in Ukraine

her daughter Elena to go to Switzerland, where her grandson had arranged accommodation.

The Savchuk rescue story is unusual because it is a rare instance of the “saviour” – in this case Lidiya – marrying the Jewish person she rescued. According to the Yad Vashem citation, Lidiya, her brother Valentin, and their parents Stepan and

Nadezhda, were living in the Ukrainian town of Vinnitsa (today Vinnytsya) in 1941. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in that year, Valentin enlisted in the Red Army, but the family had no contact with him until Vinnitsa was liberated in 1944.

In 1942, they sheltered a Soviet soldier who had escaped from a PoW camp, reasoning “Ivan Petrov” could have been their son.

His real name was Isaak Tartakovskiy; he was Jewish and from Kiev. After arriving at their door, the family hid him in their attic, and then, in 1943, when ordered to leave their home so Germans could be billeted there, moved to a suburb where they introduced him as a family member, living openly with them.

The Yad Vashem citation concludes: “When Vinnitsa was liberated, Tartakovskiy returned to the ranks of the army and later settled in Kiev, where he became a well-known artist. In 1951, he bumped into Lidiya Savchuk and renewed contact with her family. Two years later, Tartakovskiy and Lidiya married.”

Lidiya and her parents were named Righteous in 1995.

The rescue of Lidiya over the border with Poland was due to be carried out with the help of the Israeli consulate.

Daniels said: “I felt, during Covid, when we were providing medical aid that it was an opportunity to really give back on a significant level. However, this is something else – potentially saving the life of one of the Righteous, someone who risked their life to save a Jew.”

Sanctions force Kantor BEETROOT ON SEDER PLATE to resign from Congress IS SYMBOL OF SOLIDARITY Moshe Kantor has resigned from the European Jewish Congress (EJC), the representative body for Jewish groups across the continent, after he was sanctioned by the British government.

The EJC said in a statement: “Dr Kantor will be stepping back with immediate effect as president of the organisation in order to ensure that the EJC continues its important mission without distraction”, and thanked him for his “unparallel contribution” over 15 years.

It comes only days after the EJC denounced as misguided the sanctions against Kantor, which were announced last Wednesday.

Britain says he was sanctioned for being the largest shareholder of Acron, a fertiliser company that has “vital strategic significance for the Russian government”.

Other Jewish organisations, including the World Jewish Congress (WJC) and Britain’s Jewish Leadership Council (JLC), have sought to disassociate themselves from the Russian billionaire since the sanctions were announced.

Until this week, Kantor was widely known in the Jewish community for his philanthropic work and for being deputy chairman of Yad Vashem in Jerusalem.

The JLC, on which Kantor served as an honorary vice-chair, said his term would be ending in May and would not be renewed.

The WJC said in a statement: “No one whose name is included on any list of sanctioned individuals by the EU, the UK or the US in relation to the conflict in Ukraine, can hold any position or play any role in the World Jewish Congress.”

The World Union for Progressive Judaism (WUPJ), of which Reform and Liberal Judaism are members, is urging Progressive Jews around the globe to add a beetroot to their seder plate this Pesach to show solidarity with the people of Ukraine.

The eastern European country’s most famous national food is borscht,, for which the main ingredient is beetroot – making it a symbolic way to express support during the festival.

The Liberal Jewish Synagogue’s Rabbi Igor Zinkov, co-chair of the WUPJ/EUPJ Ukraine Emergency Support Fund, said: “The story of Pesach is the story of freedom – and we will

all be praying for those in Ukraine to be free this Passover”, adding that the placing of the beetroot was “a powerful symbol of solidarity”.

The Hebrew for beetroot is selek (‫)סלק‬, which resembles the word for retreat, yistalku (‫)יסתלקו‬.

It is suggested people eat the beetroot after the bitter herbs are consumed and before the main meal, saying the following prayer: “May it be Your will, Eternal God, that all the enemies who might beat us will retreat (yistalku), and we will beat a path to freedom.”

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News / MP safety / Palestinian motion

ESCAPED AMESS Union confirms ‘solidarity’ FREER KILLER ‘BY A WHISKER’ A teachers’ trade union has pledged renewed commitment to the Palestinian cause, while at the same time insisting that “no Muslim or Jewish students or educators should be subjected to prejudiced, antisemitic or Islamophobic behaviour for their views on Israel and Palestine”.

At its annual conference in Bournemouth, members of the National Education Union (NEU), created from the merging of the Association of Teachers and Lecturers and the National Union of Teachers, passed by “a strong majority” a composited motion tabled by Mairead Canavan of the Vale of Glamorgan and Liz McLean of the Denbighshire branches.

In the main motion, supported by the union’s national executive, members agreed to “continue to strengthen our solidarity work with Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and support the call from Palestinian civil society for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)”.

The union, presumably aware of the current turmoil over attitudes expressed by leaders of the National Union of Students, also instructed its officers to “support the rights of students to express, appropriately, solidarity with Palestine”, but also to “oppose attempts to impose a single narrative on the struggle for Palestinian rights or to suppress legitimate views on Israel and Palestine

Members of the National Education Union approved a pro-Palestinian motion

and solutions to the conflict”.

Two amendments, from NEU branches in Croydon and Bristol, were added to the main motion. They welcomed the Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and B’Tselem reports on Israel, and called for an assurance that the contents were publicised on the NEU website.

The teachers urged the union to “continue to promote our unequivocal opposition to antisemitism and Islamophobia, and to ensure our resources are appropriate” to that intent.

Stephen Scott, of the Trade Union Friends of Israel, said the NEU’s largely

Palestinian narrative had been “allowed to fester” during lockdown and he was unsurprised the motion was supported. “Some of these people are hardcore, premier league supporters of the PSC,” he said.

At no point during the debates, he said, was the issue raised of Palestinian textbooks or incitement to violence.

A Palestine Solidarity fringe meeting held on Tuesday included contributions from the NEU joint general secretary, Kevin Courtney, and Louise Atkinson, the union’s vice-president, as well as Saed Erziqat, the general secretary of the General Union of Palestinian Teachers.

The MP for Finchley and Golders Green, Mike Freer, believes he may have escaped by a whisker a murderous attack from the killer of Southend MP Sir David Amess.

Ali Harbi Ali, who was given a whole life sentence this week for stabbing Amess to death in his constituency surgery, was seen close to Freer’s constituency offices on 17 September last year.

But, as Freer explained to the Jewish News this week, only the evening before he had been called by Prime Minister Boris Johnson and asked to serve as minister at the Department for International Trade.

He cancelled his planned surgery, not knowing about Harbi Ali. But he was shocked when police told him, after Amess’ death in October 2021, that Harbi Ali had been considering him as a target initially.

Freer, who has been MP for Finchley and Golders Green for 12 years, said he had “always done my utmost”

to be available and accessible to constituents. But, in the wake of the Amess murder, and the fact he had been considered a potential target, Freer had been forced to suspend his usual activities, including travelling round the constancy in his mobile surgery van.

Following security advice, Freer stopped in-person surgeries, but gradually hopes to resume them.

He said his husband, Angelo, had wanted him to stop surgeries permanently, but although he was not ready to do that, he said “the way I engage publicly has unfortunately had to change”.

In just six years, Freer said, two MPs had been murdered “while going about their democratic duty” – Jo Cox and Amess.

And he blamed social media for “fostering a spread of hate” and making it much easier for people to “hide behind their screens”.  Mike Freer, page 28

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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Rising prices / Yom HaShoah / Racing win / News

JCC ‘feeds thousands’ as food poverty rises

by Jenni Frazer @JenniFrazer

The Jewish Community Council (JCC) of north London says it is feeding thousands of people, as food poverty hits low-income families.

Last week the organisation held a Pesach food distribution event attended by “hundreds of families”, according to the JCC director, Levi Schapiro.

Each family, depending on its size, received up to £600 worth of food.

Schapiro said: “We have doubled our efforts this year, providing grape juice, matzah, fish and meat, all to help struggling families.

“The demand for food assistance has tripled as a direct result of rising food prices.”

Even with families where both parents work at two jobs a day, Schapiro said, “Passover, a time of year where we are supposed to celebrate in hap-

IT COSTS EMUNAH £100,000 A YEAR TO STOP OVER 400 AT RISK CHILDREN GOING HUNGRY IN ISRAEL EVERY DAY. FOOD FOR THOUGHT THIS PESACH. The Jewish Community Council held a food distribution event

piness, becomes a nightmare for some families who struggle to feed their children.”

He added: “It’s beautiful to see that while we are feeding hundreds of Jewish families, the local non-Jewish families from all walks of life can also benefit from this service, and enjoy some of the fresh food and produce.

“They feel the squeeze just like us and we believe it’s important to help our neighbours at this difficult time.”

The JCC, Schapiro said, aimed to continue the food distributions and food vouchers throughout the year “and help these struggling families in a meaningful, respectful and dignified way”.

A hybrid Win against HaShoah all the odds This year’s Yom HaShoah ceremony, due to take place on 27 April, will draw on the experience of commemoration during the pandemic.

The ceremony has been held online for the past two years and, unexpectedly, attracted a greater audience. This year, the national broadcast is taking place at Jewish Care, home of the Holocaust Survivors’ Centre, with the opportunity for people also to watch online. There will be choirs, musicians, guest speakers and testimony from survivors and refugees.

Additionally, this year there is the delayed launch of the Yom HaShoah Legacy of the Holocaust initiative, in which 200 commemorative legacy boards will be installed in synagogues, school and communal buildings across the UK. Neil Martin, chair of Yom HaShoah UK, said the aim was to “create a permanent reminder and local focal point to remember, to tell, and never forget”.

Your donation this Pesach won’t just feed hungry stomachs, it will also fuel recovery from trauma and help provide vital life opportunities.

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You couldn’t have made it up – the Jewish amateur jockey, Sam Waley-Cohen, won the 2022 Grand National last weekend, with final odds on his horse, Noble Yeats, at 50/1.

Waley-Cohen (inset) had just announced that the race would be his last, as he was retiring, with a wonderful track record as the most successful course jockey of the modern era.

His thrilling ride was the first Grand National win for an amateur jockey since 1990.

His father, Robert, a long-standing horse trainer and breeder, had bought the winning horse only two months ago.

BUSY TRIP BY BRITISH TECHNION British Technion took delegates to Israel for the first time in two years for its first postCovid ‘out of this world’ tour.

Thirty delegates took part in a five-day tour around Israel, meeting Technionrelated start-ups and enjoying Israel’s culinary scene.

Delegates met teams from StoreDot, which creates fastcharging batteries, and Elbit Systems, a high-tech defence

Every day, hundreds of children turn up at our high schools and centres, neglected, hungry and malnourished. We provide a hot daily meal for every child and whenever necessary, a food parcel to take home to their families as well.

and security company. They also visited Space Pharma, a start-up trying to grow meat products from animal cells on low-waste farms.

Space Pharma, which has two former Technion students, uses miniaturised microgravity lab technology to help develop new drugs in space at a fraction of the cost of traditional research methods.

Delegates were also

introduced to Maayan JaffeHoffman, former head of strategy for the Jerusalem Post, David Horovitz, founding editor of Times of Israel and Supt Micky Rosenfeld, former Israel police national spokesman to foreign media.

The trip included talks from former Technion president prof Peretz Lavie, who set up the Center for Sleep Medicine, and PillCam creator Rafi Nave.

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Special Report / Putin’s war

The rabbi who fled Moscow ‘Jewish life as I knew it was coming to an end,’ says Motl Gordon, who moved to Israel hours after Russia invaded Ukraine On the morning of 24 February, Rabbi Motl Gordon woke up to the news that Russia had invaded Ukraine, writes David Stromberg.

“It dawned on me that it’s another epoch now,” he says. Within two hours he, his wife, and their two kids had aeroplane tickets, and within 10 hours they were on a plane to Warsaw.

Rabbi Gordon had spent the past five years leading an independent Jewish community in Moscow, Sredi Svoih (Among Our Own). Just minutes after deciding to leave, Gordon went to the synagogue to lead a Torah lesson and morning prayers. He didn’t tell his congregants about his plans — it was not clear to him yet that he would succeed in actually boarding the flight.

The journey was not simple in terms of official documents: the family was travelling through Warsaw and not all of them had visas, Israel hadn’t lifted coronavirus restrictions, and the children weren’t vaccinated.

The family applied for special permission to circumvent the restrictions and enter Israel, but as the war had started on a Thursday, the approval came too late to make it to Israel before Shabbat.

They ended up staying in Warsaw until Saturday night, when they boarded a flight to Ben Gurion.

On Sunday morning, they arrived in Israel.“Sixty hours,” Gordon says, “in which I could think of nothing else but getting to Jerusalem.”

The decision to leave was not easy as Seredi Svoih had flourished under Rabbi Gordon’s leadership. But it wasn’t made in a vacuum; and Russian Jews had begun leaving before 24 February.

The first sign of things to come, he says, were the elections for the Duma — Russia’s lower parliamentary house — in 2021, during which Rabbi Gordon saw the pre-election repression as too harsh to be reversed.“It felt like a purge,” he says.

So he told some of his congregants who were already outside Russia that he thought it was time to start something new and move elsewhere.

“I wanted to start thinking of a way of serving Russian-speaking Jews from outside Russia that wasn’t Moscow-centric,” Rabbi Gordon says. He imagined a gradual process that would take at least a year. But on 24 February, it was brought forward — not just for him, but for at least a dozen community members who had been thinking of leaving and for whom that day served as a catalyst.

“I felt that Jewish life in Russia as I knew it was coming to an end,” he says. “I couldn’t give a [sermon] on Friday night about anything but the

Protection at Pesach and all year round.

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war. And as a public figure, making anti-war statements on Shabbat is not safe for me, and it’s also not safe for the community. But a rabbi has to tell his community the truth.”

Once in Jerusalem, Rabbi Gordon recorded a video to tell his congregants that he’d taken his family to Jerusalem and would do his work from there, and that he supported members in whatever decisions they made.

He left Russia quickly, but his thoughts are directed at the future. What’s important about the people leaving Russia now, he says, is that they have the resources to build their Jewish legacy not by overwriting their Russian-speaking identities but by engaging with them. “We bring a huge linguistic and cultural background… which is actually very much interconnected with Eastern European Jewish culture,” Rabbi Gordon says.

“We aren’t starting over and leaving behind all of the resources that we developed in the Russian sphere. We are using these resources for building our new identities, which can be crafted with this heritage in mind. It’s a respectful thing to do toward our grandparents. And it’s our way of creating a more sustainable continuity.”

www.jewishnews.co.uk

14 April 2022 Jewish News

17

French election / Biden ratings / Stolpersteine / World News

Macron’s bloody duel with Le Pen

By Jenni Frazer

France’s president, Emmanuel Macron, has just over a week to convince voters he is ready to address the issues that led so many to vote for his unexpectedly strong rival, the far-right leader Marine Le Pen. She came a strong second to Macron in the first round of voting last Sunday, gaining 23.1 percent, not that far behind the president’s 27.8 percent.

Around 10 percent of French Jews voted for the extreme right-wing Jewish politician Eric Zemmour, who trailed Macron and Le Pen with only 7.1 percent of the national vote.

French Jews in Israel, however, are anecdotally said to have voted overwhelmingly for Zemmour.

Le Pen says she is ready to ban shechita and restrict brit milah, although she told Israel’s i24 TV station that she would ban shechita but not meat imports.

She complained: “I have been the victim of a form of caricature for decades.

I want Jews to be able to stay in France.

“There is no reason for the Jewish community to have any particular concerns,” she said, deploring the “harsh” remarks made by the Paris Consistoire, the umbrella religious body for French Jews, as likely to “raise fears”.

One report in The Jerusalem Post quoted an unnamed French Jew as telling his rabbi after the first round votes: “If Marine Le Pen wins the presidential election, we’ll need to change the text in our Passover Haggadah from ‘Next

year in Jerusalem’ to ‘Next month in Jerusalem’.”

The run-off between Macron and Le Pen takes place on Sunday, 24 April, and the defeated candidates in the first round are now encouraging their erstwhile supporters to recast their votes – Zemmour urging backing for Le Pen, while left-winger Jean-Luc Mélenchon, who came third in the first round with 21.95 percent of the vote, has asked people to vote for Macron.

Francis Kalifat, head of Crif – the equivalent of the Board of Deputies in France – said that although the organisation was non-partisan, the threat represented by Le Pen to French Jews meant that it was urging everyone to vote for Macron.

During the campaign, Kalifat said that “not a single Jewish vote should go to Zemmour”, after the hard-right politician made controversial statements about the head of the Vichy government, Marshal Philippe Pétain, protecting Jews

during the Second World War, cast doubt on Captain Alfred Dreyfus’ innocence and made derogatory statements about the victims of a 2012 terrorist attack on a Jewish school. French Chief Rabbi Haïm Korsia went as far as to call Zemmour “an antisemite”.

Samuel Lejoyeux, head of the Jewish student movement UEJF, noted that the climate of extremism, right and left, was having a strong effect on young people in the Jewish community.

He told Haaretz: “There is clearly a fear of the future that must be addressed. It’s well-known that Jewish children have had to change schools because of antisemitism. Well, now Jewish students have to leave universities too.”

Nevertheless, at the moment, Israeli officials have not predicted an immediate rise in emigration to Israel.

But everything may change if Le Pen is victorious on 24 April.

THIS PESACH TURN A PLAGUE

Jewish groups in France are warning against voting for far-right candidates

BIDEN’S JEWISH APPROVAL FALLS

DUTCH JEWS MEMORIALISED

Stolpersteine or ‘stumbling stones’ have been installed in the ground in a ceremony in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, to remember Jewish victims of the Nazis. During the ceremony, attended by relatives of the victims, the first 16 Stolpersteine in the country were placed on the pavement in front of the house where the victims lived or worked. Stolpersteine are stones overlaid with a brass plate that commemorate a Jew murdered by the Nazis. The Stolpersteine project was set up by a German artist, Gunter Demnig

Joe Bidens’s Jewish approval rating has fallen from 80 percent to 63 percent in 12 months, according to a poll released yesterday by the Jewish Electorate Institute (JEI), a group led by prominent Jewish Democrats.

JEI put a positive spin on the numbers, saying: “Jewish Americans continue to support President Biden and the Democratic Party at levels higher than the general American voting population, a trend that appears on track to continue in this year’s midterm elections and in the future.”

Biden’s approval numbers generally have dropped precipitously in the last year, a result of a botched exit from

Afghanistan, a persistent pandemic and inflation that his government can’t stem.

His approval rating generally is hovering at 42 percent the lowest of his presidency.

Jewish voters generally favour Democrats.

General support for Democrats among Jews has also dropped from 68 percent to 61 percent, while support for Republicans rose from 21 percent to 26 percent.

Both parties are campaigning heavily in Jewish communities where shifts in the vote can change majorities.

The pollsters reached 800 Jewish voters via text from 28 March to 3 April.

INTO A LIFESAVER Magen David Adom is Israel’s only national blood service. To donate call 020 8201 5900, visit mdauk.org/pesach or scan the QR code on your smart phone.

Registered Charity No. 1113409

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

Special Report / Finding Abraham

‘Acid-trip of a film’ that will defy viewers’ expectations

Just some of the people captured in the award-winning documentary, Finding Abraham, which was co-executive produced by Jewish News and explores the historic Abraham Accords

An award-winning “acid trip” of a film exploring the historic Abraham Accords – and executive produced by Jewish News – will finally be unveiled today.

Finding Abraham follows young Emiratis, Bahrainis, Moroccans and Egyptians on their first visit to Israel last summer – with the film’s director Malcolm Green promising far more than an exercise “in handshakes and high fives”.

The 30-minute documentary explores the potential and durability of the agreements between the Jewish state and her neighbours, giving voice to sceptics alongside advocates, including Palestinian market stallholders, football coaches bridging theJewish-Arab divide, Ethiopian immigrants and members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

During the journey organised by non-political non-governmental organisation Israel-

is, the visitors and their Israeli counterparts immerse themselves in yeshiva life, visit the Peres Centre for Peace, witness coexistence between students at Bar Ilan’s Dangoor Centre and even take part in an ambulance shift.

Green said it was not a “conventional observational” film. “I wanted the film to defy expectations,” said the adman, who has worked for brands including Walkers and Halifax, governments including Tony Blair’s Labour and, most recently, a series of commercials for Dubai Expo.

“The end product is a loud, crazy, in-yourface acid trip through the chaos and complexity of conflict and identity in one of the most contentious regions on earth. Ultimately, it’s all about people and why it’s our diversity, quirks and differences that make human beings so interesting.

“In order to make something visually and

sonically edgy, provocative and somewhat weird, I had to collaborate with people who shared the same vision. That’s why my ‘parters-in-weirdness’ are Jewish News, who are no strangers to fearlessly zigging where others zag.”

For the documentary, Jewish News followed in the footsteps of a small number of media outlets including the Guardian and New York Times in producing films of its own.

The film – initiated by this newspaper 15 months ago and featuring original music composed by Kevin Pollard – has already received prizes at film festivals around the globe, including the Paris Cinema Awards, Cannes World film Festival and New York Independent Cinema Awardsl. A screening at the UN in New York was postponed amid the crisis in Ukraine.

Finding Abraham is the first project from new film development company Jacob Films

set up by Green and Jewish News. It is dedicated to “making content that challenges, entertains and surprises as well as giving a face and voice to those who are often unseen”.

Jewish News co-publisher Justin Cohen, who was co-executive producer on the film, said: “Following hot on the heels of our photography project with the Duchess of Cambridge and several landmark interfaith projects, this is the latest innovative avenue through which JN is becoming far more than just a newspaper.”

He added: “A huge thanks to Israel-is, the cast, the incredibly dedicated crew in the UK and Israel, our social media agency 8Original and all those who made this project a reality.”  To stream the film, book a screening or find out more, visit www.findingabraham.com. Download the soundtrack Peace and Love on Spotify

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

News / Biathlete dreams / Charity platform

Jack setting Olympic sights on Milan 2026

Jack Davis-Black

A 17-year-old teenager from north London has been selected onto the British Biathlon’s development programme and has his sights set on competing in the next Winter Olympics.

Jack Davis-Black, 17, has travelled to Norway, Germany and Canada in recent months to train and compete in the sport, which comprises skiing and shooting. He lives in north London, is the only Jewish British biathlete and one of only a few worldwide.

While studying at JCoSS in 2018, he was named as one of three winners

of the Daniel Sacks Awards for Outstanding Young Athletic Achievement for his middle-distance running at London Heathside, having enjoyed “an exceptional season” over track, road and cross country.

He beat stiff competition to win the Barnet Schools’ 1,500m title and took both the 800m and 1,500m titles at the JCC Maccabi Games in Orange County, USA, setting personal bests in both races. He has now been running for six years.

“I started being involved in biathlon

when I first heard about the new development programme,” he said.

“I have done various other sports such as downhill skiing since a very young age and also cycling as it helps with running.”

Since becoming a biathlete, he said he had “enjoyed the training aspect the most, as it is different from what I normally do but still fits in with my running”.

He added: “I have also met lots of people on this journey who have been very friendly.”

Trio launch platform to encourage young people’s charitable-giving Three members of the London Jewish community – Joe Perl, Olivia Fox and Marc Lester – have launched a groundbreaking way of persuading people to give to charity, writes Jenni Frazer.

POGO, or the Power of Giving to Others, is an online platform that marries brand support for charities to consumers’ desire for a good deal, with the aim of making good the POGO slogan, “give a little, save a lot”.

Co-founder Perl said: “Olivia and I [both 26] were best friends at university and we were introduced to Marc, so there was already some pre-POGO thinking then. [Lester, 45, is chief executive of a computing company and a graduate of the Gamechangers Jewish leadership programme.]

“After graduation, through a body called TeachFirst, I went to teach maths in Lowestoft for two years. And

then I was deciding what to do next – and lockdown hit”.

And it was during lockdown that the three realised how badly affected charities were, and that perhaps, counterintuitively, it was the time to launch POGO. The idea is simple: users shopping online can see what discounts or special offers a company is promoting, and unlock these rewards by giving a small

sum to charity. Both Perl and Fox are keenly aware that younger people do not have the same tradition of philanthropy as older generations – but that does not mean the charitable impulse is not there.

The aim, the trio say, is “to integrate charitable giving into the everyday lives of the next generation, by making giving to charity a key part of the way we save and shop with our favourite brands”.

Charity leader: Joe Perl

Jteen – Helping the teenagers of our community A short Q&A with Yaakov Barr, psychotherapist and founder of Jteen Can you tell me what Jteen is?

Jteen is a non-profit, volunteer-led organization committed to helping Jewish teens receive the emotional support they need. Our main service is Jteen Support, a text support service available every weekday from 6pm until midnight.

How does it work?

Any person from the age of 11-20 can text in completely anonymously. We can’t see their number, and neither will we ask for names. We will offer non-judgemental support and help the teen figure out ways that they can feel better. Sometimes we will signpost a teen to a more appropriate resource or service or empower him/ her to reach out to parents and teachers.

Why do you choose text?

Text is a format with which teens are both familiar and comfortable, whilst at the same time it enables us to maintain strong standards of supervision. We have found that the anonymity and confidentiality that text provides has enabled teens to share their inner most feelings in ways that I never thought possible. However, we also recognise that not all teens have access to text or prefer speaking to us and therefore we are planning on opening a phone line too, after Pesach.

Have you found that teens have been responsive?

The interest and enthusiasm has been unbelievably positive. And that applies to parents, schools and teenagers themselves. Teens have reached out when they are in their darkest places, or in many cases when it is something smaller which is bothering them. In just over a year since we opened we have been contacted by Jewish teens over 2,300 times!

There will be some parents who will be uncomfortable for their child to reach out. How can you allay their fears?

Like every parent, we hope, of course, that our children never feel they need to reach out for help and that they will come and talk to us. However, experience shows that teenagers do often find themselves facing emotional difficulties. It is so inspiring that we are now seeing many more teens who are contacting us because their parents encourage it. Where a hashkofa or halachic issue arises, we are guided by our Rabbinical Board which comprises a team of highly regarded Rabbonim and Rebbetzins from within N.W. London, led by Rabbi S.F. Zimmerman (Head of Federation Beis Din). Our clinical advisory board contains experts in mental health and is led by John Cameron OBE, the former head of the NSPCC helpline.

All our volunteer counsellors have received extensive counselling and callhandling training from our training programme. Qualified therapists as well as safeguarding officers are on hand for, supervision, more complex problems, or potential safeguarding issues.

Do you think there is still too much reluctance within the Jewish community to tackle mental health issues?

The world has taken great strides in recent years in reducing the stigma of emotional health. However, within communities the challenge is greater. So yes, we are making progress in breaking down the barriers but there is still so much more we must do as a community. www.jteensupport.org Wishing you a Happy Pesach.

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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Ukrainian orphans / Nablus attack / Shoah denial / Survivor’s death / World News

From Ukraine to b’nei mitzvah at the Kotel Four orphans from the Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr were taken to the Western Wall with live music and dancing on Monday to celebrate their barmitvah, writes Michael Daventry.

The boys were accompanied by Chabad to the Kotel plaza in Jerusalem after the ceremony.

They prayed alongside their Israeli peers at the ancient wall and placed prayer notes into its cracks. “I feel great here,” said Tima Kobakov, 13, who is from an orphanage in the northwestern Ukrainian city of Zhytomyr. “There are a lot of Jewish people, Jewish community, they are so helpful.

I’m excited. I can’t express my feelings just with words because this is a huge celebration and I love this.”

Chabad organised the b’nei mitzvah for orphans the organisation cares for.

The Ukrainian boys are part of a larger group whose ages range from two to 12. They arrived in Israel on 3 March

Chabad helps Ukrainians to celebrate. Inset: Tima Kobakov

from war-torn Ukraine after a journey through Romania.

The KKL-JNF (Jewish National Fund) has been taking care of their hosting and wellbeing in Israel.

Rabbi Shlomo Duchman, director of Coll Chabad, said it was “beyond special” to be part of the event.

He said: “Right now with the Ukrainian crisis, with the Ukrainian

refugees, many of us who are parents of grandparents or are refugees themselves, when we hear the word ‘refugees’ we wake up, we jump up.

“To be able to welcome refugees and to be part of them and to lead them into your events and to your curriculum, that’s something that is truly beyond.”

Video report at jewishnews.co.uk

DAYTIME REPAIR AT JOSEPH’S TOMB Rare daytime repairs were made in a lightning renovation to Joseph’s Tomb, a shrine in the West Bank holy to Jews, Muslims and Christians, after two acts of vandalism in the past week.

Joseph’s Tomb, near Nablus, has been a frequent flashpoint for clashes between Israelis and Palestinians since then-prime minister Ehud Barak handed the site’s control to the Palestinian police in 2000.

Though the police pledged to protect the site and prevent damage, they have been

unable to stop the vandalism, the most recent of which took place after renewed terror attacks in Israel.

Renovations in 2010 and 2015 took place at night to minimise attacks by Palestinians. But this week, the repairs took place in daylight. The army said many residents would be asleep, having broken their Ramadan fasts late the night before.

Going in during the day allowed the army and clean-up crews to see the extent of the damage and to assess the repairs

needed. According to Israeli reports, “areas of the tomb were charred and the headstone was heavily damaged”.

In a three-hour operation, the teams repainted the charred walls and replaced the smashed windows.

IDF Samaria Brigade Brig Gen Roi Zweig said troops were “working fiercely as did our forefathers, not as thieves at night but as the sons of kings” and this was how “we get to restore the honour to this land and the people of Israel”.

Canada to make Shoah denial criminal offence Canada is poised to outlaw Holocaust denial, a move that has the backing of the governing Liberal Party government coalition and the opposition Conservative Party.

The CTV network reported on Saturday that adding Holocaust denial to the criminal code is in the government budget.

Coalition officials cast the change as consistent with existing Canadian laws criminalising incitement to hatred and promotion of genocide. Marco Mendicino, public safety minister, told CTV: “TWe’ve pledged to prohibit the wilful promotion of antisemitism through condoning, denying or downplaying the Holocaust. The Holocaust was one of the darkest chapters in human history. We must preserve its memory, combat contemporary antisemitism and be unequivocal when we say: never again.”

TYPIST OF SCHINDLER’S LIST DIES, AGED 107 A secretary who typed up German industrialist Oskar Schindler's list of Jews whom he would ultimately save has died aged 107 in Israel.

The life of Mimi Reinhard, who had studied literature and languages as an undergraduate before the Second World War, was saved by a course in shorthand.

Saved: Mimi Reinhard She was imprisoned at the Plaszow concentration camp, near Krakow, when she was chosen, thanks to her excellent German and shorthand skills, to work as a secretary instead of being sent to perform hard labour.

That assignment would save her life when she went on to type up the list of Jews to be saved by Schindler, who was later named a “righteous among the gentiles” for his efforts to save the approximately 1,200 Jews who worked for him. When Reinhard typed up that list, her own name would be on it.

She died last Tuesday in Israel, to where she had moved in 2007 to be near her son, Sasha Weitman.

Reinhard was born Carmen Weitman in 1915 in Vienna, where she studied literature at the University of Vienna. She moved to Poland with her husband in 1936 where their son was born three years later. Although her husband was killed in Krakow, Reinhard survived the war with the rest of ‘Schindler’s Jews’. The group was liberated in 1945 and Reinhard and her son, who had survived the war in Hungary, moved to New York.

Reinhard remembered Schindler as a “mensch” in an interview with Haaretz shortly after her move to Israel.

MONSTER MUNCH: ISRAELI PRESIDENT IS GIVEN RECORD-BREAKING 19FT-LONG MATZAH President Isaac and Michal Herzog are presented with Israel's biggest matzah at the the president's house in Jerusalem. The 6kg (13lb) piece took Bnei Brak's Aviv Matzah Factory three hours to bake.

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

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Editorial comment and letters ISSUE NO.

1258

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

Prime time for Starmer?

Some in the community still contend that because Sir Keir Starmer served in Jeremy Corbyn’s top team, he should not expect support from Jewish voters again. Many who share this view have probably never cast a vote for the Labour Party in their lives.

The real question seems to be: has Starmer done enough as leader of a party so damaged by Corbyn’s failure on antisemitism, to show Jewish voters he can now be trusted? Especially with the raft of concerns and scandals that continue to blight the current Boris Johnson led Conservative government.

Sitting down with Starmer for this week’s revealing Jewish News interview, it was apparent that, two years into his leadership the former director of Public Prosecutions remains deadly serious in his pledge to “root out antisemitism by its roots” from his party.

The Labour leader came across as sincere, likeable, and, through his wife’s Jewish roots, only too aware of some of the Jewish community’s continued concerns about Labour.

With a slightly more ruthless streak in dealing with those still upholding the values of the Corbyn era, Starmer could indeed be on the road to turning Labour into a party that appeals to the community in the same way it last did under former Prime Minister Tony Blair.

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

Criminally sanction abusers The man knows his wife and chilThanks for highlighting the plight of ‘chained’ women refused a religious dren can’t move on until the get is 27.4.22 divorce by their husbands on last ‘Get’ abusers warned: granted. Communities are still enterweek’s front page. comply or risk prison taining the get refusers and providing them with a synagogue in which For so long, coercion by men all LIFE to pray and the financial means to around the world, especially in the keep living. This sends such a horrific Jewish community, hasn’t been taken MAGAZINE message to the victims. This sends seriously. Women are left to live with INSIDE! the message that the support is given the fear and shame of having to live to the men and what the abusers are another day chained to a man they doing is being condoned by ‘promihave the right to leave. nent’ figures in the community.

These men use the ‘power’ of having the last Please God, with amazing charities, such word to mentally and physically abuse their as Jewish Women’s Aid and GETToutUK, the victims. Women don’t have the power to withJewish community and the secular world as hold or stall the get process like the man does; a whole will keep improving its approach tothe only power they have is hope that, sooner wards domestic violence. rather than later, they will be granted the freeVictims need to be heard and helped, and dom they deserve. the perpetrators need to understand once and Still to this day, men are threatening their for all that this cannot go on. If criminal sancvictims and using the get as a bargaining tion is the only thing that can grant a divorce tool to get exactly what they want. As it says for a victim who has waited far too long, then in last week’s article, they are using religion this criminal sanction is what needs to be kept. deliberately to manipulate Jewish custom and Shiri Elias, Golders Green practice to cause harm to someone.

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Barmitzvah boys Grandfather and grandson share rite of passage on TV P13

FREE WEEKL Y NEWSPAP ER

7 April 2022

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6 Nisan 5782

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OF THE YEA R

Issue No.1257

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@JewishNewsUK

SEE PAGE 20 FOR DETAILS

Landmark verdict sees

by Jenni Frazer @Jennifrazer

The first man to be jailed in Britain for coercive behaviour after failing to grant his wife a get is still withholding a religious divorce, Jewish News can reveal.

Campaigners

this week hailed the landmark court decision handed down to Alan Alti Moher, while lawyers for his victim told Jewish News it sent Justice: Caroline Moher a “strong message to abusers”.

But Moher, who is now behind “Criminal sanctions bars, has still not provided may his apply, as in this case, former wife, Caroline Moher, defendant deliberately where a with a get or religious release. manipulates Jewish custom and In statements after the practice case, to cause harm to someone.” leading counsel Anthony Metzer His junior in the case, Adam QC said: “This case demonstrates Gersch, said: “The court that victims do have has a pow- sent a strong message to abusers erful remedy against those that today. commit acts of domestic violence “It is time for the community and abuse. to speak with one clear “British law does not voice ordi- against such abuse. narily concern itself with Victims of issues domestic violence of Jewish law. One would and abuse hope deserve the full protection of the that no Beth Din would knowingly sanction or encourage criminal law.”

The full story of the abusive conduct. breakdown of the Moher marriage is

VIRUS OF AL-QUDS DAY

husband jailed after denying

daughter (the couple have three children).

Moher’s own defence barrister, Jeffrey Israel, acknowledged to the court that using a get as leverage at the end of a marriage was widespread.

He said: “While outright get refusal is unusual, it is unfortunately common for the granting of a get to be on the table as a negotiating chip within the context of any agreed, negotiated Jail: Alan Alti Moher settlement.”

In comments outside court revealed in a sentencing note after the case concluded last provided to the judge at South- Friday, Mrs Moher said: “My wark Crown Court, after Salford hope is that this case sends clear property millionaire Moher messages to abusers and their changed his plea to guilty of coer- victims. cive and controlling behaviour.

“To those who have emoMrs Moher brought a private tionally coerced and prosecution against her conex-hus- trolled, physically hurt, and band, from whom she obtained a dehumanised their civil divorce in 2019 after spouses a three- – the law will not allow you to get year separation. away with your crimes.

And it is clear Moher did not “To those victims out there deny having used the – potential issuing of a get as “manipulation you are not alone, and justice and humanity are on your side. or leverage” in financial negotia“I urge you not to stay tions relating to maintenance silent, of but to fight for your freedom.”

Mrs Moher and their youngest Continued on p9

divorce

Jewish News

Spring 2022 • ISSUE NO.7

INSIDE

Magazine

Don Black

Nicola Shindler Moses Reuven

Gal Gadot Elliot Levey & Joel Grey

Season Of Insta

Fashion Decades Of Lyrics DAYS OF TRAVEL

Hours Of Dining Passover Time

50 years of

Cabaret

RETURNS AFTER TWO-YEA R COVID HIATUS

Jewish groups have warned it is “disturbing” that the annual antiIsrael Al Quds Day demonstration

Hezbollah flag at a

previous rally

years, participants have flown terror Social Council of the United Nations. group flags, and one of Palestinian civilians, its speakers On Tuesday, the IHRC assassinating even blamed “Zionists” said the and arresting will return to London for the march – from those who resist” and this month, Grenfell the Home Office to Tower fire. with organisers issuing that “mainstream narratives Downing Street – was a call to relating The next protest “back due to to Israel arms for Sunday, 24 is being popular demand”. are shifting… in particular, April, writes planned Demonstrators the term by Adam Decker. the Wembley- are calling ‘apartheid’ is now widely for “an end to the Zionist based Islamic Human Supporters say it aims being employed”.

Rights apartheid regime’s to high- Commission, atrocities and a non-governmental light Palestinian rights The IHRC statement occupation of Palestine”. and protest organisation said the with special consultaagainst Israeli settlers but, Al Quds Day parade was It claimed that the Israel in recent tive status a “chance to with the Economic and Defense counter the violent extremism of the Forces “continues to terrorise Continued on p9

CABARET IS STILL BOARD AWARE OF A MUST-SEE FILM OLIGARCH WEALTH Fine Art Auctioneers & Valuers

What a joy it was to read Brigit Grant’s celebration of the 50th anniversary of Cabaret in last week’s Life magazine. Like many people who adore the film, I was unaware of the landmark. I recall watching the 1972 Oscars as a teenager as the film scooped eight out of 10 awards on the night. I urge young people to watch it. The film, set in the last days of German democracy before the Nazis took over, is full of darkness and light, joy and disquiet. It is a true masterpiece that deserves a new audience.

Samantha Sher, By email

The situation with Moshe Kantor, Eugene Shvidler and other sanctioned Russian oligarchs and British Jewish organisations reminds me of the Casablanca scene, in which corrupt police chief Renault closes down Rick’s Bar. “I am shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here,” says Renault.

A croupier comes and says: “Your winnings, Sir.” Renault replies: “Oh, thank you very much.” It’s not as if the Board of Deputies and others didn’t know how they became oligarchs. As a deputy, I find this all embarrassing to say the least. Joe Millis, By email

WE REMEMBER THE EMPTY SEATS As we celebrate Pesach, we must come to terms with the latest terrorist killings in Israel.

Sweets in Gaza celebrate the violence and, no doubt, Ramadan will bring more tragedy. We can only hope that calm will prevail. As we

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sit down with the Cos Eliahu (Cup for Elijah) we must remember empty places around the victims’ family homes and pray for freedom from the aggressor.

Norma Neville, Hendon

JUNE BROWN’S HAMISHE HERITAGE It was a surprise for the late actress June Brown to find out from BBC One’s Who Do You Think You Are? that she was Sephardic and related to a famous Jewish bare-knuckle fighter in Georgian England.

June was born at Needham Market in Suffolk, and her Jewish ancestry came through her maternal grandmother, Sarah, who was the daughter of Louisa and Joseph Raphael, a shoemaker, living in Spitalfields in the heart of the Jewish quarter.

Joseph’s parents were born in Germany

and had settled in Spitalfields during the mid-Victorian period. Louisa had a nonJewish father, but her mother, Sarah, was one of the 11 children of the famous fighter, Isaac Haim Abraham Bitton, born in Amsterdam in 1779. Taking up boxing, Isaac was a student of Jewish champion Daniel Mendoza. Isaac died in the Portuguese Jewish Hospital, Mile End on 27 January 1839 and was buried in the Novo Cemetery.

Doreen Berger, The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain

14 April 2022 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

23

Editorial comment and letters

“Blood.. meh! Frogs... meh! Lice... meh! Flies... meh!...”

BATEI DIN POWERLESS TO ACT There is no doubt that a party to a marriage being forced to remain in the marriage against their will can be heartbreaking.

We as a community must be doing whatever we can to help these women (and it is usually women), including with any communal sanctions that be applied to incentivise the husband to give a get.

However, nearly two millennia of literature on this topic have made very clear that

divorces cannot be unilaterally ‘granted’ by a Beth Din. If the husband simply refuses to co-operate, the Beth Din is powerless to act.

It’s very easy for your editorial comment (Jewish News, 7 April) to say it “ought to be within the remit” of Batei Din to act – but an Orthodox Beth Din has no ability to override Torah law, even to alleviate suffering, and it’s misleading to pretend otherwise.

Jonny Dickson, Edgware

DAYANIM HAVE PESACH PRAYER NO WILL OVER GET FOR ZELENSKY The dayanim are experts in interpreting the Torah. They find all sorts of ways in getting round seemingly implacable obstacles.

Yet, as reported on the front page of last week’s Jewish News, they will still not give a woman a get when her husband refuses to give it.

When there is a will, there is a way. The truth is that the dayanim do not have the will.

They live in a world where women’s rights do not exist and they wish to stay in that world.

As we all sit down for our Passover seders this week, Covid pandemic permitting, let us –as we used to keep an imaginary seat for Refuseniks from Soviet Russia – now have an imaginary seat again.

This time it should be for Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who fearlessly leads his people in another fight for freedom from his monstrous neighbour. It is difficult to conceive of a chag sameach this year in Kyiv, but LeShanah Haba’ah (Next year in Jerusalem)?

Ian Kay, Wembley

Barry Hyman, Bushey Heath

VIOLENCE IS JIHADISTS’ IDEA OF PEACE As President Putin is making clear in Ukraine, when one entity wants to lay claim to another’s independent, democratic land, violence is the method of choice.

Likewise, in Israel in the same week in which four Arab nations took a historic step to create cooperative ties, others opposed to such moves struck, murdering 11.

When we wish to extend the hand of friendship, disruptive elements see this as a sign of weakness and resort to extreme violence. Until jihadists accept Israel’s right to exist we must regretfully accept that “plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose”.

Stephen Vishnick, Tel Aviv

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

Opinion

Terror on my doorstep a reminder of darkest days SAMUEL GREEN

RESIDENT, DIZENGOFF STREET

A

nother busy week had come to an end. My wife headed out to meet friends. The kids were finally asleep. I made supper and sat in front of the TV to watch a film I’d been waiting to enjoy for weeks.

And then… gunshots? Five or six ‘pops’ in succession. It sounded like it was outside my window. I didn’t look – I knew that if it was gunshots, I was best advised to stay away from windows. I counted my blessings that the kids were asleep.

I called my wife. She was well out of Tel Aviv by then. I called my parents. They were home. Then a second burst of fire. My dad tried to convince me it was a motorcycle.

Then the sirens and screams. A cousin texted asking if I was OK. I was surprised she’d heard the shots as she lives in a different part of the city. But it turns out she was on the street, metres from where it happened.

I told her to come to our place, but she was scared (it turns out, justifiably) to move around and was hiding in the porch of a building on a nearby road. I called friends on that street and asked if they could take her in.

Several hours later, she was still there.

I turned on the news and there was the

❝

MY HITHERTO QUIET TEL AVIV STREET WAS THE SITE OF THE FIRST TERRORIST SHOOTING LAST THURSDAY

name of my hitherto quiet little street, located just behind the main artery of Dizengoff, apparently the site of a first shooting.

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05/04/2022 15:44

And suddenly I was transported 20 years back in time. Almost to the day. On 27 March 2002, I was in Netanya to celebrate seder. I had been in Israel for several months as part of a year-long programme before university and my family had flown out from England for our Pesach break.

It was a celebratory atmosphere – my birthday was the next day. But it was also the middle of the second intifada.

Midway through the seder I heard sirens.

Not so out of the ordinary – we weren’t too far from Netanya’s main hospital. But the sirens didn’t stop; something was wrong.

We don’t use the TV on seder night, but I told everyone to stop the seder and made an executive decision to turn it on. The images were terrifying. The Park Hotel was about five minutes’ walk from us; it had been blown to smithereens by a suicide bomber. The terrorist walked into a dining room crowded with families celebrating the holiday and set off his explosive belt, killing 30 and wounding 140. It was one of the worst attacks of the intifada and the symbolism of it taking place on seder night was particularly traumatising.

I’ll never forget that night. The sirens went on for hours. We continued our seder, but no one was in the mood for it. The rest of the holiday was thrown off course by the ensuing Israeli operation in the West Bank.

One of my friends from the programme who was supposed to have been staying at the Park ended up staying with us (his parents didn’t even get on the plane after what happened). We were all just grateful that they’d not planned to check in before the holiday started.

It was a strange time to be in Israel.

Simple things like getting on a bus, going to a café, even just walking into a crowded space all came with significant risks attached.

There were so many terrorist attacks that our response became ritualised. We heard about the attack. We texted home to say we were OK. We texted our programme to say we were OK. We texted our friends and family to say we were OK. And moved on.

It helped that the programme kept us wrapped in cotton wool with a series of security-related restrictions designed to reduce our risk. At one point we couldn’t leave our campus for a month. But there was something reassuring about having these rules.

It gave us a sense of security (however unjustified) in the limited activities permitted to us. Something the general public didn’t have at all.

Fortunately this meant we all stayed safe, although there were a few very close calls.

But it affected us more than we realised. I remember how, when I eventually came back to England, I felt nervous being in crowded spaces for months. Last week it all came flashing back.

I began writing this piece while the sirens were going off. The helicopters were overhead and there were announcements on police megaphones to stay inside until they

catch the terrorist. They had been at it for hours. My daughter woke up and asked me to stop all the noise. Fortunately she was blissfully unaware of what was causing it.

Messages flooded in from around the world as the news spreads. It’s wonderful people were in touch; it made us feel loved.

But it was also overwhelming. “Are you OK?” they asked. “We’re OK,” I replied. But we’re not. At least, I’m not. I’m traumatised.

I heard real-life gunshots from my sofa. I was out the night before the attack; if it had taken place 24 hours earlier, I might well have been caught up in it.

I’m not OK. I’m coping. And that’s enough

Victims of the Tel Aviv attack

for now. The real challenge begins in the days after the attack. Because, unlike 20 years ago, I have more to worry about than just myself.

There’s my wife, who couldn’t get home and had to stay overnight with her parents. There are my children, who had no idea what was going on – and we’ll have to make choices about whether we take them out, and to where, in what circumstances. When we’re

❝

MESSAGES FLOODED IN. ‘ARE YOU OK?’ THEY ASKED. ‘WE’RE OK,’ I REPLIED. BUT WE’RE NOT

outside, we’ll have to have a much more heightened awareness of our surroundings. And I don’t have the sense of security, however false, that came with my restrictions on my gap year programme.

I fear this will get worse before it gets better. This is just the latest in a series of significant terror attacks around the country in the past two weeks. Recently, the chief of staff said they had prevented more than 10 similar attacks.

Twenty years have passed and suddenly it feels as if nothing has changed. But I reassure myself with the thought that, as a country, we’ve got through terror waves like this time and time again. We’ll get through this one also. Hopefully sooner rather than later.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

Opinion

‘Legacy of the Holocaust’ project forms focal point NEIL MARTIN YOM HASHOAH UK

F

or the past two years, the national Yom HaShoah ceremony has been forced to move online because of coronavirus – and something unexpected happened. More families marked Yom HaShoah from their homes than had ever previously done so. Stuck at home, the community gathered online for Yom HaShoah, lit yellow candles and remembered together as one.

With restrictions now eased we, of course, wanted to be able return to a physical and more sophisticated ceremony, but at the same time we didn’t want to lose the new-found audience of thousands we have gained online.

For many of us, seeing elderly relatives in person hasn’t been possible for the past two years. So, importantly, whatever the format, it was vital this year to ensure we could involve those survivors and refugees who are able to

gather in person and be a central part of the national ceremony. We are especially honoured, therefore, that Jewish Care, the home of the Holocaust Survivors’ Centre, has agreed to open its doors to be to be the main base for our national broadcast this year on erev Yom HaShoah, Wednesday, 27 April.

Broadcast live to living rooms at YomHaShoah.org.uk, YouTube and on all social media channels, the intimate studio setting will play host to choristers, primary school choirs, musicians, guest speakers and, most importantly, testimony from survivors and refugees.

Hybrid technology will even allow you to be part of the ceremony, as families from across the UK are invited to sign up to be part of our live interactive ‘Yellow Candle’ lighting ceremony as part of this year’s

national commemoration.

Our mission over the past 10 years has been to put Yom HaShoah back on the map, and the Yom HaShoah UK committee, including the late Carol Hart MBE, whom we sadly lost this year, has ensured our day to remember has become a firm fixture in our communal calendar. However, we need to ensure the baton is passed with great confidence to the next generation, and that the annual pledge that our community has made to remember the Holocaust is continued each year.

Originally planned for 2020, this year there will be the much-anticipated launch of our Yom HaShoah ‘Legacy of the Holocaust’ initiative, for which, over the next year, 200 commemorative legacy boards will be installed in synagogues, schools and community buildings

❝

IT WAS VITAL TO INVOLVE SURVIVORS AND REFUGEES WHO COULD GATHER IN PERSON

Yom HaShoah memorial candles from Keir Starmer, Rachel Riley, Facebook’s Nicola Mendelsohn and comedian Matt Lucas

across the UK, creating a permanent reminder and local focal point “to remember, to tell and to never forget” on Yom HaShoah. Information on how your community can receive its free legacy board will be announced during the national commemoration.

We look forward to you joining us in two weeks’ time, as our community gathers online once again to mark Yom HaShoah, and where, together, we will remember the past, honour the memory and shape the future.

Discretion rules the day when it comes to Pesach JENNI FRAZER

B

y the time most people read this – I’m assuming you will only find the time after the seder nights – it will be Pesach, well and truly.

Those who do, will be on their seventh slice of matzah and trying to put thoughts of dough-based foods out of their heads for a week. Those who don’t… well… I can’t say they are missing out, because while there are many lovely things about this festival, food is generally not one of them.

Which brings me to the current ludicrous row in Israel that has apparently led to the resignation of the coalition chief whip and the government’s loss of its majority.

It is to do with the vexed issue of what may, or may not, be consumed in public spaces over Pesach. The two major flashpoints in this regard are – of course – the army, and Israel’s hospitals.

David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founder prime minister, recognised the problem quickly. He made a radio broadcast in the early years of the state in which he recalled a visit he’d made to an army base. He noticed one man standing up with no plates or cutlery, holding a loaf of bread in one hand and a tomato in the other.

Ben-Gurion approached him and asked

what was wrong. The man replied: “The food on this base is not kosher. The meat, of course, is kosher, but the utensils in which everything is cooked are treif. They mix the milk and the meat together in the kitchen. They put everything in the same cooking pot. Therefore I can only eat food that has not been in these pots.”

Ben-Gurion, not himself observant, nevertheless declared: “Even if only one out of 1,000 soldiers on a base keeps kosher, then that kitchen must be kept kosher. The reason is that 999 soldiers can eat the kosher food, but the

❝

WHAT DIFFERENCE CAN IT MAKE TO HOSPITAL PATIENTS TO BE OBLIGED TO EAT KOSHER FOOD?

one soldier cannot eat the non-kosher food.”

It’s the same logic that says you are better to pass your driving test on a manual, rather than automatic, car. (Manual graduates can drive everything; automatic testers are confined only to automatics.)

Ben-Gurion’s reasonable and pragmatic

ruling has held sway for many years. But things changed in 2020 when non-observant Israelis went to the High Court to challenge the principle, particularly focusing on hospitals, which employed guards to carry out bag searches, to stop people bringing in non-kosher or chametz food during Pesach.

The secular campaigners won; but last year, perhaps because of the pandemic and fewer hospital visits, there was little fuss. This year, however, the row has erupted yet again, and threatens to spread beyond Pesach. Last week, there was even a Haaretz editorial, which vowed: “We must now fight to get hospitals to provide non-kosher meals to patients who don’t observe kashrut”.

I’ve rarely come across anything so daft.

What possible difference can it make to hospital patients to be obliged to eat kosher food during their stay? I’ve never heard of any medical reason citing the healing power of bread. All that is required is that patients eat healthily during their recovery period.

Those who absolutely insist on a non-kosher diet should perhaps invoke the slogan of the American administration when asked to respond to the issue of gay servicemen in the US military. “Don’t ask, don’t tell”, was the advice.

In other words, don’t flaunt sandwiches during Pesach, and both secular and Orthodox

An Israeli wearing a mask and gloves handles a matzah delivery at a factory

citizens should be considerate of each other.

Don’t search people’s bags, and if you absolutely can’t live without pita and felafel for a week, be discreet. Chag sameach!

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

Opinion

I was on radar of terrorist who killed Sir David Amess MIKE FREER MP

FINCHLEY & GOLDERS GREEN

M

any readers of Jewish News will have read the horrifying details that have emerged during the trial into the death of my colleague, Sir David Amess. Sadly, as was reported back in October, the same individual was targeting two other MPs; I was one of them.

Now that the trial is over, and Sir David’s killer has been given a whole life sentence, I am able to speak more freely about that.

My experience, of course, pales in significance against the horror that Sir David and his family endured.

The convicted terrorist, Ali Harbi Ali, was seen around my constituency office in Finchley on Friday 17 September.

That day, I was due to hold a constituency surgery – and would have been in and around my office going about my duties as MP for Finchley and Golders Green.

Had the prime minister not appointed me a Minister at the Department for Interna-

tional Trade the evening before, causing my planned surgery to be postponed, things might have been very different.

In the days following Sir David’s death, the police informed me of my connection to the case. This was, as you can imagine, particularly unnerving for me, my family and my staff.

During the past 12 years in Parliament, I have always done my utmost to make myself accessible to my constituents. Whether they have agreed with my politics or not – and naturally many do not – I try to engage as much as possible, whether that is through surgery appointments, out around my constituency in my mobile surgery van, or indeed speaking to constituents as I bump into them on the street. Being a target forced me to suspend many of these activities for my safety and that of my staff.

But the biggest impact has been on my husband, Angelo, who understandably didn’t want me to do any surgeries anymore through fear for my safety. While I cannot do that – nor would I want to as the surgeries are an important part of representing my constituents – how I engage publicly has

❝

HE WAS SEEN AROUND MY CONSTITUENCY OFFICE IN FINCHLEY ON THE DAY I WAS DUE TO HOLD A SURGERY

unfortunately had to change. Over recent months, following security advice, I have not been holding in-person surgeries – something for which I hope my constituents will forgive me.

My office has taken a range of precautions for security, some of which I won’t disclose.

These changes include asking for proof of address from anyone who wants to see me.

By implementing additional precautions, I hope to get back to meeting my constituents over the coming months, while ensuring the safety of me and my staff.

I have had run-ins with radicalised groups

and other incidents in the past, and I have had unfortunately to accept that this is part of being an MP in the modern era.

Two MPs have now been murdered while going about their democratic duty in the space of only six years. The internet and social media have fostered a spread of hate.

Since I became an MP in 2010, the discourse has notably changed; people hide behind their screens and the hate that they spew does, in my opinion, make the risk of attacks much more likely.

My focus will always remain firmly on representing the people of Finchley and Golders Green. While I wanted to put the impact that these events have had on me, my family and my staff across, I also do not want to lose sight of the fact that none of this story should be about me.

We have lost a great man, a good friend and an excellent public servant to this hateful and horrific crime, and it is important to remember him. Parliament is certainly a much poorer place for his passing.

My thoughts remain with Sir David Amess’s family, friends and former staff in these difficult times.

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14 April 2022 Jewish News

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29

Opinion

Hard to think of a country more miscast than Israel FAY JONES MP

CONSERVATIVE, BRECON AND RADNORSHIRE

A

little over a week ago I was walking around the beautiful, bustling and winding streets of Jerusalem’s Old City. It was the offer of such unforgettable moments that led me to joining Conservative Friends of Israel on its much-anticipated first parliamentary delegation since February 2020.

The programme was the most incredible way for our group of nine Conservative MPs to learn about Israel and better understand the many security challenges it faces and its conflict with the Palestinians.

The political backdrop for the trip was fascinating. Prime Minister Naftali Bennett’s fragile coalition dramatically unravelled after a senior member said they would be withdrawing support. The current volatility of Israeli politics means that any issue at any point can unexpectedly become a major political crisis.

The mathematics of Israeli politics are

mind-boggling. The country’s pure PR system creates a full spectrum of parties and it is perhaps little surprise it has such a boisterous and thriving democracy, albeit a nightmare for coalition chairmen to keep it all together.

The trip was packed with memorable moments. We had a fascinating meeting with Palestinian Authority (PA) Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh in Ramallah. An excellent communicator, he had passionately put forward his case but a nonchalant observation that his government proudly provides financial support to ‘martyrs’ was a shocking moment.

In a subsequent meeting, an esteemed Palestinian pollster laid bare the depths of the problems with the PA being almost universally disliked by Palestinians for its corruption and failure to hold elections for nearly two decades.

The preparedness for younger Palestinians – the overwhelming majority of the population – to favour the likes of Hamas was deeply troubling and presents a major long-term problem.

In the week before the group’s visit, Israel had been rocked by a series of shocking terror attacks. It was hard to escape the powerful

sense that Israel’s citizenry was collectively hurting, but this was underpinned by a determination to get on with life and celebrate the many freedoms Israelis enjoy. It was a strong reminder of how us Brits respond in such difficult circumstances.

While we had a peaceful and safe week experiencing the many beautiful sights and sounds of the region, last Thursday’s violent attack in Tel Aviv was a painful moment. Three people were killed for simply enjoying themselves at a bar. A bar much like the dozens of others we had seen full of young revellers earlier that week.

To learn it had been celebrated by many in the West Bank was hard to process.

Earlier that day, we had toured the security barrier, which had been constructed to prevent Palestinian terror attacks. It has undoubtedly been effective as a security measure, but the threat from terrorism remains all too real for ordinary Israelis.

The challenges are many. The level of distrust is deep. And yet, expressions of hope for a better tomorrow were a common theme.

Talk, though, of a one-state solution strikes me

❝

THE SECURITY BARRIER HAS BEEN EFFECTIVE BUT THE THREAT FROM TERRORISM REMAINS ALL TOO REAL

as deeply problematic, as it is crucial Israel is secure as a democratic, Jewish state.

It is difficult to think of a country that is more misunderstood and miscast than Israel.

There is no resemblance to how the country is so routinely misrepresented - and I suspect many of those who misrepresent it have never experienced it first-hand for themselves.

Time and again we heard Israelis sincerely thanking the UK for its support and the two nations are working more closely than ever. It’s exciting to think that the new UK-Israel free trade deal will elevate this ever further.

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JN LIFE

Howard Jacobson in Grantchester, 1963

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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LI FE THE GUILT Tri p

31

Inside A look

Baddiel dating show MasterChef Who, What & Where

Howard Jacobson has been dragging guilt around with him for decades. Now he’s written a book about it, he tells Nicole Lampert

O

n the face of it, Howard Jacobson’s funny, strangely beautiful and poignant memoir, Mother’s Boy: A Writer’s Beginnings, is a book about family and his struggle to become a novelist. It’s also a snapshot of Jewish life, Jewish shame and Jewish pride, which will be familiar to many of us who have found the Jewish side of ourselves sometimes rubbing up against the British side. But, above all, it is an attempt to assuage his Jewish guilt.

There is a lot he feels guilty about. So much so that both his wife [he has married three times] and his publisher told him he needed to not be quite as hard on himself, not apologise to quite so many people in the book when he first showed it to them.

“I’ve done some horrible things, I’ve been quite horrible in many ways and I wanted to talk about the horribleness,” says Howard, 79, when we meet at a hotel in London, his famous droopy face he constantly complains about in his book looking even droopier as he contemplates his flaws.

“But everyone was worried that I would not come over as likeable. I argued that it was a book about being horrible, but they were right when they said too much horrible is tedious, as was all the apologising to everyone I’d felt I’d wronged.

“In the end, I could see what they meant.

Normally when I am told to edit a book, I add more but, for the first time, I realised the joy in cutting. I cut at least a third of the book.

I took people out and also cut the thickness of the sentences. I made it more reader-friendly.

“Normally I’m difficult; books are not meant to be easy, but I think the book is the better for it. I just feel a bit sorry for anyone who was expecting an apology in the book and they can’t find it.”

Howard’s guilt starts with his parents, who are drawn so perfectly that they feel visceral. His bookish, shy, passive, homely mother Anita, who helped him fall in love with words, and his exuberant kindly father Max, who was an upholsterer, a market trader and

a frustrated magician. He was, he admits, ashamed of them, of his working-class Manchester background, their immigrant fumblings, their sheer Jewishness.

And it took him years – only once he’d realised that if he wanted to write it had be about that background, that Jewishness – to feel ashamed of the shame he felt.

“I’m ashamed of the way I behaved, the horrible things I did,” he says. “My father was beloved by people. I should have just been nicer to my parents. It was only when I saw an old school friend of mine – John Heilpern, who is also in the book and who spurred me on and made me angry because he wrote a book before me – that I realised what a stuck-up little prig I was.

“I saw him a few years ago and he asked about my parents and he told me: ‘I used to love coming to your house.’ That surprised me. All I could think about was the bad magic tricks my dad did. And then he said that he wasn’t just fond of my parents but adored them. He used that word deliberately – adored! And it made me think about why I hadn’t adored them; I paid a price for that.”

That guilt segues into a guilt about his first wife, Barbara, a hairdresser, who he married straight after finishing at Cambridge. He was, he admits, a dreadful husband because of his frustration at his inability to write the great novels he knew he had to put on paper.

Working as a lecturer in Australia, he wasn’t writing but instead started drinking and had an affair. Later, he left Barbara and their son Conrad, something for which he says he then spent many decades apologising.

“I was demented by not writing,” he says.

“I had to do it. That doesn’t mean I was or am any good. I just had to do it. For me it was a way of dealing with my inadequacies. I thought: ‘If I can write about something, I might feel better about life, particularly if I’ve done something schmucky.’”

His problem, he was to later learn, was that he was trying to fit his Jewish life into a gentile way of writing. “I wanted to be Henry James,” he says. “I wanted to write sentences

like Henry James because if there’s ever a writer who wrote sentences without a hint of Jew in them it was Henry James.

“It wasn’t that I wanted to deny my Jewishness or turn my back on it; it was just that I wanted to professionally soar above it.

I wanted to produce work that was pristine and austere even though there was nothing pristine and austere about me.”

It was his second wife, Australian academic Rosalin Sadler, who pushed him to start writing about what he knew. He regards their 20-year relationship as tumultuous, but will never forget that she was able to do for him – get him writing novels – something he was unable to do for her.

“She was a gifted and strong woman,” he says. “She was difficult to live with, but I was difficult to live with. We fought very, very bitterly and haven’t spoken for many years.

“I don’t know whether she has seen this book; there’s a chance her response may mean she might want to come back to England and kill me. But I don’t think she will because she’s getting on and it’s a schlep from Australia!”

The things that save Howard from his horribleness are his brilliance and his humour. His 2010 book, The Finkler Question, was the first comic novel to win the Man Booker Prize for more than 30 years.

It recognised that phenomenon of the intellectual Jew full of internalised antisemitism; in contrast, Howard has been a rare intellectual Jewish voice willing to stand up not only against left-wing antisemitism, but also for Zionism. He’s been punished for it but, while his father Max fought with his fists, Howard is happy to continue fighting with his writing.

“I first started writing about antisemites in the arts about 20 years ago and I remember going to places like The Wolseley and I’d go

over and say hello to someone I knew and the looks from some of the others – if looks could kill – simply because I’d dared to come over.

“I felt like a disliked person simply because I was against antisemitism in the arts – I think that incident was after I’d criticised the play Seven Jewish Children – but what you can you do?

“I think anti-Zionism is antisemitism.

That doesn’t mean you can’t be critical of Israel. But the Corbyn thing of saying Zionism is – essentially and by its very nature – racist, when it clearly isn’t, means you have to wonder, why are they saying these things?

“What I’ve realised more and more is that they use the same description of Israel that people used to use about the Jews. The idea that Jews kill children, they have no compassion, they care only about themselves... that was always the playbook and now there is a Jewish country and they say the same things. That’s the giveaway. I can’t forgive any of that; it is medieval hatred.”

Once, Howard’s purpose was writing a great novel; he has written several of them.

Now he sees another purpose in speaking out against the new antisemitism.

“I’ve spent far more of my time thinking about and writing about Jews than I ever imagined I would,” he smiles.

“My parents were astonished. My dad used to say: ‘You’re really interested in this?’ and I’d reply: ‘I thought you wanted me to be?’ And he’d say: ‘I wanted you to marry a Jewish girl; I didn’t think you’d become obsessive.’

“But we are a terrifically interesting subject, and I wasted a good decade of my life avoiding that.”

• Howard Jacobson’s memoir, Mother’s Boy: A Writer’s Beginnings, is published by Jonathan Cape and is out now in hardback, priced £18.99

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If music be the

food love...

Foodof oflove... ... then Ivor and David Baddiel have a Saturday night hit on their hands with their new prime time dating show Romeo & Duet, writes Brigit Grant

D

avid Baddiel’s first foray into children’s literature was The Parent Agency.

In it, the comedian imagines a world in which children can choose their own parents. If there was a world where choosing one’s own siblings was a possibility, David and older bro Ivor would be a good option.

Because they get along and love each other unconditionally would be key to their appeal as adopted kin. That they were also raised in a chaotic household filled with the Billy Bunter books, Dinky toys and golf memorabilia collected and sold by their late parents would be another, as it provided the stories that inform their talent for writing and comedy.

And if the Baddiels were your brothers, you could listen in on their doubtless fascinating fraternal conflabs about football, social media and ideas for shows such as Romeo & Duet. Romeo and who?

“Romeo & Duet,” confirms David.

“Every single Jew I’ve told about this show has queried it and said ‘Romeo and Jewess?’ I tell them it’s a singing dating show, so ‘duet’ should be clear. But Jews are so primed to hear the word ‘Jew’.

It’s incredible.”

To avoid any confusion at all, Ivor the elder elaborates. “Essentially, a single person is on a balcony and down below, out of sight, is a potential suitor who sings to them. It’s about serenading and the show’s original title was, in fact, Serenade Me. Its premise is to establish whether you can be attracted to or fall in love with somebody through the power of their voice alone.”

That Shakespeare’s Romeo never actually sang to the object of his affection is not relevant here, but the ITV show does feature a glam Verona-style balcony and a winding staircase from which to descend.

“If the person being serenaded is interested enough to come down those stairs, there’s a dividing wall with a heart that goes up to reveal the singer for the first time,” Ivor continues. “Then the couple go off on a date to learn a duet.”

Although the format is not set to rival Mastermind, David has the specifics.

“Each person gets a minute of singing to entice the other person down the stairs. If they fail, another singer gets to try. If the picker doesn’t choose anyone, they go home alone.”

Hopefully you’ve now grasped the concept, which was dreamt up by the Baddiel brothers in 2009.

“There was a period of hawking it around, but nobody was interested,” says Ivor, who watched Serenade Me gather dust until he joined new production company Goat Films and MD Mel Crawford saw potential in the crooning-tocoupledom show.

David, meanwhile, had mentally shelved it. “So when Ivor called to say ITV were interested I said: ‘That can’t be true.’”

But it was and, given that Ivor has written scripts for X Factor, The Voice, The Baftas and umpteen other entertainment shows, co-

creating one of his own should not have been a surprise. Picturing the more phrenic David amid hearts and flowers is harder to process, and markedly since his acclaimed book Jews Don’t Count has made him the go-to voice of reason on antisemitism.

“I don’t think either of us really expected this to happen,” says David, who is now adapting his book into a documentary with Louis Theroux’s Mindhouse Productions and Channel 4. “Even though we’ve both been in showbusiness for a long time, that world

David with Ian Broudie of The Lightening Seeds and Frank Skinner

David, left, and Ivor, who won’t be singing on Saturday night

of creating a format for Saturday night on ITV is a world basically controlled by Simon Cowell.

“I mean, you don’t just have a good idea and then it happens.

But it has happened, even though it’s taken a long time.”

Of course, the dazzling hearts and thumping tunes don’t affect David and Ivor, as they aren’t appearing, and definitely won’t be singing.

“Though I should remind you I’ve had four number ones,” says David referring to his Three Lions football anthem with Frank Skinner and The Lightning Seeds.

“But I can’t sing, so that’s weird isn’t it?”

“I’d like to make a slightly relevant point here,” interjects Ivor. “We were both at North West London Jewish Day School and in

my year group, and possibly yours too David, recorded the album Et Lashir.”

“No, I wasn’t part of Et Lashir,” confirms David.

“Well, I might still have a copy of it somewhere,” replies earnest Ivor, ready to search. “But my point here is that, out of the entire class, I was the only kid not invited to participate, because I was such a bad singer.”

Fortunately the singing standard is reportedly higher on Romeo & Duet, though according to David: “No one is Pavarotti either. It’s just ordinary people who’ve got quite good voices. And within that range, it’s about hearing something in the voice that makes you think: ‘Oh, I like that. I like that person, the way they’re expressing the song and their song choice.’

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JN LIFE

Strictly Come Dancing’s Oti Mabuse is a host on Romeo & Duet

The first female-led show band leader Vikki Stone and The Heartbeats

Above: David and Ivor Baddiel as children

“It’s a sort of mad conceit that you can somehow tell when the couple sing together that they might connect on a deeper level.”

“Yeah, as David says, it is a really interesting marker as to whether

people may or may not get on in the future,” agrees Ivor, which leads us to discussing the relationships of celebrity singing duos such as Sonny and Cher or Ike and Tina Turner.

“No, they didn’t really work out,”

chuckles David, who was equally disparaging about the 70s duo Peters and Lee, who won Opportunity Knocks and weren’t ever in a relationship.

The conversation spirals until Ivor suggests Beyoncé and Jay-Z, only for David to conclude that “famous singing duos rarely work out”.

This is not an issue for the members of the public appearing on Romeo & Duet, and the brothers are particularly chuffed about the

broad representation of cast and contestants.

“Within the series, we have an LGBTQ person seeking a partner, a woman with a disability, and Strictly Come Dancing’s Oti Mabuse is our black female host,” says Ivor.

“We also have what I believe is the first female band leader for a show of this kind, with Vikki Stone and The Heartbeats. I’m very proud of it all.”

This is obvious as the bros are beaming about the show, though

they were unable to confirm the presence of Jewish participants.

“There probably are, but they weren’t obvious,” says Ivor. “No yarmulkes or sheitels.”

“So no singing shidduch and no one sang If I Were a Rich Man either,” notes David. “Or any Streisand, though Yentl’s Papa Can You Hear Me? would have been great.” And now we’re all laughing, which is why you would pick the Baddiels for brothers.

Should a celebrity edition of Romeo & Duet happen in the future, Ivor imagines performing the Ying Tong Song to rewoo his wife Sophie.

“That was our father’s favourite,” he says, reminding us of the sad loss of Colin Baddiel in January.

“I could sing Three Lions,” poses David. “But that would be a giveaway, which isn’t allowed in Romeo & Duet. How about Blue is the Colour? ” Should Morwenna Banks (Mrs Baddiel) be invited on a celebrity edition of Romeo & Duet, she has been warned.  Romeo & Duet starts at 7pm on Saturday on ITV

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&

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WHO WHAT WHERE SPORT

Miracle of Miracles

THEATRE

If you didn’t know better, last weekend’s Grand National could have been sponsored

by Rakusen’s. Or Osem. Those who missed the race at Aintree (spieling on a Saturday?) missed the most Jewish Grand National of recent times.

If not ever. For starters (orders) there was a horse called Fiddleronthe Roof, a moniker that no Jewish punter could ignore, and though Tevye the milkman had to struggle with a Sam Waley-Cohen lame horse, this eight-year-old bay gelding came in fifth at 12-1. But the joy didn’t end there, as the winner Noble Yeats was ridden by Jewish jockey Sam WaleyCohen and it was his last ever race, in what was a fairy-tale ending to his career. He dedicated his win to his late brother Thomas, who died of cancer aged 20, and said: “I ride with his name in my The horse named Fiddler on the Roof, saddle.” There were tears on left, and Tevye the betting slips. from the film, right FOOD

Kosher Restaurants Open You’ve shopped, prepped, cleaned and cooked, and you can now bask in the glory of your home-made gefilte fish. When the novelty of putting together yet another chametz-free meal wears off (for us that’s round about day three), you’ll be pleased to know there are a few fully-licensed kosher restaurants open.

Sami’s in Golders Green (only this branch – not the Hendon one) is open for a meat fest, while Middle Eastern big bold flavours are on fire at Kasa in Hampstead Garden Suburb, or get your glad rags on and head to Kensington to dine in style at Tony Page’s Island Grill. There are rumours (unconfirmed at time of going to press) of a pop-up van at Benny’s Diner in Edgware.

You’ll be wishing it was Yom Kippur after all that food.

PASSOVER

Matzah Happens Why limit your matzah to the afikomen when you can use it as a frisbee, turn it into Nachos (Machos) or do what the Israelis did and use it to promote the Paddington sequel when it premiered over Passover!

Feeling Anxious Former BRIT School teacher Lucy

Harris’ sell-out play Just Relax returns to the stage next month at the Hope Theatre in Islington. The one-act play that explores the minds and lives of people experiencing anxiety and other mental health issues was inspired by Lucy’s own journey with anxiety and grief and that of other people’s. Serious and hard-hitting, with a splash of comedy to offer some light relief, Lucy says that by the end of the play audience members will hopefully relate to at least one thing and maybe not feel so alone, or at least understand anxiety a little better. “I really want people to realise there is more to anxiety than just worrying. It’s so much bigger than that,” she says.

Just Relax is at The Hope Theatre, Islington, on 1, 2, 8 and 9 May. www.hopetheatre.com AWARDS

Winner Takes All This week Elliot Levey, who featured in Life magazine (available online), won Best Supporting Actor – Musical at the Olivier Awards for his role as the Jewish grocer in Cabaret. Making the traditional thank yous in his acceptance speech, the actor then went on to thank the British government. Not the current one, but the one that offered asylum to his Ukrainian grandfather, Elijah Zivatovsky, a privilege he hopes will now be granted to the new wave of Ukrainian refugees.

Elliot Levey Peppering his speech with jokes, including one about Elijah changing his name to Levey – “He didn’t want anyone to know he was Jewish” – the actor then wrote a piece about Passover for Monday’s Guardian, no less, which warranted great praise (he’s used to that), as he explained how he would be thinking of his grandfather at the seder: “A man who listened to the ancestral warning of Passover and made the decision to flee his hometown of Kyiv after two of his brothers were killed because a new despot had arisen with a taste for violence, just like the Pharaoh.” Let’s hope Putin’s ears were burning.

Be sure to see this gifted thesp and scribe in Cabaret at The Playhouse.

This Month In Jewish History

By Jewish News historian, Derek Taylor

We take seder night and Passover for granted as a high spot of the year, but the longevity of the festival is truly amazing.

Exactly a thousand years before the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the Jews were beginning their ill-fated revolt against the Roman occupiers of the Holy Land.

We had, in fact, celebrated Passover on the first anniversary of our deliverance from Egypt, but not for another 39 years in the wilderness. The Last Supper was reputedly seder night, though da Vinci’s famous painting is a travesty of what would have occurred. Seder night is the oldest festival by far in the Western world and, presumably, Jesus would have said Ma Nishtana when he was the youngest child. The continuance of the festival is a tribute to the Jews’ determination to keep the faith. It remains one of the occasions, like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, when even those who have given up the mitzvot still return to their roots.

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Little Miss

MasterChef You may have missed her on MasterChef, but domestic goddess Michaela Jay is still queen of her own kitchen (and you can watch on catch up). She tells Louisa Walters about the experience

H

Michaela Jay tries to impress the MasterChef judges

(raspberry sauce), ‘mayonnaise’ (custard) “I practised it so many times at home to er mum runs a cupcake busiperfect it and it was good enough to earn me a and ‘coleslaw’ (thin apple sticks in thick ness, her boyfriend works for cream). The Evening Standard’s resplace,” she explained.

Just Eat, her sister works for taurant critic Jimi Famurewa was Michaela likes to keep things simple when Gousto. Couple all this with brought in to judge this round. she cooks. “I like to cook what I like to eat regular family Friday night dinners “It was surreal watching all and her own cooking hobby and it’s safe – I’ve never been into fussy dishes with lots these experts eat my food. I of components. For me it’s about good food to say that food plays a pivotal role in loved cooking for Jimi – he cooked well and going big on flavour.”

Michaela Jay’s life. The 27-year-old immediately put us all at ease Her first dish on the show was prawn torclient director for an insights company and I really valued his opinions. from Whetstone made it through to the tellini. She laughs when I point out that this John was always very to the was a rather interesting choice for a Jewish quarterfinals on MasterChef before point about the actual dish, girl to cook live on TV. divided opinion on one of her dishes whereas Gregg would remember “Everyone said this! Even my grandma led to her having to hang up her apron. things he’d seen when walking called to say she noticed the edit went from Despite being laid low with Covid, around while we were cooking.” me saying I was Jewish to the voiceover Michaela was full of enthusiasm for her The crunch came in MasterChef experience when the quarter finals when it I chatted to her this week. was time to cook for three “I loved my time on the previous MasterChef winners. show,” she said. “I’ve always had Despite a superb chocolate an interest in food – my mum is fondant, opinions were a really good cook and I would Michaela, third from right, with her family divided on her steak with often help her at home.

I had practised each dish, I didn’t factor in parsnip purée and parsnip crisps, “I moved out nearly three with Gregg announcing that it was having John and Gregg coming over to chat years ago and when we went to me. When I cook at home, I don’t like to undercooked and other judges into lockdown my cooking be interrupted, so this was a challenge! They saying the dish needed a sauce. really took off. I was working only show few seconds but in reality these Michaela was realistic about from home and instead of going ‘chats’ can go on for five minutes and when the judges’ decision. “I am relafrom my desk to my sofa with a you only have just over an hour that’s a big tively inexperienced, and I knew takeaway every evening, I went chunk out of it.”

I was up against some amazing into the kitchen and challenged Michaela has her own Instagram page cooks. Some of the smells in that myself to learn new techniques (@xoxo_greedygirl) where she posts videos kitchen were amazing, but I never such as baking my own bread and recipes of dishes she has cooked. “I love it got to taste anyone else’s food – I and making pasta from scratch.” when people say they’ve followed my recipes. barely had time to taste my own!

Although Michaela has many Food is such a big part of my life and while “I was genuinely happy for cookbooks, she said she tends I don’t see myself opening a restaurant, I have those who got through to the to use them just for inspiraconsidered perhaps doing something in a semis. Of course, I’d love to have tion, creating her own recipes catering capacity – possibly with my mum.” gone further, but I am so proud of instead.

Michaela, third from right, with the other MasterChef quarter-finalists Michaela’s personal ‘MasterChef’ is getting to the quarter-final.

“I’m a huge fan of cookery Marcus Wareing, but she also admires Ins“Had I stayed in longer, I would likely saying I was cooking prawns. But I didn’t shows on TV. At the end of last year’s series of tagram chefs such as Thomas Straker and have progressed to dishes showing more even think about it – it’s a dish I knew I could MasterChef, there was an onscreen prompt Thom Bateman, who are making dishes and technical expertise and I might have showdo well and I knew would impress the judges, to apply for the next series and I just thought, recipes that are more accessible. “Even when cased some Middle Eastern flavours to reflect which it did.” ‘why not?’”

I eat out, I like to keep it simple. A memorable my Jewish heritage.”

One of the briefs was to create a dish Michaela got through the application dish for me was mushrooms on toast at Social Even when the pressure was on, Michaela that was interactive and playful. Michaela round and the interview stage and was then enjoyed having the opportunity to be creative appeared unflustered. “I was surprised at how Eating House. I was blown away by the cominvited to cook for a judgement team. She plexity of flavours in such a simple sounding calm I was, but when I’m cooking, I’m in the and the fun side of her personality shone made pan-fried duck breast with one large dish – this is my kind of cooking.” zone and I forget about everything around through as she produced a sweet dish that muti-layered potato chip, honey and black pepper-roasted carrots and beef and red wine looked savoury – ‘sausage roll’ (apple pie) and me. It was a huge pressure to get the dishes • You can catch up on Michaela Jay’s plated up in time, especially as even though ‘chips’ (shortbread fingers) with ‘ketchup’ jus, topped with a sprinkling of lemon thyme.

MasterChef episodes on BBC iPlayer

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Business / Sweet start-up

candicekrieger@googlemail.com

With Candice Krieger

A SUGARY SUBSTITUTE FOR A HEALTHIER LIFE An Israeli start-up company has produced a completely natural plant-based sugar alternative with the aim of cutting obesity, its CEO tells Candice Krieger

S

ugar fans take heed.

There’s now a way to enjoy a sweet treat without the guilt, thanks to Israeli start-up B.T. Sweet. The company has created a completely natural plant-based sugar substitute with half the calories.

Cambya, which is in the form of powder or granulation, replicates the flavour and function of sugar, helping brands to reformulate their products with less or no sugar. Think chocolate spreads, sweets and cereals.

“It’s a gamechanger for the industry,” says B.T. Sweet CEO Yoav Gaon. “Around 180 million tonnes of sugar are consumed globally per year and we want to provide a solution for those looking to reduce their sugar intake.

“This is a big step in the war on obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and for people’s overall wellbeing.”

He adds: “The European Food Safety Association has said sugar is a problem and the manufacturers need to adjust. The way to do this is through regulations, taxes and creating customer Yoav Gaon awareness and we are at that door. We are solving the biggest problems food and beverage manufacturers have, how to reduce or replace white added sugar.”

The formula is based on soluble fibres, monk fruit and select botanicals. It can replace sugar in a multitude of applications, and is in trials

The sugar substitute replicates the flavour and function of the substance

B.T. Sweet’s Cambya, which comes in the form of powder or granulation, is a sugar substitute

with many leading fast-moving consumer goods companies in the confectionary and ice cream arena.

“Manufacturers will be able to reach their sugar reduction targets without sacrificing on the taste or sensory properties of sugar. We have developed an all-natural ingredient, a plant-based sweetening compound, which is a one-to-one equivalent to sugar,” says Gaon.

Cambya is based on years of research in Israel, and was developed in 2019 by industrial entrepreneur Dagi Pekatch after he showed early signs of type 2 diabetes. He researched the negative health impacts of high sugar consumption and convinced colleagues to help him develop this botanical sugar substitute.

The company has raised seed private funding and operates a production plant in Poland. Cambya has gone through multiple sensory lab testing, and has also been tested out on parents and children.

According to the World Health Organisation, the daily added sugar intake recommended for an adult is no more than six teaspoons. Countries across the globe have pledged their commitment to reducing sugar in an attempt to tackle increasing obesity levels, which have reportedly risen threefold around the world since 1975.

The NHS Digital National Child Measurement programme England 2020/2021 found that one in four children of reception age are overweight or obese, rising to 40 percent for those in Year 6. The UK recently launched the NHS Food Scanner app, which aims to help parents make healthier choices for their children.

Gaon is passionate about using technology for good. He is also the co-founder of licecombot.com, a patented three-in one selfcleaning system that helps prevent and get

rid of head lice, and a start-up very close to his heart, Yoocan Technologies, the first global empowerment site for people with disabilities and their families. “When my youngest son

❝

THIS IS A BIG STEP IN THE WAR ON OBESITY, DIABETES, CARDIOVASCULAR DISEASES AND PEOPLE’S OVERALL WELLBEING Erez, now 13, was born with a rare disease and complex disability, looking for information and support, I discovered that Googling was not effective. It would send me to ‘sad, sick and rehabilitative’ websites’ which wasn’t what I was looking for. So, seven years ago, my brother and co-founder, Moshe Gaon, decided to launch a digital platform to be a global collaborative community and ecosystem for and by people with disabilities.”

All content is user-generated and people from 110 countries share their stories.

Is Israel leading the way when it comes to tech for good start-ups? “Israel has a built-in culture of innovation, finding solutions for problems; curiosity and creativity combined with a can-do attitude is what makes start-ups pop up almost in every field.

“Tech for good, accepting the different, inclusion and humanism is a big part of Judaism’s tradition of bringing light to the world.”  www.cambya.com

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Orthodox Judaism

MAKING SENSE OF THE SEDRA The weekly cycle of Torah readings is postponed during Pesach and replaced with ones related to the festival

BY PNINA SAVERY

UNITED SYNAGOGUE EDUCATOR

Let all who are hungry come and eat In 1906, the establishment of the Liberal reforms made Britain one of the world’s first countries to introduce what Winston Churchill described as a “minimum standard”, below which no citizen should be permitted to fall. This noble aim originates in the Torah, with the idea of tzedakah (charity).

Every year we begin our seder by inviting all those in need to come and join our festive meal. I often wonder why we wait until now to do this. It seems like a hollow statement, a token

gesture. Hopefully by now, everyone is sitting down to begin their seder somewhere, and anyone hearing our statement is already at our table! If we were going to invite guests, should we not have done this in advance?

It seems to be a reminder of our obligation rather than an actual invitation. As Jews, we have a responsibility to provide for those less fortunate than ourselves and to fulfil the mitzvah of hachnasat orchim (hospitality). Repeatedly, the Torah tells us (in Exodus 22:20) of our responsibility to others: “You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

This responsibility towards others is directly connected to our slavery experience in Egypt. We sit down at our seder table, reliving the national redemption at the fore-

front of our national identity. The Haggadah reminds us of the practical consequences of this story. We are not simply performing an exaggerated history lesson; rather, this is a narrative with modern relevance and practical ramifications that can be applied daily. Our slavery, redemption and survival have bequeathed us a legacy of social responsibility.

In fact, this does not only apply to the Pesach seder. Maimonides argued that if one sits down to enjoy a festive meal without contributing to charity, he will only experience the “joy of his stomach” rather than the joy of the mitzvah (Mishneh Torah, Laws of Holidays 6:18). The line “let all who are hungry come and eat” originates from a Talmudic story about the sage Rav Huna, who declared this whenever he sat down to

The invitation to join the seder is a reminder of our obligations to others

eat (Babylonian Talmud Taanit 20b).

The Covid pandemic has shown us that, even in 2022, there are unfortunately many who may need such invi-

tations. As we rejoice in our festive meals, may we be grateful for what we have, along with an awareness of those less fortunate than ourselves.

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Progressive Judaism

LEAP OF FAITH

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

BY RABBI MIRIAM BERGER FINCHLEY REFORM SYNAGOGUE

The Talmud says a badly-cooked meal is grounds for divorce Some relationships just get to the end of the road. People grow apart, the love diminishes. Sometimes the mature way is to end the relationship amicably and open new chapters separately. Until 6 April, the law in England and Wales insisted that the only way to prove the marriage was irretrievably broken was to attribute blame to one party. A marriage could only end because it was someone’s fault. What does it mean for a couple to reach that which was intended to be a mutual decision, only to find that the paperwork demanded someone point the finger and someone take the blame?

The change in law to enable fault-free divorce is not new to our Jewish sensibilities. The Talmud manages to see marriage as a holy covenant while recognising that sometimes relationships need to end. Though commentators interpret it in many ways, we are told in Gittin 90a that a get (a divorce contract) can be triggered by issues on the grounds of a wife spoiling her husband’s food. Beit Hillel, one of the foremost sages of the Talmud, says it clearly:

divorce can be permitted if the wife hikdihah tavshilo (burns the dinner). One could say that if an under-par meal makes one question one’s whole relationship there is much more wrong than some badly-seasoned soup (thank goodness my husband looks past those times when I don’t live up to domestic goddess status!).

Is a fault-free divorce or a jointly-filed separation the recipe for a harmonious uncoupling? Will it lead to couples being able to co-parent more successfully and children happily sharing their time between adults who have chosen not to live together but speak respectfully to and with respect for one another?

Family lawyers I have spoken to have pointed out the fly in the ointment (or should that be the soup?) – until a better way can be found to mutually agree on satisfactory financial arrangements, the animosity around divorce is unlikely to be sufficiently diminished. Their sense was that while blame forces us to look back at what went wrong, financial matters influence the future and therefore it’s the nuance of that new chapter that people are fighting to get the best results from.

The ability to file jointly for divorce and for either party to take the lead on their separation is crucial for this 21st century ruling along with approachable, manageable language for people to navigate for themselves. Divorcing couples should not need to waste even more money on dissolving their marriage than they spent on the wedding party. When marriage is filled with love and is a real

The Talmud recognised that sometimes relationships must end

joint endeavour then one feels a sense of the divine within it.

Judaism can be pragmatic on many difficult subjects, and recognised long before English law did, that when the love disappears one has to take the controversy out of divorce to give people the best chance to separate without causing harm to each other or to those who love them the most.

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14 April 2022 Jewish News

41

Professional advice from our panel / Ask Our Experts

Ask our

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

This week: Linking Teams to a company phone system, advice for a job search and personal tax changes BENJAMIN ALBERT TELECOMS SPECIALIST

ADW CONNECT

Dear Benjamin Our staff have become very comfortable with Microsoft Teams over the past few years. Is it possible to link Teams to our phone system and how will it work?

Sarah Dear Sarah You are not alone in your experience. Many of our customers have found their business moving to hybrid working and Microsoft Teams usage has become a common part of that.

In answer to your question, the great news is that, yes, it is possible to link Teams to your phone system. Whether you are

CLAIRE STRAUS CAREER ADVISER

RESOURCE Dear Claire I am a university student and need to find a summer job. What advice would you give me?

Marian Dear Marian Getting work experience over the summer gives you more than an income. You will also gain valuable skills, experience and contacts, all of which could be useful for your future career.

If you know what career path you eventually want to follow, look for a summer job in a relevant field. It will not only help secure work after graduation, but also give you a taste of what a career would offer. If you are less sure, look for a role that will give you valuable transferable skills, such as teamwork, problem solving and customer service.

When it comes to finding roles to apply for, university careers services often have summer work information, and you can do a targeted online search that will also yield results. Make sure people in your wider community know what you are looking for, as networking is a very effective way to find a job.

Finally, you will need a well-produced CV that

currently using ADW UCCS Communicator and have a longer-term UCaaS strategy for Microsoft Teams, or already use Teams and need a robust solution for voice, ADW UCCS for Teams delivers a host of benefits to your chosen unified communications endpoints.

Your Microsoft Teams users can sit within the ADW UCCS for business solution. They can also work seamlessly alongside users who prefer to use our Communicator applications or desk phones – meaning genuine endpoint flexibility.

For businesses that use Microsoft 365 for productivity and collaboration, UCCS for Teams allows employees to use Teams desktop and mobile applications to make and receive voice calls without clicking out to other consoles. This provides the productivity benefit of having a single application to handle all channels of communication.

ADAM SHELLEY ACCOUNTANT

demonstrates your relevant skills and experience and a cover letter summarising why you would be a great person to hire.

For help with your job search, I suggest you contact Resource, who help clients who are looking for work develop their job search tools and confidence, at no charge.

You can have one-to-to one help from an advisor, which can take place at our offices in Finchley or online.

Best of luck with your job search.

SOBELL RHODES Dear Adam Please explain the personal tax changes for 2022/2023 that began from 6 April .

Rebecca Dear Rebecca In the Spring Budget 2021, Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced that the income tax thresholds, including the personal allowance, would be frozen until 2026. This means income tax and the personal allowance will remain as they

1 Cornhill London EC3V 3ND 0207 781 8019 info@richdale.co.uk

NOW TAKING BOOKINGS FOR

SUMMER TERM!

info@dancingwithlouise.com 07506 217 833

were in the 2021/22 tax year: • Personal allowance (taxfree) – up to £12,570 of income • Basic rate (20%) – further income up to £50,270 • Higher rate (40%) – further income up to £150,000 • Additional tax rate (45 %) – income above £150,000 How much income tax you pay in each tax year depends on how much of your income is above your personal allowance and how much falls within each tax band.

For income above £100,000, there will be a reduction in your personal allowance and you may need to review your tax position.

The changes in national insurance contributions

(NICs) include earnings above the lower earnings limit and up to the upper earnings threshold of £50,270 (also frozen until April 2026) will be taxed at 13.25%, up from 12%. The rise in in NICs will only be in place for 2022/23, after which point it will be replaced by a 1.25% ‘health and social care levy’ that will be included on payslips.

The other major change to be aware of is that from 6 July, the threshold at which workers start paying NICs will rise to £12,570, in line with the personal allowance.

Tax on dividends will also increase for the 22/23 financial year by 1.25% for each of the basic, higher, and additional rates from the previous tax year. The tax-free dividend allowance remains at £2,000.

42

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

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?

PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST

Email: editorial@jewishnews.co.uk

at your service Our highly professional team can: • Assist in arranging for your Will to be professionally drafted.

• Help reduce inheritance tax liability or eradicate it completely.

• Act as Executor in the administration of your estate.

• Provide caring pastoral services.

Contact us to find out more and about leaving a legacy to support JNF UK’s vital work in Israel

Call: 020 8732 6101 Email: enquiries@kkl.org.uk

VACANT PROPERTY SECURITY

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 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.

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

Jewish Deaf Association

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

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.

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

Get the very best out of life

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.

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.

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

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

Hearing just not what it used to be?

EMPLOYMENT LAW AND DATA PROTECTION

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

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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43

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

INSURANCE CONSULTANCY

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

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

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

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

• Ensuring clients do not pay more than required.

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

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

ALIYAH ADVISER

CAREER ADVISER

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

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

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

• Offers mock interviews and workshops to maximise job prospects.

• Expert in corporate management holding director level marketing, commercial and general management roles.

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

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

DIVORCE & FAMILY SOLICITOR

TELECOMS SPECIALIST

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

• Frequent broadcaster on national and International radio and television.

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

• Independent consultant and supplier of Telephone & Internet services.

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

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

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

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

Need a Business Plan?

YES, YOU DO.

Especially in times like these.

We can help you.

Like we’ve helped 100’s of enterprises like yours. Let’s talk.

Call 020 8429 8800 or email “book” to businessplan@sobellrhodes.co.uk for a 30 minute business plan discovery session.

The first 30 responders will receive a free, printed copy of “HOW TO GROW YOUR BUSINESS WITH SIMPLE STUFF THAT WORKS” worth £45.

Start looking forward to a more resilient, flexible, profitable business.

Elstree. London. Watford.

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Jewish News 14 April 2022

This is Cyril, one of our deaf blind members.

He wanted to be a rabbi but was denied that opportunity as he couldn’t see or hear the Torah.

H py P a from the JDA f y

JDA was able to make a small part of his dream come true as he officiated at our JDA Seder.

And a fine job he did!

A big thank you to each and every one of our supporters for helping to sustain our loving, caring, laughing, wonderful JDA community.

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

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14 April 2022 Jewish News

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Fun, games and prizes

THE JEWISH NEWS CROSSWORD 1

2

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9 11 14 17 19 20 22 23

6

8

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ACROSS 1 Scandinavian inlet (5) 4 Remove impurities from (5)

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

Sink (a snooker ball) (3) Colourful citrus fruit (6) Formal discussion (6) Huge Australian bird (3) At a distance (3) Experience (7) Yellow or red pigment (5) Gin ___, card game (5)

9 2 6

DOWN 1 Drooping, sagging (6) 2 Mismatched (3) 3 Wild Australian dog (5) 4 Lively Bohemian dance (5) 5 Displaced person (7) 6 Level (4) 10 ___ Night, play by William Shakespeare (7) 12 Brown rodent (3) 13 Paean (6) 15 (Angle) of less than 90° (5) 16 Senior in years (5) 18 Company trademark (4) 21 Glass edge (3)

13 14

SUDOKU

7 Indicating position in a sequence (7) 8 Enemy (3)

WORDSEARCH

CODEWORD

The listed African cities 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.

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.

J

A

I

R D N A X E

L

A P A

T O Y W B E N G H A Z

I

A R H J

L N

R S

I

Z E R D E E E

A K

I

G A L

I

2

C

5

A S A

L E K U D O

I

E H U A

S K G L R S

I

ACCRA ALEXANDRIA BENGHAZI BULAWAYO CAIRO

CASABLANCA DAR ES SALAAM DURBAN HARARE JOHANNESBURG

KIGALI LAGOS LUXOR MARRAKESH MOMBASA

Last issue’s solutions Crossword ACROSS: 1 Pope 3 Asthma 8 Protest 9 Mat 10 Footbridge 13 Unyielding 17 Eau 18 Earplug 19 Nugget 20 Only DOWN: 1 Pops 2 Photo 4 Sit 5 Humid 6 Anthem 7 Teethe 11 Riders 12 Tureen 14 Young 15 Nylon 16 Ugly 18 Eye

I

4 5 1 2 7 6 9 8 3

26

21

C

OMDURMAN TANGIER TIMBUKTU TOBRUK TRIPOLI

2 1 6 7 3 9 5 4 8

19

9

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9

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7

3 4 5 8 6 2 1 7 9

5 6 4 3 2 7 8 9 1

1

5 6

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

SUGURU 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.

2

4

3

11

2 5

21

3

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17

1

2

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9

O

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6

20

13

2

5

22

9

21

9

2

2 2

25

1 5 4 2

5

26

10 10

3

4

See next issue for puzzle solutions.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1 14

V

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Suguru 8 9 7 5 1 4 6 3 2

3

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14

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3 21

7

9

23

2

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A C

6 2 9 1 8 3 7 5 4

5

5

11

Sudoku 7 8 3 4 9 5 2 1 6

11

18

E H G N

S A T M N O E M O R

8

11

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N C M O M R E A P S R N T T A T Y A

V

2

Y C B B R E R L W U D A C I

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1

S A U R U T M A B A N B A

O R

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14

X S U B O N E E O A S D B I

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O T A P N P R R R G E H L U T T K M L E S

19

1 5 4

9 3 8 6 5 1 4 2 7

1 7 2 9 4 8 3 6 5

2 1 3 1 3 5

3 4 2 4 2 1

2 1 3 1 3 4

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

Wordsearch 4 5 2 4 2 1

1 3 1 3 5 3

2 4 5 2 1 2

3 2 5 1 4 3

1 4 3 2 5 1

2 5 1 4 3 2

1 3 2 5 1 4

2 4 1 3 2 5

1 3 2 5 4 1

Y C R U C K S A C K E S G

W A L E H C T A S H H O A

V R G H E I E U A C A T B

R R B A O N O V E T N K E

E Y G A B L E F F U D N L

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

R L E A S K E A O C A P D

Codeword R L T A B I P D L T G S A

A E C O N H T A L L I A S

C K N N T G S I C U N C R

I G A B R E P A P K O K F

I P K I T B A G W Y E H I

O I P G L A D S T O N E S

E G J L AR V A A E Z P R E T Z S N E X EMP R O DR Y S I T SWAMP M R O AMMON Y Y E

C D P HOOD L I O U E L R I G L K T I ON F O A QUABB L N L L AGG I O A B I A T U L D E E

S UM I H T H R Y E D I NG G L E R

A K D N I B Y R Z CWH T 14/04 UM J GEOP S V F Q L X

46

Jewish News 14 April 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.

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

Established over 60 years.

Know who you are dealing with.

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

House clearances

All quality furniture bought & sold.

Single items to complete homes

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

MARYLEBONE ANTIQUES - 8 CHURCH STREET NW8 8ED

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.

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

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

SILVER

PLUMBSAFE (UK) LTD

WESTLON HOUSING ASSOCIATION

“Better Safe Than Sorry”

Sheltered Accommodation

For all your heating and plumbing requirements

We have an open waiting list in our friendly and comfortable warden assisted sheltered housing schemes in Ealing, East Finchley and Hendon. We provide 24-hour warden support, seven days a week; a residents’ lounge and kitchen, laundry, a sunny patio and garden.

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

All NW-London postcodes covered

07860 881505 or 0800 610 12 12 Not shabbat

PLUMBSAFEUK.COM

OFFICE FURNITURE

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?

Need to furnish your home or office?

London’s leading supplier of new and reconditioned furniture.

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

Would you like to pay less?

Find out how ©

call Jeff on 07958 959 822

STONEMASON

A. ELFES LTD New memorials Additional inscriptions & renovations

Call 0207 205 4229 Email sales@andrewsofficefurniture.com www.andrewsofficefurniture.com

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

Clayhall Showroom 14 Claybury Broadway Ilford. IG5 0LQ T: 0208 551 6866

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

Email : info@garygreenmemorials.co.uk

www.garygreenmemorials.co.uk

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

18/03/2019 12:50:51

Gants Hill

12 Beehive Lane Gants Hill, IG1 3RD Telephone

Edgware

130 High Street Edgware, HA8 7EL Telephone

0207 754 4659 0207 754 4646

www.memorialgroup.co.uk

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

14 April 2022 Jewish News

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47

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

legacy@cst.org.uk ►

eNABLeD

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

visit www.Jbd.org or caLL 020 8371 6611

Registered Charity No. 259480

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

Registered Charity No: 1082148

www.cst.org.uk ► 0208 457 3700 ►

Together

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

Charity no. 1042391 and SC043612

COMPUTER

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

Charity Reg No. 802559

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

Antiques Buyers

Wanted all Antiques & furniture including Lounge Dining and Bedroom Suites. Chests of drawers.

Display and Cocktail Cabinets. Furniture by Hille.

Epstein. Archie shine. G plan etc in Walnut. Mahogany.

Teak and Rosewood.

We also buy Diamonds & Jewellery. Gold. Silverware.

Paintings. Glass. Porcelain. Bronzes etc.

All Antiques considered. Full house clearances organised. Very high prices paid, free home visits.

Check our website for more details www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk Email: info@antiquesbuyers.co.uk Please call Sue Davis on Freephone: 08008402035 WhatsApp Mobile: 07956268290 Portobello rd London By appointments only.

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www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 14 April 2022

WHY IS A SAFE PLACE FOR YOUR TEENS TO REACH OUT TO?

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PROFESSIONAL COUNSELLORS & THERAPISTS

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ENDORSED BY MENTAL HEALTH EXPERTS

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ANONYMOUS AND CONFIDENTIAL

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FULL SAFEGUARDING & SUPERVISION

JUST A TEXT AWAY – 07860 058 823 @JTEENSUPPORT JTEENSUPPORT.ORG

REMEMBER JTEEN IS CONFIDENTIAL AND ANONYMOUS AND IS AVAILABLE FOR ANYONE BETWEEN THE AGES OF 11-20. WE CAN’T SEE YOUR NUMBER AND WE WON’T ASK FOR YOUR NAME. RABBINICAL BOARD LED BY: RABBI S. F ZIMMERMAN (FEDERATION DEIS DIN) AND RABBI S WINEGARTEN.