1299 - 26th January 2023

Their memory in our hands

We’ve mourned many Holocaust survivors in the last 12 months. As we mark Holocaust Memorial Day, and the government brings forward legislation to build the Westminster memorial, the time has fi nally arrived for future generations to fi ll the silence they leave

Holocaust Memorial Day 2023 – Full coverage inside

Iby Knill 1923-2022

Zdenka Fantlova 1922-2022

Zigi Shipper 1930-2023

Eric Reich 1935–2022

Loree Napier 1930-2022

Lady Zahava Kohn 1935-2022

by Lee Harpin @lmharpin

One of the first refugees to arrive in the UK after escaping President Putin’s brutal invasion of Ukraine is flourishing in a new career with World Jewish Relief – helping those facing the same turmoil in their lives that she once did.

Sabina Artemieva began a new life in the borough of Camden at the end of March 2022, after escaping the war-torn city of Kyiv with her son.

Ten months later she has thrived in her role as Homes For Ukraine project o cer and caseworker at WJR, the main Jewish oversees aid organisation in the UK.

Speaking at a meeting of Camden Council, Sabina, who is herself Jewish, was loudly applauded as she told of her determination to use her job to give the sort of support she needed when in arriving in the UK to refugees now.

She told Monday’s meeting, which included a cross-party motion

stressing Camden’s commitment to be a borough of sanctuary for refugees: “I came to the UK from Ukraine with my son. Now I work for World Jewish Relief. The support we give to Ukrainians now is the support I needed when I just arrived.”

After Putin’s invasion, Sabina left Kyiv on an evacuation bus and headed for the border of Moldova and then on to Romania. A fortnight later she had learned of the British government’s Homes For Ukraine scheme, launched by the former minister for

refugees Lord Harrington.

She arrived in London just over one week later, with a Jewish family o ering her a home.

During her speech Sabina also praised WJR’s 90 years of experience of “assisting refugees all over the world”.

tine in just two or three weeks.”

So far, 50 refugees now living in the borough have been helped to find jobs, she revealed.

Sabina recalled that as one of the first Ukrainian refugees to arrive in Camden she faced the daunting task of having to work out a lot of things herself with her sponsor, but she added “my own experience with the council was extremely positive”.

a specialist training and

She said the organisation had began a partnership with Camden two years ago, and the borough used a specialist training and employment programme to help support the refugees, as they looked for work, and sought housing.

She added: “Today, based on my own experience, and my experience of working with Ukrainian families in the UK, we have developed a well-established scheme to apply for everything needed, which allows us to complete all the necessary administrative rou-

Jewish-Ukrainian refugee has flourishing new career at WJR UK names new envoy

Simon Walters – the current Middle East and Africa national security director at the foreign o ce – is to succeed Neil Wigan as the UK’s ambassador to Israel, writes Lee Harpin.

After Russia’s invasion she left Kyiv on an evacuation bus and headed for Moldova and then Romania. A fortnight later she had learned of the British government’s Homes for Ukraine scheme, launched by former minister for refugees Lord Harrington.

Camden Council leader Georgina Gould also spoke at the meeting, and stressed how “my own family are in Britain because over generations Jewish people were persecuted”.

She added: “And many Jewish people died because enough wasn’t done to provide people with asylum fleeing devastation.

nity for his dedication to the role.

Most recently has been an enthusiastic supporter of the Abraham Accords.

previously worked for His Majesty’s Consul in

been involved in full time Hebrew

The move was confirmed on Monday, with Wigan set to step down from the post later this summer before taking up another diplomatic role. Walters – who has previously worked for His Majesty’s Consul in Jerusalem from 2008-11 – takes up his new position in August. He has been involved in full time Hebrew language training for several months.

Confirming the new appointment, Wigan tweeted: “I am delighted (and a bit sad) to announce that Simon Walters will succeed me as UK ambassador to Israel this summer. And jealous of his much better Hebrew.”

The ambassador represents His Maj-

The ambassador represents His Majesty the King and the UK government in the country to which they are appointed.

They are responsible for the direction

Since his own appointment in April 2019, Wigan has won widespread and among the UK commu-

Since his own appointment in April 2019, Wigan has won widespread praise and respect both in Israel and among the UK commu-

They are responsible for the direction and work of the embassy and its consulates, including political work, trade and investment, press and cultural relations, and visa and consular ser-

lates, including political work, trade and investment, press and cultural relavices.

SIR MICK DAVIS BRANDS ISRAEL’S COALITION ‘CYNICS AND BIGOTS’

A prominent Diaspora leader has urged Jews to step out of the comfort zone and not selfcensor over Israel’s new government, saying “no one has a mandate to dismantle Israeli democracy”, writes Adam Decker.

Mining magnate Sir Mick Davis, a former chair of the Jewish Leadership Council and ex-chief executive of the Conservative Party, said the new Israeli government’s intentions were clear – “they do not respect the rule of law,

but seek to overturn it.”

Davis, a former chairman of United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA), is a known critic of Benjamin Netanyahu, who has just returned as Israeli prime minister at the head of a coalition that includes the far-right ‘Jewish Power’ party and strictlyOrthodox groups.

In a hard-hitting piece on page 25 of this week’s Jewish News, Davis – who voted in his first Israeli election in November – said the cur-

rent Israeli government of “cynics, theocrats and bigots” was peddling a politics that “represents a betrayal of Jewish, Zionist and democratic values”.

Some of Netanyahu’s ministers wear their anti-Arab racial incitement charges with pride, leading Davis to ask whether the most fundamental aspects of a democracy are still being adhered to in Israel.

Above: Refugees flee Ukraine. Inset: Sabina Artemieva

ISRAELI GOVERNMENT WILL BE A CHALLENGE, WARNS BOARD

Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl has spoken of the “challenging” situation for many Jews in the diaspora following the election of a far-right government in Israel, writes Jotam Confino.

Van der Zyl told deputies at Sunday’s January meeting that she had met with Israel’s president, Isaac Herzog, twice this month and discussed with him the UK community’s concerns about the political situation in the Jewish state.

She added: “I didn’t want anyone to think that I hadn’t mentioned to President Herzog what the concerns in the UK were and it’s going to be challenging.

“I’m sure it will be quite di cult in the times ahead, but I urge the community to be respectful in its discourse and that we should talk together as a community and try to work our way through this situation.”

She revealed Herzog had made it clear he was aware of the concerns of those in the diaspora about Israel around issues such as threats to change the Law of Return, attacks on the LGBT+ community and the weakening of the role of the judiciary.

The president also raised concerns about the derogatory treatment of progressive Jews, and developments with

An estimated 110,000 protest in Tel Aviv last weekend. Inset: Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl

regard to the egalitarian prayer space at the Kotel.

Van der Zyl said that while the board would continue to “call out” issues that emerged under prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, she also wanted to “make sure we all support Israel”.

She spoke of visiting the Jewish state herself since 1968, after her grandparents made aliyah.

“I absolutely love Israel,” she con-

Bibi talks with King Abdullah

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Jordan’s King Abdullah II on Tuesday, marking his first o cial diplomatic meeting abroad with a foreign leader since the taking o ce last month, writes Jotam Confino.

The two men in the Jordanian capital, Amman.

A press release from Netanyahu’s o ce said: “The two leaders discussed regional issues, especially strategic, security and economic cooperation between Israel and Jordan, which contributes to regional stability.

agreement between Jordan and Israel from 1967, Jordan remained the holy custodian of the site, with Jews allowed to visit but not pray there.

While Ben-Gvir was technically not violating the status quo, his frequent calls for Jews to be allowed to pray at the site has provoked Muslim countries.

The relationship between King Abdullah II and Netanyahu has deteriorated in recent years, especially owing to repeated clashed between Israeli security forces and Palestinians on Temple Mount.

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lenging, but we

tinued. “I find certain aspects challenging, but we are all finding many governments challenging.”

Van der Zyl also revealed at the meeting that she was planning to meet President Herzog in Brussels later this week, making it the third such encounter this month.

“They also praised the long-standing friendship and partnership between Israel and the Hashemite Kingdom.”

Tensions between Israel and Jordan ran high earlier this month after national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visited Temple Mount, causing widespread condemnation in Muslim countries, including Jordan.

According to a status-quo

King Abdullah also warned Netanyahu in 2020 about his calls for West Bank annexation, saying it could lead to a “lead to a massive conflict”.

Likud Party MK Danny Danon is expected to bring forward a bill in the Knesset that will lead to the Jordan Valley being annexed, something that could trigger another diplomatic between Israel and its neighbour.

Survivor Joan Salter delivered a powerful testimony at the main service ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day, detailing the traumatic impact the Nazi invasion had on her childhood, writes Lee Harpin.

Giving a detailed account of her early years – moving from Brussels, to Paris, to Spain and then being fostered by a family in America – Salter told the audience at the annual City Hall event: “I was an ordinary person whose life was forever impacted by the Holocaust. While the Holocaust is part of me, it does not define me.”

Salter, who earlier this month was deeply critical of home secretary Suella Braverman’s use of language when discussing migrants attempting to reach the UK, recalled how she was eventually reunited in this country with her Polish-born parents, who survived the war, in 1947.

She has subsequently gone on to be one of the most eloquent speakers on the impact of the Shoah, touring schools, universities and other institutions to provide full

and frank accounts of the impact of the Nazis on lives such as hers and her family’s.

She said: “In between that scared little girl arriving at Croydon airport and today, much has changed but the task has not. We owe it to future generations to educate.”

Salter, who has travelled the

Monday’s ceremony in a new Royal Docks location had been organised with the held of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust (HMDT) and the Holocaust Educational Trust (HET) with the theme Ordinary People

the horrors of the past and call out antisemitism and hatred wherever we see it.”

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan also delivered a defiant speech, tackling the rise in antisemitic hate. Khan said: “As long as I am mayor, City Hall will always be at the vanguard of the struggle against antisemitism, racism and prejudice in all its ugly forms.”

sight

of all is standing on Waterloo Bridge,

world as a renowned speaker, added that for her today “the most wonderful sight of all is standing on Waterloo Bridge, with the view of St Paul’s Cathedral and the Houses of Parliament.

“This city is my home, this country is my refuge, this King my head of state,” she said.

tackling the rise in antise“As long as I am vanguard struggle antisemitism, and “As the number of Holocaust sur-

HET chief executive Karen Pollock said: “As the number of Holocaust survivors among us dwindles, we must seize all opportunities to hear their voices and to remember their testimonies, so that we might learn from

Ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day, the Board of Deputies has delivered more than 150 of its Legacy Boards to synagogues, Jewish secondary schools, youth groups and communal organisations all over the UK.

The Legacy Boards are intended to serve as a continuing reminder to present and future generations.

In conjunction with the chief rabbi and major synagogue and communal organisations around the country, the board, through its Yom HaShoah UK Legacy committee, launched the UK Jewish Community’s Legacy from the Holocaust project in 2022.

This asks the Jewish community to make three pledges: To Remember – Zachor, To Tell –Haggadah and To Life – L’Chaim.

The Legacy Boards are intended to be displayed prominently by each recipient as a vis-

HMDT chief executive Olivia Marks-Woldman said: “We owe it to those who were murdered, and those who survived, and even future generations, to keep the memory of the Holocaust and genocide alive. We also owe it to ourselves to keep the memory alive – our humanity is diminished when we allow prejudice to take root.” Equally poignant was a speech by Rwandan genocide survivor Antoinette Mutabaz.

Two HET ambassadors, Simran Shinji and Jasraj Singh, read a statement of commitment to continuing Holocaust education. In it they pledged that “future generations should understand the causes of the Holocaust and its consequences”.

Rabbi Epstein and Rebbetzin Ileana Epstein of the Western Marble Arch synagogue appeared on stage for a recital of the El Maleh Rachamim memorial prayer.

 Sadiq Khan, page 23

Horrors are part of me but do not define me, says survivor LEGACY BOARDS DELIVERED

ible and continuing symbolic reminder of “our responsibility to pass on this legacy from generation to generation” and to observe Yom Hashoah every year.

Harrogate Synagogue recently received its Legacy Board, with synagogue member and Holocaust survivor Arek Hersh MBE saying: “I am delighted that Harrogate shul, together with all synagogues and communal organisations, supports the Legacy Board where it is prominently displayed in the shul hall. It is important that all members and visitors see it clearly so the Holocaust is never forgotten.”

Board president Marie van der Zyl said: “The Holocaust is our greatest tragedy. The Legacy Board project is crucial to ensure that the memory of the Holocaust is observed in every synagogue and communal organisation throughout the country.”

Wales joins in the memories

An ambitious project encouraging pupils in Wales to learn about the Holocaust through video testimonies of young Welsh refugees has been developed for schools in English and Welsh.

The Holocaust Education Resources have been produced by the Jewish History Association of Wales as part of a project called the European Network of Testimony Based Digital Education

Key topics for primary and secondary school students will include pre-war Jewish life,

the responsibility of ordinary people, Jewish resistance and Britain’s response. Sources including photographs, parliamentary debates and trial

transcripts are also available including online classroom activities, educational resources and teacher guidance notes on the history of the Holocaust and its connection to Wales. They are aligned to the new Welsh curriculum and free to use.

The materials are built around video testimonies of child refugees who came to Wales in the 1930s to escape the Nazis, collated from the USC (University of Southern California) Shoah Foundation visual history archive.

Joan Salter at the service. Inset: London mayor Sadiq Khan

King Charles at Auschwitz

Holocaust

Hundreds turn out in tribute to Zigi Shipper

Zigi with William and Kate in 2017 and, inset, with friend Manfred Goldberg

In 1944, a man started growing tomatoes. I don’t know if he had ever grown them before, or even that he particularly liked tomatoes, but he began growing them. A very ordinary plant, a very ordinary thing to do.

put the rest of the family including Steven on the so-called Barnerveld List, a group of prominent Dutch Jews who were held at a castle in Barneveld rather than being deported, an action which delayed their arrival at the camps and almost certainly saved their lives.

Hundreds of people attended the funeral of much-loved survivor Zigi Shipper at Bushey New Cemetery as his two daughters Lu and Michelle made speeches paying tribute to their father.

William and Kate, the Prince and Princess of Wales, released a statement expressing their sadness at his passing. Zigi famously accompanied them on their 2017 visit to Stutthof, from which he survived. In 2021, Zigi met Kate again with his friend Manfred Goldberg, to mark

What makes it extraordinary is he was in Westerbork, a transit camp established by the Nazis in the Netherlands. What makes it even more extraordinary is that before he was murdered he tasked a young boy with continuing to grow his tomatoes in the event of his death. When he was deported, the boy, Steven, continued to grow tomatoes in memory of the man who grew them before him.

Steven Frank was born into a secular Jewish family in Amsterdam, one of three sons. He loved football, was good at school, didn’t always listen to his parents. He was ordinary.

When the Nazis occupied Holland, life changed forever. Steven’s father joined the Resistance, issuing false papers to people fleeing to Switzerland, hiding people in his home. He was betrayed, arrested, deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau and murdered.

The one concession the Nazis made was to

Eventually the family were sent from Barneveld to Westerbork, a transit camp, and then to Terezin in Czechoslovakia, where Steven survived conditions beyond imagination – lack of sanitation, insufficient food and deportations – a euphemism for murder.

Eventually he and his remaining family were liberated by the Red Army. Steven and his brothers were three of the fewer than 150 children believed to have survived the camp out of 15,000 children who passed through. It is almost impossible to comprehend – 1.5 million children were murdered during the Holocaust, six million Jewish people in total.

When we remember these events, it is easy to think of those affected as a nameless, faceless mass. But in remembering the stories of ordinary people like Steven we remember that before the Nazis they had lives, families, hobbies. They were real people, individuals, families, friends, communities. And because they were Jewish, they were murdered.

That is why we tell the story of Steven, and the man before him, growing tomatoes. Because it is an extraordinary story, born of ordinariness.

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BY KAREN POLLOCK CHIEF EXEC, HOLOCAUST EDUCATIONAL TRUST

Nazi kids’ game

A sick antisemitic board game called Jews Out! created by the Nazis in 1938 for children, has been put on display for Holocaust Memorial Day at Tel Aviv University, writes Jotam Confino.

It tasks each player with collecting hats from Jewish residential and commercial areas and bringing them to one of the roundup spots. Whoever brings the hats first wins.

One of the captions on the board reads: “Go to Palestine!” (Auf nach Palästina!). The game was manufactured by a company called Guenther and Co. and distributed by a food merchant named Rudolf Fabricius.

Wiener Library scientific committee academic director and chair Prof Emeritus José Brunner said: “Jews Out! is clearly the outcome of years of blatant incitement and antisemitism

The “solemn duty” of “each one of us” to remember the six million men, women and children killed during the Shoah was referenced by UK foreign secretary James Cleverly at a Foreign, Commonwealth & Development O ce (FCDO) Holocaust Memorial Day event.

“When we say the words ‘never

which prevailed in German society in the 1930s – so much so that someone got the idea that driving out the Jews was a suitable theme for a children’s game.

“However, the game was considered an exception even at the time. Most children played games that taught them the story of the Nazi party, when it was established and how it had developed, while this game expressly teaches children to deport Jews,” he added.

Prof. Brunner said the game was not well received by the Nazi regime. The SS weekly Das Schwarze Korps published a critical article in December 1938 arguing that Jews Out! disrespected the German policy of cleansing Germany of Jews, which was a methodical, thoroughly considered plan and not a game of chance as the game depicted.

again’, we must mean it, heart and soul,” Cleverly added. “We owe it to all who were not saved to reflect, to learn, to grieve and, above all, to remember.”

The event, co-hosted by the FCDO and the Israeli Embassy in the UK, was part of a long-standing collaboration between the two countries to mark HMD.

Prof. Dina Porat from the Department of Jewish History at Tel Aviv University said: “In the 1930s, children in German schools and preschools, who received their education from the Nazi party, played many games that encouraged them to identify with the party’s institutions.

Cleverly spoke to attendees about a visit last year to Radegast station in Lodz, Poland, where 200,000 Jewish men, women and children were transported to Nazi death camps.

Survivor Manfred Goldberg BEM also shared testimony with guests, including representatives from the Jewish community, diplomatic com-

“The game on display at the exhibition should be seen in the overall context of study materials in Nazi schools and preschools, such as a special edition of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion for children, or the scary children’s book Poisonous Mushroom.”

munity, civil society, parliamentarians, and other communal leaders.

Israel ambassador to the UK Tzipi Hotovely added: “We remember the six million Jewish people murdered in the Holocaust, as well as the millions of other lives who perished at the hands of Nazism and reflect on the systematic murder of ordinary

people and immense pain and suffering needlessly inflicted.”

UK special envoy for post-Holocaust issues and UK Holocaust Memorial Foundation co-chair Lord Pickles said: “Sadly, the number of direct witnesses to the Holocaust is dwindling and that is why we must ensure it is never forgotten.”

500,000 victims are added to the Book Of Names

Sunak confirms legislation for Westminster Shoah memorial

Rishi Sunak has confirmed that the construction of a Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in the heart of Westminster will go ahead, write Lee Harpin.

Yad Vashem will inaugurate its Book of Names – a monumental installation containing the names of 4,800,000 victims of the Shoah – at the United Nations headquarters in New York.

Among those taking part in the opening ceremony will be UN secretary­general António Guterres; Israel’s permanent representative to the United Nations Gilad Erdan; and Yad Vashem’s chairman, Dani Dayan, a former consul general of Israel in New York.

The Book of Names will be on display at the United Nations for a month. Afterwards, it will be transferred to its permanent location at Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, where it will be open to public viewing in time for Yom HaShoah, the Israeli and Jewish Holocaust remembrance day, in April.

The new version, which contains 500,000 additional names, is almost 7ft high and approximately 3ft wide. Its total length is 26ft.

In an announcement at Prime Minister’s Questions yesterday, he gave the green­light to the £100m project to be built in Victoria Tower Gardens, a public park next to Westminster Abbey and the Palace of Westminster.

He said: “As we prepare to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, I’m sure the whole House will join me in paying tribute to the extraordinary courage of Britain’s Holocaust survivors, including 94­year­old Arek Hersh who is with us here today.

“This government will legislate to build the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre next to parliament so that testimonies of survivors like Arek will be heard at the heart of our democracy by every generation to come.”

In comments released later, he added: “This important Bill brings us one step closer to delivering a national Holocaust Memorial and

Learning Centre at the heart of our democracy in Westminster, where it rightly belongs.

“The memorial will honour the memory of those who were so cruelly murdered and preserve the testimonies of brave survivors so that future generations will never forget the horrors of the Holocaust.

“As the remaining survivors become older and fewer in number,

it is vital that we push ahead with the Memorial which is supported by all major political parties.”

Sunak’s confirmation that the controversial project can proceed came ahead of Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow.

Manfred Goldberg, who was held in Stutthof concentration camp, Poland, said: “Several years ago survivors were promised a Hol­

ocaust Memorial in close proximity to the Houses of Parliament. I am a 92­year­old survivor who would be so grateful to be alive when this project comes to fruition.”

The Board of Deputies also welcomed Sunak’s announcement. In a statement it said: “Locating the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre in the heart of Westminster will serve as a powerful reminder of the impact of the Holocaust on the Jewish people and others, and will stand as a testament to the many British soldiers and civilians who liberated Europe, enabling thousands of survivors to rebuild their lives in the UK.”

Levelling up secretary Michael Gove added: “We are committed to building the memorial next to parliament, a site which reflects its national significance and is close to other important memorials including the Cenotaph.

“We owe it to Holocaust survivors, to the British people and future generations to remember where hatred can lead.”

 Editorial comment, page 22

BADDIEL SPEAKS AT ANNE FRANK TRUST LUNCH

Comedian David Baddiel expanded on the thesis of his bestselling book Jews Don’t Count – that antisemitism is deemed a less legitimate form of racism – at the Anne Frank Trust UK annual lunch, writes Michelle Rosenberg.

In conversation with political presenter Jo Coburn, he reflected on his own family history, in particular the story of his grandfather, sent to Dachau after Kristallnacht.

The family managed to get him out and just three weeks before the war started, they reached the UK, leaving behind their entire family

who were murdered by the Nazis.

Baddiel said his grandfather was “in and out of mental hospital all his life” with depression and his “grandparents never stopped being German. My grandfather went to his grave saying Gotter was a better playwright than Shakespeare.”

His book emerged from the realisation that in UK identity politics “Jews rank quite low”, and people are “less bothered about Jewish offence, Jewish inclusion and Jewish representation than about other forms of discrimination”.

It crystallised for him that many

people treat antisemitism differently from other forms of racism and discrimination. He said the “mythic association between Jews and power, and Jews and money, continues to be stereotyped in a very deep way across the political spectrum. It tends to rob people’s sense of Jews as victims, despite the fact there is much else beside the Holocaust in our history that suggests that Jews are continually victimised by history.”

At the Hilton Park Lane on Tuesday, guests were welcomed by chair of trustees Daniel Men­

doza, who said: “For the first time, I really am scared by what I can see coming down the track if we don’t take action. It’s a race against time.”

The lunch included a candlelighting ceremony with guests Annabel Schild, daughter of survivor Mala Tribich, Uyghur artist and activist Rahima Mahmut and Rabbi Rafi Goodwin from Chigwell and Hainault United.

Having reached 92,438 young people in 2022, Anne Frank Trust UK’s CEO Tim Robertson said: “Our impact is proud, across the board and long­lasting.”

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets 94-year-old Holocaust survivor Arek Hersh at Downing Street ahead of PMQs

The Hall of Names at Yad Vashem

David Baddiel at the event this week

United for Jami mental health event

Jami, the mental health service for the Jewish community, has marked its seventh annual Awareness Shabbat (MHAS), writes Michelle Rosenberg.

The initiative, set up by Jami to raise awareness, is supported by hundreds of synagogues, schools, youth groups, universities, organisations, individuals and families, providing an opportunity for people of all ages to focus on their own mental health and wellbeing of themselves and others.

Jami chief executive Laurie Rackind, said “huge strides” has been taken by the community in recent years, adding: “There

is no doubt by coming together to talk and learn about mental health, we gain more power as individuals and as groups to support those around us. Feeling comfortable to openly talk about the problems we are having, in the same way we may talk about physical illness, brings us closer to creating a more accepting and inclusive community where no one has to feel alone.”

Events, included a Zoom webinar with Rabbi Yoni Rosensweig on the intersection of mental health and Judaism, and a United Synagogue MHAS Kabbalat Shabbat with Rabbi Daniel Epstein of Western Marble Arch synagogue.

An online night school explored Jewish identity and mental health and the charity hosted a community gathering at its newly-expanded and renovated Head Room café in Golders Green.

Jami sta delivered age-appropriate sessions on mental health at Immanuel College, Hasmonean High School for Girls and Hasmonean High School for Boys, and gave talks at various synagogues.

At the Jewish Life Centre and at Hendon United synagogue, Rabbi Shalom Hammer told of his daughter’s tragic death and highlighted the many issues surrounding mental health challenges.

JN man wins BIJA award SHUL OFFERS ‘MEMBERSHARE’

Jewish News co-publisher Justin Cohen was honoured at the 25th anniversary of the British Indian Jewish Association (BIJA).

He received a Community Award at a reception for 100 attendees, which received a warm letter of congratulations from prime minister Rishi Sunak.

BIJA co-chair Dr Peter Chadha read excerpts from the letter, in which Sunak applauded the work of the organisation “in bringing the Indian and the Jewish communities together, along with the vision of your founders. We need organisations such as yours to build the bonds of friendship between di erent communities.”

Cohen, 42, who was awarded for dedication to Indian-Jewish relations, paid tribute to his late father, Melvin Cohen, “a proud British Jew who was born in India”.

Honoured with a Community Award alongside Cohen was C B Patel, chairman and editorin-chief of Asian Voice and the Gujarati newspaper Gujarat Samachar

The event also featured interviews with Josh Glancy of The Sunday Times and Manveen Rana, co-host of The Times podcast Stories of our Times, who spoke to co-chair Zaki Cooper about their careers as well as the similarities between the two communities.

St Albans Masorti Synagogue (SAMS) is to introduce a new funding model that lets members decide how much to pay.

The payment will cover “all the same things that membership always has”, said Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Mo et, in a video, in which he outlined how the new “membershare” payment model di ered from the traditional dues or fees system. “We’re going to tell you what it costs to run SAMS per person per month, that’s the set number that’s presented to everyone… but then we’re going to allow you to choose what is equitable for you,” he said.

“For some families that might be more than

the equal per person per month cost, for some it might be less due to their circumstances, but we believe overall that it will balance out.”

He added: “A huge amount of discussion, deliberation and community listening has gone into the decision by the trustees to propose and pursue a new way of funding ourselves.”

In its most recent financial filings, the synagogue said it made a small profit, after several years of losses, with the number of employees having risen from six in 2019 to 11 in 2021.

Darren Marks, a SAMS trustee and past cochair, said the shul’s membershare system was “unique”, adding that it would launch in April.

Arts and crafts and board games offered by Jami

Primary reaches out with 36-hour fundraising drive

A Willesden primary school is holding a 36-hour matched-funding campaign to redress its income shortfall, writes Michelle Rosenberg.

North West London Jewish Day School needs to raise £300,000 in an appeal starting on Sunday 29 January. Half the required funds have already been secured thanks to a pool of generous donors, with the remaining amount to be found during the timed campaign.

Funds raised will go towards staff costs to facilitate the higher-thanaverage staff-to-pupil ratio to ensure the school continues to provide high educational standards for all children.

It will also fund SEN staff and welfare costs, regarded as one of the school’s big

strengths in recent years, with achievements in this area including becoming the first Jewish school to be awarded the ADHD-friendly school award.

The money raised will also help to

fund a reduction in voluntary contributions. Like other state-funded Jewish schools, North West receives no funding for Kodesh (Jewish studies) from local government and so relies entirely on voluntary contributions. However, as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic, Brexit and the cost of living crisis, the school is experiencing an income shortfall and is therefore reaching out to the wider community for support.

The campaign comes after North West received an overall rating of ‘outstanding’ in its most recent Kodesh Studies inspection, an upgrade on the school’s previous rating of ‘Good’.  To make a donation visit: www. charityextra.com/nwljds

Mind over shmatte at London museum

A museum is looking for items of clothing for an exhibit on the impact London’s immigrant communities had on the British fashion industry.

While David Bowie, Greta Garbo and Sean Connery were not Jewish, Bowie’s dresses, Garbo’s hats and the tuxedo

Connery wore as James Bond all had Jewish creators.

Starting in October and running until April 2024, the Museum of London Docklands will host Fashion City: How Jewish Londoners Shaped Global Style.

A statement from the

Almost 200 people joined big names at Jewish Care’s Redbridge sports dinner, fundraising for a new care and community campus development.

Special guests included Swedish former footballer and Arsenal winger Freddie Ljungberg, Brighton & Hove Albion football club chief executive and deputy chairman Paul Barber, and journalist and TV presenter Matt Lorenzo.

The event raised £76,000 in support of the social care char-

ity’s services for older people in Redbridge and Essex.

Lorenzo held a lively chat with the sporting guests, covering their views on the Super League, women’s football, salary caps and the perils of VAR (video assistant referee).

New Work Avenue CEO hosts jobseeker event

Work Avenue, the Jewish community’s leading business and support organisation, welcomed more than 60 jobseekers to an event hosted by the charity’s new CEO.

Attendees also got the chance to meet CEO Debbie Lebrett, who joined Work Avenue this month after seven years as head of Hasmonean High School for Boys.

museum’s fashion curator, Lucie Whitmore, says the museum is seeking “menswear pieces… worn by famous names such as David Bowie, Mick Jagger, Muhammad Ali and Michael Caine”, along with “members of The Beatles,” by 1 March.

It held a range of sessions at the offices of Patron Capital Partners in the heart of London. The day covered topics including interview techniques, time management, upskilling, networking and smashing the discrimination barrier.

In 2022, the charity’s advisers and workshops helped 457 people to find employment, with nearly 100 clients receiving training and paid work projects through its WAGE social enterprise scheme. More information at www.theworkavenue.org.uk

North West London Jewish Primary School’s bimah

Some of the special guests

New head at Liberal Jewish Students

The rabbi of Kehillah north London has been appointed to a university chaplain role as the new head of Liberal Jewish Students. Rabbi Leah Jordan will be available to all Jewish students on campuses around the UK. Liberal Jewish Students offers a range of activities to ensure that Britain’s universities have a strong progressive Jewish presence. These include lunch and learns, prayer services, pastoral support, campus visits and much more.

Chaplaincy charity raises

£620,000

A 36-hour fundraising campaign for the national organisation supporting Jewish students on campus raised more than £620,000 with 2,500-plus people donating. University

Jewish Chaplaincy (UJC) set an original target of £500,000 to shine a ‘spotlight on students’, highlighting some of the complex pressures faced by Jewish students in 2023, and the work carried out by UJC’s dedicated Chaplains. UJC covers some 100 campuses.

Reform rabbi’s son drowns on honeymoon in Philippines

The sculptor son of well-known Reform Rabbi Jonathan Romain has drowned in the sea while on honeymoon in the Philippines, writes Adam Decker.

Benedict Romain, 34, whose father is the rabbi at Maidenhead Synagogue, was caught in a rip tide as he celebrated his wedding to wife Stella, 30.

An active member of the RSY youth movement, Benedict was one of four brothers, and both his parents – Jonathan and mum, Rabbi Sybil Sheridan – are past chairs of the Assembly of Reform Rabbis and Cantors.

Benedict studied fine art at Cardi and Oxford before earning a living by making

art pieces for film and TV sets. One of his sculptures is a prayer book turning into a dove, which has pride of place at the entrance to his dad’s synagogue.

Having been an RSY camp madrich, Benedict later blew the shofar for High Holy Days and acted as a cheder volunteer, where he was “adored by the children”.

Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle, Rabbi Romain said Benedict’s wife Stella had been left “distraught”, adding that his body was being repatriated imminently.

His role as rabbi was helping him, he said. Having o ciated at hundreds of funerals and grieved with many congregants over the years, he said, “it makes me aware that my grief is not unique and that many others have su ered searing pain too, so there is nothing exceptional about what our family is facing”.

HGS blessed with ‘ultimate dream team’

The Chief Rabbi and local dignitaries welcomed two senior rabbinical couples to a north London synagogue with a special Kabbalat Shabbat service.

Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue’s Rabbi Marc and Rebbetzen Lisa Levene, and community Rabbi Luis and Rebbetzen Jodie Herszaft, were initiated with a service led by Chazan Avromi Freilich, attended by more than 500 members. Also in attendance were Mike Freer, Conservative MP for Finchley and Golders Green, local rabbis and United Synagogue leaders.

The Chief Rabbi said he was “delighted to participate in the Shabbat of celebration” and that with the two rabbinic couples and Chazan Avromi and Rochelle Freilich, the HGSS community “is blessed with the ultimate dream team!”

New chief exec at Jewish Women’s Aid

Jewish Women’s Aid has appointed the former head of WIZO as its new chief executive. Alison Rosen will begin in March, taking over from Naomi Dickson, who is taking the helm at Norwood. Rosen, a former chief executive of the Griffin Institute, a surgical training and medical research charity, currently co-chairs NisaNashim Bushey, the Jewish Muslim Women’s Network, and is a founding trustee of Polly for Women CIO, a charity offering free telephone support.

Jewish Museum wins top education prize

The Jewish Museum in Camden has won the Sandford Award for Excellence in Museum Learning, given by the Heritage Education Trust. Past winners include the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace. Acting director Sue Shave said the museum was “extremely proud”. Dr Tracy Borman, from Heritage Education Trust, praised its“excellent learning team who explain all aspects of Jewish life to schools in a sympathetic and knowledgeable way”.

Mourned: Benedict Romain

The rabbinical couples are welcomed to HGS

Sugars and Ronsons are ‘game changers’

Jewish Care has received “game changing pledges” from major Jewish community philanthropists to fund a new development in Redbridge, writes Joy Falk.

The families of Lord Alan Sugar and Gerald and Gail Ronson have promised the charity they will help support the Redbridge Care and Community Campus development.

The exact pledges have not been revealed, but are significant enough to ensure the outstanding amount to complete the project is reduced to £5 million.

and

Jewish Care is now launching a campaign to raise that shortfall from the local community.

It will be the only Jewish care and community hub servicing the Essex and east London Jewish community and will comprise a centre for people living with dementia alongside a 66-bed care home to replace Jewish Care’s Vi & John Rubens House in Gants Hill.

Lord Sugar said: “Our family have had a long and deep association with Jewish Care’s services in Redbridge, where my late mother was a resident at Vi & John Rubens House.

“We are absolutely delighted to be helping our older community live with dignity and compassion in facilities that deliver high-quality care on a state-of-the-art campus.”

Dame Gail

who

is now an

“Our connection with the Redbridge community goes back many decades now from when I first became involved in the organisation in 1983. We are delighted to play our role in establishing a new facility for the next generation in a community which we know is so very special.”

Thanking the generosity of both families, which will have a “far-reaching impact on the older Jewish community in Redbridge and Essex”, Lord Levy, life president of Jewish Care said meeting “the increasing and changing needs of our ageing community is undoubtedly one of the biggest challenges we face”.

Pending planning permission, the development is due to open in summer 2025.

Sue Harris expands testing

A communal stem cell donor drive celebrating its 30th anniversary this year is o ering its services to other minorities in the UK.

The Sue Harris Campaign, founded by the late Sue Harris (pictured) and friends in 1993, has played a major role in the worldwide e ort to recruit Jewish stem cell donors. It is now delivering its annual Swab Week model to other ethnic communities across the country.

In a UK first, the Sue Harris Trust has assembled a coalition of organisations for a pioneering Swab Week from 23-27 January in Luton, where more than 150 languages and dialects are spoken and over half the town do not identify as white British.

Non-white blood cancer patients are at a major disadvantage as 70 percent of all registered stem cell donors are white, though 88 percent of the world’s population isn’t.

From 6-10 February, the trust will hold a larger than usual Jewish Swab Week for 16-year-olds and over in 11 schools in London and Manchester, as well as seven seminaries and yeshivot in Gateshead.

DUGO DONORS HMD trekking

The Israeli embassy and London’s largest food redistribution charity have donated 500 falafel meals to the homeless to honour Holocaust survivor David ‘Dugo’ Leitner.

In its third annual “Operation Dugo” event, the embassy sent a team to volunteer at The Felix Project in Park Royal, Brent. ‘Dugo Day’ has become a huge movement centred around social action and giving food to the hungry.

David Leitner, aged 14 and nicknamed ‘Dugo’, was forced with 60,000 other Jews by the Nazis in January 1945 to leave AuschwitzBirkenau and walk for three days through snow.

Underfed, exhausted and freezing, Leitner said it was dreaming of his mother’s cooking, especially bilkalach (bread rolls from his home in Hungary), that got him through the ordeal.

After “stocking up on challah”, Levy left home in Hale at 4am on Sunday, having decided to undertake the five-day challenge only a few weeks ago.

He aims to complete his trek on Holocaust Memorial Day tomorrow at Yad Vashem’s UK o ces in north-west London, after which he’ll enjoy a well-earned train journey back home.

He told Jewish News: “I’m doing this to honour the memory of those who su ered during the Holocaust. The walk will be a challenging but meaningful way to show support and raise awareness for its victims.”

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Ronson,

has been involved with Jewish Care for many years as a trustee and

honorary president, said:

Manchester fitness coach Yoel Levy, 23, is trekking the equivalent of eight marathons to raise awareness for Holocaust Memorial Day and funds for the Yad Vashem UK Foundation.

sations for a pioneering Swab Week from 23-27 January in Luton, where

The Sugar

Roson families suporting Jewish Care in 1994

Herr Baddiel and Herr Lucas discuss becoming German

According to comedian Matt Lucas, who has already been through the process, the only reason fellow comedian David Baddiel would apply for German citizenship is because “Jews don’t queue”, writes Jenni Frazer.

The pair, both descendants of German Jews who survived the Holocaust by fleeing to Britain, were taking part in an at-times light-hearted discussion about acquiring German nationality.

The event at Westminster Synagogue took place under the auspices of the Association of Jewish Refugees, the Wiener Holocaust Library and the German Embassy.

To a packed in-person and virtual audience, German deputy ambassador Rudiger Bohn gave a passionate address in which he noted Germany today is now home to the eighth largest Jewish community in the world.

“Fundamentally Jews are part of our society”, he said, and “though the wrong that was done cannot be undone”, nevertheless the Jewish presence today was “an extraordinary gift to us”.

Each application, the diplomat said, “is a huge step forward for our society. I stand in awe of everyone who takes this step. But I

understand if there are people who say they cannot do it because of what happened”.

In the discussion which followed, moderated by the German writer Karina Urbach, both Lucas and Baddiel gave thoughtful responses on why they had considered seriously taking the step. Lucas has already acquired German citizenship and praised the German embassy sta and the Association of Jewish Refugees for their often sympathetic help.

Baddiel said he had not yet gone through the process though he had been thinking about it for two years. His mother had been born in Germany and arrived as a baby in Britain with her parents.

“Straightforwardly, my first motivation was Brexit, because if you’re British and travelling in Europe… well, it’s just very annoying now,” he said. “My family got out just before the war. My

mother had quite a lot of anger and rage towards Germany and I’m not sure how she would feel about my trying to acquire a German passport. By continuing to ignore the possibility of citizenship, I am continuing what the Nazis started — they said they didn’t want Jews to have anything to do with Germany. So it’s a reparation.”

Lucas agreed that his catalyst for acquiring German citizenship had initially been Brexit. “To me, it felt almost complacent to leave

Europe. I looked into whether there was a way I could stay. My grandmother was from Berlin. The o cial line is that Germany invites people who are eligible for citizenship to come and get it. I accepted the invitation.

“The Germany of today is not the Germany of my grandmother’s time, and nor is Britain the same sort of country that she came to. So taking German citizenship is not a lack of gratitude to Britain.”

The event was also addressed by AJR chief executive Michael Newman, who has himself acquired German citizenship, and the Wiener Holocaust Library’s Toby Simpson.

Matt and David on stage. Inset: Matt’s German ancestors before the war, as featured on the BBC show Who Do You Think You Are?

acquired German citista and the Associa-

There were 6 million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, murdered by shootings, starvation, slave labour and industrialised killings in death camps. Of these victims, 1.5 million were children, cruelly denied a future, and innocent of any crimes, apart from the perceived one of being born Jewish.

It is Yad Vashem UK’s aim to ensure that each named Jewish victim has a memorial candle lit in their honour on every HMD and Yom HaShoah.

Guardian of the Memory aims to ensure that the victims’ life stories are never forgotten, becoming part of our own treasured family histories.

Please visit: www.guardianofthememory.org

NATURE

The of Israel

Originally from Manchester and now living in Tiberias, photographer Julian Alper gives Jewish News readers a seasonal sense of animal life in Israel.

THIS WEEK: Gazelle

A mountain gazelle in Jerusalem’s Gazelle Valley, galloping to stay warm on a cool winter morning. The total world population of this breed of gazelle is less than 5,000, most of which call Israel home. Gazelle Valley spans 61 acres of land in southwest Jerusalem and is home to around 80 mountain gazelles that live freely.

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We’re looking for a friendly, highly motivated and confident person with the skills and experience to build on our successful major donor and trusts and foundations fundraising.

If you are results focused, adaptable, and a team player with great attention to detail, we want to hear from you.

For a detailed job description and application information visit www.resource-centre.org/fundraisingmanager or call 020 8346 4000 | Closing Date: 10.02.23

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Connection is the theme for all three vying to be UJS president

As Jewish students prepare to go to the polls, Stephen Oryszczuk finds

out how the candidates propose to improve the campus experience

Three candidates for UJS president 2023-24 are winding up their arguments ahead of their last hustings on Sunday, having set out their case to improve the Union of Jewish Students.

They are Ábel Keszler, a final-year psychology student at Glasgow who was born and brought up in Budapest, Bristol politics student Edward Isaacs, and Gavriel Solomons, an Orthodox rabbi’s son studying at Hertfordshire.

Antisemitism on campus has hit the headlines of late. In November, the National Union of Students president was ousted after she was found to have made past antisemitic comments, while this month the NUS’s own internal investigation found that Jewish students had been “subjected to harassment”.

At Bristol University, Isaacs said he was involved in the case against Prof David Miller, who was sacked after making a series of comments, including the allegation that Israel was using Jewish students as “political pawns”.

As UJS president, Isaacs said he would work to create “educational initiatives” for all students in the UK “to understand, recognise, and respond to modern antisemitism”, citing antisemitism from the far-left, but he did not elaborate on what these educational initiatives would be or what age group they would be aimed at.

Solomons, another politics student, said UJS should “not take stances on contentious sociopolitical issues which can isolate large sections of our community”, listing the organisation’s criticism of farright Israeli politicians as a result.

His manifesto suggests that UJS allocates a specific Sabbatical O cer to coordinate Jewish societies and students facing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) motions, or e orts to stop a university from adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism.

Both Isaacs and Keszler said they would work to improve the experience of LGBTQ+ students, with Isaacs wanting to introduce training with the charity Keshet, while Keszler sought to bring back Liberation Caucuses – networks of students who identify as a minority.

If an overriding theme can be discerned from this year’s UJS presidential contenders, it is one of connection, which may reflect the post-Covid emergence of student life after two years in which connection was largely digital.

Solomons, who says he would like to visit every one of the (roughly 70) J-Socs in the country, wants to increase the connection between a university’s current and past Jewish students, or alumni, while also arranging for large regional events, to and from which smaller J-Socs would get subsidised travel, which Isaacs also o ers.

Keszler said he would “provide opportunities for our members to connect, network and have fun with members of other J-Socs,” and help get Jewish students to international seminars “to develop skills to help themselves and their community”.

While Solomons said he would keep initiatives such as Jewniversity Challenge, Isaacs said he would introduce an annual sports tournament for all Jewish societies, and kickstart a Year Abroad network to connect students travelling the world, potentially on their year out.

To foster connection, Solomons suggested regionalising J-Socs and introducing a new newsletter, while both Keszler and Isaacs said they would set up exchange programmes: Isaac’s would be with international J-Socs, and Keszler’s would be in the UK and Ireland.

Keszler, who pioneered the Scottish Jewish Student Summit, bringing together all of Scotland’s Jewish students for the first time, says he would pair J-Socs across the nations and support them “in creating joint events allowing them to connect, learn from each other, and create friendships regardless of location”.

Of the three, Solomons was the most critical of UJS, arguing that in his experience, Jewish students felt “under-represented or neglected” by the organisation, which he said had become less visible on campus over the years. He added that it needed to “realign with its core values”.

The theme of inclusivity was also mentioned by all three candidates, with Isaacs suggesting a “progressive prayer space on campus” and mental health first aid training, while Keszler said he wanted to create a Friday night dinner prayer book, “making them accessible to all religious backgrounds”.

Voting opened on Sunday, when the first hustings took place in Cambridge. The second hustings are in Leeds this Sunday, with voting closing at midnight on 2 February. The result

Ábel Keszler

Edward Isaacs

Gavriel Solomons

Quarter of Dutch youngsters say the Holocaust is a myth

A survey in the Netherlands reveals staggering data about the lack of knowledge of the Holocaust, in particular among younger people, writes Jotam Confino.

The Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference) released the Knowledge and Awareness Survey people were interviewed by Schoen Cooperman Research.

The survey found that 23 percent of Dutch millennials and Gen Z respondents believe the Holocaust is a myth, or that it happened but the number of Jews who were killed has been greatly exaggerated.

The survey did, however, find agreement that Holocaust denial and Holocaust distortion are problems in the Netherlands today: 62 percent agreed with this. 65 percent also agree that there is widespread or some antisemitism in the Netherlands today. However, 22 percent of millennials and Gen Z think it is acceptable for a person to support neo-Nazi views.

chairman, told

A Torah scroll that survived the Holocaust will be unveiled at the memorial exhibit in Dubai.

Matthew Bronfman, Claims Conference Task Force the gap in knowledge of key historical facts about the Shoah in The Netherlands and concern about Holocaust denial and distortion “are the result of multiple

Jewish News historical facts about the Shoah in The Netherlands and

This is the first time one of the 1564 Czech scrolls has been allocated to a museum in the Arab and Islamic world.

factors”.

“Social media is part of the problem. It can be a great place to spread accurate information through thoughtful education campaigns. Unfortunately, social media is widely unchecked and serves as an equally strong platform

problem. It can be a great place to for disinformation.”

of Dutch respondents, including 37

In comparison, 15 percent of millennials and Gen Z in the UK believe the same. Despite more than 70 percent of Jews who lived in the Netherlands being killed, 53 percent of all Dutch respondents, including 60 percent of millennials and Gen Z, don’t think the Holocaust happened in their country. 29 percent of Dutch respondents, including 37 percent of millennials and Gen Z respondents, believe that two million or fewer Jews were killed during the Holocaust.

The

The lack of knowledge includes concentration camps, with 31 percent of all respondents unable to name a camp or ghetto. The number unaware is higher among millennials and Gen Z, with 44 percent unable to name a camp or ghetto.

Previous studies showed a similar trend in the UK, with 32 percent of all British respondents, and 41 percent of millennials and Gen Z unable to name a camp or ghetto.

Ignorance among younger people is widespread

Bronfman stressed the need to make

Bronfman stressed the need to make Holocaust education a priority by gov-

ernment and educators. the Holocaust and give students a real

The number 48272 was tattooed on the Etzim (scroll poles) when catalogued in Prague, where it had been sent from Svetla Nad Sazavou in Bohemia. After being stored in the ruined synagogue at Michle outside Prague for almost 20 years, they were sent to Westminster Synagogue in 1964, which set up the Memorial Scrolls Trust to take care of them.

“The population of first-hand witnesses who can speak to the events of the Holocaust and give students a real understanding of the personal cost of such atrocities is waning. It is urgent that we create programmes for Holocaust education and survivor testimony. The bright light in this survey is that a good percentage of respondents, not just in The Netherlands but across all of the countries we have surveyed, want continued and more robust Holocaust education,” he said.

It

Ahmed Obaid Al Mansoori, founder of the Crossroad of Civilizations Museum in Dubai, picked out the scroll at the Memorial Scrolls Trust in London along with Je rey Ohrenstein, the trust’s chairman.“We particularly chose a large scroll with very clear Hebrew writing so you could see it even from the back of the exhibition. It’s a scroll that makes enormous impression,” Ohrenstein told Jewish News

The event on Saturday is part of the museum’s Holocaust Memorial Day commemoration and will be addressed by the Israeli and German ambassadors .Edwin Shuker, vice-president of the Board of Deputies, will also be attending.

Melissa Restaurant - Edgware

lack of knowledge includes concentration camps,

Netherlands Holocaust on Wednesday, in which 2,000

The display is to unveiled on Saturday

Fake meat wins kosher approval

A cutting-edge company near Tel Aviv has become the first cultivated meat firm in Israel to receive a kosher ruling, writes Jotam Confino.

Israeli Chief Rabbi David Baruch Lau has announced that under religious law, steak produced by Rehovot-based firm Aleph Farms and grown directly from non-genetically engineered animal cells may officially be eaten by Jews.

The ruling suggests that once the product is given its official market launch in Israel, expected soon, authorities will confirm Aleph

Farms cultivated steaks are kosher, enabling Jew who observe kosher to incorporate them into their diets.

Products are produced from starter cells from a fertilised egg sourced from a premium Black Angus cow named Lucy who lives on a breeding farm in California.

From a one-time collection of Lucy’s fertilised egg, Aleph Farms then grows thousands of tonnes of cultivated meat without engineering cells.

Aleph says the innovative process avoids any animal slaughter and

encourages greater sustainability within the industry.

Aleph co-founder and CEO Didier Toubia says he believes the decision is significant for the cultivated meat business as a whole, saying it “sets a foundation for an inclusive public discourse about the intersection of tradition and innovation in our society”.

Established in 2017, Aleph Farms is also in contact with Muslim, Hindu and other religious authorities to certify its products as a viable and alternative dietary option.

NEW IMAGES OF WARSAW GHETTO

Some 36 historic pictures of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943 have been seen for the first time.

For the past 80 years, the only way to see images of Jews rising up against their captors in the ghetto has been from the perspective of Germans, who took the only known photographs.

But now a roll of film taken by Warsaw firefighter Zbigniew Leszek Grzywaczewski has been discovered by his son Maciej.

The find was announced by the POLIN Museum, which opened on the 70th anniversary of the uprising 10 years ago. The museum plans to display the pictures as part

of an exhibition to mark the 80th anniversary in April.

“The image on them is often blurred, recorded in a hurry, hidden, partially obscured by the elements of the immediate surroundings: the window frame, the wall of the building or standing figures of people,” the museum said in

a statement. “The photos, however imperfect, are priceless.”

Zbigniew Grzywaczewski’s brigade was tasked with making sure the fire in the ghetto did not spread to the “Aryan” side of the city as the Nazis put down the revolt, in which an estimated 13,000 Jews died, many of them as a result of the fires.

Would you like cheese on that? Fake meat has been approved by one of Israel’s chief rabbis, paving the way for a kosher food revolution

One of the photographs of Jews inside the Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising

UK ‘opposes unilateral acts threatening Mid-East peace’

The UK opposes all unilateral actions that will make IsraeliPalestinian peace “harder to achieve,” the UK’s political coordinator has told the UN.

Fergus Eckerlsey told the Security Council that 2022 had seen “rates of settler violence, and the emergence of new Palestinian militant groups,” and that 2023 had “unfortunately also started with violence and instability”.

More than 170 Palestinians and 31 Israelis were killed in 2022, making it the most violent year since 2015.

Eckersley repeated the UK support for a two-state solution, which is “the only way to end the conflict, preserve Israel’s Jewish and democratic identity and realise Palestinian national aspirations”.

He added: “The UK opposes all unilateral actions that will make peace harder to achieve, whether taken by the Palestinian or Israeli side, including the government of

Israel’s measures against the Palestinian Authority,” referring to punitive measures by Israel such as withholding £32 million in tax revenue from the Palestinian Authority.

He said the UK was also calling upon all parties to “continue to uphold the historic status quo at Jerusalem’s holy sites” such as the Temple Mount/ Haram alSharif, a flashpoint in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Eckersley highlighted the desecration of 30 Christian graves in a Protestant cemetery on Mount Zion by two Israeli teenagers, saying it “speaks to the dangers of increasing division along ethnic and religious lines”.

He added: “We are grateful to all sides for their swift con-

demnation of these shocking acts. As a defender of freedom of religion or belief for all, the UK urges respect for all burial and holy sites, which must be treated with dignity.”

Lastly, Eckersley said Israel must “exercise maximum restraint in the use of live fire when protecting its legitimate security interest. In the first three weeks of this year, 14

UKRAINE ARMS ‘HELD IN ISRAEL’

Much of the weaponry the United States has sent Ukraine for use in the war against Russia has come from a stockpile in Israel, according to The New York Times

The location of the stockpile is significant because Israel has declined to supply Ukraine with weapons out of concern over inflaming Russia, which controls the airspace in neighbouring Syria.

Israel’s new right-wing

government has signalled it is open to closer ties with Russia than its predecessor. Under the previous government, Israel condemned Russia’s invasion despite declining to send weapons, a stance that drew specific criticism from Ukrainian officials.

However, The Times quoted Israeli and US officials as saying the transfer of the weapons should not be interpreted as a change in policy.

Lavrov calls West’s aid a ‘final solution’

Palestinians have been killed by Israeli security forces, including three children”.

The number of Palestinians killed in 2023 rose to 16 last week when two people, one a member of Islamic Jihad, were killed in the West Bank city of Jenin by the Israeli army.

The army said armed Palestinian gunmen had “fired heavily” at the security forces, who responded with live fire.

Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov (pictured), who last year compared Ukraine’s Jewish president to Hitler, has accused Western countries helping to repel Russia’s invasion of seeking a “final solution”. US and Israeli officials condemned the words.

Lavrov said: “The United States formed a coalition with almost all Europeans that are part of NATO, and also members of the European Union and, through Ukraine as a proxy, lead the war against our country, with the same exact goal: the goal of the final solution to the Russian question.”

Confrontation: Settlers evicted in the West Bank. Inset: Fergus Eckersley at the UN

Filling the silence

It has started to feel like it for quite some time, but until now it has neither been voiced nor confirmed. That confirmation came from Manfred Goldberg just hours after his dear friend Zigi Shipper died last week. The thought? It’s the end of an era.

Zigi was one of the last nationally recognisable Holocaust survivors who, despite age and ailment, could still communicate lucidly and effectively the horrors they lived through. His passing, Manfred said, marked “the end of an era”.

Those words sit heavy. The silence left by survivors is dense and uncomfortable. The void cannot easily or – in many cases – adequately be filled. Therein lies the challenge of Holocaust educators: what to do when your primary resource runs out.

Coming just before Holocaust Memorial Day, Zigi’s death feels starker than it may otherwise have done. When someone we love dies, it is of course a great loss.

What, then, is the weight of loss if – as happens at the end of an era – the last of a generation dies, in this case a generation whose number was already much diminished by evil?

As the past runs out, we must look to the future. The theme for this year’s HMD is ‘ordinary people’.

It was ordinary people who stood by, persecuted, rescued, came through. Ordinary people make history. It ever was and ever will be.

Zigi was an ordinary person who went through an extraordinary time and then found, from somewhere, the power to tell it. As he always said, it is only the future that we can do something about. May the past forever inform it.

Send us your comments

PO Box 815, Edgware, HA8 4SX | letters@jewishnews.co.uk

New coalition continues to divide the diaspora

Two months ago millions of Israelis voted in a fifth election in less than four years. The result was 64 seats to the right, 51 to the left while the Arab Joint List, with five seats, chose not to endorse either side or any candidate for prime minister.

One of the main issues people voted for last November was reform of the judicial system. Not to destroy it, but strengthen it. Even the last justice minister, Gideon Sa’ar, (from the anti-Netanyahu camp) said it needed to be reformed.

The majority voted for a change, but some segments of the community refuse to accept the democratic process because their side lost.

Hysteria and misinformation are slowing turning to incitement and division.

Demonstrations against a government is a healthy part of democracy. Hatred and violence are not. The next election is four years away.

My plea to those on all sides is to stop the unnecessary hysteria and misinformation.

James J Marlow, By email

You ask readers to judge your claim that Israeli ministers are to end the Supreme Court‘s power to keep them in check (12 January).

No. The Supreme Court‘s power to interfere is undemocratic. In the 1990s, Supreme Court president Aharon Barak enacted the Basic Law: Human Dignity and Freedom – essentially a power grab to strike down legislation in any sphere it didn’t like. It was never put to the electorate, making Israel the only country of the world’s democracies which doesn’t have a constitution yet allows the Supreme Court judicial review. In other words, he usurped the Knesset’s power to make laws, politicising the courts, so the judiciary became the de facto legislative branch. James R Windsor, Ilford

It is great Jewish News published a detailed interview with Simcha Rhotman from the Religious Zionist Party (19 January).

It is not a question of whether or not readers agree with his views. The debate concerning the changes that the Israeli government coalition is proposing is vitally important to Israel and its citizens. It is therefore right that all sides of the argument are heard comprehensively.

In printing Mr Rhotman’s views Jewish News has acted responsibly and set an excellent example to those British Jewish community organisations whose contributions have been totally one-sided and largely comprised of hurling insults.

Gary Mond, NW7

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Your newspaper claims Israel’s “far-right government hates legal oversight, so hobbles the judiciary so it can do as it likes”. The opposite is true.

Your pavlovian reaction to the hysterical realisation by the left that the party is over and they can no longer control policies, (no matter which government is nominally in power), shows your ignorance.

Its most revered judge, Aharon Barak, is respected by the left because he is the architect of the most powerful court system of any democratic nation, giving itself powers of veto over any policy it dislikes to suit its left-wing agenda,

It’s high time the Supreme Court reverts to what it once was before Barak politicised it.

D Rosenthhal, Hendon

THE JACOB FOUNDATION

Jewish News is owned by The Jacob Foundation, a registered UK charity promoting cohesion and common ground across the UK Jewish community and between British Jews and wider society. Jewish News promotes these aims by delivering dependable and balanced news reporting and analysis and celebrating the achievements of its vibrant and varied readership.

Through the Jacob Foundation, Jewish News acts as a reliable and independent advocate for British Jews and a crucial communication vehicle for other communal charities.

with government minister Ben-Gvir

ENCOURAGING HATERS SORRY FOR MY INVITE OFFENCE

I’m writing to you following recent articles in Jewish News about a Holocaust Memorial Day event I hosted at the Senedd.

I wish to start out by reiterating my apology (for not mentioning Jewish people in relation to the Holocaust on the invitation) and that I wished to cause no offence with the wording of the invitation.

The event to mark Holocaust Memorial Day with the gypsy and Traveller community is one that I have hosted for more than five years, first starting when I was the chair of the Gypsy and Traveller Cross Party Group at the Senedd.

The event this year is being run in conjunction with the organisation There and Back Again, a community interest company which seeks to increase Gypsy and Traveller awareness in Wales.

Each year the aim of the event is to bring MSs together to remember

everyone who tragically lost their lives during the atrocities of the Holocaust.

The event has always been extremely inclusive – we remember all.

On reflection, the invitation was not explicit that this is an event in which we remember all six million Jews, as well as everyone else who was killed in the Holocaust. It will be re-issued.

This year, the event is being held the day before a larger event at the Senedd to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, which I will also be attending. At this event, we will have the privilege of hearing from a Holocaust survivor.

I would never intentionally wish to exclude or downplay the appalling atrocities inflicted on Jews during the Holocaust and I hope your readers will now understand the context and history of this memorial event.

Julie Morgan, member of the Senedd for Cardiff Northtion

Reading last week’s report on Jewish Arsenal fans being abused for asking fellow supporters to stop using the word “Yid” sickened me.

I am a long-standing Jewish Arsenal season ticket holder. I have never encountered racist antisemitic chanting at the ground. The underlying issue is the double standard. Nothing is done to dissuade the use of the Y-word by Tottenham Hotspur. There are banners around Spurs’ stadium proclaiming the Y-army, regular chants using the Y-word.

In any other venue such racist imagery and chanting would be met with a ejection and a ban. Why not Spurs? I am unsure of why the continued association of Spurs with Jews persists, of my football supporting friends there is a range of teams supported – Borehamwood; Leyton Orient; Dagenham & Redbridge; West Ham; Chelsea; Man City; Spurs and Arsenal.

Allegiances are evenly spread. Interesting most are Arsenal supporters. Malcolm Rabin, By email

GRAVEST THREAT EXISTED LONG BEFORE ELECTION

Letter writer Rosalind Preston claims “Israel now faces the gravest threat to the future of its democratic way of life and peaceful coexistence of its citizens”.

I must have missed her protestations and those of other correspondents about the inclusion in the recently defeated previous coalition of Ra’am, the

political wing of the southern branch of the Islamic Movement, not known for its tolerance of women’s rights, gays or support for Zionism.

Ms Preston has an idealised vision of Israel’s “peaceful coexistence” which she thinks the new government threatens. Is she oblivious to the escalation of Arab

terror against Jews in Israel, unprovoked pogroms in mixed cities by Arabs during the 2021 Gaza operations and the violence and intimidation of Jewish citizens in the Negev by parts of the Bedouin community, to name just a few examples of inter-community hostility? Colin Rossiter, WC2A

Your recent editorial stated you “don’t like criticising Israel for good reason”. Don’t make me laugh.

Week after week your columnists and guest writers do just that. Alex Brummer, Jenni Frazer, Vivian Wineman and members of Yachad to name but a few. And always their so-called criticisms aren’t based on facts or truth but by perceived wrongs and injustices of which we are familiar.

You rightly cover the scourge of antisemitism, but doesn’t it occur to you that your negative coverage of Israel gives antisemites the material they need to perpetuate their hatred?

Warren S Grossman, Leytonstone

JOAN SALTER WAS WRONG TO CRITICISE UK POLICY

I have every respect for refugee Joan Salter for what she and every Jewish person experienced in pogroms or the final horrors of the Holocaust.

As a Christian I agree that western Christian nations are particularly guilty of antisemitism, which still exists today; albeit exacerbated by different influences up and down the country on behalf of Palestine. Yet, regardless of what minister Suella Braverman said about refugees, it is illogical for Joan to rail against British culture, traditions, values and sense of nationhood. As a Christian I support Israel’s right to self-determination as a sovereign democratic Jewish nation. I also support British principles, just as I back the right of various UK Jewish communities to go about their lives without fear or intimidation.

But as an Englishman and a Christian, whose forebears fought for this nation down through the years, I do not accept the idea that we abandon all that makes us distinctly British and embrace unlimited immigration by whatever means.

I don’t accept it for Israel and I don’t accept it for the UK. John Winlow, By email

I am deeply honoured to stand with survivors

SADIQ KHAN MAYOR OF LONDON

This week we have gathered together for services across London to commemorate the victims from one of the darkest chapters in human history.

I was honoured to stand side-by-side with survivors and community leaders to remember and reflect on the horrendous persecution of Jewish people in Europe and the millions of others around the world who have been killed through genocide as we marked Holocaust Memorial Day at City Hall.

As the Holocaust slowly moves from living memory to the pages of history, it becomes even more important to honour those who perished. The Holocaust was a depraved crime without parallel. We can only live up to our promise of ‘never again’ if we never forget and continue to educate subsequent generations about the evils of what happened.

That means reminding ourselves of the dangers of hatred and intolerance and reinforcing our resolve to never become complacent in the face of growing divisions in our society.

The theme for this year’s Holocaust Memorial Day is ‘Ordinary People’. It is a timely reminder that it is ordinary people who are slaughtered during genocide. But it is also ordinary people who persecute the innocent and facilitate oppression through indi erence.

We have seen how this terror can grow and that is why it is so important that we stand against antisemitism and all hate crime.

We have to be forever vigilant, always on our guard against anyone seeking to stir up resentment or sow the seeds of division.

We also need to be proactive and robust in challenging those who spew hatred or peddle

in the poison of antisemitism and stamp it out the second we see it.

As mayor, I will continue to lead from the front to ensure the Met takes a zero-tolerance approach to all hate crime in London and be clear that it has no place in our city.

We have invested more than £6m to support community organisations and civil society groups in tackling hate-crime and

intolerance. This is part of our commitment to working with Jewish Londoners to ensure that we are addressing the issues that a ect them, including tackling antisemitism.

Just last month, I joined Sophie Linden, Deputy Mayor for Policing and Crime, and Claire Waxman, London’s Victims Commissioner for a fruitful discussion on a host of issues with Jewish faith and community leaders at City Hall.

I will also proudly continue to recognise the part London’s Jewish communities play in enhancing and enriching our city. From attending Yom HaShoah to being a part of the Menorah lighting at Trafalgar Square, it is an honour to celebrate the incredible role Jewish communities play in our capital’s ongoing success.

Celebrating diversity and tackling hate crime is a job for all Londoners, and I will not stop encouraging our city and every community to stand in support of each other.

We all have a responsibility to work together, live together and look after one another.

That’s why I’ll continue doing everything I can to root out antisemitism and to ensure Jewish Londoners not only feel safe, but are safe in in our city.

‘Y’ IS THERE SUCH A DOUBLE STANDARD?

The mayor signs the register at City Hall to mark Holocaust Memorial Day

A most fitting way to remember my brother

ALEX BRUMMER CITY EDITOR, THE DAILY MAIL

The Art Scroll Siddur came into my life in 1994 when my mother died. As I relearned the morning davvening, with the help of Rabbi Lionel Rosenfeld at Western Marble Arch, the Art Scroll was a critical prop with its marking in bold of the liturgy to read aloud.

Soon I was a convert and persuaded my local community in Richmond to go all out and switch from the traditional blue Singers to the now familiar brown and gold Art Scroll.

After that it was all-out when my sons reached barmitzvah age. We were bombarded by family with present requests. I asked Jerusalem the Gold in Golders Green to order sets of leather-bound Art Scroll Machzor festival prayer books; it became the go-to present.

I too was a convert after decades with the blue Anglo-Jewish Routledge. It was farewell to antiquated English translation, stark text and lack of commentary. Art Scroll provided an intelligent guide through yom tov prayers.

As a regular shul goer, prayer books have come to punctuate my life. In the next week I will mark the first Yahrzheit of my brother Daniel (z’’l) who I have mentioned in this space before. The question has been how to commemorate? One rabbi suggested I might donate a new Sefer Torah to the community.

I put aside fears of it becoming a trophy to squabble over between disunited communities and made inquiries. I discovered that freshlywritten Sefer scrolls, post-Covid, were a bit like new cars. With cars, choice was limited and availability patchy because of the switch to EVs With Sefers, the pandemic took a toll on the world’s Soferim, Torah scribes who hand-write the 304,805 letters of the Five Books of Moses. Even if one could find one, it could be a year at least before the scroll was begun and the cost prohibitive without a second mortgage, An alternative was joining a memory plaque. I am not that keen on plastering synagogues with names and have always wondered what happens to such items when a synagogue closes. As has been the case with other family members, it has come down to books.

The green Sacks siddurim, which I had donated to the shul on my father’s death, did not need augmenting. Someone in the community was already committed to donating the new Mirvis edition when finished. I had already provided my community with the new illustrated United Synagogue Shiva books, and my previous donation of US Grace after Meals books had been displaced by the Koren Birkon introduced by Rabbi Sacks. A donation by the Te Foundation (family of the late Board of Deputies president Sol Te (z’’l) means all Richmond’s Routledge Machzors have been replaced by the ivory-bound Koren Sachs. So helped by Rabbi Chaim Gorker we hit on the idea of a new generation of Chumushim. At present the community is divided among the Cohen, favoured by one member, the familiar Herz edition and the widely used Art Scroll.

Koren has recently released ‘The Steinsaltz Edition’ replete with a new English translation, commentaries, distinctive Koren typeface and coloured illustrations. More than 30 years ago, when I was The Guardian correspondent in Washington, I was spellbound at seeing Rabbi

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FINDING FRESHLY WRITTEN SEFER SCROLLS POST COVID WAS A BIT LIKE BUYING A NEW CAR

Adin Steinsaltz at the Kesher Israel synagogue in Georgetown. He made such a strong impression I determined I would buy his multivolume Talmud. They sit on the shelf above the desk on which I am writing, mostly unopened!

Initially we will acquire a small number of Steinsaltz ‘Humush’ (their spelling) in Daniel’s memory. The new books will provide a neat transition until the Koren-Sachs Chumash currently being worked on is ready.

Hopefully my late father Michael (z’’l) who used the same mid-European Machzor for six decades along with his dog-eared Singers’ will understand, as he looks down from the heavens.

A timeline of prejudice, from Shylock to Shoah

FARAYI MUNGAZI HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL DAY TRUST

One of the first books I read in high school was TheMerchantof Venice. It was required reading in GCSE English literature because in my native Zimbabwe the education system mirrored that of colonial master Britain. The villain of the play, a Jew named Shylock, lends money to Antonio, a merchant, on condition that he will cut o a pound of his flesh if he fails to repay the loan. Antonio does not need the money for his personal use; rather, he borrows it on behalf of a friend Bassanio, who needs it to woo a wealthy woman called Portia.

When Antonio defaults on his loan, Portia disguises herself as a male lawyer to defend Antonio in court, and outsmarts Shylock, telling him he is entitled to a pound of Antonio’s flesh and no more – not a drop of his blood. The story ends with Shylock losing half his fortune and agreeing to convert to Christianity.

Shylock is rarely mentioned by name in the play; he is simply ‘the Jew’. The Merchant

of Venice is likely to be a product of its time –an era when antisemitism was rife in Europe – though Shakespeare has also been credited with using the antisemitism to highlight audience hypocrisy and engender sympathy for Shylock.

In other words, the antisemitic undertones in Shakespeare’s portrayal of Shylock have long been a source of debate.

As I look back, though, it is impossible to ignore its impact on me and my peers. I can’t help thinking that it may have had more influence on our way of thinking than we realised.

It certainly triggered a conversation with my father about the Jewish owner of the company he worked for. I had asked whether his boss was a miser like Shylock. My father, a student of history, took the opportunity to explain how hatred of Jews led to the Holocaust. And he was unequivocal in his belief that all people are born equal in dignity and worth.

I was reminded of The Merchant on a recent visit to the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Newark. In conversation with one of the museum’s curators, I recalled how in a previous a role, a former workmate often cited the play as justifica-

tion for vilifying Jews. She believed that Jews were pulling the strings of the world’s media. As we mark Holocaust Memorial Day, it is important to remind ourselves that antisemitism has not dissipated.

We saw how antisemitic narratives and conspiracies proliferated online during the pandemic, with a wave of posts claiming that Covid vaccines were a Jewish plot to poison the world. Similarly, many people have distorted the conflict in Israel and Palestine to promulgate antisemitic tropes. I am not so naïve as not to know that there is legitimate criticism of the policies of the Israeli government vis-a-vis Palestine. But in a world in which hatred and intolerance are increasingly common, many forget that Jews have a traumatic history; including

the six million murdered in the Holocaust. So, when Jews are being abused because of who they are, we all have an obligation to come together in their defence.

Anyone who gets the privilege of hearing survivors of genocides speak will gain a new understanding of the effects of identity-based hostility. Thus, from a mere human point of view, it is easy to see why prejudice should never be tolerated in a civilised society, regardless of which group it is directed against.

Some people bristle at being charged with antisemitic bias and say Jews ought to develop thicker skins. Such a thought is more than troubling.

As a black person, I know how hurtful it is to be on the receiving end of abuse or discrimination simply because of the colour of my skin.

I would not take kindly to anyone telling me to be more resilient in the face of racism. There is no acceptable level of racism, just as there is no acceptable form of prejudice towards anyone.

 Farayi is senior communications officer at the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust

SOME SAY JEWS OUGHT TO DEVELOP THICKER SKINS. SUCH A THOUGHT IS MORE THAN TROUBLING

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Israel’s new government is an affront to Judaism

SIR MICK DAVIS FORMER CHAIR, JEWISH LEADERSHIP COUNCIL

In the legend of Faust, popularised over the centuries by the likes of Marlowe and Goethe, the protagonist sells his soul to the Devil in return for a life of knowledge and pleasure. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s Faustian bargain is that in return for power – and with it the chance of avoiding corruption charges – he would sell not only his own soul to right wing extremists, but that of his country.

November was the first time I voted in an Israeli election and I have never been more excited at a ballot box than as a new citizen of the Jewish and democratic state. I knew, like every voter, I might not get the government I wanted. I did not therefore rush to criticise the new government, even if I didn’t vote for it – it is not for me to complain about a democratic choice. But as the intentions of this government become clear I am struck that they do not reflect the democratic choice of the majority of Israelis.

Two essential propositions guarantee democratic resilience. First, the minority respects the wishes of the majority, even if that majority is wafer thin, as it incontrovertibly was this last election. Second, however, the majority does not oppress the minority. No one has a mandate to dismantle the institutions of Israeli democ-

undermine the rule of law. This government includes elements who are antithetical to democracy and is acting accordingly. A fire has been lit and history is replete with lessons that the resultant flames cannot be controlled – not even by someone as politically gifted as Bibi Netanyahu.

Yet just because this government is taking Israel down a murky rabbit hole it doesn’t mean Diaspora Jews should feel they either have to dive in with it or abandon Israel in disgust. The opposite of both is true. Diaspora Jews concerned about the Israeli far-right should instead raise our voices more than most of us have previously been comfortable doing, be courageous enough to face the inevitable backlash and stipulate clearly that we will not normalise politics that represent a betrayal of Jewish, Zionist and democratic values.

minister Yair Lapid, who described them as “radical regime change”. And to the leaders and employees in the high-tech sector who went on strike on Tuesday as a warning of the damage an assault on the rule of law would do to investment in their sector.

If ever there was a time to speak truth to power it is now. Diaspora communities need to be clear: we are facing a crisis for the Jewish people. We should reject soothing, siren voices minimising the scale of the crisis by for instance pointing to the rise of right-wing populists elsewhere or the disingenuous attempts of those, like Smotrich writing in the Wall Street Journal, to claim that his government’s plans to hobble the supreme court are merely a move towards a more American style of democracy.

will be derided by our own noisy far-right elements. How dare you say such a thing, the keyboard warriors of the right will say, as you sit in the comfort of the suburbs of London or New York or Manchester or LA. Yet they sit in the same comfort in the same suburbs, and more often than not, it is not their children who will wear the noble uniform of the IDF to defend the consequences of reckless leadership in an already febrile environment.

We must not indulge these elements. Too often, moderate, sensible voices in Jewish communities self-censor on Israel to avoid their inevitable scorn. If we continue to do so, then not only will we be betraying our values, and the many Israelis who share them – we will allow extremists to hold our homeland hostage.

If we do not speak up now we never will. If Jewish leaders support this Faustian coalition they should have the courage to say so. If, as is more likely, they have concerns they should articulate them unequivocally and with conviction eschewing the predictable blowback.

racy that safeguard these propositions.

But the new coalition’s intent is clear: they do not respect the rule of law but seek to overturn it. This was confirmed by its reaction to a court ruling that Shas leader Aryeh Deri was not an appropriate minister due to his criminal convictions for financial crimes. “Harm has been done to the principle of the will of the majority, and we must fix this,” warned the prime minister with a populist turn of phrase.

I have seen in many jurisdictions where I have some experience what happens when politicians are not limited by democratic safeguards, politicise the courts and

Simultaneously, rather than switching o from Israel, we – I still say we as I am a dual citizen – need to engage more smartly and strategically than ever with Israelis working on a daily basis to safeguard the democratic state that we have been such passionate advocates for in our own countries. It is Israelis who will be crucial in preventing the anti-democratic politics of this Faustian coalition inflicting too much damage before the next election.

We need to extend solidarity to Israelis like the hundreds of thousands who poured onto the streets to protest the so-called “judicial reforms”; to the President of Israel’s Supreme Court, Esther Hayut, who called those “reforms” an attempt to change “the democratic identity of the country beyond recognition.” And to former prime

Israel is the only country, other than the countries where we live, in which all Jews are existentially, spiritually and culturally invested in its wellbeing and success. How well Marine Le Pen polls in France is unfortunate for France. And the global trend towards right-wing populism and so-called illiberal democracy is deeply concerning. But Israel is the beating heart of the Jewish people. It is where we pray towards, where we send our children to shape their Jewish identities and where we have a right to citizenship through Aliyah that many of us exercise. When we see cynics, theocrats and bigots enter government it is not only a matter of concern but an a ront to our Jewish souls. And if you aren’t concerned you need to ask yourself serious questions about whether you have any red lines at all when it comes to an Israeli government. Of course, within the Diaspora, this view

Yet we must do more than speak out. We must engage strategically with Israel’s civil society as it comes under attack. We must champion those Israelis striving to protect the tolerant, law based, democratic state which we have unashamedly supported for 75 years. On this we can learn from the right. While many on the right loudly decry anyone who talks or acts on Israel in ways they don’t like, negating our very right to an opinion from thousands of miles away, they don’t follow their own advice.

Indeed, for decades, millions of dollars have flowed from certain Diaspora Jewish philanthropists to build the infrastructure of the most trenchantly intolerant fringes of the Israeli right.

Now the moderate mainstream must respond to this moment of crisis with longterm strategic engagement of our own. We must not be cowed by those who excoriate us and deny our right to an opinion. Instead, we must engage with, invest in and amplify the message of Israel’s civil society as it mounts the long-term defence of the democratic values of the Jewish state.  Sir Mick Davis is former chair of the Jewish Leadership Council and ex-chief executive of

the Conservative Party

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir visiting Temple Mount earlier this month

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Humiliated in Stamford

EVE SACKS CO-FOUNDER, NAHAMU

There’s a poster on a billboard in Leicester Square of a Chasidic boy, with long payot, a shaved head and kippah, with the slogan: “Why am I 500 percent more likely to su er hate crime? #BecauseImJewish.” It is part of a national campaign by the Campaign Against Antisemitism. It’s vital to call out antisemitism, especially after the recent violent attacks in New York. However, the poster of a Chasidic boy reminded me of my first visit to Stamford Hill, and another form of abuse.

I went there for a friend’s son’s barmitzvah. Despite the delicious food, the evening left me with a bad taste. On arrival, it was made clear (by a man who looked away as I asked him directions) that I was to access the venue via the back entrance, by the bins and kitchen. Why? #BecauseImfemale. For the same reason, I couldn’t see what was going on because of the tall, opaque mechitza

Once I was inside, the women looked at me disapprovingly despite my best e orts to dress modestly. I wore a long, mostly black dress with long sleeves, thick black tights and all my hair was in a beret. I found my friend’s sister, whom I’d met previously. She’d got divorced and left the community and now everyone was gossiping that she’d dared not to cover her hair. She told me that one of her older female relations had told o a teenage girl for wearing thick black tights rather than the beige tights which are the norm in the Satmar community. The girl was crying in the toilets.

I didn’t recognise it then, but I recognise it now; this girl was a victim of honour-based abuse, humiliated in front of her family for daring to wear clothing that did not comply with the community’s stringent dress code.

This incident is potentially more damaging to a young person than name calling in the street as it comes from a respected older member of her family (her grandmother), and served as a reminder to the other teenage girls not to break the dress (honour) code.

From my other encounters with people in

the Chasidic community, I know of the stigma of breaking the honour code: the 18-year-old woman who had to keep her smartphone hidden, least her parents confiscate it to control her access to the outside world, or the young man who had no choice but to comply with an arranged marriage despite clearly articulating that it wasn’t what he wanted.

The CST is fantastic at collating data and we benefit from its service to the community. But Sikh boys who wear topknots will also su er anti-religious hate, and they do not benefit from having their experiences recorded in such a methodical and e ective way. That is the nature of data: we can only analyse what we know. The known sits alonside the unknown.

It would be foolish to assume that knowing the amount of hate crimes experienced by one minority without knowing the extent experienced by others is a good way of concluding how much more at risk one minority is than another. It would be equally foolish to conclude that being at risk of a hate crime from outsiders is the only abuse a Chasidic child faces.

It’s time for the mainstream Jewish commu-

nity to understand the abuse perpetrated in our community. I see the irony of a public awareness campaign about external hate experienced by Chasidic people, while Chasidic women are subjected to ongoing misogyny internally in the form of degradation and indignity; banned from driving, forced to shave their hair, unable to use contraception without permission from a rabbi and humiliated if they dare to wear the wrong shade of tights – and no one can muster more than a tut or a sigh, while we accept the narrative that Chasidic women are all happy with their situation.

We could do with an internal awareness campaign, in our community centres and synagogues, at our Shabbat tables and faith schools.

When I stepped into Stamford Hill, I was personally doubly degraded: first there was misogyny – I had to use the entrance by the bins, told to by the man who looked away as he spoke to me – and second there was judgment from the women despite my modest attire.

But I could walk away at the end of the night. The teenager crying in the lavatory did not have my freedom. Where is she in the data?

Israel Tour is for everyone, which is why UJIA has launched the Access Israel Fund.

Over the next two years we have committed £1,000,000 in bursaries and financial support. This will help combat rising costs and the pressures this places on families, making Israel Tour and immersive long-term Israel Experiences more accessible than they have ever been.

To find out if you are eligible and how to apply, visit www.ujia.org/AIF or call 020 7424 6400

Raging gender debate is not a zero-sum game

SARA GIBBS COMEDY WRITER

The transgender community is under attack. They need and deserve Jewish solidarity. In 2021 in the UK alone, antitrans hate crimes increased by 16 percent compared to the previous year. This comes as no surprise to me. Anti-trans rhetoric is everywhere.

I have watched on in horror as countless columnists, colleagues, friends and family members, have begun to regurgitate transphobic talking points, seemingly with little or no understanding of trans issues.

I have felt helpless as hysteria, hyperbole and, often, outright lies about the fight for trans rights have been splashed across front pages, gleefully retweeted and have been left unchallenged by apparently otherwise right-thinking people.

I have looked on in dread as so-called ‘reasonable concerns’ become radicalisation, as transgender friends are labelled ‘groomers’, ‘perverts’ and ‘child mutilators’.

Jewish people know how this feels.

After millennia of persecution, we know the template. We’ve been on the receiving end of it time and again.

The ancient blood libel, accusations of harming children.

The inherent mistrust simply by virtue of our Jewish identities.

And when we speak up about the discrimination we face, being told we are inventing it all.

The truth is that many transphobic arguments follow the template of dehumanisation and disinformation that feels sicken-

vulnerable children.

It’s the same old hatred in a di erent hat.

At a recent gender-critical rally, one speaker quoted Mein Kampf, calling trans identities “the big lie”.

This should send a chill through the soul of anyone with a passing knowledge of history.

The sad irony is that the lies are not coming from transgender people.

Most of the transphobic arguments I encounter are debating an imaginary scenario that does not exist.

The examples are too numerous and complicated to outline here, but one particularly fact-free facet of the debate pertains to the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill. The government recently took the unprecedented step of blocking legislation passed by the Scottish parliament to make it easier for transgender people to obtain a gender recognition certificate.

Its detractors claim that they’re afraid of what self-ID would mean for women’s safety and spaces.

Rarely heard is the fact that transgender people may already use gender-appropriate spaces by self-ID under the Equality Act of 2010, that reasonable exemptions are already allowed, that transgender people can already apply for other forms of ID, such as passports and that none of this has resulted in malign cisgender men pretending to be transgender in order to access women’s spaces.

The most ludicrous of all the anti-Gender Recognition Reform arguments is that public toilets will become unsafe – as if an abuser would update their paperwork to show to the nonexistent toilet guard in order to attack women instead of just walking through the door.

The reality is that the Gender Recognition Reform Bill is so benign that the noise around it would be laughable, were it not so dangerous.

It simply grants transgender people the right to more easily obtain paperwork that allows them to update their birth certificates, get married, pay taxes and be buried with dignity. That’s it.

Transphobia and antisemtism are so deeply enmeshed that, even for those who cannot muster the empathy to support transgender people simply because they are human beings who deserve our solidarity, it is imperative to oppose it.

NICOLE LAMPERT JOURNALIST

Ionce made the mistake of attempting nuance on Twitter. I wrote that most Zionists were pro-Palestinian too.

To me it is obvious that those of us who believe in the two state solution would like the Palestinian people to have their own land and peace – just as we would like for Israel.

But you can’t reason with extremists. For 24 hours I was mercilessly trolled; called an idiot, a liar, a hasbara troll and an apartheidloving Nazi. The same happens every time I enter what is known as the gender debate: I am accused of being a transphobe, a bigot, a Nazi. But being concerned about the erosion of women’s rights doesn’t mean I hate trans people. Indeed, I feel for the pain they are going through because, as Jews once found ourselves targeted because of Corbynism, trans people are at the centre of an incredibly toxic culture war.

I’ve got to know quite a few trans people since I started writing on this subject. All of them are upset at the extremist demands being made in their name. They understand that males can be dangerous to females and opening up safe spaces such as prisons, rape centres, refuges to any person who claims to be a woman is a safeguarding risk.

These trans people are often – astonishingly – accused of being transphobes or Terfs (which stands for trans-exclusionary radical feminist) when they dare mention what is, to most of us, common sense.

How did this start? Some say with the theory by Jewish American academic Judith Butler that ‘gender’ which was once interchangeable with sex, is a ‘social construct’ and open to change.

In the old days – about five years ago –you had transexuals who were mainly males who had gone through a process involving surgery and taking medication to become women. They are the people who required a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC) –although born male they were in the world of officialdom now female.

that is where the conflict with safeguarding lies. It brings up several questions which trans rights activists refuse to answer:

How can you tell the di erence between someone who identifies as female and means us no harm, and someone who is a pervert who wants to see naked women, film them and even attack them? And no, this isn’t hysterical fear mongering; women have been sexually assaulted in women’s prisons, on single sex hospital wards, flashed at in gyms and filmed undressing in changing rooms.

Is it fair that women and girls feel obliged to share an enclosed area with someone who is likely to be taller and stronger than them and who still has fully intact male genitalia?

How will this a ect Orthodox and other religious women? Anecdotally they are already disappearing from ‘women’s only’ sessions in gyms and pools because they cannot be certain that they will be surrounded only by females.

The proposed Scottish law which is causing a constitutional kerfu e means it will be a lot easier for people – both genuine and malign – to insist they are a di erent sex.

Unfortunately the Equality Act of 2010, in which sex is a protected category, never envisaged what would happen a decade later; if you change sex legally you can breach those protected safe spaces (lawyers are still arguing this point).

This Scottish law proposes anyone over the age of 16 simply has to live as the opposite sex for three months to get a GRC. How do you live as a woman? Nicola Sturgeon says it could be as simple as changing your name on your gas bill. Then a man – any man–becomes legally female and able to insist their way into female spaces with their bit of paper. Those who cannot see the possible dangers in all of these are – at best – dangerously naïve. To be clear, I am not calling trans people perverts, I am saying perverts will take advantage because that’s what they do.

ingly familiar to me as a Jewish woman.

In fact, transphobia itself relies upon age-old antisemitic conspiracy theories and tropes, with white nationalists accusing Jews of committing “white genocide” by targeting

Bigots will not stop at the transgender community, and we should be standing side by side with our trans siblings, transgender Jews and anyone facing the marginalisation we would not want turned on ourselves.

And then you had transvestites who were men who liked dressing up as women. Now both are under the same ‘trans umbrella’ along with around 70 – I kid you not – other genders. These include ‘affectugender’ in which a person’s gender depends on their mood and ‘aerogender’ in which a person’s gender identity changes according to one’s surroundings.

Around 90 percent of trans people who identify as a woman still have a penis and

Trans rights extremists are the real bigots; they are misogynists who fight facts with slurs and threats and attempt to shut down another marginalised group – women. They don balaclavas, stop women speaking, threaten violence and consistently compare themselves to Holocaust victims.

This weekend alone, Scottish MPs were pictured next to placards saying ‘I eat Terfs’ and ‘decapitate Terfs’ while a Scottish councillor invoked the history of Auschwitz.

We Jews should stand beside the trans community and the female community who both feel at risk. It is only fanatics who believe you can’t do both; and we Jews know more than most how dangerous fanatics, hyped up by their sense of rightness, are.

“Are you sure you’re the Israeli Chief Rabbi?!”

In memory of 6 million men, women and children who were murdered just because they were Jewish.

Jewish Deaf Association

1 JEWISH CARE GOES PURPLE FOR WEEK

To chase away the January blues and raise awareness of its work, Jewish Care challenged members of the community to participate in fun, purplethemed activities for #GoPurple week. Local school and nursery children, residents, volunteers, staff, community centre members and shops all got involved visiting care homes and community centres.

2 MEET SOME YOUNG BREAD WINNERS

To conclude their Shabbat Project and in preparation for the forthcoming Seed Immanuel College Primary School Friday night Shabbat experience, Years 1 and 2 plaited their own challah. The youngsters had lots of fun and were very creative making different-shaped loaves.

3 HEADS TOGETHER AT PAJES MEETING

On 16 and 17 January, PaJeS (Partnership for Jewish Schools) held its seventh annual headteacher conference, welcoming 52 leaders from 41 Jewish schools around the country for the two-day event, held at The Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire. The event was generously supported by UJIA Ashdown Fellowships, UnitEd, The Pincus Fund and The Wohl Foundation.

4 NIGHT-TIME WALK FOR CLUB13

Club13, the barmitzvah club at Whitefield Shul in Manchester, went on a night-time forest walk in Phillips Park. About 30 people enjoyed physical challenges including army style training in a muddy field, blackout scrambling, as well as a bonfire with singing, uplifting stories and a great atmosphere.

5 KOSHER MEAL FOR MUSLIMS AND JEWS

The Muslim Jewish Forum of Greater Manchester, created almost 18 years ago, held its annual kosher meal for 33 guests at Celia’s Kitchen restaurant in Prestwich. Adil Navaid, a barrister and first-time Muslim attender said: “The Forum clearly does really well in putting people together in a room and focusing on Muslims and Jews in Greater Manchester.”

6 ALEINU EVENT ATTRACTS 200

Close to 200 rabbis, rebbetzins and educators gathered together at The Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire for the annual Aleinu conference, focused on their joint mission to help Anglo Jewry. Now in its 10th year, Aleinu is a joint initiative of JLE (the Jewish Learning Exchange, an educational and social centre for young Jews with little or no Jewish background), Seed (the adult and family education charity), Jewish Futures and the Rabbinical Council of the United Synagogue.

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Northern Lights

Three years ago, Jewish News collaborated with the now Princess of Wales on a profoundly moving collection of photographic portraits of Holocaust survivors which went on display at the Imperial War Museum (IWM) in London. Kate took two of the photos herself. The exhibition is opening at IWM North in Manchester on Holocaust Memorial Day (27 January) and features four new photographs by Simon Hill, president of the Royal Photographic Society. Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors contains works from 13 contemporary photographers, all members and fellows of RPS, of which The Princess of Wales is a patron. The photos capture the special connection between the survivors and the younger members of their families.

Kate described the survivors in her portraits as “two of the most life-a rming people that I have had the privilege to meet. I look back on their experiences with sadness but also gratitude that they were some of the lucky few to make it through. Their stories will stay with me forever.”

One of her subjects was Yvonne Bernstein, who was photographed with her 11-year-old granddaughter Chloe. “I had a very good model, says Kate. “She was fantastic. It was very special, and I was very honoured.” She told Yvonne at the time: “You were very patient.”

“I came out pretty well!” laughed Yvonne. The inclusion of the four new photographs was arranged by The Fed, Manchester’s largest Jewish social care organisation. Raphi Bloom, director of fundraising, marketing and communications, says: “The larger and more prominent Holocaust events are, naturally, very London centric. The national Holocaust charities are located in London and if events take place around Parliament or with the Royal Family, naturally these will take place in the capital. However, the incredible survivors in Manchester and the north west should be recognised and since joining The Fed I have worked hard to ensure that, via the My Voice project, more of a spotlight is shone on them. .”

My Voice project, run by The Fed, publishes

Manchester, in their own voices. To date 34 books are in print, with 10 more in production. The original concept for this unique project was provided by Margit Cohen, a survivor, who came to the UK on the Kindertransport in 1938. She told Juliette Pearce, who manages the project: “I need you to tell my life story, my whole life story, before I die”.

All the newly-photographed survivors were honoured and excited to be included in the project. “This is one of the most imports jobs I’ve done, says Simon Hill. “Certainly one of those I’ve enjoyed most. To meet the survivors has been an incredible honour. I hope the exhibition moves on and takes everyone’s story with it to new venues. .”

Itzki ‘Ike’ Alterman was born in 1928 in Poland. He survived four concentration camps and a death march. After the war he came to England as one of the Windermere Children and established a thriving jewellery business in Manchester. Just before Yom Kippur in 1942 at the age of 13 Ike faced selection in the square of the ghetto in Ostrowiec. His mother, sister and brother were marched out of the square at gunpoint and taken to Treblinka where they were murdered immediately. The abiding memory he has is of his little brother, with his hands

raised, a rifle pointed at him walking away. Ike and his father were sent to a forced labour camp and were then separated. To be pictured in Peel Square in Manchester, the city that became his home and where he raised a family, and built a business and rebuilt his life, with his daughters Elaine and Fiona and granddaughter Danni, is hugely symbolic.

Anne Super was born in Warsaw in 1938. In 1941 as Germans marched her family from their home, her mother pushed her through a hedge to a waiting milkwoman, who saved her life. Anne never saw her parents again. She spent the war years hidden and later emigrated to South Africa and became an optometrist. She married Maurice, had three children and moved to Manchester. Anne is pictured with one of her sons, Jon, and grandchildren Monty and Elana, among the greenery of her conservatory, resonating with the hedge towards which she was pushed by her mother to save her life.

Werner Lachs, 96, born in Germany, fled to England in 1939 with the help of British Secret Intelligence Servicer O cer Frank Foley. His wife Ruth, 86, was born in Hamburg and survived the war hidden in several locations, including a sandpit overnight in Holland. She was helped by the Underground Workers

group. Ruth and Werner married in 1962. They have three children, nine grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren. They are pictured with their hanukkiah and three of their greatgrandchildren, Amaya, Dana and Joshua. “It won’t be forgotten the terrible times we had with the Nazis and we hope it never happens again,” says Ruth. “It’s just a reminder to people that the generations have made a decent life after the war for themselves. I think about it, but thank goodness we came out of it.”

Marianne Philipps was born in Berlin. After the November pogrom of 1938, she travelled alone on the Kindertransport to England. She is photographed with her two children, Frank and Miriam, and two of her grandchildren, Samuel and Naomi. Marianne is holding the chronicle on the Hirsch family history, written by Marianne’s father Martin, who was murdered in Auschwitz along with her younger brother. Marianne has always loved needlework, like her mother. Her grandson is holding one of the tapestries that Marianne created.

• Generations: Portraits of Holocaust Survivors opens at IWM North on Friday 27 January. Admission is free. www.iwm.org.uk

the lifestory books of Holocaust survivors and refugees who live in and around Greater

Anne Super with her son and grandchildren. In 1941 as her family was marched from their home, her mother pushed her through a hedge, saving her life. Anne never saw her parents again

Ike Alterman with daughters and granddaughter

Werner and Ruth Lachs with great-grandchildren Marianne with children and grandchildren

Holocaust survivors feature in a Jewish Newsinspired photography exhibition at the Imperial War Museum Manchester, writes Louisa Walters

Photos by Simon Hill

THE GERMAN GIRL

Can you ‘date’ a country? When Jewish theatremaker Anna Clover went through a bereavement, Brexit and a bad break up, she decided to make some changes. When she suggested getting back together with her ex, her friends were appalled, and her family felt the same way when she ‘jumped into bed’ with Germany. In Clover’s comedy show Going Deutsch at Vault festival next weekend, she playfully explores whether she should return to live in Germany by ‘dating’ the country o ering her citizenship, despite taking the lives (and passports) of so many who came before her. “I first had the idea for Going Deutsch a er Brexit when I discovered I was eligible to receive a German passport as a descendant of victims of Nazi persecution,” she says. “What I hadn’t anticipated was the range of perspectives others in my family had about taking this passport back. The way they talked about it reminded me of the language around people who return to abusive partners and the idea for Going Deutsch was born. It is a show about cultural connection, being part of a diaspora and what we inherit from those who went before.”

GoingDeutschis at Vault Festival, London SE1 on 4 and 5 February. www.vaultfestival.com

Sad Dad

The Jewish trio of Harrison Ford, Jason Segel (How I Met Your Mother) and Rachel Stubington appear in Shrinking on Apple Tv+, launching this Friday. The show follows grieving therapist James Laird (Segel), who copes by breaking his rules as a therapist by telling his clients exactly what he thinks. Ignoring his training and ethics, he finds himself making huge, tumultuous changes to people’s lives, including his own. Ford plays his boss.

LA-born Rachel (right), who spent her childhood summers performing for her friends at Jewish sleepaway camp, plays Summer, a fun-loving high schooler who likes to party and have a good time with her best friend Alice, Segel’s daughter.

Rachel’s character helps Alice and her father deal with the loss of her mother/his wife.

LOCKDOWN LYRICIST

A strange thing happened to former journalist Linda Ze during the first lockdown in 2020. In the early hours of every morning, unable to sleep, she found herself composing ridiculously jolly, tongue-in-cheek songs about Covid. No seeing family, no parties, no loo paper, no kissing, no travel, no weddings, no holidays, no flour… there was certainly no end of material to call on! With the help of composer Jonathan Whiting and musical director Jamie Noar, her songs have been turned into Covid:The Cabaret,a lighthearted musical evening about the lockdowns that will premiere on 7 February in Finchley. She’s particularly excited to be collaborating with her actress daughter Laura Allen, who first appeared on the West End stage aged six and is not only one of the performers but also the show’s producer, director and choreographer. It promises to be a unique evening. Covid the Cabaret is at the Bohemia pub in Finchley on 7 February. For tickets visit www.lauraallenactor.co.uk

Music Maestro

&Violinist Yehudi Menuhin (1916-1999) is being honoured with a blue plaque on the house in Belgravia where he lived, worked and entertained for the last 16 years of his life. A child prodigy, Yehudi Menuhin was probably the most famous violinist of the 20th century. He believed that music was for everyone and was dedicated to the education of young musicians, founding the Yehudi Menuhin School for Music (1963) and International Menuhin Music Academy (1977). Much of his teaching and mentoring took place in his studio on the fourth floor of his home, where he also practised yoga – including his famous headstand.

Lucky Seven

The Fabelmans, Steven Spielberg’s drama about his Jewish upbringing, which opens in cinemas this weekend, has been nominated for seven Oscars, including best picture, best director and best screenplay for Spielberg (above, on set) and playwright and screenwriter Tony Kushner. The film also scored acting nods for Judd Hirsch and Michelle Williams. Meanwhile, All Quiet On The Western Front, a remake of a movie once targeted by the Nazis and How Do You Measure A Year, a documentary by Jay Rosenblatt –programme director of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival– also got recognised in a list packed with Jewish characters, stories and artists. Gail Berman scored her first Oscar nomination for producing best picture nominee Elvis, while producers Darren Aronofsky and Ari Handel scored their own best picture nomination for The Whale Jamie Lee Curtis picked up her first Oscar nomination for her supporting role as a tax o icer in the multiverse sci-fi comedy Everything Everywhere All At Once. Composer Justin Hurwitz, who won an Oscar for his work on La La Land, was nominated again for the score for Babylon, and in the original song category Diane Warren extended her nomination streak to 14 for Applausefrom the documentary Tell It Like A Woman

Google Pixel 7 Pro

Available from Google, Amazon, Currys, John Lewis and Argos RRP from £849

WHAT IS IT?

Pixel 7 Pro is Google’s top-tier smartphone. It’s more evolutionary than revolutionary, and that’s not a bad thing.

PLUS POINTS

• Nice design. The camera bar layout on the back has been retained, with a premium glossy finish.

• The under-screen fingerprint sensor has been improved, and face unlock has been added a er last year’s version proved unreliable.

• The screen is excellent. Punchy colours, vibrant and fluid.

• Cameras are always Google’s strength, and this year is no di erent. Pictures were consistently good, making this one of the easiest pick-up-and-shoots on the market.

• Runs on Android 13, which I found the most fluid version of the operating system on any phone so far, with no stutter or lag.

• Works in harmony with the new Google Pixel watch.

• Battery life was decent for light to mid use. If, like me, you’re a heavier phone user, then you may end up with 15 percent battery at the end of the day.

NIL POINTS

• Speakers are OK but don’t get as loud as some other flagship phones.

• The phone will only receive three years of Android updates, which is less than Samsung and Apple o er.

VERDICT ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ ✡ I’ve been really happy using the Pixel 7 Pro over the last few months and Google has refined issues from last year’s model.

Reviewed by: Daniel Elias, TikTok @daniel_ _Elias Instagram @daniel_elias

TECH THAT

THEATRE

phones.

HONOUR

MUSIC

of one SIX

Customarily, one should refrain from directing a reader to YouTube at the start of a story. But to appreciate the talent of Anna Senger you have to see her in action–specifically the moment she got the golden buzzer on Israel’s Got Talent hobbled on to the stage disguised as an old woman called Licia, the audience expected a comedy routine, but Anna had them fooled. In place of gags, the Juilliard graduate born in Jerusalem wowed the crowd by playing two pianos at the same time, and then was briefly suspended upside down in a harness. Cue the standing ovation and shiny confetti, which you must see in much the same way as you should see Anna in the musical Having her name on the poster outside the Strand’s Vaudeville Theatre is currently a thrill in its infancy as Anna has only been assistant musical director officially since last summer.

“I was hired first to do the tour and also as the substitute for the West End show which I was really happy about,” says the spirited 35-year-old sitting by a keyboard. “Now I conduct three times a week, but I’m at the theatre every day, where I share this lovely room with the resident director and choreographer.”

Anna also shares backstage with the six queens who lead Toby Marlow and Lucy Moss’ global hit about Henry VIII’s spouses, and enjoys the Tudor camaraderie.

“We do nine shows a week and even when I’m on standby, I’m listening on the tannoy,” says Anna, which will literally be music to the ears of

show producer Kenny Wax and a slap on the back for the charity Resource. Turns out that the community’s centre for job seekers doesn’t just help business professionals get back to the workplace, it can tackle showbiz too.

“When Anna relocated here from Israel, she found getting a job di cult,” says Resource’s Jennifer Ho man. “We gave her one-to-one coaching and tailored programmes to help her get started and now that she has managed to land her

dream job in the West End. We’re delighted.”

“Resource was really a crucial part of me getting the job,” Anna concurs. “I’d never done interviews in the UK or in my life actually and they sent me to a seminar where I learnt about applying for job and preparing a CV. As mine was more unusual, they even got someone who knew about theatre to tailor my CV and then when I got the interview they helped me to feel more confident.”

And she should be confident with a resume that almost harks back to when she was four and her mother Liora (her Venezuelan father Rubin lives in New York) started teaching her piano. By the time she was eight Anna was performing in international competitions.

“Classical and very serious,” says the woman

styled Don’tLoseUrHead. “I began studying conducting when I was 16, then left school to go to the Academy of Music in Jerusalem, from where I got accepted at Juilliard in New York. There I went straight into the second year, as I’d already done a lot of theory.”

Revealing her musical achievements with typical Israeli nonchalance is why Anna intrigues and why she moved easily into drama at Jerusalem’s Nissan Nativ Acting Studio.

“It was a big switch that entered my mind while I was in New York. But after 20 years of classical piano and competition, I didn’t want to go to Tel Aviv. I just wanted to study, be calm and stay with my mum in Jerusalem.”

Post-drama school, Anna dabbled in musical theatre, which is where she conceived the old lady act – Licia, the creeky pianist – that not only thrilled the judges on but also the panel on the German, Italian and Chinese editions.

“I did work in Israeli theatre, but when I came up with the act and more people were asking me to travel to other countries, I thought I should try my luck outside of Israel. My husband Omri (Dagan) who was in a band and released two albums, had also started working as a filmmaker and photographer and together we felt we couldn’t really fulfil our dreams in Israel.” Not that she doesn’t love her homeland, as she sincerely does and holds a singular and alternative perspective on the new right-wing government.

“I think it is di erent for actors who work in more culturally liberal Tel Aviv. I come from Jerusalem where we’re more detached, look to the past and teach it. I enjoyed playing the historical roles of our ancestors in traditional plays that tell Israel’s story. We built this country, and we’re part of it and what we did is amazing.”

What’s equally amazing is that a creeky old woman who plays two pianos at once while airborne is now setting the tempo nightly on stage for Henry

spective on the new right-wing government. to the amazing.” VIII’s wives.

Anna Senger in Israel’s Got Talent (top left), at the piano and (below) with cast members from the musical Six

who now wears a studded mask to accompany Anne Boleyn in the bawdy Rihanna-

photog-

Brigit Grant meets the musically gi ed Israeli who keeps Henry VIII’s wives together

Conductors customarily appear in a black suit, white shirt and bow tie, but Israeli conductor Tom Cohen does things differently. When he steps on stage at the Barbican next weekend to conduct his Jerusalem Orchestra East & West, he will dispense with the tie. “I’ll be in a suit, but nothing at the neck – that’s not for me,” he insists. “And I like to add something cool. When I was younger it was white shoes,” he laughs, “but nowadays I’m more subtle – I go for elegant shoes with coloured socks.”

It’s not only sartorially that Tom, 39, breaks the mould. His orchestra comprises Jewish, Muslim and Christian musicians, setting the example of music transcending religious and political division in Israel and beyond. Not only that, but his unique ability is to be able to transfer the music of Arab and North African countries to musicians from a Western classical background – and vice versa; his style has become known as ‘Levant music’.

“The outcome should be that if you know the music from home, you can appreciate it in its new ‘clothes’,” he explains.

Tom established the Jerusalem Orchestra East & West in 2009 with the former CEO Ofer Amsalem. He writes all the musical arrangements himself, synthesising classical, jazz and, for the London concert, Moroccan tribal music. This is the first time that the orchestra is performing in London and Tom is very excited.

“At the start, when my total budget was zero and I was driving musicians in my car back and forth from rehearsals and concerts, I had a piece of paper saying Olympia – Paris, Carnegie Hall – New York, Barbican –London. It wasn’t a dream list, it was a to-do list.

"The orchestra is my baby, the biggest thing I've done in my life, the most ongoing one, the one that I changed with the most and the one that influenced me and my career. Performing in a place like the Barbican in London is the next phase of our journey.”

The music to be played is called gnawa after the Moroccan ethnic group of the same name. “It is the most complicated, simple music – or the simplest complicated music – you can hear. Groove-wise, it is very, very specific but at the same time, you need no background in order to enjoy it. Immediately it touches you and immediately you feel it.”

The musicians will be pairing a gimbri, which is a primitive bass guitar made of wood and camel-skin, with percussion instruments, a jazz pianist and a full orchestra, each element of which is completely at odds with the style.

“The result is a harmonious arrangement with lots of colour and a taste of jazz, pop and rock,” says Tom. “It was an experiment, and the result blew us all away. Last September were invited to Morocco to play this project. The idea of taking their musical style, changing it completely and then being invited to present it to them is something that I would never want to stop doing. Next is a concert on the moon!”

Tom grew up in Beersheva in the Negev in the south of Israel and has a culturally mixed heritage himself.

“My father’s family are Iraqi but my mother's side are Polish and English. My maternal grandmother came from Southport,” he says.

“ I owe a lot of who I am today to the place I grew up in. I had many different communities around me in a very loving home where music was playing constantly.

“Both my mum (a former ballet dancer) and my dad (a journalist) saw music as playing a very important role in our lives. What differentiates me from many other people is that nobody ever explained to me the different types of music (Moroccan, Turkish, Arabic, Western

for example) – I listened to it all ‘equally’. When I grew up and went to the Jerusalem Academy of Music and Dance, I learned that Western classical music stood at a certain point and the rest of the music that I liked stood at a different point. And I could not grasp it.

“For me, the biggest power that we have as people living in the Middle East, in Jerusalem especially, is that all these influences live within us, within the sound of Jerusalem. So it became my mission to create a musical language that connects all the genres together and weaves them into one musical style.”

The Jerusalem Orchestra East & West is recognised by the country’s Culture Ministry as a leading orchestra, side by side with the Israel Philharmonic. Tom has been invited to establish orchestras in the same formation in Belgium, Morocco and Canada and has conducted many different and varied ensembles – from the Israel Philharmonic to the Algerian Chaabi orchestra El Gusto.

He lives in Belgium with his Belgian wife Nicole, 39, whom he met at a music festival in Cyprus, and their six-year-old son, Adam. “We are bringing him up as Jewish – we make all the holidays and he speaks fluent Hebrew, but he knows Christmas as well.”

Maybe Tom will one day write a musical arrangement for a Christmas carol in Hebrew.

• Jerusalem Orchestra East & West is at the Barbican on 5 February at 7.30pm www.barbican.co.uk

Louisa Walters meets a maestro who blends musical styles from east and the west to create a magical language and whose orchestra is made up of Jews, Muslims and Christians

Tom Cohen, who grew up in Beersheva and has a culturally mixed heritage, conducts his Jerusalem Orchestra East & West. It will play the Barbican next month

Tom Cohen

Photo by Daniel Kaminsky

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Residents enjoy hotel-style luxury, with their own spacious room, complete with full en-suite facilities, personal telephone and wi-fi. There are three delicious meals a day, with a varied choice of menus.

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When it comes to travel, jetsetting – or make that ‘set jetting’ – has become serious business. People are being influenced by what they see on screen. Think The Beach (Thailand), Lord of the Rings (New Zealand) and, more recently, The White Lotus (Hawaii and Sicily).

Set-jetting has grown in popularity in recent years but looks set to soar this year alongside our viewing habits, thanks to the popularity of streaming shows on platforms like Netflix and Amazon.

“There is a rise in ‘film’ destinations,” says luxury travel expert Rebecca Masri. “Set-jetting destinations will include the

Four Seasons Hotel Taormina and Four Seasons Resort Maui (The White Lotus), Bellagio Hotel, Las Vegas (Oceans 11), Hotel Daniele (The Tourist) and La Mamounia Marrakech (Inventing Anna).”

While set-jetting is not a new phenomenon, Expedia research shows streamed movies and TV programmes are now the top sources of travel inspiration (40 percent), overtaking the influence of social media (31 percent). And the small screen is now considered on a par with recommendations from friends and family when it comes to travel inspiration.

Masri is the founder of Little Emperors, a private members’ hotel club, which counts the Four Seasons, the Ritz-Carlton and Shangri-La among its portfolio. Donna Bengio joined the products team in 2020.

Founded in 2009, the company had a record year for bookings last

year and Masri expects this trend to continue in 2023. Masri and Bengio say travel is now exceeding pre-pandemic levels, with millennials replacing baby boomers as their primary clientele – 93 percent of members are under 50. “By 2030, Gen Z will be the largest customer group for luxury brands,” says Bengio.

“It’s not only the way we communicate and share that has changed – values and work ethics have shifted. The generation raised on individualism, independence and Instagram seeks authenticity and shareability. Unlike their predecessors, millennials are less tied to the benchmarks of work and family. With remote o ces on the rise, family duties arriving later in life and the nomadic lifestyle paving the way, wealthy millennials seem keen to tap into that sense of freedom.”

Little Emperors o ers its 30,000-plus members access to preferential rates and guaranteed leisure and corporate benefits at 4,000 exclusive luxury hotels worldwide.

Masri says luxury travel has taken a different turn. “Millennials want to be pioneers. Over half of the a uent millennial travellers believe luxury is about discovery and adventure (experiential travel), and 70 percent want to learn from the cultures they visit. Six Senses and its growing portfolio has seen an increase of over 40 percent in bookings from our clients based on its unique programmes and ability to embrace local cultures. I was recently in Six Senses in Shaharut in the middle of the desert in Israel, surrounded by kibbutzim, with a strong sense of place. With so many new openings in valleys, mountains, deserts and bays as well as cities, its philosophy of disconnecting to reconnect and focus on sustainability and wellness resonates well with our members.”

But luxury comes at a cost and hotel prices are at record highs, with leisure destinations seeing the biggest increases. Little Emperors has seen the average daily room rate increase by 29 percent since last year, and 14 percent since pre-pandemic levels.

Bengio explains: “This is partially owing to pent-up demand with people desperate

to travel after being restricted for so long as well as a surge in delayed trips and group bookings like weddings and team bonding.” Exchange rates, labour shortages, knock-on inflation costs and higher petrol prices are also all having an impact.

To make travel more a ordable and accessible, Littler Emperors advises booking in advance. “The pandemic led to the shortest lead-times we have ever seen – a logistical challenge for us,” Masri says. “Now people are fearful of rising prices and actually getting rooms. We have seen a 20 percent increase in advance bookings. People are also booking shorter stays – prices are so high people want to stay in the same hotels, but may only budget for shorter stays.

“And, much to our delight, using a travel agent is another cost-saving tip. Many people see travel agents as being more expensive. We see ourselves as a new breed. We like to be called advisers, or in our case disrupters, who no longer charge hourly rates for advice, but a small annual fee, easy to recuperate in just one booking, and get our clients freebies. One of our most important perks is upgrades, often guaranteed at time of booking.”

As for other trends, Masri and Bengio cite sustainable travel, with 70 percent of members considering ethics and sustainability to be important factors when staying at a hotel.

A former Goldman Sachs banker, Masri was awarded an MBE in 2015 for services to charity. Aged 15, she and a friend organised a play to raise funds for a bed for the paediatric intensive care unit at St Mary’s Hospital. She has since taken on work for Israeli charity Afikim and the Tree of Life, a non-profit foundation she founded.

Bengio, who has an MBA from Tel Aviv University, has experience working in a multifamily o ce and launching a second-hand e-commerce business. She has been involved in Jewish organisations since she was a teenager. She planned events for the Jewish community of Madrid, founded a Jewish organisation for international students in Boston and now co-chairs Young BFAMI.

Candice Krieger

“There Masri. “Set-jetting desti-

Founded in 2009, the Travel gurus Rebecca Masri (left) and Donna Bengio

Luxury is a byword for the ‘set jet’ hotels in the Little Emperors portfolio

The average person will speak 123 million words in a lifetime. But what if there was a limit?

Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons Lemons, a play by Sam Steiner that opened recently in the West End starring Aidan Turner and Jenna Coleman, imagines a world where we’re forced to say less. It’s about what we say and how we say it; about the things we can only hear in the silence; about dead cats, activism, eye contact, and, well... lemons.

If we each had a daily word limit, would we have to really think hard to ensure we always say what we mean and mean what we say?

In Judaism, the power of speech is incontrovertible: the Torah begins with God speaking and the physical world coming into existence. What distinguishes humans from the other creations is that God blew the breath of life into us. Targum Onkelos, the Aramaic translation and commentary, renders “living being” as “speaking soul”, inferring that speech is God’s unique gift to us.

The Hebrew word davar means both ‘a word’ and ‘a thing’, implying that what is said has a concrete significance and so we are conscious that our words create our reality.

For this reason, the Chofetz Chaim (Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan, 18391933) dedicated his life to teaching us to be responsible for what we say, as it is clear that words have the capacity to build as well as to destroy.

In parshat Bo, in order to ensure that we always remember the Exodus from Egypt, we are instructed to speak about it with our children and to tell our national story to the following generation. In addition, the mitzvah of tefillin is intended to act as a physical reminder of how God miraculously redeemed us from slavery and also “in order that God’s teaching may be in your mouth” (Shemot 13:9).

On a literal level, we can understand that the intent here is for us to verbalise Torah daily so that we not only learn its lessons but develop familiarity with it, making it as much part of our routine as eating. However, HaKtav VeHaKabalah (Rabbi Yaakov Tzvi Mecklenburg, 19th century) o ers a deeper insight by suggesting that “in your mouth” means gener-

ating a mindset where the Torah’s words are important to us. There is an expectation that, among all the things we speak of regularly, we see God’s teachings as at least as valuable and worth talking about.

A Kabbalist idea holds that each of us has a finite number of words to use

in our lifetime, and if we kept that in mind every time we open our mouths, perhaps we would be more careful in choosing the ones that come out. At the very least, we know that when we speak words of Torah or discuss our heritage and tradition, those words are the best use of our allocation.

Jenna Coleman and Aidan Turner star in a new West End play by Sam Steiner that imagines people have a daily word limit

BY RABBI MARK GOLDSMITH EDGWARE AND HENDON REFORM SYNAGOGUE

philanthropist in the Jewish community, as the Sugar Wing at King Solomon High School tells us, and is often joined as a judging sidekick by Claude Littner, also Jewish.

Then, periodically, there are the Jewish candidates who we all hope will do well, or even win, without embarrassing us too much with their actions or attitudes, as if they are our own cousins making cringeworthy speeches at weddings.

chapter 17, some 40 years before he will eventually take over from Moses.

I have enjoyed watching The Apprentice ever since 2005. I sit through the crass initial interviews, cringing with the nation at the pronouncements of the various candidates but gradually feeling I get to know them and to care for their success.

There is always plenty of Jewish interest in the show. Alan Sugar is a

The premise of the show is a principle that drives many of the key narratives in the Bible: the young person finding and being guided by a mentor in order to make a success of themselves.

Just as Lord Sugar becomes to his eventual protégés, so was Moses to Joshua, whom he guided to be his eventual successor from early in the Torah narrative.

Joshua first appears in Exodus

The priest Eli guided Samuel to become the king-making prophet of Israel from a very early age. The prophet Elijah calls his successor Elisha to be his own apprentice, finding him originally as a young farm boy (1 Kings Chapter 19). The King Solomon of Alan Sugar’s favourite school was apprenticed by his father King David and they even ruled Israel together for a time (1 Kings 1:32-40).

The mentor process is very important in recruitment and training for today’s rabbinate. One of the proudest moments in my life was when Rabbi Dr Andrew Goldstein placed his hands on my shoulders at my semicha and used the words of Moses: “Be strong and of good courage,” to induct me into the rabbinate.

When I was a teenager, he had encouraged and guided me to

As Lord Sugar becomes to his eventual protégés, so Moses was to Joshua

become a cheder assistant and youth leader and then, in my mid-twenties, to train at Leo Baeck College.

The Apprentice may indeed be a brutal reality television show which shows no mercy to those who do

not measure up, but its principle of mentorship and guidance from our previous generation is the time-honoured way that the Jewish community passes on its skills, values and leadership.

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

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PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST

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.

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

JONATHAN WILLIAMS

Qualifications:

JEWELLER

• Jewellery manufacturer since 1980s.

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

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

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

DIRECTOR OF LEGACIES

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.

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

REMOVALS MANAGING DIRECTOR

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.

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

JOE OZER

Qualifications:

FINANCIAL SERVICES

• Executive director for the United Kingdom at DCI (Intl) Ltd

• Worked in finance for more than 20 years

• Specialists in distribution and promotion of Israel Bonds

DEVELOPMENT COMPANY FOR ISRAEL 020 3936 2712 www.israelbondsintl.com joe.ozer@israelbondsintl.com

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

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.

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

PRINCIPAL, PERFORMING ARTS SCHOOL

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.

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

FINANCIAL SERVICES (FCA) COMPLIANCE

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.

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

MENOPAUSE CHAMPION LABALANCE

ANGELA DAY-MOORE

Qualifications:

• Founder & CEO Sassy La Femme Womens Wellness

• Passionate about women’s wellbeing

• Home to LaBalance

• Recommended by fellow women for Period, Perimenopause & Menopause

Professional advice

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ACCOUNTANT

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

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.

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

IT SPECIALIST

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.

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

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.

Email: sales@jewishnews.co.uk

MENOPAUSE

CHAMPION

LABALANCE 0333 188 6580 www.sassylafemme.com hello@sassylafemme.com

HUMAN RESOURCES / EMPLOYMENT LAW

DONNA OBSTFELD

Qualifications:

• FCIPD Chartered HR Professional

• 25 years in HR and Business Management.

• Mediator, Business Coach, Trainer, Author and Speaker

• Supporting businesses and charities with the hiring, managing, inspiring and firing of their staff

DOHR LTD 020 8088 8958 www.dohr.co.uk donna@dohr.co.uk

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

INSURANCE CONSULTANCY

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.

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

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.

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

DIVORCE & FAMILY SOLICITOR

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.

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

LESLEY TRENNER

Qualifications:

• Provides free professional one-to-one advice at Resource to help unemployed into work.

• Offers mock interviews

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

TELECOMS SPECIALIST

ALBERT

BENJAMIN

Qualifications:

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

• Independent consultant and supplier of Telephone & Internet services.

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

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

ALIYAH ADVISER

The listed words to do with succulents can all be found in the grid. Words may run either forwards or backwards, in a horizontal, vertical or

Armed citizenry (7)

Elude (5)

Monstrously ugly (9)

Allure (5)

Large horse used in battle (7)

Be subjected to (7)

Liking (5)

Out-breath (10)

Necklace gem (5)

Italian rice dish (7)

Independent academy (7,6)

Very quick (5)

Wrap tightly in layers of cloth (7)

Butter used in Indian cooking (4)

Silent performance (4)

Bigwig (7)

Four-piece musical group (7)

Compulsion (4)

Clever and successful stratagem (4)

Hilarity (5)

Zeal (5)

SUDOKU

10 Husk, 11 Steely, 12 Fascia, 15 Yes-man, 18 Starch, 20 Crib, 22 Shoulder, 23 Chosen, 24 Import, 25 God.

DOWN: 1 Ferret, 2 Half-term, 3 Brainy, 4 Relief, 5 Mesh, 6 Muesli, 11 Spy, 13 Scallops, 14 Ash, 16 Earthy, 17 Nosing, 18 Stolid, 19 Cheers, 21 Best.

SUGURU

WESTLON HOUSING ASSOCIATION