1318 - 8th June 2023

Two giants of British music have drawn headlines for starkly different but equally outspoken views on Israel, writes Jotam Confino.

Robbie Williams, who had a number one hit with the song How

Deep Is Your Love? with the group Take That in 1996, performed in Tel Aviv last week, where he told the Israeli crowd they had "something incredibly f****** special”, referring to the country. “I have noticed a peace here that I don’t feel

in London, that I don’t feel in Los Angeles,” he told fans. “Considering as a people you have so much going on, there is a calm and a sincerity… I feel you, I know who you are, I know how you are, and you mean an awful lot to me," the 49-year-old added,

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marking his first return to Israel for nearly a decade.

Meanwhile, Roger Waters continued to bash Israel at his recent concerts in Birmingham and London. The Pink Floyd co-founder has been widely condemned for per-

forming in a Nazi-like uniform and floating an inflatable pig with a Star of David on it. He also compared the killing of Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in the West Bank with that of Anne Frank. Berlin

Continued on page 2

Robbie Williams on stage in Tel Aviv last Thursday

Roger Waters performing last month in Berlin

HARRIS REMARK UPSETS ISRAEL Blinken in the Gulf to push Saudi deal

American secretary of state Antony Blinken travelled to Saudi Arabia this week as Washington continues to promote a possible normalisation deal between the Kingdom and Israel, writes Jotam Confino.

Ahead of his trip to Riyadh, Blinken said Washington has a “real national security interest” in promoting normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia.

“We believe that we can and indeed we must play an integral role in advancing it. Now, we have no illusions that this can be done quickly or easily. But we remain committed to working toward this outcome, including on the trip I’m about to take this week to Jeddah and Riyadh for engagements with our Saudi and Gulf counterparts,” Blinken said at the AIPAC conference in Washington.

Blinken said the Biden administration believes that it “must” play an integral role in advancing ties between the regional powers, but that Washington has “no illu-

sion” it can be done “quickly or easily”. He added: “But we remain committed to working toward this outcome, including on the trip I’m about to take this week to Jeddah and Riyadh for engagements with our Saudi and Gulf counterparts.”

Benjamin Netanyahu has declared it a priority for his government to establish ties with Saudi Arabia, which would further integrate Israel into the Arab world.

But several issues have hindered the immediate prospects of a deal between Saudi Arabia and Israel, such as clashes in the Al-Aqsa compound between Israeli police and Palestinians, and the Netanyahu government’s push to expand West Bank settlements. While Netanyahu believes lack of progress in finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not an obstacle for peace and normalisation with other Arab nations, Blinken said the opposite in his speech: “Integration and normalisation e orts are not a substitutefor progress

between Israelis and Palestinians, nor should they come at its expense.”

The secretary of state also condemned the recent round of rocket firing from Gaza, while stating that Israel’s settlement expansion “clearly presents an obstacle to the horizon of hope that we seek.”

Blinken’s visit to Riyadh is also aimed at restoring ties between the US and Saudi Arabia, which reached a new low under President Biden. The US is particularly keen to get Saudi Arabia to produce more oil to stabilise the energy market, and preventing the Kingdom strengthening ties with China.

Israel’s foreign minister Eli Cohen lashed out at the US vice-president after she urged Israel to maintain an independent judiciary, a remark seen as a jab at the country’s judicial reforms.

Kamala Harris commented on Israel’s judicial system, which has been at the centre of a nationwide dispute for six months, saying the US will continue to “stand for the values that have been the bedrock of the US-Israel relationship, which include continuing to strengthen our democracies, which… are both built on strong institutions, checks and balances — and I’ll add an independent judiciary.”

Foreign minister Cohen said in an interview with Kan Public Broadcaster yesterday: “If we were to ask Kamala Harris what bothers her about the reform, she wouldn’t be able to name a single clause. In the places I visit I have asked people what is bothering them, and nobody can put their finger on what is bothering them. I don’t know if [Harris] read the law or not — my assessment is that she hasn’t.”

essentially nullify the High

makers to pass rulings

the government

The government has been criticised at home and abroad for promoting reforms that would essentially nullify the High Court’s power but allow a simple majority of lawmakers to pass rulings by the court, in addition to letting the government pick High Court judges.

WATERS ATTRACTS FRESH CLAIMS OF ANTISEMITISM

Continued from page 1

Police went as far as opening a criminal investigation into Waters for possible incitement, as first reported by Jewish News

Appearing at the Utilita Arena in Birmingham this week, the former Pink Floyd star claimed he had been subjected to “brutal” treatment after last week’s gigs in Germany reignited allegations of antisemitism.

During a near 10-minute rant, the 79 yearold-rock legend also claimed that British newspapers such as the Telegraph, Daily Mail

and Times were pursuing a vendetta against him because of his support for Palestine.

At one point during his performance, images of Palestinians, apparently living in rundown shacks, are shown to the audience along with the statement: “You can’t have humanitarian rights and an occupation.”

After referencing former Labour leader and now independent MP Jeremy Corbyn, Waters thanked the audience for continuing to support his concerts, adding: “I will not be cancelled.”

Robbie Williams thanks fans in Tel Aviv during his concert

US secretary of state Antony Blinken, right, and Saudi foreign minister Prince Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud

JN tech and creative awards

TECH AND DIGITAL – list of panellists

• Rajesh Agrawal, deputy mayor of London for business

• Moira Benigson, chair, the MBS Group

• Libby Dangoor, chief of staff at Multiverse

• Stephen Grabiner, private investor and philanthropist

• Abdul Hai, LabTech

• Maurice Helfgott, Amery Capital

• Elinor Honigstein, business development at LinkedIn

• Danny Kessler, founder, the Met Group, and chair, UKIB (UK Israel Business)

• Daniel Korski, founder, Public

• Martin Leuw, founder, Growth4Good

• Rebecca Masri, founder, Little Emperors

• Yuval Passov, head of Google for Startups Israel

• Sammy Rubin, founder and CEO, YuLife

• Daniel Saunders, chief executive, L Marks

• Andrew Showman, co-founder and CTO, Currentbody.com

• Emma Sinclair MBE, co-founder of Enterprise Alumni. UNICEF adviser

• Alex Stephany, CEO of BEAM

• Leah Stern, partner, Global Communications at OurCrowd

• Eze Vidra, managing partner, Remagine Ventures

• Justin Cohen, news editor, Jewish News

• Richard Ferrer, editor, Jewish News

• Candice Krieger, business editor, Jewish News

• Andrew Gilbert, chair, Jewish News Business List

The search for the community’s young tech titans and creative geniuses launches this week with a first-of-its-kind project from Jewish News.

Over the next three months, we will identify and celebrate the those making waves – or poised to do so – across the two sectors.

And unlike our previous young lists for which we’ve become known, this one will primarily track impact beyond Anglo-Jewry.

Until 20 July, nominations are being accepted through our website for two separate Forty Under 40 lists: media and creatives and tech. Nominations will also come from two expert panels – facilitated by fashion business leader Andrew Gilbert – who will then have the task of selecting the 40-strong lists to be profiled in the JN in the autumn.

The JN Creatives40 is sponsored by Dangoor Education and the JN Tech40 by LabTech.

Justin Cohen, co-publisher of JewishNews, said: “These lists always generate a huge buzz o and online and an excitement about being included that outweighs even our expectations. Members of our community make a huge contribution in these fields and we’ve no doubt our judging panel faces some tricky decisions ahead. Thank you to them all for joining us on this exciting journey.”

Nominees can be business owners,

practitioners, funders or contribute in other ways across any part of the tech or creativity arenas (the nomination form features a breakdown).

Potential listees must have live in the UK and be aged under 40 on 1 October 2023.

Two further lists – property and business services – will be launched later this year. Nominate at: jewishnews.co.uk/creatives40 jewishnews.co.uk/tech40

SUNDAY 11 JUNE 2023 | 12-4pm

Admission: Adults: £5 | Children: £1 | Children under two: Free

Tickets available to purchase on the door

Aldenham Country Park Events Field, Aldenham Road, Elstree WD6 3BD

For more information please visit www.jewishcare.org/jc-events/ffd

CREATIVE & MEDIA – list of panellists

• Sarah Bailey, editor-at-large, Vogue Greece, formerly editor, Net a Porter, Red magazine and Elle UK

• Andrew Bloch, co-founder, Frank, now Andrew Bloch and Associates

• Adam Clyne, CEO, Coolr

• Tamara Cohen, political correspondent at Sky News

• Natasha Dangoor, Dangoor Education, editor, Apple News

• David Feldman, creative director, VCCP, former creative director, Netflix

• Elliott Goldstein, managing partner, the MBS Group

• Graham Goodkind, chairman and founder at Frank PR

• David Kershaw, Act 111, former CEO M&C Saatchi, former CEO Saatchi and Saatchi

• Colin Lester, JEM Music Group CEO

• Natalie Livingstone, author and journalist

• Joel Macadar, founder, 8 Original and Continuus Sports

• Roy Ner, founder, Jeru restaurant

• Marc Nohr, chairman, Creative Industries, Fold 7, Stick & Twist, and chair of JW3

• Michal Oshman, global head of company culture, TikTok

• Dan Patterson, co-creator Mock The Week and Whose Line is it Anyway?

• Jonny Persey, director, Metfilm

• Linda Plant, BBC The Apprentice interviewer and CEO, Linda Plant Academy

• David Roth, CEO of The Store, EMEA and Asia, the WPP Global Retail Practice and chairman of BrandZ and BAV Group

• Professor Jonathan Shalit OBE, chairman, InterTalent Rights Group

• Raymond Simonson, CEO, JW3

• Sara Simmonds, founder of The Conscious innovator mastermind programme

• Samantha Simmonds, BBC newsreader, TV presenter

• Justin Cohen, news editor, Jewish News

• Richard Ferrer, editor, Jewish News

• Brigit Grant, screenwriter and magazines editor, Jewish News

• Candice Krieger, business editor, Jewish News

• Andrew Gilbert, chair, Jewish News Business List

• Charlotte Harris, music industry lawyer

• Chris Kenna, digital entrepreneur

SPONSORED BY

‘Corbynista’ mayor admits he did not read Labour report on antisemitism

The Labour mayor who has been blocked by party chiefs from applying for a bigger regional post after appearing on stage at an event with Ken Loach has admitted he has not read the full report by the equalities watchdog into antisemitism under Jeremy Corbyn, writes Lee Harpin.

Jamie Driscoll, the serving North of Tyne mayor, was asked by Sky News presenter Sophy Ridge: “Have you read the EHRC [Equality and Human Rights Commission]report into antisemitism in the Labour Party?”

Pushed for an answer during his appearance on the Sophy Ridge On Sunday programme, he admitted: “No, not the full report I haven’t.”

The 52-year-old mayor also doubled down on his decision to appear at an ‘In Conversation’ event at a Newcastle theatre with Loach in March, even though the film director had

been expelled from Labour in 2021 over his involvement with an organisation proscribed by the party for the downplaying and denial of antisemitism claims.

Driscoll, dubbed the “last Corbynista in power”, refused to apologise for his decision to take part in the event with Loach, saying they had discussed “something entirely different” from the controversies around the director’s comments on antisemitism and the Holocaust.

The mayor then appeared to suggest the decision to exclude him from the longlist of Labour candidates for the newly-created bigger North East regional mayoral role was a result of him failing to engage in “culture wars” .

He claimed to have attended antisemitism training with the Jewish Labour Movement (JLM), something the group said it had no

record of, and to have worked “very closely” with the Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) “visiting synagogues in my region”.

Responding to Driscoll’s Ridge interview

Adam Langleben, JLM national secretary, told Jewish News: “It is astonishing that the most senior Labour official in the North East of England hasn’t even read the critical and shameful EHRC report into Labour Party antisemitism.

“It is essential reading for all politicians not least because it states what is expected from ‘agents’ of political parties in regards to all forms of racism. ”

Ridge asked Driscoll if he accepted it was wrong to share a platform with the film director, but he replied: “My understanding is that he’s made all sorts of clarifications and he’s not a Holocaust-denier.”Driscoll added: “What the public want from their politicians is to get on and deliver things and not to engage in culture wars... I think that’s electorally damaging.”

MCB protest at Israel trade envoy chairing review

The Muslim Council of Britain has expressed “deep concern” over the appointment of the Prime Minister’s Trade Envoy to Israel as the chair of a review into civil unrest between Muslims and Hindus in Leicester last year.

Lord Ian Austin has been appointed to chair the independent review, announced last Friday, into the unrest between British Pakistani Muslim and Indian Hindu communities that descended into widespread violence and

vandalism, including attacks on places of worship. He caused controversy in 2021 when he posted a tweet showing a fake new flavour for Ben and Jerry’s ice cream for people in Gaza, named “Hamas Terror Misu” after the

company announced it would stop selling its products in Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

In a statement, the Muslim Council – an umbrella organisation representing Muslim groups across the country

– said: “The appointment of Lord Austin, given his divisive record and the serious allegations of Islamophobia against him, has created deep apprehension among Muslims and other communities in Leicester.”

Jamie Driscoll on the Sky News programme

Appointment: Lord Austin

'Priceless' Torah scroll on Antiques Roadshow

An 18th-century Torah scroll from a tiny seaside Jewish community makes its television debut this weekend, writes Michelle Rosenberg.

The Sefer Torah from the 119-member Kehillat Kernow community in Cornwall features on Antiques Roadshow on BBC this Sunday, listed as a "local artefact of interest".

Filmed last September at the county's eco-attraction The Eden Project, the programme reveals that, from a religious and historic point of view, the scroll is "priceless". The community's website states: "Our little scroll was treated like a VIP and we were all punch drunk with pride."

It was brought to Falmouth in 1740 from Hamburg by Alexander Moses, known as Zender Falmouth. However, when the community closed 140 years later in 1780, it was o ered to Hampstead Synagogue in London. They apparently sent it back due to the high costs of restoration.

lines per column on a light coated parchment. Community chair Jeremy Jacobson is thrilled at the attention. he told Jewish News: “It’s so fitting to picture the scroll here at the Eden Project. It’s a place created out of nothing to build relationships between people and the natural world.

It’s the story of Creation.

“This Sefer Torah is very special for our community. It’s our most sacred possession since it connects us to the original Cornish Jewish community.

"We see it as a never ending renewal of the past, the continuity of our community here, and the positive relevance of the Torah to the future. It’s one of the things that makes Judaism what it is.”

Legend has it that Jews arrived in Cornwall more than 1,000. The county still has towns such as Marazion, which some say means 'Jewish market' in Cornish. And Penzance boasts Market Jew Street.

BIBLE

An American who paid more than £30million sight unseen at auction for one of the world’s rarest books has finally laid eyes on it.

Attorney Alfred Moses, 94, served as US ambassador to Romania during the Clinton administration and is a past president of the American Jewish Committee.

The book is the Codex Sassoon, the world’s oldest nearlycomplete copy of the Hebrew Bible. Thanks to Moses, it will now be housed at the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv, which exhibited it earlier this year.

Fast forward to 1892 and the scroll was presented to the Royal Institution in Cornwall. It stayed in the Royal Cornwall Museum until it was returned to the local community just nine years ago.

and returned to the local community just nine years ago.

With the parchment torn and every letter needing work, it was painstakingly restored by Torah scribe Bernard Benarroch. It’s a ‘Vav’ scroll with 53

While the stories may be doubtful, it's true that Jewish communities were established in the region in the 18th century.

The codex came up for auction at Sotheby’s three weeks ago. Moses set out to buy it, bidding online from his home in Washington DC.

of the auction, according to Bloomberg. He ended up inching the bid to $33.5 million after someone else bid $33 million. Fees brought his final tab to $38.1 million (£30.3 million).

is

The modern day Kehillat Kernow community (Kernow is the ancient word for Cornwall) came into being in 1999. Associated with the Movement for Reform Judaism, it holds fortnightly Shabbat services conducted by volunteers and students from Leo Baeck College.

• Antiques Roadshow airs at 8pm this Sunday on BBC One

“I thought my chances were about 50/50,” Moses said. “But I was prepared to buy it if I could a ord to.”

He expected to pay up to $32.5 million, which he put in as an “irrevocable bid” with Sotheby’s ahead

After the sale, Moses sat in a Manhattan o ce building as a historian turned the pages of the book, which is more than 1,000 years old, in front of him. It was the first time he had seen it.

a place created out of nothing to build relationstory community.

zance boasts Market Jew Street.

the ancient word for Cornwall) came into being in 1999. teers and students from Leo Baeck College.

Jeremy Jacobson with the Sefer Torah

Alfred Moses with the Bible

£5M FOR LABOUR

Former Autoglass boss Gary Lubner has pledged to donate at least £5million to the Labour Party to help put it in power at the next general election “for a long time”.

Lubner, who stepped down as CEO of Autoglass owner Belron in March after amassing a multi-million-pound fortune, gave £500,000 to Labour in the first quarter of 2023, Electoral Commission figures show, which followed an earlier £200,000 donation to the party.

One of the donations helped to pay for a new sta member for the party’s shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves’s o ce.

The Alyth synagogue member has now pledged to give “significantly more”, with regular contributions.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Lubner, a long-time supporter of the UJIA charity, said he wanted to give away “the vast majority” of his wealth, to other charitable causes.

Ahmed rows back on opposition to IHRA Hunt for bus hate fanatic

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

Rishi Sunak’s new free speech commissioner has appeared to row back from his past opposition to the IHRA definition of antisemitism.

Cambridge professor Arif Ahmed admits to having “concerns” about the working definition “in the past” but added: “I have seen at Cambridge how in practice the working definition can accommodate robust support for free speech and academic freedom.”

Ahmed, England’s first director for free speech and academic freedom, also cited evidence in a report by Lord Mann’s parliamentary task force on antisemitism, which “indicates none of the 56 university adopters who were asked reported that its adoption had in any way restricted freedom of speech”.

Ahmed made his latest comments on IHRA in an op-ed published by The Times newspaper to coincide with his appointment.

Jewish News previously revealed

how Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, was among those concerned about Ahmed’s past views.

In 2021, Ahmed objected to a move by then-education secretary Gavin Williamson to make all universities sign up to IHRA on the grounds it “chills free speech” in relation to criticism over Israel.

In his latest remarks, Ahmed continues to insist the IHRA’s definition “must not restrict legitimate

political speech and protest” but adds it “is an important tool for understanding how antisemitism manifests itself in the 21st century”.

Jewish News understands the Board of Deputies will ask to meet Ahmed soon to discuss his views.

Lord Mann has also requested a meeting, saying: “His previous idea that IHRA restricts free speech was ill informed and reached without any empirical research nor any talking to Jewish students.”

Police are seeking a man who spewed appalling racist abuse at a Jewish passenger on a bus last month.

He was filmed yelling “F****** murderers, f****** Jews… you’re the f****** devil”, before violently attacking the victim with a long yellow pole.

The incident took place on Thursday 11 May on a 253 bus between Finsbury Park and Stamford Hill. A report was made to Jewish neighbourhood watch group Shromrim in Stamford Hill.

Shomrim has shared with Jewish News an email update from police saying because the man used an unregistered pre-pay Oyster card, they could not trace his name or address. His image had been circulated on the police website but the case could not progress without a name.

CST director of policy Dave Rich told Jewish News: “This was a particularly nasty and frightening incident for those involved, and the police need the public’s assistance in tracking down the perpetrator.

“We urge anybody with any information that might assist to contact the police or CST to help identify him before he does it again.”

Lord Mann speaking on antisemitism to the football charity Kick It Out

CCTV of the incident

Emergency crowdfunder for dad, 43, with terminal cancer

Friends and family of a Borehamwood fatherof-two with terminal cancer have launched an emergency crowdfunding campaign to support his wife and two young children, writes Michelle Rosenberg.

Daniel Weston, 46, was diagnosed with bowel cancer three and a half years ago. The disease spread to his liver, lymph nodes, pelvis, neck and lung. A patient at Barnet Hospital up until a week ago, a scan gave the devastating diagnosis of necrosis of the bowel, giving Weston just days or weeks to live.

He is now at home, with his wife of 10 years Hayley, 47, daughter Leia, aged six, and eightyear-old son Raphael. Both children are pupils at Clore Shalom Primary School in Shenley.

In an attempt to ensure the young family is financially cared for, close friend Ronit Raman set up a crowdfunding page, writing: “As this has come as a sudden shock to Hayley and Dan. I would like to raise money for them to support them after he passes and to give Dan the reassurance that he can go knowing that for the period after he passes away, Hayley won’t have to worry about money.”

To date, more than 420 supporters have donated more than £21,000.

Hayley’s twin brother Damian Collier,

seven minutes older than his sister, spoke about the fundraiser to Jewish News: “It’s been a really di cult time. It will give my brother-in-law great comfort that they’ll have some financial support after he passes away.”

In what Hayley describes as “a cruel twist of fate”, she and Damian lost their own mother in 1983, when she was 34 and they were just seven years old. Their parents had been married for a decade, the same number

of years since Hayley and Daniel married at Micklefield Hall in Hertfordshire.

“She was born with a hole in her heart in 1949,” says Damian of their mother “and never really recovered from it. She was ill from it her whole life. She died 7 June 1983. It is 40 years to the day.”

Describing his sister as being “in the eye of the storm” with Dan in his last days, Collier says that despite the “sad and strange parallels” between the tragic incidents, a more poetic way of looking at things is that he’s going to join our mother. It’s like history repeating itself. This time, we’re seeing it through the eyes of adults who are supporting the family.”

With Daniel now at home, Collier admits it’s been incredibly traumatic for the entire family: “He’s there, he’s conscious, spending time with Hayley and the kids. But as with all these things, he is deteriorating and it’s only a matter of time. He’s sat there at home on his couch, and we’re having conversations as if he could live forever, but we all know the reality of what is coming and are just trying to support my sister and her kids.”

 You can help Daniel’s family at: just giving.com/crowdfunding/westonfamily?utm_term=RgByRkqYP

Daniel with Raphael and Leia. Picture courtesy of the Weston family

‘How we engage young adults will shape future’

Jo Grose, the United Synagogue’s first female chief executive, reflects with Michelle Rosenberg on the challenge of providing and building community

Jo Grose made history this year when she became the United Synagogue’s first female chief executive in its 153-year history.

The US was impressed by “her clear vision”, her management experience and “passion for our work and desire to take the charity forward to engage even more of our members”.

At the time, Grose told Jewish News of her ambitious plans to empower young adults to build communities that meet their needs, adding that she wanted to attract and retain the best rabbinic couples.

She’s certainly no wallflower. The Borehamwood and Elstree shul member, originally from Manchester, was chair of Yavneh College and a director at Partnerships for Jewish Schools (PaJeS) and PJ Library before joining the US to implement its 2015 Strategic Review.

She then worked with the communities team before being appointed communities director.

Fast forward eight years and Grose is keen not to be “put in a box”. However, she does say that her appointment “has shown our female sta that there is a route to promotion and that females have a significant voice in the organisation. It’s shown our female spiritual leaders, our rebbetzens that they have a platform.”

She works closely with both rebbetzens and female educators, and feels part of their community, she says. “They now feel they are well represented at the top of the organisation. And our members have approached me. I’ve genuinely received hundreds of messages from women and girls in the community saying that ‘we feel now that we have an opportunity to be heard’.”

Grose was already “quite used” to speaking to rooms full of rabbis and “very male-dominated spaces” but notes that the sands are shifting. She envisages a time, possibly “in the next few years”, where it’s possible there will also be a female president of the United Synagogue.

She describes the organisation’s shift towards fully embracing women as a gradual evolution, saying “it’s of course impacted by what goes on in women’s lives outside of the United Synagogue but it just feels like a natural progression”.

One of the reasons she feels she’s in her current role is because she’s worked so closely with

female leaders over recent years: “To have been successful in my job as communities director, I needed to understand the rabbinate and by that I mean rabbis and rebbetzens and their roles. They needed to trust me and I think that’s what I succeeded in doing.” She notes that she’s only “had support from the Chief Rabbi – there has been absolutely no resistance.”

Grose is open about her own Jewish learning experiences: “I didn’t go to sem [seminary: institute of Jewish studies for women). I’ve made space for the additional Jewish learning I needed to do this role.”

Turning to young adults, she describes their relationship with the US and the wider Jewish community as “the existential challenge”.

For Grose, “it’s making sure that there are community models, spaces and encounters that speak to young adults and we’re able to bridge the gap between their living in an increasingly secular world, with liberal values, and being able to bridge that with authentic Orthodox tradition. The only way to do that is to listen.”

And she does seem to be particularly good at it. She’s wary of hoping younger generations to want the same religious spaces their parents want. “We don’t expect them to pop up in the cathedral-style shuls performing the same roles that their parents did,” she says. What’s key for her is “that everyone wants to feel that they belong. Everyone is looking for a community of sorts and people want a means of expressing their Jewish values. That’s what we need to provide and build. We need to create something new within our tradition. That’s priority one.”

Priority two is the rabbis and rebbetzens, whom she describes as “critical to the success of our communities”. The US is acutely aware it needs “to ensure that we are attracting the very best spiritual leaders to our communities, we are retaining them, we’re making sure that they can have meaningful careers, they constantly have the opportunity to develop and that they are living financially secure professional lives”.

Touching on recent rabbinical departures, Jewish News asks if there is a problem with retention. “There are quite a few empty pulpits at the moment but I think framing it as ‘a

problem’ isn’t quite right. We have would be a shift post-Covid.

problem’ isn’t quite right. We have known for a long time that there would be a shift post-Covid. Some rabbis are very successful and stay and grow with the community; for others they have reached the end of the time.” She says what’s new is the development of portfolio careers. “Many rabbis serving our communities are also working as a lawyer, an accountant, doing something creative in another Jewish organisation.”

community; for others they have reached the end of the is the development of portalso working as a lawyer, an something creative in another Jewish is

Grose is keen that com munity and synagogue don’t mean “just

the Shabbat morning moment”, pens in the week. It’s the Chesed co ee or in someone’s home.

the Shabbat morning moment”, saying: “It’s everything that happens in the week. It’s the Chesed deliveries, the di cult conversations you might have over a co ee or in someone’s home. We are not just our shuls. We are a charity that’s serving the British Jewish community in as broad as possible a way.”

British Jewish community in always be challenging conwhat religion means to an individual. “It 20 years ago. ago. We just

Grose knows there’ll always be challenging conversations about what religion means to an individual. “It was a challenge 20 years ago. It was a challenge 40 years ago. We just have to keep evolving.”

Jo Grose

Memorial ‘can be part of a new Jewish Museum’

A group of historians, politicians and Shoah survivors is urging the government to establish a new Jewish Museum in central London using funds allocated for the proposed Westminster Holocaust memorial, writes Joy Falk.

Their call comes in a letter signed by prominent figures including Tory MP Sir Peter Bottomley and historian Sir Simon Schama after the Jewish Museum London announced it is closing its building in Camden and selling the premises.

Jewish Museum chair Nick Viner said a combination of financial challenges, the pandemic and cost of living crisis plus a “reluctant decision not to continue with temporary exhibitions” had led trustees to “think about our vision for the future”.

The letter says a solution could be to combine the plan for a Holocaust “learning centre” in Westminster, budgeted at more than £102m. “What is the better use of funds – to present the tragedies and triumphs of continuing Jewish life in Britain over the centuries, as the museum does? Or on a politicised perspective on our worst tragedy set in isolation from our survival, which is the theme of the ‘learning centre’?” the letter said.

“The obvious solution is to combine the two in one splendid Jewish Museum in central London dealing with Jewish history and the Shoah in context. This would end the toxic debate about the government project and has the potential to provide a worldclass, cohesive and thriving centre for generations to come.”

The museum is due to close next

HALF PAGE ADVERT JAN 2020:Layout 1 09/01/2020 16:04 Page 1

month, with much of its collection of more than 40,000 objects going into storage. It hopes to be out of the building by the end of this year.

Viner said the idea was “probably to set up in a new location with more footfall”, which might take three to five years, adding that several parties had shown interest in buying the existing building.

Plans to regenerate Liverpool Street Station will ensure greater focus is placed on its Kindertransport memorial.

The £1.5bn project for the railway terminal includes £450m of upgrades focused on tackling problems of accessibility, capacity and overcrowding to improve the experience of the station’s estimated 135 million annual users.

In an artist’s rendering seen by Jewish News included in the proposed upgrade, the Kindertransport – The Arrival statue (2006) would be given greater space and prominence in an improved Hope Square.

The Holocaust refugee statue serves as a memorial to the thousands of unaccompanied European Jewish children who fled to London on the Kindertransport in the Second World War, Für das Kind (2003), a bronze of two children with suitcases by the sculptor Flor Kent, will also feature.

Artist Marit Meisler, CEO

and creative director of the Meisler Gallery and daughter of artist Frank Meisler, who designed the Arrival sculpture, said: “My father was a Kindertransport child. England gave him a home and allowed him to stay in England after he was orphaned during WW2.

“Liverpool Street station is hugely symbolic and meaningful as this is where the children who were saved with him got off the train.

“Years later, when he was commissioned to make this sculpture, he was very moved, and I know that for him it was the most significant work he ever did.”

A group is calling for the Jewish Museum and Holocaust Memorial to be combined

The statue is to be relocated

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How Daniel’s family endured

Daniel Finkelstein says he had always known that one day he would come to write his family memoir. But it took the onset of the Covid pandemic, which dragged him away from a cycle of meetings, Times newspaper articles and frequent travel, to allow him the time and space to complete the book.

In Hitler Stalin Mum and Dad, A Family Memoir of Miraculous Survival, the Conservative peer manages to detail calmly and movingly the near-catastrophic impact Hitler and Stalin had on his family.

It is rare to find a book that succeeds on so many levels: as a real-life story, giving insight into how as young children, his mother Mirjam survived the Belsen death camp and his father Ludwik escaped the Gulag labour camp system; and as a historical document shedding light on the impact of the August 1939 Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Josef Stalin and Adolf Hitler.

The book is also an undoubted warning about the creeping danger of populist political ideals and the spreading of conspiracy theories in the modern era.

“The way I put it is that the Nazis arrested people because they were Jewish who happened to own shops, whereas the Soviets arrested people who own shops who happen to be Jewish,” Finkelstein told Jewish News

“But it actually had the same e ect on the people they did it to. And it was all about thinking that my 10-year-old mother and father were members of an elite that would actually be, in some way, kind of less than human. But they were also more than human, because they were posing a danger to the kind of true spirit of mankind, whatever it happens to be.”

Within its absorbing 390 pages, Finkelstein invites the reader back into the lives led by his mother’s parents Grete and Alfred Wiener in Berlin, and those of Lusia

and Dolu (Adolf) Finkelstein, his father’s parents, living in Lwów in Poland, now Lviv in Ukraine.

As the 1930s arrived, both families were living in relative comfort as political change began to take hold in Europe. Alfred, a decorated hero from the Great War and later founder of the Wiener Holocaust Library, is seen as perhaps the first person to recognise the threat Nazism posed to Germany’s Jews. As early as 1919 he had written of an “antisemitic storm” sweeping the country and began to archive evidence of Hitler’s threat to the world. Convinced that Germany was no longer safe, he moved his family – Finkelstein’s mother Mirjam was the youngest of three girls – to Holland in 1933.

In Amsterdam, where they were initially happy, Anne Frank would even become a school classmate.

But as Alfred became increasingly outspoken about the Nazis, he was viewed

Daniel Finkelstein tells Lee Harpin what compelled him to share his family’s staggering story of survival

Maj Ignacy Schrage and Jadzia in Lwów in the late 1930s

with increasing suspicion by the Dutch authorities, who attempted to remain neutral as war clouds formed across Europe. In an act for which Finkelstein reveals he holds no grudge against Alfred, he left Amsterdam in 1939 for London, without his family, going on to provide crucial intelligence information to Allied Forces. But the visas that were intended to bring his wife and children to the UK arrived only at the same time as the Nazis invaded Holland. Meanwhile, that same year, Finkelstein’s family also became the target of Stalin’s ruthless purge of the Polish bourgeoisie, with Dulu’s status as a wealthy industrialist leading to him being arrested and sent to a prison camp.

His wife and his son, Ludwik, then aged 10, were deported to a farm in Siberia and made to work turning cow dung into bricks. At one stage, as the freezing conditions threatened their lives, Lusia made a hut out of the cow dung.

It brings tears to the eyes to read how Lusia was determined to educate her son by telling the Iliad and Odyssey from memory, as it does to learn of how, in Amsterdam, Grete would be forced to buy yellow stars to identify herself and her family as Jews.

Finkelstein writes about the persecution of family members in a calm, descriptive manner. “The whole approach I took was that these events have a power themselves,” he says. “I didn’t want to undermine them, or add in my own exclamation marks.

“My mother used to gently say, ‘They made us buy these stars.’ The whole story, that the Jews had to distribute the stars, that the Jews had to pay for the stars, this is all pretty astonishing. Clearly they do demand an exclamation mark, but how much more powerful to put it down on the page and let people think for themselves ‘Well that’s something isn’t it?’”

Finkelstein also reveals that the working title of the book had been It’s Not A Competition, Hitler Stalin Mum and Dad, but he bowed to his publisher’s better judgment. Again, the observations of his mother emerge. “She used to say ‘Don’t start trying to work out who was worse, they were both terrible. We don’t need to start a league table,’” Finkelstein recalls. “I think that’s correct. There’s no question they were both terrible crimes and I don’t feel I have to stack them up against each other.

“One thing I am insistent on, however, is that both of these ideologies brought terrible su ering. And it is not ridiculous to ask what are the common roots between them and the common crimes that they committed.”

In the book, Finkelstein describes the pact

between Hitler and Stalin as the “most important political event in the lives of my parents”. Because Stalinists and the Nazis had come to this pact it was possible for them both to invade Poland,” he says. “My father’s story is propelled because the Soviets take over Lwów, or Lviv as they turn it into. And they arrest civic leaders including my grandfather and send their families to state farms in Siberia.

“My mother’s story, the invasion of Holland, is made possible by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. Hitler didn’t have to worry about his other flank and was free to occupy other parts of western Europe. The crimes they committed together when you are trying to assess who was worse, Hitler or Stalin, never forget the crimes they committed together and only look at them for the crimes they committed apart.”

The family’s future seemed bleak when Grete and her daughters were sent to Westerbork labour camp in 1943, then to Belsen. “I do think one of the most extraordinary things in the book are my aunt’s descriptions of Friday evenings in the concentration camps,” says the author.

They managed to survive almost certain death in Belsen as a result of Alfred’s hard work, securing the family, using false documents, a place on a tiny ‘exchange’ scheme in which prisoners were swapped with Germans who had been captured by the allied forces.

“I knew my mother was involved in a exchange, but it was so rare – it only involved around 136 people – that you can’t read about it in many general histories of the Holocaust, “ says Finkelstein. It would take the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941 to shatter the pact between Hitler and Stalin and end the slaughter of millions of Poles.

The book goes on to detail how both families eventually settled and prospered in England. Finkelstein is clear about what he wishes the reader to take from it. “I want people to understand the history of the middle of the 20th century through the lives of one family,” he says. “I want them to be gripped by this story and to feel the emotions of it, and understand what some of these great big ideologies mean. What people take away from it politically, that’s up to them.”

The book o ers further weight to Finkelstein’s own impassioned defence of the need for moderate political discourse. “The reason for doing the book was not just that I thought it was an amazing story,” he says. “I did think,

in timeliness terms, that the dangers of extreme ideologies and a kind of decline in liberal democratic norms – those could be seen, and therefore there was something I could contribute just by telling the story.”

He is also concerned by the rise of populism,both on the left and on the right, not just in this country but in countries such as Israel. “Populism everywhere is a dangerous idea,” says Finkelstein, who says the history of his family has made him “more assertive” when arguing in defence of the Jewish state. But he is openly fearful about the direction taken by Benjamin Netanyahu’s coalition government

in relation to the judicial reforms that sparked protests in Israel, and across the globe.

Having completed the book, did it alter Finklestein’s view of the threat posed to the community by the former Labour leader?

“Jeremy Corbyn obviously wasn’t a Stalinist,” he responds. “He was more of a Trotskyite.

“But where I do think there is in some Corbynite thinking is a sort of conspiracy thinking about elites, also shared on the right by someone like Donald Trump. Or by someone like Andrea Jenkyns or Jacob Rees-Mogg, who talk about some sort of abstract elite. It’s very important to mention that none of the people I’ve mentioned, maybe with the exception of Donald Trump, possibly, would think of themselves as thinking that way. But it’s quite dangerous.”

Dolu in the early 1920s with ‘best friend’, business partner and brother Bernard; Lusia with Ludwik and the family’s chauffeur-driven car, 1932

Dolu, Lusia and Ludwik on a stroll in Tel Aviv on 2 April 1945

Ludwik pictured on a Friday evening back in 1970

Mirjam with Ludwik, who – as Daniel notes –is wearing a jacket and tie on the beach

Daniel Finkelstein

Toddler dies after West Bank shooting

A two-year old Palestinian boy who was shot mistakenly by Israeli soldiers in the West Bank has died. Mohammed Tamimi was shot along with his father when Israeli troops fired at Palestinian terrorists in the settlement of Neve Tzu. The IDF said two assailants carried out a shooting toward the community and IDF soldiers responded with live fire as a result of which two Palestinians were injured. The statement added: “The IDF regrets harm to non-combatants.”

First step forward for ‘air taxi’ drone tests

Israel has conducted its first tests of an autonomous aircraft, also known as an air taxi, that can carry passengers and heavy cargo. The revolutionary aircraft, part of the Israel National Drone Initiative (INDI), is expected to serve as public transportation in the future. The initiative was launched in 2019, with tests carried out at various locations by 11 different drone companies with the aim of revolutionising Israel’s notorious public transportation and traffic ills.

Killer named as Israeli soldiers die at border

The Egyptian police officer who killed three Israeli soldiers on Saturday has been identified as Mohamed Salah Ibrahim, 22, from Cairo, writes Jotam Confino.

Ibrahim crossed the border into Israel using two combat knives to cut through an emergency barrier used by the IDF and Egyptian authorities.

He killed Staff Sgt Ori Yitzhak Iluz, 20, and Sgt Lia Ben Nun, 19, at an Israeli guard post 150 metres from the border, catching them by surprise and unable to return fire.

After a drone identified Ibrahim hiding nearby, he opened fire at a group of Israeli soldiers, killing Staff Sgt Ohad Dahan, 20, but was killed minutes later by Israeli soldiers who closed in on him.

In addition to the knives he used to cut through the barrier, the military said Ibrahim was in possession of a Quran and six magazines for the assault rifle he was carrying.

According to Israeli media, Ibrahim had complained about his military service and was struggling with mental

SEMI STARS!

Hamza Shibli, far right, celebrates with teammates after scoring against Brazil in a FIFA U-20 World Cup match in Argentina. The team plays its semi-final match on Thursday.

Victims: The three dead Israeli soldiers health issues after a colleague of his died. He had also shown sympathy with Palestinians in Gaza during the 2021 war between Israel and Hamas.

Admitting to “systemic” failures that led to the incident, IDF chief Herzl Halevi appointed Maj Gen Nimrod Aloni to lead a team that will “examine the operational and systemic perception of defence of peaceful borders”.

Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu described the inci-

in Israel with Israel Bonds

Barcelona’s mayor unseated in election

Ada Colau, Barcelona’s left-wing mayor who made headlines for breaking off the city’s longstanding relationship with Tel Aviv, was unseated in Sunday’s municipal elections after eight years in power. She was defeated by Xavier Trias, the right-wing candidate from the Junts party, a former mayor who Colau had previously unseated in 2015. Colau, a backer of the BDS movement, caused a media stir when she dissolved the Barcelona-Tel Aviv twin-city pact.

Ambassador absent from Shoah event

dent at the otherwise quiet crossing point as “severe and extraordinary” and said it would be fully investigated, adding: “I want to commend our forces who sought contact and eliminated the terrorist.” Defence minister Yoav Gallant spoke with Egyptian counterpart, Mohamed Zaki, saying the cooperation between Israel and Egypt in investigating the attack “is of great importance to the ties between our countries”.

Bulgaria’s ambassador to Israel Rumiana Bachvarova did not attend a conference on Bulgarian Holocaust history last week, in a move organisers said displays her government’s attempts to whitewash Bulgaria’s part in the wartime deportation of Jews. An embassy official said the envoy had received “a last-minute invitation” but decided the discussions should remain at an expert historical level, “without political presence”.

‘After Veteran Games, I feel I can do anything’

Justin Cohen reflects on a life-changing week in Israel for former British soldiers at the Veteran Games

Heroes of the third Veteran Games returned to the UK this week with tales of “miracles” after a week of building confidence, enhancing family bonds and making lifelong friends.

Sixty-two wounded veterans returned from the event in Israel where they competed in swimming, X-fit and shooting against each other and their Israeli counterparts. The spectacle –organised by Beit Halochem UK and supported by communal philanthropists – also involved the families who are often key to rehabilitation.

“Words can’t give the week the true justice it deserves,” said Stacey Mitchell, who served in the RAF, reflecting the views of many. “It has been nothing short of breathtaking, motivational and spectacular. No matter how big the next mountain feels, I now know that I

can achieve anything. I didn’t see disabilities, merely people achieving so much. Now you are all home you can all still achieve so much.”

The 29-year-old – who had part of her leg amputated following an overuse injury – said:

“The beautiful country of Israel, the people, culture, and most of all the newfound friendships made with the Beit Halochem Veterans will stay with me for the rest of my life. I hope the Veteran Games continues to impact many more veterans over the coming years. Thank you for creating miracles.”

Others spoke of how the country they toured – including the Dead Sea, Jerusalem and Tel Aviv – was the “complete opposite” of the impression they garnered from the media.

Former Royal Marine Tim Crossin – who is su ering from terminal cancer – was given the green light by his doctor to join so long as he didn’t take part in certain sports. “I’m filled with pride to have been part of something so special and inspirational and honoured to have met and befriended such positive amazing people. Tomorrow is not a guarantee for anyone so live every day to the full. I hope to see you all again.”

Mark Strachan, who lost his sight in Iraq in 2003 and broke almost every bone in his chest and back, was diagnosed with PTSD 14 years later. He struggles with leaving the house due to anxiety but, having gained the vision in one eye, pushed himself to attend the Games.

After hearing about the su ering of both the UK and Israeli vets at the opening ceremony, however, he broke down in tears. “But I was comforted by total strangers there that night and that changed me within as from day four I took myself away from the group at the beach and back to the hotel, had a shower and hit the market and art galleries of Tel Aviv and got out there to speak to the locals. It was amazing. I just wished my wife and children could have had the opportunity to have seen it themselves.”

The Games were attended by Veterans Minister Johnny Mercer, who stressed the centrality of sport in recovery. He said: “When I came back from my third tour in Afghanistan, I struggled to adjust to normal life. It was running up the Cornish moors, swimming in the river and

walking to the local pubs that helped. You should all be proud of your incredible strength and achievements.

be proud of your incredible

Please do share your experience at the Veterans Games with others, it is so important that we promote sport for what it can benot only a vehicle to recovery but a way to come together as a community, to support each other and cheer others on.”

Without the need for qualification or reachjng a certain sporting standard, each of the veterans were chosen by the following charities based solely on whether it was thought they and their families would benefit from the experience: Rock2Recovery, BLESMA, Royal Air Force Benevolent Fund, The Not Forgotten Association, The Royal Marines Charity, The Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women, Veterans Scotland, Poppy Scotland. FELIX Fund, Blind Veterans UK.

The Games’ main sponsors by the Wolfson Family Charitable Trust, Charles Wolfson Charitable Trust, Exilarch’s Foundation, Rachel Charitable Trust, Pears Foundation, Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation, Gerald and Gail Ronson Family Foundation, Regatta Professional and the Future Directions Foundation.

A football academy for the kids of participants is backed by Patron Charitable Initiatives and Power League.

 Editorial comment, page 20

Participants and their families in the Beit Halochem sports centre outside Tel Aviv

British and Israeli competitors

The event put families front and centre

James is 56 years-old, married to Tina and lives in South-West London, with their children, Isabelle and Tom. He has a rare blood cancer called Myelofibrosis, for which his only chance of successful treatment is with a stem cell transplant from someone with a matching tissue type.

Because James is Jewish, a matching donor is far more likely to be Jewish too. James’ family background is mainly Sephardi and part Ashkenazi, with ancestors from Europe, Northern Africa, the Middle East and parts of Asia, and this is particularly an appeal to people of similar ancestry.

The only way to find out if you are a match is for you to take a simple test. This just means brushing the inside of your mouth with a cotton bud-like swab. If you’re 17-55, please attend one of the swabbing events listed below. You can also visit sueharristrust.org to order a postal kit.

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A simple swab will help us find out.

Sbarro victim dies after 22 years

An Israeli woman injured in a Palestinian terror attack has died 22 years later, writes Jotam Confino.

New York-born Chana Tova Chaya Nachenberg had been in a vegetative state since the attack at the Sbarro Pizzeria in Jerusalem on 9 August 2001, which left 15 people dead, including seven children.

More than 100 people were injured in the attack carried out by Izz al-Din Shuheil al-Masri on the corner of King George and Ja a Road.

Nachenberg’s three-yearold daughter survived the attack unharmed. “Her daughter, our granddaughter, is 24 and a half

today. My daughter was supposed to be 53 years old in a month,” Nachenberg’s father, Yitzhak, was quoted by Times of Israel as saying.

“It has been 21 years and nine months since the attack, for which my daughter has been unconscious, in a coma, at Reuth Rehabilitation Hospital in Tel Aviv.

About three weeks ago, she was hospitalised at Ichilov Hospital, where she died this evening,” he added.

A Palestinian woman, Ahlam Aref Ahmad Al-Tamimi, was later arrested and jailed in Israel for being an accomplice in the attack. She was given multiple life sentences, but

was released in 2011 as part of Israel’s deal with Hamas to release Gilad Shalit from Gaza in return for more than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners. The Palestinian terrorist is one og FBI’s “most wanted”, with up to £4million o ered for tips that lead to her arrest.

Three protesters arrested at Jerusalem Pride

Israeli police have arrested three men for making threats against the annual Jerusalem Pride parade, where thousands of people came to show support for gay rights.

Organisers of the parade reported numerous threats to the police in recent days. One Telegram group called “Jews don’t stay silent” contained inciting messages ahead of

the parade, with one reading: “May all the marchers die from machine gun fire.”

The far-right extremist Lehava group organised a counter-protest in Jerusalem, holding signs reading: “Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman. That is detestable.”

Jerusalem residents said they had received phone mes-

sages last Wednesday, reading: “Jerusalem is not Sodom. Religious, secular, ultra-Orthodox [people]– everyone is coming tomorrow to protest against the ‘abomination parade’ at 15.45 near the Begin Centre.”

Several opposition leaders joined the parade in support of the LGBTQ [lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer] community, including

Labour leader Merav Michaeli and National Unity party leader Benny Gantz.

Security around Jerusalem

Pride has been tightened since 2015 when strictly-Orthodox extremist, Yishai Schlissel, killed a young girl, Shira Banki, in a stabbing attack.

More than 2,000 police o cers were deployed throughout the city to ensure

the parade could go ahead as planned, while roads were closed o to tra c along the route.

Before entering politics, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Betzalel Smotrich took part in hateful counter-protests during Jerusalem Pride, one of which was called the “beast parade”, which likened animals to homosexuality.

David Ornstein

Freddie Ljungberg

Daniel Geey

Left: Chana Nachenberg and her family and, above, the scene of the attack

Jerusalem Pride attendees

ISSUE

NO. 1318

Heroes who inspire

The word ‘hero’ is often overused. Not so when describing the participants of the third Veteran Games.

Some of the 62 British former service personnel who took part in the event in Israel last week lost limbs while defending our freedoms, others have lived in darkness after the loss of their sight. For some, there is a different type of darkness, reflected in the posttraumatic stress disorder and other mental health difficulties that have affected them since their days on the front line.

But the way in which they’ve pieced back their lives, often finding an alternative path and always with the fortitude and determination that the rest of us sometimes struggle to muster, is awe-inspiring. They’ve built careers, families and helped others through fundraising challenges. As the two-time Israeli Paralympian Hanoch Budin put it: everywhere you looked you saw ability rather than disability.

It was a stroke of genius on the part of organisers, Beit Halochem UK, when it saw an opportunity to inspire children by taking these heroes into schools to talk about their journeys through good and bad. Andrew Wolfson, Spencer Gelding, Marc Samuels and Andy Garland deserve huge credit, as do the partner charities, the sponsors, Israel Experience and everyone else who makes the Games a jewel in the Jewish calendar.

Credit also needs to go to veterans minister Johnny Mercer for taking time to attend the Games to further the work about which he is so passionate. Let’s hope the annual event and the incredible facilities he saw at Beit Halochem contribute to his mission to make the UK the best place in the world to be a veteran.

Sales Manager Marc Jacobs 020 8148 9701 marc@jewishnews.co.uk

Sales Yael Schlagman 020 8148 9705 yael@jewishnews.co.uk

Blinkered view of faith

It’s hard to know where to begin in deconstructing Ann Cohen’s brief, bigoted and uninformed diatribe against Rachel Riley (Jewish News, 1 June). Let’s put it down to simple ignorance. There are 300,000 Jews in the UK, and close to 70 million of other faiths or none. Marrying a Jewish partner may be the wish of many of us, but ‘outmarriage’ is inevitable on these figures. What is more, to state that Jewish school enrolment guarantees continuity is nonsense. Many parents see it as relieving them of the responsibility to teach Judaism at home. The removal of Jewish children from state and private schools –and I am no opponent of Jewish schools – means huge numbers of youngsters rarely, if ever, meet a Jewish child. (My daughter at university told a

AN OMISSION

I was perturbed to see the gap in Candice Krieger’s knowledge of Jewish podcasts. In her 31 May article, she seems to have missed Rabbiting On, the brilliant podcast hosted by Rabbis Robyn Ashworth-Steen, Debbie Young-Somers and Miriam Berger. I recommend she catches up before her next article with podcast recommendations.

Jenny Nuni, Chair, Finchley Reform Synagogue

HOW TO FIGHT FASCISM

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TIMES...

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Baroness (Ruth) Anderson warns of a “fight ahead” on fascism (Jewish News, 25 May). If she wishes to take on Jew-haters, be they of a right-wing, left-wing or Islamist variety, I am confident she will have the support of an overwhelming majority of British Jews. If she is instead seeking to weaponise antisemitism against conservative-minded friends of the Jewish community who are strong supporters of Israel, she will cause a huge rift. She will find many of her opponents are Jewish and will battle against her.

Gary Mond, Chair, National Jewish Assembly

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boy in her digs she was Jewish. His reply? “You can’t be. I’ve never met anyone Jewish.” She had the wit to reply: “How do you know?”)

My fellow worshippers include mixed-faith families whose commitment to Judaism, with their children steeped in it too, gives the lie to Ms Cohen’s ill-informed snap judgement.

She clearly thinks that rejecting those who opt-in from other faiths is preferable to a policy of welcome and inclusion. Rachel Riley means what she says and practises it. Anyone who opts to join a small community still under pressure from antisemitism and embrace its values gets my vote over the blinkered view of Ms Cohen.

Barry Hyman Bushey Heath

OVERSTATING THE POINT

You report erstwhile Board of Deputies senior vice-president Gary Mond has told a Christian TV channel the organisation has many members who are against the state of Israel. Is this the same Gary Mond who got the highest number of votes of any of the candidates to become VP two years ago, thus becoming senior vice-president? Fancy that.

Joe Millis, By email

HE’S GONE TO THE WALL

Roger Waters’ statement that he is “not antisemitic”, despite using classic tropes and posing as an SS officer in public view, is a case of Dark Side of the Loon.

Jeremy Zeid, By email

Roger Waters is one of the most gifted songwriters of the past 50 years. The Wall is beautiful, haunting, iconic and timeless in its portrayal of a man who finds himself seduced by the dark side into the abyss of fascism and totalitarian-

I went to Roger Waters’ Birmingham concert. What struck me, apart from the magnificent music, was his fixation on all things antiIsrael. The man is obsessed.

Sid Parner, By email

ism. It wouldn’t be the first case of life imitating art.

Sam Mater, By email

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.

BLINDBRITAIN’SSPOT

Museum’s closure is one

BRUMMER

Tperformed there many times with her theatre, Pomegranate Puppets, and repertoire of original Jewish folk tales, some built around the cycle of festivals.

museum educator and consultant who worked with the Camden site over many years.

been a great secret, but the suddenness of the closure decision is a huge shock.

public relations spin of reopening again on a larger scale in a central London location in three to five years time. To someone who has spent a lifetime in journalism digesting corporate announcements, this looks fatuous.

How embarrassing for British Jewry, which is so proud of institutional strength, from the

TO SOMEONE USED TO DIGESTING CORPORATE ANNOUNCEMENTS, THIS LOOKS FATUOUS

owes an enormous debt of gratitude to shipping

the Camden Museum going until a more a more

From the Jewish Museum in Camden, to the can make such a mark in the secular exhibitions, why the hesitation to celebrate and commemorate our own heritage and achievements?

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ALEX

CITY EDITOR, THE DAILY MAIL

‘Now that , Mizzy, is how to prank’

What’s more Jewish than to wonder where you belong?

DARREN RICHMAN JOURNALIST & AUTHOR

PG Wodehouse is the greatest writer of comic prose in the history of literature and, therefore, to those of us of a certain disposition, the greatest writer full stop. His books are, in his own words, “a sort of musical comedy without music ignoring real life altogether”. Thomas Hardy is clearly great, but his novels are rarely a laugh a minute.

Another golden age of television came to an end last week with the conclusions of Succession, Barry and The Marvelous Mrs Maisel

As might be expected of any piece of art with Jewish themes, the community was split over the latter, and one can’t help but think of an old joke Midge Maisel never tells on stage, the one about the Jew shipwrecked on a desert island. Years later, when he’s finally rescued, the captain of the ship notices he’s built two synagogues. He asks why and the response is crucial to understanding the nature of our people: “One synagogue I pray in and the other

I wouldn’t be seen dead in.” Two Jews, three opinions and, for some, the fact that Jewish culture is presented as little more than part of the scenery is an issue, not to mention the fact that Rachel Brosnahan and several other members of the cast are gentiles.

The show centres on Jewish characters and the events begin to take place just 13 years after the end of the Second World War. The setting is New York City, the home of one of the largest Jewish communities outside Israel (is there a collective noun? I propose “an argument of Jews”) in the aftermath of some of the most horrifying events of the past century. This is a recognisably Jewish show about recognisably Jewish characters, yet it takes place in a world disassociated from reality where even the spectre of the Holocaust is hardly visible.

The show’s creator has stated that she was raised “as Jewish. Sort of”. Or, as I’ve often considered myself, Jewish. It is worth noting that Amy Sherman-Palladino’s Jewishness comes from her father’s side and Judaism traditionally traces Jewish descent through the maternal line. Nothing could be more Jewish than wondering whether you belong, and the

writer spent her childhood with an uneasy relationship with her identity until an epiphany on discovering The 2000 Year Old Man, a comedy album by Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner:

“It wasn’t just the words. It was the way [Brooks] said everything. And then it dawned on me. That was Jewish. That’s how it’s supposed to sound. And feel. It’s fast and furious and human and exhausted and hilarious.”

The character, one of the funniest recorded, involves Brooks, in a thick Yiddish accent, reflecting on his 2000 years on earth. The Jewishness of The Marvelous Mrs Maisel, therefore, can be seen as an impersonation of an impersonation. In 2013, years before Maisel went into production, the showrunner wrote: “If my mother would not convert, if I could not have a batmitzvah, if I could never truly learn the rituals, the words, the point of leaving a chair open at Passover, at least I had them. I

had Mel. I had Carl. I had found my inner Jew.” Another Jewish great, Joan Rivers, was the biggest inspiration for the eponymous heroine. Rivers was often criticised for joking about the Holocaust because she never sugarcoated the truth. The comic believed it was her duty to joke about what happened since her husband lost his entire family during the war years, explaining, “This is the way I remind people about the Holocaust. I do it through humour.”

The material about the 13 Jews Midge’s father-in-law saved from Germany doesn’t remind us of the Holocaust in any real sense, making it easier to laugh at. Compare this with Rivers’ infamous gag about supermodel Heidi Klum, “The last time a German looked this hot was when they were pushing Jews into the ovens.” Wodehouse and Hardy, Mel and Carl, Maisel and Rivers, Reform and Orthodox. There is always room for both.

Naqba lie that inflated the number of refugees

DAVID WOLCHOVER BARRISTER & AUTHOR

Last month, The Guardian reported on the investigation into an alleged massacre at the Arab coastal village of Tantura, near Haifa, supposedly perpetrated by the Israeli Alexandroni Brigade during the 1948 war. The study was commissioned by the Palestinian human rights group Adalah and conducted by the research agency Forensic Architecture.

Two other possible locations are also under investigation. The research involved analysing cartographic data and aerial photographs from the British mandate era to create 3D modelling. By cross-referencing the data with archival and newly collected eyewitness testimonies from survivors and perpetrators and referencing Israeli army records, the aim was to pinpoint possible “execution” sites and mass graves.

In my published works on the forensic psychology of witness testimony, I have collaborated with senior academics at Goldsmiths College, University of London, and have only the highest regard for their scholar-

ship. Yet Goldsmiths has also nurtured and sheltered academics evincing questionable attitudes towards Israel. Forensic Architecture is based at Goldsmiths.

Allegations of atrocity by Israeli forces in 1948 must be assessed in context. Let it never be forgotten that with the ignoble underlying connivance of Britain’s Labour government, the armies of six Arab countries attacked the fledgling state of Israel in order to reverse United Nations Partition Resolution 181 of 29 November 1947. (Ironically, the supreme penalty for making aggressive war had lately been visited on the principal defendants at Nuremberg.) The incontrovertible historical record proves that, as a prelude to the invasion, diverse Arab o cials and spokesmen exhorted the Arab population of the new Jewish state to leave the war zone temporarily until Israel was annihilated.

The author of the Guardian report on the Tantura study referred to 700,000 refugees, a number slightly smaller than the 750,000 claiming UN relief by December 1948, though significantly smaller than the million claiming relief by mid-1949. In fact, o cial British statistics for 1947 put the Arab population of the areas that became Israel at 561,000; 140,000 stayed after the 1949 armistice,

becoming Israeli citizens. Mathematically, the figure could not have exceeded 420,000.

The inflation was due in part to fraudulent claims for free support made by refugee pretenders. But, as the International Red Cross and the UN acknowledged, it became increasingly di cult to di erentiate levels of need between genuine refugees and those of the residents of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. The policy was, therefore, adopted of granting refugee support to destitute Arabs who were resident in their own homes.

When Israel ultimately repulsed the Arab attack and pre-emptively (and rightly) expanded its territory to more defensible borders, the Palestinian leadership claimed that many of the exiles had been expelled by force. But they were wily enough to appre-

ciate that they had somehow to explain away the well-documented fact of voluntary departure. So they resorted to the ploy of asserting constructive expulsion, contending that the exiles had been induced to flee out of fear of massacre by the brutal Jews.

They capitalised on various contemporary rumours about mass killings, but it was Deir Yassin that provided the main propaganda impetus.

The village had been the staging post for attacks on Israeli convoys supplying Jerusalem and the counterattack by Irgun and Stern Group units resulted in the slaughter of non-combatant Palestinian villagers. Quite transparently it was the classic story of Arab militia taking cover in family dwellings, with women and children becoming expendable sacrifices, if not human shields.

Deir Yassin became a central plank in the big Naqba lie – the lie that has inflated the refugee total out of all proportion to the true maximum. But what of Tantura? If Israeli units did murder Palestinians there, it should certainly be exposed using the most objective investigative techniques available. But another point can hardly be ruled out: the tragic collateral killing of civilians who Arab militiamen cynically failed to evacuate.

Hungarian emigres should receive proper recognition

Arecent report says that a third of Hungarians believe Jews have too much influence on the country’s business life. In fact, on many occasions, they haven’t had enough influence. The cemeteries in Vienna bear mute witness to this fact.

In the early 19th century, one third of the women in childbirth in the Vienna General Hospital died of puerperal fever. In 1847, a Hungarian Jewish doctor called Ignaz Semmelweis put that death rate down to doctors examining dead bodies and then the women, without washing their hands. Nobody would listen because he was a Jew.

In 1865, Dr Semmelweis had a nervous breakdown, was committed to an asylum and beaten to death by the sta within a couple of weeks. Years later, Lord Lister came to the same conclusion and gave the credit to the Jewish doctor.

Not surprisingly, many Hungarian Jews

emigrated to Britain. Among them was Sir Alexander Korda, the only British film-maker to produce pictures that could compete with Hollywood’s best. His brother, Vincent Korda, was a brilliant art director.

Among the famous actors of his day was Leslie Howard, who was killed in an air crash during the war. The finest cinema company was Odeon and that was founded by Oscar Deutsch, also from Hungary.

Among the Hungarian Jewish journalists was the food critic Egon Ronay; another was Arthur Koestler. Among the Hungarian Jewish businessmen is George Soros and

among the sportsmen was the British and Commonwealth heavyweight champion Joe Bugner.

Today there are still descendants of Hungarian Jews gracing our stages; among others, Michael Macintyre’s grandparents were Hungarian Jews, and Stephen Fry comes from the same origins.

Hungarian Jews worked for other religions as well. The first mosque in Britain, the Shah Jahan in Woking, Surrey, was designed by Gottlieb Wilhelm Leitner in 1889.

There are 80,000 Jews in Hungary today. In 1944, 440,000 were killed by the Nazis.

Dennis Gabor, a Hungarian-born electrical engineer, emigrated from Germany before the war and in 1971 won the Nobel Prize in Physics for inventing holography, which is lens-less, three-dimensional photography.

Other Hungarian Jews who won Nobel Prizes were George de Hevesy for chemistry in 1943, George Olah for chemistry in 1994, Imre Kurtész for literature in 2002, John Harsanyi for economics in 1994 and Avram Hershko for chemistry in 2004. That’s six Hungarian Jews, a remarkable number.

It would not seem unreasonable to suggest that if you could attract more Hungarian Jews to your country, you might improve your balance of trade considerably.

The one third of Hungarians who do not agree might take more seriously the contributions their Jews have made.

Of course, there will always be uninformed and prejudiced people but, happily, it is much easier today to make progress on merit rather than to su er the indignities that plagued our ancestors.

THE ASSERTION WAS THAT THE EXILES HAD BEEN INDUCED TO FLEE OUT OF FEAR

IF THE COUNTRY COULD ATTRACT MORE JEWS, IT MIGHT IMPROVE ITS BALANCE OF TRADE

❝

DEREK TAYLOR

JEWISH NEWS HISTORIAN

The film-maker Sir Alexander Korda

1 WALKERS RAISE £10K

Pupils from nine schools joined Camp Simcha’s sponsored walk, raising more than £10,000 for its work supporting families with seriously ill children. The 19 walkers, from Archer Academy, Channing, JCoSS, JFS, Haberdashers’ Boys’, Hertsmere Jewish Progressive School, Immanuel College, South Hampstead and Yavneh, are celebrating their bar or bat mitzvah this academic year. The youngsters walked an eight-mile route, stopping off at the Whittington Hospital and Royal Free to deliver gifts to children on the wards. Participant Ella Behar said: “I wanted to give something back to Camp Simcha by raising funds for them as they have supported us as a family through difficult times.”

2 BIG SHOTS AT TRI-GOLF

Wolfson Hillel Year 4 school children took part in the Enfield Tri-Golf festival last month. This was the first time they had competed in this type of competition, playing an alternative, fun version of golf specifically for primary school children. They performed amazingly and came away with second place.

3 GREAT SERVICE

Nottingham Liberal Synagogue (NLS) has held a special celebration of volunteers Shabbat. A morning service and kiddush served as one big ‘thank you!’ to everyone who has contributed to the functioning, development and growth of NLS. Special recognition was given to “community elders” Danny Rubins, David Lipman, Colin Dean and Margaret Silk for their decades of lifetime service. All four of them (pictured with their certificates), and their families, have been involved in building the congregation from its early days almost 60 years ago.

4KISHARON ISRAEL TRIP

Special educational needs Kisharon Noé School has returned from its first tour of Israel. Highlights for the eight pupils, two of whom had never been to the country before, included attending a barmitzvah ceremony at the Kotel, being escorted into the old city of Jerusalem, visiting Ashdod beach, where the group went surfing and every pupil joined in, planting trees, and learning about the Jewish people at the Meorot Interactive Museum of Jewish heritage. Pupil Raphael said: “I loved surfing, going to the Kotel and seeing all the barmitzvah boys celebrating and dancing.”

5 TALK IN MANCHESTER

The Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Region and Jewish Leadership Council hosted Lord Austin of Dudley at an ‘in conversation’ event with Mark Adlestone, chair of the JRC and a JLC trustee. Before the event, Austin had a meeting with Holocaust survivors Ruth and Werner Lachs, which he described as a “real privilege”.

6 BLOOMING DELIGHT!

Residents, family members, staff and friends gathered for the grand opening of a sensory garden in one of Norwood’s residential care homes on Sunday. The garden is one element of the ‘smart home’, officially opened by Lord and Lady Mendelsohn in 2017. Assistive technology in the house gives residents the freedom to live a rich life independently, while mitigating any risk.

7 CHOIR HITS HIGH NOTES

Coming out of the Covid pandemic, The London Cantorial Singers have never been busier. Next week they are travelling to Princes Road synagogue in Liverpool to take part in a tribute concert to the late Cantor Rev Henry Chait. In September, they will perform a selichot service with world-renowned tenor Cantor Moti Boyer from Israel.

It’s impossible to miss the bold banner from the road as JW3 announces an exciting interactive summer exhibition from award-winning cartoonist and paper puppet animator Zoom Rockman. Aged 22, Zoom has created a series of 10 fully interactive, life-size portraits of Jewish icons in a variety of mind-boggling scenarios. These, and all the workings that brought them to life, are on display at Zoom Rockman’s Jewish Hall of Fame.

Zoom has been drawing since he was young, fuelled by the creativity that runs deep in his family. Both his parents are designers, his great-grandparents were painters and his younger brother, Ace, was

look

Seret’s winning female formula The barrister’s tale

A real life meeting

Debbie Collins meets the young man behind the must-see Jewish exhibition of the summer

named after their great-great-uncle, who was a famous smudge photographer in Soho.

named after their vintage

Discovering some vintage Beano comics at a car boot sale, Zoom voraciously read them all and began drawing comic strips as a hobby, but at what point did he consider it as a career? “It just unfolded like this.

I went to Rokesly School in Crouch End, then on to JCoSS for A-levels. I studied business and politics because the art education syllabus wasn’t what I was after, but I knew it was a passion of mine. I applied to Central and got a place studying graphic communication design.”

While Zoom was working on his final piece at Central, William Galinsky, programming director at JW3, came to his graduate show and invited him to showcase. “I decided to incorporate this chance meeting into the show’s concept with a comic strip – part of my 14th comic in 14 years.”

A comical story involving some late-night cheese consumption (trust me, it makes sense) transports you into Zoom’s dreamscape featuring a Jewish hall of fame, showcasing 100 iconic Jewish faces hand-drawn to cartoon perfection. June Brown, who knew?

“I start with pencil and ink because I love

the resistance of paper

the resistance of paper and then I colour in using an iPad as it gives more fluidity than pens. Bryan Cranston was a last-minute addition as he only recently found out his Grandma was Jewish.”

After ‘falling through the portal’ (blame the cheese), you are met with 10 ‘automata portraits’ –moving mechanical art installations of famous faces, all in unexpected roles narrated by their real voices, including Sacha Baron Cohen parting the Red Sea as Moses (naturally).

The first encounter is with Dame Maureen Lipman, depicted as a fortune teller with an accompanying comic strip to make sense of the madness. And for the superfans, yes, it mentions the ‘ology’.

The weird and wonderful journey inside Zoom’s subconscious mind unfolds, taking us on a wild ride with characters spouting Yiddish galore, including Stephen Fry, Nigella Lawson and David Baddiel. Each portrait is hand-crafted using Zoom’s selfinvented technique, a precise combination of illustrations and mechanics.

Zoom says: “The work is an automata because I didn’t

Zoom says: “The work is an extension of my final piece at Central – I created the automata because I didn’t have enough hands to move all the di erent parts. Everyone I approached with my script storyboard was really supportive and happy to be involved, especially

David Baddiel with Zoom Rockman at the JW3 gala

Left: Zoom with his moving puppet of Amy Winehouse

Zoom with Stephen Fry

Vanessa Feltz with Lord Sugar at Zoom Rockman’s Jewish Hall of Fame at JW3

Stephen Fry, who really hammed it up for his voiceover.”

Lord Sugar running a bagel shop and firing Zoom for his ine ciency at taking a customer’s order is a sight to behold. “It was pretty demoralising working on it, as I was fired over and over! But, truthfully, Lord Sugar approved the concept immediately and it was the first one I worked on, with the exact blueprints on show, calculating by the millisecond how the multiple face layers should be moving.

“I’m enjoying learning about facial anatomy and even using the Latin names for authenticity.”

The only standalone piece is Amy Winehouse as a life-sized wooden moving puppet, with singing vocals. “I wanted an iconic British Jew from the music industry and Amy was perfect. The puppet incorporates ‘sympathetic movement’ – when you’re not puppeteering it directly, it reacts to how you move it. It’s really cool to see it scaled up from something that was just sat on my desk.”

In his downtime, Zoom really enjoys sci-fi and samurai films. “I recently saw Interstellar and was amazed at how scientifically advanced it was. My favourite film though is Ran, directed by Akira Kurosawa, who was

also a painter – he painted the scenes before making the film and I love that you can pause the film at any moment and it could be a movie poster.”

Every creative has a preferred medium for noting down ideas, but Zoom says he is too much of a perfectionist to carry a notepad. “If I mess up the first page of a sketch pad, I know I won’t want to hold on to it.

I just pull pieces of paper from behind my desk and work like that. It’s a bit of a chaotic mess, but I’ve finally got a system going, categorising my ideas.” Zoom’s future is certainly colourful. He is currently working on projects with hand puppetry and film, and the aim is to take the current Jewish Hall of on the road. “I’d love to do Edinburgh Fringe and the dream is to take it to the States, because it features so many American Jews such as Larry David, a personal favourite.”

A Blues man, Zoom says he would also love to work his puppetry into a music video at some point. And yes, Zoom is indeed his real name.

 Zoom Rockman’s Jewish Hall of Fame is at JW3 until 3 September. Tickets are £6. jw3.org.uk/zoom

We’re on a mission to get members of the Jewish Community to protect their wellbeing, equipping them to respond to their own and other’s mental health issues before they escalate.

Hundreds of people of all ages have joined one of our professional 90 minute or 3-hour Zoom training sessions. Book now and learn the vital skills we all need.

Clockwise from top left: Zelensky, Tracy-Ann Oberman, Howard Jacobson, Sammy Davis Jr

Lord Sugar

Honorary Patron: Lady Elaine Sacks Trustees: David Coffer, Rabbi Danny Kirsch & Lisa Radford

KILLER INSTINCT

Thriller writer Victoria Selman lets Beatrice Sayers in on the inspiration for her latest addictive read

Aconversation with Victoria Selman is entirely upbeat and no-nonsense. The psychological torture appears only in the pages of her crime fiction, and there is plenty of it, along with intelligent writing, natural dialogue and superb observation.

Her latest novel, Truly, Darkly, Deeply, was published in paperback in February and made the Sunday Times bestseller list as well as being a Richard and Judy Book Club pick. It was her fourth book in four years, and her fifth, All The Little Liars, is due out in the autumn. How does she do it?

“I always wanted to be a writer,” Victoria says, “right from the very beginning,” joking that she wrote her first ‘novel’, which ran to two pages of A4, at the age of seven. It wasn’t until she was in her 30s, however, and with two pre-school children, that she started to write properly. “I love reading and I think it’s a natural progression… you then want to write what you love.”

With encouragement from her husband, Tim, a lawyer, she took herself o to writing classes at City Lit in central Londono and began with short stories, one of which was published in an anthology of crime stories,

Afraid of the Shadows

Her first novel, Blood for Blood, was shortlisted for the 2017 Debut Dagger Award. It introduced an intriguing female protagonist, Ziba MacKenzie, who is an ex-special forces criminal profiler.

An addictive read, it was swiftly followed by two more, Nothing to Lose and Snakes and Ladders. After completing the final book in the trilogy, Victoria said she wanted ‘a break’, which many people would understand to mean a rest. But for her that meant a break from Ziba, and a new challenge. “I wanted a di erent perspective. And I’ve always been fascinated by true crime and really interested in serial killers, the idea of otherness, particularly. What began to intrigue me wasn’t so much the serial killer, him or herself, but rather the victims they leave behind.”

And so, with her sons now at secondary school, she began to read and think seriously about serial killers, in particular Ted Bundy, the American who kidnapped, raped and murdered young women and girls in the 1970s. What caught her attention was that he had a relationship with a single mother during some of that time.

The book that came out of that reading was Truly, Darkly, Deeply. It is narrated by Sophie, who with her mother, Amelia-Rose, has moved to London from the United States. Amelia has a tumultuous relationship with the handsome Matty, and every time another woman is found dead, Matty is away. “It’s not about Bundy, it’s drawn from a number of di erent serial killers,” Victoria says. “But that was my jumping o point.” She takes something that is already there and asks ‘What would it have been like?’ and ‘What if…’ “A lot of my stories are inspired by true crime,” says Victoria, who has a degree in history from Oxford. “But I’m fictionalising it and maybe that’s part of the historian in me.”

The book, an instant bestseller, is grip-

ping. Victoria describes how she developed the plot, writing what she calls a “road map” for the novel. “I was very aware it looked like an ‘a or b’ route. But I thought there had to be a third way, a di erent solution.” She found it, and there is a chilling twist.

what she calls a “road map” for the novel. “I was very aware it I thought there had to be a third found twist. have had barmitzvah ceremoin books? “Max would be old clear that that delight awaits them. When her sons do read their mother, who attends shul

Have Victoria and Tim’s teenage sons, both of whom have had barmitzvah ceremonies at New London Synagogue in St John’s Wood, read her books? “Max would be old enough,” she says; but it is clear that that delight awaits them. When her sons do read her thrillers, they will find that their mother, who attends shul most Shabbats, puts a Jewish character or two, usually a cameo, in each of them. It feels natural, she says. “It’s very much part of my identity.”

Discipline is also part of her character as a writer, and she appreciates having a regular, and finite, window in which to create. “I have the whole school day,” she says. “I walk the dog in the morning and then I sit down and I write, and I write until the end of the day when I pick them up and it’s quite a nice chunk of time.”

Victoria is keen to encourage female writers to embrace a genre that has traditionally been very male. “You think about all the big brand names, Michael Connelly and Lee Child and Je ery Deaver. They’re all males, right? But now we have a lot of wonderful women breaking through and it’s a brilliant thing to celebrate.

“I think they bring something unique to the genre, a di erent way of looking at things. We’re not just focusing on the gun-slinging male. We’re more interested in the psychology of crime, of the victims. As women we obviously have a sense of vulnerability, a natural vulnerability that men just don’t have. And that comes through in the writing as well.”

What also comes through in Victoria’s writing is her superb imagination and ability to keep the reader truly engrossed.

Jewish News is o ering readers the chance to win one of five signed copies of TrulyDarklyDeeply along with bookmarks and signed postcards of Victoria Selman’s forthcoming thriller, All The Little Liars. For your chance to win, visit: www.jewishnews.co.uk/trulydarklydeeply

All about the girls

Brigit Grant looks for fun, female-driven shows to fill the gap le by Mrs Maisel

The Empire State Building turned pink on 26 May.

Bathing the art deco skyscraper in a particular hue is significant as it marks a happening, such as the passing of Queen Elizabeth last September when it was lit purple and silver.

That the final episode of a TV series flicked the light switch says everything about the impact of Jewish housewife comedian Midge Maisel, as portrayed by Rachel Brosnahan and created by Amy Sherman-Palladino .The Marvelous Mrs Maisel which ran for five seasons, was a small-screen revelation,beloved for its wit, wonderous sets, period detail and, for Jews, the déjà vu family dynamic. The epic finale last month is still being mulled over and I’ve watched (and cried over) it three times through to the credits and con-

sidered sending flowers to costume designer Donna Zakowska and head of production Bill Groom. Those credits acknowledge Kitty Bruce, daughter of comedian Lenny, who appears in a fictionalised strand and is portrayed by Luke Kirby, who won an Emmy for the role. I’m still hoping Lenny and Midge get a spin-o series in the style of a Hope and Crosby

On the Road movie, but doubt it will happen. All number of revivals are being suggested in MMM fan groups within lyrical tributes as we all try to accept that the standup has baked her last brisket.

But TV’s role is to fill the gaps favourite shows leave behind, so bank that last laugh between Midge and manager Susie (Alex Bornstein) and dip your toe in some other series.

Sex and the City celebrates its 25th birthday this week, in time for a second season of And Just Like That. The SATC spin-o created by Jewish Darren Starr brings back Carrie Bradshaw (another Jew, Sarah Jessica Parker) and her gal pals, now in their fifties and still wearing heels. This is expected of Manolo Blahnik poster girl Carrie, who is now widowed following the death by Peloton exertion of husband Big (Chris Noth).

following

As there have been photos of Carrie chatting to old flame Aidan Shaw (John Corbett), it seems there may be a future with the carpenter who dared to buy the wrong engagement ring. More interestingly, this second season will see the return of Samantha (Kim Cattrall), who was absent from the revival, but Carrie kept texting her, and so Just Like That, she’s back. Cattrall by all accounts filmed her segment from

Those who prefer faux reality to fiction will rejoice at the resurgence

you won’t hear a peep from Ramona, Dorinda or LuAnn as they’ve been

RHONY

first aired in 2008, and is the longestrunning of the addictive franchise, but a drop in ratings, forced Jewish RHONY producer Andy Cohen to have a rethink. He considered inviting back original cast members Jill Zarin and Bethenny Frankel, which would have worked for me, but instead recruited an entirely new batch of hausfrauen, including Jewish social butterfly

Cohen to have a rethink.

raised in Manis big in real estate, runs an interior design company and is preas the one who “floats

Erin Lichy. Born and raised in Manhattan, Erin is big in real estate, runs an interior design company and is described in prelaunch literature as the one who “floats amidst the drama and isn’t afraid to stir things up”. I love a stirrer, so checked out her insta to learn more about her life with Jewish lawyer husband Abe.

Enough of New York? (As if.)

Then from across the border in Canada, Workin’ Moms returns for a seventh and final season. The show’s star Catherine Reitman (who plays PR guru Kate Foster) came up with the series idea after missing her own first Mother’s Day while shooting a movie. Producing WM with husband Philip Sternberg (who plays her on-screen husband Nathan), Catherine hired Canadian primetime’s first ever all-female camera team so cheers to the actual workin’ mums who got this o the ground. Including scenes of Kate making matzah balls and sitting shiva for her father keeps us watching and, in the final series, besties Kate and Anne (Dani Kind) reunite after their friendship break-up. This means nothing to me as I’ve never watched the show, but a female colleague tipped it as a must watch and, as Mrs Maisel has left the building, I may just give it a go.

Kitty Bruce, daughter of comic Lenny, with Luke Kirby

Mrs Maisel

Catherine Reitman

Lenny, who appears

Hope and Crosby

back Carrie Bradshaw (another Jew, Sarah Jessica Parker)

fifties and is expected Blahnik poster

the death by

Erin Lichy from Real Housewives with family

Business / Social commerce

BUILDING SHOP WINDOWS ON SOCIAL MEDIA

Social commerce is soaring. The trend that merges the power of social media with the ease of trading online is reshaping the world goes shopping.

Social commerce is the use of platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to market and sell products and services. Customers can complete purchases without leaving social media apps. The social media feed has become the new shop window.

Yael Weiss Ayalon is user relations manager, ecommerce, at Wix, the website builder used by millions of people worldwide. She says: “While ecommerce continues to be a significant player in the retail industry, there has been a growing interest in social commerce in recent years as more businesses and consumers turn to social media platforms for shopping.

“This growth of social networks, coupled with the democratisation of ecommerce capabilities has changed how merchants can build their business.

“Anyone who wants to create a retail brand can do so by leveraging ecommerce platforms to create an online store, as well as generate awareness by leveraging social media and quickly begin selling their merchandise.”

According to reports, global social commerce is expected to grow nearly three times faster than traditional commerce to $1.2 trillion by 2025, up from $492bn currently. Forbes notes that roughly 62 percent of this growth will be driven by millennials (33 percent) and Generation Z (29 percent), with Generation X (28 percent) and baby boomers (10 percent)

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continue to eat in to the ecommerce market as more and more consumers shop on social apps.

Social media platforms such as Instagram and Facebook have added features allowing businesses to create shoppable posts and ads, making it easier for customers to buy products directly from these platforms; Instagram has a designated shopping tab, Facebook allows the creation of native store pages for businesses and TikTok introduced live shopping capabilities and functionality for catalogue integration.

And Wix is actively empowering social commerce for businesses through various features and integrations. It recently announced an integration with Meta for merchants to connect seamlessly with their customers across WhatsApp, Instagram and Messenger.

“This new integration provides a central place for merchants to manage all of their customer interactions across their social platforms with their website,” says Weiss Ayalon. “This helps them to manage interactions across the entire customer journey and grow their multichannel sales and communication strategies.”

Wix also o ers sales channels where users can connect their store catalogue directly to social media platforms. “For example, for Facebook Marketplace or Instagram Shop, users can list their products directly from their Wix Dashboard and then post the product on Facebook and Instagram, where they can include the product in posts and tags and drive tra c to their site to purchase,” says Weiss Ayalon, who notes that most of their user’s sales and tra c are coming from the users’ social media.

“It [social media] has become a great way to leverage and reach multiple audiences, create social proof for products and generate tra c to one’s site. Today’s shopping experience is omnichannel, and it’s important that merchants have a strategy that incorporates social commerce as social commerce and ecommerce complement each other.”

Founded in 2006 by Israeli developers Avishai Abrahami, Nadav Abrahami, and Giora Kaplan, Wix has become one of Israel’s most valuable companies. It has a net worth of $4.43bn (at the time of writing) with more than 240 million registered users. In 2013, Wix went public, listing its shares on Nasdaq. A decade later and the online landscape has changed drastically. And Wix, which started primarily as a drag-and-drop website builder, has undergone significant changes as the company has evolved including going from flash to HTML, adding new verticals to meet the needs of users and establishing the Wix App Market to o er users specific products and integrations to help them power their sites and e ciently run their businesses. Wix recently launched its AI Text Creator within the Wix Editor, to help users generate tailored content for their websites.

At its core, Wix remains a website-building and hosting platform that enables anyone to create and manage an online presence, regardless of their web design/online expertise.

Creating an online store nowadays has become much easier thanks to the number of available platforms but, according to Comma Consulting and a research project completed by Forbes, Hu ngton Post and Marketing Signals, 90 percent of all ecommerce (online only) businesses fail within the first few months of launch. Weiss Ayalon says: “Establishing that business, growing revenue and scaling can be a big challenge, and there are reasons why 90 percent of all ecommerce businesses fail within the first 120 days of launch.”

She advises vendors to have a simple and transparent checkout process, clear and accurate product pages with images with authentic product reviews, use AI to help create useful content for products and ensure the mobile version of the site is easy to navigate.

 www.wix.com

writes Candice Krieger

Yael Weiss Ayalon

MAKING SENSE OF THE SEDRA

BY BATSHEVA WOLF TRIBE

The

Do you ever ask yourself, ‘What is my “why”? I know, it is quite a peculiar question, but allow me to elaborate. I am not talking about the big-decision whys, or the life-altering whys and not even the what-gives-your-life-meaning whys.

Have you ever been in a discussion in which one person is getting particularly invested, particularly opinionated, particularly heated? This is often because there is a hidden ‘why’ –a motive, a reason behind it.

Perhaps the business being discussed is owned by a family member or perhaps that person has a history with the topic at hand. Sometimes the motive is obvious and sometimes, even to the person themselves, it is not.

The Torah reading of this week, Parshat

Behaalotecha, tells us about a group of people, part of the Jewish people, who approach Moshe with a problem (Bamidbar 9:6). During Pesach, this group were ritually impure and therefore unable to o er the Pesach o ering. Saddened by the missed opportunity, and at the same time very eager in their service of God, they ask Moshe what can be done. Moshe (on behalf of God) o ers them the solution: Pesach Sheni, a second Pesach, and therefore a second chance.

A little bit later we read about Yehoshua, Moshe’s successor. When he sees two men running through the camp desecrating God’s name, he doesn’t hesitate and steps up to protect Moshe’s and therefore God’s name (Bamidbar 11:28). Yet, he is not rewarded for his eagerness. It is misplaced and Moshe rebukes him for it.

The word for envy or jealousy in Hebrew is kinnah, the same word that is used for zeal, eagerness. This is a reflection of how one middah (characteristic) can be used in two ways. And, not coincidentally, the same word which is used

when describing Yehoshua’s actions. Having kinnah can lead to the worst of sins, as we read in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers 4:21): “Envy, lust and honour drive a person from the world.”

However, when used correctly, zealousness can lead to higher heights in our service of God, as can be seen by the group of people who received their second chance, Pesach Sheni. They created another opportunity to serve God, another way of expressing their love for God.

The di erence between a positive and a negative kinnah is the ‘why’. Why are you so invested in that topic? Why are you so interested in finding out more, in delving deeper?

Is it a true desire to become a better human, a better eved Hashem (servant of God), or is there another motive? It takes true, brutal honesty with oneself to get to that answer.

But however peculiar the question, it is definitely one that is worth asking.

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The Hebrew word for envy or jealousy is also used to mean eagerness or zeal

Progressive Judaism

LEAP OF FAITH A

BY RABBI AARON GOLDSTEIN THE ARK

The last words of the Talmud’s opening tractate, Berakhot (65a), include: “Rabbi Elazar reports that Rabbi Hanina said: ‘Torah scholars increase peace in the world, as it is said: And all your children [banayikh] shall be taught of the Eternal One, and great shall be the peace of your children’ (Isaiah 54:13).”

The Sages interpreted this verse homiletically: “Do not read your children [banayikh], but your builders [bonayikh].”

The Rabbis understand that those who learn attain the wisdom to bring peace. If only that were truly the case through history!

Still, the principle is a foundation

stone. Chinuch (education) is seen in Judaism as both a parental responsibility and a communal one. Assuming that we are providing our children a solid foundation through education, is there is a Jewish case to be made for lowering the voting age to 16?

Progressive Judaism is in favour of youth empowerment. We encourage learning and active participation in the life of our communities. Our youth movements are semi-autonomous. Like the Sages, we see our children as the builders of our legacy.

We have always understood this but in the last century there was a distinct deference to the generation above. Perhaps that was when there were rarely more than two genera-

tions sitting around a table. The two generations created a balance in leadership of communities, society, and in choosing the government of the day; and the older one assumed leadership roles in society.

With a changing demographic – an ageing, longer-living population – that sees three generations of adults often sitting around the table, perhaps we now face an imbalance, just another reason why we are struggling to look long-term and progress.

In what I write there is no criticism of anyone, merely a statement of fact.

In our household, when three generations sit together, there is a widening gap of understanding and self-interest between the oldest and youngest generations. Knowing that they already face a tough future and a demographic weakness, neither of which is of their own making, we

often experience a depressed sigh or shrug from our children.

If we are true to the responsibility to educate our children, seeing them as the builders of our future and our legacy, why would we not enable more young people to vote?

I am a father of two daughters, engaged with both our synagogue and youth movement, yet struggling to find optimism on how they will impact the society they will continue to inhabit when we are gone. It is time to give their generation a chance.

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Bereavement

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THE JEWISH NEWS CROSSWORD

11 Long short-legged dog (9)

12 Irritatingly strong and unpleasant (smell or taste) (5)

14 Night stalker (7)

16 High singing voice (7)

18 Head of a town or city council (5)

19 Bring under domination (9)

20 Second-largest living bird (3)

21 Hard stone used to create sparks (5)

22 Make bigger (7)

DOWN

1 Enter unlawfully (8)

2 Stay out of view (4)

3 Out of breath (6)

4 Renaissance mural (6)

5 According to religious procedure (8)

6 Useless plant (4)

8 Give and receive mutually (11)

13 Country with a president (8)

15 Sent a different way (8)

17 Keenness (of perception) (6)

18 In a humble manner (6)

19 Out of danger (4)

20 Continental currency unit (4)

Fun, games and prizes

SUDOKU

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

SUGURU

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

WORDSEARCH

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

HILARIOUS HEBREW Word of the Week

Learning Hebrew can be fun and sometimes hilarious! Join one of the WZO's Ulpan classes near you and find out for yourself! The subsidised Ulpanim are based in North West and East London, Manchester, Brighton, Borehamwood and Bushy. Contact- ulpanuk@wzo.org.il or call 020 83715336

M SABE FI AU

O ATB SIA TF NE RO

CL II OT TO SR TT N

EN OS RE PR IA HCN

SN NI MP OR TA NT A

DECISION DISCUSSION IMPORTANT OFFICE

Last issue’s solutions

ank you, Tina, for being such an inspiration!

See next issue for puzzle solutions.

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

From the book Hilarious Hebrew- the Fun and Fast Way to Learn the Language, available on Amazon and in book and gift shops throughout London. www.hilarioushebrew.com

REJUVENATION NOW

U n i q u e s p a & w e l l n e s s e x p e r i e n c e ( K o s h e r ) - C y p r u s

R o o m s , s u i t e s & t r a d i t i o n a l v i l l a s • K o s h e r h e a l t h y & r i c h P e s c a t a r i a n m e a l s

• D a i l y w e l l n e s s p r o g r a m s

• T h e l a r g e s t S P A i n C y p r u s • E n e r g i z i n g w a l k s i n t h e f o r e s t • T e a & C o f f e e i n f u s i o n s 2 4 / 0 7 • W i n e t a s t i n g i n t h e c a v a w i t h k o s h e r w i n e s • M i n d f u l n e s s w o r k s h o p s

• M u s i c , c o n v e r s a t i o n • S y n a g o g u e •

w w w . S e c r e t F o . r e s t + 3 5 7 - 2 6 8 1 4 - 0 0 0