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The magnificent

On the brink

Plans are being drawn up for a possible evacuation of British nationals from Israel if all-out war erupts in the region, as US President Joe Biden raised hopes that an Iranian strike could yet be averted by a ceaseﬁre deal.

The Foreign O ce told Jewish News it was preparing for “all scenarios”, while world leaders pursued frenetic last-ditch e orts to prevent an escalation in the Middle East following the assassination of two of Hamas and Hezbollah’s most senior ﬁgures.

A spokesman said: “While we continue to use all diplomatic levers to push for de-escalation, our sta are working around the clock to plan for all scenarios to keep British nationals

safe. Our travel advice is constantly updated to reﬂect the latest guidance.”

On Tuesday, a joint statement from Britain, France, Germany and Italy called on Iran to step back from its insistence on taking revenge on Israel. “We, the leaders of the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy discussed the situation in the Middle East. We expressed our full support for ongoing e orts to de-escalate tensions and reach a ceaseﬁre and hostage release deal in Gaza.

“We endorsed the joint call from President Biden, President Sisi of Egypt, and Amir Tamim of Qatar to renew talks later this week with an aim to concluding the deal as soon as possible, and stressed there is no further time to lose. All parties must live up to their responsibilities.”

In the ﬁrst call between a British prime minister and an Iranian president for more than three years, Sir Keir Starmer tried to per-

suade Masoud Pezeshkian – who, like Sir Keir, has only been in o ce since July – to refrain from an attack, adding that further conﬂict was not in anyone’s interests.

Downing Street told British media that the Prime Minister underlined his commitment to an immediate ceaseﬁre, the release of all hostages and increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza. He added the focus should be on diplomatic negotiations to achieve those outcomes.

Although initial reports suggested that the Iranian president rejected Sir Keir’s overture, on Tuesday there was a glimmer of hope as Reuters reported three senior Iranian o cials saying that if a ceaseﬁre deal were to be agreed in Doha, the Qatari capital, today, it could delay direct retaliation against Israel. But at the time of going to press, it remained unclear whether Hamas would attend the talks.

Israel’s rhythmic gymnastics team complete a record medal haul in Paris Page 6

CST helps to track down far-right extremists GROUPS

Two British far-right extremists have been brought to justice with the help of the Community Security Trust (CST) after years-long investigations, it has been revealed.

Gareth Waite, a Wales-based neo-Nazi, was sentenced this week at Woolwich Crown Court to nine years in prison for a variety of terrorism-related offences. These included membership of a proscribed far-right organisation, National Action.

CST identified and reported Waite, 47, to counterterrorism police in 2019 after he was seen sharing material from National Action, and also posting “extreme, antisemitic, racist and often violent content. CST’s concerns led to a referral to our partners in UK counterterrorism policing”.

The subsequent investigation into Waite was led by Counter Terrorism Policing Wales, who discovered further evidence demonstrating Waite’s far-right extremism and hateful ideology. This included material that led to two counts of Waite possessing a document containing information of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism.

The second case relates to a 24-year-old man, Gabriel Budasz, from Weston-superMare. At Winchester Crown Court last week, Budasz was convicted of a number of terrorism-related offences. He had shared online videos relating to the making of explosives, and when police raided his home in August 2023, they found books, masks and memorabilia of an extreme right-wing nature, as well as a 3D-printed firearm.

Budasz was found guilty of one count of dissemination of a terrorist publication, four counts of encouraging terrorism and one count

All this material was shared with counterterrorism police and, in August 2023, Budasz was arrested, leading to his conviction.

Detective Chief Superintendent Olly Wright, head of Counter Terrorism Policing South East, said: “The [online] material contained his extreme right-wing views, encouraging violence to further the hateful ideology which he espoused. Making this kind of content available online spreads and encourages terrorist ideology and is incredibly dangerous to those vulnerable to radicalisation.

MONITOR SITUATION IN ISRAEL

Continued from page 1

The diplomatic discussions continued as America deployed warships and a submarine to the Middle East to bolster Israeli defences.

of sending an electronic communication with intent to cause distress or anxiety. He will be sentenced on 25 October.

In painstaking intelligence work, including the cross-matching of pictures to identify Budasz and where he was based – as he was posting anonymously online – CST determined who he was and where he lived.

In a detailed post on social media, CST described how it had become aware of Budasz in September 2022 on the encrypted messaging platform Telegram. “He was operating anonymously in extreme right-wing Telegram channels, as well as across other platforms. We quickly ascertained that he was UK-based and held deeply antisemitic views.

“This sparked an investigation lasting more than a year, during which CST became increasingly concerned about his posts and livestreams promoting violence against Jews and other ethnic minorities, alongside his rightwing extremism”.

“Unfortunately, the harm that can be caused by those who seek to provoke violence online to further their cause has been only too evident across the country in recent weeks.”

He added the case should “serve as a warning” that police would “take robust action against those who commit these serious and harmful offences”.

CST said it was “proud of the contribution this work makes, not only to the safety and security of the Jewish community, but to all communities across the UK”.

The organisation wished to express “our deep appreciation to the UK’s counterterrorism policing network for their hard work and support; we note the often-unrecognised contribution that CT police make to the UK’s national security, and to the safety and security of our Jewish community. CST’s open-source intelligence work forms a core part of protecting our Jewish community.”

Israeli President Isaac Herzog thanked Biden and other Western leaders for their support. He said: “As Israel and our security services remain on high alert, I want to express my appreciation and thanks to our allies standing united with us in the face of the hate-filled threats of the Iranian regime and its terrorist proxies.”

A UJIA spokesman confirmed to Jewish News that there were currently a total of 101 participants on organised educational experiences in Israel, on two Israel Tour groups and one Taglit-Birthright Israel group.

The spokesman said: “UJIA Israel Experience continues to monitor the situation with our partners in Israel, and groups follow all guidance issued by the Israeli security authorities, including evacuation procedures if necessary.

“Our stringent and rigorous security procedures continue to be followed. We will always share the latest information regarding security at: ujia.org/israel-tour-status.”

Adrian Cohen, Board of Deputies senior vice president and chair of its international division, said: “We are monitoring the situation and are in frequent contact with the [Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office]. Should the need sadly arise for emergency flights for UK nationals in Israel, we will continue the engagement that took place at the end of last year.”

It is understood the Board has a mechanism in place to help if necessary, but that it has not been asked to do anything specific at the moment.

‘PROVOCATIVE’ VISIT HAMAS ‘KILLED HOSTAGE’

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s visit to the Temple Mount on Tuesday “demonstrated blatant disregard for the historic status quo with respect to the holy sites in Jerusalem,” according to Antony Blinken, the US Secretary of State.

“These provocative actions only exacerbate tensions at a pivotal moment when all focus should be on the ongoing diplomatic efforts to achieve a ceasefire agreement and secure the release of all hostages and create the conditions for broader regional stability,” Blinken said.

The US Secretary of State’s statement referred to “Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount”. The Arabic refers to the site from which Muslims believe the prophet Muhammad, who was born around the year 570 and died in 632, went on a miraculous journey. Jews call the site Har Habayit, recognising it as the location of the First and Second Temples, starting in the 10th century before the Common Era.

The office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has made clear the actions of Minister Ben Gvir are inconsistent with Israeli policy,” Blinken said.

“We will look to the government of Israel to prevent similar incidents in the future. The United States reaffirms our commitment to the preservation of the historic status quo and will continue to oppose unilateral steps that are counterproductive to achieving peace and stability and undermine Israel’s security.”

The armed wing of Hamas has said one of the Israeli hostages it has held since 7 October has been killed by his guards and two female hostages had been wounded in a separate incident.

No identification has been made in either case and Israel said it was unable to verify the claims.

In a statement, Abu Obeida, spokesperson for the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades, said: “In two separate incidents, two [Hamas] soldiers assigned to guard enemy prisoners fired at a Zionist prisoner, killing him immediately, and also injured two female prisoners critically.”

The claim, made on the Telegram social media site, comes days before today’s projected negotiations to free the remaining 111 hostages still held in Gaza, although

Israel believes that until this announcement, 39 hostages have died in captivity.

Reports say that Hamas has formed a committee to investigate the shootings. Abu Obeida did not say where the incidents took place.

Responding to the Hamas claim, Avichay Adraee, Israel Defence Forces spokesman, wrote in Arabic on Twitter/X.

He said: “At this stage, there

is no intelligence document to confirm or refute Hamas’ allegations.

“We continue to investigate the credibility of the statement and will provide information where we have it.”

In June, a senior Hamas official said that “no one has any idea” how many Israeli hostages were still alive in Gaza.

Above: Gareth Waite and (right) one of his posts

Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir

Survey to consider world Jewry’s needs

A global survey to shape dialogue and leadership development within the Jewish world has been launched by Israel’s President.

The survey will help in the creation of a worldwide Jewish advisory council featuring 150 leaders – 50 from Israel, 50 from the USA and Canada and 50 from other countries – to address the most pressing challenges facing Jewish communities in Israel and the diaspora.

This council will convene online once a month, culminating in a conference in Israel in March 2025.

Isaac Herzog said: “We are engaged in safeguarding the state of Israel and reinforcing the strength of the Jewish people amid a challenging war and rising antisemitism. Simultaneously, we face critical issues that demand our attention.

“In response, we are establishing the Voice of the People council, which will focus on ensuring the Jewish people’s ability to thrive in a changing world. The survey we are launching will shape the council and therefore shape the discussions impacting the future of the Jewish people. I encourage everyone to participate and contribute to help build our collective future.”

Voice of the People was launched by Herzog

with the aim of becoming an incubator for innovative and practical solutions to the challenges facing Jewish people worldwide. Led by CEO Shirel Dagan-Levy, the initiative will set goals and objectives to implement the ideas generated in working groups, aiming to bring about real change in shaping the Jewish future.

The ﬁrst step involves distributing a survey to the global Jewish community to select the topics for discussion in the ﬁrst meeting. This survey will be open for responses for the next 45 days, after which the results will guide the council’s priorities and strategic actions. Topics may include the dramatic rise in antisemitism, security, Jewish culture and heritage and Israel-Diaspora relations. From the respondents, 20 will be selected to participate in a conversation with Herzog during the virtual launch event on 15 September.

ELBIT ATTACK CHARGES

Seven people have appeared at Westminster Magistrates’ Court charged with a variety of o ences after an attack at Elbit Systems in south Gloucestershire, which prosecutors say was staged by Palestine Action.

Members of the group were allegedly armed with whips, sledgehammers and axes and are said by prosecutors to have caused around £1 million worth of damage. Elbit is Israel’s leading defence system company and the attack took place on 6 August.

All were remanded in custody ahead of an appearance at the Old Bailey on 13 September.

‘WE MUST NOT BE AFRAID’

Second Gentleman Doug Emho has told a memorial ceremony marking a 1982 terror attack against a Jewish restaurant that “we cannot be silent and we must not be afraid”.

The council will also o er an internship programme for young Jews worldwide, aiming to develop the future leadership of the Jewish

diaspora. Dagan-Levy said: “Imagine in 20 years seeing how each cohort of our council has shaped the Jewish people’s trajectory.

“Through their recommendations and our e orts, we will be able to trace the development of our communities and understand the impact we have made. This is our chance to create a legacy that will guide and inspire future generations.”

The ceremony commemorated the 9 August 1982 terror attack at Jo Goldenberg, an Ashkenazi Jewish restaurant.

The French Interior Minister, Gérald Darmanin, discussed new data on the rise of antisemitism in the country following Hamas’ attacks in Israel on 7 October. During the ﬁrst half of 2024, there were 887 antisemitic incidents, almost tripling from the 304 documented in the same period of 2023, he said.

Isaac Herzog recreates the photo of Theodor Herzl in Basel to mark the 125 years since the first Zionist Congress

American comedian Reginald D Hunter has been accused of going “far beyond the bounds of acceptable comedy” and “a sickening low” after an Edinburgh Festival Fringe audience told a couple to “f**k off” amid chants of “free Palestine” when they objected to his joke about Israel.

Hunter, 55, was performing his stand-up show Fluffy Fluffy Beavers on Sunday night, when the pair were heckled by others in the audience at the Assembly George Square Studios in Edinburgh.

Moments before, Hunter had mentioned how a Channel 5 documentary on domestic abuse had prompted him to think: “My God, it’s like being married to Israel.”

The man and woman – who were sitting in the front row – told Hunter the joke was “not funny” and were themselves Israeli and then faced the wrath of other audience members.

According to audience member Dominic Cavendish, chief theatre critic for The Telegraph, the “ugliest Edinburgh Fringe moment ever” then unfurled.

In a scathing review of the performance, he wrote: “The pair, who said they were from Israel, then endured their fellow audience members shouting expletives (‘f*** off’ among them), and telling them to go – with slow-hand claps, boos and cries of ‘genocidal maniac’, ‘you’re not welcome’ and ‘free Palestine’ part of the toxic mix.”

The couple eventually left the venue as Hunter is said to have “openly laughed” at them, while the audience continued to heckle as they exited the hall.

Hunter has previously been criticised, most notably in 2006 when he joked about how Holocaust denial was outlawed in Austria.

After the pair left, the comedian referred to that incident and took aim at the Jewish Chronicle –which he was trying to access around the time of the controversy – saying it was behind a paywall.

“Typical f***ing Jews, they won’t tell you anything unless you subscribe,” he jested. “It’s just a joke,” he swiftly added.

ISRAEL DOWNGRADED

Israel’s credit rating was downgraded by Fitch last night from A+ to A with a negative outlook.

The agency cited concerns around the war with Hamas and geopolitical risks. It said “the conflict in Gaza could last well into 2025 and there are risks of it broadening to other fronts” and added that it “could result in significant additional military spending, destruction of infrastructure and more sustained damage to economic activity and investment, leading to a further deterioration of Israel’s credit metrics”.

office said: “Israel’s economy is resilient and functioning well.

“The rating downgrade is a result of Israel facing a multifront war... The rating will rise back when we win – and we will indeed win.”

The agency predicts Israel’s budget deficit to reach 7.8 percent of its GDP in 2024, compared to 4.1 percent in 2023. It also expects Israel’s debt-toGDP to remain above 70 percent into 2025 (the median A rating ratio is 55 percent).

Fitch noted the “high” tensions between Israel and Iran and its allies. It comes a day after the leaders of Britain, France and Germany issued a strong warning to Iran not to mount any attack “that would escalate regional tensions and jeopardise the opportunity to agree a ceasefire and the release of hostages”.

A de-escalation of the conflict and fiscal reforms that lower the debt-to-GDP ratio could help the country get its rating back up, noted Fitch.

The downgrade follows the decision in February by Moody’s to lower Israel’s rating from A1 to A2 – the first rating downgrade in Israel’s history. Reacting to the Fitch downgrade, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s

Professor Asher Blass, owner of Economic Research and Consulting Group and former chief economist at the Bank of Israel, said the decision by Fitch was “not unexpected” and that “the warnings were apparently not addressed sufficiently”.

Accountant General Yali Rothenberg said: “The continuation of the war and the rise in geopolitical risks are impacting fiscal metrics and Israel’s credit profile. Despite the war, Israel demonstrates very high access to capital markets both domestically and internationally, with stable financing conditions and strong demand for debt in the local market.”

In a statement today, the Community Security Trust said: “Reginald D Hunter went far beyond the bounds of acceptable comedy, bullying audience members and then allegedly telling an antisemitic joke after they had been hounded out of the show.

“At a time of surging anti-Jewish hate, people who have a public platform have a responsibility to take care over their words and the impact they have on a wider society.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism said the incident was “a sickening low that cannot be disguised as comedy”.

A spokesperson for the group said: “The events described at Edinburgh Fringe are extremely concerning. Comedians are rightly given broad latitude, but they also have a responsibility to their audience.

“Reginald D Hunter has laughed off his jokes in the past but watching on and cracking jokes as Jews are hounded out of your show is a sickening low that cannot be disguised as comedy.

“We have seen this before in recent months, and venues must stand extremely firm against this kind of behaviour.”

In a separate incident in February, an Israeli man said that he felt hounded out of a comedy show by a hostile audience.

The Soho Theatre apologised after comedian Paul Currie allegedly told the man and his partner to “leave my f***ing show, now” after they refused to applaud him when he produced a Palestinian flag at the end of his gig.

Comic’s show branded ‘ugliest fringe moment’ Israel ranks high for UK

A report by the UK Department for Business and Trade (DBT) positioned Israel among the top 10 countries for foreign direct investment projects in the UK, per capita, in 2023-2024, among European countries.

According to the DBT, inward investment results report, 19 Israeli companies either established a presence in the UK or expanded their existing activities across a range of sectors, including fintech, healthcare and cyber security, among others, creating 532 new jobs.

Luxembourg, Ireland and Sweden lead the European per-capita list followed by Norway, Denmark, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Finland, Austria and Israel. Israel ranked 13th overall among European countries, regardless of their population.

WALKER AIMS TO RAISE £50K

He is the managing director of Quooker, one of the biggest kitchen appliance companies in Britain — and certainly understands what it means to be boiling hot.

But Stephen Johnson’s life in August is set to be very different, as he aims to raise at least £50,000 for charity Grief Encounter by walking the equivalent of 35 marathons — on his own, in 35°C heat, in Spain.

Johnson, 55, said: “When I was only 18 months old I lost my mother [Sandra], who died when she was just 25.” He decided to act after learning that, every year in the UK, just over 46,000 children experience the death of a parent or carer.

The UK ambassador to Israel, Simon Walters, said:

“The UK’s commitment to fostering a supportive environment for Israeli businesses to expand and flourish remains unwavering. This robust collaboration underscores the immense potential of our shared economic partnership.

The UK remains a solid, welcoming destination for Israeli businesses looking to expand their global reach.”

Debbie Shapiro, country director, business and trade at British Embassy Israel, told Jewish News: “Israel is a key trading partner for the UK.

“The British Embassy in Israel continues work to advance this relationship to deliver more investment and deeper trading relations – including through negotiating an upgraded Free Trade Agreement.”

“I wanted to support children and to find a charity that did it,” Johnson said. “I’m a keen supporter of The Fed and the Friendship Circle in Manchester, but I wanted to do something for children, and Grief Encounter was an amazing fit for me”.

The charity provides help and counselling wherever it is needed for children and young people who have lost someone close to them.

Johnson trained for nearly a year before beginning his August walk, with the aim of walking 46.3 kilometres a day to echo the number of bereaved children.

Every day, Johnson walks for between nine and 10 hours in the blazing Spanish heat.

All the man with the hottest feet in town is focused on is racking up the steps and working out ways to persuade people to donate.

• To donate, visit just giving.com/page/stephen -johnson-1719393474476

Reginald D Hunter made a joke about Israel, leading to a couple protesting

Stephen Johnson

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News / Olympics win / Maccabi Games

Jewish athletes win 17 medals at Olympics as Israel breaks records

A record-breaking Olympics was capped for Israel’s athletes with silver in the all-around rhythmic gymnastics team competition – the country’s seventh medal overall in Paris.

The Israeli delegation took home one gold, five silvers and a bronze across four sports to make it the country’s most successful Games, with more than a third of its total 20 medals in history. It also brought the total number of medals won by Jewish athletes to at least 17: six golds, six silvers and five bronze.

Completing the haul on the penultimate day of the competition was the Israeli gymnastics team captained by Romi Paritzki and including Ofir Shaham, Diana Svertsov, Adar Friedmann and Shani Bakanov, who finished with a combined score of 68.850, behind gold medal-winning China’s 69.800. Italy won the bronze.

“This is a moment that can’t be described,” Friedmann said after the win, according to Haaretz. “This is

the greatest thing that’s ever happened in our lives. We waited for this moment for so long and I am so happy we succeeded in achieving it together.”

Gilad Lustig, the secretary general of Israel’s Olympic committee, drew a connection between Israel winning its seventh medal and the symbolism of 7 October, the date of Hamas’ surprise attack that killed more than 1,200 Israelis and launched the ongoing IsraelHamas war.

“It’s the most important closing of the circle, after what they tried to do to us on 7 October,” Lustig told Haaretz. “We

are here, on the map.

“This is our victory over what happened on 7 October,” Lustig continued. “From the bottom of our hearts, from every team of ours, from all the people that accompanied this. The feeling of our mission is much greater, and we can seal it with the story of the seven medals. There is nothing more symbolic than that.”

During the 2024 Games there was the best single day in Olympic history for Israelis. Tom Reuveny – who carried Israel’s flag with Paritzki into the closing ceremony on Sunday –claimed Israel’s fourth ever Olympic gold in the iQFoil windsurfing final. Within hours, Sharon Kantor, 21, became the first Israeli woman to win a sailing medal when she took silver, and judoka Raz Hershko also claimed second spot in the women’s over 78 kilogramme category.

Fellow judokas Peter Paltchik took bronze in the 100 kilogramme

category for men and Inbar Lanir won silver, showing her support for the hostages still in Gaza by wearing a yellow scrunchie. Artistic gymnast Artem Dolgopyat won silver in the men’s floor exercise to follow up on his gold medal performance at the 2020 Games.

Meanwhile, Australian Jessica Fox was among the Olympics legends given the honour of featuring in the closing ceremony at the Stade de France. Already one of the most successful Jewish athletes since Mark Spitz, she added two more golds to her tally of four before Paris to cement her position as the most decorated canoe shalom competitor in Olympic history.

Her younger sister Noémi, 27, also took to the top step of the podium in the inaugural kayak cross event to ensure they were the first Jewish siblings to both claim gold in a single Games since Irina and Tamara Press

for the Soviet Union in 1964. Race walker Jemima Montag also took two medals – this time bronze – for team Australia.

US wrestler Amit Elor became Olympic champion at the age of 20, stretching an unbeaten record going back to 2019 to make her the youngest American wrestling champion in history.

Also hearing the US anthem was Jackie Dubrovich and Maia Weintraub, part of the winning women’s foil team, while fellow countrywoman Claire Weinstein won silver as part of the women’s 4 x 200m freestyle relay.

Americans Sarah Levy in the women’s rugby sevens and foil fencer Nick Itkin also took bronze.

British director and producer Ben Winston helped to produce the segment with Tom Cruise where the Olympic flag was handed from Paris to LA, which will host the Games in 2028.

FIRST TASTE OF SPORTING GLORY FOR YOUNG ATHLETES

The curtain has come down on one of the largest international Jewish sporting events ever to take place in Britain after more than 900 athletes from 14 countries took part in the European Maccabi Youth Games.

The games ran from 28 July to 6 August and were held for the first time in the UK, providing young Jewish athletes with a junior-level introduction to what are the international Maccabiah Games.

The competitions took place at the Hatfield University campus in Hertfordshire, as well as at several outside locations. Athletes competed in basketball (U16/U18 boys), football (boys U16/U18 and girls U18), futsal (boys), field hockey (girls), tennis (girls and boys) and table tennis

(girls and boys). Participating countries included: Great Britain, the United States, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Switzerland, South Africa, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, France, Italy, Argentina and Israel.

Amir Gissin, chief execu-

tive of Maccabi World Union, said: “We live in times when community is more than just a token word, but actually a part of what creates the resilience of the Jewish people, in Israel and in the diaspora.

“The Maccabi Youth Games play a role in strength-

ening this resilience, as well as in emphasising the mindbody-spirit connection that is integral to the development of the young athlete and the young Jew.”

This year’s games included a bus tour of Covent Garden and Camden Market, a lec-

ture by the Anti-Defamation League and a talk given by guest speaker Israel Defence Forces reserve soldier Shahar Peled.

Each country’s delegation adopted a hostage of the 7 October attacks, who was featured on their jerseys and on

the delegation flag.

The Israeli delegation included a team of U16 boys (football) from Ofakim, one of the communities attacked; a team of U18 girls (basketball) from Kiryat Yam; and in the U18 boys category (basketball), a team from the Leo Baeck basketball academy in Haifa that included athletes with special needs.

Maccabi GB CEO Ashley Lerner said: “The Maccabi movement proudly uses the term chazak ve’emetz, meaning ‘be strong and have courage’.

“Never before has this been a truer testament as to the show of strength and unity from Jews travelling from across the world to be hosted by the amazing Jewish community here.”

Israel’s rhythmic gymnastics team celebrate receiving their silver medals on the podium

Sisters Jessica and Noémi Fox by the Eiffel Tower

Tom Cruise (right) with Ben Winston at the Olympics

Participants on day 2 of the Maccabi Youth Games (left). More than 900 athletes from 14 countries took part this year

Residents’ relief as ban on school events upheld HUGE BLAZE AT REUBENS

Residents in Hendon have told Jewish News of “an overall feeling of relief” after planning inspectors rejected an appeal by a strictly Orthodox boys’ school against a ban on use of the school’s premises for noisy events such as weddings and barmitzvahs.

For four days this year, RJ Perrins, an inspector appointed by the secretary of state, heard submissions from Barnet Council, the Talmud Torah Tiferes Shlomo school and neighbours of the school in Danescroft Avenue and Danescroft Gardens.

Perrins turned down the school’s submission that it should be allowed to continue hiring out its premises. The school, which has 300 pupils aged between three and 15, formerly housed Hendon Reform Synagogue.

Perrins noted in a lengthy report that –despite claims by the school that permission had been given for Hendon Reform to hold events in the building, and that the school’s events were no different – he had heard “the evidence of local residents who only had cause

to complain once the site had been bought by [Tiferes Shlomo school]”.

There was anger about parking, loud music, slamming of car doors, blocking of driveways, food delivery vans too big for the cul-desac near the school, and loud, late-night noise. Perrins’ report said

residents pointed to “vehicles being parked illegally, driveways being blocked, a paramedic being unable to attend a call, and gridlock”, all during events.

Between June 2021 and July 2022, 40 external events were held at the school. In July 2022, after the council served a ‘stop’

notice on the school, hiring of its hall was suspended.

The school appealed against the ban but was unable to hold events until the appeal was heard. One resident told Perrins that the past two years had brought a sense of “life being back to normal” in the street.

The inspector said he had “no doubt the use [of the school for commercial events] would have had a detrimental effect on the living conditions of those living nearby, leading to unacceptable harm”.

The relieved residents told Jewish News: “We appreciate the work Barnet has done to prevent an events space in this residential neighbourhood, and we look forward to continuing a positive relationship with the school in the future.”

A fire has caused substantial damage to Reubens kosher restaurant on Baker Street, central London.

The fire started at the restaurant at 4.56am on Friday, burning through both the ground and first floor of the four-storey building.

About 20 people had to be evacuated.

Sixty firefighters brought the blaze under control by 7.10am, fire officials said.

The London fire brigade said: “The ground and first floors of the building were damaged by the fire. One of the brigade’s 32m ladders was deployed to the scene as an observation tower. Around 20 people left the property before crews arrived.”

Reubens, established in the 1970s, was ripped apart by a fire in February, with four people being taken to hospital and forcing the restaurant to close. Staff said Friday’s blaze was caused by an electrical fault.

Aliyah: Building Dreams & Saving

•

Planning inspectors turned down the appeal by Tiferes Shlomo school in Hendon

The Baker Street restaurant last Friday

‘Zionists’ leaﬂ et / IHRC claim /

Probe urged on ‘get Zionists out’ leaflet

Police are investigating “get Zionists out of Finchley” leaﬂets that were circulated ahead of an anti far-right demonstration in the north London area.

Local MP Sarah Sackman conﬁrmed she had reported to police leaﬂets distributed by a group apparently called Finchley Against Fascism that included a call to “Get Fascists, Racists, Nazis, Zionists & Islamophobes Out Of Finchley”.

Sackman said her constituents in Finchley and Golders Green had raised concerns about the leaﬂets with her o ce in advance of the protest.

About 1,000 “anti-racism” protesters turned up at the evening event last week, held over claims a far-right gathering would take place outside an immigration centre.

In the counter-protest organised by Stand Up To Racism (SUTR), several people waved large Palestinian ﬂags throughout the evening. SUTR is linked to the Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party, although there was no suggestion that it was behind the ‘Zionists out’ leaﬂets. SWP has long held a hostile stance towards Zionism and Israel.

Sackman posted on X on 7 August: “Concerned residents have shared posts with my o ce relating to so called ‘anti-fascist’ groups in Finchley which are clearly

antisemitic. I will not amplify or platform those voices. Instead I have reported them to the police and CST. I advise others to do the same.

“I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again. Whether it’s the far right or far left there can be zero tolerance for antisemitism, Islamophobia or racism in any form. There is no place for such hate in our community.”

The main counter-protest was attended by members of the Jewish community, but many expressed frustration with the atmosphere, especially after being alerted to the leaﬂets. JW3 CEO Raymond Simonson posted on X: “Huge anti-fascist demo in N. Finchley. I felt uncomfortable there for past hour knowing there were people around me who don’t like me or want me there but I had to be there to show solidarity with refugees + local Muslim community. There was a real edge though.”

One leading communal ﬁgure pointing to a cyclist who spend much of the evening riding up and down the main road with a huge Palestinian ﬂag on his back.

The expected showing by far-right supporters in Finchley did not materialise, leaving SUTR organisers claiming a victory.

50 PEERS HIT

A letter signed by 50 peers has accused the Islamic Human Rights Commission of “primitive, dangerous and disgraceful antisemitism” after its chair blamed “Zionist ﬁnanciers abroad” for the UK’s far-right riots.

BACK

The peers – who included Lords Finkelstein, Watson, Mendelsohn, Wolfson, Palmer, Polak, Pannick and Pickles and Baroness Altmann – wrote to The Times in response to claims made by the IHRC’s chair, Massoud Shadjareh.

In an open letter to Home Secretary Yvette Cooper and police on Tuesday, Shadjareh said: “Enabled

by their Zionist ﬁnanciers abroad, far-right elements have weaponised the tragic killing of three young girls in Southport to incite the country into pogroms against Muslims and people of colour.”

The peers’ letter noted that the IHRC letter “dated August 6 to the home secretary and police chiefs asserts (with, of course, no factual foundation) that ‘far-right elements’ have been ‘enabled by their Zionist ﬁnanciers abroad.

“Such primitive, dangerous and disgraceful antisemitism needs to be called out and condemned.”

FAKE VIDEO OF CHIEF

The Chief Rabbi has condemned a fake video in which he calls for mosques to be shut.

On X he described the one-minute compilation, believed to have been created by Russian ‘bots’, as a “pernicious lie”.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said: “I implore all users of social media to think critically and act responsibly.”

The video, released last week, is tagged with “@bbcnews”, TikTok branding and statements superimposed on silent footage of the Chief Rabbi as well as images of Muslims, veiled women, churches, Jews and police. Beliefs it falsely attributes to Rabbi Mirvis include one that closing mosques is “the only way to defeat violence committed by Muslim immigrants”.

Massoud Shadjareh

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Rabbi wins right to kosher food

A rabbi detained after being accused of carrying out an illegal circumcision in Dublin has won the right to be given kosher food after taking the Irish prison service to court over the terms of his custody in Cloverhill Prison.

Rabbi Jonathan Abraham, who has 15 years’ experience as a mohel, was arrested two weeks ago in a private home in the Irish capital, where he was said to be carrying out a circumcision. He is accused of performing the operation without having local certiﬁcation and faces a maximum of ﬁve years in prison if found guilty.

But when he was detained in custody after being ruled a ﬂight risk back home to London, Rabbi Abraham complained that his human rights were being breached — because he was not permitted to pray using his teﬁllin, and was not provided with kosher food.

In a High Court hearing, Ms Justice Nuala Jackson ruled in favour of the rabbi and said that the prison authorities had got it wrong. She observed that the failure to provide Rabbi Abraham with kosher food had “caused him considerable and understandable stress and seemed to come from a lack of understanding by the prison services to provide him with food in accordance with his religious beliefs”. Cloverhill has since taken steps to allow

Rabbi Abraham, 47, to use his teﬁllin and to obtain kosher food for him. However, the judge found that the conditions of the detention did not require the rabbi to be released from custody.

The rabbi, she said, was a dedicated and committed member of the Jewish faith and his devotion had impressed the court.

The judge said that given the circumstances of the case and in light of her ﬁndings, she was prepared to direct the Irish State to pay 50 percent of the rabbi’s legal costs.

Ireland’s Chief Rabbi, Yoni Wieder, who gave evidence in court, has made several representations to the prison authorities about the importance of providing kosher food to Rabbi Abraham, but he said that prior to the High Court ruling, this had not been done.

Israel gap-year offer for 10 young leaders

Young Jewish leaders of the future are being helped to take part in a new gap-year initiative to boost their links to Israel.

UJIA and Wohl Legacy will be providing a total of up to £100,000 – covering up to 50 percent of the gap-year programme costs — for 10 young leaders to receive ﬁnancial support of up to £10,000 to travel to Israel after leaving school.

Each of the participants will also have access to a range of professional coaching and personal mentoring opportunities, will participate in exclusive Shabbatonim and seminars, and continue to engage as a cohort on their return to the UK.

UJIA chair Zvi Noé said: “Long-term experiences in Israel are highly impactful for Israel

TIES CUT WITH NEWSREADER

Disgraced BBC broadcaster Huw Edwards has been removed as patron of a Welsh Jewish cultural centre following calls by Jewish sexual abuse campaigners to sever ties with him.

Edwards, 62, became a patron of the Merthyr Tydﬁl synagogue restoration project, run by the Foundation for Jewish Heritage, in 2022.

In an email to Jewish News, a spokesperson conﬁrmed that Edwards had been removed after he pleaded guilty to multiple child pornography charges last month.

A statement said: “Huw Edwards is no longer a patron

of the Merthyr Tydﬁl synagogue project and therefore no longer has an association with our organisation.”

The former BBC presenter, who will be sentenced in September, accepted 41 charges of possessing images of children, with seven classiﬁed as category A, the most serious.

Chief executive Erica Marks said: “As a general rule, when public ﬁgures are involved in serious crime, it may also emerge that other organisations are linked with them.

Migdal Emunah, a charity that provides support to Jewish sexual abuse victims in the UK, called for Edwards to be disassociated from the project in light of his conviction.

“I would urge any organisation to consider their position very carefully when anyone with connections to them has been charged with a serious crime, such as in this instance, and to consider severing ties with anyone charged with such o ences.”

SPECIAL HAGGADAH GIFTED

An extraordinary illuminated Haggadah that recently sold for £370,000 at Sotheby’s has been donated to the National Library of Israel (NLI) in Jerusalem.

The original Hebrew manuscript by Judaica artist David Moss was gifted to the collection by philanthropists Trudy Elbaum Gottesman and Robert Gottesman.

The work, which took three years to research, conceive and create, incorporates

calligraphy, micrography, numerous painted miniatures, and important designs.

Dr Raquel Ukeles, NLI’s head of collections said: “The Moss Haggadah represents a high point for contemporary Judaic artwork and the 20th century revival of Hebrew calligraphic arts, in which David Moss played – and continues to play – a pivotal role.”

engagement and Jewish identity development. These experiences are crucial for sustaining the leadership pipeline within the Jewish community. They are an opportunity for young leaders not only to develop a strong relationship with Israel, but also to develop personally.”

People are being encouraged to apply for the scholarships now.

Those eligible must be a UK resident, a participant on a Masa-approved gap-year programme of four months or more, and have an intention to return to the UK and be an active member of the UK Jewish community.

Applications open on 15 August for programmes starting in January 2025 and autumn 2025. For more information, visit: ujia.org/ gap-year-scholars

UJIA and Wohl Legacy will provide up to £100,000 for the programme

The rabbi is in Cloverhill Prison, Dublin

Huw Edwards

Sallai Meridor, David Moss, Trudy and Robert Gottesman

Sikh Labour MP who had key role in expelling antisemites

by Lee Harpin lee@jewishnews.co.uk

There are not too many untold stories left about the ﬁght to rid the Labour Party of the stain of antisemitism, but there is one quite signiﬁcant one that has been overlooked until now.

In front of me in Westminster sits Gurinder Singh Josan, one of 11 members of Britain’s Sikh community elected to parliament last month.

Josan, now MP for his home seat of Smethwick in the West Midlands, won half the votes cast and is understandably proud that as “a child and grandchild of immigrants” he received such a powerful mandate from locals.

But behind the scenes, before his electoral triumph, Josan is also proud of the role he played in processing thousands of unresolved, or in some cases unlooked-at cases of antisemitism in Labour, nearly all relating to the bad old days under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn.

From his position on Labour’s national executive committee, Josan, with a sense of disgust and shame at the failure of the then-Labour leadership to tackle the problem, volunteered to sit on disciplinary panels overseeing hundreds and hundreds of cases.

At one point, in the summer of 2020, he conﬁrmed Labour had processed more cases of antisemitism in three months than it had in the previous three years.

In an online post to Jewish Labour members at the time, he encouraged them to rejoin the party under Keir Starmer’s leadership. “There has been a real change in tackling antisemitism in the Labour Party,” he wrote. “I promise you the Labour Party is under new management. It is safe to come home.”

With forthcoming internal Labour elections this summer, he is determined to ensure Labour To Win’s majority on the NEC becomes even more weighted in favour of his wing of the party.

He is also full of praise for the way the proStarmer wing of the party controlled the selection process for Labour’s candidates going into the election. The increased number of both Jewish and Sikh MPs reﬂected what he said was an overriding commitment to “increase diversity within the parliamentary Labour Party”.

“It’s about breaking down any barriers that exist between the party and communities,” says Josan. “I think we did that by really ramping up our due diligence in our selections this time.

“In the past, things have come out afterwards that are obviously damaging to the individual and their families and friends. But it also has a big impact on the party.

“The due diligence was very important. And that’s where people were excluded, some-

MPs now representing the party in parsometimes on issues around antisemitism. I don’t make any apologies for that.”

Labour to push community members forwards in the party similar to the way the Jewish Labour Movement does, is proud of the increased representation from both communities on the government benches.

“Representation really matters,” he stresses. “It’s important that there are people not just in parliament but at every level who understand their communities, be that the Sikh, Jewish or any community in this country.”

Josan says there are clearly similarities with the Sikh and Jewish communities – around heritage, around family, around aspiration – that he says also reﬂect what he calls “British values”.

Josan is of the view the ﬁght against antisemitism in Labour was not just vital to restoring the Jewish community’s trust in the party, it was also about “really questioning what kind of Labour Party are we”.

Labour Party needs to reﬂect the society we are in and that that society changes over time.

But he adds: “There are people who are on the extremes, with all of these groups. We obviously have no truck with those.”

Josan says he has always believed Labour should be a “broad church”, the caveat being that this must be a “broad church” who “believe in Clause 1 of the Labour Party rule book”.

“And Clause 1 is about maintaining a democratic presence in parliament. So it’s about people who believe in a democratic process. If you believe in this process, we might disagree on individual issues and policy areas.

“But if you believe a democratic process is the best way to achieve change, we have to understand that in the Labour Party, getting Labour candidates elected is the best way to achieve change.”

Josan, who ﬁrst developed close relations with Jewish Labour activists at university, and who helped set up Sikhs For

“Fundamental discrimination against anyone because of their race and faith, for that to happen in the Labour Party, the party of equality, is just nonsensical,” he adds. “There’s a place for education, a place for people to learn, but there is also a case where it is necessary for the party to take robust action.”

Today, with Keir Starmer in Downing Street and 11 Sikh MPs and 12 Jewish MPs now representing the party in parliament, you would forgive Josan for relaxing for one moment, and just enjoying the victory.

But he is having none of that. Later that evening, in one of the MP’s favourite Westminster bars, I ﬁnd him locked in discussions with MPs from the same pro-Starmer wing of the party.

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nonsensical,” he adds. “There’s a place for edutake robust action.” the election of independent candidates, some Palestinians.

Josan is also keen to reﬂect on the rise in the election of independent candidates, some of whom are now MPs, who held “niche views” particularly on issues around Gaza, Israel and the He argues against a “knee-jerk” reaction to growing support for such candidates.

But I put it to Josan that in the Jewish community there are still some concerns that the hardleft anti-Israel crowd are waiting for a chance to pounce again and attempt to seize power away from the Starmer wing of the party.

“The Labour Party has moved on massively, even before the EHRC report. Keir Starmer set a mark in terms of where he wanted Labour to be,” he says. “We are in a much better place.”

Josan says he also understands that members of the Jewish community in this country who have relatives in Israel will “understandably” have added concern about a new Labour government’s policies towards the Middle East.

“We should try and understand. If people have a concern about Gaza and Palestine, we need to try and understand what that is.”

“We should try and understand. If a Palestine, understand what that is.”

But Josan adds that the same stance should be taken to former Labour voters who turned to

Labour voters who turned to Reform at the election.

Labour’s manifesto, he points out, continues to commit it to supporting e orts to bring a twostate solution and eventual resolution of the conﬂict between Israel and the Palestinians.

“That doesn’t solve the short-term problems,” accepts Josan, who says Labour must also focus on today’s crisis. “The missiles are still being ﬁred at Israel, the pressure is still there.”

“We need to understand vote for someone, especially when it’s someone mind isn’t going to win, to be prepared to do that, shows there’s

“We need to understand it. To go out of your way to vote for someone, especially when it’s someone you know in the back of your mind isn’t going to win, to be prepared to do that, shows there’s something we need to understand.”

But he is nonetheless supportive of the longer-term e orts now being taken, particularly by Starmer and foreign secretary David Lammy, to try to kickstart a viable peace process. This would, it says, be “the single biggest thing the Labour Party could do in that region.”

Josan says he believes that the

Josan adds: “We have got to have policy focus both on the immediate and on the long-term as well.”

It felt really good that Chai was there for me and all my family

Gurinder Singh Josan

Struggling to hear the TV? Missing out on family phone chats? Hearing just not what it used to be?

Jewish Deaf Association

Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has apologised over the 7 October attack by Hamas in which more than 1,200 Israelis were killed and more than 250 were taken hostage.

“I am sorry, deeply, that something like this happened,” he told Time magazine during an hourlong interview in Jerusalem.

The interview, which Time published in full, was Netanyahu’s ﬁrst major one with any news organisation since 7 October.

Netanyahu ‘deeply sorry’ for 7 October SMOTRICH CONDEMNED COLUMBIA DEANS QUIT

It was conducted by the magazine’s national political correspondent Eric Cortellessa, who talked to the prime minister shortly after Netanyahu’s visit to the United States, where he addressed Congress and vowed to press on with Israel’s war in Gaza.

After asking the prime minister about the threat posed by Iran and his handling of Hamas prior to 7 October, Cortellessa asked Netanyahu why the only apology he had made since the attack was to military and security o cials whom he had blamed for it.

He also asked about the many criticisms being levelled at Netanyahu’s leadership, including that he had excessively empowered the far-right in Israel and that he might be prolonging the war to ensure he stays in power.

The prime minister batted away the concerns, saying in each case that the allegations about him were lies or distortions.

He also said he had no plans to step aside, even as a majority of Israelis in polls say he should.

“I will stay in o ce as long as I believe I can help lead Israel

to a future of security, enduring security and prosperity,” Netanyahu said.

In the immediate aftermath of 7 October, one takeaway was that Netanyahu’s longstanding reputation as “Mr Security” appeared to have been wiped away.

In the months since, the criticism has grown. Netanyahu told his interviewer that he was not bothered and that he would continue to do what he believed was necessary to keep Israelis safe.

“I’d rather have bad press than a good obituary,” he told Cortellessa.

Far-right Israeli minister Bezalel Smotrich has been condemned by the UK, France and the EU after appearing to suggest that it might be “justiﬁed and moral” to starve Palestinians in Gaza.

The ﬁnance minister said in a speech that “no one in the world will allow us to starve two million people, even though it might be justiﬁed and moral in order to free the hostages”.

Smotrich also claimed Israel was providing humanitarian aid to Gaza “because we have no choice” as Israel

Three administrators at one of the United States’ leading universities have resigned after exchanging a series of derisive text messages that were seen as antisemitic during a panel on campus Jewish life.

The resignations at Columbia came nearly two months after the texts came to light, causing a scandal at the Ivy League college as it contends with allegations of antisemitism on campus, and with months of turbulent antiIsrael protests.

had to get “international legitimacy to conduct this war”. UK foreign secretary David Lammy called on the Israeli government to “retract and condemn” the remarks, while the EU said deliberate starvation of civilians was a war crime. Meanwhile the US state department called on Israel to investigate abuse against Palestinian detainees by soldiers apparently shown in a video shown on Israeli TV.

The White House said reports of rape, torture and abuse of Palestinian prisoners were “deeply concerning”.

Columbia University president Minouche Shaﬁk said last month that the texts echoed “ancient antisemitic tropes.” At the time, the university said the administrators involved had been “permanently removed from their positions”, but it was unclear whether they would take on other roles at the university.

The messages – sent during the panel in May and ﬁrst reported in June – downplayed accounts of campus antisemitism, mocked Jewish students and suggested that a Hillel o cial was leveraging accusations of antisemitism for fundraising. The deans were placed on leave shortly after the texts surfaced.

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Benjamin Netanyahu (right) in discussion with a military chief

Bezalel Smotrich

Editorial comment and letters to the editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

Hats off all round for Israel’s ath -

If schepping nachas were an Olympic sport, then World Jewry would surely win gold after Israel wrapped up the Games in Paris with an incredible record-breaking haul of medals.

Seven medallists and many others who didn’t quite make the podium showed what Israel was capable of across the varied disciplines of gymnastics, sailing, windsurfing and judo. On Monday, they returned to Ben Gurion, having packed one gold, five silvers and one bronze medal into their team suitcases.

While the Olympians showed they truly were at the top of their Games, it’s not just for the medals glistening around the necks that we should feel proud.

We need to acknowledge theirs was a team whose lives have been upended mere months before they were due to compete. They have gone through the tragic loss of family and friends since 7 October; they have experienced uncertainty over the fate of more than 100 kidnapped hostages still in Gaza and they are feeling fear for what is yet to come.

For Israel’s Olympians, they have had to show a superhuman mental determination as the anti-Zionist nay-sayers and haters continue to spit their venom. Some of the team even received invitations to their own funerals ahead of the Games.

That they should come out the other side holding medals evokes a tear-jerking pride that we have such superheroes in our midst.

Publisher and

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Everyone has their own opinion about the war between Hamas and Israel. However, since the British Jewish community are in the minority with our support for Israel, I question whether it is prudent to write a letter in the national press – as 30 rabbis have done – supporting the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s attempt to seek arrest warrants for Israeli leaders.

Karim Khan, the ICC prosecutor, seeks the indictment of the leaders of both Israel and Hamas and rules that Israel must halt any military offensive in Rafah that could harm civilians.

Equating the leaders of Hamas with Israel’s democratically-elected government is abhorrent. Israel goes to great lengths to minimise civilian casualties, dropping thousands of leaflets and making hundreds of phone calls before an attack

We must condemn the ICC STARMER LOOKING LESS THAN MODERATE

Former MP Joan Ryan, an exceptionally decent friend of Israel, would have us believe Keir Starmer “has abandoned the noxious anti-Zionist worldview of his predecessor” (Jewish News, 1 August). Unfortunately, evidence proves otherwise. In just one month, he has lost no time in dropping the previous government’s legal challenge to the ICC seeking to arrest Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant for war crimes, restored funding to the terrorist-supporting UNRWA, despite the alleged £22bn hole in the country’s finances, is examining an arms embargo against Israel, the victim of Hamas aggression, and announced its support for recognising a Palestinian state in the future.

on military targets; it aborts missions on occasion, so putting its soldiers at greater risk.

Hamas has built 350 miles of tunnels below ground and fights from hospitals, schools and houses, where its weapons and rockets are stored. Since it hides behind its civilian population, how do the signatories to the letter suggest that Israel proceed to eliminate this existential threat?

The ICC (overseen by the UN) accuses Israel of using starvation as a method of warfare. This allegation is baseless. More than 25,500 lorries have entered Gaza since the start of the war, bringing half a million tons of food and medicine. Far from supporting the ICC’s prosecution of Israeli leaders, we should firmly reject it.

Kay Bagon Radlett

It further announced that it will reverse Michael Gove’s proposed bill to outlaw councils from boycotting Israel in their investments.

Labour’s pronouncements on the ongoing war carry a tone of sympathy for the Palestinians but an absence of empathy for the Jewish victims.

Starmer has honed the art of presentation, making him appear moderate, but it should be remembered that he did not have the integrity to resign from the front bench in opposition and more than once declared his “100 percent support for Corbyn”. Actions speak louder than words.

Gerry Solomons Highgate

WORLD’S HYPOCRISY TRUE DEMOCRACY

I cannot but wonder at the world’s hypocrisy. Severe accusations levied at Israel on how it conducts the war in Gaza are now legion; the 30 British rabbis who wrote to The Sunday Times backing Labour’s stance and bewailing the casualties and the supposed flouting of international law by Israel have joined the crowd (8 August).

I suggest the rabbis direct their indignation at Hamas-Iran and Egypt. Hardly any innocents would have died or been maimed had Egypt given them shelter, as international law demands. Instead, Egypt made excuses, joined the Israel accusers at ICC and, cynically, dropped food parcels. The crocodile tears shed by all Israel’s critics do not convince.

Eda Spinka

London NW4

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In reply to Llewelyn Gaba’s rant “Not on Board” (8 August), the Board of Deputies is the community’s only democratically elected, cross-communal, representative body. It comprises more than 300 deputies directly elected by the organisations they represent, from synagogues to youth movements and charities to regional councils

More than 65,000 British Jews fought, and many died, in defence of our democracy. Democracy is not perfect, but it is preferable to many other forms of government.

Brian Bloom Deputy for AJEX

‘We’re coming to that time where we don’t eat, and we leave our lights and appliances off – not Yom Kippur but the end of the winter fuel payment’

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Attempt to blame Juwes for every ill is telling

JOSH GLANCY

NEWS REVIEW EDITOR, THE SUNDAY TIMES

Until last week, the most famous misspelt double negative sentence in British Jewish history was written on the stairway of a tenement in Whitechapel. “The Juwes are the men that will not be blamed for nothing,” wrote someone who may or may not have been Jack the Ripper, near a crime scene where two young women had been murdered.

To this day, no one is sure what the author meant: were they blaming the Jews for the murders? Was the Ripper a Yid? Or was it a tortured critique of antisemitism - stop blaming the poor Jews for everything?

Anyway, the mysterious Goulston Street author of 1888 now has a rival in the pantheon of grammatically confusing Jew-blaming: Clive Lewis, the Labour MP for Norwich South. On Saturday, Lewis linked rising Islamophobia with, well, the Jewish state.

“The link between the daily inhumanity being metted [sic] out to Palestinians and rising Islamophobia in the UK, are not unconnected,” Lewis tweeted. “The inhumanity being shown to one is giving ‘permission’ for the other.”

Lewis is part of a trend; blaming Israel and/or Zionism for pretty much everything that’s going wrong in the world is very much in vogue at the moment. In Venezuela, under siege president Nicolás Maduro, the moustachioed kleptocrat of Caracas, has put opposition to him stealing yet another election down to the shadowy forces of “international Zionism”.

Meanwhile Yassine Arab, the director of Algeria’s Olympics committee, is furious with the Zios for orchestrating the objections to someone who could have male chromosomes winning a boxing gold medal by punching a bunch of women. “The Zionist lobby, they want to break the mind of Imane [Khalif],” he said.

in the continued existence of a Jewish state in the Middle East with those who think Jews are a global parasite. I’m afraid Lewis’ claim isn’t any more compelling.

His argument, I think, is that the brutality of Israel’s war is cheapening our sense of Muslim life, thus making it easier to imagine burning a migrant hotel or stoning a mosque. He’s suggesting that the depredations of the Zionist entity are stirring and legitimising something atavistic and cruel in the white Christian soul.

Is there any truth in this? It feels like an almighty stretch to me. It is true that both anti-Muslim hate and antisemitism have surged since 7 October, but that happened before Israel dropped a single bomb on Gaza. Most likely it is a response to British Muslims becoming far more vocal and politicised in reaction to the war, something that no doubt irks the knuckledraggers of the far right.

This is a time-honoured tradition of course. Recall the time the Egyptians blamed a shark attack on Mossad (though I wouldn’t put it past them). The American journalist Yair Rosenberg even has a name for this: the Goebbels gap, which is the amount of time it takes between something going wrong in the world and it being blamed on you know who.

And yet before we dismiss Lewis for crimes against the English language, let’s take him seriously for a moment, because I think his attempt to make this argument tells us something quite important.

Modern progressivism often makes the mistake of wrapping everything up into a single omnicause: trans rights are climate rights are Palestinian rights are human rights. It’s a narrow and reductive way of seeing the world that often detracts from the individual causes in question (is addressing climate change really helped by tethering it to the gender wars?).

But if the oppressed all come under a single rainbow banner, then naturally the oppressors can be lumped together too. Capitalism is Zionism is Terﬁsm. The good people of Finchley against Fascism tried this when organising their counter-protest against the far right last week. “Get Fascists, Racists, Nazis, Zionists and Islamophobes out of Finchley” was their ﬂyer’s call to action.

Seen in a certain light, this is a call to ethnically cleanse almost all of the 28,000 Jews who live in Finchley and Golders Green. But really it’s that omnicausal thinking again, lumping people that believe

For months now, city centres across the country have been the scene of large, proud and angry protests driven in large part by Muslim communities. Politicians have been elected promising to represent the cause of Gaza. This has triggered a certain type of nativist, who lives in mortal fear of Britain falling under the sway of sharia law.

But there is simply no evidence any of the hundreds of idiots who were arrested over the past few weeks watched a distressing dispatch from Khan Younis on Channel 4 News and thought, ‘you know what, if the Israel Defence Forces can do it why can’t I?’. In truth, I’m not sure British football hooligans really need inspiration from the Golani Brigade in order to get caned and kick some brown people’s heads in.

Lewis is dangerously close to subscribing to the Zionist theory of everything here, as promoted by our friends in Caracas, Algiers and Finchley. Such thinking can easily become antisemitic, a suggestion he will no doubt dismiss as the same old “smear” that was used against Jeremy Corbyn. But blaming Israel, without any evidence, for events on British streets that have numerous other clear and established causes (immigration, cocaine, booze, boredom, summer, social decay, racism), is wading into pretty prejudicial waters.

If you spend too much time on social media, the world begins to blend into one angry puddle of enemies and causes. But not everything is connected. Not everything is Israel’s fault. And the Juwes will not be blamed for nothing.

Norwich South MP Clive Lewis has connected rising Islamophobia with Israel’s war in Gaza

My UJS team is ready to lead for the year ahead

SAMI BERKOFF

UJS PRESIDENT 2024-25

The past academic year has been a year like no other for Jewish students. As the new Union of Jewish Students (UJS) president, I anticipated the challenges ahead when I began my campaign shortly after 7 October.

Amid unprecedented levels of campus antisemitism, the previous government’s Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act, which had been scheduled to come into e ect on 1 August, and the proposed guidance by the O ce for Students (OfS) posed signiﬁcant threats in the form of a slow-motion car crash.

The purist approach taken to freedom of speech could allow space for Holocaust deniers to spread their vile rhetoric or potentially undermine essential tools universities use to combat antisemitism.

This could have included the removal of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) deﬁnition and the prevention of universities from mandating training

deemed “controversial”, such as the antisemitism awareness training provided by UJS to thousands of campus leaders and university sta each year.

At UJS, we believe that promoting freedom of speech is essential for creating spaces in which students can express their views. However, despite further assurances from the

university minister that safeguards would be in place, it was clear they were insu cient. The legislation and guidance needed urgent revision to ensure protection for Jewish students and other minority groups and to provide reassurance for a more welcoming academic year.

In the past year, antisemitic incidents on campus more than tripled compared with the previous year. Jewish students have been abused, Jewish student spaces have been vandalised and desecrated and encampments have been erected on campuses across the UK and Ireland in an attempt to replicate scenes seen in the United States.

As we head into the autumn, freshers’ weeks and the new academic year, I am under no illusion that these antisemitic incidents are a thing

of the past, and my UJS team are ready to step up as the voice of Jewish students, ready to lead, defend and enrich Jewish student life each and every day.

I am profoundly grateful to the Secretary of State and the Department of Education for their support, willingness to engage and vision for change. Their actions have ensured that UJS and other groups are able to work to secure a safer campus environment for all students, including Jewish students.

Their support marks a signiﬁcant and positive step forward from a new government dedicated to protecting the rights and safety of all students. And this autumn will mark the start of a year in which Jewish students can stand up, ﬁght back and be proud of their Jewish identity.

Prince William meets with Jewish students

Claims ‘Zionists’ behind riots makes zero sense

JOHN WARE JOURNALIST, AUTHOR, AND INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER

The word “weird” is the weapon of choice the Democrats are targeting at Donald Trump. They hope it will persuade Americans in November that the former president is so far outside the mainstream that he will imperil the rules-based order of government if he is re-elected.

The Democrats calculate that “weird” is better than calling Trump “dangerous” because it connotes a collective “eh???!!” thought-bubble over the gibberish Trump often spouts – for example, his 45 most incoherent lines from a rambling speech in the Rose Garden in 2020.

“Weird” also captures the muddledheaded, evidence-free, ramblings of some pro-Palestinian academics and journalists who leapt on to last Wednesday’s counterprotest bandwagon to suggest Israel was behind the far-right riots.

So desperately do they want this to be true, that they’ve created for themselves an Alice in Wonderland world of imaginary links.

Here’s Dr Anas Altikriti, a passionate advocate of Hamas ‘resistance’ and co-founder of the Muslim Vote Campaign that returned four independent MPs to the UK parliament on the single issue of Gaza 2,230 miles away: “Tommy Robinson and those who ﬁnance him and those who have planned this… these are organisations, capitalists, individuals, corporations that are directly linked to the Zionist state of Israel [applause].

“This is their payback for Gaza. This is the payback for our demonstrations, for our stands, for our solidarity, for our opposition to the genocide. This is how they threaten to pay us back. This is their retribution.”

In other words, Robinson is a puppet on a string pulled by unnamed Zionists who orchestrated last’s weeks mayhem and bigotry against British Muslims as payback for the pro-Palestinian protests over Gaza.

As a measure of Altikriti’s fragile relationship to facts and evidence, he has also insisted that the allegation that Hamas massacred Israeli citizens at a music festival on 7 October is a “lie”, despite Hamas’s own headcam footage showing that that is exactly what it did.

The chair of the London based Islamic Human Rights Commission – a name that is absurdly oxymoronic since it avoids addressing the hideous mass abuse of human rights in Iran – also has a conspiratorial take on the root causes of the riots.

Massoud Shadjareh has told the home secretary by letter: “Enabled by their Zionist ﬁnanciers abroad, far-right elements have weaponised the tragic killings of three young girls in Southport to incite the country into pogroms against Muslims and people of colour.”

No names. Just... er... “Zionist ﬁnanciers” somewhere beyond our shores. “Primitive antisemitism” responded 50 peers, among them prominent Jews. The rebuke did not deter the Palestinian activist Yvonne Ridley, at a weekend anti-racist demonstration in Newcastle from wading straight into this cess pit. She suggested Robinson – “Israel’s poster boy” – had a “mission to bring chaos and riots to the UK so that Gaza could be knocked o the front pages”.

The irony is that anti-imperialists can sometimes ﬁnd themselves in good company with the far-right.

On 3 August, the American white supremacist and antisemite Nicholas Fuentes posted that the “Zionist Tommy Robinson” triggered a “nationwide civil unrest” after holding a “massive rally” following the new Labour government’s “secret arms embargo against Israel” and dropping its “opposition to the ICC arrest warrant for Netanyahu”.

“Excellent point,” responded Altikriti’s fellow academic, David Miller, to another X post making the same connection. “As I have been saying, ‘Tommy Robinson’ is a Zionist asset,” opined the former sociology professor, sacked from Bristol University in 2021 after a slew of provocative statements in which he branded Jewish students as “political pawns [of] a violent, racist, foreign regime engaged in ethnic cleansing”.

In fact, Miller says Robinson actually instigated the riots because he has been “working for the State of Israel since 2009”.

The rapper Lowkey (aka Kareem Dennis)

has also ﬂoated the idea that “racist attacks and pogroms in Britain” are part of “Robinson’s very clear material relationship with the Zionist movement”.

What “very clear material?” Even the London based Middle East Monitor (MEMO) has acknowledged that the UK Zionist Federation wanted nothing to do with Robinson.

The Iranian government-controlled Press TV has also alleged that Tommy Robinson is a “Zionist asset”, as has another pro-Palestinian outlet, Middle East Eye (MEE), although in the latter’s case this is posed as a question.

It soon becomes clear from the MEE’s answer that its question is entirely rhetorical.

First, the MEE rolls the pitch by quoting Robinson fulminating that “Hamas was allowed to overtake London, overtake our capital every weekend... the police did nothing”.

Then it highlights Robinson’s antiMuslim bigotry while recalling that in 2018 a right-wing pro-Zionist US based think-tank gave him £47,000 towards his legal defence against charges of contempt of court.

It then asks: “But what can Zionists and pro-Israel entities gain from supporting Robinson?” It’s such a weird question because the answer is so screamingly obvious: absolutely nothing, unless Israel is actively seeking even greater pariah status than it already has from the Gaza war and thinks that fomenting civil unrest here and undermining the UK as a key western ally is somehow in its interest?

The logic is so o the wall, but not to the MEE.

This sort of conspiratorial journalism completely ignores the fact that not a single “pro-Israel entity” in the UK wants anything to do with Tommy Robinson. The reverse in fact, and the MEE knows this because these “entities” have gone out of their way to emphasise the fact.

Every mainstream UK Jewish organisation here has unequivocally condemned both Robinson personally and last week’s far-right violence with its naked anti-Muslim bigotry.

The Board of Deputies has slammed “the lawlessness and thuggery” and “attacks on Muslims and black people, members of other minorities”.

Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis has spoken of the “stain on our national moral conscience” from the “targeting of mosques, asylum seekers and refugees”.

The Jewish Leadership Council has referred to “these shameful attacks on mosques, hotels housing migrants, and homes of migrant families.” It has welcomed e orts to “protect the security of Muslim and other communities under attack. Now is the time for us to stand together and reject this vile hatred”.

The Jewish charity Community Security Trust has o ered its support and cooperation to the Muslim charity Tell Mama, which protects Muslims from anti-Islamic hate, and which CST helped to create in the ﬁrst place. “The targeting of Muslims and other minorities is appalling,” said the CST last week.

It is patently obvious that Robinson supports Israel ﬁrst and foremost as a way of weaponising his bigotry against Muslims and that, when it comes to Jews, the far-right virus about malign Jewish power still lingers in his system.

Here’s a sample of his thoughts on Jewish influence in 2022: endorsing Kayne West’s diatribes about Jewish influence in Hollywood, under the heading ‘Tommy’s statement: The Jewish Question’, Robinson wrote that it “should be able to discuss this elephant in the room now that Kanye has opened the door” and so he did: “There are powerful Jewish people, claiming to be Zionists, who have their fingers on buttons of power in the entertainment industry, in big tech, in mainstream media, in the music industry, in Hollywood and in governments.”

TOMMY ROBINSON IS DESPERATE FOR THE APPROBATION OF JEWS. THEY HAVE REFUSED TO GIVE IT

The “gain” is apparently obvious: it quotes Robinson saying: “If they killed all the Jews, if they won the war and took Israel, they’re not stopping there. They’re coming straight through Europe. They’re already in Europe.” You see, Robinson is a “Zionist asset” because he promotes Israel as the defender of the civilising West against Islam’s inﬂuence in Europe.

Robinson is desperate for the approbation of Jews, as seen from how he has sought to insert himself into pro-Israel marches. Jews have refused to give it. Why would they? They do not like his politics, his anti-Muslim bigotry and for obvious historical reasons, they instinctively recoil from the far right. As if to underline that reality, last week the CST found that some far-right groups encouraged their supporters to target synagogues as well as mosques.

The Chief Rabbi says British Jews are “feeling trapped between the anvil of the hateful far right and the hammer of the conspiratorial extreme left”. It was ever thus.

Tommy Robinson (centre) leads his Take Our Country Back march in London last month

Many who aren’t shomer shabbat still observe it

RABBI WOLLENBERG

SENIOR RABBI OF WOODFORD FOREST UNITED SYNAGOGUE

An old Jewish joke: what’s the di erence between a pessimist and an optimist? The pessimist says: “It can’t possibly get any worse than this.” The optimist says: “Of course it can!”

In last week’s Jewish News an article screamed out the headline: “Only a third of us say Shabbat is important.” Not a great percentage, all things considered. Cause for pessimism, certainly, but I was taught to always be an optimist, to see the glass as half full.

I also thought this ﬁgure, from JPR, was quite strange, given my own lived experiences as a congregational rabbi for more than two decades, in very diverse communities.

I decided to go to the source and look at the study for myself. I discovered that actually 62 percent of respondents said that Shabbat was either fairly important or very important. 61 percent attend a Friday night meal regularly. 80 percent light Shabbat candles at least some-

times. Also, the percentages for these activities were actually higher across the board than the previous survey from 2013, showing a greater engagement in Jewish life currently.

It didn’t really surprise me, as Shabbat has been a point of convergence for families and communities since time immemorial, an oasis of time during the busy week when we prioritise our families and friends, and slow down to a di erent pace.

The Russian-born thinker Ahad Ha’am famously said: “More than the Jews have kept Shabbat, Shabbat has kept the Jews.”

Indeed, we refer to strict Shabbat observance as ‘keeping Shabbat’, being ‘Shomer Shabbat’ meaning to guard and protect, but there are actually two dimensions. In the two di erent versions of the fourth commandment which appear in the Torah, the ﬁrst uses “zachor” - remember – the second “shamor” – keep. This is also a reason for lighting two Shabbat candles. Zachor represents the positive mitzvot and observances of Shabbat, shamor the negative mitzvot and restrictions.

When we sing Lecha Dodi on Friday nights we say it the other way round, shamor v’zachor

– ﬁrst the negative then the positive. Why the change in sequence?

From an ideal, Heavenly point of view, Shabbat is not about the prohibitions; they are simply the framework that allows us to appreciate it for what it is. Shabbat is really about the positives – sanctifying it with Kiddush, with prayer and song, with good food and ﬁne wines, resting and enjoying Shabbat, what we talk about, family meals and leisurely activities, how we spend our time. This is shamor v’zachor, keeping Shabbat by putting boundaries in place to allow for maximum appreciation and enjoyment. The restrictions of shamor are the means to the end of zachor: the positive enjoyment and observances of Shabbat.

This is true of many mitzvot which have

both positive and negative components. We need those boundaries and frameworks to be able to really appreciate and cherish the true, inner dimensions.

So many people I know are not strictly ‘Shomer Shabbat’, but they will stay home, light Shabbat candles, say kiddush on Friday night, have a meal, mark Shabbat even if it just staying home rather than going out. This is certainly zocher Shabbat, marking the positive aspects.

Of course, the framework of the negative restrictions gives us the authentic Shabbat experience, but it needs to be in tandem with the zocher Shabbat – remembering – the positive mitzvot of Shabbat.

The JPR ﬁgures are encouraging in that a signiﬁcant majority of us engage with Shabbat in some form or another, particularly the proactive zocher Shabbat aspects. Obviously there is always room for growth in life, and ahead of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur perhaps we can all choose one more aspect of Shabbat to focus on in the coming year. In the meantime, let’s keep Shabbat where it belongs, at the centre of our week, our family and community lives, celebrating its traditions together.

Boucherie (Kosher) ltd is looking for observant Jews to join their staff for general duties on a part time basis for our Barkingside store IG6 2AJ. Hours to suit.

1 VOLUNTEERS JOIN CAMP SIMCHA’S FAMILY DAY OUT

A volunteer team from Goldman Sachs joined seriously ill children and their families on a Camp Simcha outing to Hertfordshire Zoo this month. The 15-strong investment bank group were part of the company initiative, enabling staff to work with non-profit organisations to make a difference. The Camp Simcha day out was one of 13 outings across London and Manchester as part of its Keshet Summer Day Scheme, giving its families an opportunity to enjoy the same summer fun as their peers.

2 BRINGING SMILES AND SONG TO THE COMMUNITY

Members, staff and volunteers at Jewish Care’s Michael Sobell community centre and Jewish Care’s Ronson Family community centre welcomed five Year 7 students from Haberdashers’ Elstree Girls’ School who performed songs from the musicals at hospitals and care homes across northwest London. The girls all train at singing and dance schools and wanted to bring smiles to the community as part of their batmitzvah celebrations. (Back row, from left: Chloe Kennedy, Zoe Walters, Sienna Benjamin, Sky Burke and Livvy Saunders)

3 TEENAGERS KICK OFF SUMMER WITH GIFT

Sixteen Year 10 girls spent three days in Brighton on a volunteering trip to learn about the importance and impact of giving. Highlights included helping at Half-Way House, where they assisted residents with mental health issues, litter picking at the beach and assembling and delivering care packs for homeless people. The GIFT trip also included a visit to Brighton Pier and BBQ evening. Chaya Necha Milun, the trip leader said: “This is what GIFT is all about!”

4 TEACHERS ENJOY ISRAELI DANCE CAMP IN SURREY

22-year-old identical twins Michal and Ester Bitton from Kiryat Shemona were displaced from their home after 7 October. Ekaterina Vozianova from Kyiv and Anastasia Mikenina from Kharkiv also come from a country hit by war. The four girls came to the Israeli Dance Institute ‘Machol Europa’ camp, held last week at the University of Surrey, to strengthen their roots. Also taking part were youth leaders from Istanbul, teachers from Bucharest, teachers from a school that was flooded in Porte Alegre in Brazil, and teachers from Cuba and Argentina.

5 PRAYER LEADERS MEET AT OXFORDSHIRE RETREAT

The European Academy for Jewish Liturgy held its fifth leaders’ retreat in the Oxfordshire countryside. Twenty-seven people from five countries, 21 communities and 10 denominations gathered for a weekend of learning, prayer, music, leadership and teamwork. EAJL founder Chazan Jaclyn Chernett said: “With the heartbreaking situation in Israel continuing, it is vital that we give each other strength, love and support at this difficult time. Our retreat shows Jewish community at its most compassionate. This is where we learn to be true leaders.”

London’s ‘tenement museum’ Israeli cyber security

The Music MAKERS

With his own grandfather being a Holocaust survivor, Darren Richman was drawn to the tale of a young pianist in 1930s Hungary. His granddaughter inherited the piano and then wrote his story

Roxanne de Bastion never intended to write a book.

In March 2021, the singer-songwriter decided to mark International Piano Day with a brief Twitter thread outlining the survival story of her Hungarian grandfather, Stephen, and his beloved instrument.

Chance, as with most stories of surviving the Holocaust, played a big part for Stephen. While the stakes were clearly not as high, there was an element of fortune involved for his granddaughter too.

The tweets did not go viral but were shared just widely enough to be seen by the right person, a literary agent who felt this remarkable tale should be expanded into a book.

The result is The Piano Player of Budapest, a work of nonﬁction that rattles along like an airport thriller. We meet, appropriately enough, at Stephens House in Finchley on the anniversary of the death of my own grandmother, a woman who escaped France in her youth before marrying an Auschwitz survivor and settling in England.

De Bastion says she was not brought up Jewish in any meaningful way. “I didn’t grow up with any sense of what being Jewish means. My dad and his sister were brought up to be as English as possible. Their parents’ trauma ran deep and my dad would get bristly if the subject of Jewishness even came up.”

For the author, writing the book was a journey of self-discovery and not just because she was transitioning from songwriting to prose. She recalled arguments in her youth between her father and aunt, during which the former would insist he was not Jewish and his sister was adamant he was, whether he liked it or not.

These contradictory familial viewpoints are at the heart of The Piano Player of Budapest, a Shoah memoir constructed from countless letters, documents and hours of Stephen’s own testimony recorded decades after the events described. Even within the family, debate has raged over the years about exactly what kind of person this man was.

What is undeniable is that Stephen was an accomplished pianist and ﬁlm composer on the verge of greatness before the advent of war. Overnight, his primary concerns were no longer the stu of life, such as women or his next concert, but the Nazis and evading death.

De Bastion inherited the titular piano when her father, Stephen’s son, died in 2019. She considers the book a love letter to her father and a way of “absorbing some of that grief”.

There was a concerted e ort to try to discover how much of the son and granddaughter might be found within Stephen and his story. Another primary objective was to draw a parallel between then and now which, she feels, is more relevant at the time of publication than when work began on the book, not least in the wake of the recent elections in Europe. There was not just a tremendous sense of responsibility in attempting to capture Stephen in prose. While the family members were all supportive, De Bastion notes: “It’s not always easy. With stories like this and families of this sort of size, through time everyone has their own passeddown version of things. Details become of great importance to people, so it didn’t always go completely without discussion over whose version of events

was right. Ultimately, though, it was Stephen’s story I was telling.”

The story is deftly told by a writer who honed her craft penning a tour blog during her early years on the road as a musician. The musical metaphors in the book underline the bond that connects Stephen and his granddaughter, despite him dying when she was very young.

De Bastion might not remember her father’s father, but she’s memorialised him expertly. Indeed, ‘May his memory be for a blessing’ has rarely felt more apposite.

There are times on the recordings when Stephen, like so many Holocaust survivors, simply could not or would not put into words the things he experienced. The most notable example occurs when the testimony almost glosses over the events that occurred at Mauthausen concentration camp.

It is not a sin of omission but a coping mechanism of an ageing man not wishing to analyse the horrors of his youth. My own grandfather said nothing of his experiences in the camps for decades and it was not until he was in his 60s

that the floodgates finally opened. For the author, the omissions were the most upsetting, and she decided to fill in the gaps as ethically as possible through extensive research:

“I really felt the need to get the balance right of not shying away from just how horriﬁc it was but also doing it in a way that was respectful of Stephen and everyone else who su ered something similar.”

Before he had a family of his own, Stephen was fond of saying: “We’re going to die out like the dinosaurs.” Ultimately, his children and grandchildren are the ultimate riposte to the Nazis, and how ﬁtting that a family member should be the one to capture his story for posterity, simultaneously an act of devotion and a warning at a time where it feels especially urgent.

the liberation of Auschwitz history to history, such stories are more important

January will mark 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz and, as survivors die and the Holocaust makes the uneasy journey from living history to history, such stories are more important than ever.

The Piano Player

of Budapest is published by Hachette, £22

Stephen (right), singer Alvia Suli and drummer

Stephen de Bastion and (inset) his granddaughter Roxanne

No place like home

Museum of the Home in Hackney has opened its doors to a representation of a Jewish tenement flat in East London in the early 1900s. Debbie Collins paid a visit

We’re all a little bit

James Stewart in Rear Window, hoping for a nose into peoples’ daily lives and at the Museum of the Home that’s exactly what’s on offer –for free. An important piece of social history, the museum aims to rethink and improve the way we live and has curated a new selection of period homes reflecting the stories of the East London community, including a 1913 Jewish tenement flat.

As with any renovation, it’s all in the planning: from bedrooms and bathrooms to kitchens and gardens, the curators have taken on board visitor feedback to ensure a more immersive experience.

This allows visitors to become truly ‘part of the furniture’ – sitting on actual sofas within the exhibits, looking through windows, plus the firm favourite: interactive buttonpushing and handle-turning.

The museum underwent renovation works in 2021 and on reopening redressed the 1740s period room to show a Jewish Sephardi household celebrating Chanukah – the museum’s first representation of a Jewish household.

This was a temporary display that is now repeated each winter, welcoming families who had never been to the museum before let alone celebrated Chanukah (who doesn’t love a free doughnut?).

The tenement buildings, a solution to Victorian London’s housing problem, were inhabited by poor but respectable Eastern European Jewish migrants. While old photographs allowed accuracy for largescale prints of the building façade, less was known about the interior.

Louis Platman, research and content lead for the overall project

and curator for the tenement room, says: “We held research sessions with Jewish community groups, including a 99-year-old man with a photographic memory of his flat in the East End Rothschild Buildings, from which we took a huge amount of inspiration.

“We really wanted to get things right (for all the rooms), by engaging with visitors and working with community partners who had lived experiences of the block. The space has been rubber-stamped by those who knew the space from the

from Poland in the early 1900s and settled in the East End, so it was interesting delving deeper into my family history. I even managed to sneak a family photo on to the wall.”

At a time when toilet roll wasn’t affordable, it’s the little details of ripped-up newspaper as a substitute that ignite memories of those who lived through the period and really highlight how inhabitants lived. Naturally the room has simmering lokshen soup wafting from the ‘Delinsky’ family’s stove and a pretty realistic-looking challah in the middle of the dining table to welcome in Shabbat, plus posters of late, great Jewish boxers of the time on the partitioned bedroom wall (Ted Kid Lewis, so my dad tells me). Louis explains: “We wanted to fill the space completely, using scent boxes for the soup aroma and soundscapes of Yiddish chatter in the kitchen.”

inside, with many comments of ‘I remember that!’

“It was an interesting aesthetic to curate, getting that balance between a home that would seem poor to our modern eyes, but of which the people living there at the time would have been immensely proud – they even had an indoor toilet!”

Louis has a personal affection for the tenement. “I share a similar heritage, as my family came over

Director of creative programmes and collections Danielle Patten says: “We source a lot of the room features through eBay and Etsy plus vintage shops, as well as commissioning some replicas of items, such as rugs and wallpaper, but a lot of decoration comes from donors, including treasured photographs.

We have some extremely valuable art pieces throughout the exhibition and we’re proud to hold works from artists such as Rebecca Solomon, who was of a Jewish background.”

Nestled between an Irish couple’s 1950s house and a 1978 front room of a black family, the tenement room raises questions of how it will be received by the visiting public, at

a time when antisemitism is more prevalent than ever. Louis says: “In spite of world politics, highlighting festivals is really important to us and we repeated the Chanukah display without issue last winter. How it will be received is obviously on our minds but also the fact there are some valuable objects lent to us each year by a very kind private collector.”

Danielle says: “Understanding Jewish history in the UK is essential for comprehending the broader historical narrative of the country.

“This includes acknowledging the positive contributions of Jewish individuals and communities to British society, as well as the challenges they have faced, such as discrimination and persecution.

“By learning about Jewish traditions, beliefs and practices, people from different backgrounds can find common ground, build mutual respect and work together towards common goals and build a more harmonious community.”

Explanatory text appears on ecofriendly cork boards at the entrance to each room and what is written is of great importance to the museum in communicating often sensitive subjects. Louis explains: “Jewish community leaders have helped fine-tune the wording by trawling through text to ensure it is sensitively done and that we are focusing on the right stories and the most interesting ones.”

Museum of the Home invites the public to contact it if they have something treasured they would like to see featured. • museumofthehome.org.uk

The 1913 Jewish flat showing a Friday night table

ISRAEL IS AT WAR

By Candice Krieger candicekrieger@googlemail.com

‘BATMAN TECH’ START-UP HEADS FOR NASDAQ

Online security firm Cyabra is on a mission to fight disinformation and restore trust as it prepares for a $70m listing later this year

hen Israeli cyber intelligence start-up Cyabra disclosed its intention to go public last month at a value of $70m (£55m), it marked not only a milestone for the Israeli tech sector but served as a sharp reminder to the world about the serious threat posed by disinformation –the deliberate spread of false or misleading information with the intention to deceive.

WCyabra is a disinformation security company that uses AI to uncover fake social media accounts. Elon Musk used it to expose Twitter fakes before he bought the online platform (and renamed it X).

Founded in 2017 by Dan Brahmy, Yossef Daar and Ido Shraga, all veterans of elite

Israeli intelligence units, Cyabra’s AI platform identiﬁes illicit bot campaigns and provides tools to combat the bad actors in the ongoing ﬁght to restore trust in the digital realm. The company has supported 19 governments in protecting their elections over the past 12 months (at the time of writing).

Later this year, Cyabra, through a business combination with Trailblazer Merger Corporation, will list on Nasdaq.

“The timing is key,” says Raﬁ Mendelsohn, VP marketing at Cyabra. “The ﬁght against disinformation can’t wait any longer.

“There has been an exponential increase in disinformation and we have seen ﬁrst-hand how disinformation can impact lives. The advancement of AI tools that are being used by malicious actors means that we need new tools

to be able to tackle this head-on. Joining the public market ﬁrstly gives us access to capital and allows us to be able to scale our operations, activities, and understanding of what’s happening out there.

“It gives us a bigger platform to uncover misinformation that people should know about. The need is more crucial than ever.”

Quite. The World Economic Forum cites fake news as the “biggest short-term” threat, according to Global Risks Report 2024, while Gartner anticipates that by 2028 enterprise spend on battling malinformation will surpass $500bn, cannibalising 50 percent of marketing and cyber security budgets.

The battle against misinformation has escalated to where 87 percent of executives say the spread of disinformation is one of the most signiﬁcant risks to businesses today, according to Global Research Centre.

The damaging impact has been seen in the UK over recent weeks where misinformation fuelled riots after the stabbing attack in Southport that killed three children. Within hours of the attack, a false name of a supposed suspect was circulating on social media. Soon after, violent protesters were clashing with police outside a nearby mosque – the ﬁrst of several violent protests across England.

Mendelsohn, who joined Cyabra in 2022, says there are often spikes in disinformation at times of elections. “Elections can be a particularly active moment for society. In the nine to 12 months before an election, we see a rise in the activity and creation of fake accounts and dissemination of false narrative and we see it continue after the election as well.”

An investigation by Cyabra uncovered a massive inﬂuence of fake proﬁles on X, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, spreading a false narrative that was seen by hundreds of millions of accounts in the hours following the Trump assassination attempt.

The report discovered the primary false narrative being spread by fake accounts on social media involved claims Trump planned the shooting to gather votes before the elections; nearly half (45 percent) of the accounts

engaging with this claim were fake. They used numerous hashtags such as #fakeassassination and #stagedshooting to spread the claim – the average amount of fake accounts on social media is between four and six percent. Cyabra also identiﬁed a GenAI image depicting Trump smiling after the shooting.

Cyabra, which is headquartered in Tel Aviv, has raised a total of $16m, including from Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and Jon Medved’s OurCrowd, plus Red Forest Ventures, Summus Group, TAU Ventures and others. The 70th US secretary of state and former director of the CIA Mike Pompeo is on the board.

The company is witnessing an increasing number of brands being targeted by fake accounts as bad actors are getting smarter and more sophisticated, aided by the exponential advances in AI.

Mendelsohn warns: “As a society, we are getting better at being aware that social media is being used by malicious actors to inﬂuence campaigns, and particularly at times around elections we should be aware of that, but what is less understood is just how rife it is across all types of conversations.

“That is not laying blame at regulators and platforms, but because it is so hard to detect and to know what is real or fake and what’s a real person and what’s not. As a society, we have a ‘we don’t even know what we don’t even know’ challenge.”

Cyber security has been a real hero of the Israeli tech ecosystem, which has faced a turbulent time over the past 18 months. In the ﬁrst half of 2024, cyber accounted for more than half of private-equity funding to Israel with Cyabra, Fireblocks, Cyera, Paragon and Wiz (the latter rejected a $23 bn takeover o er from Google) being particular success stories.

Mendelsohn says going public will give Cyabra both the public and ﬁnancial platform to take the ﬁght to the bad guys, democratising the opportunity for anyone to invest.

And as the company’s co-founder and CEO Dan Brahmy writes on the Cyabra website: “If you had the chance, wouldn’t you invest in Batman’s technology?”

Rafi Mendelsohn

A fake image shows Donald Trump smiling after the assassination attempt last month

REAL IMAGE GEN AI

MAKING SENSE OF THE SEDRA

This week conjures up memories for me of my earliest youth, holidaying with my grandmother Rebbetzen Dr Judith Grunfeld. She was the last surviving one of my grandparents, who all, with God’s help, escaped the Nazi crematoria. This is the Shabbat Tisha B’Av, when she would join us for a week in the mountains.

For many years, my grandmother helped refugees, survivors and their families here in the UK. She would often say: “Thank God the Jews were scattered and not all in Europe, as we

would have been totally wiped out by Hitler.”

She used to explain this week’s parsha, Nachamu, to me each year with tears in her eyes: “God Himself will one day comfort the Jewish people for all the troubles and torments we have been through.”

The Haftorah starts with a description of a bright future for the Jewish people, in which their troubles and struggles will have come to an end and the nation will have achieved its destiny.

Rabbi Samson Rafael Hirsch (Germany, 1808-88) explains that our galut (exile) is considered here in its dual importance and meaning, for ourselves and in regard to our role in the world. For us, our exile is the time and place to improve in our service of God.

While in exile, as a “nation of priests” (see Shemot 19:2), we are also meant to set an example of how human beings should treat each other, in an ideal society.

The prophet Isaiah tells us God guarantees our eternal existence and our mission will be successful. He tells the prophets to proclaim loudly and forcefully, to be bearers of good tidings to Zion and Jerusalem. However dark and gloomy events may be, we are promised “as a shepherd, God feeds His ﬂock”; God will ensure our survival.

That is the proclamation – the promise – the children of Zion are always to keep in mind in their wanderings: the good tidings ZionJerusalem will herald. However little their immediate experiences seem to bear this out, steadfastly, unshake-

ably, they are to hold fast to it. For God Himself has proclaimed and promised it and He keeps his word.

As it states in Isaiah 40:33: “He is the one who brings princes to nothing and makes judges of the world like emptiness.”

Where is the glory of the pharaohs, the world empires of Nineveh and Babylon, the majesty of the mighty Persian kings? Where are the Macedonian world empire and the dynasties of the Ptolemies and

Seljukians? Where is Rome? Where is the Third Reich, which was meant to last 1,000 years but lasted 12? God asks us to remain close to him as a nation and to keep focused on our mission; then we shall endure.

Challenging as it is now, we are assured that, in the end, the Jewish people will survive and thrive. “Be comforted, be comforted my people!” (ibid. v.1).

Bring them home now and Am Yisrael Chai!

The Third Reich was meant to last 1,000 years but was gone in 12

LEAP OF FAITH

BY RABBI MARK GOLDSMITH EDGWARE AND HENDON REFORM SYNAGOGUE

Real Britishness

In a terrible tragedy, three young girls were killed in Southport on 29 July. A further eight children and two adults were injured. The suspected knife attacker has been publicly identiﬁed, arrested and charged.

False claims on social media about the suspect spread like wildﬁre, some saying he had arrived in the UK on a small boat in 2023 and naming him as Ali al-Shakati, with no o cial source for either allegation. The Islamic Centre in Southport was attacked with bricks and ﬁre. The far right stoked it all up countrywide as far as possible and kept rioting and intimidation going for a week.

By 1 August, we were told who was actually arrested and charged: a British-born Christian boy of 17, born to Rwandan parents who had immigrated to the UK completely legally. He was of a skin colour that led ignorant racists to assume he was Muslim, and then decide to attack any local Muslim.

Jews know the heart of a stranger. We know Islamophobia never creates a screen to make Jews safe. Indeed, the two Southport synagogues remain on high alert.

The writer Russ Jones wrote: “Even if the attacker was born overseas, Muslim, on beneﬁts etc – it doesn’t matter. You know who did this terrible crime? One man. Not his parents, not his compatriots, not his faith, not his colour, not his ancestry. Just him. Literally everybody else is innocent.”

Judaism reaches the same conclusion. In Midrash Numbers Rabbah 11:7, R. Eleazar Hakkappar says: “Great is peace, for the seal of the whole of our prayers is peace, and the seal of the priestly benediction is peace.”

When one man attacks others, Jews demand that our society creates peace and works for peace through the application of justice – never mob rule nor revenge feuding, as that will pollute the whole land with violence.

Moses sets up six towns throughout Israel for anyone who has killed to ﬂee to in order to await justice – the Levite Cities of Refuge. No one

gets away with murder, although it is not in the hands of anyone but the legal authorities to exact justice (Numbers 35:11 ). Real Judaism utterly condemns the public spreading of violence outside of the rule of law.

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

Right-wing rioters do not represent real Britishness, but real Britishness still exists. Bricklayer Tony Hill worked all day in the hot sun, voluntarily, to restore the wall of the Southport mosque.

Racist thugs, who had gone to Southport to, in the words of their chants, “get their country back”, had kicked in the doors of Chanaka Balasuriya’s minimart and looted more than £10,000 of stock. Southport hair salon owner Rose Tucker then immediately raised more than

£10,000 from hundreds of donors to pay him back for his losses.

Communities have gathered nationwide to defend facilities that support refugees, to help secure mosques and to demonstrate on the streets that Britain is a welcoming home. That’s real Britishness, and Jews should never let the far right try to persuade us otherwise.

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THE JEWISH NEWS CROSSWORD

11 Female rabbit (3)

12 Morally proper (7)

10 Reared (4)

SUDOKU

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

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

with brass bands can all be found in the forwards or backwards, in a horizontal, direction, but always in a straight, unbroken line.

Forceful, resolute (8)

13 Blue Shoes, Presley song (5)

14 Culinary pulveriser (6)

16 Plus (2,4)

19 Farmland units (5)

21 Make more secure (7)

23 Try to win the affection of (3)

24 Sudden thrust (5)

25 Take away (7)

26 Tending flocks (11) DOWN

2 Dog’s restraining chain (5)

3 Appendix to a will (7)

4 Wax light with a wick (6)

Small Welsh dogs (6)

Decoys (6)

Body tissue grafts (8)

Small horse for trekking (4)

Sticking (7)

Pet welfare organisation (inits) (5)

Form of golf (5,3,4)

Extemporise (2-3)

Snare for household vermin (9)

Jonathan ___, TV personality (4)

5 ___ basket, wickerwork carrycot (5)

6 Bishop’s area (7)

7 Signal to take action (4-2,4)

10 Of clothes, reaching the middle of the leg (4-6)

15 Squash (7)

17 With vision (7)

18 Heavy uninteresting food (6)

20 Lottery (5)

Yell, cry (6) 5 Having a fretwork pattern (8) 6 Word paired with ‘neither’ (3) 7 Time-wasters (6) 12 Spontaneous (9) 13 Nutrient found in fruit (7,1) 14 Zoo’s tea-party animals (6) 16 Shame (6)

19 Raising agent (5)

SUGURU

20 Small nail with an asymmetrical head (4)

22 Practise for a feat of endurance (5)

22 Travel across snow (3)

CODEWORD

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.

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.

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

In this finished crossword, every letter of the alphabet appears as a code number. All you have to do is crack the code and fill in the grid. Replacing the decoded numbers with their letters in the grid will help you to guess the identity of other letters.

In this finished crossword every letter of the alphabet appears as a code number. All you have to do is crack the code and fill in the grid. Replacing the decoded numbers with their letters in the grid will help you to guess the identity of other letters.