16 minute read
Opinion
OPINION Parliamentarians united over Israel at Board Chanukah celebration
OPINION PIECE BY MARIE VAN DER ZYL
It is three years since the Board of Deputies last held its last Parliamentary Chanukah Reception.
In 2019, our reception fell victim to the unfortunate scheduling of the General Election and last year’s celebration was cancelled as the result of the pandemic.
So it was with a huge amount of joy that we were able to welcome Home Secretary Priti Patel and Leader of the Opposition Keir Starmer, alongside representatives from both chambers of Parliament, on Monday evening in the House of Lords.
We had plenty to thank them for. There has been cross-party support shown on many issues of interest to the Jewish community in recent times. These include ensuring the Coronavirus Bill was amended to avoid the prospect of mandatory cremations for Jews and Muslims, as well as support for the Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre, which hopefully in due course will sit just a couple of hundred yards from where our guests gathered on Monday. And most recently, there was wide backing given to the Government’s announcement of its intention to proscribe the Hamas terror group in its entirety. The Home Secretary spoke about this in her speech, saying this was part of the Government’s “sincere commitment to do right by the Jewish community in the UK.” I was grateful for the opportunity to thank her in person for the Government’s work on this most vital issue for our community.
We were also delighted to welcome the ambassadors of both Israel and Bahrain, which goes to show how far the situation in the Middle East has progressed since the signing of the Abraham Accords in 2020.
Israeli Ambassador Tzipi Hotovely spoke of the new strategic partnership between Israel and the UK, which is great news for the two countries and all of Israel’s supporters in the Jewish community.
The Chief Rabbi gave an uplifting address speaking about the centrality of family to the festival of Chanukah, before lighting the Chanukah candles and leading a stirring rendition of Maoz Tzur.
The room was filled with distinguished guests. These included Stephen Bush, Chair of the Board’s Commission on Racial Inclusivity in the Jewish Community, as well as representatives of EcoSynagogue, a partnership with the Board of Deputies which is working hard to make the Jewish community more ecologically conscious. And I was really delighted to see Baroness Merron, who this time last year was our Chief Executive before her elevation to the House of Lords. We also welcomed friends from the Union of Jewish Students and Bristol University Jewish Society, who, in the face of considerable opposition, stood firm and ensured that a foul conspiracy theorist was held to account for his actions. We were proud to support them in that effort and will always work to ensure that Jewish students feel safe on campus and in schools.
The first Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rav Shneur Zalman of Liadi, once said: “A little bit of light dispels a lot of darkness”. These wise words are still so true today. It has been a very difficult 18 months for both our country and the world. But, in kindling the lights of the menorah, we pray that we are finally beginning to emerge from that dark time into a new era of opportunity and hope.
Next year, Covid permitting, we will be able to welcome even more friends and colleagues to our Parliamentary reception. And I can guarantee there will be plenty of doughnuts and latkes to go around.
Marie van der Zyl is President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
The blinkers need to come off
OPINION PIECE BY ROBERT FESTENSTEIN
Last week it was revealed that Azeem Rafiq the former Yorkshire cricketer who was giving evidence to Parliament about the racism he had suffered had, when he was 19, produced some anti-Semitic comments on social media.
He has since apologised for this and much has been written about his conduct from 10 years ago. It is generally accepted that his subsequent apology is heartfelt and sincere and hoped that we can all move from this. On a personal level this is likely. There is though a more significant issue and that is how do address the bigotry present in the community from which Mr Rafiq originated.
This of course is tricky territory. Claudia Mendoza, the co-CEO of the Jewish Leadership council referred to this in her piece in the Jewish Chronicle on the 24th November. She said: “The Institute for Jewish Policy Research showed that most Muslims are not antisemitic (and it is damaging to stigmatise all Muslims as such) but also, sadly, that a significant proportion do hold bigoted views about Jews to a greater degree than the general population. Or as the British Muslim commentator Mehdi Hasan put it: “it pains me to have to admit this but antisemitism isn’t just tolerated in some sections of the British Muslim community; it’s routine and commonplace”.
So what is to be done with this problem. Ms Mendoza went on to say:
“The danger with wading into this arena is that it is so vulnerable to manipulation by those who have an agenda. I note that Rafiq has already been embraced by the campaigning organisation MEND which self-promotes as working for a cohesive society. No doubt Rafiq is unaware of MEND’s history of inflammatory comments from some of its senior members. Sometimes it can just seem easiest to avoid this minefield all together. That, too, is wrong and dangerous. Vacating the space leaves it open to those who will be only too willing to fill it with venom. To quote Jonathan Boyd from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, “when we see such complex territory before us, we have a choice: to avoid it, fight it, or to enter into it with caution and thoughtfulness. I would advise the third: to enter it with caution, with a clear goal in mind”. He is right.”
Ms Mendoza has put her head above the parapet in an area which is fraught with risk, a brave move on behalf of an organisation which prides itself in trying to steer a middle course between those who see Jew-haters behind every tweet and those who believe that those from ethnic minorities are incapable of being racist. What is interesting is that Ms Mendoza appears so far be a lone voice. There have been plenty communal leaders referring to the comments alone, but so far nothing on the origin of the bigotry and what might be done to deal with it.
Last week four men accused of engaging in racist abuse by yelling sick antisemitic abuse from a car in a ‘Convoy for Palestine’ in May of this year entered not guilty pleas. Their trial is likely to take place next year. Commentary appears to be centred on them as individuals which of course is safe territory. So what is the right approach, since whatever has been tried – if anything – over the last few years clearly hasn’t worked. Perhaps the starting point is for us as a community to recognise that there is a problem which needs to be addressed. Ignoring and hoping it will go away is not an option. Calling for a two state solution as a means of demonstrating our even handedness has also failed, as have calls of solidarity in relation to Islamophobia, well-meaning those these actions are.
The convoy in May was about Jews, not Israel. The calls for violence were against Jews and for as long as we ignore the roots of this hatred not only will it not go away, it will only get worse.
There needs to be engagement, proper engagement and not solely centred on those areas of agreement, such as concerns about the far right. The engagement has to concentrate on the bigotry referred to by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and it has to not pull any punches. It needs to distinguish between concerns over Palestinians and outright anti-Semitism and additionally there needs to be acceptance by all concerned that there is indeed a serious issue which needs firm and sensible attention. This is not about picking a fight with another minority group, it is about being realistic concerning the challenges faced by the Jewish community every time there is a conflagration in the Middle East.
Sadly there are still countries which refuse to deal with Israel. As Al Jazeera reported last week – “a major squash tournament in Malaysia has been cancelled, the sport’s governing body has said after the Southeast Asian country refused to grant visas to an Israeli team. It is the latest instance of Muslim-majority Malaysia, which has no diplomatic relations with Israel, barring the country’s athletes.”
It is not all bad news though. Reports of Jews openly wearing kipot in Abu Dhabi and Dubai are now becoming commonplace, evidence that it is perfectly possible for good relations to exist between Jews and Muslims. On a further positive note, the Jewish museum in Melbourne in Australia has reached out to the non-Jewish community, including Muslims and Christians with the result that engagement between these communities is positive and two way. It is time that the Jewish community in the UK took a deep breath and followed these examples.
Robert Festenstein is a practising solicitor and has been the principal of his Salford based firm for over 20 years. He has fought BDS motions to the Court of Appeal and is President of the Zionist Central Council in Manchester which serves to protect and defend the democratic State of Israel.
Why I Support the Bennett-Lapid Government
OPINION PIECE BY MIKE EVANS
I traveled to Israel on May 14 during the Gaza War to defend the State of Israel against a vicious antisemitic Muslim Brotherhood attack against Israel in the media. I mobilized the top evangelicals in America to film and express their support for the State of Israel and had scheduled a global Facebook live special that I had produced.
The leaders included the Rev. Franklin Graham, son of the famous evangelist Billy Graham, along with Christian Broadcasting Network President Gordon Robertson, former President of the 22-million member Southern Baptist Convention and Pastor Jack Graham, First Baptist Dallas Pastor Robert Jeffress, former presidential candidate and Gov. Mike Huckabee, actors Jon Voight and Pat Boone and numerous other major evangelical leaders representing tens of millions of evangelicals.
I was informed on the plane to Israel that my Facebook page the Jerusalem Prayer Team, with 77 million followers, had been attacked by an anti-Zionist Muslim Brotherhood group and we had become a victim of cyber terrorism. The organized attack included more than 2.1 million antisemitic hate messages posted on the page in a 72hour period.
Many of the posts included death threats. Others said Hitler should have killed all the Jews. Facebook had the power to stop those comments from being posted, but they didn’t. My team made many appeals to Facebook for help but were ignored.
To our shock, instead of Facebook blaming the perpetrator, they punished us, the victim, and shut our page down. We are the largest religious Facebook page in the world and without a doubt the largest pro-Israel page worldwide. We had recruited more than 14 million Muslim young people as followers in an attempt to win their hearts and their minds to combat antisemitism.
I brought camera crews into the warzone to film so we could tell the truth about Siderot and Ashkelon and show the suffering that the Jewish people were experiencing because the media was only spotlighting the suffering that Muslims were experiencing, and blaming Israel. It was Jew-hatred, fundamentally fueled by the Muslim Brotherhood’s anti-Zionism.
When I was then informed that Ra’am, an anti-Zionist party, was joining the government, I was outraged. To think that a pro-Muslim Brotherhood, anti-Zionist party would be part of a Jewish State was more than I could stand.
I’ve been mobilizing support for the State of Israel since the days of Menachem Begin, and have stayed out of politics. As a matter of fact, Shimon Peres dearly loved me and I dearly loved him. He was my international chairman and commissioned the Friends of Zion award that has been given to 22 world leaders, including two U.S. presidents. My policy has always been not to focus on the right-wing or the left-wing, but always focus on the bird, Israel.
Yet on this particular occasion, I came out strong and hard, criticizing the government that was being formed because it included a pro-Muslim Brotherhood, anti-Zionist party. I apologized at a press conference for those comments because I realized that it was wrong for me to criticize Naftali Bennett, who has been a very strong Zionist.
Regretfully, while I was in Israel in May, there were media organizations that made false statements of what I had said. As a journalist for more than 40 years, I know the game the media plays. It’s called, “If it bleeds, it leads.” Sometimes secular media makes up fake news simply for headlines.
I’ve dedicated my life to supporting the State of Israel—and I will not stop now. I have built a $100 million campus, the Friends of Zion Heritage Center in Jerusalem, to create a home for the 800 million evangelicals of the world and Israel. They are, I believe, Israel’s best friends. As I have always done over the decades, I will continue to mobilize support for the State of Israel with all of the evangelical organizations that I have founded.
On the Friends of Zion Heritage Center campus in Jerusalem, I’m building an Ambassador Institute to train Christian ambassadors to support Israel’s brand in their countries and combat antisemitism. I’m building the first evangelical Research Institute and think tank to provide strategic, real-time data to universities, Christian media outlets and churches throughout the world and the State of Israel, along with building a 21st-century social network platform that cannot be gamed by anti-Zionist Jew-haters.
As an example, Ayelet Shaked, the Minister of Interior, sent me a short three-minute video on Jerusalem. In two weeks, we had more than 21 million people view it.
I wish Prime Minister Bennett as well as Yair Lapid, Minister of Foreign Affairs, God’s richest blessings and great success. My Jerusalem Prayer Team members will continue to lift them up in prayer. We will stand 100% behind the State of Israel. Mike Evans is a #1 New York Times bestselling author with 108 published books. He is the founder of the Friends of Zion Museum in Jerusalem.
BY CAMPAIGN AGAINST ANTISEMITISM
Inspiring leaders, influencing our future
OPINION PIECE BY RABBI ANDREW SHAW
Rabbi Sacks ztl once discussed the Talmudic question ‘Can you take one Chanukah light to light another?’ He writes:
Two great sages of the third century, Rav and Shmuel, disagreed. Rav said No. Shmuel said Yes. Why did Rav say you may not take one Chanukah candle to light the others? Because, says the Talmud, ka mach-chish mitzvah. You diminish the first candle. Inevitably you spill some of the wax or the oil. And Rav says: don’t do anything that would diminish the light of the first.
But Shmuel disagrees, and the law follows Shmuel. Why? The best way of answering that is to think of two Jews: both religious, both committed, both living Jewish lives. One says: I must not get involved with Jews who are less religious than me, because if I do, my own standards will fall. I’ll keep less. My light will be diminished. That’s the view of Rav.
The other says No. When I use the flame of my faith to light a candle in someone else’s life, my Jewishness is not diminished. It grows, because there is now more Jewish light in the world. When it comes to spiritual goods as opposed to material goods, the more I share, the more I have. If I share my knowledge, or faith, or love with others, I won’t have less; I may even have more. That’s the view of Shmuel, and that is how the law was eventually decided.
So share your Judaism with others. Take the flame of your faith and help set other souls on fire.
This idea is the driving force behind Mizrachi UK’s latest initiative – Yehudi.
Yehudi will inspire the next generation of Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist students to be role models for the community, to take their light, and instil a strong, meaningful Jewish and Zionist identity into thousands of young Jews across the UK.
Initially Yehudi is working in 15 Jewish primary schools, engaging with 660 Year 6 children who are being led by 130 leaders from across our secondary schools and universities. This will continue to grow next year and beyond.
Mizrachi UK is proud to be launching this initiative and on Sunday 5th and Monday 6th December we will be asking to the whole community to join us in supporting Yehudi as well as our other programmes, to help aid the transformation of the UK community and a strengthening of our community’s connection to the people of Israel, the land of Israel and the Torah of Israel.
Our campaign during Chanukah is no coincidence. Chanukah celebrates the extraordinary story of how a small group of passionate individuals made a monumental difference to the direction of the Jewish people.
Although our Modern Orthodox and Religious Zionist community is fairly small in the UK, we have made, and continue to make, a monumental difference to the direction of UK Jewry - just like the Maccabees did for our people so long ago. Please join us and allow Mizrachi UK to continue to make that difference. Mizrachi UK - Inspiring leaders, influencing our future.
Chanukah Sameach
Chanukah celebrates the extraordinary story of how a small group of passionate individuals made a monumental difference to the direction of the Jewish people. Rabbi Andrew Shaw is the CEO of Mizrachi UK.
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ABOUT MIZRACHI UK
Mizrachi UK inspires people with a sense of commitment to the Torah, the Jewish people and the Land of Israel. Mizrachi UK holds dear a conviction that all the work we do, whether through our Rabbinical Fellowship Programme, our Yehudi initiative, our Shlichim community work, or our Community engagement, serves to enhance and add to the spiritual life of our schools, shuls and campuses. We are very much part of the fabric of the British Jewish community. We focus on all age groups with our programming, inspiring primary school kids all the way up to octogenarians and beyond! Mizrachi UK focuses on the community and family, by scaffolding existing establishments in the work they do.
WHY WE ARE RUNNING A CAMPAIGN
Mizrachi UK is determined to invest in the future of British Jewry, proudly strengthening Jewish identity and supporting Israel.
£750,000 All donations will be doubled!
