11 minute read
Expert Advice
Dear Jacob I will shortly be requiring a new mortgage and accompanying buildings insurance, and was hoping you could advise whether it’s better to use a local broker or to source these myself using an equivalent online tool? Dan
Hi Dan There is no definitive answer to this question as both routes have their pros and cons which depend on a variety of factors, but mainly your personal circumstances. What I believe to be a key consideration is the panel of lenders/ insurers which the broker or “online tool” has access to. You may be familiar with a term used by brokers in that they are a “Whole of the Market” broker. This means that the list of products they have access to represents the whole of the market, but this does not mean they have access to and/or advise on absolutely every product on the market. You may find that an “online tool” will have access to a greater variety of products but may not have access to some of the very niche providers. Therefore, the benefit of a broker versus an “online tool” would be dependent on your personal circumstances.
An additional consideration is that you are likely to benefit from the human element of using a broker rather than an “online tool” as the broker should understand the intricacies of each provider, which is likely to save you significant time and potential aggravation in the long run.
On a personal level, I tend to use a broker that I know and trust, whilst also performing my own research online. On the rare occasion that I see a product online that I believe to be more suitable than the product recommended by the broker, I would always query this with my broker (and most often find that there is a reason why that product was not recommended).
FINANCIAL SERVICES (FCA) COMPLIANCE
JACOB BERNSTEIN
A member of the APCC, specialising in financial services compliance for: • Mortgage, Protection and General Insurance Intermediaries; • Lenders, Credit Brokers, Debt Counsellors and Debt Managers; • Alternative Investment Fund Managers; • E-Money, Payment Services, PISP, AISP and Grant-making Charities.
Contact:
020 7781 8019 info@www.richdale.co.uk www.richdale.co.uk
CHARITY
JEWISH CARE
Jewish Care is the largest health and social care organisation serving the Jewish community in London and the South East. Our vital services touch the lives of 10,000 people every week. We provide services and offer a wide range of support groups to older people, people with mental health needs, Holocaust survivors, people living with dementia, people with a variety of needs and carers support.
Contact:
020 8922 2222 helpline@jcare.org www.jewishcare.org
SHIPPING
STEPHEN MORRIS SHIPPING
With almost 40 years experience, our company has the ability to move household and personal effects and antiques and fine art with the professionalism and care that comes from that experience coupled with an attention to detail. We construct our own Tri-Wall and wooden packing cases on site and employ full-time art installers and handymen for those ‘extra’ jobs that always need doing on a move or installation. And size is no limitation – we have moved trains, boats and planes across the world and even bridges and a 5,000 seater tent!
Contact:
020 8832 2222 info@shipsms.co.uk www.shipsms.co.uk
BUTCHERS
KOSHER DELI
Kosher Deli was established with the intention of making kosher meat and poultry affordable for all with the convenience of multiple locations and a comprehensive delivery service. All this without compromising on kashrus or quality. Locations in: Golders Green, Hendon, Temple Fortune, Edgware, Borehamwood & Manchester
Contact:
020 8381 4450 info@kosherdeliuk.co.uk www.kosherdeli.co.uk
WEALTH MANAGMENT
MARC OVITS – BA (HONS) APFS CERT PFS (DM)
Over 25 years of successful experience in financial services including 11 years of investment banking experience. Offering expert independent financial advice to individuals, businesses, charities and trusts. Individual services:- Wealth Management, Investment, Retirement, Estate/IHT, protection planning, Tax Mitigation and Cash Management Solutions Business & Charity services:- Investment Planning, Business Succession & Business Exit Planning, Business Protection, Corporate Pensions, Employee Benefits, Cash Management Solutions, Profit extraction strategies
Alpha Wealth Management Contact:
020 8203 6920 info@alphawm.co.uk www.alphawm.co.uk
ESTATE AGENT
MARTIN FRYDENSON - ROUNDTREE REAL ESTATE
Roundtree Real Estate are your local experienced Estate Agent having been established on the High Street since 2009. We are both ARLA and NAEA Propertymark regulated and we are here to offer you expert advice in Property Sales, Lettings, Commercial and Full Management Services, covering Hendon, Golders Green, Finchley, Colindale and surrounding areas. We have built long standing relationships with all our clients and should you have any property related queries please do contact us.
Contact:
020 8203 2111 mail@theroundtree.com www.theroundtree.com
TELECOMMUNICATIONS
MARTIN HEIMAN – SMARTINET
We’ve been providing businesses with all of their communication needs since 2010. We specialise in supplying businesses with VoIP Packages, Mobile Plans, Broadband, Card Merchant Services, Leased Lines, On-Hold Marketing, and Call Centre Services. Smartinet, your reliable and efficient business communications provider.
Contact:
0333 613 0000 connect@smartinet.co.uk smartinet.co.uk
ENERGY PERFORMANCE
EPC NATIONAL
EPC NATIONAL are leading experts in providing EPC certificates for domestic & non-domestic properties nationwide. Especially with the new regulations coming, we provide guidance to all of our clients. Call the team to discuss any requirements.
Contact:
03300 881141 info@epcnational.co.uk www.epcnational.co.uk
They tried to destroy us. We won. Let’s eat! Chanukah meaty treats
This seems to be a running theme with Jewish holidays and each one has it’s traditional dish. Chanukah is all about the fried food. We always have a family get together on the first night of Chanukah where we open presents around the fire place and have an excellent meal of roasted goose (when it’s available), my mum’s amazing potato latkes with apple sauce and hot dogs for the kids. With Kosher Deli’s special offer of a pack of latkes when you spend over £30 (see ts and cs online) at least you don’t have to slave over a hot stove to get your fried goods in. But if you do want to go that extra mile and make your own, why not add some of our pulled brisket to your latke batter for an easy all in one snack? Just leave out the gravy and reduce a little to use as a dipping sauce.
When we go to my uncle for his Chanukah party he makes Moroccan binuelos which are basically fried dough rings and you can choose to have them rolled in sugar for dessert or with a fried egg inside and some pulled beef and gravy for a real artery blocker. Shabbat Chanukah is always a special one, we have lots of people over and make all the extra special foods that come out when we go a bit over the top like my gradmother’s roast beef with caramelised onions. We’ll also be serving a Deluxe Meat Board at our get together and you could win one of four that we are giving away over Chanukah. Check out our instagram for details of the giveaway.
Jana Klein,
Director, Kosher Deli UK
SOCIAL MEDIA EXPERT
SITEAWE
Social media is POWERFUL for businesses. But a community around your business with followers to do more than just follow is even MORE powerful. Our partners include The Jewish Weekly and Badatz Igud Rabbonim. Comments have included “They boosted, and are continuing to boost, our online presence to far beyond what I could have imagined.” So what are you waiting for? Get in touch today
Contact:
07707 220 445 eli@siteawe.com www. siteawe.com
FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS
STEPHEN COLMAN – INDEPENDENT FINANCIAL SOLUTIONS
An independent mortgage broker directly authorised by FCA specialising – for over 25 years - in the more ‘challenging’ situations. We take care of the whole mortgage process on your behalf, handling all aspects of buying your residential or investment property. In addition over the past 5 years we have been at the forefront in arranging Equity Release mortgages for the over 55’s
Contact:
07956 234 524 020 8458 9137 stephencolman2@aol.com
BY DR DANIEL RYNHOLD
As we approach Chanukah, we likely think first of the miracle of the oil that we commemorate each night as we light the hanukkiah. But the battle that the Maccabees fought was about much more than fuel for the Menorah. So, on second thought we turn to the military battle, the victory of a group of Maccabean rebels over the might and power of the Greeks, potentially a greater miracle than the apparently more supernatural oil trick. And yet, as we are taught, the ultimate victory on Chanukah was not physical. So, on third thought (if that’s even a phrase), Chanukah was a battle for the very soul of early Judaism, through the ability of a group of Jews to repel the cultural forces of Hellenism in their attempt to remain loyal to Jewish particularism.
It strikes many of us, however, that even this third iteration of the Chanukah lesson is too simplistic. When Maimonides writes his Guide of the Perplexed, he begins by telling us that his ideal reader is “a religious man for whom the validity of our Law has become established in his soul and has become actual in his belief.” But he immediately adds that this putative reader has also “studied the sciences of the philosophers and come to know what they signify.” So much for the defeat of Hellenism…
The true cultural lesson of Chanukah, therefore, as it extends down to us today, seems rather more nuanced. It goes without saying that Judaism is a particular religion that resists complete translation into universal terms. But as an “ohr la-goyim,” a light unto the nations, it cannot be hermetically sealed off from the world around it. Maintaining difference is central, but it was Maimonides once again who wrote in his Commentary to The Mishnah that “one should accept the truth from whatever source it proceeds.” It is, then, in our ability to be fully ensconced in our own heritage while yet maintaining that there can be value in the best the world around us has to offer that the Chanukah story ultimately wends its way into our lives.
This, of course, is the ideal of Torah Umadda, the watchword of New York’s Yeshiva University almost from its inception. The minimal understanding of this ideal is the pursuit of the study of Torah along with secular disciplines, but its highest form is in their interaction, whereby each pursuit enriches the other.
There is no area where this interaction is as intimate and potentially rewarding as in the use of the tools of the academy to enhance one's understanding of Judaism. The Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies is the locus at Yeshiva University for precisely this interaction. While the academic study of Judaism presents both extensive benefits and some challenges, the men and women who study at Revel experience an environment suffused with a commitment to the authentic letter and spirit of historic Judaism, while at the same time finding themselves in a school with an extraordinary faculty who teach and publish at the highest academic level.
Born and bred in London myself, and a one-time lecturer at the London School of Jewish Studies, I am delighted that Revel now, through a partnership with LSJS, offers master’s degrees to students in the UK. But it is to another one-time faculty member at Yeshiva University born and bred in London to whom I grant the final word.
Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks zt”l, was an exemplar of the worldview presented above, and wrote movingly of faith as “like being secure in one’s home, yet moved by the beauty of foreign places, knowing that they are someone else’s home, not mine, but still part of the glory of the world that is ours.” I would only add that sometimes, we may even want to come home with some souvenirs. With Chanukah, in the long term, that’s exactly what we did.
Dr Mordecai D. Katz Dean, Bernard Revel Graduate School of Jewish Studies, Yeshiva University To find out more about how to join the MA Jewish Studies please visit www.lsjs.ac.uk
Teacher of the week
Cara Hadfield
Broughton Jewish Cassel Fox Primary School
Year 5 class teacher
Where did you train?
Edge Hill University What is the best part of your job?
I would say when a child finally understands something or comes up with a brilliant idea of their own.
Want a future-proof career?
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• One-year full time programme leading to Qualified
Teacher Status and PGCE Primary Education. • 120 days of hands-on teaching in high performing schools with encouraging colleagues. • Time will be spent on campus for training and support to teach across the primary curriculum.
Train as a classroom teacher with the option to specialise in Jewish Studies*.
For more information on how you can be featured as the Teacher of the Week please contact Helena.miller@lsjs.ac.uk
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