LIFTING SHOFAR BAN IS MUSIC TO OUR EARS, SEE PAGE 3 FR
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You dunces! How exam grades debacle shook Jewish schools Pages 4 & 5
VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY 20 August 2020
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30 Av 5780
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Issue No.1172
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It’s Shalom Abu Dhabi!
The story behind the deal P2, 10 & 11
@JewishNewsUK
Don’t be silent JN leads call for MPs to pressure China over Uighurs A Jewish News appeal to MPs to turn up the pressure on China over the plight of its Uighur Muslims this week received the backing of senior figures across the community, writes Mathilde Frot. The letter was organised in partnership with World Uighur Congress, human rights charity René Cassin and Conservative MP Nusrat Ghani. Around one million Muslims are believed to be detained in camps in Xinjiang, a region in the country’s northwest, according to human rights activists. Rights groups have accused China of abuses including forced labour and sterilisation. But Chinese authorities deny any mistreatment of the Uighur and other Muslim minority groups, saying the detention camps offer vocational training. As part of the appeal, an open letter will be sent to MPs when they return next month, carrying more than 20 signatures from Reform, Masorti and Liberal rabbis, senior community leaders and charity executives. Signed by Jewish News editor Richard Ferrer, Board of Deputies president Marie van der Zyl
and United Synagogue president Michael Goldstein, it calls on MPs to push for an independent investigations into alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang. It also petitions MPs to push for sanctions on “state and non-state perpetrators” and for the proscription of all companies and individuals “facilitating these atrocities.” Signatories also include Union of Jewish Students president James Harris, Jewish Care chief executive officer Daniel Carmel-Brown, B’nai B’rith UK president Alan Miller and Mitzvah Day founder and chair Laura Marks. Other backers are Dr Edie Friedman, executive director of the Jewish Council for Racial Equality, and Marc Cave, chief executive of the National Holocaust Centre in Nottingham. The letter says: “After the ratification of the Genocide Convention the words ‘never again’ were a common political refrain. “We have an urgent moral obligation to give meaning to these words. If we fail to act now, we will have shown them to be empty.” It describes alleged abuses as “a
A mask painted with the flag of East Turkestan, homeland of the Uighurs, silenced by the Chinese flag
crime of unimaginable violence and demands us all to respond, as individuals, countries and as an international community”. “For the Jewish community, some of the reports emerging from the region bring terrifying echoes of the Holocaust,” it reads.
ISRAELI JETS OVER DACHAU Israeli and German fighter jets performed a historic joint flyover in Germany for the first time this week. They flew in formation over the Dachau concentration camp and the site of the 1972 Munich Olympics, where 11 Israeli athletes were murdered
Earlier this month, the Chinese embassy criticised the contents of another letter, signed by senior faith leaders, demanding “justice” for China’s minority community population. The contents of the letter were “sheer rumour and smear. We strongly deplore and oppose it”, a
spokesperson for the embassy told Jewish News. “The so-called genocide and forced sterilisation is nothing but a lie,” the spokesperson added, alongside a lengthy rejection of claims made about Xinjiang. Opinion, page 18
INCLUSIVITY PROBE WIDENS The Board of Deputies will reach out to Jewish groups in the coming days as its racial inclusivity commission progresses to the next stage. The umbrella group, which has heard oral testimonies from black Jews, Jews of colour, Mizrachi, Sephardi and Yemenite Jews, is still accepting written evidence using an online form until 24 August. Commission chair Stephen Bush, political editor of the New Statesman, is expected to now speak to communal organisations, including Jewish News,
with meetings held online in next month. Bush said he was “humbled by the trust” shown by participants in “sharing painful experiences, alongside positive experiences as well”. He said: “I know that this took a lot of courage, and I want to thank everyone who has come forward. Next, I will be turning to communal institutions and inviting them to work with us, to help me and the Board of Deputies reach our goal of making the Jewish community an unequivocally anti-racist environment.”