1245

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That day in May JN Junior

VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY 13 January 2022

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11 Shevat 5782

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Issue No.1245

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@JewishNewsUK

resolutions Rabbis reflect on what they faced as Number 10 partied P8 How kids can make the world a better place in 2022 Page 27

The truth hurts Poland fires envoy for telling Jewish News that its Holocaust law is ‘stupid’ JEWISH NEWS EXCLUSIVE

by Michael Daventry mike@jewishnews.co.uk @michaeldaventry

Poland’s envoy to the Jewish community was dismissed abruptly on Saturday after he used a Jewish News interview to criticise his government’s laws on the Holocaust.

Jaroslaw Marek Nowak (pictured, inset), who was only appointed to the role last July, said it had been “stupid” to permit court action against historians for saying individual Poles collaborated with their Nazi occupiers to betray Jews. The so-called “Holocaust law”, which sought to prosecute those who defame the Polish state or Polish nation, was widely criticised by Jewish groups and Western countries when it was passed in 2018.

Nowak argued in the interview, published last week, that his country needed to accept there were difficult truths in its wartime history. Historians should be challenged through research and academic rebuttal, not in a court of law, he added.

Hours after the interview appeared on the Jewish News website, Nowak was relieved of his duties by Poland’s foreign minister, Zbigniew Rau. A government spokesman made the announcement on Monday morning. Following repeated requests for comment, the Polish Ministry For Foreign Affairs told Jewish News it “does not comment on its human resources policy”.

The dismissal was welcomed by supporters of the right-wing Law and Justice Party – in power since 2015 – claiming Nowak did not speak for Poland. But the news was greeted with

dismay by campaigners and politicians who thought Nowak’s appointment showed Poland’s troubled relations with world Jewry could be improved.

Ruth Deech, the crossbench peer who held talks with Nowak when he visited London last month, said she had formed a “very good impression of him”.

“He was receptive to the suggestions that we put to him about restitution, or at the very least commemoration, of the loss of Jewish-owned property during the war and afterwards. It’s very sad because his dismissal reinforces the negative view of Poland’s relationship with freedom of speech and the Holocaust and its refusal to contemplate restitution or commemoration with Jewish people.”

David Harris, chief executive of the American Jewish Committee, said Nowak had been “shamefully” fired for telling the truth, while Polish opposition politician Radosław Sikorski, a former foreign minister, said he had been dismissed “for telling the truth”.

Eric Pickles, chair of Conservative Friends of Israel in the House of Lords, said Nowak had brought “credibility” and was a sign that Poland was prepared to discuss difficult issues. “I regret his dismissal and I believe, in time, so will the Polish government,” the peer said.

Unlike other European countries, successive Polish governments have refused to broach the issue of restitution or compensation for Jews whose property was seized during the Holocaust.

Since Law and Justice came to power, Poland has sought to pursue those deemed to have defamed the “Polish nation” or “Polish state” on matters such as collaboration with the Nazis.

Journalists and academics are among those who have been targeted. Two historians, Barbara Continued on page 3

Poland’s Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki on a visit to Auschwitz with then German Chancellor Angela Merkel

BOARD VP PROBED OVER ‘FAR-RIGHT’ POSTS EXCLUSIVE

Gary Mond addresses JNF UK

Board of Deputies senior vicepresident Gary Mond has been asked to “step down from his duties” while an inquiry into allegations of anti-Muslim sentiment takes place, writes Lee Harpin.

Mond – the deputy for Israel charity JNF UK, where he is a trustee and honorary treasurer – was informed on Tuesday of the decision to undertake an examination of his conduct across social media.

It came after Jewish News alerted the Board to historic social media

posts apparently posted by Mond – including what appears to be a show of support for Pamela Geller, an American far-right anti-Islam activist, currently banned from entering the UK. As a JNF UK trustee, Mond had faced mounting calls from communal and student leaders to distance him-

self from comments made by the charity’s chair Samuel Hayek last month.

Confirming that it had asked the deputy to stand down while an inquiry into his actions takes place, the Board said there was “no place” for “antiMuslim hatred”. Mond said he would Continued on page 4

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

News / BBC ‘bias’ / Covid measures / Corbyn plans

PM weighs in on BBC bus row Boris Johnson this week called for “swift” action by the BBC to set out meassures it will take over its report into the antisemitic Chanukah bus attack, writes Lee Harpin.

A spokesperson for the prime minister – who is facing calls to resign after admitting he attended a lockdown drinks party – confirmed that he agrees culture secretary Nadine Dorries was “right” to send a letter to BBC director-general Tim Davie on the issue last week.

At a briefing for lobby journalists yesterday, Johnson’s spokesperson said he “agrees with the culture secretary that the BBC should move forward swiftly to set out what action they plan to take. We look forward to that happening in good time.”

Johnson has been put under intense pressure from Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and a succession of MPs to announce his resignation over his presence at the drinks event on 20 May 2020. Speaking at Prime Minister’s Questions, Johnson offered a “heartfelt apology” but said he had believed it to be a work event.

One question put to him in the Commons was from Tory MP Philip

the concerns raised by the Board of Deputies and how you intend to resolve the issue in a suitably timely manner.”

On Tuesday, a Lords Committee questioned Davie and other senior BBC figures on the channel’s “impartiality”.

David Jordan, the BBC’s director of editorial policy, said the broadcaster should “represent all points of view” and wanted to see a belief in impartiality triumph over identity.

“We are very com- Hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside Broadcasting House last December mitted to ensuring viewJewish News revealed this week The same claim was broadcast by points are heard from all sorts of perspectives and we don’t subscribe that the Board is prepared to take BBC London. A Board-commissioned to the ‘cancel culture’ some groups the issue to Ofcom if the BBC did not expert concluded the passenger had apologise for a 2 December report used Hebrew words, so could not have would put forward,” he said. uttered the slur, but the BBC says Davie said he was aware of staff published on its website.

The report into the 29 November “a number of Hebrew speakers” have concerns that the focus on impartiality could leave BBC journalists incident – during which a group of confirmed its reporting is accurate.

Jewish News understands that reluctant to take risks and make bold men made Nazi salutes and scream anti-Jewish abuse at the passengers the Board’s executive committee met editorial decisions.

Dorries’ intervention comes ahead – sparked outrage after it included this week to discuss issues around its of a meeting between Davie and the claims that anti-Muslim slurs could involvement in the row. be heard from someone on the bus. • That day in May, pages 8 & 9 Board of Deputies later this month.

Hollobone, a long-term critic of the BBC, who has previously called for a ban on burkas and a return of the death penalty.

The Kettering MP asked Johnson for support for the second reading of a backbench Bill to scrap the licence fee and spoke up for those who believe the BBC was “institutionally biased”.

The prime minister responded by saying he had the “highest respect” for Hollobone’s “media judgment” – but added the corproration was “a great national institution”.

In her letter to Davie, the culture secretary had said: “The scenes on the bus were obviously distressing, not only for those involved but also the wider Jewish community. I’m aware police are investigating and this may have affected how you approached addressing the concerns, but the BBC’s coverage of 29 November is a particularly sensitive issue.

“While it would obviously be inappropriate for the government to take a view on the details of the case, as the BBC is editorially and operationally independent, and responsibility for regulation sits with Ofcom, I would like to understand the actions the BBC has taken so far in response to

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ures as harsh as a lockdown. The Netherlands, for example, imposed a total lockdown, but it didn’t help. We have to manage this tsunami.”

He also called on parents to vaccinate their children because the Omicron variant “does not skip children”.

“When I look at charts of hospitalised children from around the world, I think of our unvaccinated children and I am heartbroken.”

Meanwhile, officials followed Britain in reducing the number of self-isolation days following a positive infection from 10 to seven after evidence showed most carriers were not infectious after a week

Corbyn told: launch party

Landmark revi ew of racism in the Jewish community calls for: at communal

Israel has shortened the isolation period for Covid carriers to seven days and advised selftesters to always swab their throat as authorities seek to overcome the disruption caused by the Omicron variant, writes Michael Daventry.

Health minister Nitzan Horowitz said the new measures would allow Israelis to “live alongside the coronavirus” and keep the economy functioning while avoiding a fresh lockdown measures.

Prime minister Naftali Bennett said there was no other way to combat the pandemic.

He said in a televised address on Tuesday: “We saw that other countries imposed meas-

gs

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The prospect of Corbyn issuing such an Jeremy Corbyn is being urged to by some close allies to quit Labour and set up his own apology remains remote – leaving it likely that he would have to stand as an independent canpolitical party.

Supporters – reportedly including his wife didate at the next election.

Jewish News understands that some in Laura Alvarez – are encouraging the former Labour leader to register his Peace and Justice his circle are urging him to now prepare for this situation by make the Peace and Justice Project as an official political party.

But others remain totally against such a Project a registered political party. Some are move, with one Corbyn loyalist telling Jewish encouraging him to hold off making this move until after the May local government elections.

News the exit plan was “simply foolish”.

Those in favour of the move believe other The hope is pro-Corbyn council candidates elected in May can then announce they are Labour MPs and councillors would be ready leaving to join the new Peace and Justice to quit the party and align themselves party in a snub to the current leader. with a new Corbyn-led initiative.

Meanwhile, Corbyn has again been Current Labour leader Sir Keir urged to apologise to the Jewish comStarmer has made it clear Corbyn munity, this time by Scottish Labour cannot return unless he apologies leader Anas Sarwar, who made the plea as for his claim that antisemitism allehe dismissed a call from one of his MSPs, gations within Labour were Mercedes Villalba, for the left“dramatically overstated for Jeremy Corbyn winger to have the whip restored. political reasons”.

www.jewishnews.co.uk

13 January 2022 Jewish News

3

Poland analysis / Anti-Zionism discussion / UAE delegation / News

An unethical law that should be lambasted ANALYSIS It’s not often that a British newspaper causes a stir in Poland, but that was the unexpected consequence of our conversation with Jaroslaw Marek Nowak, writes Michael Daventry.

By utter coincidence, he was not the only Polish diplomat to criticise his own government last week: Poland’s ambassador to the Czech Republic was recalled for criticising his country’s approach to a coal mine dispute.

Both cases triggered outrage in the rightwing, nationalist voter base from which Poland’s governing Law and Justice Party draws much of its support. Both cases showed that the government has little tolerance for anyone who deviates from the party line.

The outrage at Nowak’s words came from a perception that he was defaming his country’s reputation.

There was incredulity, for instance, when he said in last week’s Jewish News interview that Poles “don’t know exactly what is right and wrong”.

Of course, he was making a nuanced point: he was not suggesting his country’s people had no sense of judgment. He was saying that

Polish free speech row Continued from page 1 Engelking and Jan Grabowski, were ordered by a court under the 2018 law to apologise to the niece of a village elder they said had betrayed Jews during the Second World War. The order was quashed on appeal, but campaigners have warned of a “chilling effect” on freedom of speech and historical research.

Nowak was among those to criticise the government’s approach.

Then envoy to the Jewish community, he told Jewish News in last week’s interview: “There is absolutely no role for judges or anybody else in this process.

“I mean, you cannot really effectively discuss a book publishing theories or research if you have not done your own research and you didn’t find your own opinions about it.”

He also said it was a reason for regret that Poland had no law for restitution.

• Editorial comment, page 16

Poland’s prime minister Mateusz Morawiecki speaking at Auschwitz in 2019

decades of Nazi and Soviet occupation had meant Poles were not always equipped to share the western world’s perspective on things that happened even on their own doorsteps.

Some might say that is akin to splitting hairs. But Nowak was trying, in vain, to navigate a subject that is riddled with complications.

During our interview, he gave the example of Warsaw, which was razed to the ground

BBC shelves Zionism talk

LIAM FOX LEADS UAE DELEGATION

The BBC has postponed a planned discussion on whether antiZionism should become a “protected characteristic” after angry protests from the Board of Deputies about the “unacceptable” choice of speakers.

Jewish News has learned that the producers of Radio 4’s Sunday programme had approached the Board last Friday and asked it to put forward a speaker to take part in the discussion. It emerged that alongside inviting Jewish Voice For Labour activist Diana Nelsen, the BBC had also asked the anti-Zionist blogger Robert Cohen, a former broadcast journalist at the corporation, to take part.

In a tense conversation, a spokesperson for the Board subsequently explained to BBC producers that they considered the general topic of the discussion completely unacceptable.

Board president Marie van der Zyl then issued a statement saying the BBC’s intention to host a debate on whether anti-Zionism should be a “protected characteristic” was a “grotesque insult to the vast majority of Jews.”

She added: “Our community is not here to dance for your amusement.”

It is understood that BBC producers then decided to not to broadcast the discussion as planned. A statement sent to Jewish News said: “We are always exploring a range of possible topics but there’s no planned item about anti-Zionism on the Sunday programme.”

Former defence secretary Liam Fox met Emirati leaders this week as part of a fiveday trip, which also included Mark Garnier, Stephen Crabb, Steve McCabe and Dr Lisa Cameron, writes Lee Harpin.

The delegation of MPs led by Fox arrived in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to observe the progress that has been made since the signing of the Abraham Accords and to encourage other nations to sign on to the agreement.

The first overseas trip by the UK Abraham Accords Group met Emirati leaders as part of greater engagement to establish stronger links to the agreement with Israel. During the trip, there were meetings in Dubai with members of the Jewish community and talks with youth groups to raise awareness about the accords.

“The Abraham Accords were a bold and visionary step towards peace in the Middle East,” Fox said after landing in the UAE on Sunday. “Our group is here to express support for the accords, as well as to see for ourselves the spirit of coexistence that is being fostered in the UAE between religions, cultures and nations.”

The former international trade secretary also said the UK could play “an important role in expanding the accords”.

He added: “Our group can contribute to this aim and I look forward to discussing this matter further with Emirati officials during our visit.”

MPs on the visit included Garnier, vice chairman of the international trade select committee; Crabb, parliamentary chair of Conservative Friends of Israel; McCabe, chair of Labour Friends of Israel; and Cameron, of the SNP. The delegation met UAE government ministers as well as business leaders.

during the Second World War and rebuilt under the Soviets.

The money was raised through “voluntary donations” that were actually compulsory for anyone the authorities deemed could afford them. It’s not straightforward, Nowak reasoned, to simply ask a family forced to pay that tax to now contribute to another fund for earlier crimes against Polish Jews.

Professors Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

News / Suspension calls / Training controversy / Satirical concern

Students seek JNF UK suspension Continued from page 1 consult lawyers over the Board’s decision to launch an investigation into him.

New evidence appeared to show Mond had “liked” two posts made

by Geller in 2017, during his six-year stint sitting on the Board’s Defence Division – including one saying France was “finished” after voters picked current president Emmanuel Macron over far-right challenger Marine Le Pen. In a further 2014 post, Mond also responded to concerns by another online user over a possible increase in the number of Muslim MPs in the UK parliament in constituencies where they could win support.

He wrote: “When this happens – and the odds are that it will – the Britain that we know will be gone forever.”

In a 2016 post, Mond suggested the west, along with Israel and China, was “at war with Islam”.

He added: “Just as Islam has lost before in history it will lose again.”

US activist Geller was banned by the British government from entry into the UK in 2013, with the authorities citing her anti-Muslim activism, and saying her presence would “not

be conducive to the public good”.

Her anti-Muslim theories were cited, along with others, in the manifesto written by Anders Breivik, who carried out the terror attack in Norway in 2011 that left 77 people dead.

In 2013, the Board backed then home secretary Theresa May’s decision to ban Geller, who is Jewish, from travelling to the UK where she was due to take part in a demo organised by the far-right English Defence League.

Last May, as a Board honorary president, Mond became chair of the Communities and Education Division – whose tasks include supporting Jewish schools and Jews in non-Jewish settings.

In October, Mond issued a lengthy apology after he wasaccused of bringing the communal organisation “into disrepute”, with a social media post that linked Labour deputy leaders to the death of the Conservative MP Sir David Amess.

He said: “It was wrong of me to post my views on the comments of Angela Rayner on the Facebook page of an MP, and also very wrong of me to write the post on Shabbat.

“I apologise unreservedly for

Photo: Flash90

Chairman Samuel Hayek at a JNF UK ceremony in the Israeli city of Sderot

these actions and, going forward, I will not be making controversial statements on an MP’s post nor posting on Shabbat again.

“I emphasise that there was no intention on my part to directly, or even indirectly, link Angela Rayner’s ‘Tory Scum’ comments with the horrific murder of Sir David Amess.”

Last month Mond – who has served on the advisory board of the Conservative Friends of Israel group – attempted to distance

himself from comments made by JNF UK chair Samuel Hayek, who suggested Jews had “no future” in this country as a result of Muslim immigration.

Hayek also claimed Islam was a religion of violence and voiced support for far-right ‘Great Replacement’ theories about the end of Christian majority culture in the west.

Mond reiterated his belief that British Jews had “a great future in

the UK” and supported the Board’s work “with Muslim communities throughout the country, with whom we have many joint objectives”.

He told Jewish News he also “endorsed the Board’s important work in supporting those who have migrated to the UK – who, like my own father, came to this country for a better life – and who are an integral part of what makes Britain such a great place to live.”

He added: “I think it is clear that my views on this subject differ profoundly with those expressed in the article.”

In a statement sent to Jewish News, the Board said: “Following the allegations of anti-Muslim sentiment, which have surfaced, we have asked Mr Mond to step down from his duties while an investigation is undertaken as is common practice.

“Mr Mond did not agree to voluntarily step down and has informed us he is currently taking legal advice.

“The Board of Deputies believes that there is no place in any Jewish communal organisation for antiMuslim hatred.”

Jewish News has approached Mond for comment.

‘Don’t hire religious Jew’ JEWISH JOKE ‘ENDED’ SHOW but said it does not endorse its content.

Under the headline Religion and Belief, it featured an image of six staff members engaged in a meeting about recruiting a new staff member.

It then stated: “A selection panel is in discussion. The strongest candidate is John, a Jewish applicant.

“However there is a potential problem: he says he’ll need to leave early every Friday, which is when the weekly team meeting has to be held.”

Dr Karen E H Skinazi, director of liberal arts at Bristol and a practicing Jew, tweeted an image of the slide.

She wrote: “Today...

I learned we shouldn’t hire the best person for the job if that person happened to be #shomershabbos. Classic case of #jewsdontcount@Baddiel” Skinazi said she had been contacted by Bristol’s head of staff inclusion, who confirmed it “has ceased using this awful training (an external product used by many universities).”

The presenter of Radio 4’s Quote… Unquote programme has suggested that complaints about a “Jewish mother” joke contributed to the decision to end the show.

Nigel Rees (pictured) – host of the satirical panel show for 46 years – hit out at what he said were “cultural issues” behind the decision.

In a Sunday Times interview, Rees said: “Anyway, what’s wrong with being critical or even a little bit challenging? I got a letter from a

Jewish mother who objected to a guest telling a Jewish mother joke even though they had a Jewish mother.”

Rees, 77, said for the 500th episode of the show he wanted to include Noël Coward’s 1932 comic song Mad Dogs and Englishmen.. “I was pressured to remove the lines, ‘In Bengal/ to move at all/ is seldom if ever done’.

“I was told it ‘reflected colonial attitudes’ and so the

woke police leant heavily on me to choose something else.

This misses the whole point of the song, that it is the English colonials who are being mocked, not the natives.”

He wrote in his Quote ...

Unquote newsletter: “I don’t want to sound like an ‘antiwoke’ backbench Tory MP (which I am far from being), but... ‘cultural issues’ were among the factors that had contributed to my pulling the plug,”

and

Bristol University has confirmed it used a slide for a training programme on inclusion and diversity that suggested not recruiting a Jewish person because weekly team meetings would clash with the arrival of Shabbat.

The institution, which was condemned over its handling of the dismissal of professor David Miller nearly three years after Jewish students had complained about his lectures, admitted using the slide for external training sessions

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13 January 2022 Jewish News

5

Survivor portraits / AJEX role / Yellow candles / News

Charles’ survivor portraits

by Jack Mendel jack@jewishnews.co.uk @mendelpol

The portraits of seven Holocaust survivors painted at the request of the Prince of Wales are to be unveiled this month as part of an hour-long BBC documentary.

Survivors: Portraits of the Holocaust will be aired on 27 January, featuring testimony from survivors as well as a look at the leading artists tasked with portraying their grief and hope.

The pictures will then be displayed at the Queen’s Gallery, Buckingham Palace, and will become part of the Royal Collection. They will go on display in the Palace of Holyroodhouse in Edinburgh, from March until June.

The Prince of Wales, patron of the Ebert by Ishbel Myerscough, Manfred Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said: Goldberg by Clara Drummond, Arek “As the number of Holocaust survivors Hersh by Massimiliano Pironti, Anita Lasker Wallfisch by Peter Kuhfeld, sadly, but inevitably, declines, my Rachel Levy by Stuart Pearson abiding hope is that this special Wright and Zigi Shipper by collection will act as a further Jenny Saville. guiding light for our society, Olivia Marks-Woldman, reminding us not only of chief executive of the Holohistory’s darkest days, but caust Memorial Day Trust, of humanity’s interconThe Prince said: “We were delighted to nectedness as we strive to of Wales play a small part in facilitating create a better world for our elements of this wonderful project, children, grandchildren and generations as yet unborn; one where hope and bring Holocaust survivors together is victorious over despair and love tri- with these wonderful artists.”

The documentary, created for Holoumphs over hate.”

The survivors and the artists caust Memorial Day on 27 November, involved in the project are: Helen will also be aired in two parts on BBC Aronson, painted by Paul Benney, Lily World News on 12 and 19 February.

AJEX appoints new chair An army reservist has been appointed national chair for the organisation representing Jewish veterans.

Staff Sgt Dan Fox takes over from Mike Bluestone at AJEX-JMA (the Association of Jewish Ex Servicemen and Women – Jewish Military Association), after a two-and-

a-half year spell, navigating its path through the pandemic.

Taking on the role was a “great honour,” Fox said.

“I look forward to taking forward the incredible work AJEX does on welfare, education, remembrance, and fighting antisemitism,” he added.

AJEX chief executive Fiona Palmer thanked Bluestone for his “tireless commitment, determination and leadership” adding he “he helped guide AJEX during an unprecedented and challenging time”. She added Fox would “help the organisation go from strength to strength”.

Artist Jenny Saville with her subject, 91-year-old Zigi Shipper

YELLOW CANDLE CAMPAIGN Maccabi GB has launched its Yellow Candle campaign for 2022, helping the community to remember those who lost their lives in the Holocaust.

Candles can be ordered at www.yellowcandleuk.org for direct delivery at £3.75 per candle, with the Genesis Philanthropy Group subsidising

the cost of post and packaging for a second year running.

Each Yellow Candle includes a card giving information about a person who died in the Holocaust. Maccabi expects thousands of the candles to be lit on Yom Hashoah — Holocaust Remembrance Day — on 27

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April. People will be encouraged to share a picture of their lit candle with the name card on social media, using #yellowcandle.

Ashley Lerner of Maccabi GB, said: “By lighting our candles we symbolically declare that these atrocities must never be forgotten.”

6

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 13 January 2022

News / Communal role / ShabbatUK delay / School guidance

JLC’s new chair aspires to ‘invigorate’ Jewish charity

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

Regatta outdoor clothing company chief executive Keith Black has been elected to succeed Jonathan Goldstein as Jewish Leadership Council (JLC) chair.

Black (pictured, right) was confirmed as the new chair following a confirmatory vote by the JLC Council of Membership and trustees at a meeting yesterday evening.

Speaking to the JLC Council, the Manchester-born communal leader said: “I am hugely honoured that you have placed your trust in me to chair the Jewish Leadership Council. And I am very conscious of the responsibility that this entails.

“I must pay a huge tribute to my predecessor, Jonathan, who has been such a wonderful chairman.

“The JLC has a very simple mission; to help you all [JLC members] do your wonderful work.

“We live in a community that is nearly 500 years old and over that time has built a network of organisations and a communal infrastructure in the millenia old tradition of diaspora Jewry.

“We have built a community that has layered over the fabric of British life our own mini-welfare state.

“We look after our old, our sick, our impoverished and our lonely, we educate our young through a huge network of schools and we look after them beyond school whether at university or on the sports fields or in finding work.

“We have a wealth of diverse religious bodies catering for all sectors of our community, we engage with Israel in a myriad of different ways, we fight antisemitism and protect ourselves, we engage with national institutions and ensure our democratic voice is heard.

“We reach out to the wider world through our commitment to tikkun

olam and, through dozens and dozens and dozens of other charities, we ensure that Jewish life in this country is engaged, is rich with content, is vital and alive.

“We must ensure that our charitable sector is invigorated with new leaders, new volunteers, new ideas and, of course, new donors.

“We must enthuse, encourage, excite and enable – we have a very precious ecosystem of communal support. We at the JLC do not take it for granted and will work with you, our trustees and our professional team to ensure that its future is safe and secure.”

Black joined the Regatta family business in 1981 after taking a law degree at Southampton University. It has gone on to become a global success story. He moved to north London in 2009 and has been the Community Security Trust representative on the JLC Council of Members.  Jonathan Goldstein, p10 & 11

Omicron delays ShabbatUK Omicron has forced next month’s ShabbatUK to be delayed until May. The project’s organiser said the move was taken to ensure it is “as impactful, inspiring and safe as it can possibly be”.

After “exploring a variety of options”, Deanna Rosenthal, ShabbatUK project manager,

wrote to communities saying the “first ever pre-summer ShabbatUK” will be held on the weekend of 13-14 May, after having initially been planned for 5-6 March.

She said Shabbat UK found “that the onset of the Omicron variant had begun to make planning ... extremely difficult.

Although we are changing the date, primarily with the health and well-being of the community in mind, excitingly, the change will also make it possible to consider holding ShabbatUK events outdoors for the first time and to plan more substantial programmes for Shabbat afternoon.”

GIRLS’ CLOTHES RULE REJECTED A Stamford Hill school has been told it cannot stop parents wearing “brightly coloured” clothing because its definition is too broad.

Yesodey Hatorah Senior Girls School was told it must revise its rules for applicants by the Office of the Schools Adjudicator in a report released this week.

The schools adjudicator Dr Bryan Slater upheld an unnamed objection regarding the school forbidding the wearing of “bright” clothing.

He said it must “find a way to set out what it requires which is clear to all readers. It has not done so, and I am of the view that this makes the arrangements unclear.”

Responding to the complaint, he said it was “not possible to know where the dividing line between ‘bright’ and ‘not bright’ would be drawn by all people.”

The adjudicator also ruled that the school must revise the number of year 7 students it admits to meet targets by 21 January.

It’s the month of GENEuary SW3 | where people come to shul

The community is urged to participate in a Jewish genetic disorders awareness month.

JNetics’ 2022’s ‘GENEuary’ campaign launched this week, encouraging people to be screened for conditions that can be life shortening, incurable or debilitating for future offspring.

A series of events are being held, including a session about the BRCA gene, a talk with the S&P Sephardi Community’s Rabbi Joseph Dweck, and an event with Screen, encouraging genetic testing.

Nicole Gordon of Jnetics said the charity recently “moved from testing for nine

to 47 conditions, now spanning across the Sephardi and Mizrachi communities as well as the Ashkenazi”, adding that while Tay Sachs is the most widely known, there are others that are just as severe.  Visit: jnetics.org/ support-us/ geneuary2022

13 January 2022 Jewish News

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

Special Report / That day in May

‘Congregants were Rabbis across London reflect on what they were doing on 20 May 2020, the day Downing Street staff held a ‘bring your own booze’ party at Number 10. By Jenni Frazer Rabbis across London have been recalling what they were doing on 20 May 2020, the day now revealed to have been the date of the notorious Downing Street garden party. And several said they found it “very disappointing ” that not everyone seemed to have abided by the rules that restricted everyone else.

Woodford Forest’s Rabbi Mordechai Wollenberg said that Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, at the start of the lockdowns against the pandemic, had reminded rabbis that they “were in the public eye, and had to be role models”.

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He added: “It was a very difficult time. We were scrupulous about what we did, and in some ways I would say went above and beyond what was required, precisely because we were in the public eye.”

Wollenberg’s own son, Yisrolik, had to have his barmitzvah on Zoom, and his grandparents could not celebrate with him.

“We did this because we thought we were all in the same boat.

Clearly, now, the message is that we were not all in the same boat.”

In his own synagogue, Wollenberg said, there were people in hospital and even though he is a hospital chaplain. “I could not visit

36

HOUR APPEAL

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13 January 2022 Jewish News

That day in May / Special Report

dying alone’ and people were dying alone.” From the Downing Street revelations, he said, he took a message of “what it means to be a leader, and how behaviour can undermine things”.

Rabbi Steven Dansky, in Ilford – where he is minister of Cranbrook Synagogue – went through an excruciating period in 2020, at times burying between two and five people a week. Overall, his synagogue lost around 150 members and, in one week, before Pesach, he said he had buried “four people on one day and another four the next. And then we had to sit down to seder and I couldn’t say anything, I just couldn’t speak”.

He believed people in his congregation would be “quite angry” over the news of the Downing Street events. “Everyone here was trying to take care and protect themselves, and not see their loved ones. Barmitzvahs were completely out.”

Not all the deaths in his synagogue were due to Covid, he said, but a large proportion were; and

even today, “people who were due to have important operations have found them postponed again”.

In Chigwell, Rabbi Baruch Davis recalled “standing outside a hospital” with a family member who couldn’t be with their dying relative. He said: “It was pretty simple.

We were mid-lockdown and there were no shul services except on Zoom. I wasn’t conducting funerals myself because I am over 60 and vulnerable; but I delegated them to my colleague (Rabbi Rafi Goodwin) and the funerals were tiny. Shivas were only taking place on Zoom.”

Pesach that year was “horrendous, as it was for many rabbis”, he said, explaining: “We had 45 deaths in the first 18 months of Covid, and once I had to send out death notifications of four people in one email, when usually it would have been one email per person.”

Again, not all the deaths were due to Covid but there had been “collateral damage” wherein people “were reluctant to visit their GP or hospital until it was too late”.

Additionally, Davis said, Chigwell had “a number of members who had been furloughed and did not know if they would have a job to go back to”. A look at his 2020 diary revealed a day “full of Zoom meetings” – and he said that because of financial uncertainty the synagogue had had to put a major redevelopment programme on hold.

Rabbi Jeremy Lawrence, of Finchley United Synagogue, said that his calendar for 20 May 2020 showed “a member who went to a funeral in Leicester and [that person’s] shiva in the evening”, plus a second funeral that he attended in Bushey.

He said: “We were, as a community, dealing with a very heavy pastoral burden and were particularly sensitive to the fact that families who were bereaved were having to endure their grief with restrictions on the numbers who could attend funerals and shivas.

“Important life cycle events had to be put on hold: the ability of couples to wed and set up home

Boris Johnson under pressure during Prime Minister’s Questions

together, the long-planned celebrations that had to be deferred, and, as religious leaders, we supported the necessity to curtail our normal and religious lives – in the interests

of public health.”

Lawrence said the “emotional wear” on the rabbinate – as with many other professions – had been “very heavy indeed”.

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

Jewish News meets... Jonathan Goldstein

‘Let’s stop ourselves being dragged into a culture war’ Jonathan Goldstein wants his Jewish Leadership Council chairmanship to be remembered as a time when UK Jews found their voice, he tells Lee Harpin Jonathan Goldstein has used his landmark final interview as chair of the Jewish Leadership Council to urge the community to avoid being “dragged into a culture war” over relations with the Muslim community and confrontation with the BBC. Speaking to Jewish News one day before his near five-year stint at the helm of the umbrella organisation was due to end, he made an impassioned plea for British Jews to recognise that “we are a vibrant community” who had “found their voice” during the fight against the Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party.

The Ilford-born 55-year-old made clear that he did not want use this opportunity to address the community just to dwell on his achievements and regrets since taking up the JLC role in 2017, where he succeeded Sir Mick Davis.

“It would be easy for me to say the fight against Corbyn or fundraising during the pandemic,” he said, recalling the successes of his past five years. “But for me the greatest achievement has been that we have broadened the understanding within the community of what the organisation really does and how it represents what the community thinks.

“When I announced my resignation I got notes from people all over the country saying they understood what the JLC stood for. They really appreciated the work the JLC was doing – for me that was the most important thing.

“When I look at people around the JLC table – the head of The Fed in Manchester or the chair of Jewish Care, Chai Cancer, all the various synagogue movements – these are the people that understand their constituencies, that know their communities.”

Goldstein wanted his chairmanship to be remembered as a time when the Jewish community in this country “found its voice”.

Recalling the battle against the Corbynled Labour Party, he says: “During that time in 2018 people were saying to me, ‘What if he becomes PM – you’ve upset him? But my answer was, ‘We have found our voice, we have a point of view.’ I think this notion that the Jewish community doesn’t feel comfortable to voice its view in 2022 in Britain is a nonsense.”

It is here that Goldstein returns to the comments made by JNF UK chair Samuel Hayek last month and the “risible” suggestion that Jews had “no future” in this country as a result of Muslim immigration.

He continues: “I do not deny there are pockets of antisemitism within the Muslim community. This is an issue we have to deal with. Radical Islam is a global issue and it has not escaped Britain or other places in Europe.

“But to draw the conclusion in a simplistic, frankly racist way that because of the growth of the Muslim community there is no future for Jews – it is an example of intolerance and of polarisation. The Muslim community should not accept it.”

He recalls his time spent in Dubai in December 2020 as he continued to say kaddish for his father Jerry. One day he said the mourners’ prayer in a heavily Muslim community. Jews living in the area told Goldstein they had never felt safer practising their religion.

“So why are we now trying to taint the entire Muslim community?” he says angrily, of Hayek’s attempt to portray Islam as a religion steeped in violence,.

Goldstein says that in the aftermath of last

❝

RADICAL ISLAM IS A GLOBAL ISSUE... [BUT] WHY ARE WE TRYING TO TAINT THE ENTIRE MUSLIM COMMUNITY? month’s outcry over Hayek’s remarks – which have been condemned by Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, the Community Security Trust, the Board of Deputies and others – he was “disappointed” the trustees of JNF UK have not fully distanced themselves from the comments.

In a further criticism of some of these trustees he says: “You cannot at the same time be an advocate and a fighter against antisemitism if at the same time you are protecting racist voices within your own organisation.

“Those two issues are incompatible. This is not an appropriate way to conduct yourself.”

Goldstein is also unimpressed at attempts by some organisations to label the BBC as “institutionally antisemitic” after what he describes as the “shameful” attack on a group of Jews aboard a bus in Oxford Street, which had been followed by a report on the channel’s website that was quite clearly “wrong”.

“We must not let our community be dragged into a culture war,” he reasons. “Be that a culture war against the Muslim community or be that a culture war against the BBC.” He points to the decision by the American Simon Wiesenthal Centre to declare the three most dangerous global antisemitic institutions as being Hamas, Iran – and the BBC. “Frankly it’s laughable,” says Goldstein. “It’s a nonsense. Let’s just look at the Chanukah bus incident. I have no doubt the reporting of that event was wrong and that the incident itself was shameful. But the notion that this makes the BBC News institutionally antisemitic and which plays into a wider political game is dangerous. This is the same organisation that three months ago we were lauding for dramatising Ridley Road.

“The BBC do a raft of Jewish-centred programmes. The Panorama report into Labour and Corbyn. Nobody was prepared to take on

board that argument until John Ware convinced the BBC to do it. Credit to him and credit to them.

“The Windermere Children dramatisation, the many real-life Jewish and Holocaust related life stories uncovered... this is not an institutionally antisemitic institution. It has issues: its reporting on Israel and the Middle East has been problematic for decades. No one disputes that. But let’s not allow the entire community to be dragged into a culture war over it.”

For many, the photograph of Goldstein proudly and defiantly addressing the large group of Jews, and allies from outside the community who had gathered in Parliament Square for the Enough Is Enough demonstration against Jeremy Corbyn, which he played the central role in organising, will forever be the most memorable achievement at the JLC. “It was hard, it was constant,” he says of 2017 and 2018 when the fight against Corbyn exploded. “Early after the Enough Is Enough campaign for about two months people in my business didn’t see me,” he adds. “ I called them all into a conference room and said ‘You need to understand why I am doing this – why it was so important’. It was all-consuming.”

Goldstein is CEO of investment firm Cain International, who among several high-profile deals bought the dining chain Prezzo last year.

He says he looks back with pride at the collaboration between himself, Jonathan Arkush followed by Marie van Der Zyl at the Board, and with Mark Gardner and Gerald Ronson at the CST. “I think we moved as a pack,” he says of those difficult days.

He says he no longer holds a grudge against current Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer – even

❝

THERE’S A LONG WAY TO GO BUT WE HAVE TO ACKNOWLEDGE [KEIR STARMER] IS ON THE RIGHT ROAD though he served in the Corbyn cabinet.

“If you look at the Labour Party, the pre2019 environment was challenging, and the role Keir Starmer played in that was open to debate,” he observes. “But no one can criticise the actions he has taken since he became leader of the party. From a leadership perpective you have to commend the work he has done. There is still a long way to go but we have to acknowledge he is on the right road.

“I don’t see the benefit or value in throwing back to him maybe mistakes he made prior to 2019 if we don’t apply the same process to politicians right across the political spectrum.”

Friends say Goldstein could even be close

to considering supporting Labour once more, having quit the party over concerns about Ed Miliband’s leadership over a decade ago.

It is fair to say he had privately expressed doubts over Boris Johnson’s ability to lead the Conservative Party from the start – but he still openly praises the current cabinet as being perhaps the most understanding and friends to the Jewish community as any in his lifetime.

Goldstein said a recent JLC meeting with foreign secretary Liz Truss was a big success.

Asked to look back on his time as JLC chair Goldstein recalls how early meetings with Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner of the Reform movement along with “inspirational” conversations with the progressive rabbi Julia Neuberger taught him at an early stage that the communal organisation must be a “broad church” and that he needed to develop relations outside the United Synagogue-dominated world he had grown up in.

“I’ve developed relations which I didn’t have before, I’ve embrace that inclusiveness,” he says of his time at the JLC. “I speak for the middle ground. I don’t want to see us as an organisation, as a community becoming wrapped in other people’s arguments that don’t serve our community.

“We are a vibrant community –from education to welfare from social to sport to culture – let’s focus on the positive.”

Goldstein also takes up the issue of what he sees as an obsession, both in some organisations, and at times within the Jewish media with an “antisemitism narrative that becomes self-fulfilling”. He stresses he would never seek to downplay the seriousness of the antisemitism threat, but says that thankfully we now have organisations such as CST who are wellequipped and well-trained to look after us.

Goldstein recalls darker times, such as the build-up to the 1979 general election, when his school Ilford County High was opened up to host a rally by the far-right National Front.

And how he was attacked sometime afterwards after a school sports event elsewhere in Essex.

“There has always been levels of antisemtism – for 2,000 years there has been antisemtism,” he says. “But we are in a better position in this community today than we have ever been because we have found our voice. Those naysayers who argue otherwise are simply wrong.”

He speaks proudly of the younger generation of Jews – and the involvement of many in student politics across Britain’s universities.

Regrets? As he leaves the JLC, to spend more time on his business pursuits and with his family, Goldstein says: “I would have liked to have seen more collaboration, more inclusiveness.

“I don’t believe anyone should believe they’ve done a job perfectly. I certainly haven’t.

I’ve made mistakes. But I’m also very glad I’ve started debates.”

www.jewishnews.co.uk

13 January 2022 Jewish News

Jewish News meets... Jonathan Goldstein

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

News / Synagogue project / Vaccination drive

Environment ‘game-changer’

by Jenni Frazer jenni@jewishnews.co.uk @Jennifrazer

Tu B’Shvat, the new year for trees festival, takes on a new and “greener” aspect this week with the launch of an ambitious new environmental initiative from the Chief Rabbi and United Synagogue (US).

Dorot – Hebrew for “generations” – consists of seven projects that will be rolled out in 2022. The lead project will be a campaign by the US to have one tree planted for each of its 37,000 members. It will take place under the auspices of the Queen’s Green Canopy project for the Queen’s Jubilee Celebration.

The “game-changing” environmental programme is being led by the US’ head of environmental policy, Naomi Verber.

She said: “We are in an environmental and ecological crisis. The United Synagogue is in a unique position, with its size and resources, to take fast, decisive and impactful steps to reduce our environmental harm... We now have the opportunity to scale up the impact across the organisation in a strategic way.”

Other projects include the rewilding of unused United Synagogue land, to encourage biodiversity and provide a home for wildlife, and the phasing out of “disposables” from US synagogues, nurseries and offices. The US intends to look at its investment portfolio to

ensure it meets high environmental standards, make its staff travel greener, and initiate smart energy solutions for all synagogues.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said: “The evidence could not be clearer that climate change is destroying our precious home.

Indeed, rising sea levels and extreme weather events are already causing grave problems across the planet and are likely to pose far greater challenges for our children and grandchildren.

“I firmly believe that the implementation of Dorot can serve as a watershed moment for the way that our communities respond to the climate crisis and threats to our biodiversity.”

• Opinion, p20

Asylum seekers given supplies The United Synagogue (US) delivered clothes and toys to a group of asylum seekers at a vaccination drive organised by a Jewish GP, writes Adam Decker.

Dr Sharon Raymond, director of the Covid Crisis Rescue Foundation (CCRF), held the event last month, as cases of the Omicron variant hit record numbers.

Through the organisation’s ‘Vaxi Taxi’ project, which hosted 20 pop-up vaccination in 2020, Organisers the vaccine campaign 1 09/01/2020 clinics HALF PAGEof ADVERT JAN 2020:Layout 16:04 Page 1 CCRF collaborated with the

Persian Advice Bureau, the Gateway Pharmacy, and Hannah Gerson of the Chesed department of the United Synagogue.

Twenty-one asylum seekers living in temporary accommodation received the jab after CCRF organised transport to the pharmacy, where translators were present to ensure they could communicate.

Raymond, who has raised thousands of pounds to support the pandemic effort, said CCRF is “extremely grateful to the US for its

kind support” of the initiative.

“Twenty-one people got their jabs, some of whom had not yet had their first vaccine against Covid-19.”

She said the organisation “continues to work hard to devise ways to make health advice and vaccination accessible to the most vulnerable in our communities so any barriers to reaching NHS care are overcome”.

Gerson said: “We provided clothes and wrapped gifts from our toy drive.”

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

World News / Peace forum / ‘Blood libel’/ Shoah lessons

‘Deep introspection’ at Abu Dhabi peace forum Justin Cohen joined Islamic scholars – and a few Christians and Jews – at an extraordinary peace forum in the UAE In one corner of the huge ballroom at the plush St Regis Hotel, the mufti emeritus of Bosnia relays to two Jewish leaders concerns that ultranationalists in his country are seeking to play down the memory of the genocide there. In another the Chief Rabbi of United Arab Emirates chats to a senior imam from America about fast-expanding interfaith work in the United States.

They are among over 250 Islamic scholars, academics and policy influencers from at least 35 locations – from India to Indonesia and Lebanon to London – who gathered in Abu Dhabi last month for the Forum for Peace, an initiative little known in the UK beyond a small number of religious leaders. For three days, they learnt from each other and tackled issues like religious hatred and extremism. Also invited to this annual assembly of thinkers from east and west were a handful of Christian and Jewish figures.

The backdrop could hardly have been more fitting: a conference conducted mostly in Arabic as classic Christmas songs filled the lobby in a city where Jewish delegates gathering to celebrate Chanukah is no longer a novelty.

But while interfaith activity is often dismissed for failing to delve deep enough into thorny topics or not involving figures with insufficient clout, such criticism can’t be levelled at the Forum.

As Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, who represented the International Jewish Committee

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on Inter-religious Consultations, put it: “These were not fluffy interfaith folks. They were people with significant influence in their countries.

I wasn’t expecting there to be such a diverse crowd speaking from the same hymn sheet. The conversations I heard gave me hope, there was a deep amount of introspection.”

If there was a hymn sheet that speaker after speaker was inspired by, it was the teachings of Sheikh Abdallah bin Bayyah, a former vicepresident of his native Mauritania and a revered Islamic scholar. The 87-year-old uses authentic Muslim texts to challenge extremism and famously convened a conference to challenge a fatwa used by jihadi groups to justify terrorism, discovering that they relied on the wrong transcription of just one verb 90 years earlier.

After the Arab Spring and the emergence of Daesh, bin Bayyah established the FFP in 2014 in the belief that such a global response – the first of its kind to tackle extremism – was essential. Organisers hold that the growth of extremism owes much to an education gap among some teachers charged with “applying decontextualised texts to the modern world”.

About 1,000 delegates attended the 2014 meeting held under the patronage of Abu Dhabi’s leadership, and the sheikh’s subsequent conclusion that his vision could only be achieved through dialogue with other Abrahamic faiths saw participation expanded to rabbis and priests including Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis,

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A former Dutch prime minister, Dries van Agt, said in an interview for a recently aired documentary that Israeli settlers poisoned their Palestinian neighbours in 2015.

Jews in the country say he is perpetuating a centuriesold antisemitic blood libel.

B’Tselem, the Israeli organisation that documents alleged rights violations, said

it is unaware of the incident that is described.

Van Agt, 90, said in the interview for a documentary on antisemitism: “The colonisers who conquered the hill a week or two earlier came each night to pound on their door at night, to achieve maximum intimidation, to tell them to go away and they refused.”

The former prime minister

continued of the Netherlands: “And then one morning something terrible happened: the olive grove and the vegetable garden below — the colonisers always take to top hills – were strewn with poison.

“And a three-year-old child became very ill. “The only explanation was that she drank the milk of a poisoned goat. She was poisoned.”

SHOAH LESSONS ‘MINOR TOPIC’ A right-wing political party has caused a stir in Romania for calling Holocaust education – recently made compulsory in high schools there – a “minor topic”.

The populist Alliance for the Union of Romanians party, or AUR, issued a statement on Monday accusing

the government of relegating “fundamental subjects” such as “exact sciences, Romanian language and literature and national history” in favour of “minor topics”, such as “sexual education” and “history of the Holocaust”.

Through this, the government is trying “to undermine

the quality of the education system in Romania”, the statement read.

AUR holds a total of 43 Senate and lower house seats in Romania’s 466-seat parliament.

Holocaust history became a mandatory subject in Romanian schools in November.

13 January 2022 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

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Peace forum / Lipstadt delay / News briefs / World News who spoke last year. At the epicentre of the sheikh’s work is the so-called Marrakesh Declaration.

Created to address the oppression of minorities in Muslim countries, it draws on traditional texts and the Charter of Medina – which protected minorities at the time of the Prophet Muhammad – as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to affirm equality between peoples.

In the nation state, the sheikh told delegates in Arabic: “The relationship with the other constitutes an opportunity to explore spaces of interaction.

There is no room for harassing others by denigrating their religious symbols or disrespecting their beliefs.”

Referring to the conference theme of inclusive societies, he added: “Historically citizenship was a discriminatory concept that differentiated between people according to race, religion and lineage. Citizenship is now a voluntary association to the nation state that is governed by the constitution. The most important component is the principle of shared duties and equal rights.” It was a message reflected from a Jewish perspective by Rabbi David Rosen, one of one world’s leading interfaith figures, who also pointed to state-funded shariah courts in Israel as an example of inclusive citizenship.

Addressing an audience that during the week included the mufti of Dubai and the Maldives’ minster for Islamic affairs, Sheikh Usama al-Sayid alAzhari – an adviser on religious affairs to Egypt’s president – drew on Islamic texts in speaking of the need to look after minorities while Lebanese writer Radwan al-Sayed portrayed the Marrakesh Declaration as a watershed moment. Before it was issued, he suggested, scholars weren’t widely “pushing back” and were “outflanked by extremists”.

He suggested that Jews and Christians knew “about our heritage more than” many Muslims but insisted that,

Lipstadt role is delayed American Holocaust historian Prof Deborah Lipstadt may be asked to apologise to a

contrary to what some believe, the faith had not “frozen in time”.

But American Imam Mohamed Magid acknowledged such intellectual documents can’t by itself make a difference in practice. “There’s no value if there aren’t people creating that value on the ground,” he told Jewish News: “People who led the civil rights movement – including a rabbi working with Dr King – activated their religious values combined with American values and the constitution and they challenged the status quo. We need that to happen. We need to train people to say we’re not going to accept discrimination, religious nationalism, human trafficking.”

Magid is one of the founders of the Caravan of Peace, which grew out of the Forum and brings together an imam, a priest and a rabbi in US cities across the States to each enlist the support of 10 others to mix socially and carry out joint social action projects. It was after

The scholars came from about 35 locations around the globe

relationships were built via the programme – now operating in 20 cities – that a pastor in Seattle handed the keys of his church to a mosque burnt to the ground two months ago and local Muslims offered solidarity in their dozens after the atrocity at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.

As the conference drew to an end, the UAE’s Chief Rabbi Yehuda Sarna presented bin Bayyah with a tzedakah box bearing the Hebrew words for ‘you shall love’ – a reference to the commandment in the Torah and Hadith

Republican senator for a tweet in March last year in which she accused him of white supremacy before members of Congress agree to confirm her as antisemitism envoy.

Airline fined for kosher food failing

A Brazilian judge has fined American Airlines a total of £1,300 for not providing kosher meals for two passengers who had been assured that they would receive them on long-distance flights. One passenger went without food for 10 hours from New York to São Paulo. The other fasted for a total of nine hours on two flights, first from Madrid to Philadelphia and then from Chicago to London. The plaintiffs were not named in the report.

Sheikh bin Bayyah receives a tzedakah box from three of the rabbis present

to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’.

For Sarna, it was the Marrakesh Declaration that signalled to the country’s Jewish community “that we could keep on building here” long before normalisation with Israel.

He added: “When I used to come and give shiurim in 2016-17 so much of the content was about comparing the Marrakesh Declaration to George Washington’s letter to the Hebrew Congregation of Newport [promising full liberty to all regardless of faith].” He goes so far as to liken the Forum to Vatican II, a watershed moment in improving relations between Jews and the Catholic Church.

Addressing sceptics, he added: “I think one of reasons why for many Jews in the Diaspora and many Israelis the Abraham Accords came as a shock was because it messed with a stereotype of what an Arab is. Many people who live here genuinely have such an accepting disposition.”

The importance of the gathering to the UAE was underscored by a speech

by Dr Ali Al Nuaimi, who was involved in brokering the Abraham Accords and by a special welcoming event on the

She tweeted about Ron Johnson’s statement that he would have been more concerned by the events of 6 January 2021, when rioters stormed the Capitol, had they been

main stage at Dubai Expo, addressed by the country’s minster for tolerance.

Other UK speakers included New North London’ Synagogue’s Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, who joined a panel on the role of faith communities in tackling climate change, and Esme Partridge from the Good Faith Partnership, who spoke of the potential for social media to bring unexpected connections across faiths and borders – and so boost inclusive citizenship.

Organisers plan to bring the FFP’s work to Britain to provide an important bridgehead to the English-speaking world, making available the insights and resources of the Forum as well as initiating partnerships with organisations and government. Liz Haris-Sawczenko, former director of the Council of Christians and Jews, will act as adviser to the Forum for Peace UK. Zeshan Zafar, British executive director of the Forum for Peace, said: “We don’t want to become another talking shop, but to be a resource and enlightenment for the major challenges facing Islam, religious coexistence and the greater problems of the world.”

“Black Lives Matter and antifa protesters” instead of Trump supporters.

Lipstadt tweeted the article, saying: “This is white supremacy/nationalism.

Pure and simple.” She also appeared in an ad during the 2020 presidential race likening Donald Trump’s rhetoric to that of the Nazis in the 1930s.

NY’s Jews help after deadly blaze

New York’s Jewish community is rallying for victims and first responders after the city’s deadliest fire in 30 years. Nineteen people, including nine children, were killed in the blaze in the Bronx, which raged through a 19-storey building on East 181st Street, which was home to a large African immigrant community.

Firefighters found victims on nearly every floor.

11 held in clash over Israel tree-planting Eleven people were arrested in southern Israel last week amid clashes with police, as a controversial tree-planting programme resumed, inflaming tensions with the Bedouin community. Clashes took place during a second day of demonstrations against plantings carried out by the Keren Kayemet L’YisraelJewish National Fund (KKL-JNF). The planting resumed under heavy police guard people were arrested on suspicion of disturbing the peace.

dorot thriving for generations

theus.org.uk/dorot

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Editorial comment and letters ISSUE NO.

1245

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

Polish populism and Send us your comments whitewashed history PO Box 815, Edgware, HA8 4SX | letters@jewishnews.co.uk

Few readers of this newspaper would argue that Jaroslaw Marek Nowak, the man appointed by Poland’s government to improve its relations with world Jewry, deserved to lose his job last weekend. Of course, few of our readers are likely to be hardline Polish nationalists.

Our interview with Nowak last week – he was dismissed by the Polish foreign minister hours after it appeared online – was not the first time this publication has clashed with the populist forces that govern Poland.

It has been only a few years since we were served legal papers for using the term ‘Polish’ in an article about a death camp. And we are not alone.

In recent years Polish historians have been ordered to apologise for their research. Countless Jewish victims of the Holocaust and their relatives have been belittled, simply for wanting the authorities to recognise the horrors inflicted on them during the Second World War. Regardless of what today’s populists might say, most outsiders are well aware of how much the Polish people have suffered in the 20th century. They endured both Nazi and Soviet occupation – initially as a Damocletian threat, then as a horrific reality.

Millions of those Poles were Jews who were wiped out.

Before the war, Poland was home to Europe’s largest Jewish population and so it is no coincidence that more gentile Poles than any other nationality have since been recognised as Righteous Among the Nations.

They heroically helped their Jewish compatriots to evade calamity, at great risk to their own lives.

It would be foolish to argue that no Pole chose the alternative path by actively betraying Jews and aiding the occupiers.

Yet that is what today’s Polish populists seek to do.

Jaroslaw Marek Nowak’s crime was to call them out for it.

His dismissal leaves world Jewry with little to hope that its relations with Poland can improve.

Where is ‘golden age’?

JNF UK chair Samuel Hayek put the proverbial cat among the pigeons by having the temerity to question whether Anglo-Jewry has a future.

Indeed, for the UK communal bodies to suggest in response that the British Jewish community is going through ‘a golden age’ and to state that the diaspora communities “have undergone a renaissance” – as Jonathan Goldstein, the outgoing chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, puts it – is nothing short of farcical.

If it is as healthy as Mr Goldstein believes and has such “a strong future”, as Marie van der Zyl, President of the Board of Deputies, maintains, then perhaps they can both explain why it is that over the past 56 years, the UK Jewish population has fallen from 410,000 (in 1955) to a mere 270,000 in 2011, as per the most recent census, a decline of 34 percent.

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By comparison, over a similar period, ie between 1900 and 1955, the Jewish population grew by 82 percent.

The true decline in this country’s Jewish population is, therefore, very much steeper than the base numbers show.

And although the community should indeed be immensely grateful to the Community Security Trust for all its efforts in seeking to keep us all safe, what exactly does it say for our safety in this country that necessitates its existence and, according to its chief executive Mark Gardiner, the millions spent to do so?

I am sorry to be the party pooper, but AngloJewry is actually in a woeful state, whether the cause of that is external factors, as Mr Hayek rightly or wrongly suggests, or internal factors, as these statistics clearly show.

Daniel Anderson, New Southgate I was shocked to read Richard Kafton’s letter endorsing Samuel Hayek’s view that we have no future in this country owing to Muslim immigration (Jewish News, 7 January 2022).

I’m used to reading a wide spread of views in your newspaper, many of which I find disagree-

able, but I didn’t realise that Mr Hayek had cheerleaders willing to put their name to such a preposterous and, in my view, ignorant point of view.

Mr Kafton would be wise to think twice before endorsing such bigotry again.

Last week’s lead Jewish News article suggested that Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis contests the claim by JNF UK’s chairman Samuel Hayek that there is no future for Jews here in the United Kingdom.

On closer reading, the Chief Rabbi actually objected to the insensitive comments concern-

ing Muslim immigration.

Although he has a vested interest, surely the Chief Rabbi must concede that the scourge of antisemitism and increasing assimilation means the future for the Jews of Britain eventually lies only in one place – our homeland.

Emma Shafton, By email

David Freeman, EN5

13 January 2022 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

17

Editorial comment and letters PRECIOUS STONES

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The excellent letter by Richard Kafton in defence of Samuel Hayek’s comments was based on verifiable and indisputable historical facts. Being able to express an opinion, provided it isn’t an incitement to hatred, is the hallmark of a free society.

The reaction to it on Twitter by Na’amod, the ‘anti-occupation group’, and Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber, rabbi at Brighton Liberal Synagogue, represents an attempt to threaten Jewish News and our commu-

in Germany and in France, for example, with truly disastrous consequences.

It is indeed true that antisemitism in the UK comes from a variety of places. It is found in people on the left as well as on the right – and it’s true also that in Muslim communities, some people (and I do mean some, not all) hold entrenched anti-Jewish views.

Just like in some UK Jewish communities, some people hold anti-Muslim opinions.

How is it Islamophobic to say this when even many Muslims agree this is the case?

Mr Hayek doesn’t deserve to be cancelled for his concern about UK Jewish life. We are all free, of course, to disagree with him.

Michael Fredericks, By email nity and silence views they don’t agree with under a veneer of confected anti-racism.

Na’amod wrote: “This lays bare the connections between Islamophobia and antiPalestinian racism. The decision to publish is inexcusable.” Kanter-Webber opined: “How can Jewish News justify this incitement?”

Silencing the free flow of opinion is totalitarianism, in this case posing as the majority view instead of the fringe ideology it is.

Dovid Rosenthhal, Hendon

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

Opinion

Blair should have turned down knighthood offer ALEX BRUMMER

CITY EDITOR, THE DAILY MAIL

W

hen Tony Blair was the surprise guest of honour at the Jewish News’ ‘Night of Heroes’ gala pre-Covid, he was greeted by adoring guests as a hero.

The contrasting respect for Blair as a philosemitic Labour prime minister and what was to follow in the shape of Jeremy Corbyn – as leader of the Labour opposition – could not be greater. Blair had something about him. He has a charm and easy manner, which explains why he was elected three times in a row.

Britain’s honours system, with its gongs for failed politicians, Tory donors and Labour time servers, long has been a source of contention.

Rarely a new year starts without a political row over the tax affairs of recipients or some undeserving aspect of their lives. The system survives because of its connection to monarchy and as a means of recognising sports and showbiz icons. It also serves to mark contributions to British life ranging from tireless charity workers and generous givers to unsung heroes.

The outcry over the Queen’s decision to make Blair a Companion of Honour has been exceptionally hostile. An online petition to rescind his knighthood has attracted more than one million signatures.

There has been widespread and moving testimony from the mothers of British military personnel killed in the Afghanistan and Iraq conflicts. Blair’s intervention in the cauldron of Middle Eastern politics is presented by his critics as based on no more than a willingness to kowtow to former president George W Bush and his neo-conservative advisers.

As a reporter in Washington in the months after 9/11 and in the run-up to both the Afghan and Iraq conflicts, it was hard not to be drawn into the drama. Journalists were briefed extensively first on the al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan and Iraq’s never-found cache of weapons of mass destruction. Tthere was also widespread information on American plans to restore Iraq to normal after the war.

In much the same way as it was hard for the press to dispute the raw intelligence, it was as difficult for political leaders. It was only with the benefit of mountains of classified documents and testimony that the Chilcot Report

❝

TO ACCUSE BLAIR OF WAR CRIMES SIMPLY DOES NOT BEAR UP TO SCRUTINY

eventually concluded that British forces joined in the assault of the Iraq war on the basis of flimsy and manipulated data.

To portray Blair’s support for Bush simply as misplaced loyalty is not correct. By the time 9/11 had come around, Blair had become convinced that interventions could make the world a better place. UK troops had made a real difference in bringing a bloody conflict in Sierra Leone to a conclusion and had been successfully deployed protecting Muslims in Bosnia as well as Kosovo citizens.

The subsequent emergence of terrible war crimes by Serbian murderers, punished in The Hague, demonstrated the necessity of those operations. To accuse Blair of war crimes simply does not bear up to scrutiny.

It is to be remembered that the Afghan intervention came with the full support of the UN Security Council. The arguments at the UN over the Iraq intervention were more finely balanced than is generally acknowledged and only narrowly blocked.

Similarly, there are questions to be asked about the original opposition to the war, including the great marches in London with huge numbers of pro-Palestinian and antiIsrael flags and emblems among the demonstrators.

But none of this is to discount the anguish felt by every parent who lost young soldiers serving in Afghanistan and Iraq. My own son lost friends, Jewish and non-Jewish, in the conflict and still meets with their families.

There is much about Blair’s post-Downing Street personal and commercial life that sticks in the craw of his detractors. Having been offered a knighthood, Blair’s better political judgment should have told him to turn it down on the grounds that it was bound to expose deep wounds.

But the portrayal of Blair as a war criminal, seeking to bolster his ego through an unholy alliance with the US, is plain wrong.

Positive change emerging from the Charedi grassroots YEHUDIS GOLDSOBEL CHIEF EXECUTIVE, MIGDAL EMUNAH

D

espite the great efforts of Charedi news sources in the past to avoid the issue of sexual abuse even entering Charedi homes via print or online, news sources that otherwise would never have published these types of stories, were ultimately forced into publishing something, anything, in response to the allegations of sexual abuse by one of the biggest authors of children literature. Some even managed to skirt the issue and still not use the words ‘Walder’ or ‘sex abuse’.

It did not matter. Everyone knew what they were talking about.

The allegations against Chaim Walder first appeared in Haaretz back in November, after months of lengthy investigative work by Aaron Rabinowitz and Shira Elk. Three women had accused Walder of exploiting their vulnerability, as well as the

blind trust of the community, in order to sexually harm them. These sorts of investigative pieces are never published in any Charedi news source under the guise of lashon hara.

An additional argument the community has weaponised is ‘innocent until proven guilty’, a judicial standard that has no standing in a community that behaves as if there is no judicial process available to it.

In a community where your news is controlled and censored, the only way you will be aware of any sexual abuse cases is if non-Charedi papers write about them, through word of mouth or if your rabbi speaks about it.

Across the world – literally across the world – there were statements from the Chief Rabbi of South Africa, countless articles of rabbis in America speaking up – and then there were journalists, rabbis and representative bodies here in the UK saying and doing absolutely nothing.

You’d be forgiven for thinking perhaps these Walder books didn’t make it across the ocean to our bookshops and homes, but they did; they were in Charedi homes and Orthodox schools. So I try to give the benefit

of the doubt. Maybe they were all on winter break without access to world news, yet, more than 1,000 delegates from Charedi schools found the time to attend a meeting to discuss the battle against government pressure to teach relationship andsex education in all schools, and others were tweeting their opinion on Emma Watson.

My faith in our communal institutions, professional bodies and religious leadership was quickly disappearing.

The change we so desperately need for better safeguarding in our Orthodox Jewish community is not coming from those in leadership roles.

It has been 10 years of pleading with our leadership for better safeguarding practices in our synagogues, organisations and community. Ten years just asking our leadership to put safeguarding higher up on their list of priorities.

❝

Well clearly, I’ve been looking in the wrong place. Those headteachers who sent out letters to parents about Walder’s book in their libraries, along with tools for how to talk to your children; they didn’t delay for senior leadership to give guidance or permission.

They took action.

The change we need is coming from the people working in our schools, or on the ground in face to face roles.

These men and women understand the urgency more than leadership ever did; they partner with parents for grassroots change, how we talk about it among ourselves and how we raise children in this world. I am humbled and I am thankful to these people who are using their platforms to make this change.

These are the changemakers in our community, these are our leaders. To them I am grateful.

IT HAS BEEN 1O YEARS OF PLEADING WITH OUR LEADERSHIP FOR BETTER SAFEGUARDING

www.jewishnews.co.uk

13 January 2022 Jewish News

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www.jewishnews.co.uk

Jewish News 13 January 2022

Opinion

What sort of world will our children and theirs inhabit?

MICHAEL GOLDSTEIN PRESIDENT, UNITED SYNAGOGUE

I

n Glasgow last November, prime minister Boris Johnson said: “If we don’t get serious about climate change today, it will be too late for our children to do so tomorrow.”

As a father and new grandfather, this resonated with me. What world will my children, grandchildren and, please God, my greatgrandchildren, inhabit? Will they struggle for food? For water? To keep cool in the baking summer heat?

That’s why I am proud the United Synagogue is launching a truly ground-breaking environmental initiative this weekend. On Tu B’Shvat we’ll be announcing the launch of Dorot, a joint initiative between the Office of the Chief Rabbi and the United Synagogue.

Dorot means “generations” in Hebrew and we’ve picked this name because if we act now, we can thrive for generations to come. Inspired by the excellent EcoSynagogue audit, Dorot comprises seven projects that touch upon the

key areas of our operation, including education, synagogue buildings, food, finance and land use.

We are launching the seven projects throughout this year and are thinking big: we’re going to lead a campaign to have a tree planted for every one of our 37,000 members to sequester carbon dioxide from the air. This will be part of the Queen’s Green Canopy project for the Queen’s Jubilee Celebration. We will rewild available United Synagogue land to help encourage biodiversity and provide a home for wildlife. A walk in our new meadow will also help improve our health and well-being.

We want to phase out the use of disposables from our nurseries, synagogues and offices, thereby reducing the amount the UK sends abroad to be burned or dumped in the oceans.

We’re committed to investigating our investment portfolio from an environmental perspective to make sure it meets high environmental standards, using ESG and other relevant tools.

We want to make our travel greener, prioritising train travel over air wherever possible.

We’ve introduced an employee electric car leasing scheme alongside our existing cycling scheme. Smart energy solutions for our head

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WE ARE LAUNCHING SEVEN PROJECTS THIS YEAR AND THINKING BIG

office and synagogues will be introduced, following an energy audit and the use of ‘smart’ devices to measure, control and reduce energy consumption.

And we’re going to begin a conversation about responsible food consumption. Jewish culinary tradition stretches back millennia and spans almost the whole planet. But global food production is responsible for 26 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Later this year we’ll be holding online events, looking at how the choices we make for breakfast, lunch and dinner can better impact the planet.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has made social responsibility one of the central planks of his chief rabbinate and I am delighted he is leading the launch of Dorot,

having been closely involved in its design from the start.

He pointed out this week that in the Midrash, Rabban Shimon bar Yochai describes how a group of passengers sailing on a boat noticed a fellow traveller who took out a drill and started to bore a hole beneath his seat.

They asked him: “What are you trying to do?”

He replied: “Why are you concerned? I’m drilling under my place.” In shock they replied: “But you will surely cause all of us to drown!”

Rabban bar Yochai’s message is clear, says the Chief Rabbi: each of us has a responsibility to safeguard and protect the planet we all share.

Not only for those who inhabit the earth now, but for the sake of all future generations.

All the Dorot projects have been designed to ensure our organisation plays its part in the global effort to protect humanity and all life on Earth. We can all make a difference. To quote Mr Johnson again: “The people who will judge us are children not yet born and their children, because if we fail they will not forgive us.”

Please join us.

• For information on Dorot see theus.org.uk/dorot

Sorry episode reveals ugly aspects of our community HANNAH ROSE

FORMER PRESIDENT, UJS

E

nsuing conversation about comments by JNF UK chairman Samuel Hayek brought to the surface the ugly face of Islamophobia in our community.

A recent resurgence of the far-right across Western Europe and North America has accompanied spiking levels of anti-Muslim racism (or vice versa).

However, far-right Islamophobia is not just found in neo-Nazi group slogans or anti-migrant rallies. It is also a narrative that, cloaked in mainstream language, is finding increasing purchase in our own Jewish community.

This far-right does not look like it did 75 years ago; it has cleaned up both its image and its language, appealing to people who do not consider themselves to be racist and digging its claws into the mainstream through claims that it is “only speaking the truth” or “saying what others are too scared to”.

This permits people to inadvertently spread conspiracy theories, such as fixations on Muslim birth rates, without considering themselves racist.

Terminology such as “dhimmitude”, used by a Jewish News letter writer last week to refer to the alleged othering of non-Muslims in Arab societies, was popularised by Bat Ye’or in her conspiratorial book, Eurabia.

The Eurabia conspiracy theory stipulates that a monolithic Muslim force is attempting to control or invade Europe; it is the starting point for antisemitic conspiracy theories such as the "Great Replacement”, and a foundational text for movements such as Defence Leagues (for example the EDL). What, then, is a typical farright trope doing in a Jewish person’s writing?

While neo-Nazis remain a small section of the far-right, there is a wider, looming threat, where online forums sow conspiracy theories and attempt to pit minority communities against each other. All the while, far-right philosemitism attempts to attract Jews with the promise that it both understands and opposes antisemitism, and is forgiven for its sins with a cursory claim that “well, they’re good on Israel”.

Just over the channel, a Jewish far-right polemicist is running for the French presidency, armed with a string of convictions for hate crimes and the knowledge that his Jewish identity will protect him from serious accusations of racism. The vice-president of the

Representative Council of French Jews (CRIF) Yonathan Arfi, described Eric Zemmour as a “double punishment”; first for the covert antisemitism that he espouses, and second for the blame which the community are facing on his behalf. While many question how a candidate like Zemmour could have possibly arisen, we can find the answer no further than in the pages of our own Jewish papers.

There are ways in which we can raise concerns about antisemitism in the Muslim community, just as we do with antisemitism in other arenas, without leading to the vilification, homogenisation and stereotyping of an entire community.

As a community that has been vilified, homogenised and stereotypes for centuries, we know the consequences.

Those who view anti-Muslim hatred as the only solution to rising antisemitism are

❝

failing to see a wider picture of far-right activity across Europe. While far-right Islamophobic forums and networks may appear to offer easy solutions and a scapegoat for rising anxiety in the Jewish community, they are also rife with dogwhistle antisemitism, and only serve to perpetuate anti-Jewish hatred.

The way in which we tackle these issues matters for wider society; in some respects, the success of the radical right hinges on Jewish complicity.

Clumsy, offensive and, frankly, incorrect generalisations serve to help neither Muslims nor Jews – only the far-right.

Our community has a very long way to go to root out the foundations the far-right has lain.

Let this incident be the start of conversations in our synagogues, youth groups and community institutions.

CLUMSY, OFFENSIVE AND, FRANKLY, INCORRECT GENERALISATIONS SERVE TO HELP NEITHER MUSLIMS OR JEWS – ONLY THE FAR-RIGHT

13 January 2022 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

21

Community / Scene & Be Seen

1 GARDENING GROUP

Volunteers from PwC embraced the outdoors ahead of Tu B’Shvat by joining the allotment group at Sandringham in Hertfordshire, Jewish Care’s newest care and community hub. The volunteers have helped to prepare the raised beds and troughs ready for planting trees, flowers, vegetables and herbs with the allotment group, which includes tenants at Pears Court Retirement Living at Sandringham, members of The Ronson Family Community Centre at Sandringham and the Jewish Care’s Supportive Communities group.

2CRICKETERS PASS TEST

And be seen!

The latest news, pictures and social events from across the community Email us at community@jewishnews.co.uk

Belmont and Edgware Cricket Club was victorious against rivals London Maccabi Vale at the annual Camdenians Sports and Social Club Big Fat Quiz of the Year.

The team outwitted opponents in rounds such as sport, music and Covid, to win bragging rights and a round of drinks.

3AWARENESS SHABBAT

Hundreds of events took place in synagogues, schools and organisations across the country for the sixth annual Jami Mental Health Awareness Shabbat (MHAS). These ranged from education sessions and virtual panel events to events highlighting the importance of metal health awareness in sports in association with Maccabi GB.

2

1

4HEALING ART

Lydia Assor, a resident at Jewish Care’s Stella & Harry Freedman House, has been living with schizophrenia since her early teens. Art has provided a healing space for Lydia and her daughter Sally to connect when spending time together. Lydia’s work was recently shortlisted in an art competition run by the College of Psychic Studies.

Born

3

4

1918

December

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100-SECOND INTERVIEW PEARL SLATER, AGED 103 Place of birth: Whitechapel, London.

Where do you live and how long have you lived there? Where did you live before?

I’ve lived in Young Court in Willesden Green for 21 years. Before that I lived in Bournemouth.

What was your occupation before retirement?

Weight Watcher lecturer.

Were/are you married? If

so for how long? To whom?

I was married to Albert for 14 years. Sadly, he passed away.

Do you have children, grandchildren, greatgrandchildren ?

I have two daughters, five grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

What’s your happiest memory?

When my first daughter, Joy, was born. It was so exciting.

What do you consider your proudest achievement?

Opening my first Weight Watcher class in in Hackney.

Celebrating our community’s centenarians...

It was crowded and very rewarding.

If you could live life again would you do anything differently?

I would like to have travelled the world more. There are so many places I haven’t seen.

What’s your advice to young people?

I wouldn’t advise younger people because they think they know better and they need to make their own mistakes and learn from them.

The secret to a long life is…

Not overdoing anything!

Young mum Pearl with her first daughter, Joy

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

LI FE A

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Inside A look

Who, what & where JN Junior Travel –Sri Lanka

Self Care Club

SENSE OF

Self

Wellbeing experts Lauren Mishcon and Nicole Goodman share five tips for self-care

H

ow many self-care books have you bought and never read? How many times have you fancied trying a new fitness trend or wellness gadget, but never actually got round to booking that class or buying the ‘mustbuy’ product? The number of Instagram hits on #selfcare has grown from 500,000 in 2016 to 21.4 million in 2022,

with ‘mindfulness’ not far behind at 16.1 million and there are more than 60,000 self-care books for sale on Amazon.

With the pandemic still snapping at our exhausted heels, we need self-care now more than ever before. Yet, ironically, the overwhelming wealth of advice available can leave us feeling worse as it creates yet another thing to fit into our overstretched lives. The

truth is, unless the content of self-help books is broken down into bullet points in a magazine, or you know for sure from a friend that the £45 crystal face roller really works, most people can’t be bothered. But we can.

As hosts of reality podcast Self Care Club, we don’t just read the books, we also test every product and put ourselves through every physical and mental practice to figure out if it actually works or if it’s just another waste of your precious time and money. As two Jewish mothers in our 40s, we try it all and tell it straight.

We were introduced by a mutual friend and appeared as guests on each other’s radio shows. Our chemistry was instant and it was while chatting about how self-care has become yet another job for women that the idea for our podcast was born.

One of our first practices was trying Goat Yoga, which involved a two-hour schlep to Ipswich at 8am on a Sunday morning. We yachnered all the way up the motorway and Nicole sealed the friendship for good when she brought along a surprise packed lunch for us both of smoked salmon sandwiches and her mother’s famous egg and onion on rye. It was love at first bite and, since then,

Nicole Goodman and Lauren Mischon

we have challenged each other on more than 100 shows with everything from vaginal steaming, weight lifting and cold showers to pelvic floor trainers, joining a choir and tree hugging.

Here are our top five practices for 2022:

GRATITUDE

Gratitude is the foundation of all self-care.

Every time a person expresses or receives gratitude, dopamine is released in the brain, which makes us feel good. Grateful people take care of their physical health, exercise

13 January 2022 Jewish News

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23

JN LIFE INTUITIVE EATING

often and sleep better. Gratitude improves psychological health by reducing negative emotions and improves self-esteem by reducing social comparisons and aggression.

Recognising all you have to be thankful for – even during your worst times – enables resilience. So the next time someone gives way to let you out of the Brent Cross car park, be sure to say thank you!

A compassionate eating framework that treats bodies with dignity and respect is the opposite of dieting, when we are told what to eat and when – instead we listen to our ‘hunger’ and ‘full’ cues. To practice intuitive eating: • Reject the diet mentality; • Honour your hunger; • Make peace with food; • Feel your fullness; • Cope with your emotions with kindness; • Respect your body; • Move – feel the difference; • Honour your health with gentle nutrition.

WEIGHTED BLANKETS

The feeling of being hugged or held can help to relieve panic attacks, anxiety, depression and stress. A weighted blanket does much the same thing. Filled with plastic or glass beads, the weight provides an all-over gentle pressure on the body, which relaxes your nervous system and produces a calming effect. Doctors and occupational therapists recommend them. The pressure therapy starts a series of chemical reactions, releasing the happy hormone serotonin.

This provides a calming effect, regulates our mood and boosts the production of melatonin, which promotes sleep. If you have a husband who snores it may prove useful, even if he kvetches about it being too hot.

SELF-LOVE

It might sound cheesy, but learning to love yourself, cellulite and wobbly tummy included, is one of the most powerful things you can do. Think of self-love as cultivating a better relationship with yourself. People who love themselves are less likely to suffer from anxiety or depression. Self-love brings better

STOP PEOPLE-PLEASING Self Care Club in the studio

sleep, reduces stress, lessens procrastination, nurtures close relationships and paves the way for a positive mindset. There are many ways to do this, such as: • High five yourself every time you look in the mirror and say something nice to yourself like you would to your best friend; •Fill in a journal at the end of the day to establish all the ways you showed up today and what you can celebrate about yourself (my hair is looking fabulous!), three things you’re grateful for today, or one thing you’ll forgive yourself for this week. (I forgot to call my mother); • Say daily affirmations: “I am… (something positive about yourself )” .

Oy vey! This is a big one. People-pleasing is a process of guessing what other people want, or what will make them think favourably of us, and then acting accordingly. When we pretend to be something that we aren’t, or we do something that is more about influencing what others think of us than it is about expressing ourselves, then we lose our sense of self and deplete all our energy on the wrong things.

If you have a difficult time saying ‘no’, are preoccupied with what other people might think, or you’re always telling people you’re sorry, you are a people-pleaser. You need to change the conversation from: “What will they think?” to: “What do I think?” Peoplepleasing is all about the other person, so the first step is to check in with yourself. When someone asks for a favour, tell them you need some time to think about it. Saying ‘yes’ right

away can leave you feeling obligated and overcommitted. Do you really want to host Yom Tov for 25 people when you are starting a new full-time job that week?

Lauren Mishcon is a birth doula and pregnancy and childbirth expert. www.fromtummytomummy.co.uk Nicole Goodman is a certified CPCC women’s identity expert and coach www.nicolegoodman.co.uk COMPETITION

WIN A REMY WEIGHTED BLANKET WORTH £135!

For your chance to win a grey Remy weighted blanket worth £135, head to our Instagram @selfcareclubpod. You will need to like the post, follow us and subscribe to Self Care Club podcast on Apple iTunes. The winner will be picked at random and notified on Instagram.

The competition closes on 21 January 2022.

Antiques Buyers WE BUY ANTIQUES

TS. VERY HIGH PRICES PAID. FREE HOME VISITS. rcelain, in, All Antique Furniture Hille & Epstein Diamond Jewellery, Gold, Silver, Paintings, Porcelain, aica Judaica Glass, Lowry Prints, Bronzes, Ivories, Oriental & Judaica sed.

Antiques etc. Full house clearances organised. ails Please look at our website for more details

o.uk k www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk

ON: FOR APPOINTMENTS CALL SUE ON: 90 0800 840 2035 or 07956268290 OPEN 8am TO 9pm 7 DAYS. PORTOBELLO RD LONDON.

Wanted all Antiques & furniture including Lounge Dining and Bedroom Suites. Chests of drawers.

Display and Cocktail Cabinets. Furniture by Hille.

Epstein. Archie shine. G plan etc in Walnut. Mahogany.

Teak and Rosewood.

We also buy Diamonds & Jewellery. Gold. Silverware.

Paintings. Glass. Porcelain. Bronzes etc.

All Antiques considered. Full house clearances organised. Very high prices paid, free home visits.

Check our website for more details www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk Email: info@antiquesbuyers.co.uk Please call Sue Davis on Freephone: 08008402035 WhatsApp Mobile: 07956268290 Portobello rd London By appointments only.

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Jewish News 13 January 2021

JN LIFE

&

www.jewishnews.co.uk

WHO WHAT WHERE FILM

Faith Production

AWARD

With the ‘Jewface’ debate bubbling away nicely among thesps and casting agents and one Dame questioning another Dame’s right to play Golda Meir, along comes Licorice Pizza.. Much as it sounds like crazy Italian confectionary to sweeten the mood, it is in fact a Alana movie, the release of which could not be more timely for its Haim director Paul Thomas Anderson, because it’s about a 20-something Jewish girl trying to make it as an actress in 1970s Hollywood. But it gets better.

Breaking the trend of casting non-Jewish actresses as females of the faith (Felicity Jones as Ruth Bader Ginsburg – seriously?!) the protagonist Alana Kane is played by Alana Haim of the band Haim and she ‘looks Jewish’ because, well… she is Jewish. And before getting all exercised about the notion of her ‘looking’ like one of the chosen, just accept that this is why she was chosen to make her screen debut. Seeking fame and fortune with an Ashkenazi aesthetic wasn’t easy before Barbra Streisand was deemed sexy in the late 1960s and it is in that period that Alana, with the help of overconfident child actor Gary Valentine (Cooper Hoffman, son of Philip Seymour Hoffman), tries to get her break. Using his own childhood in the San Fernando Valley as the backdrop, Anderson, who is responsible for Boogie Nights, There Will Be Blood and Adam Sandler’s star turn in Punch-Drunk Love along with other gems, has gone all out for ‘us’ with this perfect piece that really celebrates Jewish looks. Every male in the industry is taken with Alana, including Jon Peters (Bradley Cooper) who married Streisand and auteur Anderson can obviously see the appeal as he is married to comic Jewish actress Maya Rudolph of Bridesmaids. A man of taste, clearly.

Paul Thomas Anderson Licorice Pizza is out now. and Maya Rudolph

AUTHOR

Sister Act

STAR

That Gal Borehamwood eaterie Sababa will be delighted. The restaurant’s name is Wonder Woman’s ’s favourite word.

‘Cool’, as it translates from the Hebrew, derived from Arabic, is Gal Gadot’s ’s go-to bon mot when nothing else will do. Such as when she is giving birth, which she told InStyle is ‘sababa’ because: “I love giving birth. I would do it once a week if I could.

It’s so magical.” We’ll leave other women to ‘wonder’ about the ‘sababa’ of that.

To mark Holocaust Memorial Day next Thursday, 27 January, Edgware & Hendon Reform Synagogue is hosting Heather Morris, author of The Tattooist of Auschwitz on Zoom at 7.30pm. She will talk about her books and then there will be a Q&A session. Her new book, Three Sisters, Sisters tells the story of three girls who survived Auschwitz and then returned to their childhood home in Slovakia before embarking on a voyage of renewal in order to live in Israel. Register in advance at www.ehrs.uk/event/hmd2022

Heather Morris

Ticking the Box

Big mazeltov to the truly marvellous Andrew Garfield, who won Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy for his role in Tick, Tick… Boom! Currently appearing on screens in Spider-Man, his portrayal of the late composer Jonathan Larson in Lin-Manuel Miranda’s screen debut is booming marvellous.

Andrew Garfield

ISRAEL

We’re in!

CINEMA

Eye Opener

Israel has finally opened its borders and El Al is holding a flash sale today and tomorrow.

Don’t miss your chance to get there for less.

In Eric Steel’s film Minyan, David, a closeted yeshiva student (Samuel H Levine) discovers clues to his sexuality in the most unlikely place – a Jewish retirement home. Living with his widowed grandfather (Ron Rifkin) in the Russian Jewish enclave of New York’s Brighton Beach, David gets the education he didn’t get from the Torah. Minyan is now at selected cinemas.

PLAY

Stage & Screen If you missed Tom Stoppard’s Olivier Award-winning play Leopoldstadt at the theatre, catch it at the cinema only on Thursday, 27 January. Set at the beginning of the 20th century in

the old, crowded Jewish quarter of Vienna, this epic yet intimage play follows the life of Hermann Merz, a baptised Jew married to Catholic Gretl, across half a century, through the convulsions of war, revolution and the Holocaust. https://leopoldstadt.ntlive.com

This Month In Jewish History...

By Jewish News’ historian, Derek Taylor

David Nieto was an Italian rabbi and the Sephardi Haham from 1702 until he died on 10 January 1728. Besides having semicha (rabbinical qualification – rare at the time as there was little training available) he was an astronomer, doctor, historian, logician, poet and theologian. He spoke Hebrew, French, Greek, Italian, Latin, Portuguese, Spanish and eventually English.

Throughout Nieto’s ministry, he defended the Oral Law (work of rabbis who have interpreted the Written Law over the centuries) against the Classicists, the Modernists, Philosophers, Deists, Sabbatians, Karaites and Catholics, who each wanted to prove Judaism wrong. He proved the community’s loyalty to the Crown by quoting dina de malchuta dina – the law of the land is the law of the Jews. As a result, the mahamad (lay leadership of the Sephardi community) supported the king. Nieto argued in the face of the new wave of scientific thinking and, thanks to his efforts, when he died nothing at Bevis Marks had changed. There simply are not enough David Nietos.

13 January 2022 Jewish News

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JN LIFE

HOT HAVEN

Colonial mansions and chattering monkeys turn up the heat for Brigit Grant in Sri Lanka Haritha Villa & Spa

T

here are lots of things one expects to see at breakfast.

Cereal boxes. Eggs in cups.

Toast in a rack. But a monkey hanging from the branch of a Foxtail palm tree? Now that’s something different.

Except it’s not, in Sri Lanka. Tufted grey langur monkeys engaged in a game of chase or clinging to rattans as they swing from palm to palm is morning cabaret at Haritha Villas + Spa and it’s an unmissable petit dejeuner performance.

Sipping freshly-pulped mango juice to the song of the yellowfronted barbet while deliberating over whether to eat a butter croissant with pineapple jam or tuck into more passion fruit is the toughest choice you have to make at the Haritha.

And to think that only a few days earlier, mornings were about beating red lights on the school run while spilling coffee on my coat.

Now, in nothing more than a sarong and a smile, my family and I were guests at a boutique hotel that would charm even the most seasoned resort traveller. No matter

Below: Outside bath and, right, some local wildlife

how fabulous your last five-star stay was, the Haritha will top it, but it does so discreetly and with such good taste. Perched on a hilltop above the playfully-named seaside town of Hikkaduwa (which means sword of knowledge or seashell jungle depending on who you ask) the property is gasp-worthy and stops you in your tracks soon after you pass through the iron gates and luscious foliage.

Gripped by the heat we so long for at home, Sri Lanka is supposedly cooler from November to March, but with temperatures of more than 26°C in the last weeks of 2021, it’s the kind of ‘cool’ I can live with, particularly when I’ve got my own pool. Yes, I did say “my own pool”, which was a mere five steps (I counted) from the heavy wood door of my Colonial Mansion.

In truth the only sensible place to put a family of five with a lot of luggage (Jews don’t travel light) is a Colonial Mansion and, luckily, the Haritha has two, both of which have high-ceilinged majestic adjoining suites containing large four-poster beds dressed with 500 threadcount linen under stylishly-swathed mosquito nets. Around the room,

carefully placed glazed figurines, an iPad and state-of-the-art moveable speaker suggest ‘at home’, so I had to remind the family we were not and could only lay claim to the complimentary chic black stationery and toiletries. That the bathroom was outdoors exposed to the elements and visiting striped palm squirrels was a delightful novelty – at least until a Kandyan dwarf toad landed on the face of my step-son’s girlfriend while she was on the al fresco toilet. Despite being a small Indian Ocean island, Sri Lanka is recognised as an amphibian hotspot, with 116 species, 90 percent of which are not found elsewhere on Earth. And occasional toilets.

Proximity to wildlife is just another perk while staying at the Haritha, which also has seven independent contemporary villas with saltwater plunge pools. Hidden on leafy shelves beneath the Colonial Mansion, the guests in the other villas are invisible and only seen in the restaurant, which sits beside an infinity pool overlooking rice fields. Having only arrived a month before us, the hotel’s

Clockwise from above left: Bathroom wall message; Haritha swimming pool; Brigit’s family on a Sri Lankan safari

new GM, an ebullient Italian called Umberto Piccolini was as enthusiastic about Haritha we were and, having overseen the openings of hotels in the Maldives and Dubai, knows how to run five-star places.

He had also been culinary director at The Four Seasons, so we left it to him to choose our lunch and dinner menus, as well as the wine.

Fish is available on a biblical scale in Sri Lanka and you have your pick of yellowfin and bigeye tuna, along with all the crustaceans the Torah forbids us to eat, but some can’t resist. For those who are not averse to dining at J.Sheekey or Scott’s in London, Sri Lanka offers better quality at a tenth of the price, so make the most of it.

After a fish feast and the sommelier’s skilled wine choices, the

heat of the night called for a dip in our phosphorescent lit pool. A few pranks, Lion beers (that’s a brand not the beast) and then delicious silence fell beneath the stars. Even the monkeys were sleeping – but they made it to breakfast before us the next morning, ready to swing.

Haritha Villas is currently offering a two-night stay with breakfast, three-course dinner, private airport transfer and a couple’s spa treatment for 90 minutes from £308 per night. www.harithavillas.com

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

JN LIFE

VEGAN Sri Lankan SUPPER

It can take 2,350 litres of fresh water to produce just one 150g beef burger – that’s enough water to fill 30 bathtubs or have a five-hour shower! So that’s a good reason to try this sensational pulled meat-style jackfruit instead and enjoy a burger experience without harming the environment.

Pulled jackfruit burgers (serves 4)

Ingredients

3 tbsp tomato purée Sea salt and freshly-ground black pepper

2 x 400g tins or jars of jackfruit in water 2 tbsp olive oil 3 garlic cloves, crushed 2 tsp sweet smoked paprika 1½ tsp ground cumin 5 tbsp soy sauce or tamari 3 tbsp maple syrup 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar Preparation time 25 mins

To serve: 8 cos lettuce leaves 4 burger buns 4 slices of vegan cheese (optional) ½ small red onion, peeled and finely sliced 1 large tomato, thinly sliced Cooking time 1 hr 20 mins

Directions 1. Drain the jackfruit, rinse it thoroughly and pat dry. Cut it into thin slices.

2. Put the oil into a large non-stick pan and place over a high heat. Add the jackfruit and stir-fry for five to seven minutes, until it begins to colour. Add the garlic, paprika and cumin and fry for another minute until aromatic. Reduce the heat to medium, add the soy sauce, maple syrup, vinegar and tomato purée and simmer for another three to four minutes, stirring frequently, until all the liquid has reduced down and the jackfruit has thickened and become sticky.

3. Taste and adjust the seasoning if necessary with salt and pepper.

4. To serve, place some lettuce on the base of a burger bun, top with vegan cheese, if using, slices of red onion, tomato and the jackfruit. Place the other half of the bun on top and serve immediately.

Extracted from Linda McCartney’s Family Kitchen: Over 90 Plant-Based Recipes to Save the Planet and Nourish the Soul by Linda, Paul, Mary and Stella McCartney. Published by Seven Dials (£26, hardback), https://smarturl.it/LindaMcCartneyBook

The The Messy Messy Hot Hot Drink Drink

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13 January 2022 Jewish News

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JN Junior

JN Junior

Hands On!

Sprout an Avocado Tree

Want to grow your very own tree? The next time you eat an avocado, save the pit for sprouting.

The big question

Supplies

What new year’s resolutions will you decide on to help make the world a better place?

• Avocado pit • Toothpicks • Glass of water

Genius Jenna says: Happy new year, everyone! And with a new year often comes a ‘new year’s resolution’. A new year’s resolution is a kind of promise you make to yourself to start doing something good (or stop doing something bad), such as helping with chores around the house, trying new foods or having less screen time.

The idea of new year’s resolutions is thought to have started by the ancient Babylonians, around 4,000 years ago. Apparently, they made promises to the gods in the hope that something good would happen to them in the coming year. Agriculture was very important in the Babylonian society and one common resolution was returning their borrowed farm equipment – slightly different to our ones! Some of the most popular ones today are: do more exercise, pursue a passion or hobby, learn a new skill, save more money and spend more time with loved ones.

One tip to achieving your resolution is to share it with others.

Libby Rajbenbach, nine, from Barnet:

“

This year I will try to recycle more. I can start with plastic bottles.

The other material I can recycle more is paper – using both sides instead of just one is a good start. Using less paper means more trees and less plastic means less goes in the oceans. I want to recycle more to help the planet – it is important for the future.

“

Good news for...

… the Curtis siblings, child entrepreneurs A 10-year-old from Australia has launched an accessory and toy business that her mum says could lead her to retire by the time she’s 15! Pixie Curtis set up Pixie’s Bows with her mum (and PR hotshot) Roxy Jacenko in 2011.

Earlier this year came Pixie’s Fidgets and, in the first month alone, it sold more than $200,000 worth of product.

The two empires are estimated to earn $21 million in the next decade.

And now Pixie’s younger brother Hunter, seven, with mum’s support, has launched ‘his’ own unisex streetwear and accessories brand.

1. Wash your avocado pit. Carefully stick three toothpicks in it and suspend the broad end of the pit into the glass of water so it’s mostly submerged.

2. Place the glass in a warm spot, but not in direct sunlight. Over time, the water level will lower. Add more water as needed to keep the pit wet.

3. In the next two to six weeks, you’ll notice the roots and stem beginning to sprout.

When the stem is 6 to 7 inches long, cut it back several inches. When the roots thicken and the stem grows new leaves, transplant it into a pot of soil, leaving the top half of the pit exposed — or, if you live in a warm enough climate, you can plant it outdoors. Place it in a sunny spot, water it regularly, and don’t forget to celebrate its l birthday! ie d d a B r Ivo

Just for laughs!

With

say to his g a st he t id d t ha W ve birth to wife when shoeng1aJa nuary? their son

Happy rnew dee

Five things to enjoy this month: 1 3 Hogwarts in the Snow

Woodland Tales with Granddad

There’s still time to experience Hogwarts in the Snow at Warner Bros. Studio Tour London – The Making of Harry Potter. On until 16 January. www.wbstudiotour.co.uk

This uproarious show with extraordinary puppets is fun for the whole family. Runs on Sunday 23 January at 11am and 2pm. www.artsdepot.co.uk

2

Nutty New Year Adventures New Year’s Resolutions are the order of the day for Captain Calamity, who is back at the Radlett Centre with his pal Scorcher the Dragon. Saturday 22nd January at 11am. www.radlettcentre.co.uk

Compiled by Candice Krieger candice@jewishnews.co.uk

4

Somerset House Ice Rink

5

You can whizz around the ice at Somerset House until 16 January. Make the most of it while you can, though, as organisers say it’s the last time it will be open. www.somersethouse.org.uk

Sign up your child to receive a free monthly Jewish book at www.pjlibrary.org.uk

Audley End grounds Explore acres of spacious grounds at Audley End, one of England’s grandest mansions.

Discover what life was like in a Victorian country house estate. www.english-heritage.org.uk

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

Business / Senior entrepreneurs

candicekrieger@googlemail.com

With Candice Krieger

ALL HAIL THE RISE OF THE ‘OLDERPRENEUR’ The founder of several UK start-ups tells Candice Krieger why the pandemic has triggered an increase in the numbers of over-50s who are setting up their own businesses

A

The 60- year-old rising number of peohas launched Startup pled aged over 50 School for Seniors are starting their – a first of its kind own business, online course to putting them help those aged on their way to 50 and above becoming the most active to start their start-up founders in the own business UK today.

– which begins The spike in founders over tomorrow 50, dubbed ‘olderpreneurs’, has (14 January). been triggered by the pandemic, “Covid-19 has which resulted in large rises in changed the employunemployment among this demoment market irreversibly graphic – the worst affected age cohort Suzanne Noble and made it even harder alongside the younger generation. for workers aged 50+ to find a job,” “When people think of start-ups, they continues Noble. tend to picture high-growth tech businesses “We want to give older people a platform launched by 20-somethings, but the decision for many people to set up their own company is through which they can take back control by launching a business of their own. increasingly driven by necessity and “It could involve them monetising putting food on the table,” says seasoned a lifelong hobby or putting the experience ‘olderpreneur’ Suzanne Noble.

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they’ve gleaned through their employed careers into use for themselves.”

According to a 2021 report by London Councils, which represents London’s 32 borough councils and the City of London, lockdown led to large rises in unemployment for the over-50s, who were “more at risk of being furloughed”.

And a report by the Resolution Foundation concluded that the pandemic had led to the most significant annual employment fall for older workers since the 1980s. Further data shows that it takes those aged 50+ twice as long to find a job as any other age group.

Startup for Seniors is a free eight-week course comprising more than 25 hours of video lessons from Noble and co-founder Mark Elliott, 57, a business coach and educator.

Noble has been self-employed since her 20s, when she produced a television series about astrology for Channel 4. She has since created several businesses, including tech company Frugl, an award-winning app that helped Londoners on a budget to find affordable things to do. She also runs nestful, which supports older homeowners to find compatible lodgers, for Noble is passionate about helping this ‘under-served’ demographic.

She recalls: “In 2017, I started the Advantages of Age Business Academy with a colleague, our first attempt to solve a problem I was seeing among many of my friends who were losing their job and struggling to reengage with the labour market in a meaningful way.

“We delivered the course in libraries, community centres and co-work spaces, but we struggled to obtain funding as the trusts and foundations we were approaching for support weren’t seeing the scale of the problem.

“The pandemic created urgency as the

numbers of over-50s being made redundant or losing their job escalated, and the requirement for us to deliver a programme online became clear.”

Noble obtained Covid response funding to create the eLearning platform, out of which Startup School for Seniors was born.

For many on the course, self-employment is also about doing something they love, which could be turning a passion or hobby into a business.

Where does Noble see the big opportunities for olderpreneurs? “Statistically, older people are more likely to succeed than those much younger,” she notes. “I see the most significant opportunities in helping to solve the problems that impact our age group – such as those that concern caring for elderly parents, whether it’s around supporting informal carers (currently one in five people over 50) or providing alternatives to care homes.

“As an ageing society, we have many challenges that are yet to be addressed – especially around care, housing and work.”

She adds: “While we know that older people tend to be more risk-averse, this can be an advantage in starting a business later in life.

Our learners tend to want to get it right rather than jump in at the deep end.

“They spend more time in the research phase and want to fully understand the problem they are trying to solve rather than rushing towards a solution. They often start businesses based on their sector knowledge, which is usually extensive and, as a result, more likely to be of interest to their target market.”

Startup School for Seniors begins online tomorrow, 14 January 2022, and is free to those who have been resident in London, Dorset and Central Bedfordshire for three or more years. www.startupschoolforseniors.com

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For many on Suzanne’s course, self-employment can be a way of doing something they love

13 January 2022 Jewish News

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29

Orthodox Judaism

SEDRA Beshalach

BY RABBI GARRY WAYLAND One of the most memorable passages of the Pesach Haggadah is the section of the accounting of the plagues: a quintessential argument of the rabbis discussing precisely how many plagues were wrought

by God in Egypt and how many at the sea (interestingly the total number of plagues mentioned in the Haggadah adds to 613 – the number of mitzvot).

The various opinions are all predicated on the fact that God smote the Egyptians with a ‘finger’ in Egypt and a ‘hand’ at the sea. But why was such a difference necessary? After the year of plagues, in which the rules of nature were broken and reformed for the purposes of saving the Jews and punishing the Egyptians, what was gained by the miracles of the ‘splitting of the sea’?

The exodus from Egypt was indeed the most dramatic transformation in history: the emergence of an extended family of slaves to the most powerful nation on Earth in its day, in the mere merit of the faith of the people in God and His faith in their future.

Yet emancipation could never have been a simple process: generations of learned behaviours and attitudes were not going to change overnight. Hence, in this week’s reading, we learn of their anxieties – “Were there no graves in Egypt?” – and their frigidity in the face of danger. Biblical commentator Ibn Ezra notes that the vast numbers of Jews should have easily overcome the 600 Egyptian chariots.

God deemed it necessary for the Jews to come face to face with Pharaoh and their oppressors for many years, and to be able to march off in the other direction into the congealed paths of the split sea.

The process of deconstruction was utterly necessary, but is something that today can be achieved with the press of a button: reconstruction, on the other, took the full force of God’s hand. We can leave our past, but to face up to it, to rebuild and reintegrate our past takes true strength. ◆ Rabbi Garry Wayland is a teacher and educator for US Living and Learning

Torah For Today What the Torah says about: Coping with uncertainty

BY RABBI STEVEN DANSKY With our feet now firmly planted in a new year, there may be some of us who are feeling anxious about the future.

Our recent past has been one of uncertainty about the pandemic, fears for our health and well-being coupled with reports about the coming months that don’t alleviate those fears. The stampede of Omicron means that any hopes we might have felt about the virus’s reign ending have been thwarted. What should our outlook be for the upcoming year?

I find comfort from the last few Torah readings from the book of Genesis. We read how Joseph had been sold by his brothers into slavery and rose to the position of viceroy. He then tests his brothers by planting his silver goblet in Benjamin’s

sack, and accuses him of theft.

He threatens to make Benjamin a slave. This threat is the one thing Joseph’s brothers could not have imagined in their worst nightmares, especially Judah, who had promised his father he would ensure nothing happened to Benjamin.

If we analyse Judah’s position, it seems hopeless. He had no leverage he could employ to free his brother from Joseph’s grasp. He had no power in a foreign court, and there seemed no way of returning Benjamin

to his father. Yet Judah doesn’t give up for a moment.

Even when things are at their bleakest, he refuses to give in to his own anxiety about the future.

It is no surprise the name Jew comes from the name Judah, because we have within us those same characteristics. We never give up – no matter the circumstances, no matter how high the stakes.

We always hope for a better tomorrow, and we have faith that God will help us.

Therefore, as we journey through 2022, we should move with hope for a better future.

We should have faith that the Almighty will be with us, and under no circumstances should we ever give up. ◆ Rabbi Steven Dansky serves Cranbrook United Synagogue

Graphic Designer (Maternity Cover) Communications Department, The United Synagogue

COMMUNITY CARE CO-ORDINATOR MOSAIC JEWISH COMMUNITY Mosaic opens it new Synagogue in Stanmore in Spring 2022, a unique concept providing religious services and community facilities for three congregations.

We are looking for two experienced, qualified people (job share) to co-ordinate and develop our social care provision across all three congregations. This is an exciting opportunity to build on and develop our current range of care and support services for the future needs of the community.

You will have vision and motivation to manage a broad spectrum of support services covering a wide range of needs whilst respecting differing religious practices and customs. You will work closely with the rabbinic, lay leadership and volunteers and have knowledge about social care and communal provision within the Jewish and wider communities, including statutory services.

For full details please visit https://choosemosaic.org/all-news/news/ community-care-co-ordinator/ To apply, send your CV and a covering letter explaining how your skills and experiences meet our requirements to recruitment@choosemosaic.org .

Salary range £28,000 - £32,000

(FTE) depending on skills and experience.

Closing date 21 January 2022

Salary: circa £31,250 per annum (pro-rata) Hours: Part time, 28 hours per week Contract Type: Fixed term contract We are looking for a talented Graphic Designer to join our busy Communications team which supports all internal departments including Tribe, Chesed, Fundraising and Kashrut.

You will be responsible for producing a range of design assets varying from traditional print items such as brochures, leaflets and posters to digital campaigns, and everything in between!

In addition, you will help to maintain and showcase the United Synagogue’s brand identity.

To succeed in this role, you will be fluent in Adobe Creative Cloud, have a solid understanding of brand, and be well versed in marketing and design principles. You will be a team player with excellent communication and organisational skills. You will have meticulous attention to detail and will be able to demonstrate a portfolio of artistic and imaginative projects. You will also be adaptable and self-motivated and will be able to deliver results under pressure within tight deadlines.

Closing date for receipt of applications is: Friday 28th January 2022 To view the job description and apply for this position please visit: www.theus.org.uk/vacancies United Synagogue Registered Charity No. 242552

Celebrating 150 Yea r s

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Jewish News 13 January 2022

Progressive Judaism

The Bible Says What?

The popular film Don’t Look Up has a point!

BY RABBI MIRIAM BERGER The curse of the rabbinate means it is impossible to watch a film (or read a book or visit the theatre) without mining for sermon material. This means that when watching Don’t Look Up on Netflix recently, I was immediately drawn to our tradition of the reluctant prophets.

In the film, the scientists must tell the world of impending destruction and we see it divided into people who are open to hearing the truth, however devastating it may be, and ‘the foolish who despise wisdom’.

Rabbi Deborah Blausten recently shared the words of Ecclesiastes: “With more knowledge comes sorrow.” Yet even with the acknowledgment that the truth can bring fear, pain and hurt, Proverbs reminds us that it is only the foolish who try to protect themselves by shutting themselves off from such wisdom.

However, we should focus not on the fools who shy away from the facts but instead on those who are

delivering the wisdom – the prophets of our day. Whether the ‘prophet’ is Sir Chris Whitty, Sir David Attenborough or Marcus Rashford, it’s not about the message, not even about those who listen and those who don’t, but about ensuring that our hearing the voices of prophets leads to action.

From Moses to Jonah, our biblical prophets are worried about not being the catalyst for change: “Who am I that I should go unto Pharaoh?”

(Exodus 3:11). Don’t Look Up depicts a young PhD student not only bringing her findings to ‘the foolish who despise wisdom’, in the knowledge that ‘with more wisdom comes more sorrow’, but also shows that wisdom without action is meaningless.

We live in a world where it’s easy to become immune to catastrophic news, but we cannot allow ourselves to listen without action.

◆ Miriam Berger is senior rabbi at Finchley Reform Synagogue

Progressively Speaking Focusing on our own mental and physical health helps others, too

BY RABBI AARON GOLDSTEIN If there is anxiety in one’s mind, let them quash it, and turn it into joy with a good word (Proverbs 12:25).

With this verse, which is often cited with reference to mental wellbeing, we opened our thoughts on Jami Mental Health Awareness Shabbat at The Ark Synagogue last week.

Recorded in the Talmud (bYoma 75a:2) are Rabbis Ami and Asi debating the meaning of ‘quashing the anxiety in one’s mind’. One said: “They should forcefully push it out of their mind. One who worries should banish their concerns from their thoughts.” The other said: “It means they should tell others about their concerns, which will lower their anxiety.”

I like that the Talmudic account is ambiguous about which rabbi said what, for we may recall ourselves giving both responses to one experiencing anguish. Today, the latter approach is encouraged

– for people to talk and to be active listeners.

In a society that has insufficient professional mental health services, the value of community is vital. Jami works to ensure that the Jewish community is best equipped to support the wellbeing of each individual, for the wellbeing of each equals the wellbeing of the community.

To be part of a community is to care for its welfare. To achieve this, we need to be well ourselves.

We therefore have a duty to look after ourselves.

Medieval philosopher and physician Moses Maimonides stated: “To keep one’s body healthy and in good condition is part of what it means to walk in God’s ways, for it is difficult to know and understand God when one is sick. Therefore, we have a duty to avoid whatever is injurious to the body, and cultivate habits conducive to health and strength.”

We have a duty – literally, morally and religiously – to maintain our own wellbeing, for our own sake and for the sake of all those around us. At times of low self-esteem, we might question this.

Everything in Judaism and, I believe, in the Jewish community, points towards self-worth. Every life has meaning, purpose and worth. If there is anxiety in one’s mind, together we quash it, with good words, turning it into joy. ◆ Aaron Goldstein is senior rabbi at The Ark Synagogue in Northwood

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Don’t we all deserve our very own glitterball?

Rose proved on Strictly Come Dancing that, with the right support, Deaf people can achieve great things.

And with JDA’s support, the Deaf people in our community have the opportunity to get the very best out of life.

Please show you care by making a donation today.

020 8446 0502 www.jdeaf.org.uk

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Ask our

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at your service Our highly professional team can: • Assist in arranging for your Will to be professionally drafted.

• Help reduce inheritance tax liability or eradicate it completely.

• Act as Executor in the administration of your estate.

• Provide caring pastoral services.

Our trusty team of advisers answers your questions about everything from law and finance to dating and dentistry.

This week: Changes to divorce law, how to know if investment companies are genuine and ways to reduce health insurance VANESSA LLOYD PLATT DIVORCE AND FAMILY SOLICITOR

LLOYD PLATT & COMPANY SOLICITORS

Dear Vanessa When is the change in divorce law coming in and what will it mean?

Janice Dear Janice The Divorce Dissolution and Separation Act 2020 comes into effect on 6 April 2022 and will sweep the need for fault-based divorce. Instead of having to cite grounds for divorce based either on adultery or unreasonable behaviour, the parties can now simply give notice that the marriage has broken down. There is no need to wait two years for the consent of the other party or five years if they don’t give consent.

The parties must have been married for more

JACOB BERNSTEIN FINANCIAL SERVICES (FCA) COMPLIANCE

RICHDALE CONSULTANTS LTD Dear Jacob I’ve been seeing various investment opportunities advertised, with forecasted high returns. With the current record low interest rates, how do I know where it is safe to invest? Thank you for any advice.

Daniel

Dear Daniel You have phrased your question as asking where it is safe for you to invest. For the purpose of this response, I will focus on how to know whether the investments are being offered by a legitimate party, rather than whether the investments themselves are appropriate for your needs.

The problem of investment scams has been around for a while, and we are seeing a spike in the number of such scams since the onset of Covid.

Furthermore, the quality of these scams has increased to a level of complexity whereby it can be challenging for even those with significant financial sector experience to identify them. As an example, we are seeing scammers identify

Contact us to find out more and about leaving a legacy to support JNF UK’s vital work in Israel

Call: 020 8732 6101 Email: enquiries@kkl.org.uk

KKL Executor and Trustee Company Ltd (a Company registered in England than a year, the marriage must be legally No. 453042) is a subsidiary of JNF Charitable Trust (Charity No. 225910) and a registered Trust Corporation (authorised capital £250,000). recognised in the UK and must state that the UK is the parties’ permanent home or that of their spouse and if the marriage has permaJewish News (Ask the Expert) 10x2 - 2021.indd 1 11/02/2021 nently broken down.

In order to deal with the new law, either one or both of the parties can make the application. One of the fundamental changes is that the option to contest a divorce will no longer be available.

A conditional degree of divorce will be granted and thereafter, if the judge agrees, the couple can apply for a final order.

The act reduces a minimum 26-week timeComputer problems solved frame for the completion of divorce proceedings. The conditional degree is granted in PC, Mac, WiFi, Laptops & Desktops 20 weeks and the final decree is granted Remote Support and On-Site six weeks after that. This means the whole process takes six months.

Man on a Bike IT Consultancy It is hoped the new rules will minimise Call now 020 8731 6171 stress and alleviate conflict. www.manonabike.co.uk

themselves as legitimate businesses by cloning the website of a legitimate regulated entity and making their phone numbers appear to be that of the legitimate entity.

We therefore believe that, with so many people falling victim to what is often a very well thought through and complex scam, you strongly consider seeking advice from an independent financial adviser (IFA), prior to handing over any money.

You must ensure that the IFA is authorised (or an appointed representative of a firm which is authorised) by the Financial Conduct Authority to advise on investments, and ideally an IFA who your friends and family have previously used over a sustained period of time.

TREVOR GEE PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST

PATIENT HEALTH Dear Trevor My wife is 60 and I’m 75.

We have made previous claims on our health insurance. Our renewal, though, is quite huge. We would like to be covered, and I understand you specialise in helping to reduce premiums while retaining cover for pre-existing conditions. Please could you give us some advice?

Victor

Dear Victor Insurers have different approaches to pre-existing conditions; one may require your medical history over the previous 12 months, while another the previous three or five years. But not everything requires disclosing!

The most recent innovation from most insurers to help clients reduce premiums is Insurer Provided Consultant Option (IPCO). This will help reduce premiums between 25-30%.

Very few of us know every consultant, so, rather than you selecting, the insurer recommends for you a selection in the speciality required, with the hospital. If you prefer client choice, there are different hospital lists, so do select hospitals you will use.

15:17:31

Some clients use the sixweek option, providing a considerable saving. Here, the default care is with the NHS, only if they guarantee treatment within six weeks. If not, treatment is performed privately. Other possibilities, including only selecting NHS hospital private wings, are a superb way to save premiums.

I prefer a low excess, although having a higher one could be beneficial.

Some insurers provide just full inpatient, without diagnostic tests or consultations. Conversely, they can provide just diagnostic tests and consultations.

Warning: health insurers are not permitted to advise you – so speak to Patient Health, your local, no charges advisory firm.

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Ask Our Experts / Professional advice from our panel

Our Experts Got a question for a member of our team?

Email: editorial@jewishnews.co.uk Got a question for a member of our team?

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Leave the legacy of independence to people like Hayley.

eNABLeD PLease remember us in your wiLL.

Visit www.jbd.org or call 020 8371 6611

PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST

DIRECTOR OF LEGACIES CAROLYN ADDLEMAN Qualifications: Lawyer with over 20 years’ experience in will drafting and trust and estate administration. Last 14 years at KKL Executor and Trustee Company.

In close contact with clients to ensure all legal and pastoral needs are cared for.

Member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.

• • •

KKL EXECUTOR AND TRUSTEE COMPANY 020 8732 6101 www.kkl.org.uk enquiries@kkl.org.uk

EMPLOYMENT LAW AND DATA PROTECTION

TREVOR GEE Qualifications: • Managing Director, consultant specialists in affordable family health insurance.

• Advising on maximising cover, lower premiums, pre-existing conditions.

• Excellent knowledge of health insurers, cover levels and hospital lists.

• LLB solicitors finals.

• Member of Chartered Insurance Institute.

EMMA GROSS Qualifications: • Specialist in claims of unfair dismissal, redundancy and discrimination.

• Negotiate out-of-court settlements and handle complex tribunal cases.

• HR services including drafting contracts and policies, advising on disciplinaries, grievances and providing staff training.

• Contributor to The Times, HR Magazine and other titles.

PATIENT HEALTH 020 3146 3444/5/6 www.patienthealth.co.uk trevor.gee@patienthealth.co.uk

SPENCER WEST LLP 020 7925 8080 www.spencer-west.com emma.gross@spencer-west.com

JEWELLER JONATHAN WILLIAMS Qualifications: • Jewellery manufacturer since 1980s.

• Expert in the manufacture and supply of diamond jewellery, wedding rings and general jewellery.

• Specialist in supply of diamonds to the public at trade prices.

JEWELLERY CAVE LTD 020 8446 8538 www.jewellerycave.co.uk jonathan@jewellerycave.co.uk

COMMERCIAL LAWYER ADAM LOVATT Qualifications: • Lawyer with more than 11 years of experience working in the legal sector.

Specialist in corporate, commercial, media, sport and start-ups.

• Master’s degree in Intellectual Property Law from the University of London.

• Non-Executive Director of various companies advising on all governance matters.

LOVATT LEGAL LIMITED 07753 802 804 adam@lovattlegal.co.uk

CONSULTANT DERMATOLOGIST

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

DR LAURENCE LEVER Qualifications: • MBBS FRCP, private practice at 108 Harley Street The Skin Clinic.

• Consultant Dermatologist with a special interest in the management of malignant and pre-malignant conditions of the skin • Looks after all dermatological conditions, including dermatitis, eczema, psoriasis, acne, moles, warts, cysts, skin tumours/cancer/oncology, dermatological surgery.

SUE CIPIN Qualifications: • 20 years+ hands-on experience, leading JDA in significant growth and development.

• Understanding of the impact of deafness on people, including children, at all stages.

• Extensive services for people affected by hearing loss/tinnitus.

• Technology room with expert advice on and facilities to try out the latest equipment.

Hearing aid advice, support and maintenance.

108 HARLEY STREET SKIN CLINIC 0207 563 1234 www.108harleystreet.co.uk info@108harleystreet.co.uk

JEWISH DEAF ASSOCIATION 020 8446 0502 www.jdeaf.org.uk mail@jdeaf.org.uk

REMOVALS MANAGING DIRECTOR

PRINCIPAL, PERFORMING ARTS SCHOOL

STEPHEN MORRIS Qualifications: • Managing Director of Stephen Morris Shipping Ltd. • 45 years’ experience in shipping household and personal effects.

• Chosen mover for four royal families and three UK prime ministers.

• Offering proven quality specialist advice for moving anyone across the world or round the corner.

LOUISE LEACH Qualifications: • Professional choreographer qualified in dance, drama and Zumba (ZIN, ISTD & LAMDA), gaining an honours degree at Birmingham University.

• Former contestant on ITV’s Popstars, reaching bootcamp with Myleene Klass, Suzanne Shaw and Kym Marsh.

• Set up Dancing with Louise 19 years ago.

STEPHEN MORRIS SHIPPING LTD 020 8832 2222 www.shipsms.co.uk stephen@shipsms.co.uk

DANCING WITH LOUISE 075 0621 7833 www.dancingwithlouise.co.uk Info@dancingwithlouise.com

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Professional advice from our panel / Ask Our Experts

FINANCIAL SERVICES (FCA) COMPLIANCE

ACCOUNTANT

KITCHEN CONSULTANCY

JACOB BERNSTEIN Qualifications: • 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.

ADAM SHELLEY Qualifications: • FCCA chartered certified accountant.

• Accounting, taxation and business advisory services.

• Entrepreneurial business specialist including start-up businesses.

• Specialises in charities; Personal tax returns.

• Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation Volunteer of the Year JVN award.

SHANTI PANCHANI Qualifications: • Experienced designer with 25+ years’ experience in German and English kitchens.

• We provide a full-circle approach: from designing and supplying to installing your new kitchen including appliances and speciality worktops.

• Our suppliers are flexible in design, ensuring the customer remains the priority.

• We have been supplying kosher-friendly kitchens for over 15 years.

RICHDALE CONSULTANTS LTD 020 7781 8019 www.richdale.co.uk jacob@richdale.co.uk

SOBELL RHODES LLP 020 8429 8800 www.sobellrhodes.co.uk a.shelley@sobellrhodes.co.uk

THE KITCHEN CONSULTANCY 07738 067 671 www.thekitchenconsultancy.com shanti@thekitchenconsultancy.com

INTERNATIONAL PAYMENTS SPECIALIST

IT SPECIALIST

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

LEE SHMUEL GOLDFARB Qualifications: • Hands-on service, with full and personalised support for international transfers.

• Get the most out of your currency exchange with regards to pension income, when purchasing your first house in Israel or benefitting from an inheritance from aboard.

• UK leader in financial exchange and partner to brands such as St James Place and Hargreaves Lansdown with industry-beating Trustpilot score.

IAN GREEN Qualifications: • Launched Man on a Bike IT consultancy 15 years ago to provide computer support for the home and small businesses.

• Clients range from legal firms in the City to families, small business owners and synagogues.

• More than 18 years’ experience.

LISA WIMBORNE Qualifications: Able to draw on the charity’s 50 years of experience in enabling people with physical disabilities or impaired vision to live independently, including: • The provision of specialist accommodation with 24/7 on site support.

• Knowledge of the innovations that empower people and the benefits available.

• Understanding of the impact of a disability diagnosis.

CURRENCIES DIRECT 0786 0595 890 / 0207 847 9400 www.currenciesdirect.com/jn lee.goldfarb@currenciesdirect.com

MAN ON A BIKE 020 8731 6171 www.manonabike.co.uk mail@manonabike.co.uk

JEWISH BLIND & DISABLED 020 8371 6611 www.jbd.org Lisa@jbd.org

ISRAELI ACCOUNTANT

INSURANCE CONSULTANCY

LEON HARRIS Qualifications: • Leon is an Israeli and UK accountant based in Ramat Gan, Israel.

• He is a Partner at Harris Horoviz Consulting & Tax Ltd. • The firm specializes in Israeli and international tax advice, accounting and tax reporting for investors, Olim and businesses.

• Leon’s motto is: Our numbers speak your language!

ASHLEY PRAGER Qualifications: • Professional insurance and reinsurance broker. Offering PI/D&O cover, marine and aviation, property owners, ATE insurance, home and contents, fine art, HNW. • Specialist in insurance and reinsurance disputes, utilising Insurance backed products. (Including non insurance business disputes).

• Ensuring clients do not pay more than required.

HARRIS HOROVIZ CONSULTING & TAX LTD +972-3-6123153 / + 972-54-6449398 leon@h2cat.com

RISK RESOLUTIONS 020 3411 4050 www.risk-resolutions.com ashley.prager@risk-resolutions.com

ALIYAH ADVISER

CAREER ADVISER

DOV NEWMARK Qualifications: • Director of UK Aliyah for Nefesh B’Nefesh, an organisation that helps facilitate aliyah from the UK. • Conducts monthly seminars and personal aliyah meetings in London.

• An expert in working together with clients to help plan a successful aliyah.

LESLEY TRENNER Qualifications: • Provides free professional one-to-one advice at Resource to help unemployed into work.

• Offers mock interviews and workshops to maximise job prospects.

• Expert in corporate management holding director level marketing,

NEFESH B’NEFESH 0800 075 7200 www.nbn.org.il dov@nbn.org.il

RESOURCE 020 8346 4000 www.resource-centre.org office@resource-centre.org

DIVORCE & FAMILY SOLICITOR

TELECOMS SPECIALIST

VANESSA LLOYD PLATT Qualifications: • Qualification: 40 years experience as a matrimonial and divorce solicitor and mediator, specialising in all aspects of family matrimonial law, including: • Divorce, pre/post-nuptial agreements, cohabitation agreements, domestic violence, children’s cases, grandparents’ rights to see grandchildren, pet disputes, family disputes.

• Frequent broadcaster on national and International radio and television.

BENJAMIN ALBERT Qualifications: • Co-Founder and Technical Director of ADWConnect – a specialist in business telecommunications, serving customers worldwide.

• Independent consultant and supplier of Telephone & Internet services.

• Client satisfaction is at the heart of everything my team and I do, always striving to find the most cost-effective solutions.

LLOYD PLATT & COMPANY SOLICITORS 020 8343 2998 www.divorcesolicitors.com lloydplatt@divorcesolicitors.com

ADWCONNECT 0208 089 1111 www.adwconnect.com hello@adwconnect.com

If you would like to advertise your services here email: sales@ jewishnews.co.uk

Caring with compassion

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stay safe and independent in your own home 24 hrs a day-7 days a week * Preferred alternative to a nursing or care home * Personal care, mental and physical impairments * Fully employed, vetted and supervised carers * Experienced management and supervisors * CQC registered - rated ‘Good’ consistently * Established 30 years in North London * 24-hour 365-day backup and support

For more information or free assessment

Call Rita 020 8202 1220, Mob-07884472242 www.hcchomecare.co.uk

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The first deaf person I met was my beautiful baby Layla.

“ When Layla was diagnosed deaf at birth,

we were in complete shock and didn't know what to do.

JDA was there for us when we needed them most.

They've shown us we're not alone, helped us to cope and given Layla the best start in life. ”

Your donation will help Layla and all children with hearing loss get the very best out of life.

020 8446 0502 02 www.jdeaf.org.uk k Registered Charity No. 1105845 Company Limited by Guarantee 4983830

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Fun, games and prizes

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17

12

3

3

19

6

5

4

3 5 4

2

13

4

12

24

6

18

14

5

19

4

3

17

2

25

9

19

13 19

17

See next issue for puzzle solutions.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z 1

2

3

4

14

15

16

17

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

L R

I

Suguru 7 5 3 1 6 8 4 9 2

9

1 2

9

2

19

L

1

24

9

9 15

5

24

4

8 1

12

12

6

6

26

3

14

14

24

17

15

8

12

17

WAVES WET SUIT ZIPS

4 6 8 2 5 7 9 3 1

24

F P

Sudoku 2 3 9 8 1 6 7 5 4

7

19 1

1

5

R H G Y C O H B T W M S T BEACH BOARDS FALL OFF FLIPS

24

4

L U B O A R D S H L S

A Z G S P

11

10

J D W O

I

24 17

20

X O S U H H S G G T D S W L

6 1 4 8 2 9 7 8

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 that relate to surfing 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.

W A T E R H

8 2 1 3 1 5 2

SUGURU

WORDSEARCH J

6

8

8 Opposite (7) 9 Crowd round (3)

C F Y L C T E W R Y

1

3 7 6

DOWN 1 Uttered (4) 2 Topical entertainment (5) 4 Grow old (3) 5 With a curved roof (5) 6 Cut of beef (3-3) 7 Place to store perishables (6) 11 People of a particular country (6) 12 Hip and abdominal area (6) 14 Semi-aquatic mammal (5) 15 Sweet cake topping (5) 16 Wicked giant (4) 18 Chilli ___ carne, spicy meal (3)

11

13

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

Bride and groom’s special occasion (7,3) Self-obsessed (10) Subject to a security check (3) Winding up (7) Wrap-around beach garment (6) Lecherous look (4)

3 8 6 7 4 5 2 1 9

9 2 4 6 3 1 8 7 5

1 7 5 9 8 2 3 4 6

2 1 4 3 2 1

3 5 2 1 5 4

2 1 3 4 2 1

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

Wordsearch 3 5 2 1 3 4

2 1 3 4 2 1

3 4 2 1 5 3

1 2 1 5 3 1

4 3 4 2 4 2

5 2 5 1 3 5

3 1 3 4 2 1

4 2 5 1 3 5

1 3 4 2 4 1

J X R P V S N R H I N O R

C R A O C X M O O F R O A

Q O J O D R W I O O A N B

R E I N D E E R T C I R B

U D F P M T N T H B C D I

K E P X R T W T O T L A T

W E R E V E I R T E R W R

Codeword Y R E H I S D J I A Z E H

T R A L B D H P B I T M E

D A E N O E G K A S S T Q

U R R R C R V E O N N Y M

R E E D D E R O Z Z D K A

V L G Y G F R B Q L D A R

POU F F E E N I R E I GN I Q CU SOU T H H E E Y A LMS J Y T O GO I K I L O D E A X I RA P T E S S AR

S I Z L I MP E O P S B E X T B R E P I E C R L A R NG D I N V I A L G T UNA I S N

A T S S RA Y E R OE N T E W E OD

U R S Y J B D I WC K F V 06/01 O Z E T QMHG L P AN X

38

Jewish News 13 January 2022

www.jewishnews.co.uk

Business Services Directory ANTIQUES 44

The Jewish News 22 September 2016

Stirling BUSINESS SERVICES DIRECTORY Antique – Reproduction – Retro Furniture Top prices paid (any condition)

WE BUY ANTIQUES VERY HIGH PRICES PAID. FREE HOME VISITS. All Antique Furniture Hille & Epstein Diamond Jewellery, Gold, Silver, Paintings, Porcelain, Glass, Bronzes, Ivories, Oriental & Judaica Antiques etc.

Full house clearances organised.

Please look at our website for more details

www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk FOR APPOINTMENTS CALL SUE ON: 0800 840 2035 or 07956268290 OPEN 8am TO 9pm 7 DAYS. PORTOBELLO RD LONDON.

Hille, G Plan, etc.

CarerEpstein, Archie Shine,Clothing

Dining Suites, Lounges Suites, Bookcases, Desks, Cabinets, Mirrors, Lights, etc.

Carer FURS WANTED Auxiliary Nurse Cash paid for Mink House clearances Available to support

jackets, coats, you in your home. boleros, stoles, Single items to complete homes also fox coats, Days/nights. jackets etc.

MARYLEBONE rates.

ANTIQUES - 8 CHURCH STREET NW8 8ED Very reasonable Wardrobes cleared Call 0208 07866 958 2939 614 744 (ANYTIME) Call 01277 352 560 or 07495 026 168

Computer

0207 723 7415 (SHOP) closed Sunday & Monday

STUART SHUSTER - e-mail - info@maryleboneantiques.co.uk

Man on a Bike will get MAKE SURE YOUfast!

CONTACT US BEFORE SELLING you working Rapid Response IT support for your PC & Mac

CHARITY & WELFARE

Networks, virus problems, broadband, wireless systems, new computers and everything else you may need.

For small businesses & home users.

of Kensal Green

Antiques

Established over 60 years.

Know who you are dealing with.

All quality furniture bought & sold.

Best prices paid for complete house clearances including china, books, WE BUY ANTIQUES clothing etc. Also rubbish clearance VERY HIGH PRICES PAID. FREE HOME VISITS. service, lofts, sheds, garages etc

Bereavement Counselling for adults and children individually. Support Groups available.

During the pandemic, we offer telephone and online counselling.

Contact Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service in confidence.

0208 951 3881 enquiries@jbcs.org.uk | www.jbcs.org.uk

Full house clearances organised.

020 8960 5401 or 07825 224144

www.antiquesbuyers.co.uk FOR APPOINTMENTS CALL SUE ON:

HOUSE CLEARANCE 0800 840 2035 or 07956268290 OPEN 8am TO 9pm 7 DAYS.

Labels are for jars.

Refer yourself or a loved one

by YOU BEREAVED? ARE Not people. calling 020 8458 2223 or visit Counselling for adults & children who are www.jamiuk.org

experiencing loss. Support groups offered.

REGISTERED CHARITY NO. 1003345 Call The Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service in confidence

020 8951 3881 • 07765 693 160 E: enquiries@jbcs.org.uk

Sheltered Accommodation

For all your heating and plumbing requirements

We have an open waiting list in our friendly and comfortable warden assisted sheltered housing schemes in Ealing, East Finchley and Hendon. We provide 24-hour warden support, seven days a week; a residents’ lounge and kitchen, laundry, a sunny patio and garden.

07860 881505 or 0800 610 12 12

For further details and application forms, please contact Westlon Housing Association on 020 8201 8484 or email: johnsilverman@btconnect.com

Not shabbat

PLUMBSAFEUK.COM

Dave & Eve House Clearance Friendly Family Company established for 30 years

For confidential advice, information and support don’t forget Jewish Care Direct.

020 8922 2222 jcdirect@jcare.org

jewishcare.org/helpline

We hav warden a in Eal warden

For furth West

Charity Reg No. 802559

Jami supports and represents people with mental illness across the Jewish community.

A Wi

#jamithinkahead

Give support • Get support • Get involved

w

020 8458 2223 | info@jamiuk.org www.jamiuk.org

Reg Charity No. 1003345

HOME & MAINTENANCE

L

K

PLUMBSAFE (UK) LTD

No further, your

LOCAL PLUMBERS

CENTRAL HEATING, PLUMBING REPAIRS & ADVISORY SERVICE EMERGENCY REPAIRS, BLOCKED PIPES DRAINAGE GUTTERING, ROOFING, CENTRAL HEATING AND BOILERS 12 MONTHS GUARANTEE, 40 YEARS EXPERIENCE

MOTOR VEHICLES PURCHASED CLASSIC OR CARS for vehicles over 10 years old preferably with low mileage Contact: Anthony – 07850 590415

For all your heating and plumbing requirements | boiler repairs and installation | complete central heating | | power flushing | complete bathroom installation service | | landlords certificates | project management | home purchase reports |

All NW-London postcodes covered

07860 881505 or 0800 610 12 12

020 8953 2094 office

Home & Maintenance AUTOMOTIVE

“Better Safe Than Sorry”

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hallandrandallplumbers.com

For a free quote please phone Dave on 07913405315 any time.

IF YOU DON’T KNOW WHICH WAY TO TURN, REMEMBER OUR HELPLINE.

Home & Maintenance

!

Not shabbat

020 8207 3286 home 020 8386 8798

We clear houses, flats, sheds, garages etc.

No job too big or too small!

Rubbish cleared as part of a full clearance.

We have a waste licence.

We buy items including furniture bric a brac.

MAKE

WESTLON HOUSING ASSOCIATION

“Better Safe Than Sorry”

HOUSE CLEARANCE

PORTOBELLO RD LONDON.

S

Charity & Welfare

PLUMBSAFE (UK) LTD All NW-London postcodes covered

C

Email: Please lookgordonstirling65@gmail.com at our website for more details

020 8731 6171 • www.manonabike.co.uk

CHARITY & WELFARE

| boiler repairs and installation | complete central heating | | power flushing | complete bathroom installation service | | landlords certificates | project management | home purchase reports |

Ep Dini D

All Antique Furniture Hille & Epstein Diamond Jewellery, Gold, Silver, Paintings, Porcelain, Please contact Gordon Stirling Glass, Bronzes, Ivories, Oriental & Judaica Antiques etc.

Call Ian Green, Man on a Bike on

ARE YOU BEREAVED?

Anti

office@hallandrandall.com

PLUMBSAFEUK.COM

STONEMASON

PROFESSIONAL PAINTING, DECORATING & PAPER HANGING

Over 20 years experience Friendly, reliable & The specialist masons in creating bespoke Granite service. personal and Marble Memorials for all Cemeteries. competitive rates Very Clayhall Showroom 14 Claybury Broadway Ilford. IG5 0LQ T: 0208 551 6866

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STEPHEN: 07973 342 422 srindsmc@hotmail.com

Email : info@garygreenmemorials.co.uk

www.garygreenmemorials.co.uk

Gary Green ad 84 x 40mm JM Group v2.indd 1

18/03/2019 12:50:51

A. ELFES LTDGuilds Elect City and

All types of electrical work un

New memorials Rewiring, extrainscriptions sockets, BT points, Economy 7 Additional storage Shabbat time switches, securi & heaters, renovations

LED spotlights, fault finding, CCTVportable ap Gants Hill Edgware landlord tests and house buyer’s surveys.

12 Beehive Lane 130 High Street Gants 3RD Edgware, HA8 7EL For Hill, anIG1 efficient reliable and friendly Telephone Telephone Call Harvey Solomons on

0207 754 4646 0207 4659 020 754 8958 6495 / 07836 648 554

www.memorialgroup.co.uk

13 January 2022 Jewish News

www.jewishnews.co.uk

39

Business Services Directory SILVER

CLEANING

INSPIRATIONAL SPEAKER

Inspirational speaker available to book

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End of tenancy, deep cleaning, post renovation cleaning services. We create a clean environment with our clean projects.

Enhance your special event.

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LEGACY- LEAVE A GIFT IN YOUR MEMORY

JEWISH WAR VETERANS

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40 Jewish News

13 January 2022

www.jewishnews.co.uk