1441 - 16th October 2025 by Jewish News

Main image: Noa Argamani is reunited with boyfriend Avinatan Or.

Above: Evyatar David. Right: Twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman

Starmer: Palestine decision helped to secure peace deal

The UK’s decision to recognise Palestine helped pave the way for the Gaza peace deal eventually secured by Donald Trump, Keir Starmer has told MPs, writes Lee Harpin.

Speaking on his return from the peace summit in Egypt, Starmer said he was “proud” of the government’s contributions, adding, “We’ve worked behind the scenes for months with the US, Arab and European nations to help deliver a ceasefire, get the hostages out, allow aid in and secure a better future for Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank.

“We are in a position to play this role precisely because of the approach this government takes.

“That includes our decision to recognise the state of Palestine... [which] taken alongside our allies – France, Canada, Australia, and others – helped lead to the historic New York declaration. For the first time, the entire Arab League condemned the atrocities of 7 October, urged Hamas to disarm and that they end their rule in Gaza.”

But the PM added: “There can be no viable future for Gaza, no security for Israel, if Hamas can still threaten bloodshed and terror.

“So we will work to put that threat out of action for good.”

In the Commons on Tuesday, Starmer emphasised the peace deal “belonged to” the US president, adding: “This is his peace deal, delivered, of course, with President Sisi of Egypt, the Emir of Qatar and President Erdogan of Turkey. Alongside our partners, we have also offered the UK’s full support to these efforts.”

The PM clashed with Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch after she accused him of “rewarding terrorism” and criticised pro-Palestine protesters for being “relatively silent about the good news of a ceasefire and hostage return”.

Badenoch told the Commons: “In a move praised by Hamas, Labour decided to recognise a state of Palestine with no condition to release the hostages still held in the tunnels of Gaza, rewarding terrorism.

“It’s quite clear that UK relations with Israel have been strained by the actions of this government.

“Their view, and they have stated publicly, is that it looks like, under pressure from his own back benches, the prime minister has taken the wrong decisions time and time again, diminishing our influence.”

Starmer responded: “Yes, I did discuss Palestine recognition with President Trump” before the gov-

ernment’s decision to confirm the move, rejecting claims the decision had rewarded Hamas.

Starmer added now is “not the time for a fight about the role which any individual played” in progressing a Gaza peace deal.

The prime minister has agreed with Conservative MP Sir Julian Lewis that the chant by pro-Palestine protesters to “internationalise the intifada” constitutes an antisemitic call for attacks on Jewish communities.

New Forest East MP Sir Julian, referenced Keir Starmer’s commitment to tackling rising antisemitism in the UK, highlighting the repeated use of the inflamma-

tory chant heard at Gaza demonstrations.

He asked: “When he talks about antisemitism here in Britain, is there any other interpretation for the demand to ‘internationalise the intifada’ other than a call to attack Jewish communities around the world?”

Starmer replied: “No, there is no other interpretation. I’m glad and pleased that he raised it as it gives me the

and this House should be proud that we played that role. We played that role only because of the relationship that this government has with the Trump administration.

“We are a trusted partner, working both before this peace deal and afterwards.”

Starmer insisted that a two-state solution now had its best chance of being implemented since the Oslo Accords were signed in the 1990s.

He opened his statement on the debate by condemning the synagogue attack and a recent arson attack on a mosque and pledged: “We will fight against hate in all its forms.”

But addressing the row, the prime minister also said: “I am proud of what Steve Witkoff [the US envoy] said about our national security adviser.

“He was negotiating this, he knows absolutely the role we played

The PM’s comments about the impact Palestine recognition made on the ceasefire talks were supported by Bronwen Maddox, the director of the influential Chatham House think tank. She said: “For all that Israel complained about the UK recognising Palestinian statehood, that did play an important role in signalling how engaged the UK and others were in what was happening in the region.”

 Editorial comment, page 22

‘Allow the families to grieve’

Foreign secretary Yvette Cooper has called for the immediate return of all the hostages who died in Hamas captivity, stressing that their families must be given the chance to grieve.

Cooper highlighted the “strength and determination of hostage families who have tirelessly campaigned for the release of their loved ones”.

On the release of the last 20 living hostages, she said: “After two long years of waiting, seeing the release is a hugely moving and powerful

opportunity to agree with him on that important point.”

A spokesperson for the Labour Friends of Israel group responded: “The prime minister is absolutely right. Chants to globalise the ‘intifada’ are nothing but a call to antisemitism.

“Glorifying murder and violence excuses and incites terrorism, whether it be on the streets of Tel Aviv or those of Manchester.”

moment.” However, she acknowledged the suffering is not over for all.

“While this marked the end of this ordeal for some, we must remember those whose loved ones have not returned alive,” she said.

“We mourn with the families of all hostages who have died in Hamas captivity. I cannot imagine what they and their families have gone through.”

Looking ahead, the foreign secretary stressed the importance of maintaining the ceasefire and imple-

Tommy Robinson faces a three-week wait to find out the verdict of his trial because of his upcoming trip to Israel.

Robinson, 42, denies failing to comply with counter-terrorism powers last year by refusing to give up his phone’s pin number.

Robinson was invited to Israel by minister for the diaspora and combating antisemitism Amichai Chikli, who said he was “proud to host a

menting the peace plan, including the restoration of aid.

“Alongside regional partners, the UK will continue to do all it can to ensure President Trump’s peace plan succeeds and delivers a lasting solution for Israelis and Palestinians alike,” she said.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Tuesday it will take time to hand over the remains of Israeli hostages in Gaza, calling it a “massive challenge”.

British patriot” and lauded the far-right activist as a “courageous leader on the front line against radical Islam”.

The invitation was criticised by UK Jewish communal groups,, including the Board of Deputies.

Robinson, who travelled this week, will be in Israel until 25 October, Westminster Magistrates’ Court heard.

He previously said he planned to visit Jerusalem,

the West Bank, the site of the Nova Festival and other 7 October locations. He also expressed a desire to visit Gaza. He described his trip as intended to “deepen my understanding of the fight against jihad.”

The trial judge told Robinson he would “accommodate” his “current travel arrangements” and adjourned his decision until a hearing on 4 November.

Israelis celebrating the hostage release; right, Keir Starmer

Hostages whose bodies remain in Gaza

News / The hostages are home

Hug sameach!

Guy Gilboa-Dalal, 24, reunited with his family

Ziv and Gali Berman, 28, embrace during an emotional reunion

Evyatar David, 24, reunited with his parents after being freed from Hamas captivity

Alon Ohel, 24, back with his family after returning home

Ariel Cunio, 28, reunited with his partner Arbel

Eitan Horn, 39, embraces his two brothers following his release Avinatan Or, 32, reunited with his parents

Elkana Bohbot, 36, reunited with his wife

Omri Miran, 47, reunited with his family after being freed from Hamas captivity

Freed hostage David Cunio, 35, speaks to loved ones on a video call after his release

Freed hostages Noa Argamani, 26, and Avinatan Or, 32, share a moment of relief and joy after their return home

Freed hostage Bar Kuperstein, 23, embraces his father, who defied paralysis to stand and welcome him home

Nimrod Cohen, 21, reunited with his family

Matan Angrest, 22,with his parents

Matan Zangauker, 25, reunites with his mother after being freed from captivity

Freed hostage Yosef-Chaim Ohana, 22, embraces his father

Eitan Mor, 25, reunited with his parents

Rom Braslavski, 21, speaks to his family on FaceTime

Segev Kaflon, 27, with his family

News / Manchester terror trial

Trial details terrorist plot against Manchester Jews

by Annabel Sinclair annabel.sinclair@jewishnews.co.uk

A man accused of plotting a gun atrocity on a mass gathering of Jews “hero-worshipped” the mastermind of the 2015 Paris terror attacks, a court has heard.

Walid Saadaoui, 38, and Amar Hussein, 52, are alleged to have plotted to cause “untold harm” and kill as many Jewish people as they could in the north-west of England.

Saadaoui had access to “fierce weapons” including assault rifles capable of firing several hundred rounds per minute, Preston Crown Court heard - the type used in Paris to kill 130 and injure hundreds more.

Continuing his opening of the prosecution case on Thursday, Harpreet Sandhu KC told jurors: “Abdelhamid Abaaoud’s actions which led to those deaths and injuries were a source of inspiration for Walid Saadaoui. He wanted to replicate what Abaaoud had done. Walid Saadaoui hero-worshipped that terrorist.”

In social media posts, the defendant wrote about Abaaoud – suspected of organising multiple terror attacks – with “pride and reverence”, said the prosecutor.

In a Facebook post in January 2023 he wrote: “At only the age of 26 he humiliated the most notorious heretic states, Belgium and

France, and broke their strength. He made the streets run with their impure blood.”

Sandhu said Saadaoui used 10 Facebook accounts, under aliases. He used one of those, in the name of ‘Liya Ernia’, to communicate with an undercover operative he thought was a fellow ISIS sympathiser and “like-minded individual”, the court was told.

Sandhu said the profile picture Saadaoui used for that account was of Abaaoud.

He said Saadaoui used another account, in the name of ‘Will Alba’, to join a Facebook group called Manchester Jewish Community.

The prosecutor said Saadaoui also joined the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester Facebook group, which contained details of a ‘March Against Antisemitism’ held on 21 January last year.

Sandhu said: “Walid Saadaoui was interested in finding similar events to launch an

attack with Amar Hussein and do what they dreamed of... killing many Jewish people.”

However, they unwittingly shared their plan with an undercover operative, the court heard. Four days after the antisemitism march, Saadaoui was said to have told the undercover agent: “Here in Manchester...we will carry out (the operation)...Here we have schools that serve Jews. Hospitals that serve Jews only, synagogues, temples serve only Jews. Their streets are full of Jews.”

He added: “I am participating in Jewish pages as an imposter and went in undercover …I see their gatherings and their marches, their condemnations, their meetings and their parliaments...I wish you could come here and we go together to show you their entries and exits and gatherings, only awaiting the world to heat up.

“God willing we will degrade and humiliate them (in the worst way possible), and hit them where it hurts.”

Saadaoui, of Abram, Wigan, and Hussein, of no fixed abode, deny preparing acts of terrorism between 13 December 2023 and 9 May 2024. Walid Saadaoui’s brother, Bilel Saadaoui, 36, of Hindley, Wigan, has pleaded not guilty to failing to disclose information about acts of terrorism in the same period.

The trial continues.

Mosque denies radicalising Manchester shul terrorist

A mosque near Burnley where repeated derogatory references to Jews have been made in sermons has denied radicalising the Heaton Park Synagogue terrorist, who described in 2022 how he “rly [sic] love the mosque there”, writes Adam Decker.

Jihad Al-Shamie, who carried out the terror attack at the North Manchester shul on Yom Kippur, where two were killed and three seriously injured, had attended the Masjid Sunnah Nelson, twentyfive miles north of Manchester. As reported by the Telegraph, in November 2022, Al-Shamie attended a three day “knowledge conference” at the mosque with his brother. His message about how he “really love[d] the mosque” was sent to one of his three wives, who has since spoken about being raped by him.

On more than one occasion, the mosque’s Imam, Abul Abbaas Naveed, has made comments about

“yahud” – Jews. In October 2023, as reported by the Telegraph, Naveed cited a hadith – Islamic religious texts read alongside the Quran – which claims a Jewish woman served Mohammed and his companions poisoned meat.

“This also shows us the traits of the Yahud [Jews], how treacherous they are and how much they betray and oppress people, because they did this with the greatest of the humans,” Naveed said, in video footage.

Last month, Naveed gave a sermon in which he said that Jews had rejected Islam and that “Whoever has knowledge and does not act by his knowledge, then he has a resemblance to the yahud [Jews].”

Naveed has also referred to Israel in speeches, saying in August that “each day when you think that the murderous Zionist regime cannot become more evil and more depraved, they...add a new level of cruelty and

brutality not seen the day before.”

There is no indication how often Al-Shamie attended the mosque, and no suggestion he was among the worshippers who heard these particular sermons given by Naveed.

The mosque was opened by a charity called Fountains of Knowledge in 2021. In 2023, Fountains of Knowledge was reported to the Charity Commission over a sermon

by Naveed six days after the 7 October massacre, in which he linked the situation in Gaza to the “plotting of the kuffar [non-believers] against Islam”.

In remarks reported by the I paper, Naveed strongly denied Al-Shamie was radicalised at the mosque.

“I agree it looks like Islamic extremism; it’s obviously Gaza”, he is reported to have said.

“At the end of the day, any ideology,

religious or otherwise, even secular, can be misconstrued. Something can be picked up. There would be nothing in the teachings itself.

“I don’t know what phase of life he was going through, I would like to know his mental state.”

He went on to suggest the radicalisation might have taken place online.

“If they’ve got extremist views they might not have found what they were searching for, so from there they go onto the internet and they find a Telegram channel.

“That might be his [Al-Shamie’s] journey: he wasn’t a very good Muslim, he goes to a mosque and doesn’t find what he’s looking for there so he gets it on a Telegram channel.”

The Times reported that Naveed recently said in a sermon that “The husband in the house is the one who has the word. He is the man, he has the first and last word. So, this is what they call guardianship. It means that the wife does not do anything except what? Except with his permission.”

Walid Saadaoui (left), Bilel Saadaoui (centre) and Amar Hussein (right)

Masjid Sunnah Nelson near Burnley

Jihad AlShamie

Hostages speak out about torture in Hamas captivity

The final Israeli hostages released from Gaza have described the unimaginable conditions they endured during more than two years in Hamas captivity – a haunting portrait of torture, starvation and survival emerging from hospital wards across Israel, writes Annabel Sinclair.

Avinatan Or, 32, whose abduction from the Nova music festival with girlfriend Noa Argamani was seen around the world, was held completely alone for 738 days. His father, Yaron Or, said he was beaten and chained after a failed escape attempt. “He was handcuffed to the bars,” he told Kan Radio. “It was a barred place 1.8 metres high – you can call it a cage. It’s a miracle they didn’t harm him.”

Medical reports found that Or lost up to 40 percent of his body weight during captivity. Upon his release, he asked to see Argamani –rescued in an IDF operation in 2024 – and the pair shared what they called their “first cigarette together after two years”.

Another freed hostage, Elkana Bohbot, 36, an organiser of the Nova festival, spent most of his time chained in a tunnel. He lost all sense of time and space but remembered his wedding day and pleaded to shower on the anniversary. His captors eventually allowed it – briefly

removing his chains. He reportedly learnt of his family’s campaign for his release after seeing news footage smuggled into the tunnels.

Another hostage, Elkana Bohbot, 36, was reunited with his wife Rivka after being freed from Hamas captivity.

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The mother of 22-year-old soldier Matan Angrest said her son endured “very severe torture” in the early months of captivity. “He remembers being beaten so badly he lost consciousness,” Anat Angrest said. “They told him Israel had given up on them, that Hamas

would conquer the country, that there would be another 7 October.”

He was held alone in a dark tunnel for long stretches, she added, as air strikes caused walls to collapse around him. His captors also lied that his Holocaust-survivor grandparents were dead. Learning they are still alive has “motivated” him since returning home.

Omri Miran, 48, father of two, was held in 23 locations, above ground and below. His brother Nadav said he sometimes cooked for his captors and played cards with them. “He knew what date it was and how many days he’d been there,” Nadav said. “He looks pale, but his humour is the same. It feels as though he never left.”

Twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman, taken from Kfar Aza, were held separately and unaware they would be reunited until their release. They described fluctuating access to food and moments when their guards spoke Hebrew.

Another freed captive, Guy Gilboa-Dalal, was “force-fed” in recent weeks – a move believed to have followed international outrage after footage showed fellow hostage Evyatar David emaciated and digging his own grave.

As Israel celebrates the return of its final 20 living hostages, the stories emerging are a mix of trauma, resilience and relief.

Twins Gali and Ziv Berman were held separately and reunited after release (Photo: IDF)

Zionara! Student is arrested after calling for death of ‘Zios’

The University of Oxford has suspended a student videoed chanting a call to “put Zionists in the ground”, with police conﬁrming a 20-yearold man has been arrested “for inciting racial hatred”, writes Daniel Sugarman.

Samuel Williams, a politics, philosophy and economics undergraduate at Balliol College, was identiﬁed as the individual videoed at a demonstration in central London on Saturday, appearing to praise what he described as “an upright, a steadfast and a noble resistance in Palestine and in Gaza to look to” and “be inspired by”.

In the video, Williams then refers to “a chant we’ve been workshopping in Oxford that maybe you guys want to join in. It goes: ‘Gaza, Gaza, make us proud, put the Zios in the ground’.”

He goes on to scream the chant, which is picked up by others in the surrounding crowd.

Williams has previously appeared in videos shared by Oxford Students Palestine Society.

The Met police released a statement on Wednesday morning, saying: “O cers investigating chants ﬁlmed at a Palestine Coalition demonstration in central London on Saturday, 11 October, have made an arrest.

“A 20-year-old man was arrested at an address in Oxfordshire on Wednesday, 15

October, on suspicion of inciting racial hatred. He remains in police custody.”

Investigative journalist David Collier had identiﬁed Williams’s Instagram account. One image appears to show Williams wearing a scarf featuring the word “Palestine”.

A second image shows a man – clearly Williams despite his eyes being blurred out –

holding a replica AK-47 assault rifle. Another image appears to show Williams wearing a keffiyeh and balaclava and making gun signs with his fingers. A fourth shows Williams holding a US flag in front of a bonfire. Another person holds a mock assault rifle.

Williams also featured on a language-tutors site in which he described himself as “native German” with “a passion for German culture both old and modern”. He described his family as coming “from Wagner’s home town”.

The Union of Jewish Students said it “welcomes the news that decisive action has been taken against a University of Oxford student who called to ‘put the Zios in the ground’,” adding: “Jewish students should never have to stand by as their peers glorify terrorism or incite hatred. Universities around the country should take note of this swift action.

“Institutions must end the culture of impunity that has allowed antisemitism to go unchecked on campus, and take a ﬁrm, consistent stand against the gloriﬁcation of terror.”

An Oxford spokesperson said: “An Oxford University student was arrested in the early hours of Wednesday 15 October. The precise basis for the arrest has not yet been disclosed to the university.

“While the university cannot comment on individual student cases, it has the power to take immediate and proportionate action – including, as appropriate, suspending a student from membership of the University –whenever serious concerns are raised.

“Oxford University is unequivocal: there is no place for hatred, antisemitism or discrimination within our community, and we will always act to protect the safety and dignity of our students.”

Samuel Williams performs his chant

Williams, left, toy gun and burning flags

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Sanctions upheld on Board letter writers

A Board of Deputies Appeal Panel has upheld the decision reached by the organisation’s constitution committee earlier this summer to impose sanctions on 36 of its Deputies, in what it has described as a “final” ruling in the case of an open letter they had signed published by the Financial Times six months ago, writes Joy Faulk.

In a statement from the Board, the organisation said that following “a review of all the original materials and the responses submitted by the signatories of the letter” an independent panel had upheld the decision to send warning letters to 31 Deputies. It also said that the appeal panel had “upheld the findings that five Deputies exacerbated the breach of the Code of Conduct with additional steps that

promoted the letter.”

In mid-April, 36 Deputies signed a letter published by the Financial Times, which strongly criticised the Israeli government, claiming that rather than continuing to engage in diplomacy, it had chosen to “break the ceasefire and return to war in Gaza”.

The letter said that “Israel’s soul is being ripped out and we, members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, fear for the future of the Israel we love and have such close ties to,” the letter said. “Silence is seen as support for policies and actions that run contrary to our Jewish values.”

The Board subsequently received widespread criticism from people within the Jewish community who assumed that the

letter had been endorsed and supported by the organisation itself. Others, both in the UK and Israel, supported the letter and later criticised the Board for attempts to make it clear that the wording expressed did not represent the organisation’s o cial stance.

While originally the judgement handed out to ﬁve Deputies was to suspend them for two years, that time has been shortened to eighteen months – which in the case of four Deputies can be reduced to six months if the Deputies in question make a suitable apology to the organisation by the end of October. One of those four Deputies has since left the Board.

They were also removed from any positions of responsibility in the organisation - some had previously served on the Board’s International division.

EXTREMISTS ONLY NEED TO BE LUCKY ONCE

BY MIKE FREER FORMER MP, FINCHLEY & GOLDERS GREEN

It was the IRA, after failing to kill Mrs Thatcher in the Brighton bombing, who said, ‘We only have to be lucky once’. As we saw in Manchester, it doesn’t take sophisticated methods for an extremist to be ‘lucky’ and kill.

Early in my time as an MP, I visited a small local Jewish school and became aware of how poor security was. Jewish schools in the

voluntary aided sector received some help with physical security but the rest got little, if any, government help.

The result was that too many independent Jewish schools and community venues, had very little physical security.

By coincidence, soon after visiting the school, I visited JW3 and discovered that the extensive security there was privately funded. Not only was this not this fair but it left Jewish premises and the community vulnerable. I then started lobbying the Home Secretary (Theresa May) and the then PM (David Cameron) for more broad-based security funding. The funding for security is now £20m+ per year, and yet security is still inconsistent.

Too many premises are not ‘on the radar’ and so are not accessing the available funds. Too many organisations do not know about the fund. For instance, in my former constituency of Finchley & Golders Green, there was a community centre (not Jewish) operated for a small and discreet faith-based community. Their premises had been attacked and vandalised by those who objected to their strand of their faith. They had no idea of the funding they could apply for, which could help with security doors and better CCTV. The amazing CST were able to signpost this non-Jewish group to where ﬁnancial support from the fund could be accessed. Though not small, the fund is stretched thinly and leaves premises vulnerable.

Before I left Parliament, I had been in discussions with Rishi Sunak and his team at No10 about undertaking a root and branch review of vulnerable premises. First, let’s identify the premises; second, map out their needs in total; third, establish the cost of putting the measures in place; last, ensure the fund is ﬂexible to meet emerging needs (for instance heavy wooden doors, which work to prevent an intruder getting access but sadly cannot stop a stray bullet).

Unless we know the scale of the problem, then we have no idea what needs to be done to make our communities safe. Let us get this review done.

Until we do, we are ﬁghting extremism with one hand tied behind our back.

BBC fails to make clear ‘prisoner’ is bomb plotter who killed four

The BBC is facing questions about why it aired an interview with the sister of a Palestinian prisoner featuring her crying as she finds out he is being deported rather than being released – without informing viewers he is a terrorist responsible for a 2006 suicide bombing which killed four people, writes Daniel Sugarman.

In a video published across the BBC –including Monday night’s 10pm news, the BBC News website homepage and the Corporation’s social media channels, Lucy Williamson, the BBC’s Middle East correspondent, interviewed a woman identified as “Aida abu Rob”.

In written language accompanying the TV piece, it described her as “waiting for her brother Murad, sentenced to four life sentences in 2006.”

In the BBC video, flagged with a warning for “distressing content”, a tearful Aida says “I’ve waited 20 years for my brother to be released from Israeli jail…I don’t know what he looks like.”

The BBC video then shows Aida weeping as

it turns out that Murad was not among the prisoners released back to the West Bank. “They kidnapped my brother,” Aida claims.

A BBC voiceover from Williamson says: “After comparing three different lists of prisoners, we discovered Murad’s name, once slated for release, was yesterday moved to a list of deportees.”

However, Marc Goldberg, a British-Israeli citizen and author, identified who “Murad” really is.

“There were two Murads released by Israel, only one of them has served 20 years; Murad Abu Al Rab... a member of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. His family have spoken about their pride in his actions”, Goldberg said, linking to a Palestinian Authority TV programme from 2021 called Giants of Endurance, which features members of the Al Rab family expressing pride in Murad.

Al Rab was sentenced to four life sentences in 2006 for his role in a suicide bombing at the Kedumim junction in the West Bank, which killed four civilians – Rafi Halevy, Helena

Halevy, Re’ut Feldman and Shaked Lasker.

Commenting further, Goldberg said: “Your video fails to give any information about who Murad is and what he did...You have failed to inform the public of the context, failed to offer balance and as a result have likely increased sympathy for a man responsible for the murders of four people. How do you think the families of his victims feel at his release?

“This is a failure not just from the journalist on the ground but through the entirety of the team and their management who oversaw the processing and uploading of the video... At the very least you should be making it clear Murad and other released prisoners have been convicted of terrible crimes that warranted long sentences in prison....What are you going to do to redress this?”

A BBC spokesperson responded to Jewish News saying: “It was made clear that the prisoner had been serving four life sentences. The interview with his sister was in the context of Israel’s

release of hundreds of prisoners as part of the ceasefire agreement and its impact on their families and communities.”

£100k raised for shul attack fund

Donors have raised almost £100,000 to support families, survivors and rebuilding the synagogue following the Manchester Yom Kippur attack in which two worshippers were killed, writes Annabel Sinclair.

The Heaton Park Shul Crisis Fund, which aims to raise £150,000, will assist dependents of the deceased, those injured, witnesses and the wider congregation, as well as pay for repairs and enhanced security.

Rabbi Daniel Walker said the community was “tremendously grateful” for the support from around the world and urged people to continue their help by supporting the fund.

Chair of trustees Alan Levy added: “We’re trying to move away from this darkness into the

light. We want to support the dependents of the deceased, the injured, members of the congregation –particularly the heroic actions of those who witnessed the jihadist trying to get into the synagogue – with anything they need to help them get on with their lives. And we want to support the shul itself.”

A statement on the fund campaign page said the “horrific attack“ had shaken the entire community “in ways we didn’t know were possible. Lives have been shattered, families are mourning, and our beloved shul bears the scars of violence.”

Funds will go towards counsel-

ling, recovery programmes and essential building repairs “to ensure safety and strength for the future”. Alongside the synagogue campaign, a separate GoFundMe appeal has raised more than £75,000 for Andrew Franks, a volunteer security guard seriously injured in the attack while protecting worshippers. Launched by Jonathan Patoff, the fund will help Franks and his family.

MARCHES ARE ‘A SOURCE OF FEAR’

Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said Gaza protests following the Manchester synagogue attack and on the anniversary of 7 October were “a clear source of fear to the Jewish community”.

She confirmed the government will amend Sections 12 and 14 of the Public Order Act 1986 to allow police to consider the cumulative impact of protests when deciding whether to impose conditions.

In a statement on the “unspeakable tragedy” of the attack, Mahmood told MPs: “I described those protests as un-British, and I stand by that, because those protesters showed none of the generosity of spirit that I love about this country, and they most certainly did their cause no good whatsoever.

“The right to protest is a fundamental freedom, but it must be balanced against the right of the public to their safety and security. In my conversations with community leaders and the police in recent days, it is clear that balance has not been struck.”

Under the changes, repeat protests along the same routes could be forced to alter timing or location.

Mahmood also said she is reviewing all existing legislation to ensure public order powers are “fit for purpose and are being consistently applied”.

She added: “The right to protest must and will be protected, but of all the freedoms we enjoy, none is more precious than the right to live in safety.”

BBC interview with the sister of ‘Murad’

Congregants outside the synagogue after the Yom Kippur attack

Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle has paid a personal tribute to the bravery of Manchester community members who barricaded the doors of the Heaton Park synagogue during the Yom Kippur terror attack, writes Lee Harpin.

Sir Lindsay invited Marc Levy, chief executive of the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester and Region, to his Westminster office this week to express his condolences and solidarity with the community.

“We discussed the importance of speaking responsibly in the Chamber to ensure hatred is not promoted,” Levy said following the meeting. “We have publicly criticised those MPs who invoke Holocaust inversion and incite hatred against our community.

“Too many MPs have used appalling language that does nothing but create division between our communities.

“This was also a good opportunity to inform the Speaker of what we are looking to achieve from government as our commu-

nity comes to terms with being targeted in a deadly terrorist attack.”

Asked about his decision to arrange the

meeting as soon as Parliament re-opened after the party conference season, Sir Lindsay told Jewish News: “I am sure the bravery of

Speaker’s praise for shul heroes Prof

Mark’s father, Alan, and other congregants in helping to barricade the doors of Heaton Park synagogue saved lives. This was a horrific attack, and I was so relieved to hear that Alan was safe.

“As soon as Parliament was back, I asked Mark to drop in so he could update me on his dad, but also so I could express my thoughts for the Jewish community, the loved ones of those affected, and the brave first responders.”

Following the attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, Sir Lindsay ordered the flags outside the Commons to be lowered in respect for those killed and injured in the Islamist-inspired atrocity.

Two members of the congregation, Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby, were killed after Jihad Al-Shamie, 35, drove a car at members of the public before stabbing people outside the synagogue on 2 October.

Yoni Finlay, who was injured when he was accidentally shot during the attack, was discharged from hospital on Tuesday.

A veteran academic has accused a Barnet primary school of discrimination after his nomination to its governing body was rejected because of his publicly expressed support for Israel, writes Annabel Sinclair.

Professor Geoffery Alderman, 81, claims Sunnyfields Primary School in Hendon unlawfully discriminated against him on the basis of his “protected philosophical belief in Zionism” after governors voted against his appointment late last year.

Documents seen by Jewish News show Alderman was nominated in 2024 by the London Borough of Barnet to serve as a local authority governor. When a vacancy did not arise, the school instead considered him for a co-opted position

– which was declined following a review of his social media and published writings.

In an email to Alderman at the time, the headteacher Lisa Meyer cited “extreme views” that she said were “not aligned with the school’s values”, referencing the Prevent duty and the requirement to promote fundamental British values.

Alderman, an emeritus professor of politics and history, lodged a formal complaint arguing that the decision was politically prejudiced. Both an independent investigation and a Stage 2 complaints committee later dismissed his case, finding “no evidence” of discrimination on the grounds of faith or disability and confirming that the school had acted within its legal powers.

In a statement issued to Jewish News, Alderman said the reports “failed to address discrimination on the basis of my protected philosophical belief in Zionism”, adding that the decision “appears discriminatory against me for having expressed my Zionist beliefs”.

“Belief is a protected characteristic,” he said. My belief in Zionism is that Jewish self-determination requires a Jewish state; that Israel has the right to exist as a homeland for Jewish people; and that defending Israel, including against terrorist groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah, is necessary to protect Jewish people globally.”

He said invoking the government’s anti-extremism duty in his case was “irrational and not justified”, calling it “frankly ludi -

crous” to suggest he might radicalise children.

“To apply Prevent in this way, casting my Zionist beliefs as ‘extremism’, is a gross misapplication of the duty and an abuse of public office,” he said.

A spokesperson for Sunnyfields

Primary School told Jewish News: “As you are aware, the school followed all relevant procedures whilst undertaking this process.”

A Barnet Council spokesperson said: “We are assured that the school followed all relevant procedures in relation to this process.”

Levy, left, with Commons Speaker Sir Lindsay Hoyle

Sunnyfields Primary School in Hendon

Gesher plans expansion with £400k appeal

When Ali Durban and Sarah Sultman began exploring the idea of a community special needs school in response to their own experiences, they knew it would be a considerable challenge, writesMichelleRosenberg.

Gesher began its journey in 2017, on the site of a former Norwood therapy centre in Willesden with just seven students. Eight years, five Outstanding Ofsted reports and countless happy par ents later, the school is turning to the community for help to take it to the next stage.

Durban and Sultman, both awarded MBEs for their work with special needs children, are launching a 36hr Gesher’s crowd-funding campaign from this Sunday to raise £400k for essential works.

go and what would that setting look like? We realised very quickly we would need to expand into secondary education.”

The funding challenge now is to complete some classrooms and rehouse a room dedicated to teaching life skills.

The school, which moved to the old Moriah Primary site in Pinner in 2021, works to meet the needs of children in the Jewish community who cannot flourish in mainstream education. It relies on local authority funding to do so.

Pupils have a range of mild to moderate special educational needs, including autism, ADHD, dyslexia and Downs syndrome.

Sultman tells Jewish News: “Eight years ago, Ali and I were driven by a firm belief that our community couldn’t ignore these children.

“We were passionate about delivering a meaningful education and a community of friends for them. And hearing the parents’ stories of their struggles and pain propelled us and galvanised us into trying to set Gesher up.”

Initially a primary school, Gesher, meaning ‘bridge’, has expanded into secondary provision up to Year 11 and now has a total of 70 children.

Reflecting on that decision, Durban says: “About four years in to Gesher opening, it became apparent there was also a scarcity of specialist secondary provision.

“At the same time, some parents began asking what would happen to their children who were thriving at Gesher and coming to the end of their primary experience – where would they

“Many of our children arrive damaged from mainstream education, so we don’t just pick up the pieces of their learning differences”, Durban says.

“We find there’s systemic damage from them not being able to survive or fit into mainstream education.

“The fundraiser is really important to us, because we believe very passionately that the places and the spaces that our children need to learn are as important as what they’re learning and how they’re learning.

“For us, equipping our children and young people to navigate the real world beyond life at school is as important as equipping them with the skills they need to get jobs.

“So our life skills room is critical to that, and really that’s what the fundraiser is about. It’s about finishing the building.

“It’s about some core funding costs, but also by completing all that work allows us to look forward to the next five years, because the building is then complete, the funding is in place, and we can start to think more strategically.”

Sultman believes SEND (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities) “touches everyone. No family is immune from it, regardless of whether you’re ultra-orthodox, orthodox, liberal or progressive reform. It doesn’t make a difference if you live in a wealthy area or a non-wealthy area. Being cross-communal is what makes Gesher so uniquely placed in our community.”

Gesher, she adds, is “one of the few schools that transcends religious politics or socio-economic politics, because at its core it’s about the children, and those children come from every community across London. That is really the key to its necessity.”

Gesher’s ethos is not necessarily just about early intervention. As Durban says: “These are children that are growing into young adults and we’re shaping young lives. Who are they going to be? How can we help support them with the gifts and the talents they have? What kind of members of society do we want to create that are valued and valuable?”

With Sultman, Durban describes the creation of the school as “an incredible journey” that “hasn’t just been about our Jewish community.” What the team has always sought is “to build a model of excellence with the hope of inspiring other learning communities and other schools”.

Gesher welcomes observer schools from around the globe. Currently receiving their third visit from educators in Hong Kong, it has had more than 100 delegates from Israel over the past month, as well as future visitors expected from Malta, Denmark and Australia.

Sultman is passionate in pointing out it is believed there is no other school “providing both the education, the opportunities and the

community that Gesher provides for these children. So it’s a case of: does the Jewish community care about this cohort of children? We care about all our other children, because we have so many mainstream schools for them.

“We talk about a community that cares about educating everyone, and that’s always been the Jewish way, hasn’t it? To be very first and foremost caring about education. So do we care about this group? And I would like to think

that the answer is an unreserved ‘YES, we do’.” She points out Gesher “doesn’t just give these kids a bit of band aid, a bit of therapy here, or a bit of therapy there, and watch them fail. We’re building them something that’s going to give them lifelong chances. That’s what Gesher is.” Durban adds: “These are your children as much as they’re ours. They’re all of our children, right? The child has to come first, because they’re our future.”

Calling all Prospective Nursery & Reception families

Places available for September 2026

Limited places across the school available for 2025

Open morning, 10am Tuesday

21st & 28th October and Sunday 2nd November, 10am to 12noon. Children welcome, registration essential.

There will be guided tours of our wonderful school where you will get to meet our Head Teacher and see the school in action! Please let us know if these days are inconvenient to organise an individual appointment. Looking forward to welcoming you.

To register please call the ofﬁce on: 020 8202 7704 or email: admin@hasmonean-pri.barnet.sch.uk

Sarah Sultman, left, and Ali Durban

A pupil enjoys play equioment at Gesher

Gesher is ‘more than just therapy’

‘Iran’s hatred for Israel is beyond comprehension’

Former

Mossad

chief tells Richard

Ferrer about his career in the shadows and why the ayatollahs will never accept Israel’s existence

Yossi Cohen lived in the shadows for three decades, devoting what he estimates to be 70 percent of his career to thwarting Iran’s nuclear ambitions. Then, on 12 June, as his memoir The Sword of Freedom: Israel, Mossad and the Secret War was being prepared for publication, the book rewrote itself.

Cohen was at dinner with friends in New York when he learned Israeli jets had hit Iranian nuclear and military sites, sparking a 12-day war culminating in the United States striking key underground facilities in Natanz, Fordon and Isfahan.

In that moment, a book meant to expose the past was overtaken by the present. The ending was torn up and rewritten, giving Cohen’s riveting autobiography an urgency more commonly found in thrillers.

Indeed, The Sword of Freedom reads in part like a Tom Clancy blockbuster. The 64-year-old darts between personal confessions and accounts of covert wins and crushing losses, from life undercover as his alter-ego “Oscar” in the early 1990s to outmanoeuvring the ayatollahs one shadowy operation at a time as director of Mossad.

He ran Israel’s fabled international intelligence agency for five years until 2021, presiding over two of its greatest coups: the theft of Iran’s nuclear archive in 2018 and, two years later, the assassination of its nuclear chief, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Cohen’s no-nonsense worldview drives every page. For him, Israel’s survival in a bad neighbourhood relies on moral clarity, sharp intelligence, technical ingenuity, the power to instil fear before a shot is fired and – as last year’s pager attack on Hezbollah showed – a healthy dose of chutzpah.

As he writes: “When I see someone conducting terror activity against Israelis, or Jewish people anywhere on the planet, I’ll chop his head off. You will stop, or I will

stop you. That’s not because I’m a bad boy. It is because you are.”

Cohen is unflinching in his criticism of leadership failures around the 7 October Hamas attack, warns Western leaders hopelessly misunderstand the realities of the Middle East and subtly frames himself (despite shrugging off direct questions) as a possible political alternative to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

The Sword Of Freedom is both a breathless autobiography and an aspirational blueprint for the future.

How successful does he think June’s Israeli-American strikes on Iran have been? Cohen, in London for a whirlwind week of talks and interviews, chooses his words with care. “We know Natanz, Fordow and Isfahan very well. We know what’s above ground and underground. I no longer hold the full intelligence picture, but my educated guess is that Iran can no longer enrich uranium to the level required. “In the past it’s felt immune, despite international agreements to curb its programmes. Now they know that if we see them moving back toward enrichment, we will come knocking again. We

also need to deal with their ballistic missile systems, which caused so much damage to our cities during back in June.”

Despite his vantage point, he struggles to grasp the depth of Tehran’s animosity towards Israel. “Major Sunni countries have accepted the Jewish state. The Egyptians, Jordanians, Emiratis, Bahrainis, Sudanese, Moroccans. Even the president of Indonesia, the world’s biggest Muslim country, recently said the state of Israel should be secure. Yet the ayatollahs have always stubbornly refused to accept our existence.”

Iran, he argues, is “the only country on earth conducting terrorism as a nation”. Will it survive the next decade?

“We’ve worked with opposition groups inside and outside the country for years. If the West maintains sanctions and Israel and the Americans prevent a nuclear capability, then who knows? The country might change course. If it does, the entire region would become safer and more prosperous overnight.”

Might this happen when the ageing Ayatollah Khamenei, said to be in poor health, finally leaves the stage? Cohen doubts it.

“I’m not holding my breath that Khamenei’s successor will be a Swiss diplomat.”

His tone hardens as we turn to 7 October. Were the seeds of the intelligence failure sown as far back as 2005 – a consequence of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal?

“When we disengaged, we lost vital intelligence sources and military capabilities inside the Strip. When you cannot enter and exit as you do in other places, you lose capacity. Over the years that led to misunderstandings about what was happening on the Hamas side.”

The price of that failure was the darkest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust.

“The intelligence gap was shocking. Our lines of defence collapsed. We are talking about 1,500 terrorists working together – logistics, communication, vehicles, weapons, training and timing. Imagine how many people were behind it and had knowledge of it. We learned a painful lesson about what it takes to keep our people safe.”

He knows London well, from studying English at Hendon College to a career that saw him run joint operations with MI5 and MI6. “I had wonderful relationships with UK administrations and national security advisers. I worked with Alex Younger (former chief of MI6) and Andrew Parker (former director-general of MI5), who told me that Mossad has saved many British lives over the years. There has always been a strong intelligence relationship between London and Jerusalem.”

He is unforgiving of Keir Starmer’s decision to recognise a Palestinian state. “It seems his decision was less about Middle East politics than trying to keep the streets of London quiet after two years of protests and maintaining allies in the Labour Party when he needs them most.

“A Palestinian state will not be created in London, Paris or any other European capital. I have to be optimistic because that’s my nature, but I don’t see a serious Palestinian leadership that can create space to negotiate even the framework for future talks.”

Finally, the obvious question. What, beyond the basic rule of not telling anyone you’re a spy, makes a good one?

He smiles for the first time. “You need a range of skills. An acute self-awareness and a feel for your surroundings. The instincts of an actor. And you need to come to terms with the fact that you’re on your own. There’s no friendly helicopter or F-35 above your head to swoop down and rescue you. The only thing between you and exposure is your cover. That sort of bravery comes from a deep love for your country and the urge to protect it from those who wish it harm.”

 The Sword of Freedom: Israel, Mossad, and the Secret War by Yossi Cohen is on sale now in hardback

Yossi Cohen, former director of Mossad, Israel’s state intelligence agency, attends the funeral of an Israeli killed in a shooting attack in the West Bank

Talks to help support Charedi relationships

A support organisation for former strictly-Orthodox Jews will this month host what it calls a ﬁrst-of-its-kind public discussion on sex, love, and relationships in the Charedi world, writes Annabel Sinclair.

The event, organised by GesherEU, will take place on Thursday 23 October from 7pm to 10.30pm at Alyth Gardens in London. It will explore how strict segregation, arranged marriages and the absence of sex education a ect emotional and physical intimacy within the Charedi community – and the challenges faced by those who leave it.

Titled ‘Sex, Love, and Relationships in the Charedi World and Beyond’, the discussion will feature Izzy Posen, Yiddish expert and advocate for cultural understanding; Jean Miller, a psychosexual and relationship therapist; and Emily Green, GesherEU’s founder, who grew

up in the Belz Chasidic community in Stamford Hill.

Green said that silence around intimacy and consent leaves many Charedi men and women unprepared for marriage. “I grew up in the Charedi community, where there was no sex education and the only preparation for marriage was learning the laws of family purity,” she said. “Like many others, I entered adulthood without the knowledge or tools to understand intimacy, relationships, or consent.

“This event matters because it ﬁnally gives us the space to speak openly, share experiences, and support one another.”

Miller, who has more than 25 years’ experience in psychosexual and relationship therapy, has worked extensively with Jewish clients and trained therapists within the community.

Posen, who left the gendersegregated Chasidic world, will

share his own experiences of navigating dating and relationships after leaving.

The evening will conclude with an audience Q&A and informal social gathering.

Vienna to pull out if Israel is excluded

Austria is pressuring its public broadcaster and the city of Vienna not to host next year’s Eurovision Song Contest if Israel is excluded.

The potential withdrawal from hosting the competition comes as several countries, including Ireland, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Spain and Iceland, have announced they will not participate in next year’s competition if Israel is included due to the war in Gaza.

Unlike those countries, Austria has a right-wing government.

“It’s unacceptable that we, of all people, should prohibit a Jewish artist from coming to Vienna,” a top representative of the Austrian People’s Party told Austrian news outlet oe24.

The party’s leader, Chancellor Christian Stocker, and State Secretary Alexander Pröll are urging the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation and Vienna to cancel hosting if the boycott goes ahead.

The mayor of Vienna, Michael Ludwig, told oe24 that excluding Israel would be “a serious mistake”, but no formal plans to withdraw from hosting the competition have been announced.

If the city does pull out of hosting, ORF would potentially owe the new host country up to €40m, or roughly $46m.

Members of the European Broadcasting Union are set to vote in November on whether the Israeli public broadcaster, KAN, will be allowed to participate in next year’s competition.

They have previously rebu ed entreaties

to exclude Israel, but pressure is higher this year.

Talks of Austria cancelling its 2026 Eurovision hosting came after German Chancellor Friedrich Merz said Sunday that Germany would skip the contest if Israel is boycotted.

“I consider it a scandal that this is even being discussed. Israel is part of it,” Merz told German talk show host Caren Miosga, according to German news outlet Der Spiegel.

He added that he would “support” Germany voluntarily withdrawing from the competition if the boycott takes e ect.

CNN REGRETS GAZA QUOTE

CNN’s chief international anchor Christiane Amanpour has apologised after saying on air that Israeli hostages held by Hamas “may have been treated better than many Gazans”. In a statement posted to X, Amanpour wrote: “I regret also saying that they may have been treated better than many Gazans because Hamas used these hostages as pawns and bargaining chips. It was insensitive and wrong.”

She added that the day marked “real joy” for “Israeli families whose loved ones are finally being returned from two years of horrific Hamas captivity, and for civilians in Gaza, who have finally had a reprieve from two years of brutal, deadly war.”

Amanpour said she had spoken with “many former hostages and their families”, adding: “Like everyone I’ve been horriﬁed at what Hamas has subjected them to over two long years. They’ve told me their stories of barely being able to breathe in the tunnels, not being allowed to cry, being starved and made to dig their own graves – and of course today, some of the hostages are coming back in body bags.”

Attendance is free but spaces are limited.

More information about GesherEU’s work supporting those leaving ultra-Orthodox life is available at www.geshereu.org.

Her remarks during a live CNN broadcast prompted criticism online before she issued the public apology.

Amanpour, one of the world’s most recognised foreign correspondents, has reported extensively on the war between Israel and Hamas and previously interviewed families of those abducted on 7 October.

Protecting and securing the Jewish community in the UK against antisemitism is what we do. CST will leave no stone unturned in the fight against those who wish to do us harm.

We need your ongoing and long-term support to continue our work.

Emily Green says she was not prepared for married life (File image)

Yuval Raphael represented Israel in 2025

Trump deserves peace prize for his efforts in Middle East

GHANEM NUSEIBEH MUSLIMS AGAINST ANTISEMITISM

Donald Trump has single-handedly done more to promote peace in the Middle East than any other US president in a generation. One may or may not agree with his views on certain issues or his style, but what would be difficult to argue with is his real commitment to building peace in the region.

His latest triumph is using all his energy in putting the might of the United States to enforce a Gaza ceaseﬁre and release of the hostages. By doing so, he has saved so many Israeli and Palestinian lives.

The Talmud and the Quran both say saving one soul is like saving all of mankind. Trump has saved lives and Israelis, like Palestinians, are rightly celebrating this. Indeed, this is the ﬁrst time in the history of the ArabIsraeli conﬂict that an end of war led to celebrations by ordinary peoples on both sides.

Ordinary Israelis and Palestinians want peace and the Trump deal has brought those emotions out into the streets of Tel Aviv and Gaza. For this alone, he deserves the Nobel Peace Prize.

launched the horriﬁc 7 October terrorist attacks to thwart such regional peacebuilding e orts.

The world must now unite behind the moderates of the region to reinvigorate and expand the Abraham Accords and bring about Palestinian-Israeli peace, and a ﬁnal end to the Middle East conﬂict.

We must ensure Hamas does not succeed and that peace triumphs. We must also ensure the extremists on the Israeli side do not have their way.

Trump has given hope and has empowered ordinary Palestinians and Israelis to embrace and celebrate the ceaseﬁre.

Leaders on both sides have to understand that their peoples want peace. They must now all rally around Trump and use this opportunity of having an American president who is ready, willing and able to make exactly that happen.

Trump has succeeded in building peace in both of his terms and, more importantly, has given hope once again to the whole region that peace in the Middle East is possible.

Hamas was strongly opposed to this and

But Trump has done more than ending the Gaza war. He sponsored the Abraham Accords, which o ered so much hope to everyone in the region that the end of the ArabIsraeli conﬂict was in sight. Bridges were built between ordinary Arabs and Israelis at grassroots level rather than mere government-to-government deals.

Everyone must embrace this newfound hope and build on it together for a peaceful and prosperous Middle East.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum in the UK has condemned a decision by the BBC to publish a sympathetic interview with a self-described “Palestinian Jew” ﬁlmed cutting down yellow ribbons for Israeli hostages in Gaza. The forum described the broadcast as “deeply disappointing”.

A woman identiﬁed as Nadia Yahlom was ﬁlmed removing the ribbons on the eve of the second anniversary of 7 October. Challenged by onlookers, she claimed the ribbons “condoned genocide”.

Yahlom’s husband, Palestinian actor Mo’min Swiatat, later claimed the couple had been “attacked by a group of extremist group [sic] probably working for the Israeli Mosad [sic]…we have been attacked and stranded to be killed”.

The BBC published a piece titled ‘Why I cut down hostage ribbons’, in which it spoke “exclusively” with Yahlom, a PhD student who previously studied at Cambridge and Goldsmiths.

She claimed her actions were “a peaceful form of protest” and she had felt

“o ended, intimidated and threatened” by the presence of the ribbons, further claiming she wasn’t aware that it was close to the anniversary, but adding discussion about the “oppression of Palestinian people” should go “all the way back to 1948”.

She told the BBC that “after two years of “genocide” in Gaza, “we are still being told that the only lives worth commemorating, the only lives that have any value, are Jewish lives”.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum said the ribbons were “a universal human-

itarian message, not a political one. It reminds the world, and the families, that [the hostages] are not forgotten”.

The forum added: “It is deeply disappointing that the BBC has chosen to give a sympathetic platform to someone who has repeatedly torn down these symbols of hope – especially at a time when antisemitism in the UK has reached alarming levels.

“The Jewish community now represents around 0.5 per cent of the population, yet is the target of nearly 30 percent of all recorded hate crimes.”

Donald Trump pictured during his addressthis week in Egypt

Nadia Yahlom cutting down the ribbons. Pic: Miranda Levy

Two-time cancer survivor wins 2025 charity award

When Bright Futures UK was named Charity of the Year 2025 at the Charity Times Awards, founder Joshua Pelled described it as a “pinchme moment” – and a powerful endorsement of a mission born from his own experience of surviving cancer twice, writes Annabel Sinclair.

“It’s recognition for the team, not just me,” he told Jewish News. “I’ve built a fantastic group of people who work incredibly hard and care deeply about what we do. This is validation for them, their dedication and belief in our cause.”

Pelled founded Bright Futures UK in 2017, after realising how little support existed for young people who miss school because of longterm illness. His own education was interrupted ﬁrst by Wilms’ tumour, a rare form of kidney cancer, at age ﬁve, and later osteosarcoma, a bone cancer diagnosed at 16.

“When you’re going through treatment, your only thought is ‘I have to get better’,” he said. “You forget about all the fallout – the lessons you’ve missed, the friendships that drift, the sense of normality that disappears.

“I wanted to create something that helped young people rebuild that.”

The charity now provides tailored tutoring, mentoring and befriending programmes for ﬁve-24-year-olds recovering from or living with

serious illness. Its one-to-one tutoring covers every educational level and subject, while mentoring helps older participants focus on career or personal goals.

One of its most distinctive programmes is befriending, launched during the pandemic to combat isolation. Volunteers are matched with

young people through shared interests, from art to gaming to music. “It’s completely led by the young person,” Pelled said. “Some bonds last years – we still hear from volunteers in touch with the young people they met three years ago.”

The charity also runs workshops in hospitals combining creativity and skills development,

from mocktail-making and henna art to jewellery design and virtual-reality sessions. “We always ensure there’s a real learning objective,” Pelled said. “It’s about having fun but also giving a skill they could take into a career.”

Since its registration, Bright Futures UK has supported more than 800 children and young adults, with 2,000 expected to beneﬁt this year alone. It now works with over 200 volunteers and receives referrals through NHS partners.

Pelled says the award will help the organisation expand. “It puts us on the map. People give to causes they trust, and this recognition will hopefully raise more funds, attract volunteers and reach more of the 200,000 young people who miss school every year due to illness.”

Educating the public about the issue remains a major challenge, he added. “For me, it’s second nature that illness a ects more than health – it disrupts everything. But when you explain that to people and you see the penny drop, they say, ‘Of course. Why hasn’t this been done before?’”

Pelled previously received a Prime Minister’s Points of Light Award, with Boris Johnson praising him for “creating a community that tackles loneliness and helps young people catch up on schooling during the most vulnerable time in their lives”.

Bright Futures UK founder Joshua Pelled, centre, with the Charity of the Year 2025 award

Editorial comment and letters to the editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

Ceasefire in Gaza, not on our streets

For the first time in two long and harrowing years, the guns have fallen silent. Israel and Hamas have agreed a ceasefire, the remaining living hostages are home and the region stands, tentatively, at the edge of a new dawn. But for Britain’s Jews, there is no such sense of calm.

Our own streets remain a battleground of intimidation. Every weekend for months, and no doubt for months to come, the same faces have marched, chanting slogans that spill far beyond “ceasefire” into something far darker – a sinister obsession with Jews.

Now, at last, the home secretary has moved to curb repeated and aggressive protests, acknowledging the “considerable fear” they’ve caused. Shabana Mahmood’s plan to let police consider the cumulative impact of weekly demonstrations is long overdue. As was the prime minister this week condemning the vile chant “globalise the intifada” as an antisemitic call for attacks on Jews.

The Manchester synagogue murders showed us what happens when hate festers unchecked. The right to protest is a pillar of democracy. But the right to live without harassment is too.

Britain’s Jews are weary, wary and waiting. Waiting to see whether this government truly understands that antisemitism isn’t a side issue. It is, as the Chief Rabbi wrote last weekend, a litmus test of social order. Words of reassurance will no longer do. Islamists and the radical left have been emboldened by indulgence.

The time for indulgence is over. If peace has truly begun in the Middle East, it must also begin here. On Britain’s streets.

JEWISH NEWS CONTACT DETAILS

WEEKEND'S SHABBAT TIMES...

8148 9694

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Board and the carrot

The Board of Deputies knows how to bury bad news on a good day. Hot on the heels of two excellent statements about the devastating terror attack in Manchester and the Israel-Hamas deal, and organising the very emotional hostage support rally in Trafalgar Square, it decides to uphold the complaints against the 36 righteous letter writers.

One wonders whether the powers that be at the former communal voice of British Jewry actually read the letter to the FT. It certainly did not say it represented the views of the organisation, as the BoD and the complainants claimed. It’s almost as if they wanted to take offence.

But it is fairly clear threats by people in the United Synagogue (US) did their job. An impact

MOSQUE VITRIOL

I write not only in anger but in moral indignation at the operation of a mosque whose imam has publicly uttered derogatory remarks about Jews while simultaneously denying any role in radicalising an individual who would later commit the Manchester terrorist attack. The institution in question is Masjid Sunnah Nelson, where Imam Abul Abbas Naveed is reported to have described “Yahud” (Jews) in a sermon as “treacherous”. That such vitriol should emanate from a religious pulpit is vile. It is a betrayal of basic human decency and the trust we place in religious institutions to elevate, not degrade. The imam’s attempt to cast the mosque as a victim, insisting that the individual in question was a “troubled person” rather than one influenced by ideology, is disingenuous at best.

Alan Cumber, By email

CHIKLI’S SHAME

Israel’s minister of diaspora affairs, Amichai Chikli, is not fit for his position. He has shown little empathy for diaspora Jews. Rather than being the first on a plane to show support and empathy for diaspora communities that have suffered tragedies, he has sat comfortably at his desk throwing insults at diaspora leadership. The minister is a disgrace to his ministerial role and to the government. He should be sacked.

Harris Rosenberg, Jerusalem

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statement written for the Board’s executive said the organisation “received both directly and via the US leadership that synagogues were threatening to leave … and many individuals would withhold the communal contribution as a response ... to the letter.” That was the stick. Then came what could be described as a carrot offered by the US. It apparently told the BoD it wants to expand its presence in the organisation.

Perhaps the Progressives should do what the US threatened to do and quit. Perhaps it could follow the lead of the Chareidim, who have as much access to authorities as the BoD, and pretty much don’t bother with the organisation. Just a thought.

Joe Millis, By email

A NEW DAWN?

At long last, the word we scarcely believed we would ever hear: peace. The release of the remaining hostages, the guns finally silenced and the sight of a US president addressing a jubilant Knesset – all of it feels like the curtain lifting after a years-long tragedy.

Whatever one thinks of him, Donald Trump’s return to the region has produced what eluded so many others: a genuine ceasefire and the faint shimmer of coexistence. His declaration that “the long and painful nightmare is finally over” is not hyperbole. For the families who have lived in terror, the soldiers who have buried their friends and the civilians of Gaza who have known nothing but ruin, it marks the first day of something that might one day be called normal life.

Rochelle Danning, By email

AFTER THE PEACE

There is a massive psychological gulf between Israel and its neighbours which urgently and courageously needs to be examined in the wake of Trump’s peace deal. Until the Arabs and Jews of the Middle East talk to each other about why their outlook on life is so diametrically opposed, real and lasting peace will be left looking on.

Democracy cannot be built by technocrats who ignore history.

Lewis Herlitz, Leigh on Sea

Chag Sameach from the Springdene family

Come

Trump’s leadership gave us peace through strength

EDWARD MISRAHI BUSINESSMAN & PHILANTHROPIST

In the past few days, the return of the 20 living hostages has been completed and their families can finally hold them again and bring them home. All Am Yisrael feel this moment together – we have waited for this day for too long. At the same time, we must also ensure that the bodies of all the remaining hostages murdered by Hamas will be brought back to Israel so their families can finally bury them with dignity and honour.

Two years of agony for the hostages, their families and the entire nation of Israel. But we need to realise that their return is not the end – it is the beginning.

For the hostages and their families, it is the beginning of a long return to life –physical and emotional healing from hell no human being should ever endure. Their resilience is beyond human.

For Israel it is the beginning of a time when we can truly reflect on our fallen, on our wounded, on our displaced communities, on the soldiers and reservists who sacrificed everything, on the civilians who stood up as heroes, on those who prayed, donated, volunteered and carried this nation through fire.

It is the beginning of understanding what we have survived – and who we are.

For the Jewish diaspora, this is also a beginning. The last two years exposed a terrible truth. Much of what called itself “proPalestinian activism” was nothing more than a modern mask for ancient antisemitism.

The silence today – the lack of celebration for the return of innocent Jewish hostages –reveals what we always suspected. Some of the world did not oppose war – they opposed Jews. Still, there are good and decent people around the world – and with them, we build.

But beyond all of this, what happens now is the beginning of something even more powerful: a real chance for a secure Israel.

For the first time in decades, there is a framework that does not reward terror, does not empower Hamas, does not rely on

corrupt Palestinian leadership and does not hand over our future to the failed UN and weak international institutions.

I am talking about the Trump Plan.

It is easy to be cynical. Hamas cannot be trusted under any circumstance. The next phases are risky. Nothing is guaranteed. Many Israelis are rightfully sceptical after years of political failure. And yet, this plan is a game changer. Not only because Trump achieved something the world said was impossible – the release of the hostages in one deal – but also because his doctrine is peace through strength, and he means it.

Although maybe unpopular to say, I think much credit for the new reality must also be given to Bibi’s leadership and the courage of many of his decisions in this war. But he was the PM on 7 October, and he could not extend that leadership as a unifying message to the country. President Trump did.

For the ﬁrst time, the future of Gaza will not be left to chaos or to those who used it as a terror factory. The governance and reconstruction of Gaza will be overseen by a Peace Board headed by the US and key Arab part-

ners who share a strategic interest: no return of Hamas, no Iranian control and no terror future. And this time, if commitments are broken, someone will enforce consequences.

For years, everyone repeated empty political slogans – “two-state solution”, “international peace forces”, “conﬁdencebuilding measures” – while Israelis and Jews were attacked, viliﬁed and died.

Europe repeated speeches, Trump produced results, and he may deliver something even greater: a structure that has the chance to force responsibility, accountability and deterrence.

This is leadership. This is clarity. And this is why this moment matters.

Yes, maybe I am a dreamer, but I am pretty sure I am not the only one.

It truly is a new beginning: the last hostages are home. Families can ﬁnally mourn in peace. Israel will begin rebuilding.

And we now have a partner in the United States who has the courage to stand with us and see this through.

The victims and heroes of 7 October deserve nothing less. Am Yisrael Chai.

UK cannot repeat old mistakes on extremism

I’ve been writing about the threat of Islamist extremism since the days Abu Hamza was allowed to preach his brand of unﬁltered hate outside Finsbury Park mosque every Friday.

This was when one could wander into a central London bookshop and purchase a tome overﬂowing with naked hate for our community – as Jewish News did two decades ago in an investigation that helped secure the jailing of one such preacher.

More recently, the assault rifle-emblazoned flag of Hezbollah, a terrorist group responsible for the murder of Jews globally, was allowed to fly with impunity for years as Jewish leaders pleaded with successive administrations to ban the group’s “political wing”.

Even as its own leadership denied a distinction between military and political wings, Hezbollah wasn’t fully outlawed in Britain until 2019.

The law has progressed to some extent to recognise the growing threat posed by radicals, sometimes at a greater pace than in the US, where anti-Israel activists can still brandish the ﬂags of Hamas and Hezbollah without the threat of jail.

But that is no comfort when other expressions of support for terror are allowed to become normal, and antisemitism in the arts, health services and academia is often met by, at best, a shrug.

Just as when we look back on the early 2000s with shock that such rhetoric was tolerated, scenes that have become part of everyday life in Britain over the past two years must be consigned to the dustbin of history – only this time with far more urgency, and without the community having to ﬁght tooth and nail for every scintilla of progress.

It’s not a matter of party politics, but simply a statement of fact to say successive governments have failed to meet the scale of the challenge.

The ﬁrst antisemitic murders of Jews in the UK for years in Manchester – and the

unsurprising news Jihad al-Shamie was inﬂuenced by Islamist ideology – didn’t happen because he woke up to the news of the UK’s recognition of Palestine. But the horrors visited on Heaton Park Synagogue, and the wider rise in hatred against Jews, didn’t happen in a vacuum, either.

We may never know to what extent al-Shamie was inﬂuenced by the hate preacher Sheikh Mishary Alafasi, who previously claimed Jewish law permits the rape of non-Jewish children and whose social media account was followed by al-Shamie. But we do know that the Manchester Jewish Representative Council’s warnings of the dangers of the city hosting the cleric earlier this year at Bridgewater Hall fell on deaf ears.

Then there are the poisonous events allowed to play out on campuses. When student events are held on the anniversary of 7 October and refer to “resistance”, as at least half a dozen did this week, the invite may as well say “join us to mark the murder of 1,200 Israeli Jews”. It’s about as subtle as the call to “globalise the intifada”, which we heard again this week and each of the 104 weeks before it.

One shouldn’t need a degree from one of these universities to realise where such open hate could lead.

In the entertainment world, we saw the expletive-ridden rant by Bob Vylan on our national broadcaster. The BBC failed to pull the plug, yet no heads have rolled – again, a message of impunity.

It feels no area of our lives has escaped infection – including medicine, where a doctor who revels in posting diatribes about “Jewish supremacy” has been told by a tribunal she is free to continue practising.

The hatred burning within the Manchester attacker didn’t start with murder, but that’s where it ended.

Now British Jews like me, who have no intention of leaving the UK, need those in power – including politicians and moderate Muslim leaders – to insist on zero tolerance to hate.

With hopes raised this week for peace in the Middle East, there should be no doubt we are on the front line of a battle at home. Only this one is certain to take longer than two years.

The extremist threat to Jewish-Muslim ties

DANIEL SUGARMAN DEPUTY EDITOR, JEWISH NEWS

In 2019, a Muslim community centre, or Markaz, in north-west London planned an exhibition, together with Jewish interfaith activists, focusing on Muslim Albanians who had defied their Nazi occupiers and had saved Jews during the Holocaust.

That exhibition never took place.

Why? Well, 5 Pillars, an extremist ‘news’ outlet operating within the Muslim community, heard about it and published pieces bitterly condemning it.

The story was picked up by the Iranian State’s English-language channel, Press TV, as well as its Mehr News Agency – hardly surprising, as the editor in chief of 5 Pillars, Roshan Salih, was also working for Press TV in London.

The community centre followed a specific stream of Shia Islam which has long been subject to repression from the Ayatollahs, and there were fears that the Iran-based relatives of members of the Markaz would be directly persecuted as a result of the exhibition. So it was cancelled.

It is hard to describe an organisation which has done more to damage interfaith cohesion between Jews and Muslims in this country than 5 Pillars. In 2018, as reported by CST at the time, Salih gave a speech in which he set out his views on e orts to strengthen inter-community cohesion between Jews and Muslims in the UK. Of course, he described it rather di erently, referring to it as “Zionist inﬁltration of Muslim communities… happening in our mosques and happening in our institutions generally.”

He added that “if you read unfortunately papers like the Jewish News and the Jewish Chronicle you get an insight into Israel’s strategy in the UK and their strategy vis-avis the Muslim community is to make links with the Muslim community for two goals, one is to make them shut up about Israel and secondly to drive a wedge between different parts of that community.”

5 Pillars has continued this behaviour

for some time. As detailed by CST, in 2019, an event at a mosque in Harrow featuring a Liberal rabbi was cancelled, after Salih called for activists to campaign against her presence. Last year, Phil Rosenberg, then running

The press regulator 5 Pillars was part of, Impress, rapped the organisation on the knuckles for some of these appearances. Jewish News reported last year that Impress ruled that in Blood Brothers’ interview with

IT’S HARD TO DESCRIBE AN ORGANISATION THAT HAS DONE MORE DAMAGE TO INTERFAITH COHESION BETWEEN JEWS AND MUSLIMS IN THIS COUNTRY THAN 5 PILLARS

to be president of the Board of Deputies, attended an Iftar event at a mosque in Brent. 5 Pillars ran a video segment titled, “Central Mosque of Brent invites Zionist to Iftar”.

The aim of such actions was set out by Salih in 2019: “Zionists must be no-platformed in every mosque and Islamic centre in this country.”

But 5 Pillars has gone much further. It hosts a podcast called ‘Blood Brothers’, presided over by the organisation’s deputy editor, Dilly Hussain. Among the guests of ‘Blood Brothers’ over the last few years have been a rogues’ gallery of some of the UK’s most notorious far-right and Neo-Nazi ﬁgures. Nick Gri n, former leader of the BNP. Mark Collett, leader of the Neo-Nazi ‘Patriotic Alternative’ group. Jayda Fransen, former deputy leader of Britain First.

Fransen, her “unchallenged assertions that Jews were responsible for Pornhub, for ‘the abortion industry’ and for ‘the LGBTQPZ plus agenda’, and that there was a ‘disproportionate number of Jews occupying positions of authority’, had the effect of perpetuating a narrative of prejudice against Jewish people”, and said it considered “the lack of challenge by the interviewer to the claims enabled the interviewee to encourage hatred or abuse of Jews”.

In November, 5 Pillars published an article which began: “5 Pillars has decided to leave the media regulator Impress because we do not want non-Muslims who do not share our values to have editorial control over our content.”

I want to stress this, because I believe it needs to be said frankly if it is to stand any chance of people paying attention to it: In the last couple of years we have e ectively been seeing, in front of our eyes, attempts to create a Neo-Nazi-Islamist alliance, united by a mutual loathing of “Zionism”.

Successive governments have been wellaware of what 5 Pillars and a variety of other aligned organisations are doing. I worked for the Board of Deputies for years, latterly

serving as its director of public a airs. I can tell you that both home secretaries and communities secretaries were informed and warned about the damage to community cohesion. Nothing has been done – after all, in its actions, neither 5 Pillars or Blood Brothers are breaking the law.

What can be done? Well, last year, Phil Rosenberg, now president of the Board, proposed the introduction of what he described as Community Cohesion Behaviour Orders, which would speciﬁcally target the activities of organisations deemed by the government to be actively harming interfaith and inter-community e orts. It is unclear if the government embraced the idea, but it’s surely time to bring it back to the table.

The British Jewish community is not immune to the lure of extremism either.

Within the last few years, we have seen a small, but increasing number of British Jews actively declare their sympathies with Tommy Robinson, who leads a section of the British far-right which – at least at the moment – appears to hate Muslims slightly more than Jews.

It’s worth noting that some of those people were also vocally opposed to interfaith outreach e orts with the Markaz, which was based in Golders Green at the time. Of all the ‘arguments’ put forward for why the Muslim community centre shouldn’t be in the area, probably the most stupidly bigoted were the dark mutterings accusing the Markaz of links to Al Qaeda – a terror group which loathes Shia Muslims and whose a liates have carried out multiple attacks on Shias.

The so-called “logic” appeared to be that ‘Al Qaeda are terrorists, Muslims are sympathetic to terrorism, these are Muslims, therefore they must be connected to Al Qaeda’. With such a basic lack of thinking skills, it’s no wonder some have since latched on to a thug like Robinson.

Robinson has recently been ampliﬁed by Israel’s Minister of Diaspora A airs, Amichai Chikli, who appears to be unable to move beyond the remarkably ﬂawed concept that ‘my enemies’ enemy is my friend’ – ironically, the same thought process employed by the Blood Brothers podcast.

The primary di erence is that every single major Jewish communal organisation in the UK has vocally condemned Robinson and deeply pathetic attempts by some Jewish people to ally with him. Regrettably, we have not seen the equivalent public condemnation of the actions of outﬁts like 5 Pillars from any major British Muslim communal group.

The last few weeks have been a period of deep anger for many in our community. There is a strong belief, which I agree with, that our community has been let down by consecutive governments who have demonstrated a complete inability to face down extremism. The current government can turn that around, but it cannot afford to wait any longer.

The time for committees and commissions is over. It needs to act.

The episode of ‘Blood Brothers’ featuring Dilly Hussain and former BNP leader Nick Griffin

Roshan Salih, editor of 5 Pillars

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1 TEAM KISHARON LANGDON CROSSES FINISH LINE

Nine runners proudly represented Kisharon Langdon at the Royal Parks half-marathon, raising awareness and £11,327 towards vital funds for the charity dedicated to supporting individuals with learning disabilities and autistic people in the Jewish community. The dedicated team included Sam Adams, Simon Jacobs, Zack Mason, Asher Nagler, Raphael Rose, Jake Stanton, Sam Ucko, Meechal Schimmel and Jared Wolman. Schimmel, who independently fundraised £4,361, said: “Kisharon Langdon is an amazing organisation, and it was an honour to raise money for its cause.”

2 JEWISH CARE’S PRO AM GOLFERS ARE BEST BY PAR

Jewish Care supporters teed off for their 47th annual golf tournament, raising more than £20,000 for Jami, part of Jewish Care supporting young people and adults living with mental illness and distress. The amateur golfers and professionals braved high winds at Brocket Hall course, with Selwyn Tarn, Paul Belchak and Gary Silver winning the main trophy with professional Sam Little with 84 points. The committee has raised over £1 million for Jewish Care.

3 FUNDRAISING DINNER FOR BRITISH EMUNAH

British Emunah welcomed guests to a dinner at the Engine Rooms in East Finchley to raise awareness of the growing mental health challenges facing children and families in Israel and the urgent need for expanded therapeutic and day-to-day support of children in the organisation’s care. Guest speaker Natasha Hausdorff, barrister and legal director of UK Lawyers for Israel, spoke about the importance of unity across the Jewish diaspora while Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis highlighted the importance of giving in Judaism.

EHRS

MEMORIAL TO VICTIMS OF HAMAS MASSACRE Edgware and Hendon Reform Synagogue (EHRS) has unveiled a permanent memorial to the victims of 7 October. Created and sculpted by shul member Josette Aitman Perloff, it was fundraised by more than 80 families in the community with the unveiling by Perloff’s sons Dillon and Jake. Attendees included sculptor Frances Segelman and Kurt Marx, a centenarian Holocaust survivor whose bust is one of Frances Segelman’s works. The sculpture includes a heart with the initials of Jake Marlowe, three generations of whose family are EHRS members. Marlowe was murdered at the Nova music festival.

5 SECRETARY OF STATE IN ANTISEMITISM PLEDGE

Education secretary Bridget Phillipson visited Yavneh College and Yavneh Primary School alongside school leaders, pupils and representatives from PaJeS. The visit coincided with Sukkot celebrations and came in the wake of the Manchester terrorist attack. PaJeS chief executive Rabbi David Meyer said the MP “showed an appreciation of the dangers of antisemitism and a willingness to work collaboratively on addressing our concerns”. Phillipson said: “Hatred and division have no place in our society and stopping antisemitism in education will always be my priority.”

A look

Faith... the facts? Meet Don Black Breast cancer

THE UNMISSABLES

Must-see movies at the UK Jewish Film Festival in November

From 95-year-old June Squibb making us laugh to Jodie Foster delivering her lines in pitch-perfect French to a moving documentary about the twin brothers taken hostage on October 7 and an insight into Jerusalem’s Haredi community, this year’s festival features more than 60 full-length and short movies to keep us stimulated, intrigued and entertained.

Eleanor the Great (drama)

Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut brings Jewish family life to the screen with warmth and charm. When Eleanor Morgenstein’s best friend unexpectedly passes away, she packs up and moves back to New York to live with her daughter. While strolling through Manhattan, she stumbles into a Holocaust survivors’ group and ends up giving a speech that sends her life in a completely new direction. Johansson weaves a touching tale of grief and intergenerational friendship.

Bad Shabbos (comedy)

In a highly relatable scenario, David and his soon-to-be-converted fiancée, Meg, dread Shabbat dinner at the Upper West Side home of David’s parents. Meg’s Catholic parents have been invited, David’s neurotic mother is known for her passive aggressiveness, and his siblings are constantly bickering. As anxious as they are, they can’t imagine just how bad the night will turn out to be. Directed by Daniel Robbins, this is Meet the Parents meets Woody Allen – it’s crazy, funny and unmistakably Jewish.

A Letter to David (documentary, Hebrew with English subtitles)

In 2012, acclaimed Israeli filmmaker Tom Shoval cast twin brothers David and Eitan Cunio, members of Kibbutz Nir Oz, in his debut film, Youth. Eleven years later, on 7

October 2023, the kibbutz was infiltrated by Hamas terrorists and they were taken hostage. Joyously they were released this week. In this personal film Shoval tries to make sense of the catastrophe that befell the charismatic brothers, their family and community, and Israeli society at large.

A Private Life (drama, French and English with English subtitles)

Mariana’s Room (drama, Ukrainian, German, Russian with English subtitles)

a mission to lose her virginity, Avigail’s plan is upended when her sister announces that she is pregnant. The film tackles the internal battle to find beauty within yourself while simultaneously existing in a larger body and the digital age.

Pink Lady (drama, Hebrew with English subtitles)

Jodie Foster stars as psychiatrist Lilian Steiner in this intriguing, tongue-incheek French detective thriller from multiaward-winning director Rebecca Zlotowski. When Lilian’s patient Paula Cohen commits suicide, the widower accuses Lilian of over-prescribing antidepressants. She tries to uncover the truth, assisted by a hypnotist whose methods she despises, and her charming ophthalmologist ex-husband, who is eager for a rapprochement

Hold on to your Music (documentary) Lisa and her daughter Mona are brilliant concert pianists. In this heartfelt documentary, Mona Golabek tells the story of her mother and her escape from Vienna on a Kindertransport. Lisa’s father had won one ticket while gambling, and he and his wife had to make the terrible choice of which of their three daughters would be saved. With rarelyseen archive footage of wartime Vienna and London, and moving voice interviews and piano recordings from Lisa, the documentary focuses on music’s power to restore new life.

In wartime Ukraine, 11-year-old Hugo is taken in by his mother’s friend Mariana, a sex worker at a brothel frequented by German soldiers. Suspicious of one another at first, the two develop a strong and intimate bond. Based on a novel by the late Israeli author Aharon Appelfeld, this multilayered and powerful coming-of-age drama explores the liminal spaces between life and death, good and evil, and parental and sexual love.

Once Upon My Mother (drama, French with English subtitles)

In France in 1963, Esther Perez’s sixth child is born with a clubfoot. She refuses to accept his disability, looking for alternative methods – as well as praying for a miracle – that would cure him. Esther remains devoted to her son even after her prayers have been answered, and well into Roland’s adulthood. A soundtrack of French pop classics – including some by Jewish icon Sylvie Vartan (who also appears) – adds a touch of nostalgia.

Cuz You’re Ugly (drama, Hebrew, with English subtitles)

Trainee naval officer Avigail returns from service to her cramped flat, living with an unstable mother and naïve younger sister. On

In Jerusalem’s strictly Orthodox Haredi community, Bati discovers that her husband Lazer is being blackmailed with photographs of him with another man. The couple navigates the community’s attempts to ‘cure’ Lazer of his homosexuality with religious conversion therapy. Seen primarily from Bati’s point of view as she attempts to save their marriage despite her family being ostracised, this fascinating film directed by Nir Bergman draws us into the lives of the central characters.

Mazel Tov (Comedy, Spanish with English subtitles)

In this Argentinian family comedy, Dario Roitman returns to Buenos Aires for the wedding and bat mitzvah of the decade. Just a few hours before his flight, his father unexpectedly passes away, and the Roitmans’ long-planned family reunion is instead held at a funeral. When Dario decides to support his beloved sister in breaking the shloshim mourning period to marry her non-Jewish fiancé, sibling rivalries bubble to the surface.

 The UK Jewish Film Festival runs at cinemas in London 6-16 November, nationwide 16 November – 4 December and online 19-27 November. ukjewishfilm.org

A er 40 years, Oscar-winning lyricist Don Black unveils the show he was always meant to write. By Brigit Grant

After years of promising himself he would one day write a show of entirely new songs, Don Black has done it. This month, the Oscar- and multi-award-winning lyricist makes a highly-anticipated return to the West End with the premiere of From The Heart, a deeply personal celebration of the cabaret scene he has always admired. That Black has written a new show is music to fans’ ears, but it’s more signiﬁcant than that because the show features songs he promised his beloved late wife Shirley, and more recently sons Grant and Clive, he would write.

Shirley, who died in 2018, was his greatest supporter, and there is little doubt she would have loved this show. Black doesn’t o cially call it a dedication, but the wistful way he says: “If only she was here to hear it,” makes it clear that From The Heart carries her presence.

Running at the Fortune Theatre, the show is Black’s tribute to the intimate New York o -Broadway revues that inspired him and he never missed when he was in town. “I’d go to those shows and be transﬁxed,” he recalls. “Surprise guests would turn up — Shirley MacLaine, Liza Minnelli — and you felt like the songs were written just for you. That’s the atmosphere I wanted to capture.”

The cast is nothing short of stellar. Caroline O’Connor, a favourite of Stephen Sondheim, is ﬂying in from Australia, not long after her acclaimed run as Dolly in Hello Dolly! in Paris. She joins Sydnie Christmas, Preeya Kalidas and Clive Rowe, who played Nicely-Nicely Johnson in the National Theatre’s celebrated 1996 revival of Guys and Dolls

At Black’s home in west London, the piano has been played by Andrew Lloyd Webber and Quincy Jones. Black doesn’t really play, but allowed my daughter, Madison, to do so, which meant she got to perform You Love Who You Love from Bonnie and Clyde for the man who wrote it. It was a moment to bank and From The Heart promises many more like it.

who have worked with him on the new songs such as Gary Barlow and EGOT winner Alan Menken as well as David Arnold, who was musical director for London Olympics 2012, Mike Batt and Natasha Bedingﬁeld.

What makes this production unique is that Black for once is not revisiting his incomparable back catalogue.

Every number is new — songs he has carried with him for years. “No great cabaret song leaves anyone untouched,” he says and then lists an auspicious list of collaborators

The joy of Black is that he always acts as though he is just one of the band, and for all the A-list company he keeps he has remained the Hackney lad who left school at 15 to work as an o ce boy at a music publisher. As a song-plugger, he persuaded dance bands and singers to try new material and from that went on to write some of the most famous songs of the last half-century.

Born Free won him an Academy Award and he is forever tied to the Bond themes – Thunderball, Diamonds Are Forever and The Man with the Golden Gun Collaborations with Andrew Lloyd Webber, Michel Legrand and others produced hits such as Aspects of Love and Tell Me on a Sunday, and he also wrote with John Barry and Quincy Jones, who played that piano, and was intrinsic to the ongoing success of Lulu, Shirley Bassey and with Henry Mancini – even Michael Jackson on the song Ben

Always the quiet man behind the words, Black is more interested in how a lyric touches an audience than in the awards on his shelves. “The song should do the talking,” he often says.

From The Heart may have been 40 years in the making, but it feels like the show Don Black was always destined to write: a love letter to cabaret, to storytelling, to family, and to the late Shirley — who, without question, would have been in the front row.

• From The Heart is showing on 26 October and 2 November at the Fortune Theatre. atgtickets.com

With Andrew Lloyd Webber

Black in relaxed mood at his crowded workstation

Faith: the facts?

What if the existence of God wasn’t a question of belief, but evidence?

By Rabbi Stephen Dansky

Ihave the distinct impression that many in our western society see God and religion as a discarded antique of a bygone age – perhaps interesting, but certainly not something to hang one’s hat on. Therefore, reading God – The Science, The Evidence, a secular book which unequivocally promotes the notion of a God, is like rain on parched earth – especially for a rabbi like me.

French authors Michel-Yves Bollore and Olivier Bonassies argue for the existence of a God who created the world and everything in it.

Backed by insights from 62 Nobel Prize winners and more than 100 leading scientists, the book, published in English this week, explores how modern science may support the existence of a creator God. They point out that there is far more evidence that God exists than extra-terrestrials, yet the world spends billions of dollars trying to prove the existence of aliens on faraway planets.

objects that were outside of the earth and provided light. While we might take this idea for granted, most ancient civilisations did not. They all presupposed these lights in the sky to be gods.

Further, the Torah points out that every human was created equally in the image of God. We are told in Genesis (5:1) “This is the book of the generation man, created in the image of God”.

All of humankind were created equally, and should therefore be treated equally.

This ﬂies in the face of the beliefs of many societies, who believed that their kings and queens were gods and goddesses. This in turn allows for beliefs in a hierarchy of greater and lesser beings, normalising the concept of slaves and serfs for many generations afterwards.

years ago in a prophecy. Isaiah stated in chapter 43: “I will bring your children from the East, will gather you out of the West; I will say to the North, ‘Give back!’ And to the South, ‘Do not withhold! Bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the end of the earth’.”

The authors believe that this gathering of the exiles from all the four corners of the earth

Bollore, a Christian, is a computer engineer who has built an illustrious career in the mechanical industry. This is his ﬁrst (and last, he says) book. Bonnassies is an entrepreneur and author who writes on faith and reason. He was a non-believer until the age of 20.

The book is divided into three sections. In the first, the authors provide up-to-date scientific evidence of God’s existence. For example, the authors believe that the big bang in and of itself is a proof of God, because something must have caused that big bang in the first place.

Thermodynamics, a theory ﬁrst established in 1824 and later proven in 1998 to be scientiﬁcally sound, asserts that “heat death” is observed through the continually expanding nature of the universe.

This scientiﬁc notion implies that the universe had a beginning and that every beginning presupposes a creator.

The second section deals with evidence that God exists from a historical perspective. The authors claim that the Torah knew things no people knew or could possibly know at the time. For example, the Torah proclaims the sun, moon and the stars to be luminaries,

Most notably, in the third section, the authors state that the Jewish people living in their ancestral homeland, speaking the same ancient language as their ancestors, is almost impossible.

This statement piqued my interest, and I asked AI what the statistical chances of such a thing occurring were. It provided me with an answer from a 1998 journal article in Lingua stating: “The statistical chance of a nation leaving its homeland 3,000 years ago, returning after millennia, and speaking exactly the same language as its ancestors, is so close to zero that experts describe it as virtually unprecedented or impossible in human history.”

The very fact that we have a state of Israel, in which people speak Ivrit, which is unchanged – except for words stolen from English like ‘television’ or ‘radio’, which hadn’t been invented 3,500 years ago – is, for the most part, a miracle.

There can be no doubt in my mind that God exists for something like this to happen, because it is statistically impossible. This calculation does not take antisemitism and genocide into account.

Yet here we stand with a State of Israel, which is currently in its 77th year and millions of Jews living inside it.

Furthermore, the authors note that God promised this very thing to us thousands of

could be nothing less than a fulﬁlment of the return of fellow Jews from the diaspora to Israel after 1948. While there are some commentaries who believe that these verses refer to the exile to Babylon, and the ultimate return of the Jews to their home, no less personages than Rashi and Don Yitschak Abarbanel agree that this refers to the ultimate redemption of the Jewish people.

a fulﬁlment of the return of fellow Jews from the that these verses refer to Jews to their home, no less agree that this refers to the Jewish people.

Even Christian theologians agree on this subject. Pope Benedict himself said: “It is not di cult, I believe, to see in the creation of the modern state of Israel the ﬁdelity of God revealed to Israel in a mysterious way.”

Even a Pope making this statement is a miracle.

Benedict himself said: “It is I state of Israel the ﬁdelity of God revealed to Israel in a statement miracle.

David Reinharc, editorin-chief of

our interest even if the God the authors believe in is not the God

David Reinharc, editorin-chief of Israel Magazine, says: “This book has sparked our interest even if the God the authors believe in is not the God of Israel. At a time when the boat of JudeoChristian Europe is sinking, we much challenge in all ways whether we are believers or not, the modern desire to put an end to all forms of transcendence.”

 God – The Science, The Evidence is published by Palomar. RRP £22

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Business / Breast cancer breakthrough

By Candice Krieger candicekrieger@googlemail.com

WORLD LEADER IN BREAST CANCER RESEARCH

With more than 1,600 life sciences companies and cutting-edge health care, Israel is a hub for global health solutions, writes Candice Krieger

srael is emerging as a global leader in breast cancer innovation, combining decades of early detection infrastructure with one of the world’s most dynamic health tech ecosystems. Since the 1990s, its national screening programme –supported by a fully-digitised healthcare system – has enabled real-time datasharing and proactive intervention. By 2022, 72 per cent of diagnosed breast cancer cases were caught early.

IThis foundation has fuelled a new wave of breakthrough breast cancer technologies –from AI-driven diagnostics and personalised treatment tools to the world’s ﬁrst sterile, disposable, post-surgical bra. With more than 1,600 life sciences companies, Israel has become a hub for solutions now poised to reach far beyond its borders.

The next frontier lies in integrating these ground-breaking technologies into global care strategies – improving screening access in underserved regions and helping modernise health systems’ approach to early detection and treatment worldwide.

To mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, 8400 Health Network and Startup Nation Central, a Tel Aviv-based nonproﬁt promoting Israeli innovation, have compiled a list of the Israeli tech companies developing cuttingedge solutions for breast cancer detection and treatment that are driving this change. Solutions from companies such as IceCure, FeminAI, EZbra and Mica are redeﬁning what’s possible in breast cancer care.

Dr Iris Adler, head of business development and global partnerships for 8400 Health Network, which has formed a strategic healthtech partnership with SNC, says: “There is a huge global unmet need for innovation because unfortunately, breast cancer cases are rising and patients are getting younger. It’s an urgent problem and I feel Israel is the right place to look for solutions.

STARTUP SNAPSHOTS

ICECURE MEDICAL

Founded in 2006. CEO: Eyal Shamir. Located in Caesarea, Israel and the US. Funding and backing to date: about $120m.

Mission and focus

“[Israel has] a combination of amazing entrepreneurs, technology, physicians and healthcare organisations. 8400 has created a network of 400 healthtech leaders, all working together to create solutions and advance innovation and global cure.”

Joanna Franks, consultant breast and oncoplastic surgeon at UCLH and a member of Chai Cancer Care’s medical advisory panel, says: “As we mark Breast Cancer Awareness Month, it’s inspiring to see how innovation is playing a crucial role in transforming the landscape of breast cancer detection and treatment. The new list from StartUp Nation Central highlights Israel’s cutting-edge advancements… from early detection technologies to novel treatment solutions.”

Providing women with the choice of cryoablation, a minimally invasive alternative to surgery for small, low-risk breast cancers that are currently treated with lumpectomy, in which the tumour and a margin of heathy tissue are removed from the breast. Cryoablation is generally performed in an outpatient setting with a local anaesthetic. Using a small cryoprobe inserted into the breast under ultrasound guidance, the tumour is destroyed using extreme temperatures in a freeze-thaw-freeze cycle. No tissue is removed and there is minimal scarring.

Breakthrough innovation

IceCure uses liquid nitrogen to destroy tumours by freezing them. Unlike other cryoablation systems that use argon gas, liquid nitrogen does not require gas lines, on-site technicians, or special safety rooms for storage and use, which enables the procedure to be performed in outpatient clinics and doctor’s o ces, expanding access and a ordability.

Impact and reach

IceCure’s ICE3 trial US, which began in 2014, was the largest multi-location clinical trial ever completed for liquid-nitrogen-based cryoablation of small, low-risk, early-stage malignant

breast tumours without subsequently removing them. The trial recruited 206 patients in 19 hospitals and medical centres, and of the 124 patients who received cryoablation and endocrine therapy only, ipsilateral breast tumour recurrence was 3.7 per cent. Patients and physicians reported 100 per cent cosmetic satisfaction. The results inspired several new trials in Europe and Brazil.

IceCure’s ProSense Cryoablation system is available for direct sale in the US via distribution in Brazil, India and South Africa, and in major European markets.

What’s next?

IceCure is awaiting FDA marketing authorisation for cryoablation in treatment of breast cancer in patients aged 70, including patients not suitable for breast cancer surgery. IceCure anticipates commencing a new postmarket study for breast cancer cryoablation pending FDA authorisation. The XSense next generation cryoablation system is expected to launch in the US after receiving FDA clearance.

What they say

Chief executive Eyal Shamir says: “We are driven by a vision to transform breast care through innovative, minimally-invasive solutions. Our mission is not just to destroy cancer with cryoablation, but to empower women with choices that preserve their dignity, conﬁdence, and quality of life.”

icecure-medical.com

FEMINAI

Founded in 2023 by Dr Karny Ilan (general surgeon), Shani Klein Antman (Data scientist, M.Scin electrical engineering, specialising in AI), and Gal Yanuka (Biomedical engineer, BSc). Located in Tel Aviv, Israel (R&D) and Boston, US (clinical and commercial team). Funding to date: about $2m.

Mission and Focus

FeminAI is tackling the global gap in early breast cancer detection, especially for women who are underserved by current screening methods due to geography, access or age. FeminAI’s mission is to make accurate, a ordable, and accessible breast cancer screening available from home.

Breakthrough innovation

FeminAI has developed the ﬁrst remote breast cancer screening patch , which combines unique sensors with AI analysis. Women apply a wearable patch for a short exam at home. The device measures physiological signals from the breast. AI then analyses the data and delivers a personalised breast health report, alerting physicians if further attention is needed. The system has demonstrated 96 per cent sensitivity and 98 per cent negative predictive value in early clinical trials.

Impact and reach

FeminAI completed a successful clinical validation study at Sheba Medical Centre and is preparing for a US-based trial. Its technology is being integrated into leading telehealth platforms, bringing screening directly to women’s homes.

What’s next?

FeminAI is preparing for FDA clearance, launching a US feasibility study later this year, and expanding commercial pilots with women’s health clinics. Long-term, FeminAI

Breast cancer cases are rising and patients are getting younger

Dr Iris Adler

IceCure can be done in outpatient clinics

aims to pursue broader regulatory approval and scale within public healthcare systems.

What they say

Dr Karny Ilan, co-founder and chief executive, says: “Breast cancer screening hasn’t evolved to match how women live today. FeminAI is about putting powerful, clinically-validated tools directly into women’s hands wherever they are. Our goal is to detect more cancers, earlier, without the barriers that so many face today.” feminai.com

EZBRA

the unique shape, anatomy and requirements of each organ. EZbra is a two-dimensional dressing that gently conforms to the individual shape and needs of each breast it protects.

Impact and reach

MICA ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE LTD

Founded in 2020 by Lior Wayn, Lilia Shwartsman, Dr Dov Tamarkin and Dr Roni Weitzen. Located in Tel Aviv, Israel. Funding to date: about $6m.

Mission and focus

Founded in 2011 by Efrat Roman and located in Tel Aviv, Israel. Funding to date: $8m.

Mission and focus

EZbra is the only designated sterile dressing designed to meet all the needs arising from breast surgeries, and to allow patients to recover with dignity. Breast cancer often triggers a profound crisis related to a woman’s sense of femininity, body image and selfesteem. EZbra was created to allow patients to look and feel like whole women, even if they have just lost one of their breasts, and to offer them independence and agency while changing dressings and recovering from breast surgeries.

Breakthrough innovation

EZbra is a patented medical device that offers a novel approach to wound care by designing organ-specific dressings that match

EZbra is currently being used in many hospitals and private plastic surgery clinics worldwide. The company has a long-standing partnership with the Breast Surgery Department at Stanford Medical Centre, its earliest adopter in the US, as well as with leading hospitals and clinics across South Korea, Singapore, Chile, the Dominican Republic, and throughout the UAE, EU and Leib Medical in the UK.

What’s next?

EZbra is launching distribution in India, where breast cancer rates are among the highest in the world, and continues to expand its global presence.

What they say

Founder Efrat Roman says: “When we talk about breast cancer, we must address two critical aspects: its alarming prevalence and its profound impact on a woman’s most intimate sense of femininity and identity. It is not enough to continue accepting breast removal as the default solution. We must focus research on the development of real preventative solutions” ezbra.net

Nearly 50 per cent of women worldwide have dense breast tissue, which significantly limits the sensitivity of standard mammography and complicates the detection of malignancies. MICA’s mission is to enhance diagnostic accuracy and reliability without the need for contrast agents, invasive procedures, or unnecessary and potentially harmful radiation exposure.

Breakthrough innovation

MICA’s flagship solution, M2C, is an advanced AI and GenAI-based diagnostic system designed specifically for women with dense breast tissue. The technology analyses standard imaging inputs and provides a non-invasive, contrast-free diagnostic layer that empowers radiologists with enhanced accuracy and decisionmaking efficiency. By eliminating the need for painful, expensive, and less-accessible secondary tests, M2C increases early detection rates and reduces unnecessary interventions, delivering a transformative impact on patient care.

Impact and reach

MICA holds regulatory approval from the

BRCA Support at Chai

Israeli Ministry of Health and Argentina. The M2C solution is already deployed in hospital environments, including the Sheba Medical Centre and there are ongoing clinical collaborations with leading medical centres in the US, Europe and Israel.

What’s next?

Submission and pursuit of FDA and CE approvals plus expansion into new international markets.

What they say

Lior Wayn, co-founder and chief executive, says: “Our vision is to ensure that every woman has access to fast, accurate and body-friendly breast cancer diagnostics. We believe that advanced AI technology not only saves time and cost – it saves lives.” micamedic.com

Dr Karny Ilan

Dr Lior Wayn

EZbra conforms to the shape of each breast

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MAKING SENSE OF THE SEDRA

In our thought-provoking series, rabbis, rebbetzins and educators relate the week’s parsha to the way we live today

BY RABBI ALEX CHAPPER BOREHAMWOOD & ELSTREE SYNAGOGUE

We must continue to create goodness, justice and compassion

It is the moment for which we have hoped and prayed for, during more than 700 days, never certain if it would become a reality. To see all the remaining hostages returned, and to glimpse the prospect of peace in Israel, is profoundly emotional for so many. Its timing feels signiﬁcant and not a mere coincidence. For this Shabbat, as we begin the yearly Torah reading cycle anew with Bereishit and the story of creation, we are reminded of a timeless truth: the pinnacle of creation was not the stars, the sea or even the angels – it was us, human beings, created b’tzelem Elokim – in the image of God.

Since God has no physical form, being in His image must refer to our capacity to emulate His attributes. It means that every individual

possesses freedom of choice, the power to create and inﬁnite worth in God’s eyes. Therefore, regardless of our di erences, everyone is deserving of respect and dignity and to be viewed as a reﬂection of the divine in this world.

Although God’s creation of the universe is described at the beginning of the Torah, it was not a one-o event. As we say every morning: “God renews the act of creation every day in his goodness.” Our sages teach that God constantly and actively wills the world to exist and if he stopped doing so, even for a moment, it would return to its primordial state. That means that our challenge is to do the same: to constantly renew the image of God – both in how we see ourselves and in how we view others.

Rav Kook teaches that the existence of the

world and human ethics are intertwined – that moral life is itself a continuation of creation.

The choices we make have a huge impact on reality; they can either sustain or diminish the divine light in the world.

While this is an immense responsibility, it is also a sign of God’s profound faith in us – that we can live up to our calling as creators of goodness.

So when we look at another person with respect and treat them with dignity, we a rm that divine image and become partners in God’s ongoing creation.

Our hope must be that this moment of return and peace becomes not only an emotional milestone, but a practical one: a renewed understanding of the value of every human being, and a commitment to treat each person as an equal bearer of God’s image.

In doing so, we live the message of Bereishit – that we are not only created, but continuously called to create: goodness, justice, compassion –every day anew.

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Alon Ohel returned home

Progressive Judaism

LEAP OF FAITH

BY RABBI MARK GOLDSMITH EDGWARE AND HENDON REFORM SYNAGOGUE

When I trained to be a rabbi at Leo Baeck College, we would gather for Shacharit, the morning prayers, in the college’s room of prayer. Out of the windows, across the beautiful grounds of the Sternberg Centre for Judaism, we would have in our eyeline the word zachor , remember, carved at the top of the sculpture by Shoah survivor Roman Halter. We were to be the rabbis of the future, full of optimism and hope for the Jewish future, but it was our duty to remember the past.

Remembering is an essential aspect of Judaism. We build for our next generations, contributing to a better world as God’s partners. We are supported, shaped and given our sense of purpose by the memories of the past. We remember the Exodus from Egypt,

we remember our exile in Babylonia, we remember the Shoah.

Now we have another task to remember. Along with the joy of the return of the hostages from Gaza, along with the relief that our brothers and sisters in Israel will have respite from rockets and sirens and that the people of Gaza now have the chance to rebuild in peace after such an awful two years, we must remember 7 October 2023. The day marked a rupture in the soul of our communities. A moment of the deepest loss that reverberated across Israel and Jewish people worldwide.

At Edgware and Hendon Reform Synagogue, we knew we had to respond not just with grief, but with something lasting. Something that would speak to future generations about what happened, and how we held each other through it. We are remembering by

having dedicated a memorial sculpture in the garden of our synagogue, created by sculptor and synagogue member Josette Aitman Perlo . It is a tree of life, struggling to bud again, draped with the yellow ribbons which called the hostages home and with a dove of peace resting on its branches. It is surrounded by the detritus of the attacks: objects, names of people and devastated kibbutzim but also with calaniot, the red anemone ﬂowers that bloom through the horror.

Some of the objects will elicit questions in future years. We will then tell our future generations about the vulnerability of our Jewish state and indeed of our lives as Jews.

But we will do so with the understanding that it is for us to grow from our memory, to try to build peace, to try to build a positive future for Israelis and Palestinians, to try to ensure that the legacy of those who died in the 7 October attacks and in Gaza will be a safer Israel and care for the recovery of the hostages who experienced the trauma of two years in captivity.

•

Josette Aitman Perloff’s memorial sculpture

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