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VOICE OF THE COMMUNITY 15 January 2025 • 26 Tevet 5786 • Issue No.1454 •
@JewishNewsUK
‘Free, free ...IRAN!’
(Er… anyone?)
TUMBLEWEED STAMPEDE
One of around 40 ‘pro-Palestine’ protests that have taken over central London since the Hamas terror attack on Israel in October 2023
Westminster Bridge deserted in the wake of the slaughter of thousands of Iranians in the brutal crackdown by Ayatollah Khamenei
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Jewish News 15 January 2026
News / Iran uprising / Envoy summoned
Iran threatens to strike Israel if US intervenes Iran has threatened to attack Israel and US military assets if Washington intervenes in the country’s escalating crisis, as Tehran faces mounting international pressure over its deadly crackdown on nationwide protests, writes Annabel Sinclair. Senior Iranian figures linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) warned any American military action would trigger retaliation against “occupied territories” and US bases in the region, raising fears of a wider regional conflict. Downing Street this week played down the prospect of designating the IRGC a terrorist organisation. No 10 condemned the brutal suppression of anti-government protests in Iran but pointed to comments by the former head of MI6 who suggested a ban would have “no practical effect”. More than 2,500 people are now believed to have been killed and more than 18,000 detained in the uprising against supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s rule, prompting renewed calls for ministers to proscribe the IRGC. Asked whether the UK government would ban the Iranian military branch, the prime minister’s official spokesman said designation was reserved for domestic terror groups and not foreign state bodies. “I’ve set out our position separate to Sir Richard Moore’s position, but I think it’s helpful to point back to his words too,” the spokesman said. Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Sir Richard, who served as the chief of the Secret Intelligence
A protester in Iran lights a cigrette from a burning portrait of supreme leader Ali Khameini
Service from 2020 to 2025, suggested the move would be largely symbolic. “The danger is that something like that is mostly about us feeling better about ourselves, it’s not actually something that will have an impact on IRGC precisely because you know that instrument is designed for nonstate terror groups, not for parts of the state like the IRGC,” he said. Trade secretary Peter Kyle said proscribing the group would not be “appropriate” under existing domestic legislation but ministers were committed to supporting the Iran’s citizens as they faced a government crackdown. He said the UK had already used sanctions against Iran “to the full
extent we can” and Sir Keir Starmer was working with partners to see “how we can bring international pressure to bear” on Iran’s leaders. “It is no question and I don’t think anybody would question the fact that this government cares very deeply about civilians and people in Iran. We will do everything we can, but when we use domestic legislation, we need to make sure that it’s an appropriate use of it,” he told Times Radio. Asked whether Britain would support the US if it struck Iran, Kyle told Sky News: “Well, there’s a lot of ifs in the question itself, so we have to see how this unfolds. We need to understand specifically what Donald Trump and America are proposing.”
He said: “The people of Iran should get the government they choose and the government of Iran should not, in any way, be cracking down in a murderous way which we’ve seen so far”. Kyle added: “This is about us supporting people of Iran in their time of need so that the people of Iran can have their voices heard and be the masters of their own destiny.” President Trump said on Sunday “Iran wants to negotiate” after he threatened action, but did not rule out a response. “I think they’re tired of being beat up by the US,” he told reporters. Iran had proposed negotiations and his administration was in talks about a meeting.
FURIOUS COOPER SUMMONS ENVOY Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper summoned the Iranian ambassador on Tuesday over the crackdown on protests, as she announced new sanctions on the regime. Cooper told the Commons reports on the violence by the Iranian government against protesters in recent weeks might not reflect the severity of the situation, and could be far worse. President Trump encouraged Iranians to continue protesting in a post on his Truth Social platform, claiming, “HELP IS ON ITS WAY”. Responding on X, Ali Larijani, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei wrote: “We announce the names of the main murderers of the Iranian people: 1 - Trump 2 - Netanyahu.” Cooper said she had told Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi on Monday of the UK’s “total abhorrence of the killings, the violence and the repression”. The ambassador was summoned as she wanted answers on the “horrific reports” and to “underline the gravity of the moment”. Conservative shadow foreign secretary Priti Patel asked why the ambassador had not been summoned sooner, and asked for further details on the sanctions. She said: “They have been met with the most bloody repression. A total internet shutdown ... from January 8, along with restrictions on phone communications, means that the full facts are not yet clear. “But I am fearful that the reports that we have seen may underestimate the full scale of the horror as further evidence and testimony reaches the outside world.”
Iran is counting on the world looking away BY JONATHAN HAROUNOFF
ISRAEL’S INTERNATIONAL SPOKESPERSON AT THE UNITED NATIONS Iran is convulsing in protest. After a disconcerting delay in media attention, much of the world is watching again as courageous Iranians defy internet blackouts and deadly crackdowns in yet another fight for freedom. The astonishing images of defiance are already seared into our consciousness – the lone man, head bowed and legs crossed in the street blocking a convoy of regime forces on motorcycles; young women, hair uncovered, lighting cigarettes from burning photos of supreme leader Ali Khamenei. And the elderly woman, bloodied after a projectile struck her in the face, marching
forward and shouting “I’m not afraid! I’m not afraid! I’ve been dying for 47 years already.” This is not the first time Iranians have revolted against the Islamic Republic, or the first time hopes have surged that the regime might finally crack. From the 2009 Green Movement to the 2017-2019 economic protests and the 2022-2023 “Woman, Life, Freedom” uprising sparked by the killing of Mahsa Jina Amini, Iranians have taken to the streets demanding freedom from tyranny. Each time, the world watched. Until it didn’t. Until attention drifted. Until Iran, and its people, were quietly relegated back to the geopolitical background noise. In the years I spent speaking to Iranians inside Iran and across the diaspora while researching and writing Unveiled: Inside Iran’s #WomanLifeFreedom Revolt, it became painfully clear the Islamic Republic has survived not because it enjoys broad-based support and legitimacy but because it has perfected its
repression machine and because it has learned it can often act with impunity once fatigue kicks in and the world looks away. The Woman, Life, Freedom uprising marked a profound rupture in Iranian society; not simply a protest against compulsory hijab laws or a single atrocity but a direct challenge to the ideological foundations of the Islamic Republic itself. Women led it. The youth sustained it and disseminated its message across cyberspace. Slogans moved beyond reform to a rejection of clerical rule, of imposed quasimorality and violence as a governing tool. What we are witnessing now is not the return of that uprising, but its continuation. Despite mass arrests, executions, forced confessions, schoolgirl poisonings and relentless surveillance, the regime has failed to restore the pre-2022 status quo. Acts of everyday resistance, including unveiled women in public spaces, students confronting authorities, workers striking,
families publicly mourning executed loved ones, have become normalised forms of dissent. This is precisely what terrifies the Islamic Republic most: not a single explosive moment, but sustained, society-wide refusal that becomes impossible to contain. Yet history shows that moments like this are fragile. Time and again, international attention has faded just as pressure mattered most. Vague and elusive diplomatic engagements loomed. Executions spiked quietly. Protesters vanished into prisons. The regime learned a dangerous lesson: wait it out. That lesson cannot be reinforced again. The protests unfolding today come at a moment of acute vulnerability for a regime that is economically strained, weakened militarily and increasingly reliant on brute force rather than consent. It is an historic juncture. Iran’s future will be shaped by whether its people are supported and remembered, or abandoned.
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15 January 2026 Jewish News
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Maccabi aftermath / Hate definition / Haaretz row / Starmer tipped / News
‘No confidence’ in West Midlands Police chief Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood has said West Midlands Police chief constable Craig Guildford “no longer has my confidence” after a damning report into the force’s decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from a match against Aston Villa, writes Lee Harpin. A review by a policing watchdog into West Midlands Police sent to the Home Office is “damning” and shows “confirmation bias” over the decision to ban Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending a match against Aston Villa in Birmingham, the home secretary has told MPs. The force (WMP) “failed to consult representatives of the local Jewish community early enough” when it was considering banning Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the team’s game with Aston Villa, the police watchdog said. Police “overstated” the level of disorder at a previous fixture involving Maccabi Tel Aviv in Amsterdam and the extent to which Israeli fans were responsible for it, the watchdog also found. In his letter to Mahmood, HM chief inspector of constabulary Sir Andy Cooke wrote: “Well before WMP prepared its written report to the Sag (Safety Advisory Group), it consulted regional and national representatives of the Jewish community through the Community Security Trust (CST). “But the force failed to consult representatives of the local Jewish community early enough, despite
Craig Guildford “no longer has the confidence” of the home secretary
being warned by a CST representative that he did not speak on behalf of the local community. “In fact, by the time the force did consult locally, it had already recommended to the Sag that the ticket allocation for away fans be reduced to zero.” His letter later added: “WMP told us that its contact with members of the local Jewish community was limited out of respect for a number of high holy days in the weeks prior to 16 October 2025. “I don’t accept this; I believe that the force missed opportunities, both before and during these religiously significant periods, to
effectively engage with members of the local Jewish community.” Sir Andy found eight “inaccuracies” in a report from the force to Birmingham’s Safety Advisory Group, including reference to a non-existent game between Tel Aviv and West Ham, found to be an “AI hallucination” produced by Microsoft Copilot. Other inaccuracies included overstating the number of Dutch police officers deployed during the match, claims fans were linked to the Israeli Defence Forces, claims Muslim communities had been intentionally targeted by Tel Aviv fans and reports
of multiple Dutch police officers being injured in the disorder. Among further concerns, Sir Andy highlighted “shortcomings” in the force’s command structure, poor record-keeping – including of a meeting with Dutch police – and an “imbalance in communications” in what informed the police recommendation. The police “focused on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans’ behaviour as the basis for the restriction on away fans”, when there were other factors they should have communicated better, including “wider concerns about public safety and protest”. Mahmood told MPs “failure of leadership” had “harmed the reputation and eroded public confidence in West Midlands Police and policing more broadly”. In an astonishing intervention, pro-Gaza independent MP Ayoub Khan claimed the report was “a witch-hunt” and he chief inspector was being “thrown under a bus”. He was shouted down by MPs. Mahmood has said she is not able to dismiss Guildford herself, because that power lies with the police and crime commissioner. However, she vowed to reintroduce the power of home secretaries to be able to dismiss chief constables “in light of significant or persistent failings”. “I do not expect this power to be used often, but I think it must be available at those rare moments when it is warranted.”
Demonising Israelis ‘a hate crime’ The demonisation of Israelis is a “vehicle for hatred of Jews” and should be recognised as a breach of the Public Order Act of 1986, UK independent reviewer of terrorism legislation Jonathan Hall has said, writes Lee Harpin. The KC also criticised police for failing to clamp down on the targeting of “Israeli citizens as well as Jews living among them” and instead prioritised maintaining public order. Hall made his remarks in a speech at a Policy Exchange event in London, beginning by saying he was going to read Section 17 of the 1986 Act which defines racial hatred, adding: “And I am going to do this slowly.” He went on: “In this Part ‘racial hatred’ means hatred against a group of persons defined by reference to colour, race, nationality (including citizenship) or ethnic or national origins.” “The demonisation of Israelis matters because it is a vehicle for hatred of Jews. “My perception is that if you don’t deal with anti-Israeli hatred, you leave wriggle room for those who indulge in antisemitism but formally disavow it. Once hatred to Israelis is tolerated, then it is carried around like a flame.”
Referencing protests outside Israeli-owned businesses in London, Australia and the US, the KC said there was a “palpable” national security risk when police prioritised maintaining public order over applying the law. He noted pro-Palestinian protests where chants such as “death to the IDF” or “globalise the intifada” went unchallenged by police. Hall added: “In Australia, a restaurant with Israeli ownership was attacked by protesters shouting ‘Death to the IDF’.” Hall, who backed listing Palestine Action as a proscribed terrorist group, said for some people all Israeli lives are “illegitimate”. His comments come as Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch urged the police to stop “incitement to violence against Jews” after an Israeli restaurant in London was targeted when around 50 demonstrators again gathered outside Miznon in Notting Hill last Friday. Badenoch posted on X: “We saw the police stand by as protesters called for ‘armed resistance … by any means’ outside an Israeli restaurant in Notting Hill. “Yet another example of harassment and
Masked men protest against Israel
incitement to violence against Jews and lawabiding people on our streets.” Meanwhile, communities secretary Steve Reed when asked about the pro-Palestine protests outside Miznon said it was horrific anybody would think “that was a way that they could behave in this country”, adding: “Blatant, outright racism is what it is.” u Met chief defends demo policing, p9
HAARETZ ANALYST IN CASH ROW A senior political analyst at Haaretz was secretly paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in funds that investigators claim can be traced back to Qatar – plunging Israel’s most prominent leftleaning newspaper into the expanding Qatargate Alon Pinkas scandal for the second time in less than a year. The analyst, Alon Pinkas, a former Israeli consul in New York, allegedly received the payments via Gil Birger, a businessman questioned by police over suspected financial transfers between Qatar and aides close to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. According to Haaretz, Birger served as a conduit for money originating from Jay Footlik, a US-based pro-Qatar lobbyist. The alleged influence operation centres on claims Netanyahu’s aides accepted Qatari money to promote favourable coverage of Doha while Qatar was acting as a mediator in negotiations between Israel and Hamas for the release of hostages abducted during the 7 October 2023 massacre. Channel 12 previously reported Footlik had approached several media consultants connected to hostage families. Pinkas later acknowledged he contacted Ronen Tzur, head of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, on Footlik’s behalf.
STARMER TIPPED FOR GAZA ROLE Sir Keir Starmer may to join a US-led board that would take control of Gaza and oversee its reconstruction as part of US president Donald Trump’s plan to end the Israel-Hamas war. The Board of Peace for Gaza forms part of a 20-point White House blueprint for the enclave’s future and is expected to be made up of senior world leaders. It would administer Gaza temporarily, manage rebuilding efforts and shape the territory’s political future after the fighting stops. UK diplomats are seeking further clarification from Washington on what role any British prime minister would play, amid concern about how much authority the body would wield and how it would be viewed in the Middle East. The invitation to Starmer to join the panel was first reported by The Sunday Times, though government sources told the BBC no formal approach has yet been made and no decision has been taken. US media reports suggest Trump planned to announce the board’s members this week. Former prime minister Sir Tony Blair is expected to sit on a separate executive board alongside Trump’s advisers Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. The US said in September Blair would be involved in the Gaza initiative, with the former Labour leader calling the plan “the best chance of ending two years of war, misery and suffering”.
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Jewish News 15 January 2026
News / School scandal / JLM debates
Pupils ‘told to wear keffiyehs’ to oppose Jewish MP’s school visit A Jewish Labour MP’s planned careers talk at a Bristol school was cancelled after a National Education Union (NEU) teaching staff rep “sparked a flurry of organising” for an anti-Israel protest over the visit, it has emerged, writes Lee Harpin. Bristol North East MP Damian Egan had been scheduled to speak to pupils at Bristol Brunel Academy last September about UK democracy and the role of MPs. Egan is a former student of Cabot Learning Federation, the multi-academy trust of which Bristol Brunel is part. However, the event was called off by school leaders after staff learned of plans for a protest led by NEU members and pro-Palestine activists opposing Egan’s support for Israel. New details have emerged over the involvement of NEU members in the backlash to the Jewish MP’s visit, including calls for teachers to “do with students” and “a plan for people to wear keffiyehs for the day of the visit”. Asked for the prime minister’s response, Downing Street said: “Clearly questions need to be answered. The law is clear. Schools must be impartial and free expression is a fundamental value in this
Labour MP Damian Egan with husband Yossi Felberbaum
country. “We cannot have a society where intolerance is accepted practice and those holding opposing views are barred or banned from certain environments, particularly our schools, which are shaping young minds and teaching them how to
behave in the world.” A report by the online news site Bristol Cable last November said the NEU teaching staff representative played a central role in mobilising opposition. The report stated: “NEU members in the Cabot Learning
Federation successfully blocked Labour MP Damian Egan, vice chair of Labour Friends of Israel, from speaking at Bristol Brunel Academy due to his stance on Palestine Action and Israel sanctions. “An NEU member Communities secretary Steve Reed discusses at a CLF school told the case with Jewish News’ Justin Cohen the Cable how, in September, the union rep at BBA “We opted to postpone Mr posted about Egan’s visit in a Egan’s visit to ensure everyone WhatsApp group, sparking a flurry would continue to feel safe when of organising. ” entering and exiting school and to It continued: “Michaela Wilde, prevent any disruption to our stua pastoral support worker at City dents’ learning. Academy, recalls staff mobilising “We have remained in contact fast: ‘[We had been] talking about with Mr Egan, and an alternative things like people wearing keffiyehs date for his visit was arranged some to work that day … and the work that time ago. members could do with students in Since winning his seat at the last preparation for that visit.’ election, Egan has been targeted The school suggested on Sunday repeatedly by anti-Israel activists. the decision to postpone was made He has spoken out in support of after learning of the protest plans, the Jewish state during parliamenstating: “Mr Egan was due to discuss tary debates. democracy and the role of an MP, Under the leadership of general while helping to raise aspirations secretary Daniel Kebede, the NEU among students who may have an has taken an increasingly hardline interest in pursuing similar careers. anti-Israel stance.
HERMER: NO PLACE FOR Keep faith in the UK, FALCONER URGES ANTISEMITISM IN LABOUR minister tells Jews UK-ISRAEL RESET Lord Hermer has spoken itism nor fight it unless you candidly about experiare also fighting all other encing antisemitism and forms of prejudice and his belief “this poison” discrimination. can be effectively chal“And so for me as a lenged only by standing young person,” he conshoulder to shoulder with tinued, “when I kind of communities impacted by first became politically forms of racism and prejuLord Richard active, which was in my dice, writes Lee Harpin. Hermer mid-teens, and that was In conversation with author and through apartheid, I became pasjournalist Tom Baldwin at the JLM sionate about involvement in the conference, the attorney general also anti-apartheid movement, motivated launched a staunch defence of his by being really engaged in Jewish friend Keir Starmer, confidently pre- youth movements.” dicting “he’ll be our prime minister, Reflecting on his time with the leading us into the next election”. Union of Jewish Students and the The human rights barrister also National Union of Students, Hermer addressed concerns about the UK’s said “there was a major problem with position in relation to the European left-wing antisemitism”. He added: Court of Human Rights and Council “We obviously had a huge problem of Europe, insisting it would be a “dis- under Jeremy Corbyn”, but said of aster for this country” to leave. Starmer “he had made this one of his Hermer also acknowledged, defining projects when he became “there are lots of unique elements to leader of the party … and within a antisemitism that separate it from short space of time, he had turned our other forms of prejudice and racism”, party around”. citing historian Ralph Hilberg, but “No place, no quarter for antisemstressed: “You can identify parts of itism,” Hermer stated proudly. it that are unique, but it has always “That’s something that Keir been absolutely core to me ... that you believes in passionately, and he has cannot either understand antisem- set about it methodically to change.”
Finchley and Golders Green MP Sarah Sackman says she “cannot share the view” British Jews should leave the UK, despite antisemitism and attacks. In a powerful and often personal address at the JLM conference, the courts minister acknowledged constituents tell her they want to leave the UK. “I empathise ... but I cannot share that view.” Sackman though, did not downplay the threat facing the community as she spoke alongside Jewish Labour Movement chair Ella Rose-Jacobs. Offering a behindthe-scenes perspective, Sackman explained how
Sarah Sackman
the government responded to the Manchester synagogue attack, saying she hoped it illuminated not only the gravity of the moment but also the hope and strength she saw. She praised the resilience of the Jewish community and the support from the police, political leaders, and neighbours. Quoting Leonard Cohen, she said: “There’s a crack in everything, but that’s how the light gets in.” Looking to the future, she affirmed her faith in British society, saying: “The Britain I know is full of tolerant, decent, lawabiding people. People who love their neighbours, who abhor antisemitism, and who stand with our Jewish community – a moderate majority that outnumbers the small, extremist antisemitic minority. “It is time for that majority to stand with us and unite against hate.”
The UK “does not want a bad relationship with Israel,” Middle East minister Hamish Falconer told the JLM conference. “It’s a real source of pain to me too, that the relationship between the Israeli government and the British government has become as fractious as it has,” he said. However, it was “too early” to speculate about the UK restarting trade talks with Israel, noting the next Israeli election could be a decisive factor. In conversation with new Labour Friends of Israel parliamentary chair Mark Sewards, Falconer spoke of the breakdown of relations between the UK and Israeli governments. “We want a good relationship with Israel,” he said. “We are long-standing allies. It is a source of real pain to me personally, the degree to which there has been an inability on our
Hamish Falconer
part to secure the outcomes that we want.” He attributed the tensions to policy differences, particularly over settlements and the conduct of the war in Gaza. “That’s not a deliberate or welcome development,” he added. “I would much prefer to have a much closer relationship with the Israeli government.” Falconer referred to a recent hint that UK-Israel trade talks suspended last year by the UK could resume following the uneasy ceasefire in Gaza but urged caution, suggesting “things might be considered again” after the coming Israel elections.
15 January 2026 Jewish News
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A LIFETIME OF
OLUNTEER I N G JVN AWAR
DS 2025
Lifetime Achievement Award Clive Boxer
Susan Malins
Maureen Solomons
Lisa Silverbeck
Ajex
Chai Cancer Care
Jewish Care Scotland
Kisharon Langdon
Howard Brecker
Ian Cohen
All Aboard Shops
Coventry Jewish Reform Synagogue
Sandy Weinbaum
Sheila Gewolb
Caroline Ratner
Debbie Slyper z”l
Board of Deputies
Camille Compton
Pamela Livingston
Guilda Shamash
British Emunah
Meir Plancey Camp Simcha
Paul Solomon
Hilary Halter MBE
Sutton and District Synagogue
JLGB
Norwood
Rita Rogers
Selina Gellert
Veronica Kennard
Rae Ingleby
The British Friends of Zichron Menachem
Jack Matthews
WIZO
Alex Weiss
Frank Maxwell
The Liberal Jewish Synagogue
Royal Free Charity
JW3
United Synagogue
Eli Seliger
Hadassah UK Jewish Care
Susan Starr
Maccabi GB Nightingale Hammerson
Jewish Women’s Aid
GIFT
UJS
The S&P Sephardi Community
David Wolff
Jewish Family Centre
Adam Rose
Adam Musikant
World Jewish Relief
VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR Benjamin Suster
Myriam Feiner
Jonathan Kaye
AJEX - The Jewish Military Association
GIFT
Kisharon Langdon
Paul Weldon
Ana Broider
Paula Hammond
Dana Houri Jewish Women’s Aid
Jeremy Leighton British Emunah
Reverend Mark Madeley
ORT UK
Martin Jacobs Royal Free Charity
Michael Green The S&P Sephardi Community
Michael Romain The Liberal Jewish Synagogue
Gillian Gruder The Together Plan
Colin Bilkus
Helen Stone New Citizen’s Gateway
Jnetics
Norwood
Dr Simon Nadel
Malki Foundation UK
Jonathan Kaye
Michele Benn
Julie Sonnenthal
Wendy Pater
JLGB
EcoJudaism
Northwood & Ruislip United Synagogue
Magen David Adom UK
Alan Cohen
Jane Jacobs Chai Cancer Care
David Franklin
Lauderdale Road Synagogue – The S&P Sephardi Community
Jewish Care
AJR - The Association of Jewish Refugees
Howard Blumenthal Nightingale Hammerson
Resource
Naomi Greenaway Samuels WIZOuk
VOLUNTEER TEAM OF THE YEAR AJR – The Association of Jewish Refugees
AJR Scotland Volunteer Team BBYO
BBYO Shorashim Senior Tzevet Camp Simcha
Camp Simcha ‘TOP’ Volunteer Team Chai Cancer Care
Jewellery Workshop GIFT
Cuppa Kindness Team
Jewish Care
Goods for Good
JW3
Team Lewy Our Everyday Heros
The Pittals
Help 4 the Homeless (London & Home Counties)
Redbridge Hearing Aid Maintenance Service
Food & Clothing Distribution Team
Jewish Deaf Association
HSFA Outstanding Volunteers
JWA University Ambassadors
Manchester Jewish Museum
Manchester Jewish Museum Volunteers
JLGB
Jewish Bereavement Counselling Service
Volunteer JBCS Counsellors
Kisharon Langdon
JLGB Winter Camp Team 2024/25
Mitzvah Day Charitable Trust All
JTeen
JTeen Level 2 Volunteer Counsellors
Mitzvah Day Coordinators
Nightingale Hammerson
UJIA
Northwood & Ruislip United Synagogue
United Synagogue
Singing Group, Hammerson House
Friday Night Dinner Team
Jewish Women’s Aid
HSFA (Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association)
Family volunteers of the year! Jacob & Doreen
NRUS School Visits Engagement Team Norwood
School Ambassador Team The S&P Sephardi Community
Israel Tour Madrichim 2025 US Inclusion Leads Volunteers on Wheels
Barnet Road Maintenance team for Tarmac Kier Joint Venture (TKJV)
Vestment Committee
Wellspring
The Liberal Jewish Synagogue
WIZOuk
The Bereavement Support Group
Wellspring Trustees WIZOuk Young Patrons and Professionals
Young Adult Volunteer of the Year Saghar Mozafar All Aboard Charity Shops
Natasha Seitler Chai Cancer Care
Isaac Leigh
Lara Isaacs
Natasha Lush
Alexander Rogoff
GIFT
Jewish Women’s Aid
Kisharon Langdon
Project ImpACT
Adam Gross
Sam Steinberg
Katheleen Araujo
Ben Morganstein
Nightingale Hammerson
Tribe UK
Jewish Care – Jami
JLGB
OUTSTANDING AWARD WINNERS VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR
VOLUNTEER TEAM OF THE YEAR
Young Adult Volunteer of the Year
New Citizen’s Gateway
Manchester Jewish Museum
Kisharon Langdon
Helen Stone
Manchester Jewish Museum Volunteers
Natasha Lush
UJIA
If you would like to volunteer for one of these or many other charities that we work with, visit www.jvn.org.uk
Israel Tour Madrichim 2025 Charity no. 1130719
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Jewish News 15 January 2025
News / JVN Awards / Jewish Child’s Day
JVN Awards honour our ‘most beautiful people’ A 90-year-old ‘professional volunteer’, a young adult with additional needs, and the daughter of a Jewish refugee were celebrated as the “most beautiful people in the community”, writes Adam Decker. Addressing the annual Jewish Volunteering Network (JVN) Awards, held at the glitzy Grove Hotel in Hertfordshire, Daniel Levy, JVN president added: “You are the doers in the community, the people who make things happen. You exemplify Tikkun Olam, of making this world a better place.” Well-wishers included His Majesty King Charles III, who thanked volunteers for all their work in the community. In a written statement, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer shared his “personal gratitude” to the award winners as well as JVN, who “work tirelessly to bring volunteers and charities together”. Awards included Volunteer of the Year, Volunteer Team of the Year and Young Adult Volunteer of the Year, with Jewish News being the media partner to the event. Each award was given to dozens of individuals representing a multitude of the nation’s 2,500 communal charities. Special mention was afforded to 90-yearold Rosalind Preston OBE, a self-professed ‘professional volunteer’ for over seven decades. Among her numerous roles, Rosalind has served as a Trustee of the JCTrust; Presi-
JVN’s life president Rosalind Preston
Dame Maureen Lipman was guest speaker
JVN president Daniel Levy told awardees they were “the doers in the community”
dent of the National Council of Women GB; Co-chair of the Inter Faith Network, and a former Chair of Nightingale/Hammerson. Preston, the current JVN Life President told Jewish News: “If you want to be a volunteer, my advice is to find something you really care about. The community and the civil society we live in cannot function without volunteers. “By volunteering you are seen as a Jewish person contributing to society which is critical at the present time. There is much more respect now for volunteers than ever before, which is fantastic to see.” Receiving the Outstanding Volunteer of the Year Award, Helen Stone, who has volunteered at New Citizen’s Gateway for over 12 years, was praised for “inspiring and empowering refugees through her creative, supportive approach”. She said: “I’m astonished and overwhelmed by this recognition. I didn’t think anything I did was out of the ordinary or special. “My mother was a refugee from Germany in 1939 and everything I do is motivated by that family history.” The Outstanding Young Adult Volunteer Award was won by Natasha Lush from Kisharon Langdon with the judging panel highlighting her “warmth, positivity and care for others”.
Her mother commended Natasha for “never letting challenges in life stop her” during an emotional address. Natasha was praised for producing hundreds of easy-read keyrings, which have made communication accessible and inclusive for autistic people and those with learning disabilities. The Awards also saw the launch of JVN’s ‘The Living Archive’, an evolving, multimedia installation that honours and preserves the stories of communal volunteering for generations to come. The inaugural installation celebrated JVN’s Lifetime Achievement Volunteer winners. One recipient of the award was Veronica Kennard, nominated for her efforts volunteering for over 20 years across education, community support and healthcare. She told Jewish News: “It was an honour to be among such an esteemed group of doers and givers, within the Jewish community and beyond. The ceremony was a particularly inspiring event, recognising both the volunteers and the charities they volunteer for but, more importantly, the value and importance of volunteering itself. “I want to thank the Royal Free Hospital for giving me the opportunity to help
Helen Stone: “inspiring and empowering”
others, and JVN for their support of those who want to do so.” The Outstanding Volunteer Team of the Year was jointly won by UJIA’s Israel Tour Madrichim 2025, who “progressed with hope and courage” during a highly turbulent year, and the Manchester Jewish Museum’s volunteers, who were praised for their “commitment, adaptability and teamwork” in delivering over 11,000 hours of annual volunteering. JVN chief executive Nicky Goldman said: “The atmosphere was wholehearted and supportive, cheering those who give so much to others. We were delighted to celebrate our life president, Ros Preston, for her lifetime of volunteering and 90th birthday.”
JEWISH CHILD’S DAY TO SHUT AFTER 78 YEARS by Michelle Rosenberg michelle@jewishnews.co.uk
A UK Jewish children’s charity founded in the aftermath of the Second World War is to close its staffed operations after nearly eight decades, with its work to be taken over by UJIA. Jewish Child’s Day (JCD) will move from an active, staffed charity into a permanent grant-giving fund from next month, closing its office, events and fundraising campaigns but continuing to distribute money to Jewish children in need. The organisation said the change was designed to “safeguard its mission for generations to come”, with the new Jewish Child’s Day Fund to be administered by UJIA under the oversight of a joint grant committee
drawn from both organisations. Since its first appeal in 1947, JCD has focused on supporting vulnerable Jewish children in the UK, Europe, and Israel. In the past decade it has made more than £8m in grants to more than 180 organisations, funding projects ranging from special educational needs provision in Britain to trauma and resilience programmes for Israeli children after 7 October. Chairman Charles Spungin said the move would allow more money to reach beneficiaries. “Jewish Child’s Day has made a huge impact since our founding, and this new chapter will ensure that all of our donations can reach the projects we support. We are delighted to be working with UJIA. Under this pragmatic collaboration, our donors can be confident that
Poster from Jewish Child’s Day archive
we can maximise our impact in supporting the most vulnerable of our community.” Spungin said the charity’s emotional place in British Jewish life had been a factor in the decision to change rather than close outright. “For generations, Jewish Child’s Day
has been woven into the emotional fabric of British Jewish philanthropy. It taught philanthropy before philanthropy had a name.” Spungin added that the shift away from a staffed charity was a deliberate move to ensure long-term sustainability. “After nearly 80 years of impact, Jewish Child’s Day has chosen to step away from being a staffed charity and instead become a lean, dedicated grant-giving fund. The message is stark: sentiment alone is not a strategy.” UJIA chair Zvi Noé said the new arrangement fitted its own aims. “The establishment of the Jewish Child’s Day Fund under UJIA’s management aligns closely with our mission and vision to empower young people in the UK and Israel… to ensure we maximise philanthropic funds and support a thriving diaspora.”
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News / Hamas critic / Grok fury / Booth scrutiny
Gaza activist to speak at Jewish News debate by Annabel Sinclair annabel@jewishnews.co.uk A Gaza-born writer and activist who has emerged as one of the most prominent critics of Hamas from within Palestinian society will address a major Jewish-led event in London next week, in an event organisers say reflects growing communal support for democracy and political change. Gaza-born Ahmed Fouad AlKhatib will speak in north-west London on Sunday in conversation with Sunday Times associate editor Josh Glancy, followed by a public Q&A. The event, titled Seek Peace and Pursue It, is being organised by We Democracy in col-
laboration with Jewish News and a coalition of Jewish and Israeli communal organisations. AlKhatib is known for his rejection of both Hamas rule and Israel’s current political leadership, arguing Hamas’s ideology, governance and the use of violence have inflicted profound harm on Palestinian society and undermined the Palestinian national cause, while also condemning Israel’s military campaign and the policies of its far-right government. The evening, with an introduction from Movement for Progressive Judaism co-lead Rabbi Charley Baginsky, follows a rally last year to mark 30 years since the assassination of Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, whose commitment to peace and democracy
they say stands in sharp contrast to Israel’s current political direction. Supporters include leaders from Masorti Judaism, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Union of Jewish Students, JW3 and the Movement for Progressive Judaism. Organisers say the gathering reflects a desire within the Jewish community to support Israel while also speaking openly about the need for democratic values. Ahead of the event, AlKhatib said: “It’s so important to be exposed to a variety of points of view, including those that make you feel uncomfortable, so I’m delighted to be coming to London to share my message of holding complex, multiple truths, humanising the
X UNDER FIRE OVER GABLE Vulgar deepfake images of the late anti-fascist campaigner Gerry Gable standing outside the gates of Auschwitz in a bikini adorned with Nazi swastikas have been circulated on Elon Musk’s controversial artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot Grok.
Details emerged following confirmation of Gable’s death on 3 January at the age of 88. The disturbing images have been shown to Jewish News. They were generated within minutes by Grok shortly after the death of Gable, the renowned
editor of the influential Searchlight magazine. Publication of the images and other openly antisemitic pictures has intensified calls for Musk to take action to prevent the creation and dissemination of unlawful content on X.
Lauren Booth, the sister-in-law of former prime minister Sir Tony Blair, could face scrutiny under UK terrorism legislation after describing the Hamas-led 7 October attacks as a “legendary day”, UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) has warned. Booth, who converted to Islam and now lives in Turkey, made the remarks
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during an interview with Turkish newspaper Yeni Safak. Footage of the interview surfaced, prompting outrage. Booth describes 7 October as “a legendary day in the Ummah’s [Muslim community’s] history” and claiming “only Allah knows” how many “millions” would pick up the Quran in the wake of the attacks.
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ongoing suffering of the Palestinian people of Gaza, while also holding space for the hardships that many in the Jewish diaspora community have faced since 7 October.” The event is being presented as part of a wider effort to mobilise what organisers describe as a silent majority of British Jews who reject both Hamas extremism and hardline Israeli policies and who believe meaningful peace will require dialogue, moral clarity and political courage.
Booth praise for Hamas
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Teacher scandal / Restaurant demo / News
Inquiry ordered over pro-Hamas teacher Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson has ordered an urgent review into the “unacceptable” decision to allow a teacher who praised Hamas to remain in the profession, stating: “Nobody who glorifies a terrorist organisation should be teaching children,” writes Lee Harpin. Ronan Preston, a Year 9 tutor at Ursuline High School in Wimbledon, described the 7 October attacks on Israel as a “justified act of resistance” and called for “glory to Hamas” in social media posts. He also described the Hamas terrorists as “defenders of humanity”, writing: “May God grand [sic] them victory in their homeland over the grotesque, barbaric, idol worshipping invaders.” Following widespread communal anger over the Teaching Regulation Agency’s decision not to ban Preston, Phillipson confirmed to Jewish News she has “asked the permanent secretary to carry out an urgent review of the TRA’s processes”. In particular, she asked for an overview of the body’s “framework of delegations, thresholds and mitigations related to a decision to prohibit a teacher when a finding of unacceptable professional conduct has been made.”
Bridget Phillipson, above, and, inset, Ronan Preston Preston was suspended and reported to police over his posts, made between January and April 2024, before being dismissed. After losing his job, Preston, also known as Ronan Preastuin, returned to Ireland to work as a substitute teacher. Although Preston was referred to a misconduct panel and found to have committed “unacceptable professional conduct,” he was spared a ban. The Teaching Regulation Agency con-
cluded that publishing its findings was sufficient punishment, a decision that sparked further anger. Preston told the TRA he was “remorseful” and claimed the “highly offensive” posts were “a mistake” that had left him “mortified” and “ashamed”. He said he “wished to apologise unreservedly to the Jewish community”. Panel chairman Adnan Qureshi said: “He [Mr Preston] stated that at the relevant time he had become ‘rather consumed’ with the events in Israel and Palestine and that he had ‘struggled to look beyond the scenes being portrayed’.” But Phillipson told Jewish News: “Nobody who glorifies a terrorist organisation should be teaching children. It’s clearly unacceptable. “Individual decisions by the Teaching Regulation Agency are taken at arm’s length from ministers but I have asked the permanent secretary to carry out an urgent review of the TRA’s processes and in particular, the framework of delegations, thresholds and mitigations related to a decision to prohibit a teacher when a finding of unacceptable professional conduct has been made”. Phillipson was among the speakers at last Sunday’s Jewish Labour Movement conference.
MET CHIEF DEFENDS POLICING OF DEMO AT RESTAURANT Met Police commissioner Sir Mark Rowley has defended the force’s handling of a demonstration outside an Israeli-owned restaurant in Notting Hill, writes Adam Decker. The Met has been accused of standing by while dozens of pro-Palestine protesters calling themselves the “International Jewish AntiZionist Network” gathered outside the business, Miznon, on Friday. The Met said officers were deployed to manage the demonstration and ensure both the right to protest and public order. Rowley told LBC on Monday: “I do take very seriously how Jews in London feel and how the behaviour of protesters influences that. We are taking those issues very, very seriously.” He also stressed to LBC host Nick Ferrari the scale of policing operations, telling listeners: “We are putting more resources into policing protests than ever before” and insisting police officers were balancing the right to lawful demonstration with protection of the wider community. Rowley’s comments come after social media footage showed protesters outside the restaurant chanting hate slogans. The Met said one man was arrested on suspicion of acts intended to stir up religious hatred and the protest disbanded shortly afterward. Officers were present as part of a plan to ensure people can exercise their right to protest peacefully while avoiding disruption to the public at large..
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Doctor tribunal / Shoah survivor News
Doc’s tribunal hearing for ‘antisemitic’ posts begins An NHS doctor who shared videos claiming “Zionists” were responsible for 9/11 and both world wars is currently having her case heard by the Medical Practitioner Tribunal Service, writes Joy Falk. The hearing into the conduct of Dr Najmiah Ahmad, a consultant working for the NHS’s Frimley Health foundation trust in Surrey, began this week. The MPTS indicated that “the tribunal will inquire into the allegation that, in or around December 2023 to January 2024, Dr Ahmad reposted two comments on social media, one of which included an image, which were objectively antisemitic, seriously offensive and motivated by racial or religious hostility and/or prejudice against Jews.” According to a report by the Daily Mail, the tribunal heard that Ahmad had shared social media posts regarding 9/11, one saying: “The Zionist owned-and-controlled mainstream media has suppressed this important story for
Dr Najmiah Ahmad
years. Are you surprised? 9/11 was an inside job, The Zionist ownedand-controlled US government was complicit.” A complaint about Ahmad’s conduct was received in February 2024 from the Jewish Medical Association (JMA). As revealed by the GnasherJew
social media account, other posts shared by Ahmad included a video saying that “in the exact same way as Zionists lit a fire in Germany to get the German Jews to go to Palestine, the Zionists are doing the exact same thing in the United States right now… the whole goal of World War I and World War II
was to create Israel and to destroy strong sovereign nations like Germany, Italy and Japan and create a one-world government.” Ahmad shared the video, writing “I’ve always wanted to know why Hitler was hellbent on killing.” Ahmad also shared a video on “The hidden history of the incredibly evil Khazarian mafia”, by two contributors to the Neo-Nazi ‘Veterans Today’ site, with the caption “for my own watching. Learning each day.” According to the Mail, Ahmad told the tribunal: “I don’t hate Jews”, and added: “It’s a foreign thing for me to learn about antisemitism. It’s not a southeast Asian thing to grow up learning about it. I had a steep learning curve. “At the time I reposted it I wanted to know what has Zionism got to with 9/11 – conspiracy or not conspiracy, I just wanted to know. I don’t support any of this.” The tribunal hearing is due to end this week.
JACOBSON JOINS MACCABI GB BOARD Maccabi GB has appointed former Wycombe Wanderers footballer and club captain Joe Jacobson as a trustee of the organisation, writes Michelle Rosenberg. As one of the most promiJoe nent Jewish players in the Jacobson modern English game, 39-year old Jacobson, who played for the club until 2024, has long spoken openly about identity, belonging, and the importance of creating inclusive environments within football. Since retiring from playing, Joe has moved into senior leadership and governance. He is currently co chief executive of Reading FC and is a member of the FA’s and Kick It Out’s Antisemitism working groups. Jonathan Prevezer, chair of Maccabi GB, said: “Joe brings a rare combination of elite sporting experience, modern football leadership, and deep personal understanding of Jewish identity and belonging. His credibility within the game will be a huge asset to Maccabi GB as we continue to grow our impact and ambition. We are delighted to welcome him to the board.” Joe Jacobson said: “It is a hugely proud moment for me to join the board of such an incredible and well established organisation.”
Traitors star sorry for Israel-Nazi posts he said: “I apologise for any offence The BBC faced further criticism this my comments may have caused. week after social media posts by It’s never been my intention to a contestant on The Traitors offend, marginalise or discrimiemerged in which he comnate against any individual or pared Israel to Nazi Germany, group. I refute any allegations prompting outrage from Jewish that I am antisemitic. My vieworganisations and fresh quespoint has always been from a tions over vetting standards. humanitarian perspective rather Marzook Bana, known as than a political one.” “Maz” on the prime-time reality Jewish groups said the language series, posted comments on Faceused echoed well-established antibook in 2021 likening an Israeli Marzook Bana semitic tropes, particularly Nazi checkpoint in the West Bank to the actions of the Nazis and accusing “Zionists” of comparisons and claims of covert Jewish influence over political leaders. forgetting the Holocaust. Studio Lambert, the production company Under an image appearing to show an Israeli checkpoint, Bana wrote: “Nazis all over again, behind The Traitors, said the comments were the oppressed have become the oppressors!! not uncovered during background checks. It The Zionists have short memories of what said: “We employ reputable companies to conHitler did. Never again, they said!! The world’s duct thorough background and social media political leaders should be ashamed of them- checks as part of our due diligence, which we take extremely seriously.” selves of being subservient to ISRAEL!” The company added: “The comments referIn the same thread, he later stated that “to criticise Israel’s behaviour towards the Pales- enced in the article were made on third-party accounts rather than the individual’s own, so tinian people is not antisemitic.” Further posts attributed to Bana accused could not be identified through our checking Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer of being posi- process. We wish to be clear that political views tioned to “annihilate the Labour Party” and play no part in participation, selection or decibowing to “his paymasters”. He later liked a sion-making within the game. And of course, reply identifying those “paymasters” as “the the content of The Traitors is not political.” The BBC said it had been unaware of the pro-Israeli lobby, the Board of Deputies and anyone else who finds the idea of Palestinians posts and rejected the views expressed, stating: “We were completely unaware that these comhaving human rights abhorrent”. Bana, a 59-year-old retired police officer ments had been posted on social media, due to from Preston and a father of five, was eliminated the fact they were made on third-party accounts. from the programme last week. In a statement, We do not agree with the views presented.”
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News / Council twinning / Memorial attacked
Brent Nablus twinning allowed ‘via back door’
Brent Council has confirmed it allowed a controversial twinning arrangement with the West Bank city of Nablus to proceed, in what a spokesperson described as a “non-political” ceremony at a hotel in the north-west London borough, writes Lee Harpin. BBC London News reported on Saturday’s event, stating “the London Borough of Brent has today formally marked the beginning of its twinning relationship with the Palestinian city” during an “official ceremony” at the Nova Hotel in Wembley. Footage from the event showed only a handful of attendees, all wearing keffiyeh scarves, as paperwork was signed, including a signature from Brent Council chief executive Kim Wright. However, Jewish News has seen a message
Signing ceremony for twinning arrangement
circulated last Friday by Brent Labour Group and council leader Muhammed Butt to councillors, which appeared to distance the authority from the event. Butt, who has faced strong criticism from communal leaders over his handling
of the twinning proposal, led by councillors and activists linked to the local Palestine Solidarity Campaign, wrote that the ceremony was “a private event organised independently by the Community Interest Company (CIC).” He added: “The council is not organising, hosting or funding this event and no council resources are being deployed.” Yet, two sources connected to the council told Jewish News they believe Butt and others allowed the twinning to go ahead “through the back door”. Rabbi Baruch Levin, leader of Brondesbury Park Synagogue, previously said the proposal left Jewish residents “feeling isolated, alienated, and unsafe in the very borough they call home,” a point which “hasn’t been heard or understood” by the council’s leadership.
Neo-Nazi pair jailed A Scottish mother and daughter who glorified Adolf Hitler, denied the Holocaust and called for violence against Jews have been jailed for 20 and 16 months respectively after admitting a sustained campaign of extremist hate crime, writes Annabel Sinclair. Shirley Craughwell, 51, and her daughter Hannah Craughwell, 27, were sentenced at Edinburgh Sheriff Court after pleading guilty to offences aggravated by racial and religious prejudice committed between 2021 and 2024. The case centred on prolific antisemitic activity across multiple social media platforms, including posts praising Nazism, promoting neo-Nazi ideology and calling explicitly for a new Holocaust. Sentencing Shirley Craughwell, Sheriff Charles Walls said the material she shared was “deeply disturbing,” adding: “The level of hatred, racism and antisemitism expressed by you is deeply disturbing.”
HATE VANDALS DESTROY SURVIVOR’S MEMORIAL
The vandalised bench
A memorial bench preserving the testimony of Holocaust survivor Chaim Ferster has been destroyed in a Manchester park in what Jewish organisations and family members have condemned as a targeted act of antisemitic hatred, writes Annabel Sinclair.
The audio solar bench, installed in Clowes Park, Salford, in 2019, allowed members of the public to listen to recordings of Ferster describing how he survived eight Nazi concentration and death camps. It was placed along the route of his regular daily walks and
was intended as a permanent public record of his testimony. Greater Manchester Police said officers were investigating. Grandson Marc Ferster said: “Seeing it vandalised is painful, not because of the physical damage but because of what it represents.”
Hannah, left, and Shirley Craughwell
15 January 2026 Jewish News
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News / Pregnancy tests / AJEX honours / Rabbi role
Message of hope for miscarriage victims A Jewish woman who endured three consecutive pregnancy losses has channelled her grief into a new book, bringing together testimonies from Jews around the world struggling with infertility and pregnancy loss, writes Annabel Sinclair. Ricki Stern, who has not yet been able to carry a pregnancy to term, said the project grew out of a profound isolation following her third miscarriage and a determination to ensure others did not suffer alone. The book, Pregnancy Tests: Stories of Pregnancy Trials from People Struggling with Infertility & Pregnancy Loss, gathers personal stories and poems that have been submitted by Jewish contributors across the globe, all published anonymously to protect privacy. “I wrote this book to shatter the silence surrounding infertility and pregnancy loss, gathering the whispered sorrow of many hearts into one loving embrace,” Stern said. “It is a chorus of brave hearts, rising together to acknowledge the unspoken sorrow and offer support and guidance.” She added: “Let this collection of
personal stories be the lights in the darkness, guiding you toward the comfort of a community that understands every tear, proving that the strength you need is waiting for you in the community of those who understand you, because they’ve walked the path you’re walking on.” Stern said the idea emerged after she realised how many couples were suffering quietly, particularly within Jewish communities that place a strong emphasis on family life and children. “Many times, well-meaning relatives and friends can make comments that stab our hearts,” she explained, describing the strain of navigating communal life while childless. With no funding and what she described as “a budget below zero”, Stern used social media and personal outreach to connect with contributors. Within months, she said, she had collected stories from Jewish writers
around the world, many of whom were eager to share experiences that they had never voiced publicly. She said the process transformed her own grief, allowing her to focus on supporting others even as she continues her own fertility journey. Now the book is complete, Stern hopes it will reach both those directly affected by infertility and pregnancy loss, as well as those who are not – to foster greater sensitivity and understanding within the community. Anyone interested in obtaining a copy of Pregnancy Tests: Stories of Pregnancy Trials from People Struggling with Infertility & Pregnancy Loss can contact the author through jewish.infer tility.miscarriage@gmail.com or via Amazon.
AJEX CELEBRATES CADET HONOURS AJEX has celebrated the achievements and progress of JFS and JCoSS cadets at a special evening for the Combined Cadet Force (CCF) awards ceremony. Led by contingent commander Stephen Hoare, the awards celebrated cadet achievement through the presentation of badges, promotions and awards.
Key honours included Cdt LCpl Vesper Kaufmann as ‘Most Outstanding Recruit’ and Cdt LCpl Jake Tash as ‘Outstanding Cadet’. Other recipients honoured during the event included Cdt LCpl Charlotte Aboody alongside Cdt LCoH Melissa, jointly awarded the ‘Max Karo Trophy for Most Improved Cadets’.
NNLS APPOINTS DANNY NEVINS New North London Synagogue has voted to appoint Rabbi Danny Nevins as its new senior rabbi following a year-long search process. Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, in post for 38 years, announced in December 2024 that he intended to retire. The new appointment was celebrated by the chairs of the Finchley-based 3,000-plus member community, Vicky Fox and Mark Flenner.
In a joint statement, they said: “This is a momentous occasion in our 50-year history. Our members recognised his wonderful combination of warmth and curiosity, intellect and Jewish scholarship, deep connection to Israel, and commitment to the continued diversity of our services and community.” They added: “We are delighted to be welcoming Rabbi Nevins to NNLS.”
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Campus extremism / NYC hate / Ancient mikveh / World News
UAE to UK: Your campuses present an extremism risk The United Arab Emirates has moved to limit the number of its students coming to study at UK universities, out of concern that British academic institutions have failed to prevent Islamist groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood from spreading their indoctrination, writes Adam Decker. As reported by The Times, the UAE, which provides significant bursaries via government programmes to citizens who seek to study abroad in specific fields, will withdraw these benefits for those seeking to study in the UK, while maintaining them for other countries. This means that while wealthy Emirati families can still choose to send their children to study in Britain, footing the costs themselves, the number of Emirati students at UK academic institutions, currently approximately 8,500, is likely to shrink significantly in the coming years. Set up as a transnational Islamist organisation in Egypt almost a century ago, the Brotherhood has been declared a terrorist group in countries including Egypt, the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, while its key backers have been Qatar and Turkey. Last year, the Jordanian government also
Anti-Israel protest outside University College London announced a full ban on the organisation after reportedly uncovering evidence relating to a sabotage plot linked to its members. The group’s longtime spiritual leader,
Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi, was banned from entering the UK and a number of other Western countries more than a decade ago due to his infamous views on issues including
Jews, homosexuality, feminism and nonreligious Muslims. The Western world has also moved to clamp down on the organisation. In November, US President Donald Trump ordered American government officials to investigate different branches of the Muslim Brotherhood, with a view to seeing whether they should be listed as terrorist groups. Last year the French government published a report on the Brotherhood’s attempts to infiltrate and subvert democracies, with a growing likelihood that the country will move to severely restrict the organisation this year under its principle of Laïcité – constitutionally mandated state secularism. Last year, after meeting Emirati officials, Nigel Farage indicated that if Reform UK wins the next general election, he would move to ban the Muslim Brotherhood in this country. As per The Times, more Emirati students are at the University of Central Lancashire than any other, with the University of Manchester, University of Leeds, King’s College London and University College London also popular among those coming from the UAE to study in the UK.
NYC HATE HITS Second Temple THE SECRET JEWS HARDEST era mikveh found OF SLEEP Antisemitic incidents accounted for the clear majority of reported hate crimes in New York City last year, according to newly released police figures, underlining what senior officers describe as the city’s most persistent hate threat. Data published by the New York Police Department shows that 330 of the 576 hate crime incidents recorded in 2025 targeted Jewish people – around 57 percent of the total. The figures relate to reported or suspected incidents rather than convictions and may be reclassified if investigators later determine there was no discriminatory motive. While the NYPD reported a 12 percent overall drop in hate incidents compared with 2024, and a three percent fall in antisemitic cases specifically, Jewish New Yorkers remained disproportionately affected. Despite making up roughly one in ten of the city’s population, Jews accounted for nearly six in ten victims of recorded hate incidents. Other reported cases included 45 incidents targeting Black people, 30 Islamophobic attacks, 25
against Asians, eight targeting Hispanic individuals, and 11 directed at white people. Police also recorded 28 incidents based on gender, 16 involving unspecified ethnicities and 31 against unspecified religious groups. Addressing the figures, NYPD Commissioner Jessica Tisch said: “These numbers remain far too high and antisemitism continues to be the most persistent hate threat that we face.” The data was released just days after New York’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, formally took office. One of his first actions was to revoke the city’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of antisemitism – a move that has prompted concern among Jewish groups. The IHRA definition, used by governments and institutions worldwide, is intended to help identify and combat antisemitism. Critics argue it risks conflating hatred of Jews with criticism of Israel, particularly over the war in Gaza, while supporters say it provides vital clarity at a time of rising anti-Jewish hostility.
A mikveh bearing ash remains testifying to the destruction of the Second Temple has been discovered during excavations conducted beneath the Western Wall plaza in Jerusalem, with archaeologists heralding the discovery as a reminder of the religious focus of the city dating back millennia. The ritual bath was discovered as part of work undertaken by the Israel Antiquities Authority and the Western Wall Heritage Foundation. Rectangular in shape, it measures 3.05 meters in length, 1.35 meters in width, and 1.85 meters in height. Hewn into the bedrock with plastered walls, four steps lead down into the mikveh, found sealed beneath a layer dated to the year 70 CE, together with numerous pottery and stone vessels. Researchers believe the mikveh served the Jews who lived in the area as well as the many pilgrims who frequented the site and the Temple. Ari Levy, excavation director on behalf of the Israel Antiquities Authority, said: “Jerusalem should be remembered as a Temple city. Many aspects of daily life were adapted to this reality; this is reflected especially in the meticulous observance of the laws of ritual impurity and purity by the city’s residents and leaders.” Referring to the newly discovered carriers, he added: “The reasons
The mikveh, uncovered
for using stone vessels are halakhic, rooted in the recognition that stone, unlike pottery and metal vessels, does not contract ritual impurity. As a result, stone vessels could be used over long periods and repeatedly.” The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70CE, as documented by contemporary Roman and Jewish sources. One after-effect of that destruction was a refocusing of Judaism away from the Temple in Jerusalem – and animal sacrifices there – as the focal point of worship of God – although mourning the Temple’s loss and praying for it to be rebuilt has remained a constant religious theme since. Mordechai Eliav, the director of the Western Wall Heritage Foundation, said that the discovery “testifies like a thousand witnesses to the ability of the people of Israel to move from impurity to purity, from destruction to renewal.”
Sleep did not evolve for dreams or memory alone, according to a major new Israeli study, but as a defence mechanism to protect brain cells. Research led by Bar-Ilan University scientists found jellyfish and sea anemones, despite lacking complex brains, rely on sleep to repair DNA damage in their A jellyfish neurons. The findings suggest safeguarding the brain from cellular stress is one of sleep’s most fundamental purposes. The study was conducted by teams led by Prof. Lior Appelbaum and Prof. Oren Levy. Examining the ancient marine species, they traced sleep’s biological role back hundreds of millions of years. Scientists have long wondered why sleep persisted through evolution. Sleeping animals are less alert, more vulnerable and unable to feed or reproduce. The new findings suggest an unavoidable trade-off: without sleep, neurons accumulate potentially dangerous DNA damage. “Our findings suggest the capacity of sleep to reduce neuronal DNA damage is an ancestral trait,” said Prof. Appelbaum. “Sleep may have...evolved to provide a consolidated period for neural maintenance, a function so fundamental it may have been preserved across the entire animal kingdom.” The researchers say the findings strengthen concerns about chronic sleep disruption in humans. Conditions such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s are linked to long-term brain damage, and evidence suggests poor sleep may accelerate harmful processes at the cellular level. u Dreaming of a good year, page 38
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Ambassador delay / Pearlman move / News
Israel’s UK ambassador is blocked by leak probe Israel’s designated next ambassador to the UK has been banned from leaving the country as he faces investigation over the leak of classified military documents. Tzachi Braverman, chief of staff to prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was arrested and interrogated for 13 hours by Israel’s major crime unit on Sunday. After the questioning Israeli authorities imposed a 30-day travel ban on Braverman and barred him from entering the prime minister’s office for 15 days. The investigation centres on allegations Braverman attempted to interfere with an investigation into the leak of secret documents from Netanyahu’s office. The documents, published by German newspaper Bild in 2024, reportedly supported Netanyahu’s rationale for continuing the war against Hamas in Gaza. The scandal comes at a particularly sensitive moment for Israeli diplomacy with the UK.
Delayed: Tzachi Braverman
There has been no ambassador in London since Tzipi Hotovely left her post in September. Gideon Sa’ar, Israel’s foreign minister, has rejected calls to suspend Braverman’s appointment to London, saying the police investigation should not prevent him taking up his new posting. Lawyers for Braverman said:
“He is at the end of his term, when he was supposed to take up the position of Israel’s ambassador to Britain in the near future … these conditions even thwart the date of his taking up the position of ambassador.” The vacuum coincides with major developments, including the UK’s recognition of Palestinian
HERZOG AIDE PEARLMAN TO STEP DOWN
statehood last year under prime minister Keir Starmer and ongoing uncertainty over the future of Gaza, where the possibility of renewed Israeli military action remains. Investigators claim Braverman allegedly summoned a fellow aide to a clandestine meeting in a car park beneath the Ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv where he is said to have revealed his knowledge of the still-secret investigation and claimed he could suppress it. Braverman has denied all wrongdoing, calling the police investigation “delusional” and “political.” He has announced plans to appeal the travel restrictions and his ban from the prime minister’s office. The documents at the heart of the investigation included Israeli intelligence assessments suggesting Hamas was not interested in a hostage deal, but instead was intending to prolong the conflict to improve its position in future negotiations.
Jason Pearlman is stepping down as international media adviser to Israel’s president after completing a second term in the role, with fellow Pearlman, left, and Lee Brit Benjamin Lee appointed as his successor. Pearlman, who previously also served as international media adviser to Israel’s 10th president, Reuven Rivlin, leaves the position after several years overseeing the presidency’s engagement with the international press during a period of heightened diplomatic and security scrutiny. He will be replaced by Lee, a British national who joins the office of the president from the IDF spokesperson’s unit. Lee previously served as head of international social media and head of the strategy and messaging department, roles that placed him at the centre of Israel’s global communications efforts. Announcing the transition, president Isaac Herzog paid tribute to Pearlman’s contribution while welcoming his successor. “Jason has helped guide the office of the president through perhaps Israel’s most challenging times with the international press,” Herzog added.
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Opinion
Grappling with identity in a more hostile world
It feels as though we are in a different era, experiencing a reversion to former times
stars, or curfews in my world today. Nor, I will add with emphasis, am I stuck in a miserable tent in Gaza with no plumbing and Hamas for company. We don’t know where this current wave of antisemitism is headed and much is dependent on how events unfold in the Middle East. But that sense of creeping, claustrophobic hostility certainly feels more accessible than it once did. The old Jewish questions are louder than they once were. Five years ago, I wrote a column about the 19th century German poet, Heinrich Heine, who wrestled with his own Jewish questions. Despite his greatness, Heine struggled to find acceptance in an increasingly antisemitic Prussia. He lost friends, was shut out from prestigious academic jobs and prosecuted for apparent literary transgressions. “Our descendants,” Heine once wrote of being a Jew in his world, “will shudder when they come to read what a ghostly life we led, how our humanity was cleft in two.” Heine answered his own Jewish questions
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he Jewish Question is back. Unfortunately, you don’t have to delve too far into the fever swamps of X or YouTube to find online influencers, cod philosophers and faux-geopoliticians openly debating the insidious nature of Jewish influence upon the world and what to do about it. The most famous among them include the likes of Nick Fuentes and Candace Owens, but there are many others out there also peddling old antisemitism on new platforms. The brutal Gaza war, which unfortunately coincided with and then amplified a dark algorithmic turn online, has revived some latent maladies in the body politic, particularly in America, which we all live downstream from. A thoughtful new essay by David Azarrad in Compact magazine details the return of the “JQ” - the Jewish Question. Azerrad explains that JQ proponents on the American right believe that “Jews have promoted radical leftism as a survival strategy to undermine host societies”. They believe that from multiculturalism to psychoanalysis, feminism, civil rights and sexual liberation, Jewish thinkers and ideologues have corrupted the body politic with their perverted ideas. They are, such people put forward, the elemental source of whatever’s gone wrong. (Extremists on the left take a different path, through settler-colonialism and white supremacy, but end up in broadly the same place.) This is not mainstream thought, but it is real and discussed by millions. And so with the revival of their Jewish question comes the return of ours: how to be a Jew in an increasingly hostile world? Should one identify proudly or create distance? Stay with the tribe or melt away? Stick with Israel or disavow it? Of course, these questions have always
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been with us, they are inherent to Jewishness. But for most of my life at least, they have been fairly marginal. Growing up in the di tsayt goldeneh of the nineties and noughts, I didn’t expend too much energy on the existential nature of my Judaism. It was a challenge, of course, but not a particularly heavy or painful burden. But now it feels as though we are in a different era, experiencing a reversion, perhaps, to a more familiar Jewish mode of being. Over the New Year’s break, I travelled to Venice for the first time, soliciting various recommendations for where best to eat, drink and gawp at elaborate frescoes. Naturally people suggested going to see the Jewish ghetto, established in 1516 as the first of its kind anywhere in the world, the origin for the very word and concept: ghetto. I went of course, twice in fact (truly my father’s son), but I was surprised by how miserable it made me. The way you have to stoop into a narrow, humiliating little passageway to enter the tiny island. The group of bored armed policemen lolling in the piazza. The harrowing bronzes on the walls depicting the aktions (or is that azioni) that led to 289 Jews being deported from Venice between 1943 and 1945, with just seven returning. The buildings piled seven storeys high to pack in as many residents as possible. The physical claustrophobia of the space but also its feeling of emotional siege, the sense that to be born a Jew then was to be born on a small constricted island, cut off from normality across the canal, crossing back and forth only with difficulty, paying the guards and hoping they keep you safe. Five years ago I would have found the Venetian ghetto distressing in a distant sort of way. This time it hit me harder. Do other tribes have tourist attractions like this? Some 300 miles south in the Italian capital, there’s the “In the Ghetto” restaurant, where one can sample the best of Jewish-Romanesque food. I don’t want to be histrionic. There are no Jewish ghettos, requirements for yellow
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by converting to Protestantism, but it didn’t help. Christian Germany never accepted him and he hated himself for doing it. My conclusion was a note of thanksgiving, that the liberation Heine sought was mine by right. And it still is. I don’t face the immense tectonic stress of being shut off and rejected by a nation I love, my home. But the questions are louder than they once were. What do they think of me? How should I relate to my Judaism in public? Should I say the word Jewish in the back of a taxi or on a bus? Or should I whisper it instead? Or change the subject? Are people going to ask me about Israel? If so, what will I say? Or, worse, will they not ask me about Israel but impose a kind of silent distance, which I will fill with fretful speculation? All these small questions accumulate to pose bigger ones: am I in or out of this mess? Do I want to show the critics I’m a good Jew, disgusted by my barbaric cousins in the Levant? Or should I hold the line and let them draw their own conclusions? I could even double down and become more hawkish, as some have. Or I could stay silent, avoid the hard bits and hope for the best. These JQs rattle around our heads daily and everywhere around us, we see our fellow Jews coming up with different answers, positioning themselves differently under mounting psychic stress, changing in front of our eyes. Becoming angrier, or more anxious, or more withdrawn. In truth there are no easy answers to these questions and there never have been and there never will be. There is only the long hard slog of trying to maintain your inner sense of decency and navigating the world and its furies accordingly. But there is an overarching choice of sorts. In or out. In the Venetian ghetto, I stopped at the famous David’s shop and bought a Murano glass mezuzah for my new home, which now slouches brightly across the doorpost. So I guess that’s my choice made.
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Opinion
Honour the life and legacy of Eva Schloss – and her brother STEPHEN D SMITH
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR EMERITUS, USC SHOAH FOUNDATION
E
va Schloss is known to the world as the posthumous stepsister of Anne Frank. After the war, her surviving mother, Elfriede, married Otto Frank, Anne’s surviving father, making Eva part of one of history’s most recognised families. But for those who truly knew Eva Schloss, she was so much more than a title bestowed by tragedy. Yes, Eva knew Anne Frank before the Holocaust tore their world apart. The two girls were weeks apart in age and lived in the same apartment building on the Merwedeplein in Amsterdam – refugee families whose lives had already been twisted by Nazi antisemitism. Both families went separately into hiding. Both were denounced. Both were sent to Auschwitz, where some survived, and others did not. In a cruel twist of fate, Eva and her mother,
Elfriede, were too sick to be deported from Auschwitz in January 1945. This meant that despite their deteriorated state, they were liberated earlier than those marched westward. Anne, her sister Margot, and their mother Edith were among tens of thousands deported from Auschwitz, ultimately incarcerated in BergenBelsen, where all three died amid the starvation and disease that made that camp a hell on earth. Heinz and his father, Erich, did not survive. When Otto and Elfriede found each other back in the Netherlands – both searching for spouses and children who would never return – they eventually married. Circumstance made Eva the posthumous stepsister of one of history’s most famous diarists, a girl who would rather have been alive and unpublished than published and dead. For the rest of her life, Eva was almost universally introduced as the posthumous stepsister of Anne Frank. But Eva wanted to be known as the surviving sister of Heinz Geiringer, musician and artist. If you met Eva, there was one teenager she always spoke about, whose artistry she admired, whose story she devoted her life to telling: her brother Heinz.
Before the war, Heinz Geiringer was a talented musician and composer. But the Geiringer family hid in two separate attics: Heinz and his father, Erich, in one, and Eva and her mother, Elfriede, in another. Unable to play an instrument without betraying his hiding place, Heinz turned to painting. For more than a year, he captured his cramped quarters on canvas, bringing us into his world. When the family was rounded up, Heinz hid his artwork under the floorboards. On the train to Auschwitz, he told Eva where to find it if he did not survive. After the war, Eva recovered 30 paintings from that attic. Today, Heinz’s work is part of Amsterdam’s Jewish Historical Museum collection. Eva made it her life’s mission to ensure her brother’s voice would not be silenced. While crowds packed halls to hear her, they found a towering strength—eloquent, dignified, soft-spoken, incisive, and unrelenting. Audiences were left with the impression of a woman who built her insight not on Anne Frank’s legacy, but her own experience. Eva pulled no punches. She did not allow audiences the comfort of Anne’s famous words that ‘people are basically good at heart’ – words
written before Anne arrived at Auschwitz. Eva shifted the onus onto her audiences: to be good at heart, to make the effort, to understand that humans can be terribly hateful and violent, and that we must choose otherwise. I had the privilege of knowing Eva during the last decades of her life. I spent more time with her in the United States, where she would tour every year, than in England. I saw her grappling with the world’s problems alongside the next generation—thousands packed into large auditoriums, hanging on her every word. I was part of her interviews at the USC Shoah Foundation, including her Dimensions in Testimony project, where she answered more than a thousand questions, knowing one day she would no longer be here. The more difficult the questions, the more she engaged. She wanted to wrestle with the most complex questions the Holocaust could ignite. Eva Schloss has left her story in books, films, and testimonies. Let us not define her as the stepsister she never was, but recall the woman she became: sister of Heinz Geiringer, teacher and guide, always shining her light on the dark side of humanity.
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Opinion
Women deserve not just to survive, but to thrive SAM CLIFFORD
CEO, JEWISH WOMEN’S AID
M
any of us live in a world where the importance of women’s education, empowerment and respect is taken for granted. The idea a woman’s voice should be dismissed or her ambitions limited feels outdated. Many women have grown up with access to education, opportunity and the tools to make meaningful contributions to community, business and wider society. And yet, while overt sexism and openly dismissive attitudes towards women may be somewhat less visible, it would be a mistake to assume the work is done. True equality is not only about removing barriers when things go wrong, but also ensuring women have the confidence, skills and choices allowing them to shape their lives at every stage. For too many women and girls, including within the Jewish community, the reality is far more complicated. Across the diversity of our community, there are still environments where
women are not always supported to develop financial, professional or decision-making skills; where women’s opinions are minimised and their confidence and ambition questioned rather than encouraged. Other women’s lives are tightly controlled in ways not always recognised or spoken about. Women excluded from financial decisions, asked to sign documents they have not been given time to read, or monitored and restricted in their spending, whether or not they contribute financially to the household. These experiences are not about tradition or values, but power and control - we must be honest about that to challenge them. At Jewish Women’s Aid, the only organisation supporting women and children in the UK Jewish community affected by domestic abuse and sexual violence, we see the impact of coercive, emotional and financial abuse every day. We support women who feel trapped in relationships not because they lack ability or ambition, but because control over money, work or decision-making has been taken from them – who remain in abusive relationships because fear of what comes next has replaced genuine choice.
When a woman comes to us and says she does not know where to begin, we listen without judgement. We take what feels overwhelming and break it down into manageable steps. We help her understand her rights and options, from finances and healthcare to legal signposting and practical services. Alongside this, we work to rebuild confidence and selfbelief, helping women recognise the strengths and capabilities they already have. Financial control is one of the most common and least understood forms of abuse. That is why we run sessions focused on financial independence, opening a bank account, understanding basic financial terms, tackling coerced debt, and taking control of personal finances. These are not abstract skills, but life changing tools that can mean the difference between dependence and independence. But our work is not only about crisis. It is about prevention, education and empowerment. We want women to thrive, not simply survive. We want women to have access to knowledge and skills that strengthen autonomy, confidence and agency at every stage, while making clear that responsibility for
abuse always lies with those who perpetrate it. That is why this weekend we are proud to be hosting Thrive, a summit dedicated to skills, knowledge and connection. Thrive brings together women from across the community, to learn, connect and grow, celebrating ambition, expertise and supporting one another. Celebrity speakers and expert panellists will lead sessions on building a business from home, managing finances with confidence, understanding health and wellbeing, and even exploring how technology and AI can ease the mental load. These sessions are about possibility and preparation – giving women tools to serve them whether navigating work, family life, entrepreneurship or unexpected change. Above all, Thrive is about bringing women together; recognising how far we have come, while being honest about how much work remains. It is about ensuring women know JWA exists, that support is available, and that no one has to navigate challenging situations alone. We hope women never need our services, but if they do, we will be here, ready to help them move forward and, above all, thrive. • www.jwa.org.uk
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Learning from the Righteous and The Association of Jewish Refugees present
Voices of Justice Thursday 29 January 2026 1pm at Wigmore Hall – Tickets £25
JERUSALEM
A Holocaust Memorial Day concert marking the 80th anniversary of the conclusion of the Nuremberg Trial, and the 65th anniversary of The Eichmann Trial, using the words of eyewitnesses whose evidence gave voice to the victims. Narrated by BBC correspondent Tim Franks and students from The German School of London and the Jewish Community Secondary School. Music by Ensemble 360.
To book, contact the box office on 020 7935 2141
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Opinion
Why bother policing when you can appease? BRENDAN O’NEILL AUTHOR & JOURNALIST
A
ppeasement. A strong word. A grave insult. Most commonly heard of Neville Chamberlain, whom history records, rightly or wrongly, as Hitler’s appeaser. It’s a word with staggering power. People recoil when this charge of cowardice is laid at their door. No one wants to be thought of as a yellow-bellied wimp who “feeds a crocodile in the hope that it will eat him last” – Churchill’s famous description of appeasement. And yet it is the only word to describe the behaviour of West Midlands Police in relation to Maccabi Tel Aviv. It’s undeniable now that the banning of Maccabi fans from Villa Park was an act of cultural appeasement. West Midlands Police barred these Jews to placate a seething Islamist mob in Birmingham. In doing so, they sent a deadly message to the nation: that the feelings of antisemites matter more than the rights of Jews. It’s a message that absolutely cannot stand.
The scandal grows larger and more alarming every day. The fans were banned from attending their team’s clash with Aston Villa in November last year. The local Safety Advisory Group, with input from West Midlands Police, said Maccabi fans were too hooliganistic for Birmingham. We don’t want these louts raising hell, they said. The bosses of West Midlands Police continually talked up the violent tendencies of the Maccabi mob. They did the media rounds, telling anyone who would listen these thugs from Israel just can’t be trusted, igniting yet another firestorm of anti-Israel bigotry on social media. Leftists and Islamists whose entire personality is hating the Jewish State took to X to cheer the cops and slam the supporters of Maccabi Tel Aviv as “genocidal” . But we soon discovered West Midlands Police were not being entirely truthful. Their claims about the behaviour of Maccabi fans in Amsterdam in 2024 were challenged by the Dutch authorities themselves. Dutch law enforcement accused West Midlands Police of using “fake claims” to
justify their ban on Maccabi fans from Villa Park. It’s simply “not true”, said the Dutch, that the Maccabi fans in Amsterdam were “highly organised” hooligans requiring 5,000 riot cops to put them in their place. West Midlands Police made it up. Then we found out that West Midlands Police made up a football match. The last time Maccabi Tel Aviv played in the UK was against West Ham in 2023, they said. But no such game occurred. It was another invention. Honestly, who are these halfwits? Last week, though, we’ve had the most shocking revelation yet. It’s reported that West Midlands Police had information suggesting local Islamists were intent on attacking the Maccabi fans. These bigoted mobs felt an intense “hostility” towards Israelis, the police were told. And they were hell-bent on “arming” themselves so that they might bash a few of the Jews. What did West Midlands Police do with this info? They suppressed it. They brushed the Islamist threat under the carpet and focused instead on the alleged threat posed by the “bad” foreigners. This is a huge police scandal. It’s up there
with the Metropolitan Police’s mishandling of the murder of Stephen Lawrence or South Yorkshire Police’s smearing of Liverpool fans after the Hillsborough disaster. To respond to information about a violent threat against Jews by banning Jews is a moral outrage. It really is appeasement. In the words of Kemi Badenoch, police in Birmingham “knew extremists were planning to attack Jews” and their solution was to “blame and remove Jewish people”. They capitulated to the mob. They gave the Islamists exactly what they wanted: a Jew-free zone. It’s the 21st century and police are doing the bidding of bigots. They’re removing Jews to keep Jew-haters happy. It’s like a metaphor for our times: a cowardly state placating Islamists in order to “keep the peace”. But it’s a strange peace that requires the hiding away of Jewish people. Enough is enough. Here’s what our politicians and police should be saying: no street, institution or football match in 21st-century Britain will ever be “Jew free”. And if anyone makes such a rancid, racist demand, they’ll be in serious trouble.
After Bondi, the Aussies give us cause for hope ZAKI COOPER
VICE PRESIDENT, COUNCIL OF CHRISTIANS & JEWS
I
attended shul on Shabbat morning in Sydney a couple of weeks ago, at the start of a family holiday. A man with a long grey beard and friendly demeanour approached me and asked what brought me there. I explained, then expressed my condolences for the community, given that the Bondi Beach attack had taken place just six days earlier. He looked me in the eye and confided: “I lost my son-in-law at Bondi.” Nothing I could say seemed adequate in response. Arriving in this wondrous country just days after the tragedy felt surreal. The juxtaposition of sunshine, beaches and natural beauty jarred with the ugly evil we had been reading about in the news. As we mixed with the community and spoke to people, the emotions we encountered were raw grief and anger, tempered by a determination and resilience to get through. An old friend of my wife’s, expecting to spend a normal working week at the office, had instead attended several funerals and shiva houses. His description of the raw pain on display at one funeral made us shudder.
Another friend told me of a family member’s wedding that had been due to take place the following week, to be officiated by Chabad Rabbi Eli Schlanger. Since Schlanger was tragically killed in the attack, the wedding was postponed and the community is still coming to terms with the loss of this special leader. There was considerable anger too in the community, who felt antisemitism had been left to fester and that an attack such as this was the inevitable consequence. The Chief Rabbi arrived in the country days after the attack and in media interviews reiterated the line used after the Manchester attack on Yom Kippur: shocked but not surprised. The protests over the war in Gaza had crossed the line from peaceful demonstrations into forums where antisemitic rhetoric was used with impunity. Many in the Sydney community were angry with the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, and as an illustration of this, he was booed and not given a speaking slot at the vigil at Bondi held one week after the attack. In a perverse irony, the Sydney Jewish community, numbering around 45,000, has a large number of Holocaust survivors and their descendants; in fact, Australia boasts the largest population of Holocaust survivors per capita
outside Israel. Like so many diaspora communities, it makes an outsized contribution to national business, public life and civil society. The overall Jewish community in Australia, numbering a little over 100,000, is part of the tapestry of a migrant society. The national anthem even carries this message of welcome: “For those who’ve come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share.” In many ways, therefore, the attack on the Jewish community was an attack on the Australian ideal. It also took place at the iconic Bondi Beach, a place which holds near-spiritual significance for many people and is itself a tight-knit community of regular visitors, volunteers and workers. Perhaps this explains the genuine and extremely moving outpouring of grief and empathy from the Australian public after the terrorist barbarism. There were countless stories we heard and first-hand experiences we had. Walking with a family on Shabbat, a woman approached our kippah-wearing friend and held out her hand to clasp his, saying “I am so sorry for your loss.” The next day, as we visited Bondi Beach, a plane flew overhead releasing a banner which stated simply “Love from Australia for our Jewish community.” A local rabbi recounted that walking in the
Bondi area in the days after the attack, he was stopped time and again by people wishing to express their condolences. He told a story of a congregant seeing a man on the local metro train whom he didn’t recognise. He engaged him in conversation and the man explained he was not Jewish but was wearing a head covering in solidarity with the Jewish community. The reaction of the Australian public was a heart-warming rejoinder to the demoralising attack. Of all the experiences we had, perhaps the most moving was reserved for the last day of our holiday. Before the start of play of the final Ashes Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground, the police and emergency services came out on to the field and were given a rapturous reception. The loudest standing ovation from the capacity crowd went to Ahmed al-Ahmed, who famously confronted one of the gunmen. In this act of heroism, he challenged the notion of automatic enmity between Muslims and Jews and demonstrated the best of Australia’s courage and tolerance. As the Sydney community digests what happened and faces a long road ahead of mourning and grieving, al-Ahmed’s heroism and the response of ordinary Australians are slivers of hope to hang on to.
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CURTAIN UP
AT NOON Celebrated screenwriter Eric Roth’s latest project made him nervous. By Jenni Frazer
E
ric Roth, who has a storied career in Hollywood as the writer of around 40 films, including such hits as Forrest Gump, Killers of the Flower Moon and Munich, has embarked on his most ambitious project yet. At the age of 80, he decided to switch directions and write a stage play. When I spoke to him on opening night he told me he was feeling nervous. “As anybody should be on the eve of something,” he said. For this is not just any stage play: Roth settled on a reworking of one of the most treasured and iconic of films, 1952’s High Noon, a blackand-white Western starring the taciturn Gary Cooper and the emerging star Grace Kelly. The film was written by Carl Foreman and directed by Stanley Kramer, and for many years it served as a sort of moral barometer in Hollywood. It came out at the height – or should that be the depth – of the McCarthy era, and spoke to critics and admirers alike about the struggle against fear and bigotry. The central figure in the story is US Marshal Will Kane, who the audience meets when he hands in his badge of office on his wedding day to the devout Quaker Amy Fowler. The couple are literally about to drive off into the sunset to start new, if prosaic lives, running a grocery store in a little Western town, when Kane receives shattering news – that the villain Frank Miller, whom he put in jail, has been released and is arriving on the noon train. Kane knows he has to put his plans on hold and challenge Miller. But his bride calls on all her Quaker beliefs and begs him not to face the outlaw. Kane, however, insists that he has no choice. The film’s evocative theme tune, Do Not Forsake Me, O My Darlin’ (On This Our Wedding Day) echoes across the bleak Western landscape as the suddenly friendless Marshal Kane prepares for the gunfight of his life. In his programme note, Roth writes that
High Noon is based on the four-time Oscar-winning 1952 film and stars Billy Crudup and Denise Gough
High Noon is “a Greek tragedy at its core, one man standing for something where the consequence is the end of a gun, to lie dead on a dusty prairie street, looking up at an eternal sky”. Roth’s version – a tight 90 minutes with no interval and a ticking clock to alert the audience of the imminent arrival of the noon-time train – features a spectacular closing gunfight, amid atmospheric clouds of railway steam. Roth tells Jewish News it has taken him six years to conceive of re-shaping High Noon for the theatre, persuading backers that it was not a crazy idea to stage a Western. He says: “I thought that nobody had ever done a Western as a drama performed as a play. Musicals galore, but not that most traditional of genres that inhabits an American’s DNA, the
making of and the keeping of the lawless, that manifest identity of ours: the West.” He was not fazed by the length of time it took to bring High Noon to the stage – some film projects have taken a decade or more. “Carl Foreman, a wonderful writer and director, was blacklisted and felt that no-one stood up for him.” Roth draws parallels with the Holocaust, in which he notes “the courage of people who stood up and even hid Jews during the war”; he believes that the story of High Noon also “speaks to some of the ways that the US is taking now, with the president, and of people having courage to challenge what is right or wrong under this administration”. Roth knows whereof he speaks – his parents were Communists and he describes himself as “a Red Diaper baby – I spent a lot of time standing in the rain waving placards which said ‘Free Julius and Ethel Rosenberg’ [the Rosenbergs were executed in 1953 for spying for Russia], and we grew up quite poor in BedfordStuyvesant, in Brooklyn”. His parents, Leon and Mimi, were from Germany on his father’s side and Hungary on his mother’s. Roth recalls that his grandfather, who was very Orthodox (“and spoke Yiddish and Russian and was a big influence on me”), arrived in America in 1905, while Billy Crudup and Denise Gough star in the West End play his Hungarian family came
much earlier, around 1850. “My father was a publicist and also taught at film school, and my mother was a teacher and development executive. We went to Communist summer camps – my father was conflicted about being Jewish and Communist, but he and my mother both identified very strongly as Jewish”. Roth’s daughter Vanessa is also a hugely talented filmmaker, though she has specialised in documentaries, meaning that to date they have never worked together. Nevertheless, both father and daughter are Oscar winners and nominees – Roth won for Forrest Gump and she won for her short documentary Freeheld. Vanessa also directed The Righteous Road Trip, in collaboration with Jewish News’ Justin Cohen. Having worked with some of the best directors in the world – including Martin Scorcese, with whom he is currently considering another film, and Steven Spielberg – Roth could not be blamed if he abandoned the stage after High Noon and returned to what he knows best: the movies. But he says he has “loved” the experience of working in the theatre and would happily look at writing another play if High Noon gets the plaudits he hopes for. He has an idea for a play about “a famous musician” but he is not yet ready to bring that to the stage.
• High Noon, starring Billy Crudup and Denise Gough, is showing at London’s Harold Pinter Theatre until 7 March
26 Jewish News 15 January 2026
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JN LIFE
RIGHT ON THE HOUR:
Jewish comedy strikes back Brigit Grant enjoys a night of laughter and solidarity at the Theatre Royal Haymarket
I
t was raining on Sunday night, so anyone you know who was in town was there for one reason only – to laugh. Jolly before they even entered the auditorium (as we are when we see a familiar face outside of Radlett), a passer-by might have been momentarily confused by the mood. After all, Othello was on the marquee outside the Theatre Royal Haymarket. Now Shakespeare’s Moor has been known to raise a smile with the line “think’st thou I’d make a life of jealousy?” but he could never have competed with the line-up of mirth makers at the Big Jewish Comedy Gala. Renowned individually on the circuit, having Sara Barron, Olivia Lee, Bennett Arron and headliner Simon Brodkin on the same bill was a rare treat. That comedians Rachel Creeger and Philip Simon made it happen was a coup – and one that will be repeated, hopefully. The BJCG was in fact a pointed, uplifting response to a year of unsubtle cancellations and visible sidelining of Jewish performers in UK entertainment. This was comedy as refusal. The event was also organised to raise funds for the Community Security Trust (CST) — the serious bit of the fun — but acknowledging the charity’s vital work never interrupted the gags. Creeger and Simon may have been cancelled “just for being Jewish” at last year’s Edinburgh Festival, but the night wasn’t weighed down by anger – it was powered by it and sharpened into jokes. As compere, Philip Simon warmed the stage perfectly, opening
by likening the theatre to an El Al flight: seat-strategising, spotting relatives in the stalls, suspicious quantities of Diet Coke at the bar and the unshakeable knowledge that if the audience didn’t enjoy themselves “they will find you afterwards and tell you why”. Despite the scale of the Haymarket (and it was a sell-out), Sara Barron didn’t flinch when she hit the stage. She’s from New York, where jokes have elbows and aren’t afraid to use them, though she half-apologised for being American in the current climate. When her set veered into sexual territory, it was challenging for those sat beside their bubba or child, but the guffaws continued if you weren’t. A break to gather ourselves and Bennett Arron appeared. Welsh and Jewish, he admitted it was a tough time… “to be Welsh. Kerching!” Arron, a master of restraint, talked about the moment he, as a child, realised Christmas would never be part of his life. “Because we don’t believe in Jesus,” said his father. “Not even cheddar?” replied Arron. The Welshman is also one of those rare comics who doesn’t swear, but the reason he doesn’t I won’t reveal as you need to hear it from him. I’ll just tell you it involves his mother and Radox and my husband is still laughing. Olivia Lee shifted the tone without losing the room when she spoke candidly about parenting a child with global developmental delay and her propensity for shoplifting. Laughing felt wrong but essential and she pivoted into her ongoing war with Capri Sun straws which we all do and it was a nice
touch that led into the interval and a Diet coke. The audience needed no second bell to return. Up next was Rachel Creeger – proud Essex girl and now the only practising Orthodox Jewish comedian since Ashley Blaker hung up his black hat. Self-deprecating and warm as a blintze, her finale brought music. A song about … foreskins, set to the tune of Wham’s Freedom, Creeger’s smart adaptation was
inspired by years of awkward questions about Judaism – particularly “what happens to all the foreskins?” And did we join in with “Jew Jew Jew” to replace “Do Do Do” at her behest? Of course we did! By the time headliner Simon Brodkin appeared, we were primed. Charging on shouting “Free, free…” he paused, then deadpanned: “Wrong gig.” Dismissing the idea that Jewish comedians (and Jews generally)
Sara Barron
Simon Brodkin
Bennett Arron
Rachel Creeger
Philip Simon
Olivia Lee
have a hotline to the Israeli government, he revealed: “I can’t even get Barnet Council to deal with a sofa bed dumped at the end of my road,” before offering hope of sorts: that Greta Thunberg may have achieved the impossible by briefly uniting Hamas and the Jewish community in shared irritation. Sharing what was said at the Haymarket feels a little like breaking a comedy secret – like a Magic Circle pledge, but it is also fitting, because the BJCG line-up was magic. Unusually for comedians, they even made the landlord laugh. The landlord being Danny Cohen, president of Access Entertainment, which owns the Haymarket and made the night possible, along with CST, who kept us safe. Ultimately the message that came through wrapped in humour was that uniquely Jewish blend of self-awareness and defiance. If comedy is about timing, the Big Jewish Comedy Gala landed right on the hour – and it should keep on ticking.
Photo by Blake Ezra Photography
The gala was an uplifting response to the sidelining of Jewish performers
15 January 2026 Jewish News
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A Slice Of Heaven Pesach 2026!
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At the Award Winning
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Inspiring Program: World-renowned scholars, guest speakers, uplifting tefillot, and engaging learning sessions for English speakers. Family-Friendly Fun: Exceptional kids’ club, teen chill zone, and tailored entertainment for all ages. Optional Excursions: Day trips and attractions to explore Rhodes and its surroundings. Peace of Mind: Professional security team and expert hosting by David & Chana Walles. Minyanim: Nusach Ashkenaz and HaAri-Zal
Featuring Top Scholars, Guest Speakers & Entertainers: R’ David Lapin, R’ Laibl Wolf, Rivkah Krinsky, R’ Yossi Fachler, Maestro Yossi Shwartz, Mendy Shapiro, Shay Barak, Shlomi Lanyado, Daniel Harel, & more! Tuesday 31.3 - Sunday 12.4
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JN LIFE
On the horizon
Visit Tulum with Bespoke Kosher Travel
Keeping kosher is no hindrance to travel, even at Pesach. By Louisa Walters
A
fter the intensity and pace of recent years, 2026 feels like the perfect time to travel with purpose again — not just to get away, but to truly experience somewhere new. “People are craving real connection, meaningful memories, and the feeling of being inspired by a place that’s completely different to everyday life,” says Ben Robbins at Bespoke Kosher Travel. “What
Hotel Martinez, Cannes
Elysium Resort & Spa, Rhodes
makes 2026 especially exciting is the shift in how travellers are thinking. Instead of repeating the same familiar holiday, more families and couples are looking for destinations that offer something fresh: new cultures, new landscapes, new food and new stories to come home with. “It’s not about ticking boxes — it’s about discovering somewhere that genuinely surprises you.” Bespoke Kosher Travel makes this all possible by enabling you to keep kosher wherever (almost) you choose to go. He says it’s well worth planning now: the best itineraries, hotels and experiences are secured early. “When you give yourself time, you can build a trip
Gourmet buffet in Cannes
properly — one that fits your pace, your style, and your standards, without compromise.” If you’re looking to get away for Pesach, you can swap changing over for changing location and with Olam Holidays you have a choice of two – Croatia or Spain. Both destinations will offer you comfort, connection, joy and meaning, whether you’re travelling as a couple, with young children, with teens, or with extended family. At both the Le Meridien Lac & Spa near Split, Croatia and Best Negresco & Spa in Salou, Spain, a packed agenda includes shiurim and lectures by rabbis and scholars, a day camp for kids with creative and supervised activities, teen programming that combines fun and depth, lively themed Chol Hamoed evenings with entertainment for all ages and the opportunity to do day trips around the area. Plus, of course, wonderful food created in collaboration with award-winning chefs and served not only on two Sedarim but all day every day. Rabbi Saul Kelly and Cantor Shimon Farkas (from Australia) will be officiating in Croatia while Rabbi Yoni Golker (St John’s Wood Synagogue), and Cantor Yaakov Cohen from Kingston United Synagogue will be in Spain.
Le Meridien Lac & Spa near Split
With Kosher Travelers you can experience Pesach in Greece – more specifically in Rhodes at Elysium Resort & Spa, a five-star beachfront hotel. This seamless, inspiring and luxurious experience has you davening overlooking the turquoise Aegean Sea, enjoying world-class gourmet cuisine under Mehadrin supervision and relaxing in spacious elegant rooms and suites. All this while your children are immersed in outstanding daylong programming. From engaging scholars-in-residence and uplifting tefillot to fascinating shiurim,
Best Negresco & Spa, Salou
entertainment, wellness activities and bespoke teen and kids’ clubs, every detail has been meticulously designed to infused Pesach with genuine Jewish spirit and enrich and elevate the festival. David Guez Organisation can transport you to the legendary Hôtel Martinez in Cannes to experience a Pesach programme
Bespoke Kosher Travel can arrange trips to Casablanca
with culinary excellence, tradition and refined hospitality. As both the kosher caterer and the programme organiser, David Guez personally oversees every aspect of the eight days of the packahge. He has more than four decades of expertise in Pesach events and is well known for attention to detail while creating a warm atmosphere, delivering consistently high standards year after year. The stay is fully supervised by the Beth Din of Nice and includes all meals, beverages and the two Sedarim. Cuisine is a central pillar of the experience, featuring daily varied buffets, gourmet afternoon tea and refined French-style dinners. Beyond the table, guests enjoy a carefully curated program of excursions, culture and musical evenings.
30 Jewish News 15 January 2026
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Photo by Thomas Balagula
JN LIFE
Eilat is part of the only land bridge connecting three continents
Eilat to love Israel’s southernmost resort town is pulling out all the stops to stage a dramatic tourist comeback. By Michelle Rosenberg
A
t the end of last year I spent three days experiencing the best of what the town bordering Jordan and Egypt has to offer. From go-karting, camel riding and archery to snorkelling and the extraordinary Timna National Park, it proved an opportunity to return to my family’s former go-to Christmas vacation spot and see it through fresh eyes. I have vague recollections from 30 years ago of the Dan Panorama and the Royal
Indoor wall climbing in Eilat
Beach, the largely duty-free promenade, my mother’s mantra of “I came, I saw, I shopped”, sunbathing and the legendary breakfast buffets. At the time, it was a rite of passage to winter in Eilat, where tourism accounts for a whopping 80 per cent of the economy. But the impact of October 7, the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict and the Houthi Red Sea disruptions affecting the port have all taken their toll, with nervous tourists cancelling their bookings, leading to a dramatic effect on visitor numbers. My host, Itamar Elitzur, chief executive of the Eilat Hotels Association, refers to a trip to the city between November and April as “not just a vacation” but “a mission to support Israel”. El Al has a new flight route via Ben Gurion Airport to Eilat, but it was exhausting to embark on the two-plane journey from London Luton. Every effort is going towards remedying this, with budget airline Wizz Air announcing plans to open a new hub at Ramon airport. Of course you can come to Eilat simply to ‘chillax’, eat and sunbathe. But the Eilat I experienced (and far preferred) is all about getting into nature, beautiful environments and the preservation of fragile ecosystems. In a welcome change from the cold winter at home, relying on Netflix for entertainment, with your kids’ eyes glued to their devices, it’s literally a breath of fresh air to meet the passionate teams working at Eilat’s Bird Sanctuary, a former salt marsh transformed into a new ‘re-fuelling station’ for migratory birds.
As part of the only land bridge connecting
water’s edge in full snorkelling gear, mask
The Dolphin Nature Reserve in Eilat inspires a childlike wonder in its visitors
three continents, Eilat is a globally important site for species including terns, herons, flamingos and cormorants. Families can enjoy guided tours that provide close encounters with birds and lookouts through bird hides or camouflaged shelters. Director Noam Weiss describes the sanctuary as “not nature, but nature-based solutions” and demonstrates a ‘ringing station’, where he carefully places a small tracking ring on the leg of a tiny Sardinian warbler, then releases it in the “hope that someone will discover her somewhere else in the world”. The TOP 94 indoor adventure park in Eilat’s industrial zone offers more than 30 attractions, including indoor wall climbing, archery (I’d recently watched Robin Hood so gave it my best shot without detrimentally affecting my personal liability insurance), go-karting (I came second and still claim it was a stitch-up), rope-park (not a chance), bouldering (ditto) and a mini-bungee jump, which my husband seemed suspiciously enthusiastic for me to do. Israelis from every cross-section of society flock here and it was a joy to see an Orthodox wife and husband gamely clambering up an indoor rock face. Next up was the Eilat Underwater Observatory– which captures the imagination no matter your age and regardless of whether you’ve seen Finding Nemo – and the Coral Beach Nature Reserve, where I marched from the changing room to the ladder at the
misting up, the shadowy outlines of Jordan’s border shoreline visible. The temperature was, to put it mildly, rather brisk, but the clear waters and encountering just some of the 650 species of fish and beautiful coral were worth every post-swim shiver. Dolphin Reef induces a childlike wonder in all who venture there. Home to two beautiful, bottle nosed dolphins who playfully interact with visitors, the centre allows you to sit in deck chairs at the water’s edge for hours just to watch them. The dolphins are not captive and enter the reserve freely at their own leisure. The surrounding botanical gardens offer wooden tree-house structures for reading, working and winding down, with a view over the Red Sea, and are reminiscent of Robin Crusoe. For those over 18, I’d recommend an experience at the Stalbet Al Hamaim pools, which offer specialised water treatments such as the One-on-One Special, or Watsu, where a professional therapist guides you through relaxation techniques in the water. I would have happily have stayed there for days. Terminal Park, the city’s new amusement and entertainment complex on the site of the former airport, features 14 attractions, including a 50-metre big wheel and a forthcoming street market, with around £30m (around ₪150m) having been invested. The park aims to integrate community and tourism, hosting events for thousands
15 January 2026 Jewish News
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JN LIFE Tourism, a list that includes only about 250 villages worldwide. Founded in 1989, it’s home to about 250 residents: kibbutz members, families, children, and volunteers from Israel and abroad. It is a unique model of an ecological cooperative community that combines art, agriculture and environmental awareness in everyday life. It features a frankly astonishing Aladdin-esque architectural masterpiece built by community members over 15 years, an organic boutique winery, a local restaurant-cafe, a co-lodge for those who want to switch off from the online world, art workshops, a shop featuring the work of local artisans, and stargazing next to the Weizmann Institute’s telescope. Accommodation on my trip was courtesy of Isla 42 hotel, which was the perfect base from which to explore alongside tour guide extraordinaire Shai Cohen, who as a proud
Photo couretesy of Israel Tourist Authority
of people while offering free activities for children and older residents. If camels were capable of delivering a withering stare, Ruby at the Camel Ranch near the Eilat Mountain Nature Reserve and a short 10-minute drive from the city centre, was definitely giving it her best shot. To be fair, I wasn’t the most graceful of riders and was relieved to eventually dismount and walk off, albeit à la John Wayne, to investigate the rope course and watch some teenagers preparing food as part of a group challenge. Having flashbacks from a bad experience on a Vespa in Florence, I turned down the offer of an electric bike ride, instead jumping on a golf cart to race one of the guides, navigating winding roads, sunglasses on, the wind in my hair and not a care in the world. Art aficionados will welcome a visit to Kibbutz Neot Semadar, selected for the prestigious ‘Best Tourism Villages’ list by UN
Eilat Bird Sanctuary says its work is “not nature, but nature-based solutions”
Michelle atop ‘Ruby’ at Camel Ranch
Eilat native seemed to be on first-name terms with every single person we met. For a day excursion just 17 miles from Eilat, look no further than Timna Park in Southern Israel’s Arava desert. Its 60 square kilometres feature ancient copper mining and civilisational remnants, with evidence of activity thousands of years old, and spectacularly beautiful landscapes and geological formations including the massive red sandstone rocks named Solomon’s Pillars, eerily reminiscent of a Star Wars or Dune movie set. Israel is full of characters and none more so than Ranger Ron Bernstein, a rugged cowboy of indeterminate age originally from the US, who can best be described as a haimishe cross between Crocodile Dundee, Indiana Jones and City Slickers’ Curly. He is the best possible advocate for a Timna experience, from its walking sunset and
Neot Semadar kibbutz
dawn trails, hiking, cycling trails and family attractions including pedal boating and sand bottling, with overnight accommodation, restaurant and campsite all available. I returned to London sure of three things: Eilat is so much more than a beach destination, Shai Cohen is now an honourary member of the Rosenberg clan, and the sunset at Timna Park will stay with me for a long, long time. • Jewish News was a guest of the Israel Tourist Authority
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With Candice Krieger
UK HOSPITALITY BRACED FOR UNWELCOMING 2026
B
From weight-loss drugs to automation, Maurice Abboudi says structural shifts are reshaping the industry against a very challenging backdrop
ritain’s hospitality sector enters 2026 under intense pressure, with operators warning that the difficulties many hoped would ease have instead deepened – even as ministers signal a possible rethink on business rates for hospitality businesses. Reports in recent days that the government is considering a partial U-turn on plans to scrap business rates relief have offered some encouragement, but industry figures say any reprieve is too little too late for many operators already struggling with rising costs and weak margins. Industry veteran Maurice Abboudi, who has spent more than three decades in the business, says he has “never seen the industry under such strain”, after years of shocks from Covid to energy prices, food inflation and rising taxes. He warns that the November Budget offered “no growth strategy” for hospitality at a time when operators are already stretched. “Our rates bill has gone up by 15 percent,
when we were expecting a decrease of around 15 percent based on sector discussions with the government,” he says. “If we don’t make a profit we can’t grow. If we don’t grow, we can’t employ more people or pay more tax and the economy just stagnates.” As the industry braces for another uncertain year, operators say 2026 will also be shaped by fast-changing consumer habits and new trends sweeping across the market. One of the most significant is the rapid rise of weight-loss drugs, which Abboudi notes “aren’t a fad anymore, they are mainstream”. With roughly 1.4-1.5 million people in the UK now using them – In the quick-service sector, and the numbers rising – he notes that he warns, the risk is “lower demand patterns are already shifting. frequency and lower average order At the premium end, “London Maurice Abboudi values”, with menus moving toward operators are quietly shrinking formore protein-rich dishes and smaller pormats; half-puddings, taster menus and ‘mini’ tions. But he notes that “while there is a trend courses”, while in casual dining, guests are towards healthier eating, in general people trimming courses and drinking less alcohol. still want to go out and enjoy their meals. It’s in the name of the sector: hospitality”. Abboudi is no stranger to navigating periods of strain and change in the hospitality sector. The restaurateur, investor and co-owner of London-based sushi chain K10 has worked with some of the nation’s bestknown brands, including Domino’s, Ask Restaurants and Wagamama, and has appeared as a judge on the BBC’s Million Pound Menu. He wasn’t always destined for the industry. Born in Khartoum and raised in Nigeria, Abboudi moved to the UK aged seven. He began his working life as a trader At Bespoke Kosher Travel, we understand the needs of the before joining his family’s medical-supplies kosher traveller. Our knowledge of destinations gives you the company, but admits he “always had that itch ultimate experience with fresh kosher meals. So whether it’s to build something of my own”. That instinct led him to launch Famous your annual holiday, city break, business trip or special Moe’s Pizza in Sussex in the early 1990s. occasion, let us make your dream a reality. The brand grew to a dozen sites and was one of the first in the UK to introduce online ordering, “so new that many people didn’t know what an email address was”, he recalls. After selling the business, he joined Domino’s in 2002, helping the chain reach £150m in annual turnover, 450 sites in 2004 and cementing its dominance in UK delivery. Abboudi later became a sought-after adviser to some of the sector’s biggest groups. But nothing could have prepared him for the pandemic. When Covid hit, K10’s Cityfocused model collapsed overnight. “The lights went out,” says Abboudi. “The City emptied, and what made our business work – high footfall and office workers – just disappeared.” With costs fixed and revenue wiped out, the company was forced into liquidation. “It wasn’t because we’d done anything - Personalised Itinerary - Kosher Food Delivered - Tailored to your Budget wrong,” he says. “The model can’t survive when your entire market vanishes.” UK: +44 0203 151 1660 USA: +1 917 336 1182 Mobile: +44 (0)7932 658 255 When K10 relaunched, Abboudi adopted info@bespokekoshertravel.com what he calls “stricter discipline”: “No debt, no long credit terms, total transparwww.bespokekoshertravel.com ency. We pay every bill within two weeks.
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‘The sector will recover – it always does’
You have to stay clean, because you never know what’s coming next.” That unpredictability remains one of hospitality’s defining features, he says: “You can have the best concept, the best team, the best location and still get blindsided by something you never saw coming. But that’s what keeps it exciting. It’s always evolving, always reinventing itself.” The rise of delivery platforms has accelerated that evolution. “Now you can run an entire restaurant from your phone. The speed and visibility are extraordinary but it’s also raised expectations. Customers want convenience, precision and instant feedback.” While weight-loss drugs may shape menus and portions this year, Abboudi believes the next defining force will be automation. “We’re already seeing it: smart kitchens, AI-driven stock control and digital ordering kiosks,” he says. “But that’s just the beginning. Robotics and automation will change the model completely.” Yet for all the technological shifts ahead, Abboudi insists the essential human element remains irreplaceable. “Hospitality is about warmth, empathy, reading people – the small things that make someone feel welcome. That’s what technology can’t do.” For Abboudi, hospitality remains one of the greatest training grounds for young people entering the workforce. “It teaches discipline, teamwork, politeness, reliability, social skills – things every profession needs,” he says. “If you work hard, you can build a brilliant career here.” He is also energised by the new wave of Israeli-inspired dining shaping the UK scene, praising the creativity of restaurants such as Bubala, Claro, Delamina, Carmel, Honey & Co, Palomar and Ottolenghi. The appeal, he says, is simple: “It’s vibrant, fresh, healthy, shareable… and it works across every format – casual, premium or delivery.” Despite the difficulties, Abboudi remains convinced the industry will recover. “Hospitality is cyclical,” he says. “I’ve been through enough cycles to know it always comes back. People will always want to eat, drink and be together. Hospitality will recover. It always does.”
15 January 2026 Jewish News
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Orthodox Judaism
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 RABBI YONI GELKER
MAGEN AVOT UNITED SYNAGOGUE
What does leadership really mean? Several years ago, Sivan Rahav Meir shared a striking story. A teacher in Israel asked his pupils to write down the three greatest leaders they could think of. One boy wrote: “My father, Moses, Bibi Netanyahu.” The teacher was surprised. He knew the boy’s father had recently lost his job and was now delivering newspapers and helping in a bakery. After class, he gently asked the boy about his choice. The boy replied without hesitation: “Of course my father is number one. I see how hard it is for him to do this work, and yet he gets up every morning to support our family.” That evening, the teacher phoned the father to share what his son had written. There was a long silence on the line, and then the father said through tears: “You have no idea what this call has done for me.” At the beginning of Parashat Va’era, God
reassures Moses that the redemption from Egypt is now set in motion. After the painful setback of Parashat Shemot, where Moses’s first encounter with Pharaoh only intensified the suffering, God renews his promise to redeem the Jewish people, judge Egypt and bring Bnei Yisrael to freedom. Moses and Aaron are commanded once again to go to Pharaoh and demand: “Let my people go.” The story feels ready to surge forward toward confrontation, plagues and redemption. And then, quite unexpectedly, the Torah presses pause. In Shemot 6:14 we read eleh roshei beit avotam, and for 12 verses the Torah presents a detailed genealogy of Reuven, Shimon and Levi, culminating in the family tree of Moses and Aaron. Only then does the Torah return to the narrative, emphasising: “These are the same Moses and Aaron to
whom Hashem spoke and whom he sent to take the Israelites out of Egypt.” Why interrupt the drama of redemption with what appears to be a technical family list? This is a classic question of the meforshim. Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch offers a profound answer. The Torah does not merely list Moses and Aaron. It introduces their uncles, cousins and extended family, and even records the ages reached by their father and grandfather. In doing so, the Torah makes a decisive statement: Moses Rabbeinu was fully human. He was a son, a nephew, a cousin, part of a family. Unlike religions that endow their founders with divinity, the Torah insists that Moses was flesh and blood. His greatness lay not in being divine, but in what a human being can become. This genealogy serves as a teudah – a certificate of origin, establishing forever that the highest spiritual achievement is within human reach. Yet Rabbi Hirsch adds a second dimension. While Moses and Aaron were only men, they
‘Of course my father is number one’
were chosen men. God’s spirit does not rest randomly. Moses was selected because of his character, integrity and moral stature. And God chose the younger brother to lead. The message is deeply empowering. Leadership is not reserved for the famous or the exceptional. We all lead, especially in our homes, guiding our families through the ordinary routines of life. And if we do so with dedication and quiet responsibility, perhaps one day we too will be number one on someone’s list of the greatest leaders, in the eyes that matter most.
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Progressive Judaism
LEAP OF FAITH
A stimulating series where our progressive rabbis consider Judaism in the face of 21stcentury issues
BY RABBI DEBBIE YOUNG-SOMERS EDGWARE AND HENDON REFORM SYNAGOGUE
Dreaming of a good year
interpret our dreams, before a negative quote occurs to us – in other words, think positive in order to find a good outcome – almost like a self-fulfilling prophecy. The Talmud tells a story about a sage who went to 24 different dream interpreters, each one of which offered a different interpretation. Like the Torah itself, dreams can have multiple meanings, and we are all different in how we approach life and its challenges. If we set out with a negative mindset, we are more likely to experience things as terrible. Go on thinking positive, and hopefully we will experience them as positive, or at least have more of a chance to. Our dreams have become symbols of hope, but they can also express our fears and our darkest thoughts. I rarely remember my dreams, but when I do, they tend to be epic sagas! But how I understand these brain exercises that occur while I rest is down to me. I can, of course, call on psychoanalysis or the pop psychology dream book of my teens, or I can take the advice of the Talmud and try to
Joseph and the Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat does not help with dream interpretations
about things may, in and of itself, help make the new year a better one – training us to find the positive where we can, and hopefully be sources for creating a hopeful, good 2026 for all.
find a positive verse to apply before the negative occurs to me. While we can’t control everything that happens to us, practising this way of thinking of Wee th kl e y Ye
ar
I’m sure many in the Jewish world will feel glad to have put 2025 behind them. Even though New Year began for us months ago, as we begin 2026 I’m fascinated that it has coincided with the conclusion of the book of Genesis, and the story cycle of Joseph, during which all I can hear in my head is the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical! For me, these events coming together are particularly interesting because the rabbis have a lot to say about Joseph’s most famed pastime – dream interpretation. According to the Talmud, dreams are 1/60th prophecy, however in order to understand them, we should turn not to the cheesy dream interpretation book I had on my bedstand as a teenager, but to Torah itself. The Gemara suggests we need to think of a positive line from Tanakh with which to
P Fr ap ee er
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Forever thankful
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PROUD V OICE OF OUR COM MUNITY June 2024 • 29 Iyar 5784 • Issue No.1370 • @JewishNew
It was all sUK
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SENIOR SALES EXECUTIVE 40,000 march throu London for the hosta gh ges
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An estimated 40,000 people, many dressed balloons, took part in yellow and carrying in an emotional yellow rally in London freedom for the 125 last weekend to hostages still held demand by Hamas In blazing sunshine those on the demonstration,in Gaza, writes Jenni Frazer. tives from Jewish which included representacommunities across the UK, were joined and numerous church by Iranian supporters groups. The United We Bring Them Home event Whitehall, opposite – a march to Richmond Downing Street – Terrace in was organised by 7/10 Human Chain the UK branches group of the part of a global initiative, and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, and was with rallies held in Germany, Spain and New York, across France. the US, Australia, By late afternoon, the Metropolitan Police, who closed tion of the rally as Whitehall for the well as some roads durafor the parade from Street, said there had been one arrest. Holborn to Downing “An altercation between member of the public resulted in the passerby a passerby and a being arrested for common assault.” Continued on page 4
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