25 May 2017 Jewish News
www.jewishnews.co.uk
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Sportsman honoured / Kosher Saudis / Definition row / News
A sports league has been relaunched in memory of a 32-year-old who lost his battle with cancer last year, writes Jack Mendel. The revamped George Goldstone Basketball League (GGBL) began last Sunday, bringing young community members together to celebrate Goldstone’s love of the sport. The league, the brainchild of Aish rabbis Moshe Mayerfeld and Shlomo Farhi, will see games at JFS every Sunday. Goldstone, a successful lawyer, was diagnosed with cancer and passed away in July 2016, a year after his wedding. “Speaking at his funeral was one of the most difficult moments of my life” Mayerfeld, who also married Goldstone and his wife Lauren, said. “George was a very special young man. I was very close with him, as a friend, a rabbi and on the basketball court. Professionally and personally he was endeared to so many and we miss him.”
Photo by Blake Ezra Photography
Basketball star George remembered as league is relaunched in his name
George and Lauren at their wedding; below, Moshe Mayerfeld
At the launch of the league on Sunday, 15 players were joined by many of Goldstone’s close family and friends. The best man and ushers from his wedding attended, alongside his wife and nineyear-old cousin Noah, who has started playing basketball – inspired by Goldstone. Mum Jennie Goldstone thanked organisers, saying she “can’t think of a better tribute for Aish to perpetuate
George’s memory. Basketball and Jewish life was his passion. Every time you play and wear the GGBL kit, you honour the inspirational son, brother, husband, uncle, cousin and friend that was George Goldstone”. His wife Lauren also addressed guests on Sunday, saying: “George had the incredible quality of bringing people together. So tonight thanks to
Moshe and everyone here, we can do what he loved most and continue to do it every week. I hope that by establishing the GGBL there will be many, many more opportunities for people to get together and play just as he would have wanted. ” Friends of Goldstone, who managed the Junior Boys basketball team at the European Maccabi Games in Berlin in 2015, also paid tribute. Dov Green told Jewish News he “was lucky to have been coached by George. He filled me with confidence I did not have before and that I have continued to have and develop since.”
SAUDI ARABIA AND DUBAI IN KOSHER MOVE Saudi Arabia and Dubai have joined the list of places producing kosher-certified products, kashrut authorities have revealed. According to Orthodox Union (OU), the two Gulf states are now among 104 countries in which kosher supervisors work, overseeing the production of products. Rabbi Moshe Elefant, chief executive of the OU Kashrus
Division, said it was a sign of the times. He also hailed the development as “a reflection of the changing geopolitical situation where these countries have warmed considerably to Israel as a result of their having to confront a common enemy, Iran”. Elefant added: “Many of the countries that now produce kosher are anxious to penetrate markets in the US and Europe but are faced with the reality that so many of these markets require kosher certification.”
UCU rejects IHRA definition An academics’ union has been sharply criticised by the Board of Deputies for distancing itself from a controversial new definition of antiSemitism. A motion put forward for the forthcoming annual congress of the University and Colleges Union (UCU), which has 110,000 members, takes issue with the new International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition.
The motion says the definition “conflates anti-Semitism with criticism of Israel”. UCU, whose members include academics, lecturers and researchers working in education and prisons, will vote later on the motion, which calls on the organisation to dissociate itself from the IHRA wording. The definition, backed by Theresa May but not legally binding, is meant to redefine anti-Semitism in 2017.
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