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Path to wisdom

Stamford Hill tribute to beloved rabbi Page 4

Hadley Freeman on the left’s response to 7/10 P10 & 11 The bias that blinds

PM summons uni leaders over demos

Vice-chancellors visit Downing Street today for talks about safety of Jewish students on campus

by Lee Harpin lee@jewishnews.co.uk

Rishi Sunak this week warned his cabinet there had been an “unacceptable rise” in antisemitism on UK campuses, ahead of a meeting today with 20 university vicechancellors at Downing Street.

A spokesperson for the prime minister told Jewish News he believes the increase in anti-Jewish racism has created a “hostile atmosphere” for Jewish students and current pro-Palestinian protests taking place at UK universities have “a potential to lead to that too”.

The spokesperson added: “It important, the prime minister would argue, that a vocal and aggressive minority must not be allowed to intimidate other students or academics.”

Education Secretary Gillian Keegan is set to address the leaders of universities at today’s crunch meeting, which is being held at No 10, having previously set out the government’s expectation that universities “crackdown on antisemitic abuse”. Keegan, Communities Secretary Michael Gove and Security Minister Tom Tugendhat are also set to

attend, along with the CST’s Dave Rich.

The government has stated it wants to see UK universities take “robust action” over extreme behaviour to “ensure students feel safe” and avoid a repeat of scenes similiar to those witnessed on American campuses. It will also listen to university leaders’ responses to the rise in antisemitism.

Downing Street confirmed that members of the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) will also be at the meeting to give examples of intimidation they have faced on campuses, particularly after the 7 October Hamas attacks.

UJS president Edward Isaacs, who will attend, said: “We welcome the prime minister-led vice-chancellor roundtable on campus antisemitism and we look forward to presenting. Vice-chancellors must have moral clarity in their leadership to ensure that campuses are welcoming and inclusive spaces to Jewish students. Any commitments made must be followed by swift and decisive action.”

The government is also preparing to release new guidance on tackling antisemitism at universities and colleges.

The spokesperson did not rule out the prospect of the police becoming involved if necessary to crackdown on extremist conduct at “highly disruptive’ protests on campuses.

The PM’s aide said he told his top team that “obviously our campuses should be places of rigorous debate” but they should also be tolerant places where students from all communities, and “particularly Jewish students at this time should be treated with respect.”

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EUROVISION BRACED FOR HURRICANE

Israeli singer Eden Golan (pictured) will take to the stage tonight in Malmo, Sweden, in the second semi-final of the Eurovision Song Contest. The competition has been marred by protests against her country’s military campaign in the Gaza Strip. Her song, Hurricane, is nevertheless expected to qualify for Saturday evening’s final and Golan, 20, has said she hopes to ‘unite by music’

Protesters at Oxford University

Israel begins operation against Hamas in Rafah

by Jotam Confino in Israel jotam@jewishnews.co.uk

The Israeli army took control of the Palestinian side of the Rafah border crossing in Gaza on Tuesday morning, telling Jewish News it had begun a “precise counterterrorism operation to eliminate Hamas and dismantle terrorist infrastructure within specific areas”.

Footage showed Israeli tanks reaching the border crossing, after Israeli forces attacked Hamas operatives and infrastructure in the area, killing some 20 terrorists and locating three operational tunnel shafts.

Israel issued evacuation orders to about 100,000 Palestinian civilians in eastern Rafah on Monday, sending text messages, and flyers and placing phone calls to residents and NGOs.

The IDF called on residents to evacuate to the humanitarian area in Al-Mawasi, where the army said it facilitated the “expansion of field hospitals, tents, and an increase in water, food, and medical supplies”.

fired rockets from Rafah at the Kerem Shalom border crossing, killing four Israeli soldiers. Israel shut the crossing in response but re-opened it following pressure from Washington. Israel dismissed a last-minute ceasefire proposal by Hamas on Monday evening, saying it was far from meeting its demands.

Israel is also working on re-opening the Kerem Shalom crossing to Gaza after Hamas fired rockets and killed four Israeli soldiers at the crossing on Sunday. The IDF would not comment on whether it will remain in control of Rafah crossing and how long it will stay there.

The evacuation of civilians on Monday morning began after Hamas

Hamas political leader Ishmail Haniyeh told Qatar and Egypt it had agreed to a proposal which would lead to the release of 33 Israeli hostages in the first phase, mainly children, women, elderly and the who are ill. But according to a report in the New York Times, Hamas told mediators that some of the 33 hostages are no longer alive.

For each civilian Israeli hostage released alive, “Israel would release 30 Palestinians it has detained. For every female soldier released by Hamas, Israel would release 50 Palestinians,” according to the ceasefire text released by Al Jazeera.

The second phase would lead to a “permanent end to military operations and a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. There would also be another prisoner swap, this time involving all the remaining Israeli men, including soldiers held captive in Gaza. The Israelis would be released in return for an as-yet unspecified number of Palestinian prisoners.” The last phase would involve a “three- to-five-year reconstruction plan for Gaza”.

Israel has called those demands “delusional” as they would allow Hamas to maintain control over Gaza.

NEARLY A THIRD OF US

Israel’s war cabinet decided that the IDF would continue its operation in Rafah, “in order to apply military pressure on Hamas so as to advance the release of our hostages and achieve the other objectives of the war”, Netanyahu’s office said.

Meanwhile, an Israeli delegation left for Egypt on Monday in what appeared to be a last attempt to reach a ceasefire with Hamas. Hamas has refused to compromise on its demands to end the war and remove Israel from Gaza. Netanyahu again dismissed those demands, saying:

“Israel cannot accept a proposal that endangers the safety of our citizens.” Families of hostages continued to protest, urging the government to strike a deal with Hamas to get the hostages out, and calling for a halt to the invasion of Rafah. “Entry into Rafah is a death sentence for the hostages. The government is sacrificing the hostages,” said Yifat Calderon, whose cousin Ofer is a hostage in Gaza.

Another hostage was declared dead by Israel this week. Lior Rudaeff, from Kibbutz Nir Yitzchak, was killed on 7 October but his body is still in Gaza.

MARK YOM HA’ATZMAUT Conspiracy myth guide for MPs warns of threat

Just under a quarter of British Jews mark Israel’s Memorial Day (Yom Hazikaron) and more observe its independence (Yom Ha’atzmaut), research by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) shows.

The figures come from JPR’s study of Jewish identity in the UK, based on the responses of nearly 5,000 British Jews to its survey held in NovemberDecember 2022. The results represent a first look at the extent to which British Jews mark these holidays.

Some of the key findings, from JPR senior research fellow Dr David Graham, show that 24 percent of adult Jews observed or marked Yom

Hazikaron “either in person or online” in 2022, and a higher proportion (32 percent) marked Yom Ha’atzmaut.

About one in five (22 per cent) observed both days.

Generally speaking, the more religious a person is, the more likely they are to observe these events. The exception is among strictly Orthodox Jews, whose level of participation is more or less equal to the most secular and religiously non-practising.

JPR’s executive director, Dr Jonathan Boyd, said: “Three-quarters of a century after the establishment of the state of Israel, the existence of the country and the losses it has endured play a strikingly significant part in many people’s Jewish identities, particularly those who are most likely to be communally involved.”

A guide has been published aimed at preventing MPs and parliamentary candidates from being drawn into conspiracy theories, with a warning that they pose a threat to democracy.

Commissioned by the Leader of the House of Commons Penny Mordaunt and launched alongside the shadow Leader of the House, Lucy Powell, the guide provides examples of eight conspiracies including those emerging from the QAnon movement, anti-vaccine narratives and climate change denial.

The guide was put together by expert groups including the Antisemitism Policy Trust and Tell Mama, the charity working to combat anti-Muslim hate.

Research has identified a key connection between antisemitism and conspiracy theories.

A recent study conducted by researchers from King’s College London found that antisemitism is more likely to occur among those who believe in conspiracy theories, whether

their views are right or left-wing. Antisemitism is a present thread across all the case studies presented in this guide.

Mordaunt said: “The proliferation of conspiracy theories across the UK is deeply disturbing.

“If they go unchallenged we risk the public being conned and their wellbeing potentially damaged.”

Smoke from explosions over Rafah on Tuesday. Families of hostages continue to urge Israel to strike a deal

An IDF soldier in Rafah this week

Yom Hazikaron in Israel

Penny Mordaunt (second left) at the launch

Lior Rudaeff: body

Greens confirm inquiry as cllr suggests Islamophobia

The Green Party has confirmed it’s investigating a new councillor who described his victory as a “win for the people of Gaza”, writes Lee Harpin.

The chair of the Leeds Jewish Representative Council had written to the party’s co-leaders following the election of Mothin Ali on to the city council in last Thursday’s election.

The next day Ali, 42, was also filmed shouting “Allahu akbar!” after his win was confirmed, with supporters raising a Palestinian flag behind him in the video for social media.

The letter from the Leeds Rep Council urged the Greens to address Ali’s conduct after his victory – he had raised his arm in the air and said: “We will not be silenced. We will raise the voice of Gaza. We will raise the voice of Palestine. Allahu akbar!”

Simon Myerson KC, chair of the Leeds Rep Council, called on the Green Party’s leaders to “formally suspend” Ali after outlining concerns about his behaviour in the past, adding: “It is wholly wrong that your party should seek to benefit from his views and his behaviour.”

Confirming that the inquiry had been opened on Monday, a Green spokesperson added: “We are clear that we never support anything that extols violence.”

Party co-leader Carla Denyer conceded that Ali’s comments were “very concerning”.

Lord Mann, the government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, is also set to intervene over fears the Greens are becoming a party dogged by claims of antisemitism.

Mann confirmed to Jewish News he was meeting the Greens this week “to discuss what they are going to do in reaction to these people and also more widely in their membership and their candidate selections”.

He had been aware of Ali from his involvement in the Leeds University antisemitism issue.

In a statement the Board of Deputies said on Monday: “We are appalled by comments where Mothin Ali appeared to celebrate and attempt to justify 7 October. The Green Party has serious questions to answer over its utter failure of due diligence, which includes nominating Mr Ali for the role of Leeds Deputy Mayor for Police and Crime Commissioner.”

The Jewish Leadership Council added: “At a time of such division and fear, we need politicians who will work to secure community cohesion, not undermine it. Mr Ali’s record speaks for itself and if the Green Party is serious about dealing with antisemitism rather than just paying lip service to it in meetings with community leaders, action will be taken.”

Labour has raised concerns relating to antisemitism over Green candidates elected in Bristol, and a

Green councillor in Peterborough has been accused of making insulting anti-Israel comments.

Jewish News has reported on concerns about the Greens in relation to antisemitism after the Jewish Labour Movement raised the matter.

In Leeds Ali had posted on social media on 8 October last year, referring to “white supremacist European settler colonialism” as he appeared to justify the Hamas massacre.

Writing to Green leaders Denyer

Khan: Hamas-Israel equivalence

Rishi Sunak has claimed Sadiq Khan drew “an equivalence between the brutal terrorist attack of Hamas and Israel defending itself” in comments made on the Gaza conflict, writes Lee Harpin.

Speaking during PMQs in the Commons on Wednesday, the prime minister suggested Labour leader Keir Starmer should use the opportunity to “condemn these comments from the Labour mayor.”

A spokesperson for Keir Starmer later accused the PM of “entirely misrepresenting what the mayor of London had said”, while a source close to Khan said the mayor was suggesting the deaths of all civilian lives should be condemned unequivocally.” A Downing Street spokesperson continued to insist Sunak had been correct to make the claim. It followed reports of a comments given by Khan after he was sworn in again at City Hall on Tuesday after his mayoral election victory. Khan told The Telegraph: “It’s an issue of humanity and I think you’ve got to

show equivalence.”

Meanwhile, The Jewish Labour Movement’s national chair has congratulated Khan after he secured an unprecedented third term as London mayor, As results of last Thursday’s mayoral election were announced on Saturday it become clear Khan had performed better than expected in Barnet and Camden, with their sizeable Jewish vote. He secured 44 percent

of the overall vote, with Susan Hall receiving 33 percent.

JLM chair Mike Katz, said: “Makes me proud of our city and [Khan’s] leadership, rejecting divisive, narrow-minded politics for a broad, positive vision for London. He’s always been, and remains, a firm friend and staunch ally of the Jewish community.”

Adam Langleben, director of the Progressive Britain think tank, told Jewish News: “I’m delighted Sadiq has been re-elected for a historic third term. At times like this we need politicians that seek to unite communities rather than divide and that’s what Sadiq has always done.”

While Khan’s Conservative rival received support in the Brent and Harrow in the north London constituency, and as expected in Bexley and Bromley, in south London, elsewhere support for Khan increased.

There was little sign that the expansion of the Ulez scheme on the outskirts of the capital was having a major impact on the vote in London.

and Adrian Ramsay, Myerson said: “To label the Israeli state settler-colonialists is the hyperbolic language of the stupid left. But to label it white is simply wrong: the population of Israel is predominantly non-white.”

Ali had also ranted against Rabbi Zacheria Deutsch, the Jewish chaplain at Leeds University, who was advised by police to go into hiding with his wife and two children after death and rape threats.

Deutsch, a citizen of Israel, was

called up as a reservist with the Israeli Defence Forces after 7 October.

Ali, a prolific YouTuber, said on social media: “This creep, that’s the only way I can describe him, is someone who went from Leeds to Israel to kill children and women and everyone else over there.”

His social media response to 7 October had been to say that “Palestinians have the right to resist occupying forces” and viewers should “support the right of indigenous people to fight back”.

In a statement Ali said: “I am sorry for any upset my comments caused about the Gaza conflict. That was not my intention. Like many across the world I have been deeply impacted by the dreadful conflict currently under way in Gaza. I do not support violence on either side: violence leads to more violence and this is what I have tried to convey. I have consistently called for an immediate ceasefire and a release of all hostages.”

He added that being elected to represent “the wonderful community of Gipton and Harehills was one of the proudest moments of my life.”

He added: “I should also make clear that it is not unusual for somebody of my faith to use the words ‘Allahu akbar’ as an expression of gratitude and celebration. Some have sought to misrepresent this and it suggests Islamophobia to me.”

NUS SETTLES WITH FORMER PRESIDENT

The National Union of Students has reached a settlement with expresident Shaima Dallali, after she admitted a tweet posted on social media in 2012, for which she apologised, was antise mitic, writes Lee Harpin.

A statement agreed by both parties confirmed that the settlement brought to and end the proceedings before an employment tribunal.

It added: “The terms of that settlement are confidential between the parties and shall not be disclosed.”

that said they had begun employment tribunal proceedings against NUS.

Ahead of confirmation of the settlement Jewish News understands that Dallali has now accepted that a tweet posted in 2012, when she was 18, was indeed antisemitic.

The Union of Jewish Students had raised concerns about Dallali’s election as student union president, including a tweet that used an Arabic chant that referenced what has been described as a massacre of Jews in the year AD628.

Dallali was dismissed over allegations of antisemitism in November 2022 following an independent code-of-conduct investigation after allegations were made against her, including by Jewish students.

In March 2023, she tweeted a press release from her solicitors Carter Ruck

Dallali became the first president to have been fired in the 100-year history of the NUS after ‘significant breaches of policy’ were found back in 2022.

Dallali has now accepted that while it was not her intention, the tweet was antisemitic. Both parties accepted that she has apologised for that tweet.

Shaima Dallali

Green councillor Mothin Ali shouted ‘Allahu akbar’ after victory in Leeds

Khan’s victory speech on Saturday

Rabbi Avrohom Pinter honoured with street sign in Stamford Hill

Lord Michael Levy delivered a tribute to Rabbi Avrohom Pinter during a ceremony organised by Hackney Council leaders to open a street in the late Charedi leader’s name alongside a new housing development, writes Lee Harpin.

At the event, also attended by shadow foreign minister David Lammy, Lord Glassman, Hackney mayor Caroline Woodley and Haringey Council leader Cllr Peray Ahmet and other dignitaries, Levy described Rabbi Pinter as “a beacon of what communal relations should be” whose “Yiddishkeit was paramount in his life” and “never wavered from what he believed.”

The Rabbi Avrohom Pinter Path was unveiled alongside the new homes, many tailored to the needs of the Charedi community.

The opening event of the Quartet/Tower Court development in Pinter’s memory also marked four years since his passing.

The development includes 52 social rented and 80 outright sold homes, in testimony to Rabbi Pinter’s tireless advocacy for the design to be tailored for Charedi families, including kosher kitchens, sukkahs, Shabbos lifts and spacious homes. Many Charedi families have already moved in.

Recalling his own Stamford Hill roots at Hackney Downs Grammar School, Levy said Pinter’s “understanding of other communities was paramount”, adding he shuddered when he saw what is going on in the world today and telling the audience a 27-year-old cousin of his was a hostage of Hamas.

Hackney had changed as an area but Levy said he was “proud” to see local leaders had named the path in honour of a Charedi rabbi.

Levy said each year he misses “greatly” the Rosh Hashanah blessing Rabbi Pinter always gave him and recalled Pinter had phoned him when he went into University College Hospital with Covid.

After he died, Levy said he had helped get the rabbi’s body to Israel during the pandemic “which was almost impossible.”

He also recalled convincing prime minister Tony Blair to attend the opening of Yesodeh Hatorah School. The PM had asked, “Why?”

Levy said he told Blair he would be able to see “another form of Judaism” and “very special people”.

also lavished praise on Lammy, the local MP, saying: “Pray God he will soon be our foreign secretary.”

Lammy shared heartfelt reflections on Rabbi Pinter’s “indelible mark” on both political and communal spheres, recalling Rabbi Pinter was among the select few who accompanied him from the inception of his political journey and provided counsel until his passing.

Candidates quizzed on Board members’ ages

Leadership candidates for the forthcoming Board of Deputies election have been questioned over issues including the fact that the median age of elected representatives at the communal organisation is 65.

In a revealing exercise deputies, including observers in the under-35 age group, submitted a series of questions to candidates.

There was concern at the underrepresentation of younger Jews and questions around policy on Israel and on issues such as racism that deserved further focus.

The group was also concerned the Board in engaging on issues related to Israel on occasions risked blurring “the lines in the eyes of the public between British Jews and the Israeli government”.

Pressed over clear evidence

younger Jews were seriously underrepresented at the Board, where many under-35s “are not full participants and have no voting rights as ‘observers’,” all four presidential candidates agreed more needed to be done to increase engagement.

Sheila Gewolb called for the “observer status” to be re-examined by the new leadership as it clearly left some feeling they were not fully involved with the Board, and more likely to step away as career and family became more important.

Amanda Bowman suggested if she were to succeed current president Marie van der Zyl she would table a constitutional amendment to replace the observer scheme with a new under-35 deputy scheme.

Michael Ziff said he would include young deputies within a

COBRA crisis team to respond to emergencies and present the community’s position to the media.

Phil Rosenberg noted that if elected he would become the Board’s youngest president so far, at 38.

He said he would “review the effectiveness” of the under-35 programme and also reinstate the community engagement officer post previously held by Lauren Kelles.

Among vice-presidential candidates, Andrew Gilbert said under-35 observers should be given the vote and be deputies and have places on the Board’s various divisions.

Jeremy Michaelson suggested under-35s were currently treated as a homogenous group when “the needs and aspirations of those in their late teens and early 20s are quite different”.

Lammy also hailed Rabbi Pinter’s work across party lines for the betterment of the community, despite being a strong Labour member. Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations president Reb Binyomin Stern concluded the memorial by expressing the community’s gratitude to the council for recognising the needs of the Charedi community and ensuring their inclusion in the development.

BRAVERMAN: ISRAEL MUST FINISH THE JOB

Former Conservative minister Suella Braverman sparked controversy in the Commons this week after she backed an Israeli invasion of Rafah to ensure it “finishes the job to eliminate Hamas from Gaza”.

In Tuesday’s latest Gaza debate, deputy foreign secretary Andrew Mitchell held firm against repeated calls from some backbench Labour MPs and SNP politicians for a suspension of arms sales to Israel. But Braverman insisted “sometimes countries must fight for peace” as she called for the government to maintain “steadfast” support for military action.

She told MPs: “We all want peace. We all want to see the end of civilian fatalities. But sometimes countries must fight for peace. Israel has a right to defend herself and a duty to protect her people from the brutal terrorist

cult of Hamas. Minister, will you confirm that the UK Government will maintain steadfast and resolute support for Israel as she finishes the job to eliminate Hamas from Gaza?”

Her call to allow Israel to “finish the job” sparked anger on the opposition backbenches.

Responding to Braverman’s comments Mitchell said:”She makes clear in what she says that Israel has the right of self defence and she set out very eloquently why that is the case, but Israel must also abide by international humanitarian law.”

Labour shadow foreign secretary David Lammy had tabled the Urgent Question on Gaza, and said: “This is a profoundly concerning moment in this awful war,” adding ceasefire negotiations seem to be “going backwards”, with the war escalating.

Levy

Local hero: Part of the large crowd gathered to watch the unveiling of Stamford Hill’s new street sign in honour of Rabbi Pinter

‘We come as proud Jews to remember the Shoah’

The symbolism behind this year’s Yom HaShoah commemoration, held in Victoria Tower Gardens – in the shadow of the Houses of Parliament in Westminster – was lost on no one, writes Lee Harpin.

Not one of the 2,000-strong audience seated in front of the stage inside the park or on the thousands who watched Sunday evening’s poignant ceremony online.

This year, we once again vowed to “Never Forget” the six million Jews murdered under the Nazi tyranny, but we did so just seven months after Hamas terrorists carried out the 7 October massacre in southern Israel.

And also while the 133 hostages remained captured in Gaza.

As a succession of excellent speeches reminded us, we gathered also in the glare of rising antisemitism across the globe, leading to fears that the pledge to “Never Forget” Jewish suffering was being ignored.

“We come together this evening as proud Jews to remember the Shoah, to remember the worst that antiJewish racism has ever brought about,” host Henry Grunwald CBE told the gathering, which also marked the 85th anniversary this year of the Kindertransport rescues.

events of the 7th of October, the date of the murder of the largest number of Jews in a single day since the end of the Shoah.”

Former Board of Deputies president Grunwald KC noted that Yom HaShoah offered the chance for the community to recall these horrors “in their own way” and in a style that is “introspective and personal for Jews.”

“We pause and reflect on the appalling consequences of antisemitism during the Shoah, and this year we mark Yom HaShoah mindful of the appalling

In one of her final engagements as current Board president Marie van der Zyl then said it was “fitting” that this year’s event took place in the Westminster location, which is earmarked as the site for the UK Holocaust Memorial and Learning Centre.

Van der Zyl noted that the community had been “tested over these last

six months in ways not experienced in generations” and that “there could be no greater backdrop than this, for us to stand united, proud, resilient, defiant, and unshakeable as British Jews as we declare these simple, yet profound words for all to hear: ‘Never again’ truly means ‘Never Again!’”

The out-going president then read ‘We Commune’ the Yad Vashem Law, an Act of The Knesset, the Israeli Parliament, passed in 1953.

Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mirvis referred to Hamas’s 7 October attack on Israel that killed 1,200 people, saying that before that date “we blissfully could’ve imagined and presumed that horrific Jewish suffering is something which applied to other people in other places at other times”, but since that “we know that it is possible here”.

He said the UK is “witnessing a worrying rise in levels of antisemitism”, adding: “And it is here, week after week on the streets of London, that we are witnessing unacceptable outpourings of Jew hatred.

“But it is also here in the UK that we know we are not alone.

“We know that the vast majority of the citizens of our country recognise that a threat to the Jews is a threat to all of our society.”

arriving in her new home, leaving her parents behind.

She had arrived at the railway station in Prague on 31 May 1939 and found the platform was “teeming with parents and children and armed German soldiers”, adding she was “absolutely terrified”.

She said she boarded a train and cannot remember “speaking to anyone, eating anything or drinking anything”.

Snow crossed the border into Holland and was put on a boat to England where she was taken to live with her mother’s cousin in Hampstead, London.

“I did not know a word of English but luckily had started to learn German at school so had a language with which I could at least communicate,” she added.

Rabbi Mirvis added:”We as a nation will always strive to guarantee that we will remember the lessons of the Holocaust in order to shape our presence and to inform and inspire a better, healthier, more peaceful and secure Britain.”

There was also a remarkable appearance on stage from Bronia Snow, 96, who recalled how her parents were deported to a concentration in 1942 and apart from one letter, all communication stopped.

Snow was herself transported to England in 1939 and in a speech recalled how terrified she was at

“Letters from my parents were grim as Jews they had to wear yellow stars.”

Snow said her parents were deported to a concentration camp in 1942 and apart from one letter, all communication stopped.

As she finished her speech she received a standing ovation from the audience.

In another fine speech Lord Eric Pickles noted how in the aftermath of 7 October there had been many “in authority, in the media,” who had failed to confront “antisemitism and Holocaust denial”.

FEARS MOUNT FOR ISRAEL’S OLDEST HOSTAGE

The granddaughter of Israel’s oldest hostage held in Gaza by terror group Hamas is begging the international community for his release, writes Natalie Lisbona.

In an interview with Jewish News, Noam Safir, 20 a law student from Eilat, said the family is worried sick.

“He was already slender, weighing around nine stone, and since former hostages have revealed they were starved inside Gaza we are living through an absolute nightmare,” Noam said.

Shlomo Mantzur, 86, a grandfather of 12 and a carpenter from Kibbutz Kissufim, was taken from his home on 7 October in his pyjamas by the terrorists. His wife of 60 years, Mazal, 78, managed to wriggle free from the terrorists as they handcuffed her husband and forced him out.

“They grabbed grandpa’s car key and drove him in his own car to Gaza,” Noam said. “Because he’s from Iraq, he speaks Arabic so we are hoping this is helping him get by, but he doesn’t have his hearing aid so we are so worried. We have not heard one thing since, no released hostages have seen him or heard about him, there has been no sign of life,” Noam said.

Israel believes 133 kidnapped hostages are still being held by the terrorists in Gaza, with at least 34 of them already confirmed dead.

Earlier this month Hamas said it did not have 40 living hostages who fit the categories of women, children, the elderly and the sick, raising further fears among relatives.

Noam added: “Grandpa always saved the crossword puzzle for us to do together. He used to make all these

things from scrap and with left over bits from carpentry. He once made me a key ring of a woman when I was four. He is so gifted with his hands. He was the first person to buy me a Honda motorcycle when I was 17. He’s a really cool grandpa.”

“I have had so many nightmares, and

I cry a lot. I once had a dream that he came back and was about to die in a hospital bed. Once I dreamed we went back in time and I saw him twice, they took one of him and the other disappeared. Grandma has thrown herself into knitting to escape the horrors. She’s been displaced from her home like 200,000 other Israelis.

“He should be enjoying his senior years. Instead we don’t know what he is going through and it makes me angry because he is just so kind and happy.

“I just hope that he comes back the happy man he is. The first thing I will do when I see him is hug him and kiss him and make sure he’s fine and make sure he knows how important he is and how his being missing has affected the family so badly. He is the glue of our family. We just want him home,” Noam added.

Taken: Shlomo Mantzur

Happy times: Noam with her grandfather Shlomo

Henry Grunwold KC

Bronia Snow

VR puts you at scene of 7/10

A powerful virtual reality educational tool being used to bear witness to the horrors of the 7 October Hamas attacks was launched yesterday in London, writes Michelle Rosenberg.

The Israel-based NGO Israel-Is teamed with the genocide testimony specialist Dr Stephen D Smith to create Be the Witness, enabling viewers to stand in the locations where the atrocities took place with the people who survived.

The project to create it started two days after the massacre as an Instagram page called Survived to Tell. Now the 10-minute VR feature includes footage, text messages and personal videos from five survivors taken on 7 October that are being seen for the first time.

Four of the featured survivors this week told a group of journalists about their experiences.

Millet Ben Haim, 28, hid in the bushes for hours after evading capture by terrorists chasing her at the Nova Peace Festival.

Mazal Tazazo, 33, is an Ethiopian-Israeli social worker and trainee architect whose two friends were murdered next to her. With a serious head injury from the butt of a gun, she faked death to avoid capture. One of her fingers is damaged from where she used her hand to protect the back of her head from the assault.

Remo Salman El-Hozayet, 37, is a MuslimIsraeli Bedouin police o cer who arrived at the Nova festival for his shift just as the attacks began. He used a small car he found, with a full tank and keys still in the engine, to make more

than 20 return journeys to the festival site. He saved the lives of 200 partygoers.

The CEO of Israel-Is, Nimrod Palmach, was a first responder on 7 October. An IDF reservist, he defied orders, drove to the south and fought for 15 hours against dozens of Hamas terrorists, saving more than 500 lives at Kibbutz Alumim.

Be the Witness also includes the story of Ofir Engel, 18, a Dutch-Israeli national and hostage who was taken by Hamas from Kibbutz Be’eri and spent 54 days in captivity.

Palmach, 39, said: “I witnessed the massacre on 7 October first-hand. My motivation behind Be the Witness VR programme was to put the

viewer in my shoes from that day. Spurred by the motto ‘never again’ - this immersive experience provides insights that will enable this generation to have positive conversations. We need to build bridges that stand against Jihadist extremism in the name of the shared values of human rights, love, empathy.”

Smith said: “7 October is a scar on the heart of humanity. VR takes us there, to the time and place itself. As a film producer and oral historian whose professional career has been dedicated to telling the story of Holocaust survivors, I know that developing empathy is a first step to deeper understanding. Be the Witness allows viewers

to take a few moments to be in the presence of ordinary people who went through an extraordinary event, and see it through their eyes.”

Israeli ambassador Tzipi Hotovely said of the VR experience: “For me it was like being there, being one of the dancers at the festival. Antisemitism has never been at such a peak. We need to fight back and this VR is part of it.”

Ben Haim added: “Since I survived, I must talk about it for those who can’t.”

The programme will roll out globally with visits to university campuses. More information at israel-is.org/en/survived-to-tell  Stephen Smith, page 18

Left: Ofir Engel, 18, was taken from Kibbutz Be’eri and spent 54 days in captivity

Above: from left, Nili Bar Sinai, Mazal Tazazo, Tzipi Hotovely, Millet Ben Haim, Remo Salman El-Hozayel, Nimrod Palmach

Sydney Assor mourned

London’s Moroccan embassy this week led tributes to Sydney Assor, the leader of the Moroccan Jewish community in the UK, following his death at the age of 93, writes Michelle Rosenberg.

Born in 1931 in Casablanca, Assor’s family lived in a Muslim neighbourhood and enjoyed good relations with the community. In the 1950s, he joined a Dutch manufacturing company and was relocated to England in 1961 by his employer.

Assor founded and chaired the Association of Moroccan Jews in Great Britain, and was a co-founder of the Assembly of Moroccan Jewry.

He introduced former prime minister Margaret Thatcher to Jewish charities in Morocco and as a Board of Deputies member initiated the first lunch attended by Moroccan and Egyptian ambassadors.

Assor also chaired the Surrey branch of the Three Faiths Forum, working tirelessly on interfaith initiatives. In 2016, he was inducted into the Order of Ouissam Alaouite as Commander, the highest Moroccan honour accorded to a foreigner.

The Moroccan embassy said it “deeply mourns the loss of Sydney Assor, a devoted son of Morocco who represented his homeland with pride in the UK. For more than three decades and as the leader of the Moroccan Jewish community in the UK, Sydney worked relentlessly to uphold

and promote the Moroccan values of coexistence and tolerance.

“His commitment to fostering dialogue between Muslim and Jewish communities in the UK, inspired by the Moroccan model, has been acclaimed by all.

“We extend our deepest condolences to his family, friends, and all who knew him. Sidney Assor’s memory and legacy will forever remain in our hearts and continue to guide us in our mission of promoting peace and understanding across diverse communities.”

Edwin Shuker, a leading member of the Iraqi Jewish community in London

and vice-president of the Board of Deputies, added: “Sydney Assor combined an intense love of the Jewish people with that of his beloved Morocco. It felt that he was the link, the bridge and the representative between the two.”

Sephardi Voices UK director Dr Bea Lewkowicz said: “We are deeply saddened to hear the news about the passing of Sydney Assor. We are grateful that we were able to record his life history in one of the first Sephardi Voices UK interterviews. Sydney was very proud of his Moroccan origins and had a very strong Moroccan Jewish identity, which deeply shaped his dedication to community and interfaith work.

“He gave us a profound message at the end of his interview: ‘Don’t be ever ashamed of your origin. You are part of a history, you are part of something ... I am proud to be Moroccan, I am proud to have a British passport. I am very proud to have had a French education. Above all I am proud to be Jewish. Because to be Jewish is a hell of a responsibility [laughs]. Be your true self, whoever you are.’”

The Board of Deputies said Assor was “a remarkable man who worked tirelessly to bring together Jewish and Muslim communities ... Sydney was a champion for Jews of Moroccan origin living in Great Britain, and his loss is deeply felt”.

AUTHORS REJECT GAZA STATEMENT

An attempt to get the Society of Authors trade union to issue a statement about Gaza was narrowly defeated last week in an online extraordinary general meeting.

The EGM was called after 35 members of the 12,500strong union who belong to the Fossil Free Books grouping, tabled a Gaza resolution and a second motion on the use of fossil fuel in publishing.

The Gaza motion, which did not mention Hamas’s incursion into Israel, the subsequent murders of Israelis or the taking of hostages, was supported by 786 votes and opposed by 883, with 239 abstentions. There was extensive lobbying by the proposers of the motion to get support, while Jewish authors expressed fear at the implications if it were passed.

The management committee of the SoA formally opposed the motion. Outgoing chief executive Nicola Solomon said : “We don’t feel it is appropriate for the Society of Authors to be making a statement on Israel/Gaza.”

MACCABI

CANDLES

Jewish communities all over the world were brought together on Sunday for the Maccabi GB Yellow Candles project, commemorating those who died in the Holocaust.

More than 20,000 flames were lit in Britain, Canada, Germany, Italy, Poland, New Zealand, Spain and the US by individuals, families, communal organisations, in care homes and in schools.

Each candle came with a biographical card sourced from the Yad Vashem archives, detailing – where known – the name, age, date and place of death of a specific individual lost in the Shoah.

Sydney was born in Casablanca

Something has broken:

In this extract from Blindness, her compelling Jewish Quarterly essay exploring the reaction of the left to the Hamas atrocity and the war in Gaza, Hadley Freeman reflects on ignorance, denial, erasure and hate

People have a strange reluctance to see Jews as victims, even when the facts are right there. When Bergen-Belsen was liberated in 1945, journalist Richard Dimbleby reported from the camp what he saw – yet the BBC didn’t want to broadcast the report. Eventually they allowed it, but only after his script was cut in half. His son Jonathan later said that “the BBC needed more sources to support what had happened to Jews and worried that if you mentioned one group of people and not others, it might seem biased or wrong”.

Minimising and even denying the extent of the carnage on October 7 is the new form of Holocaust denial, a specific kind of trauma inflicted specifically and sadistically on Jews. What other country would be attacked and then be derided and vilified? What other minority would need to provide video footage of what terrorists did to them, and still not be believed?

Most people, I once believed, are capable of feeling compassion for the Palestinians, and also horror at what happened on October 7. But since October 8, I don’t believe that anymore. Too many have convinced themselves that all Israelis – all Jews – are bad in order to defend the Palestinians, whom they need to see as pure, oppressed victims. And so facts are twisted, truths conveniently ignored. The people who write “CEASEFIRE NOW” all over their social media are either ignorant of or uninterested in

the fact that there had been a ceasefire between Hamas and Israel, until Hamas broke it.

(“There’s an ellipsis at the end of that demand,” the solicitor and chair of law and the arts at University College London Anthony Julius said to me. “What those people are really saying is, ‘Ceasefire now … while Hamas re-arm.’ ”)

They don’t care that Hamas will never honour a ceasefire, and they don’t care that Hamas hates women and gay people, never mind Jews. They don’t care that hundreds of thousands of Israelis had been protesting against Netanyahu for much of the past year, and so were hardly in lockstep with him, and no one cares that these allegedly pro-Palestinian supporters around the world were protesting against Israel before – this cannot be repeated enough – before Israel had even retaliated. It was as if, the day after 9/11, people I thought of as friends had cheered for Osama bin Laden.

In the weeks after October 7, antisemitic hate crimes in London – such as attacks on Jewish schools and shops – exploded by 1350 per cent compared with the same period the year before; Islamophobic hate crimes also increased by 140 per cent in that time – an appalling increase, but a tenth of what Jews were experiencing. In the United States, anti-Jewish attacks increased by 400 per cent; in Germany, 240 percent; in France, almost 100 percent.

University campuses have been the sites of some of the most shocking, and the most visible, examples of antisemitic incidents since October 7. On American campuses, from autumn 2022 to autumn 2023 there was an increase of 700 percent – “and last autumn was already our all-time high of reported antisemitic incidents”, Jonathan Falk, the vice-president of Israel Action and Addressing Anti-Semitism Programme for Hillel International, the largest Jewish campus organisation in the world, told me.

So now it’s seven times that. And it’s not just the increase but the directness and the severity of the attacks that scare me. It’s one thing to see a swastika on a bathroom stall door. But now we’re getting reports like a student coming back to their dorm after the break and someone stole their mezuzah and wrote “Free Palestine” on their door. That kind of directness is scary.

From October to December 2023, Hillel International recorded 683 antisemitic incidents on 132 North American campuses, ranging from vandalism to hate speech to physical assault. There were thirty-nine physical assaults of Jewish students from those campuses in those three months. That is more than in the entire previous decade. In late October at the Cooper Union college in New York City, Jewish students were trapped in a locked library while other students banged on the windows

and doors chanting “Free Palestine”. At the University of Massachusetts Amherst in early November, a Jewish student was punched in the face when he said he was attending a vigil for the Israeli hostages. At Berkeley, Jewish students were forced to hide in basements and tunnels while their fellow students banged on the doors and windows outside, shouting about genocide. That same weekend, I happened to be visiting Harvard and multiple Jewish students there told me that their fellow students – “white kids who couldn’t identify Gaza on a map”, as one put it – had targeted them and accused them of genocide, not because they want to kill Palestinians, which they very much don’t, but because they believe in Israel’s right to exist. “And there’s no point in complaining about this to the administration, because they either agree with that, or they’re too scared to say anything,” another Jewish student told me. (Almost all the Jewish students I spoke to asked not to be identified out of fear they’d be further targeted.)

In December, the presidents of Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the University of Pennsylvania testified at a congressional hearing about antisemitism on college campuses. In a much-watched exchange, they were questioned by Republican congress-

A protester smashes a door at the Columbia campus before police stormed the university

A ‘Stand with Palestine’ demonstration close to the Israeli embassy in west London on 9 October. ‘Too

antisemitism after 7/10

woman Elise Stefanik about, among other things, why Harvard allowed a Ukrainian flag to fly on campus but not an Israeli one; why the notorious Pink Floyd bassist Roger Waters was invited to speak at a Penn literary festival; and why students on the campuses were allowed to chant in support for a global intifada. Stefanik asked if calling for “the genocide of Jews” – her widely shared interpretation of the call for intifada – was against the rules on their campuses. “It depends on the context,” they replied.

Shortly after their testimonies, Penn president Elizabeth Magill resigned. Claudine Gay, president of Harvard, resigned the following month in the wake of accusations of plagiarism. But the world had seen how life had deteriorated for Jewish students on campuses. “We have to remember that students look to the president of a university, and if they can’t say, ‘Antisemitism is wrong, it cannot be allowed,’ we’ll see more hate,” says Falk.

Many people on the left – as well as Gay herself – complained afterwards that the hearing had been “a well-laid trap” (one which Gay was very well paid to avoid, and failed). Moreover, because Stefanik is a Trump-supporting Republican, she was accused of “weaponising antisemitism” against America’s liberal higher education institutions. This is a standard tactic

adopted by people who can’t deny the message, and so complain about the messenger. After all, you can’t “weaponise” antisemitism – a tedious zeitgeist term for “exploiting” antisemitism – if antisemitism isn’t there to be weaponised.

“No doubt right-wing people weaponise antisemitism, as the Tories did during the Corbyn years in the UK. But that did not mean Labour wasn’t antisemitic, and it was the same story with the congressional hearings,” says the writer David Baddiel.

But when people say things like, “Oh, this was just weaponising antisemitism,” I say, “Try to think of Jews as real human beings.” So when Elise Stefanik is weaponising antisemitism for her own Republican reasons, don’t think about her. Think about Jews listening to that video. Think about them listening to these people who are not prepared to condemn the genocide of Jews. Those are the people who matter in that conversation.

Jewish parents and students definitely heard it. “We are now hearing from parents asking if there will be armed security at Hillel Shabbat dinners and other Jewish events on campuses,” says Falk. “That is something we have never heard before. And we’re adding cameras and taking security measures that are totally new.”

This wasn’t limited to American college cam-

puses. At Birmingham University in the UK, there was a march in February in which activists allegedly chanted “Death to Zionists!” and held up a banner proclaiming “Zionists off our campus!” That same month, “Free Palestine” was sprayed in graffiti on the campus’s Hillel House, and the Leeds University chaplain Rabbi Zecharia Deutsch had to go into hiding after returning from Israel, where he’d been serving with his reserve unit. The Muslim Association of Britain posted a statement aimed at Leeds University, saying, “How can your students feel safe with a war criminal complicit in genocide roaming your campus?”

In November 2023, Anthony Julius wrote in the Sunday Times about the local branch of the lecturers’ union at his university passing a motion calling for “intifada until victory” –a phrase that goes far beyond a plea for Palestinian statehood, and is instead an explicit threat against Israel and the Diaspora. “The university’s Jewish studies department notifies students of lecture venues by text, for fear of disruption,” he wrote. “Students at Jewish society lunches are protected by security guards. Jewish students stay on campus for only as long as they need to, and then leave. The general sentiment is, better to conceal all signs of their Jewishness.”

In January 2024, I asked Julius how the university had responded to his article. “That’s what really shocked me,” he replied. “I know the provost of my university read it, as did all the senior faculty, and not one of them spoke to me about it. None. Because they don’t care. If I was an academic from another minority community and I wrote about prejudice at UCL in such trenchant terms, do you think for one second that the university would ignore it? It seems unlikely.”

Is it because they think Jews are privileged, so it doesn’t matter?

“I think it’s an older trope than that: they think Jews are liars. After all, if there’s an allegation of racism, an institution like UCL would take it very seriously. But if there’s one of antisemitism, the reaction is, ‘Let’s appoint someone to see whether it’s really antisemitism or if the Jews are lying again.’” A Jewish student at a UK university put it to me like this: “When a student from a minority background complains about bigotry, we all need to do the work. When I complain about antisemitism, it’s another Jew trying to control things again.”

It is true that some Jews say that every criticism of Israel is antisemitic and claim to hear bigotry in the most innocuous statement – like Alvy Singer (Woody Allen) in Annie Hall  insisting that even a question about lunch was insulting. (“He didn’t say, ‘Did you eat?’ He said, ‘Jew, eat.’ Jew!”) But the inverse is rarely noted: in my experience, more Jews commit an enormous amount of emotional labour trying to convince themselves that the abuse they’re hearing is really just hatred of Israel rather than hatred of Jews. Because who wants to believe the latter?

But after October 7, even the most fervent

denialists among us saw it. Many Jews I know stopped wearing their yarmulkes outside in case it made them a target. “This feels different,” is what we all keep saying. This feels different from all the previous international reactions to wars in the Middle East; this feels different to other brushes with antisemitism we’ve seen in the West in recent years, from the Jeremy Corbyn scandal in the UK to the murders in the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018; this feels different to all the previous backlashes against Benjamin Netanyahu and his government. This – undeniably, overwhelmingly –feels different for all Jews.

Something has broken, or maybe it has become unmoored. When I was a teenager in the 1990s, it seemed to me there was a collective understanding that the Holocaust had been the bonfire that showed the worst of humanity and therefore antisemitism was not a match to be trifled with. Every writer I read – Martin Amis, Philip Roth, Sylvia Plath – reinforced this; every politician I saw on TV repeated it. But somewhere, in the past three decades, that understanding has dimmed. Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD, known outside Britain as Holocaust Remembrance Day) falls every year on January 27, the anniversary of when Auschwitz-Birkenau was liberated by the Soviets. And yet HMD is no longer about the six million Jews killed in the Holocaust but “all victims of genocide”, and any Jew foolish enough to query this shift is firmly reprimanded for being exclusionary. (That was the real problem with the Holocaust: not inclusive enough.)

At the end of 2023, a historian friend of mine, who was writing a book about the concentration camps, was told solemnly by her editor that she had to make clear the Holocaust wasn’t just about the Jews: it was also about gay people, Romani, trans people. “The Nazis hated lots of people. But the Holocaust was specifically a genocide of the Jews,” my friend replied, anxious not to annoy her editor. “It was about a lot of people,” the editor said irritably, condescendingly and wrongly. The industrial annihilation of two-thirds of Europe’s Jews is now just another blip in the annals of history, nothing extraordinary. And in fact, maybe it wasn’t about the Jews at all: increasingly they’re not even mentioned on Holocaust Memorial Day for – waves hands vaguely around – reasons. On January 27, the first HMD after October 7, the secretarygeneral of the UN and the Scottish first minister omitted any reference to the Jews at all when marking the day. They succeeded where Hitler failed and erased Jews from their own history. Historical memory that had once been so vivid is fading and, with it, a truth that had been understood and agreed upon is slipping away.

 This article is based on extracts from Blindness: October 7 and the Left, by journalist and author Hadley Freeman, published by Jewish Quarterly, which produces four long essays a year exploring Jewish culture and history. More information at: jewishquarterly.com

many have convinced themselves that all Israelis – all Jews – are bad’ Photograph: Daniel LEAL/AFP

Marines and March of the Living

by Jenni Frazer

jenni@jennifrazer.com

@Jennifrazer

James Hill and Nick Redshaw each spent 15 years in service with the Royal Marines before being medically discharged.

Last week, because of their subsequent participation in Israel’s Veterans’ Games, the two men took part in the annual March of the Living in Auschwitz — and described to Jewish News the “profound” e ect both Poland and Israel had on them.

Redshaw, from Telford in Shropshire, left the Marines in 2000 after a series of traumatic brain injuries which led to “a significant brain haemorrhage” and major surgery.

He was, he says, “gutted” to realise his career in the military was over: “In 1997 I was training for the Olympics,” he said “I was a worldclass canoeist”.

His wife Bethan was told to prepare for the worst when he had his brain surgery.

But just 12 months after his operation, he represented Great Britain in the Wild Water Racing World Cup in New Zealand, win-

ning a medal and ending the season fifth in the world.

After leaving the Marines, he spent nearly 20 years teaching A-level psychology, but says both he and his wife were thoroughly drained, physically and emotionally, by the e ects of his serious brain injury.

In 2019, he was o ered the opportunity to take part in the Veterans’ Games in Israel, competing against Israeli ex-servicemen and women who had also su ered trauma or physical injury.

He and his wife seized the opportunity with both hands as a “recharge of our batteries” and “life-changing” experience.

“The Jewish people have given us energy”, says Redshaw, who describes himself as religious.

As a graduate of the Veterans’ Games, he, with other British exservicemen, was invited to join the March of the Living in Poland. For Nick it was “humbling” to be with the marchers and “inspiring” to meet the Holocaust survivors.

“I joined the Marines so that this sort of thing could never happen again. I was blown away by the sheer scale of what I saw in Auschwitz-

He was injured in 2013 and left the Marines the following year.

of

The former Royal Marines commando was wounded in the legs and head while serving in Afghanistan, again after 15 years of service. Birmingham-born, he and his family now live in Bourne-

Hill was invited to take part in the 2023 Veterans’ Games in Israel via the Royal Navy’s Hasler rehabilitation centre in Plymouth.

“It was a no-brainer that I could take my wife and family with me”, he says, speaking warmly of his

week Israel and soaking up “the culture, the community, the people — it blew me away”.

Though he knew little about Israel before his visit, when he was asked to join the March of the Living in Poland, he set to and began learning about the Holocaust.

“I began to understand the pain of the people,” he says, adding that it was the stories of individual lives that a ected him the most, and caused “a lump in my throat”.

But, said Hill, the event also caused him to question how regular military personnel – such as he himself had been – could get up every day and inflict such cruelty on others. He wondered how he would have reacted in such circumstances.

These days, Hill is still involved in rehabilitation, but this time of animals, a move inspired by a dog who was injured when he was shot in Afghanistan.

He now runs a dog rehab centre called Pawseidon in Bournemouth, in a nod to his Marine background.

Of his March of the Living experience, Hill says he and the other veterans were “welcomed so warmly. I would recommend this journey, one hundred percent”.

Birkenau, the industrial level of it, the football stadiums of people.”

James Hill’s story echoes that

Redshaw.

mouth.

Nick Redshaw, Susie Kahn, James Hill, Ian Breeze and Adam Lyons

Have you experienced any kind of relationship or sexual abuse? Or are you worried about a friend or family member? Jewish Women’s Aid can offer you a confidential space to talk and free professional services, including:

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War still rages in Ukraine. It’s been two years of hurt and pain, two years of damage and devastation, two years of fear and uncertainty. Parents and children are traumatised. The suffering of war never seems to end. But you can help them today.

This Pesach, will you help Ukrainian families suffering from the trauma of war?

Galliano plots return after antisemitic rant

John Galliano, arguably the most controversial fashion designer of the early 21st century, is strongly rumoured to be on the verge of full-scale rehabilitation – almost 13 years after a drunken antisemitic outburst lost him his job as creative director of Christian Dior, writes Jenni Frazer.

Rumours in Paris suggest Galliano, presently head designer for the niche Belgian company Maison Margiela, will be rehired by the company which owns Dior, the luxury group LVMH Moët Hennessey Louis Vuitton.

The Gibraltar-born (and Croydon-raised) Galliano was at the top of his game in 2011, when two videos emerged showing him unleashing a tirade of vicious antisemitic insults at Jewish women in a Paris bar. Dior fired him immediately, and he was later found guilty of racism and antisemitism and given a suspended fine of £5,000.

The fashion world divided into supporters and opponents. High-profile stars such as Israeli-born actress Natalie Portman declared they would never wear his creations again while others, such as the powerfully influential editor of American Vogue, Anna Wintour, championed him as Galliano tearfully made the rounds of Jewish leaders,

including Rabbi Barry Marcus in London, to apologise for his behaviour.

Oscar-winning film maker Kevin Macdonald, grandson of the Hungarian Jewish film director Emeric Pressburger, released a warts’n’all film on Galliano in March this

FURY AT COLOMBIA SLUR

Israel has lashed out at Colombia president Gustavo Petro after he announced his country was severing diplomatic ties.

“History will remember that Gustavo Petro decided to side with the most despicable monsters known to mankind who burned babies, murdered children, raped women and kidnapped innocent civilians,” foreign minister Yisrael Katz said.

“The relations between Colombia and Israel were always warm and no antisemitic president full of hatred will change that,” he added.

Katz’s comment came after Petro said: “Tomorrow, diplomatic relations with the State of Israel will be severed… for having a genocidal president.”

TRUMP LASHES OUT AT ISRAEL

Donald Trump has said he doesn’t believe a two-state solution is “gonna work” and accused Israel of wanting “everything”.

“Most people thought it was going to be a two-state solution. I’m not sure a two-state solution anymore is gonna work. Everybody was talking about two states, even when I was there. If Israel’s making progress, they don’t want two states. They want everything. And if Israel’s not making progress, sometimes they talk about two-state solution. Two-state solution seemed to be the idea that people liked most, the policy or the idea that people liked above,” Trump told Time magazine.

The former president running against Joe Biden in this year’s election said his impression was of “far fewer people that like” the idea of a two-state solution. Support for such a move has dropped among both Israelis and Palestinians in recent years, in particular among Israelis since 7 October.

year but it failed to explain what lay behind Galliano’s antisemitic outbursts

The suggestion now is Galliano’s rehabilitation is complete. It remains to be seen whether the outspoken designer can pare back his behaviour second time around.

It wasn’t clear if Petro was referring to president Herzog or prime minister Netanyahu.

Petro has yet to condemn Hamas for its murderous attacks on 7 October but has condemned Israel repeatedly for its war against the terror group in Gaza.

He has falsely claimed that Gaza was being “converted into a concentration camp”, likening Israel to Nazi Germany when defence minister Gallant announced a total blockade on the enclave.

“This is what the Nazis said about the Jews. Democratic peoples cannot allow Nazism to reestablish itself in international politics… This hate speech if it continues will only bring a holocaust,” Katz said.

SHOAH CARDS BACK HOME

Postcards looted by a German soldier from doomed Jews in Poland have been returned to the Jewish community in the country 80 years later by his granddaughter Karla McCabe. The documents have since been transferred to Lublin’s State Archive for preservation and will be available to view on request. McCabe said: I am simply bringing home Holocaust loot.”

A tearful John Galliano, left, is consoled by Rabbi Barry Marcus after his downfall

Trump with Benjamin Netanyahu

Gustavo Petro

Photo by Blake Ezra Photography

Editorial comment and letters to the editor

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS

Student activism must feed growth

Universities are hotbeds of opinion and undergraduates rebels in search of a cause. That’s as it should be. Yet the recent degeneration of student activism in the United States – embracing anarchy, intimidating Jewish students and glorifying terrorism –has been painful and chilling to witness.

With similar movements now emerging at UK universities, it is imperative that education secretary Gillian Keegan acts swiftly to ensure that UK campuses do not harbour similar levels of intimidation. Today’s Downing Street meeting between Keegan, university vice-chancellors and the Union of Jewish Students offers a chance to agree robust boundaries.

Our educational institutions should be sanctuaries of rigorous debate, not battlegrounds of wild intimidation. By protecting Jewish students our universities safeguard the academic climate for all students, ensuring that they remain strongholds of education and legitimate protest.

Activism is a constructive and educational part of student life but it needs to promote growth and understanding rather than division and fear.

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Total war isn’t the way

In response to David Frencel’s thoughtful letter (2 April), I should remind him that my letter was a response to a previous correspondent’s use of the word ‘tiny’ to describe Palestinian civilian casualties, ie, perhaps 20,000 is tiny as an absolute figure but terrible as a proportion of the population.

The killing of the seven aid workers is ample evidence of the trigger-happy attitude of the IDF. Even if they had thought there was a Hamas terrorist in the cars, does that make it acceptable to kill six non-combatants too?

I do not think so.

most of the battles in mainland Europe and the territories invaded by Japan, it was the case that the Allies were fighting against enemies armed to the teeth with enormous armies, air forces and navies, that were a threat to the whole world and in many cases were prepared to fight to the death.

Total war was the only way to destroy Nazism and the Japanese.

Of course, I do not compare Israel with Nazi Germany but the actions in Gaza are, sadly, not the actions of a democratic, law-abiding country.

Regarding the battle of Manila and indeed

JAIL BAROMETER PURE NONSENSE

We write further to Ann Cohen’s assertion (25 April) that secular education is “mostly unneeded” for Charedim. Her evidence for this is “very few Charedim are in jail”.

May we remind Ann, and the readers of Jewish News , that Mendy Levy and Todros Grynhaus were educated in Charedi yeshivas. Both were convicted of their heinous crimes, no thanks to what Martin Luther King called “the white moderate, with his own timetable for other people’s freedom”.

Levy and Grynhaus are far from the only yeshiva graduates to have been convicted of crimes of that nature. In our work supporting Charedi survivors of abuse we have listened to hundreds of personal testimonies from survivors, involving deliberate coverups and co-ordinated hounding of those who have dared to report their abuse to the police.

Ann Cohen would do well to avoid using crime or prison as a barometer for how well Charedi yeshivas are doing.

Yehudis Goldsobel and Yehudis Fletcher

By email

PINTER PATH IS FITTING TRIBUTE

I attended this week’s moving dedication ceremony in Hackney that honoured the esteemed and much-missed Rabbi Avrohom Pinter.

The inauguration of the Rabbi Avrohom Pinter Path alongside the Quartet/Tower Court development not only pays a fitting tribute to the great man’s legacy but also reflects his lifelong commitment to the Charedi community.

Lord Levy’s tribute captured the profound impact Rabbi Pinter had on improving communal relations and the presence of dignitaries such as shadow foreign secretary David Lammy, who is MP for Tottenham, Haringey Council’s leader, Peray Ahmet, and mayor, Caroline Woodley, among others, underscored the significance of this event.

Their participation is a testament to the broad recognition of Rabbi Pinter’s contributions and the respect he commanded across various sectors of society.

As someone with personal connections to the area, Lord Levy’s reflections on the current global situation and his poignant recollection of family challenges added a deeply personal touch to the proceedings. It reminds us all of the wider context in which we celebrate community leaders like Rabbi Pinter, who work towards understanding and peace in times of adversity.

It is clear that Rabbi Pinter’s legacy will continue to inspire and influence not only the Charedi community but all who value community cohesion and mutual respect.

Mr S Politinsky, Stamford Hill

Dreadful though the atrocities were on 7 October, Hamas is a terrorist group with no capacity for threatening Israel’s existence. They cannot be wiped out like the Nazis were, as I’m sure their ranks grow with every innocent Palestinian child killed (not to mention the grotesque sympathy for them we sometime hear expressed).

Mr D Lister, By email

BLAKE’S WISE WORDS

“Hindsight is a wonderful thing but foresight is better, especially when it comes to saving life or some pain,” as William Blake is said to have written.

As Hamas presents its latest ceasefire deal the international community appears to be giving false nation status to a cold-blooded rampaging, murderous terrorist entity.

In the current debacle in which we find ourselves, to act in controlled haste would have been much more relevant and appropriate, as we are now having to repent and appease at leisure. We need to show strength and decisiveness, but do we have a leader capable of such a stance? I won’t hold my breath for a positive response.

Stephen Vishnick, Tel Aviv

JUDAISM AND BELIEF

Your columnist David Graham (25 April) is technically correct, “belief in God isn’t built into being a good Jew”. It is built into being a Jew Judaism cannot be, as he claims, a mishmash of “multi-dimensionality” into which anyone can throw in whatever is in vogue.

Ann Cohen, Golders Green

CHAREDI EDUCATION IS A FORM OF ABUSE

I refer to correspondence from Ann Cohen replying to Eve Sacks about lack of secular education in swathes of the strictly-Orthodox community.

I have spent several years mentoring Charedim looking to broaden their education and life prospects. I have been shocked to find many perfectly capable 18-year-old boys with the literacy and numeracy of the average British seven-year-old, due to the lack of education received in their so-called schools.

It is a scandal that so many Charedi leaders deem it acceptable not to equip their communities with the education to allow them to contribute to society, choose a career and make their own living without relying on charity. It is a form of abuse and cannot be justified by ridiculous accusations of antisemitism when anyone dares to question it.

Benjamin Black, NW5

The late Rabbi Pinter

Memo to the diaspora: we need to be fighting back

EDWARD MISRAHI FORMER CHAIR, BICOM

The Jewish diaspora is an amazing collection of people. Individuals from different backgrounds growing up across the entire world, hoping to make a positive contribution to their countries and their communities. Importantly, many of them also have a strong connection to Israel and support the country economically, politically and emotionally. Until three years ago, the diaspora was my world and although now I live in Israel, it is something that is fully on my mind.

We all know the failures of Israeli leadership in the past couple of years. This is not what this piece is about. This is a cry to ask our diaspora leadership to step up.

Every day and every week, we see another example of how Jewish lives across the diaspora are getting impacted by a variety of forces ranging from the concerning to the openly antisemitic.

We hear the impact and the outrage, but the truth is we are not seeing enough of the fight back at our leadership level. When I speak about leadership, I am speaking about any of us in a position that can have influence. You don’t have to be president of your community or an organisation. You could be a leading businessman, artist, lawyer, sportsman or whatever your profession is.

Times of crisis are times for leadership to be shown. I listened recently to a podcast of Dan Senor interviewing Prof Scott Galloway who had just visited Israel. I have been a big fan of his work and books on technology and have taken some of his courses.

I had not realised he has a Jewish background but by his own admission is an atheist and had not been in Israel for 30 years. Well, he has been more outspoken about Israel since then than many people in our community for the past six months and is fully aware of the hate it has triggered and has cost him business and audience because of it. He has been shocked by the silence of community leaders.

Yes, there have been public statements and actions by certain courageous individuals

over the past six months and indeed some people have shown leadership.

But my point is there have been too few. We all know this is a battle where we are outnumbered and if we don’t even play to our strength, how can we be surprised we are losing?

This has been a shameful period for liberal universities in the US as student protest groups have taken over campuses creating at best intimidating environments in the name of peace. Who are we kidding? How can people argue for peace and have Hamas and Hezbollah as leading focus points? Have we heard enough from alumni or leaders regarding this issue?

And just to be clear, this is nothing against freedom of speech. If people want to protest for the people of Gaza and for peace, of course it should happen, but peacefully and within rules.

I would join any demonstration for peace if it was balanced – but… why do so many of these protesters cover their faces? Is this what is meant by peaceful protesters?

Why do they need to disrupt everything? How can you be in favour of the people of Gaza and not against Hamas?

How is it exactly that asking for the libera-

tion of hostages is against the principles of peace-loving people? When will people really start speaking out? Ar e they going to wait until it happens to them directly? Why wait?

Jewish diaspora has been a treasure for Israel and for every country where Jews live. They contribute and feel a connection to their country of birth. Right now, that is not enough. The silent majority will not act if we don’t lead.

For the good of all of us, please be ready to be more active, be more vocal and visible. It is true it might lead to losing some business, being less popular and having some uncomfortable situations and social media.

No one is asking people to defend everything Israel does, but we need to defend ourselves against the onslaught of lies and made-up accusations. This is not going to stop once the operation in Gaza is completed. We need to be strategic and long-term about it.

Being able to be Jewish safely is our right, as it should be in any of democratic country.

Globally, I’m sorry to say, I don’t see enough of our leaders being public about it. Let’s hope they start being more vocal before things get worse.

HOW 3000 YEARS OF JEWISH CIVILISATION IN THE ARAB WORLD VANISHED OVERNIGHT

Lyn Julius author of the critically acclaimed book Uprooted will talk on the uprooting of almost a million Jews from the Arab and Muslim world and why the Hamas massacre of October 7th makes the story of the ethnic cleansing of the MENA Jews more relevant than ever Scan here to visit our website

Lyn Julius will present her book UPROOTED: How 3,000 years of Jewish civilisation in the Arab world vanished overnight’ (Vallentine Mitchell). She will explain how the 7 October Hamas massacre has to be seen in the context of decades of antisemitism in the Muslim world.

20th May 2024, 7:30 PM MAIDA VALE VENUE FOR COMPLIMENTARY TICKETS PLEASE EMAIL MICHAEL MARKS AT michael@yadsarah.org.uk - light refreshments - no ticket price but there will be an appeal at the event

Lyn Julius The British-born daughter of Iraqi - Jewish refugees, Lyn Julius is a journalist, speaker, blogger and founder of Harif, the U.K. association of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. Her work has appeared in JNS News, Jerusalem Post, Times of Israel, Jewish Chronicle, Fathom, The Article, The Guardian, etc. Her book Uprooted: How 3,000 Years of Jewish Civilisation in the

Join our memorial for the children of this tragedy

RANA SALMAN & ESZTER KORANYI CO-DIRECTORS,

Losing a child is devastating. It’s frequently transformative. Life is never the same again, and it is not something one can ever fully heal from. Here in Israel and Palestine, where our lives changed forever on 7 October, yet another trauma has been created that will have effects not only on us but the lives of our children and perhaps generations beyond. We can only hope the people living in the land will be able to recover fully even if we personally cannot.

Over the past six months, we have witnessed crimes against humanity that shattered us to the core. Thirty-six Israeli children were killed during the 7 October Hamas attack and according to Save the Children CEO Janti Soeripto more children have

been killed in this conflict in these six months than have been killed in all armed conflicts globally every year over the past four years. We tend to forget these are not just numbers. These are children who lived through a horror and lost their lives.

Combatants for Peace is a group of Israelis and Palestinians who in their own ways took part in the cycle of violence engulfing Israel and the Palestinian territories and, amid pain layered upon pain, violence responding to violence, loss adding to loss, are now committed to non-violent action.

In partnership with the Parents Circle –Families Forum (PCFF), a joint Israeli-Palestinian organisation of more than 600 families, all of whom have lost an immediate family member to the ongoing conflict, we will hold a joint memorial ceremony on the eve of Yom Hazkaron, Israel’s Memorial Day.

This ceremony is di erent from the o cial memorial ones held on that day which support the political status quo, establishing military nationalism and a one-sided narrative.

Our joint service, on the other hand,

honours lives lost on both sides and outlines a new narrative: condemning the violence and occupation and adopting a new way.

Year by year, the growth of the ceremony and its success shows more Israelis, Palestinians and people around the world the eradication of violence, partnership between Israelis and Palestinians and humanisation are all possible.

The focus of this year’s ceremony is on the stories of children. It aims to shed light on the individual lives lost and the immense impact these losses have on families and communities. By centring the narratives of these young victims, the ceremony strives to create a space for empathy, understanding and healing.

And, as two women leading this movement and coming from the two di erent sides, we unite in so many things – one of them is our ability to have empathy to the other, as we see ourselves as part of a global community of women who take upon themselves leadership roles in a world still too much dominated by the voices of aggression.

At Combatants for Peace, we continue to choose each other and care for each other with sincerity. As a movement, we have a responsibility to keep going even through times of the most intense violence.

The ceremony o ers a unique opportunity for Palestinians and Israelis to stand in solidarity, united against oppression, occupation and violence. It symbolises the shared grief and the collective determination to build a di erent path forward.

By coming together, the participants demonstrate there is another way, even in the face of immense pain and loss.

This year’s joint memorial ceremony will be held virtually this Sunday at 6.30pm UK time, an opportunity for people from all over the world to join in and show their support for peace and building a future where violence and su ering are replaced by understanding, compassion and coexistence.

• Watch the 19th Joint Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day Ceremony online this weekend at cfpeace.org

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Hamas horrors turned our politics on its head

ALEX BRUMMER CITY EDITOR, THE DAILY MAIL

On a recent visit to Austin, Texas to call in on my son Justin, who lives there, we decided to attend Kabbalat Shabbat services with the modern Orthodox community Tiferet Israel. It shares capacious grounds with Conservative and Reform congregations at the Shalom Austin Dell centre endowed by local computer magnate Michael Dell. The 1860s wooden-clad building was anything but modern, having been transported on wheels 90 miles from the now-faded oil town of Brenham.

After services we were peppered with questions. Where are you from? Will you be coming tomorrow when there will be a whisky Kiddush (some practices are universal!)? Finally, it must be terrible for you – we have been reading in the American press and hearing on the media about the surge in antisemitism in the UK.

I did my best to answer coolly, pointing out I don’t live in one of London’s most Jewish or

central areas so have been less exposed to proPalestinian marches and antisemitism, but two of my grandchildren at independent schools in north London/Hertfordshire had experienced unsavoury incidents and, recently, I had been the guest speaker at a small dinner for Jewish colleagues at a leading City advisory firm where several of those present had testified to uncomfortable moments.

What was so strange about this exchange was it showed so little awareness of the US’s own exposure to pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel and antisemitic incidents. Before I left for the US, someone had sent me a 7,000-word essay from the intellectually-rigorous Atlantic magazine detailing among other things how Berkeley, the intellectual birthplace of Oppenheimer and much of Silicon Valley, had turned against its Jewish students.

By the time I arrived in Washington a few days later, a tent city of Palestinian sympathisers had been erected on the Columbia campus in New York and similar outbreaks of protest had erupted at universities across America including the University of Texas in Austin, close to where my son lives. The

number of Jewish students attending elite colleges such as Harvard has dropped dramatically because of perceived hostility.

Of the small sample of Jewish people I met in Austin, it seemed Jewish residents knew more about the discomfort being felt in British Jewry than the change of mood toward Israel, Jewish students and academics and others in their own country.

Data compiled by Tel Aviv University and the US’s Anti-Defamation League does suggest Britain has become a hotbed of antisemitism. It found criminal activity aimed at Jews in the UK rocketed to 1,662 incidents, a 146 percent increase. since 7 October. Among the larger western European nations, di culties in the UK were topped only by France, which has Europe’s biggest Jewish population.

It is probably politically incorrect to say so, but the common factor in the UK and France is the large Islamic populations. In Britain, as demonstrated in the local elections, a large South Asian community is making its voice heard on the Middle East. In France, the deeply-entrenched North African communities are a major source of disquiet.

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The political fallout is fascinating. In France, it has fuelled right-wing politics with Marine Las Pen’s National Rally party hugely powerful in parliament and challenging president Macron in the polls.

In the UK, with no history of right-wing parties gaining large shares of the vote, the politics of 7 October are breaking three ways. The right-wing reaction against immigration is fuelling Reform, without Nigel Farage so far. The anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian vote is going Green and has become a bit of an electoral liability for Keir Starmer, who has sought to cleanse his Labour Party of Corbynism and all it stands for.

In the US, the campus demonstrations and support for boycott and the Palestinians are a dilemma for liberal, secular Jews who normally vote Democrat. But Joe Biden finds himself bu eted by the Palestinian vote, particularly in Michigan, a key battleground state, and few Jews would feel comfortable voting for Trump with his sympathy for right-wing extremists and totalitarian groups. The Hamas attack has turned politics in the Western democracies and beyond – in emerging markets and developing nations – on its head.

who was no such thing

Reuven Fenton tells Jenni Frazer about the wild premise of his debut novel

They say – whoever ‘they’ are – that you should always write about what you know, particularly for debut novels. Which makes the premise of Reuven Fenton’s delicious book, Goyhood, even more intriguing.

His story begins in Georgia, in the southern United States, and meanders through a darkly comic road trip, with a pair of adult twin brothers who could not be more di erent. Oh, and the twins are accompanied by a black female influencer and a one-eyed mongrel dog.

Since Fenton, a veteran New York Post reporter specialising in crime, is neither a twin nor from Georgia (he is, however, the secondeldest of eight siblings and began life in Lexington, near Boston), the reader is entitled to wonder at the genesis of Goyhood

The clue, however, is in the name: because Fenton, a graduate of Yeshiva University as well as Columbia School of Journalism, was driven to pose the question “what if?” In this case, although he had often wondered about having a supernatural power, the “what if?” refers to being Jewish. What if, he posited, someone were to discover that although they had believed themselves to be an Orthodox Jew, they were, in fact, no such thing?

“Wouldn’t it be wild,” he thought, “to have an Orthodox Jew who had a revelation about himself? Someone who was not only in yeshiva,but was praying every day and had a real connection with God?” Soon he had his protagonist, Marty Belkin, who becomes Mayer and loses himself in the unworldly bubble of the strictly Orthodox.

Fenton realised that, in Mayer’s appalled response to discovering he was not actually Jewish, all kinds of questions – some funny, some serious – opened up about the nature of faith.

But he needed a counterweight: and thus enters Mayer/Marty’s estranged twin, David, as irreligious as his brother is devout; the yin and yang of Jewish identity.

“I was uniquely qualified to write this book,” explains Fenton, “because I walk this tightrope between the religious and secular worlds. I am Orthodox” – in our interview, Fenton is wearing a kippah – “but I work for the New York Post and my day job involves secularity in all of the most profane ways, everything from scandal to crime.”

This year, in fact, news about Fenton went viral after he and a Post photographer were attacked by a machete-wielding female academic they had gone to interview.

Life in the mean city. For reasons he can no longer recall, Fenton decided to make David Belkin the profane mirror to his twin’s holy character. This set-up provides instant comedy with, it must be admitted, rather more enjoyable life choices on the secular side of things.

Poor Mayer, as he slowly, slowly, regresses into the Marty Belkin he once was, has been so isolated from the world at large that he can barely deal with the physical nuts and bolts of wider society. He doesn’t know how to use a mobile phone or how to drive, and his childhood fascination with birds and the world of nature has been ruthlessly set aside in favour of prayer, prayer and more prayer.

The practical side of Mayer’s life has been entirely taken over by his wife, Sarah (it was a shidduch). Book a plane? Pack a suitcase? Cook?

She does everything. Little does she realise, as Fenton gloriously spells out, that if Mayer is not Jewish – and will have to convert –then their marriage isn’t valid either. There are a lot of unpalatable truths for all three Belkins: David, Mayer and Sarah.

Meanwhile, on this action-packed

road trip through American’s Deep South, we meet Charlayne, the most unlikely woman in the world for Mayer ever to meet, let alone carefully construct the tiny beginnings of a grown-up relationship with (even if it turns out to be platonic). Somehow, Fenton makes all this work, together with – for once in the world of fiction relating to Jews – proper details about religious life.

“This book has been an education for me,” Fenton says, “because in researching these Jewish themes, I learnt a lot. In fact I somewhat changed in terms of my own observance.” He was “more of a David” in his early thirties, he says, but now, in his forties, married with kids, “I find I am taking my Judaism a lot more seriously. These two brothers represent two sides of myself.”

Fenton’s not really sure why he chose Georgia as the birthplace for the Belkin twins. He has been there a few times, as with all the other states on the fraternal road trip. Perhaps, he muses, it’s because Georgia is about as far as you can get from New York yeshiva life, and yet it has a cosmopolitan component in the form of the city of Atlanta.

Fenton is not a birder, either (there’s a lot of well-informed detail about the birds of America), although he does love to hike and, even though he now knows New York like the back of his hand, his preference is for “open spaces” and the natural world.

“I wanted a book with urban and rural contrasts,” he says – and he has certainly achieved that.

Today, he and his family live on Long Island but he grew up near

Boston in a “traditional” family that was not religious.

“We didn’t keep Shabbat... but when I was 11, my parents became Orthodox, through Chabad outreach.” His mother, he says, was very spiritual and was attracted to the religious world.

So Fenton understands very well the di erence between being a secular boy and becoming an Orthodox teenager. Entertainingly, his fictional secular twin, who had also previously considered himself Jewish but not observant, begins to toy with the idea of converting to Judaism himself. Well, as Reuven Fenton would no doubt say: “What if...?”

Goyhood by Reuven Fenton is published by Simon & Schuster (hardback) on 28 May, £21.99

“OH, PLEASE GOD, LET ME HAVE FUN!”

The diaries of Holocaust survivor Ági Frankl were discovered 80 years after she wrote them. Her daughters Marianne and Nikolett Nikolov share her story

In 1945, after being released from a forced labour camp in Germany, Agnes (Ági) Frankl started a journal. During a spring cleaning of our mother’s Budapest apartment, we unearthed her hand-written personal diaries, which we never knew existed.

Ági was born in Győr, Hungary, in 1930, the only child of Jewish parents who ran a transport and logistics business. In June 1944, aged 14, she, together with her mother and father, was deported to Auschwitz-Birkenau. On arrival, all children 14 years of age or younger were sent to die but Ági’s mother declared her to be 15 so she escaped the gas chamber.

After just a few months Ági and her mother were selected for forced labour and sent to a different camp. They were trained to operate turning machines (lathes) and manufacture parts for aircraft for the Nazi air force. In secret Ági made a small ring for herself and engraved it with the Latin motto “Dum spiro, spero” (I hope as long as I live). Although the engraving has long worn off, this unique piece continues to shine in the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Collection.

On 1 April 1945 Ági, her mother and more than 600 other female prisoners were forced into trucks and driven westward. Then they continued on foot, and after days of marching, American soldiers liberated them.

They were temporarily housed by the Red Cross with local German families while they waited seven months for the Soviets to restore the railway lines leading back to the east. Charities provided them with clothes, shoes and some food, while American, British and Belgian soldiers stationed in the area started to organise social gatherings, specifically dance parties for the Jewish refugees. The American music, the dances, and the attention she

felt from young men seemed to have had a strong liberating effect on Ági.

These first few months of freedom, returning home and then reintegrating into post-war life in Hungary are well documented in Ági’s diary, juxtaposing the euphoria of the dances with the struggles the family faced when finally retuning home. After the war she went to medical school and worked as a doctor for 50 years. This year she turns 94.

30 APRIL

Yesterday we celebrated the four-week anniversary of our liberation in an elegant Gasthaus in Verl. The whole thing was directed by Anna Schwester, from the bottom of her heart. There were three long tables set with white cloth, decorated with flowers and cards that said Frohe Stunde. They served seven different gorgeous cakes and lots of cookies called khuhen, but the best was the coffee that was made from real beans, and from which everyone drank at least two cups, and which then kept everyone from sleeping. On my part, I burdened my belly with an additional four apples. Then, 8-10 Americans just dived into the group of 80 women who were yearning to dance. I immediately singled out a terribly nice one with dimples, 22 years old. It was striking that

they refused to dance even to the music, and my chosen one withdrew at the first sight of a couple of dancing ladies. Later, it transpired that European dances were completely foreign to them.

So, I ate a lot, I had quite a lot of fun, and Schwester is someone we can be forever grateful to.

10 MAY

I’m terribly excited, as today I have a dance ticket for 8½ pm at a place called Zermelager. We will go by car. Oh, please God, let me have fun. Such thrills!

12 MAY

Before the war: Ági (right) aged 12 with a friend in their hometown in Győr, Hungary, in 1942

Ágnes Frankl in 1948, aged 18

hearing the music, a couple of guys got terribly excited, and as we were the closest, they asked us to dance. We were about 10 or 12 in a circle and my partner showed us the moves. First, we waved our hands, spun and jumped around, we had to swing our legs, and then poked with our hips, back and forth towards the centre of the circle. I danced with the same guy to the next tune, he was an excellent dancer. Then, I said farewell, but he just waited for me as it turned out that the custom was to dance with the same partner all night. So, I danced with only him that night, he was of medium height or rather short, dark brown hair, a bloke in his 30s. I had a splendid time even though we could not exchange a single word, and he had an outstanding feel for rhythm, a perfect dancer, and a total scream.

13 MAY

In the evening we went dancing again. The jolly was supposed to last until 10, but because “we had so much fun”, the police extended it until 12. Then, we looked to get a lift to go home, and in the meantime, we acquainted ourselves with two soldiers who were outside, wrapped in sadness, listening to the music. We managed to explain to them that we wanted a car to take us home. Immediately, they called their friend “Tony”, who eagerly presented himself along with a four-seater rattletrap, which on top of everything else had an open roof. The two fellows laughed their heads o while considering how seven ladies would fit in the car. Well, eventually we managed to squeeze in, at which point they fancied climbing in with us too. The whole time, one of them kept on leaning on me but when everything was considered, the lift home outweighed this. And on top of all that, we even got invited to the “soldiers’ ball”. After such flops, however, I don’t hold high hopes for dancing, my

Immediately,

buddy from last time is now o ended, and this other one doesn’t even recognise me, it was so dark. But I feel like dancing, just because. Oh, please God! Just let me have some fun!

END OF NOVEMBER

I am here at Uncle Imre’s apartment. I spend my whole days queuing up for our home. It was without an outcome. There are complications concerning getting the business back. Our house received a few bombs, so it’s as smooth as the palm of my hand.

As soon as I stepped into the stables that my poor dear father visited, sometimes even 10 times a day, and for which he had worked tirelessly for 40 years through diligent and honest work, the house that’s crumbled to the ground, I thought of him. The person that connects every dust particle in here. I have a lump in my throat, but I mustn’t cry because Mom already cries enough, not to mention Uncle Imre, who doesn’t have anyone at all. Outwardly I am content, but internally I grieve deeply. Yesterday a naïve or ill-meaning man asked, “Where did you leave your father?”

If only I’d had the chance not to leave him!

that they

But when I think that they took him from me; I could kill, I could strangle someone with my own two hands. If only he came back! But he will never return, and they even took away the opportunity from us to at least mourn from the bottom of our hearts, the chance for me to take flowers to his grave, to light a candle as per the Jewish tradition... There is a weight on my chest, my eyes are tearing up, they must not roll down my cheeks. Even so, I want to live joyfully and carefree!

8 DECEMBER

I’m at Uncle Imre’s because we still don’t have firewood, our

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apartment is so cold that the snow I bring in with my feet doesn’t melt. I also must take an exam to rejoin my school year and there are no books (it’s lucky, because I don’t have the money anyway to buy them). As I consider the state of our finances, I acknowledge that we are struggling and we get by just about by getting meals from the Jewish soup kitchen, in a cold room, and now here in the warmth we receive as guests. I can’t even imagine how I’m going to go to school, learn English and play the violin?

home.

they called their friend

Ági in 2013

Ági and her daughters in 2014

By Candice Krieger candicekrieger@googlemail.com

CONFUSED? ASK THE ‘GODFATHER OF STOCKS’

Goldman Sachs guru and author of a new book on investment thinks inflation will fall fast and the economy is entering a new ‘super-cycle’

Talking to Peter Oppenheimer is like uncovering a secret recipe or being privy to a fortune teller’s insights.

Dubbed ‘the godfather of stocks’, Goldman Sachs’ chief global equity strategist and head of macro research in Europe is an expert on market cycles and what they mean for investors.

He believes we can learn a lot about longterm investment and returns by exploring the history of economic cycles and patterns.

“When we think about long-term investment, knowing the cycles is important because you see repeated patterns throughout history under di erent circumstances,” he says.

“If you look at economic cycles from growth/expansion and contraction/recession, these tend to repeat themselves in periods of high or low inflation and around them you get financial market cycles as well. There’s a great deal of reward from trying to understand where you may be in a cycle and when

a turning point may be close.”

Oppenheimer explains all this and more in his latest book, Any Happy Returns, which focuses on the complex interconnections between major inflection points in financial markets and economic factors while also being shaped by policy, institutions, politics, geopolitics, demographics and technology.

He argues we are about to enter a new “super-cycle”, the “post-modern cycle”, which will be significantly di erent from many that have taken place in the past.

Oppenheimer picks out several supercycles since the Second World War, such as one that began in the early 1980s characterised by interest rates and inflation peaking before a long period of falling capital costs, inflation and rates, as well as economic policies such as deregulation and privatisation.

Meanwhile, geopolitical risks eased and globalisation grew stronger.

But clearly not all these factors are set to continue in this way: “We’re seeing the end of cheap money, and are still in an era of higher interest rates and higher cost of capital,” Oppemeimer notes.

“We are seeing tight labour markets, unemployment is lower – pushing up wage costs and dampening profitability – and there’s a shift away from globalisation and world trade toward more regionalisation and local production, partly driven by geopolitical tensions, supply issues, which is putting up costs, and there are new fashions for more protectionism, increased regulation and higher tari s. This is very di erent from the past 20 years.”

All this, Oppenheimer says, means lower returns for investors “but it doesn’t mean there won’t be opportunities.”

In his book, which follows the success of The Long Good Buy, he focuses on the economic impact decarbonisation and artificial intelligence (AI) specifically will have.

“People are worried about AI in terms of job displacement, but new goods, services and jobs will be created which will boost productivity and e ciency in the longer term and be good for growth,” he says. “And this is coming at a very exciting time when we have labour markets struggling to find people in an era of aging demographics.” Goldman Sachs Research economists estimate a boost of around 1.5 percent a year over the next decade – “these could be very meaningful indeed.”

Oppenheimer says to fulfil the potential of AI “we need vast amounts of energy, and decarbonisation is all about transforming our economies to renewables.

“The current issue with decarbonisation is the immense complexity and cost of it. According to the United Nations, this could be around $100 trillion through to 2040.

“These are massive bills, but if we can allocate the costs appropriately and get it right, there is the potential for energy costs

to fall toward zero, which would have a huge long-term boost to growth.

“We are moving to a world that is generating more uncertainty and constraints on financial returns compared to what we have seen, but some of these big shocks (decarbonisation and AI) will reshape our economy and could create some very good opportunities.”

Before joining Goldman Sachs in 2002, Oppenheimer, a member of South Hampstead Synagogue, was at HSBC and previously head of European strategy at James Capel and chief economic strategist at Hambros Bank.

Outside work, he is a trustee of the Anna Freud National Centre for Children and Families, a mental health charity, and a trustee of the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, as well as sitting on the investment committee of the Wolfson Foundation and the Motability Foundation.

What advice would he o er investors at the moment? “This time last year there was high expectation that because of rising inflation and interest rates we would see a recession but actually I think things have turned out to be better than people feared. We are likely to see a softer economic landing, with inflation coming down quite quickly and are getting close to cuts in interest rates, which are likely to come down cyclically over next year.

“However, financial markets have already priced in a lot of that good news – we have seen strong rises recently and valuations have gone up – so we should be a little cautious. I would emphasise the importance of taking a longerterm view, rather than relying on short wins from rising valuations, and also the importance of diversification across assets to reduce risks.”

He adds: “People should be focusing on the developments of technology and the move towards a decarbonised economy.

“This combination will create losers but many more winners.”

Any Happy Returns by Peter Oppenheimer is published by Wiley and available on Kindle (£17.99) and as a hardback (£24.97)

Peter Oppenheimer says people should be focusing on AI and decarbonisation

MAKING SENSE OF THE SEDRA

BY REBBETZEN SIOBHAN DANSKY

MA’AYAN & ASSISTANT HEAD OF JFS INFORMAL EDUCATION DEPARTMENT (JIEP)

How to love your neighbour

Since 7 October there has been a tremendous rise in the amount of volunteering and charity to support those a ected by the war. Chesed, kindness, is a pillar of Judaism. As it says in Pirkei Avot (Ethics of the Fathers) 1:2, “The world stands on three things –Torah, avodah (work/service of God/self-sacrifice), and gemilut chasadim, acts of kindness”.

It is easy, enjoyable and rewarding to act charitably towards people and organisations that are close to our hearts, but it can be harder to feel positively towards people with whom we have conflicting views.

This week’s Torah reading, Kedoshim, reflects this issue in a very well-known verse: “...love your neighbour as yourself…” (Vayikra 19:18). The whole verse actually reads: “Do not take revenge, do not bear a grudge, love your neighbour as yourself, I am God.”

People can’t turn their feelings on or o on demand. How can we be commanded not to take revenge or bear a grudge? Perhaps someone has severely wronged us and we can’t forgive and forget? Can we not hold a grudge against someone who hurt us in the past? What if our neighbour is unsavoury or rude? And what does “I am God” add to the verse?

While our actions are demonstrable, our feelings are internal. Unlike other animals, humans can behave in a way that is not in sync

with our emotions. In our actions we can relate to others in a way that is incongruent with our feelings. In addition, if we repeatedly act in positive ways towards someone else and invest time and e ort in them, we may find that our feelings towards them grow in a similarly positive way. Sometimes it can be hard to find redeeming qualities in others if their behaviour is extremely o ensive. Even so, everyone is created in the image of God and has a spark of godliness. Perhaps “I am God” is a reminder that, even if we are struggling to find positive feelings, every person has a purpose in the world. So, if all else fails, start by looking for that spark and go from there.

It may also be that “I am God” is there to remind us that, regardless of how we act, only we and God know

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our true thoughts and emotions. Even if we act kindly, we may still have personal growth work to do to develop our feelings and integrity. This is why the verse contains three stages, from the easiest to most di cult. First, do not take revenge, even if you do bear a grudge. It may be too much to ask for a person to love someone else if the relationship is toxic, but even if we are able just to refrain from taking revenge, that is a mitzvah in its own right. Then try to remove the sense of grudge, and finally we can try to reach the level of actually loving the person.

‘Do not bear a grudge’: but we can’t turn our feelings on or off on demand

LEAP OF FAITH

BY RABBI LEV TAYLOR QUEER YESHIVA

Last week, a report for the BBC showed that LGB people are over-represented among Jews. We made it to fourth spot, thrashing Christians, Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims. In the inclusion leagues for lesbian, gay, and bisexual people, it looks as if we are winning. I was pleased with the result, but not surprised. Over the past 50 years, Progressive Jews have paved the way to make our synagogues more welcoming.

In 1980, Lionel Blue came out as the first openly

gay rabbi. He was already a beloved preacher and national broadcaster. At that time, there was a huge moral panic around gay men and, as part of this, the Sun outed Rabbi Blue. But he embraced the label, told his story on his own terms and published a pamphlet advocating gay inclusion in religion.

Then, in 1984, Sheila Shulman and Elli Tikvah Sarah were accepted to Leo Baeck College as openly lesbian rabbinic students. They both dedicated themselves to lesbian and gay liberation. Rabbi Shulman founded her own congregation, Beit Klal Yisrael, which became a welcoming home for people who had felt excluded from traditional Judaism. Rabbi Tikvah Sarah worked in mainstream synagogues,

performing same-sex wedding blessings long before Britain even considered making gay marriage legal.

Because of their e orts, and those of many others, Progressive Judaism now enables Jews to live authentic lives within all traditions.

In Progressive synagogues, same-sex couples can have fully a rming marriages; the movements campaigned for it. Our children are accepted and raised in the communities.

We have celebratory Pride Shabbats across the whole country. There are wonderful networks of queer Jews.

The same BBC report, however, showed that there were fewer trans Jews than you might expect. In fact, there are more Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs who feel safe to be openly

A stimulating series where progressive rabbis consider how to navigate Judaism in the face of 21st-century issues

transgender than there are Jews. That is disappointing, but also not surprising. Despite groundbreaking projects such as Twilight People, there is hostility towards trans people in the Jewish community, mirroring wider society.

It is also the case that Jewish life is very gendered. Trans people necessarily challenge those stereotypes. Nevertheless, we are making great strides forward.

Rabbi Mark Solomon recently presented a genderneutral ketubah to help nonbinary people get married. Many Progressive synagogues are now a rming trans members with name-change ceremonies.

I hope we will progress further, because there is clearly a need for it.

Two years ago, I was part of a group that launched the Queer Yeshiva, a Talmud study group run for and by queer people. There is such high demand for this that, every time we launch an event, it sells out within a day.

Queer and transgender Jews are calling out to our communities to embrace and accept them. It is our responsibility to answer their plea, and not give in to the rhetoric. This all provides the opportunity for Progressive Judaism to continue to be at the forefront of genuinely inclusive and trans-a rming religion. I hope we will be.

Rabbi Taylor sees ‘hostility’ in Judaism towards trans people

Ask our

Our trusty team of advisers answers your questions about everything from law and finance to dating and dentistry. This week: Validating a will, coping with hearing loss and private health insurance

LISA WIMBORNE

CHARITY EXECUTIVE

JEWISH BLIND & DISABLED

Dear Lisa, I’m 55 and have recently been diagnosed with macular degeneration. I’m starting to lose my sight and it has all come as a bit of a shock. I would love to meet others who are in a similar situation to me, but I don’t know where to begin. Are you able to offer any advice? Thanks, Andrea

Dear Andrea

Thank you for contacting us. We have recently launched two support groups in Hertfordshire and north London with the

CAROLYN ADDLEMAN

DIRECTOR OF LEGACIES

KKL EXECUTOR AND TRUSTEE COMPANY

Dear Carolyn

I’m appointed executor under the will of a friend who had no close family and who died a few weeks ago. Although I knew her quite well, and have managed to find quite a bit of paperwork, I’m concerned I may be missing details of potential assets and liabilities. Miriam

Dear Miriam Executors are under a duty to administer an estate in a timely manner and to collect in all the assets and discharge all the liabilities so that they can distribute the residue of the estate to the beneficiaries. More and more banks and financial institutions have gone paperless, making it di cult to ascertain an accurate picture of the estate without a paper trail. One simple way of overcoming some of the problems is to put a post redirection to your address in place as soon as possible so that any correspondence

main aim of connecting people in the community with and vision impairment. We believe the best support can come from others who are in similar situations and the sessions are designed to be peer led. They provide an opportunity to meet others and share advice, ideas and support.

The sessions are on the second Thursday of each month in Finchley and on the second Tuesday of each month in Borehamwood.

Any adult who is partially or severely sighted and identifies as Jewish is very welcome – as are their friends, carers and family members.

To join a session or to find out more information, please contact Toni Lewis on email at toni@jbd.org or call 020 8371 6611 ext 620.

Hope to see you at one of the groups.

that does still come in paper form can be caught. Checking the deceased’s bank statements for the few months prior to death will also help with finding creditors for whom standing orders were set up or asset holders if the deceased was in receipt of regular income. Unidentified debt can also be discovered by placing an advertisement in the form of a deceased estate notice in a local newspaper as well as The Gazette, a legal publication, which can be done online. Gaining access to the deceased’s computer will shed more light on what is owed to or from the estate but, of course, you will need a password for this.

TREVOR GEE

PRIVATE HEALTHCARE SPECIALIST

PATIENT HEALTH

Dear Trevor

I’ve experienced some difficult medical issues recently and waiting for treatment with the NHS has been quite stressful. How can I apply for private cover and keep the costs to a minimum?

Dear Linda

You are certainly asking the most topical question of our age. The NHS has waiting

lists now over seven million. And for those who think they could fund their own treatment privately, cancer treatment could spiral beyond most people’s ability ever to pay.

I would always suggest a low costed policy that provides the most important elements for you to receive private health when you need it. In my view, these would be two at the top of my list.

First, diagnostic testing, so providing you with immediate feedback on whether there are any medical issues to be treated, and which will remove the uncertainty of not knowing for you and your family. Secondly, one in two people contract cancer, and so all our schemes should provide full cancer cover.

Cost containment would

to be only to use the great private local hospitals and specialist units, not the central London units, and also to consider allowing the insurer to advise you on the specialist consultant to see and the hospital they would recommend as this reduces the premium.

Like house insurance you have it hoping that you don’t have to use it, so perhaps have a higher excess which reduces the monthly premium. In addition a couple of the insurers discount the premium if you pay annually. Only have private cover if it is a ordable as it should not cause loss of sleep, rather, it should provide peace of mind.

Do give me a call and we’ll try and help.

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

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Qualifications:

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• Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation Volunteer of the Year JVN award

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LISA WIMBORNE

Qualifications:

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• The provision of specialist accommodation with 24/7 on-site support

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ILAN RUBINSTEIN

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

FINANCIAL SERVICES (FCA) COMPLIANCE

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CAROLYN ADDLEMAN

Qualifications:

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DIRECTOR OF LEGACIES

• Lawyer with over 20 years’ experience in will drafting and trust and estate administration. Last 14 years at KKL Executor and Trustee Company

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

• Member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners

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

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• Works with clients individually to maximise success

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• 24 years+ hands-on experience, leading JDA in significant growth and development.

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

• Hearing aid advice, support and maintenance CHARITY EXECUTIVE

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

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PRINCIPAL, PERFORMING ARTS

AM YISRAEL CHAI

YAD VASHEM UK ANNUAL YOM HASHOAH DESIGN COMPETITION

This year our competition seeks to highlight the innocent Israeli victims of the brutal October 7 massacre, and the resilience and defiance of Israel since that tragic day.

We need you to create a Sefer Torah cover for use on the Chaggim

The winning design will be turned into a real Sefer Torah cover

The winner can give this cover to their school or shul at a special ceremony

The designs should be relevant to the tragic events of October 7 2023

Our theme is Am Yisrael Chai and the safe return of the remaining hostages

The competition is open to students from Years 6-9. Entrants should apply via their schools or shuls Deadline for entries 30 May 2024

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with brass bands

CROSSWORD

THE JEWISH NEWS CROSSWORD

11 Female rabbit (3)

12 Morally proper (7)

Little devil (3)

SUDOKU

SUDOKU

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

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

7 Exceeded (6)

8 Drives (6)

___ Bremner, impressionist (4)

13 Blue Shoes, Presley song (5)

14 Culinary pulveriser (6)

16 Plus (2,4)

19 Farmland units (5)

21 Make more secure (7)

23 Try to win the affection of (3)

24 Sudden thrust (5)

25 Take away (7)

26 Tending flocks (11) DOWN

2 Dog’s restraining chain (5)

3 Appendix to a will (7)

4 Wax light with a wick (6)

Catches in a trap (6)

Lottery, prize draw (6)

Straw for baskets (6)

In common ownership (6)

Toy in human form (4)

___ Bloggs, Mr Average (3)

Money (4)

Reviewer (6)

Fall over (6)

5 ___ basket, wickerwork carrycot (5)

6 Bishop’s area (7)

7 Signal to take action (4-2,4)

10 Of clothes, reaching the middle of the leg (4-6)

15 Squash (7)

17 With vision (7)

18 Heavy uninteresting food (6)

20 Lottery (5)

9 Luminous point in the sky (4)

WORDSEARCH

all

found in the forwards or backwards, in a horizontal, direction, but always in a straight, unbroken line.

White lie (3)

On a ship or plane (6)

Worthless (6)

SUGURU

Very quick, musically (6)

Abuse, offend (6)

Tardy (4)

22 Practise for a feat of endurance (5)

Rounded roof (4)

CODEWORD

The listed herbs and spices can all be found in the grid. Words may run either forwards or backwards in a horizontal vertical or diagonal direction but always in a straight unbroken line.

CODEWORD

In this finished crossword, every letter of the alphabet appears as a code number. All you have to do is crack the code and fill in the grid. Replacing the decoded numbers with their letters in the grid will help you to guess the identity of other letters.

DWR LN AR EIE N

SUGURU

Each cell in an outlined block must contain a digit: a two-cell block contains the digits 1 and 2, a three-cell block contains the digits 1, 2 and 3; and so on. The same digit must not appear in neighbouring cells, not even diagonally.

Each cell in an outlined block must contain a digit: a two-cell block contains the digits 1 and 2 a three-cell block contains the digits 1 2 and 3; and so on. The same digit must not appear in neighbouring cells not even diagonally.

In this finished crossword every letter of the alphabet appears as a code number. All you have to do is crack the code and fill in the grid. Replacing the decoded numbers with their letters in the grid will help you to guess the identity of other letters.

Sudoku Suguru

See next issue for puzzle solutions.

for puzzle solutions.

Wordsearch Codeword

Sudoku Suguru Wordsearch Codeword

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The Dupont Suite is a beautifully lit space with high ceilings and caters for up to 220 guests seated with a dancefloor or 250 guests with casual seating. Together with the Dupont Suite, the hotel offers the Gate Suite, which is ideal for reception drinks, food stations, a games area or a wedding ceremony.

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• Choice of evening entertainment limited to air hockey table hire or Neuron Race