Jewish Business Ethics 20 Deaths Myrtle Stone on 23Rd June Sayings of the Rabbis 21 David Harari on 30Th August

ESTMINSTER UARTERLY Volume IX No.4 October 2018

John Rodker by David Bomberg Ben Uri Gallery

John Rodker - Poet & Publisher The Jews of Egypt Fish, Beef & Chicken

Lifecycle events Westminster Welcomes Inside this issue its New Members

From the Rabbi 3 Tommaso Greenbaum & Alicia

de la Serna Saenz

The Jews of Egypt 4 Solly Judah & Jacqui Jason Sarah Forman Fish, Beef & Chicken 6 Adam & Alexis Granite

Hebrew Corner 7 Rebecca Bossick & James Cooper Alina Genkel Livia Gollancz - Publisher 8 Niklas von Mehren

More Jewish customs 9

Rosalind Franklin 10 Births Book Review 11 Raphael & Nathan Krancenblum - twin sons for David & Caroline on 15th March A Nation of Philistines? 12

Sadeh - A Jewish Farm 13 Bat Mitzvah

John Rodker - Poet 14 Rebecca Vitman-Astaix on 1st September

Poetry Page 15 Marriage Blessings John Traske - Judaiser 16 David & Antoni Snower on 27th August

The Jewish Museum 17 Marriages Amusement Arcade 17 Melissa Serter & Daniel Murray on 13th May Rachel Hotchkiss & Joshua Blackburn on 27th May 18 The Ten Lost Tribes Jacqui Jason & Solly Juday on 29th July Emma Weleminsky-Smith & Carter Speedy on 28th August A Musical Family 19

Jewish Business Ethics 20 Deaths Myrtle Stone on 23rd June Sayings of the Rabbis 21 David Harari on 30th August

Editorial 22 Condolences Education Report 23 We offer sincere condolences to Gillian Catto & Gwenneth Stone on the death of their mother & mother-in-law

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From the Rabbi

hospital, or become bar or bat mitzvah, Meaningful Conversations, how people or been married, or been supported by want still more adult learning, social

Thomas, was asked to stand up. In a care, social action, musical engagement,

larger room those standing would have and chances to come together with stretched even further, beyond our line of others. It is now our collective task to vision. Warmth, pastoral excellence, and bring these aspirations to the heart of

support and celebration from birth what we do, to articulate and enable such

onwards: these are all the qualities that a vision. Watch this space - or even step we must maintain at the heart of this into it. Synagogue. We also showed how We have all just celebrated Rosh exceptionally well we do large cultural Hashanah, and Yom Kippur together, events, with the screening of Denial, and and I hope we each have found the Q&A with both Richard Rampton and something to celebrate in our lives and Tom Wilkinson, on Holocaust Memorial also something to change. We find in Day. That was an entertaining and community the thrill of new possibilities topically important evening. As you read this, I have almost and the support to realise them: we can completed my first year as Rabbi of this There have been countless highlights, find this thrill whenever we reflect in wonderful community. We have had a and I have cherished some of our smaller prayer, or encounter an interesting tremendous Sixtieth Anniversary year, gatherings. In February we had an Oneg teaching, or sit down for a real and I hope you are feeling as chuffed and Shabbat, a Lunch and Learn on How conversation. I hope that we will never excited as I am by all that this Can I Pray What I Don’t Believe? Forty lose that sense of encountering life and community has been, is, and could be. of our members sat together eating each other anew, even as we develop and Shabbat lunch, discussing their doubts grow together. On my first day in this job, at the end of and hopes, and learning Jewish text. If you would like to be part of this October, I realised that I must contribute There is an eager appetite for both a emerging vision, and want to sit down for an article to this Quarterly. In that piece I quality of learning and relationship in a conversation, or bring together a group shared with you how I used to read my this community. We have seen sizeable of people, or discuss a particular English essays to my late father, Jack groups getting together to learn and talk potential initiative then please do not Stanley (may his memory be a blessing), before, during and after services, as well hesitate to get in touch with me. and how in that regular ritual of thinking, as before work in the City, through a reading, arguing and bonding, I found a range of volunteer-led, and Wishing you a Shanah Tovah; a good desire for a combination of learning and professionally supported, initiatives. year ahead. love that I have met most profoundly and frequently in the Jewish community and Torah. My first year here has My first year here has been full of been full of memories memories of my father. Essentially I of my father. would like to dedicate my hard work over the last year to him. However, this is also Essentially I would a forward-looking dedication, for like to dedicate my Rabbi Benji Stanley whenever I see and feel the potential in hard work over the this community for learning and love, I think of him. last year to him.

There have been so many highlights over

I have also attended a sequence of the year, due to our outstanding Sixtieth Anniversary Team, Events Committee, gatherings, dinner parties, cocktails, and Professional Team, and, of course, to brunches, to get to know you all, and to you, our supportive community. The focus on what you want. We have heard

how this Synagogue has welcomed birthday party for our Emeritus Rabbi, Thomas, was full of laughter and tears. It people who never knew they could find a celebrated the centrality of humour and home in Judaism, how it has made the family, and one particular family, the impossible possible, forging such a

diverse, international and engaged Salamons, in our community. There were moments during the evening when community, across all generations. We anybody who had been visited in have also heard, through these

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Around the World motion an extraordinary new system of Jewish life in medieval times has survived The Jews of Egypt belief and morality. These distant events in the geniza of the Ben Ezra synagogue

remain important as they have evolved in Old Cairo and the largest part is held in into the world’s present concepts of law Cambridge University, where it can be and justice. It is because of them that our visited and where it is being made

civilisation is what it is, good or bad. available on line.

When the first Temple fell in Jerusalem Exactly 500 years ago the Ottoman 1,000 years later, not everyone was Turks, under Selim the Grim, conquered transported to Babylon, as many Jews - Egypt and although they accepted the

including the prophet Jeremiah - had Jews together with other trading nations, Shaar Hashamayim, the ‘Grand found refuge in Egypt. the country quietly stagnated until the opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 and the Temple’ in Adly Street, Cairo The lack of physical evidence of the takeover by Britain fifteen years later. Exodus as well as of much of the Biblical I was asked, not long ago, to give a talk story had helped those who prefer to Improved economic conditions, stability about our life in Egypt and our expulsion deny the presence of the our people in the and security ensued, attracting migrants from what was our native land. I spoke region. They were caught off balance from all over Europe and the Middle East about our charmed existence but said however, by the discovery of material including Jews, who turned the area of that anxiety about the future had led to documenting the existence of an active the canal, Cairo and Alexandria into an my siblings and me being sent to Europe Jewish military colony at Elephantine extraordinary commercial and cultural to complete our education and how, in (Aswan), in the south of Egypt, when it hub with a unique quality of life where 1954, my parents too had left Cairo for was part of the Persian empire. There literally everyone from the richest Pasha Khartoum in the Sudan, where my father may well have been more settlements to the poorest fellah had benefited in one could resume the family textile business elsewhere in the country and, after the way or another. which he had been prevented from conquest of Egypt by Alexander the pursuing in Cairo. My father’s parents and the Sassoons, my Great, a Jewish population of more than mother’s family, were part of a group of His assets melted away in the turmoil 100,000 seems to have thrived in the new merchants who had come to Egypt from that followed but the process had been Greek city of Alexandria alone. That is a Aleppo and Damascus in Syria, taking relatively painless for me and we had all huge concentration, considering that the advantage of the trade unleashed by the done so well in England that my story total population of the country in the Suez Canal’s opening and contributing had sounded more like an adventure than third century BCE was probably little vastly to the economy of the region. With persecution. My cousin, sitting at the more than five million. There is evidence the passing of British rule after World back of the hall, put up her hand and of large decorated synagogues, the Bible War II, that era came to an end after less pointed out that I was one of a tiny group was translated into Greek - spoken widely than a century and since then the foreign of lucky people, as she and her family had by Jews - and references exist to a residents and their descendants have been rescued, airlifted by the UN and General Hillel commanding an Egyptian gone, some brutally expelled like the dumped on an English airfield. Indeed, army facing Antiochus. Jews, others leaving by choice like the most of our people had arrived destitute Following ethnic strife between the Greeks. The country went into at their various destinations like Lucette Greeks and Jews of Alexandria in Roman accelerating decline though no one Laniado’s family (The Man in the White times the philosopher, Philo Judaeus, led openly faced up to the causes and even Sharkskin Suit), and a number had been a delegation to the Emperor Caligula who now, few mention them because it might jailed like Jean Naggar’s father (Sipping seems to have been uninterested, and a associate the onset of misrule with the from the Nile). later Jewish uprising in 115 CE was end of colonialism, a notion not yet open Misery, fear and humiliation had been brutally repressed. to discussion. the lot of the vast majority of the 80,000 The Arabs conquered Egypt in 639 CE Jews when they were expelled from Egypt and Jews were again prominent in the life and I felt mortified that I had failed to of the country. Jacob Ibn Killis converted stress that point. to Islam as a condition of becoming vizier Jewish people have come and gone from but his extremely successful Egypt ever since history was recorded. administration seems to have welcomed We can even define ourselves as the Jews. Maimonides, who had fled from descendants, genetic, cultural or radical Islamists in Spain, found refuge in whatever, of a group of tentatively a tolerant Egypt, rose to become monotheistic people, together with some physician to the Sultan Saladin and wrote golden calf worshippers who, led by the Mishneh Torah and the Guide to the Eliahu Hanavi synagogue in Moses, fled or were expelled from Egypt Perplexed. A collection of some 300,000 Alexandria more than 3,000 years ago, setting in documentary fragments vividly depicting

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Remembrance of our existence in Egypt industry, theatre and cinema were has also been rubbed out so that few founded by Jews and many leading younger Egyptians, even among the more performing stars were Jewish. It was Leila General Naguib literate ones, are aware that we ever lived Mourad who was first invited to sing at synagogue on Yom Kippur there. A gradual dismantling of cemeteries ‘Biladi Biladi’ the official song of the with Chief has taken place, as well as the bizarre revolution - only for the offer to be Rabbi Haim refusal to allow scanning of old synagogue withdrawn when Gamal Abdel Nasser Nahum Effendi archives - presumably because they are learned that she was Jewish. evidence of our presence. Jews were active in politics and when a Two elements have opposed engagement party was formed by Saad Zaghloul, aimed with the Western enlightenment of which at seeking independence from Britain at we were a part: Islamist fundamentalism the time of the First World War, a number I was in the ‘Grand Temple d’Ismailia’, in the shape of the Moslem Brotherhood of Jews joined. Leon de Castro edited the our principal synagogue in Adly Street, on who felt threatened by our example and paper Al Hurreya (Freedom) and was an Yom Kippur - crowded during times of secondly a sense of humiliation, as the active representative of the Wafd party. In apprehension - when we heard sirens, and impact of the foreigners in Egypt since the 1922 the British recognised Egypt as an wonderment spread among the British takeover in 1883, allegedly as a independent country with Fouad as its congregants: ‘Mohamed Naguib is here! temporary ‘Protectorate’, felt unbearable King and Cattaui Pasha, a Jew, became Mohamed Naguib has come!’ and we all to the majority. The Brotherhood is still the finance minister, while Jewish rose in welcome and relief. Things will there and the feeling of humiliation, intellectuals such as Henri Curiel and improve, we thought as General Naguib together with a determination to depict Hillel Schwartz founded the various was joining us on Yom Kippur. It was not the past as culminating in a victorious factions of the Communist Party. I got to to be. When Nasser took over, he wanted revolution against unsparing oppression know some of these and was struck by the confrontation to avenge millennia of by foreigners, impedes progress. bizarre paths that their ideology took. I perceived humiliation. Wars with Israel in was baffled when one group wrote to 1956, 1967 and finally 1973 had focused For the Jews of Egypt the period of British Nasser from prison, approving their own hostility, discrimination, occasional domination was a golden age. Perhaps detention as the right thing to do violence and expulsion on the Jewish despotic, these administrators, anxious to ‘objectively’. community. Today a handful of avoid ethnic hostilities in their diverse individuals, with slightly dodgy claims to empire, also needed to control the anti- Although the Egyptian Jews were mainly be Jewish, remain and according to Sir Semitism that had surfaced in Europe, secular, the millet system inherited from Martin Gilbert 35,000 of us went to Israel, from the Dreyfus Affair and Czarist the Ottomans meant that our Community 15,000 to Brazil, 10,000 to France, 9,000 oppression, to the rise of Nazism. Jews had an active social organization, from a to the United States and 4,000 to Britain. participated in most aspects of life in hospital and an orphanage to the excellent He said that Egypt’s loss was those Egypt and their contribution was out of schools of the Alliance Israelite countries’ gain and despite the distress proportion to their numbers. My own Universelle. My own great-grandfather, that so many of us suffered I suspect that family were in textiles and, as a child, I Joseph Alphandary, himself educated in ours has been a successful diaspora which was under the impression that the whole Paris, had been brought in from Istanbul has integrated well and largely flourished. of that trade was in the hands of a relative to set up a Jewish school that taught in or friend. Maybe it was. Other families French. Although, in due course the This means that memories of ‘the good such as the Cattauis and the Mosseris better-off sent their children to English days’ of our childhoods fortunately introduced investment banking, while the and French schools, the role of the predominate and in the words of my Smouhas were responsible for important Alliance in transforming our society and sister, the cookery writer Claudia Roden, urban development. The tramway making it a part of Western culture proved our community ‘had a happy and network was built by the Suares family incalculable, as virtually all those who important place in the mosaic of and the Cairo suburb of Maadi was also eventually had to find refuge elsewhere minorities - which included Copts, the result of Jewish vision. were well educated and had mastered Armenians, Syrian Christians, Greeks and English, French or both. Italians, as well as British and French This information is not easy to come by in expatriates - living among the Muslim Egypt with one strange exception. Most of Discrimination began in 1947 and this, majority; though I suspect my father the great department stores were owned coupled with recurring riots directed would have added under the British’. by Jews and when they were sequestrated against non-Muslims, created or nationalised they kept their names: considerable anxiety and when King Ellis Douek Cicurel, Chemla, Benzion and so forth, Farouk and his corrupt government were though the citizens of Cairo today think of overthrown by a military junta led by them only as shops and would not believe General Naguib in 1952, we welcomed the Ellis Douek is Emeritus Consultant anyone who told them they are the names revolution. Surgeon at Guy’s and St Thomas’ Hospital of Jewish families. The entertainment

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Comment

A Banquet of Fish, Beef creature, like an even bigger version of the on which the earth rests. ancient bull Aurochs, last recorded in and Chicken In the preceding chapter, Job 40, God Poland in 1627. Behemoth was Hobbes’s speaks of the Behemoth: a beast whose lesser work on the Long Parliament, but to bones are like bars of brass and iron, who the point, both names are Biblical and have swings his tail like a cedar, definitely male given rise to imaginative mythology. (‘the sinews of his stones are wrapped

Leviathan’s frontispiece depicts a giant together’), who eats grass like the ox, and creature beneath the Latin for ‘no power on who lies in the shade of willows but can earth is to be compared to it’, from Job 41. drink up a river, even the Jordan. Like the

The whole chapter concerns her, beginning Leviathan, there is nothing especially with God’s question, ‘Cans’t thou draw out aggressive in the Biblical description of this Leviathan with a hook?’. She is a fire- symbol of the earth, but it may be mistaken

breathing monster who makes the sea boil, as the only mention of the creature in the with eyes and scales which fluoresce and King James version. In the Hebrew word, leave a glowing wake, immune to swords, the feminine plural ending is transliterated

spears and harpoons. The Psalms mention as ‘oth’: the singular would be ‘behemah’, her twice and the sea in which she ‘plays’, the word for animal, especially for with a Talmudic amplification that God domesticated animals like cattle, and the

plays with her from time to time. Jonah use of the plural ending signifies greatness. tells how a ‘great fish’ swallowed him but it So in Isaiah 30, God’s warning about ‘The The Destruction of Leviathan is not Leviathan. The Midrash recounts by Gustave Doré burden of the beasts of the South’ to those that his whale narrowly escaped being who seek their fortune in Egypt, could be eaten by her- she consumes one per day. rendered as the Behemoth in the South; Few creatures cast a chill in quite the Although inhabiting the Mediterranean, and God’s declaration in Psalm 50:10 that manner of the Leviathan, stonily deaf to the the home of Leviathan is deep in Middle ‘every beast of the forest is Mine, and the wailing of human krill in its baleen filters. Eastern mythology, deriving in narrative cattle dwelling upon a thousand hills’, As an image of the all-devouring State, its and etymology (Ugaritic) from Lotan, a could have been rendered as ‘… and the genius is undiminished since Hobbes’s use Canaanite sea serpent. Syrian seals from Behemoth dwelling on a thousand of it over three centuries ago. He cannot the early second millennium BCE depict the mountains’. Those composing the have imagined how vast it would grow, defeat of a serpent monster; Sumerian Talmudic sources were not struggling with feeding on statistics yet thriving on the ruins show the defeat of a seven-headed translations, and from this passage they most fanciful polemic. serpent by the hero Ninurta; and the inferred that the Behemoth lives in the Babylonian creation story, Enuma Elis, has desert in the land of Nod, to the East of In The Decay of Lying, Oscar Wilde the heavens and earth made from the body Eden. At the summer solstice, it roars so enjoined us to hasten her arrival (for the of the serpentine sea goddess Tiamat. loudly that all wild animals are cowed and Leviathan is female), at least in romantic Isaiah 27:1 is an apocalyptic passage telling less dangerous for another year. literature: of the Leviathan’s ultimate slaughter, a ‘And when that day dawns… how close scriptural parallel to the Ugaritic joyous we shall all be! Facts will be Ba’al cycle. Representations of chaos - the regarded as dis­creditable, Truth ocean - are slain to bring order to existence. will be found mourning over her Biblical usage sometimes refers to the evil fetters, and Romance, with her enemy (especially Egypt) with sea-serpent temper of wonder, will return to the epithets including Tannin (from Tunannu land… Out of the sea will rise in Ugaritic) and Rahab (Isaiah 51:9) Behemoth & Leviathan, and sail meaning fierceness or pride. Yet Tanninim round the high-pooped galleys, as are also the great whales created on the they do on the delightful maps of fifth day, and Leviathan is not demonic. Leviathan the sea-monster, with those ages when books on Behemoth the land-monster and Gustave Doré’s famous Bible woodcut of geography were actually readable… Ziz the air-monster her death refers to Isaiah 27:1 and portrays and over our heads will float the her as a winged sea dragon rather than Blue Bird singing of beautiful and These descriptions are from God’s Moby Dick. However in the Midrash, the impossible things… of things that reminders of the immensity of creation Lord created the Leviathan and all the are not and that should be.’ beyond Job’s grasp. In chapter 39, His fishes on day five, and lodged the world questioning moves from the wild ass, the It all sounds a lot like Brexit, but Oscar is upon her fins, a detail of significance: it horse and the unicorn to creatures of the taking liberties. The Leviathan is a sea- makes her flesh kosher, and endorses her air, the peacock, ostrich and eagle - ‘Doth monster but the Behemoth is a land metaphor of the sea itself, the chaotic deep

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Yet her appearance is no better delineated than that of the other two הבּרוּ קוֹרנר monsters. Humphrey Prideaux, a seventeenth century CE orientalist, quotes the Chaldee Paraphrast, a sixth Hebrew Corner

century interpretation describing the Ziz as a cock to which God gave the wisdom

to crow every morning. In fact, the

chicken was not domesticated (by the A person born in Israel is called Tsabar Persians) until centuries after Job, so the which has now become Tsabra. The griffin is the model. tsabar is a thorny fruit of the cactus The Leviathan and Behemoth have crept family with a very sweet centre. into the liturgy: a prayer on leaving the Amazingly, this plant that reputedly Sukkah is next year to deserve to dwell represents the Israeli type of person under the Sukkah of the Leviathan’s skin; originates from Mexico. In the sixteenth and the Akdamut, a ninety-verse poem Title Page from Leviathan century it was exported to Europe and recited on Shavuot, mentions their by Thomas Hobbes was dubbed the ‘fig of Adam’ because of slaughter. These references come not the belief that Adam and Eve covered from the Bible but Talmudic accounts and haggadot collated at the end of the their bodies with its leaves. the hawk fly by thy wisdom?’ It is the second century CE; also from apocryphal The meaning of the word changed when context in which we might have found the works like the Books of Enoch and II the journalist, Ouri Kessary, published an Esdra; and from ‘Apocalypses’ of Biblical Ziz, a monstrous bird; but no, there is article, attacking the immigrants who characters such as Adam, Abraham and none in Job. arrived from Europe and who nicknamed Baruch, which have in common with Back in the world of translation, Psalm Enoch that they were authored by the natives ‘the leaves of the tsabar’ as an 50:11 is rendered as ‘I know all the fowls somebody else at least a millennium later insult. These people, claimed Kessary, of the mountains, and the wild beasts of - disqualified from Biblical inclusion, but wanted to compare Israelis to the leaves the field are Mine’. The ‘wild beasts of the not necessarily false. of this prickly plant that surrounds the ,orchards and the green gardens זִיז field’ comes from the Hebrew .Ziz saday) and the same the Behemoth lives in spreading wildly and serving no purpose) שָׂדַ י translation is in Psalm 80:13. But the On the contrary, he wrote, the leaves of myth-makers saw intention in these the desert in the land the tsabar protect the gardens and the linked verses, and from that egg hatched of Nod, to the East of fruit is refreshing and delicious. Kessary the Ziz, a creature whose wing-span adopted the originally disparaging blocks out the sun, who stands with head Eden. nickname and the name Tsabar (or in the clouds and feet in the ocean up to Tsabra) remains today. So important the knees, where an axe dropped However, there are many similarities was this episode that Kessary mentioned overboard will not touch bottom in seven with Persian (Zoroastrian) Avestas which it in his autobiography. The legacy of this years. By the alias of Bar-Yuchnei in the bring these stories forward from ancient story is that you often hear the Israelis Talmud Bechoroth 57, she once knocked Mesopotamia, and the Jewish say about themselves: ‘We are prickly on an egg from her nest which crushed three Encyclopedia shows how they carry the outside but sweet on the inside’. hundred cedars and flooded sixty cities - forward into Gnostic and Muslim ritual

Rav Ashi explained that it was rotten. (in which ‘Bahamut’ is no ox but a great Her head is so high that she can sing fish underpinning the world). Their dénouement will be a great banquet of Ilana Alexander sweetly like the Blue Bird to God in the the beasts’ flesh at the end of days, with heavens. big chicken as well, in some versions The Ziz first appears in the Talmud and preceded by a hunt and in others by a her story develops to suit local culture. mutually fatal battle between Leviathan She is said to have carried a poor but and Behemoth. The luminous scales of beautiful young man to King Solomon’s Leviathan will make tents, necklaces and girdles for the invited and decorate the daughter, locked by her father in a tower walls of Jerusalem. Ziz, if not as sweet- against just such a catastrophe. But her throated as Oscar’s Blue Bird, has flesh metaphor is not hard to discern: the said to contain all the flavours of the waters that appear shallow enough to world. stand in but are very deep represent the Torah, and the falling axe the approach of Jonathan Footerman the Messiah who will reveal all mysteries.

7 Women of Distinction

Livia Gollancz never married but is reputed to have had times: one of the casualties of her liaisons with one or two fellow players. advancement was her cousin, Hilary (1920-2018) Rubinstein, who left the firm and During World War II she was part of an became a literary agent. orchestra sent to the Front to entertain the troops. However when they boarded Livia was very artistic and developed a the ship at Folkestone, they were flair for design and typography,

suddenly engulfed in fog and spent two becoming increasingly involved in all days imprisoned on board, forbidden to aspects of the firm’s activities. It was she communicate with the outside world in who designed the Company’s magenta

case their location was revealed. They and yellow book jackets. In 1964, eleven eventually reached Brussels and gave years after she had joined the Company, several concerts there and she is quoted her father appointed her joint managing

as saying it was the time in her life that director. After he suffered a stroke in she most enjoyed. 1966 she had to assume his place as head of the Company. He died in 1967 while Then she suddenly decided that she she was in New York on behalf of would like to take up medicine. So while Gollancz. playing at night at Sadler’s Wells, where Over the years in this Quarterly, we have she had acquired a desk, she attended recorded the lives of many outstanding the Regent Street Polytechnic and

Jewish women but the eccentric and studied physics, chemistry and biology. multi-talented Livia Gollancz must rank In 1953, while she was contemplating her among the most baffling of characters. next move, she was persuaded by her Born in West London to an artistic father Victor to join his publishing family, she was the eldest of five house. She had accepted his invitation children. Her maternal grandmother out of desperation rather than desire and was a suffragette and looked quite like the change in lifestyle was a tremendous Emmeline Pankhurst. In fact, the pair shock at first. Describing herself at that would swap clothes so that Emmeline time as ‘like a drowning person grasping could evade arrest and she had once got at a raft’, she only planned to stay for a One of Livia’s designs for a away using Livia’s grandfather’s car! couple of months, but remained with the Gollancz cover With Victor, a publisher, for a father and company for thirty-six years. Learning Ruth an artist mother, Livia’s own the business from the bottom up, she Running the Company, she was famously prodigious talents lay primarily in music, began by making coffee and typing tight-fisted and refused to modernise. about which she was passionate. As a labels, laying out advertisements and For instance, she insisted on keeping very young girl, she would regularly book covers, and then writing cover manual typewriters, long after electric attend concerts, frequently on her own, copy. machines were in use everywhere else. and she had the front door key to their She ate vegetarian food at her desk, home at the age of twelve - her mother rather than eating expensive literary and father being out almost every lunches with famous authors. She also evening. saved every scrap of paper, string, elastic bands and pencil stubs for future use. Her parents sent her first to Notting Hill Her staff found her intimidating – she High School and then St. Paul’s Girls’ was certainly not good at managing School - she hated both. However at the people. Her eccentricity extended to her early age of sixteen she won a place at sometimes arriving for work in a the Royal College of Music as a viola summer dress and hiking boots! player, quickly exchanging that instrument for the French horn. She Anxious to retain her musical links, she played with the London Symphony joined the Ealing Opera Group and Orchestra for a time but when she was disconcertingly exercised her vocal cords twenty-three she heard that the Hallé fortissimo after 5.30 in the office – Orchestra needed a first French horn causing any staff remaining at work to player so she telephoned Sir John Over the next decade Victor taught her leave hurriedly! In addition, she could Barbirolli and secured the post - at £2 a the workings of the industry, grooming utter loud notes while an editor week. The orchestra members found her her to be his successor. Her position as attempted to discuss a book - or sing on to be modest and a great raconteur. She the boss’s daughter caused resentment at the stairs where the acoustics were

8 Community

particularly resonant. Some more Temple once stood. For this reason we turn to the Ark in acknowledgement of She also developed a liking for long- Jewish customs Judaism’s early beginnings and reverence distance hiking and mountaineering and for the Temple. pursued this hobby in many countries. Someone who craved time to herself, Livia A particularly poignant custom for older took walking holidays in The Dolomites, Jews is the celebration of a second Bar

Nepal, Crete and Scotland. In the 1980s Mitzvah. This takes place seventy years she achieved her ambition to climb all the after the first one - to signify passing the

Munros. (A Munro is a Scottish peak of ‘threescore years and ten’ quoted in the 3,000 feet or more.) Bible.

Another of her hobbies was an allotment The mitzvah of lighting Shabbat candles Many customs are involved in our where she grew vegetables for her own has been given especially to women, the attendance at a Shabbat service. In a table, and nurtured plants in yoghourt pots mainstays of the Jewish home, but it is an Progressive synagogue men and women sit and cardboard boxes in profusion in the obligation for every home, and if no together and we take our cue as to how to basement of her Highgate house. If she woman over bat mitzvah age is present to behave from our Wardens. But some of us felt that a business meeting in the office perform the task, the candles are lit by the attending have been brought up in other had gone on for too long, she would pull a man of the home. Some people raise their Jewish environments and are welcome to bunch of her home-grown spring onions hands to shield their eyes from the flames bring to Westminster the ideas of from her bag and munch on them loudly. or use a circular movement. Sephardic behaviour we were used to. Seeing visitors Jews recite the blessing before lighting the (and sometimes members) using gestures candles whilst Ashkenazim light the and mannerisms that to us are unfamiliar candles first. may prompt us to wonder why. At the Kiddush before the Shabbat meal Reciting the Shema sometimes prompts some families have two challas. It is to worshippers to cover their eyes. While commemorate the fact that the Jews in the saying this important prayer, we are not to desert received a double portion of be distracted by anything around us. mannah every Friday. Before distributing Closing our eyes enhances our the bread, it is sprinkled with salt. In the concentration. The Talmud traces this Torah, salt symbolizes the eternal practice to the great Rabbi Judah the covenant with God. Traditionally, some Prince. He would often interrupt his Torah families cut the bread but some tear it. lectures for Shema, and his students would

observe him passing his hand over his eyes In some Orthodox households, toothpaste at the moment that he said the verse. is spread on the brush, and loo paper is At age ninety-six torn off into separate sheets before the Another curious practice is raising the arrival of the Shabbat! little finger of the right hand (the pinkie) Livia Gollancz retired from the Company as worshippers gaze and try to get a Perhaps the main difference between a in 1990, at the age of seventy. She was glimpse of the words during Hagba, the Shabbat service in an Orthodox synagogue ninety-seven when she died. Not a lifting of the Torah in front of the and a Progressive one is decorum, one of religious Jew, she was cremated at St. congregation, who stand in reverence the main reasons for the founding of the Marylebone crematorium, following which before the portion is read. first Reform synagogue in London in 1840. a reception was held at the Highgate It is unusual for members of the Literary & Scientific Institution. Hagba is performed so that all those congregation to chatter during the Service. present may see the sacred Scroll, open at Claire Connick the relevant verses. This indicates that we Reform and Liberal synagogue services are should reach out to try to gain shorter and therefore it is usual for understanding of the Torah. The reason worshippers to attend the whole service, for using the little finger is obscure. Some entering on time and not leaving until the Philippa Bernard recalls attending a rabbis trace it to a Sephardi book, Me'am service is finished. meeting at the Albert Hall with Rabbi & Lo'ez, written in Ladino in the eighteenth Mrs. Reinhart, at which Victor Gollancz century, which suggests that the little spoke in favour of the Abolition of Capital finger indicates humility. Punishment. In synagogues that are to the west of Jerusalem, the Ark is on the eastern wall, so that when we face the Ark we are facing the city of Jerusalem where the Holy

9 Women of Distinction

Rosalind Franklin London. It is however for her work on the discovery of DNA, and the failure to Blue Plaque in Scientist (1920-1958) acknowledge her value, that she is best Cadogan known. In 1951 she became a Turner and Gardens Newall research fellow of London Chelsea

University. Appointed by Professor John Randall in the absence of Maurice Wilkins of King’s College physics of recognition of Rosalind’s fundamental department, she was treated on his work which enabled Crick and Watson to return as a lowly technical assistant, and take the credit for the discovery which their relationship worsened. In those shook the scientific world. years King’s denied women entrance to the Senior Common Room, and the few In 1968 James Watson published The on the science staff were forced to use Double Helix, which described the

their own dining room. Rosalind was not betrayal; how Rosalind’s research had Unlike some of the distinguished people best pleased. been fundamental to the discovery of we have discussed in the Quarterly, DNA, and how their publication of it in Wilkins was working with Francis Crick Rosalind Franklin could trace her family Nature in 1953 was accompanied only by to study the structure of DNA. Put very in England back through several a support article by Rosalind with little simply, deoxyribonucleic acid is a centuries. The Franklin family came to acknowledgement of her value. The molecule composed of two chains which England in the eighteenth century, when same year Rosalind moved to Birkbeck coil around each other to form a double Abraham Franklin, a silversmith, came College, working on viruses, the tobacco helix carrying the genetic instructions here from Breslau. Succeeding mosaic virus and also on the polio virus. used in the growth, development, generations were bankers, lawyers and functioning and reproduction of all Three years later she became ill and was politicians. Beatrice Franklin married known living organisms. Rosalind was to diagnosed with cancer. However she Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount Samuel, the set up a systematic X-ray study of the managed to carry on her work until she Liberal politician who was party leader fibres of DNA, in charge of the work and went into the Royal Marsden Hospital from 1931–35. Rosalind, born in 1920, working with a research student. She where she died in April 1958 at the age of was the daughter of Ellis Arthur was shortly able to confirm that two thirty-eight. She is buried in Willesden Franklin, a banker and her mother was strands of the DNA existed and Jewish Cemetery. Muriel Waley, also from a long- established the essential relation established Anglo-Jewish family. Other between them. The key image that distinguished members of the family revealed the double helix structure of were Helen Bentwich, her aunt and DNA, known as ‘Photograph 51’, was Surprisingly, Labour chairman of the London County taken by Rosalind and her student her council, Netta Franklin, sister of Lily Raymond Gosling at King’s College. contributions Montagu and an early suffragette, Arthur Unknown to Rosalind, Wilkins then to the Waley, the translator of Chinese showed this iconic image to J.D. Watson structure of literature, Simon Waley the composer, DNA aren't at Cambridge, and he realised what it and Frank Waley, Westminster mentioned meant. She published her findings and Synagogue’s first chairman. on her they enabled Crick in 1953, working with tombstone It was hardly surprising then that Watson, to build the DNA model which Rosalind won a scholarship to St. Paul’s brought them fame, fortune and the basis

Girls’ School and went on to read natural of a completely new system of sciences at Newnham College, recognising constituent elements of When Crick and Watson, together with Cambridge. She graduated in 1941 and living genes. What has distressed friends Wilkins were awarded the Nobel Prize in joined the Coal Utilisation Research and colleagues then and now is the lack Physiology or Medicine, Rosalind could Association where she studied for a PhD not be so honoured, as the prize is not awarded by Cambridge University for her awarded posthumously. But her name is work on carbon and graphite now well known in the search for the microstructures; during this time she structure of DNA, one of the most was employed as a London air raid important discoveries of the twentieth warden. century. There is now a Rosalind Franklin Technology Centre at St. Paul’s As a crystallographer, Rosalind School, and King’s College has dedicated contributed much to the understanding the Franklin-Wilkins building to her of X-ray diffraction techniques, working work. in Paris and then at King’s College in

10 Jewish Culture

Book Review destruction a daily occurrence. Getting the war she and her mother lived on the away from Lwów, she and her mother slenderest commons in Warsaw. They still somehow missed boarding their train. By used their wartime false names and Ashes to Light a strange turn of fate, a kindly station documents. She did not feel able to by master placed them on a late-night extra confide the truth about this even to her train, laid on for Gestapo officers: closest friend, Barbara: Nelly Ben-Or That night’s journey displayed the Our friendship provided the enormous tragedy of this farce, of opportunity for us to share all the the executioners unknowingly intense feelings and ideas which Published by giving full protection and were arising in our young hearts I.B.Tauris & Co.Ltd. displaying charming friendliness to and minds. We could share our 2018 the two of us who could otherwise innermost secrets which we felt so easily have been their victims. neither her parents nor my mother Holocaust memoirs abound, though they Throughout the journey, however, I could be let into. However there was are coming to a natural end as survivors felt a chilling fear, particularly one thing I kept hidden from are now few and those who remain are because of coming into such close everyone around me, even Barbara, advanced in years. Here, however, is a proximity with these dreaded and that was my real identity. vivid account of the war years seen figures in their uniforms which had (p.106) through the eyes of a child and preserved become to me symbols of death. During this time she was able to study in memory for many years. Nelly Ben-Or (p.31) music, and in 1950 her mother obtained never made a secret of what she Arriving in Warsaw they boarded with a permits to move to Israel. This was not an experienced. Indeed, she was most Christian family in equally straitened unmixed blessing because Nelly had just generous in devoting her time and energy circumstances and they were able to get been offered a place at the Moscow to talks for adults and school-children by as ‘family’ for a while. Their living conservatoire. Nevertheless they went and over many years. But eventually she arrangements were dire, ‘ but for us at the made a new start in Israel, in those decided to commit her memories to time it seemed a God-sent life-saving difficult years of the new State. She speaks writing. They retain a freshness and situation’. (p.35). honestly and openly about the after- immediacy which I can only attribute to effects of the trauma she had endured, the clarity of her perception at the time I will not spoil the tale by giving too many about her difficulties in adjusting, and and her absolute honesty ever since. details, but it has extraordinary twists and about the wonderful teaching she turns, including a narrow escape en route That clarity pervades her account. She received. to Auschwitz. As well as the fear and the begins with a simple memory of the smells betrayals, her memories of people’s of Sabbath eve preparations – the challah Then came her first marriage, which soon kindness are equally vivid. Families would in the oven, the chicken soup on the hob unravelled, to the great distress of both take them in and allow them living space and gefilte fish baking, an idyll rudely parties. Again the honesty with which she in return for labour - until neighbours interrupted by explosions and confusion presents her emotional problems, so began to ask awkward questions. At one as the German army invaded Poland in vividly remembered even now, marks this time they were reduced to rolling 1941. She was living in Lwów. Her family out as an exceptional act of sharing. We cigarettes by night and selling them in the entered a period of constant fear. As a share too in the author’s relief when a visit street by day. In the countryside, from the child she felt there must be something to England begins a train of circumstances pigsty in which they were living, one lady ‘wrong’ with them, to be so utterly that bring real change. Moving to London allowed her to come and play the piano, shunned and rejected. provided an opportunity for healing, without any questions about how an allowing all that had been learned to be Their home was looted, and they were impoverished maidservant’s daughter put to good use in a life of music rounded up into the ghetto, from which might have acquired such a skill. On her performance and teaching, in a happy her father was taken out and shot, though visits, there was always food to be shared marriage, and in motherhood. It is the the rest of the family were eventually and, as winter came, the lady furnished frank disclosure of the pains and the released through the daring intervention her with a pair of boots made from leather process of recovery that makes this book of an uncle. But that merely led to a she ‘just happened’ to have left over. True so much more than just another war period of constant flight and hiding, generosity without any fuss. This left a memoir, and I cannot commend it highly assuming false identities and deep impression and became a hallmark enough as a moving record of human surrendering the life of the Jewish of Nelly’s own life: offering to others true suffering and of the resources that can be intelligentsia for one of pretended generosity without any fuss. harnessed to promote eventual Catholicism and domestic service. The most courageous part of her Meanwhile German violence against the recovery and huge inner strength. narration, though, is the second half of the Poles continued, with burning and book. No more bombing or burning. After Valery Rees

11 Comment connection between Western civilisation knew what was best for the populace, and a highly evolved culture is not as and claimed spurious objectivity for Art ‘I don’t know much obvious as some would have us believe. in order to purge it of contradictions. The result of this view is to sterilise art, to Are we a nation of uncultured, arrogant about the arts, but I destroy, as Hazlitt pointed out, genius people because we admit ignorance of and Art. But surely ordinary people know what I like’ the nature of Art? Is simply liking a require guidelines as to what has artistic painting or sculpture or piece of music merit and what doesn’t? If we are looking Are we a nation of without understanding it a mark of for such certainty we are bound to be Philistines? barbarism? What exactly are we trying to disappointed, for stamps of approval - comprehend and how does this relate to or disapproval - have a habit of being ideas of objectivity? In demanding that reversed by the tide of history. the public appreciate Art we are assuming that there is not only merit in An animal preserved in formaldehyde or the work but a latent message, an assortment of bricks, or a rather instruction or intention to be discovered. shambolic bedroom, all of course, There can be no doubt that Art, in its presented in an art gallery, may please or many forms, elicits a response from the leave one scratching one’s head. So if we observer and it may please or disgust; the are perplexed, unable to see the artist’s reaction is not ultimately important but vision, then surely the experts, the art response there must be. The so-called critics, can offer illumination. message of a particular artist may appear Does the critic, the expert, not have good banal. advice for us? Has he not a deeper

In Shakespeare’s The Tempest the understanding of the technical merits of There are many definitions of the term playwright implies that he merely wished the artist, of his mind? The problem with ‘Art’ and semantics, although helpful in to please. Clearly, to fully appreciate the any group that sets itself up as clarifying linguistic usage in many areas, plays of Shakespeare requires some custodians of quality is that once their proves confusing in this case. For the understanding of Elizabethan English, ranks are broken, by errors of purpose of avoiding misunderstanding, I his use of puns, the playwright’s wit and judgement, their credibility suffers. The am using ‘Art’ in a stipulative sense, the historical background of the period in history of Art is littered with the meaning a skill or ability that is non- which he was writing. skeletons of artists and their sponsors. In utilitarian. Activities like music, painting, their day they were heralded as Music and the visual arts place less of an and the performing arts would meet this extremely talented but, alas, later intellectual demand on us than literature criterion, but angling, although regarded generations soon tired of their limited because words have to be processed by Izaac Walton as an art, would not repertoire. before there is an emotional response. If because it is essentially utilitarian. music and visual art make such a direct This essay is not to advocate anti- The use of the term Philistine to denote appeal to our senses does this imply that intellectualism but to expose the fallacy an uncultured being, one unmoved by ignorance might be bliss? A disregard for of claims of objectivity when the light, as Heine put it, is to invite a the intellectual component of Art is not pronouncing on the value of Art. charge of anachronistic usage and being advocated, but rather a respect for Underlying this polemic is a plea to ignorance. Biblical research and spontaneity; of unshackled emotions. remember Wordsworth’s injunction: to archaeology suggest that the Philistines give both heart and mind to art. were an Aegean people who were no less If as a nation we can experiment with our cultured than their neighbours. feelings, accept that sometimes we have However, because of religious beliefs and to think for ourselves, to maintain a belligerency, they received a healthy suspicion of the expert, and to condemnatory press from the writers of continue to put the emphasis on liking Judges and 1 Samuel - a view reinforced rather than claiming to know what is by nineteenth century German and good or bad Art, then we shall fare no English scholars, particularly Matthew worse than any other people. Arnold. To such minds there was a definite hierarchy of civilisation which in To suggest that the average person turn indicated levels of cultural doesn’t know the difference between Peter Beyfus sophistication. Social anthropologists good and bad Art is to adopt the have alerted us to the dangers of arrogance of that displayed by claiming cultural superiority, and the totalitarian regimes which, historically,

12 Jewish Youth

Sadeh the earth and Judaism, which few of we strong message. We cannot deny that our city dwellers can claim to achieve. To me, lives are increasingly distant from the The Only Jewish Farm this was a wonderful symbol proving that land. It has been said that one in eight in Europe Judaism is not an exclusively Synagogue- young people in the UK hasn’t seen a real based religion. cow, for example. This disconnection from What on earth is earth-based Judaism? first-hand contact with the soil makes it That is the question I asked myself difficult to appreciate where our food travelling to Orpington one Monday comes from, the long and effortful morning - extremely curious but processes to grow it and get it onto our apprehensive about getting my hands dirty supermarket shelves. Indeed, the rise of on Sadeh Farm’s ‘Jewish farming week’. veganism is a manifestation of humanity’s reaction to the abuse of our planet and the Sadeh (field, in Hebrew) is located on the exploitation of animals occurring in the Skeet Hill House grounds. This house is meat, dairy and farming industry. the only fully kosher residence for use by Jewish organisations in the UK and covers It isn’t all doom and gloom, however. The a seven-acre site. Both the house and the vision for Sadeh’s educational outreach is farm are run by Talia Chain, aged twenty- Earth-based Judaism, after all, mirrors the to inspire people to create similar organic nine, who has put all her prodigious pre-Rabbinical time when life revolved Jewish farms in the UK and around the energy into this project. After spending around the soil, the land and the Temple. world, just as Adamah had inspired Talia three months at the Adamah Fellowship, a When Jews were nomadic, survival was to do. This hope and courage is estimable. Jewish farming concern in the Isabella reliant on planting and harvesting, While society as a whole becomes Freedman centre in Connecticut in 2014, uprooting and moving on. Spiritualism increasingly secular, Sadeh proves that Talia had a ‘light bulb’ moment and and community therefore developed religion can still play a valuable role in decided to implement a similar venture in around the soil and the environment, tackling some of the major environmental the UK. She spent four years thereafter laying the foundations for all the problems of our time. learning to grow vegetables and she is still agricultural-based teachings and stories constantly engaged in Royal Horticultural we have in Judaism today. Copious Society diplomas to consolidate her historical famines documented in the knowledge. Sadeh was set up in January Torah prove how life was powerfully 2017 after successful crowd funding. arbitrated by environmental conditions and elemental events out of control of the Now, already triumphant in producing an individual. Jewish agricultural rules that abundance of crops (potatoes, carrots, perhaps were once just as important as onions, asparagus, lettuce and parsnips to keeping kosher, have been lost during the name a few), Sadeh embodies ‘a gradual emancipation of Jews away from commitment to social and environmental the countryside into cities. justice’ and aims ‘to re-engage and invigorate the Jewish community through Therefore Sadeh, and the earth-based So, surprisingly, a week of sowing seeds, farming and outdoor education.’ Sadeh living it exemplifies, allowed me to turning compost, weeding cabbage frequently runs retreat weeks, supper connect with aspects of my Jewish origins patches, planting carrots and learning clubs and events, eager to get more people that are not usually emphasized in day-to- about beekeeping has led me to better involved. day life, or even in Synagogue. understand my Jewish identity. I have come away with a new outlook on Talia’s philosophy is that Judaism is Having been to a Christian full-boarding agriculture and sustainability, not to deeply connected to the land; all the school for the last seven years and mention a new and enriching community festivals revolve around the agricultural consequently feeling increasingly of friends from an eclectic mix of year. For example, at the end of the separated from the Jewish community, backgrounds - someone had even flown in farming week, Talia and up to twenty this experience was extremely meaningful from Boston to attend. Sadeh’s triumph of guests who had joined for the three-day for me. I left the farming week with an farming and eco-friendly living is all down harvest festival celebrated Shavuot with a incredibly optimistic outlook on Judaism, to Talia and her fabulous team, whose parade through Sadeh and a (vegan) understanding how we can use our integrity is inspiring. The gratitude to cheesecake contest, making offerings of ancestors’ way of life back in 900 BCE to nature in this enterprise is unflagging and home-grown broad beans, apple blossom, make a positive change for our perhaps should be a sentiment we all take rocket and two loaves of homemade environment in the twenty-first century. on for the future. If you are interested to challah. Even though living off the ‘fat of the land’ know more, Sadeh has a website: In harvesting actual vegetables from the seems like an inconvenient anachronism http://www.sadehfarm.co.uk farm and offering them to God, Talia in our mass-commercialised and Dorabella Moskovic-Thomas brought home a literal connection between consumer society, Talia’s efforts send a

13 Culture John Rodker and some of his translations. Ian was more profitable and more to his taste (1894-1955) Patterson, writing on Modernism and than either publishing or writing poetry, Translation, says ‘The differing, even and translated much French poetry and fragmented position of those young other literary works - some in Russian - Whitechapel intellectuals accurately though he did establish the Pushkin Press mirrors the weakness of the Orthodox which published Oliver Elton’s English Jewish community in the East End in the version of Eugene Onegin. pre-war years. Pervasive anti-Semitism, In 1938 Sigmund Freud came to London even among socialists, gave an added and John Rodker set up the Imago edge to discussion about the benefits and Publishing Company to handle his dangers of assimilation’. writings. Most of Freud’s work had been Most of Rodker’s poems show something destroyed by the Nazis, but Rodker of his troubled mind. In 2013 The collaborated with his daughter Anna to Guardian chose his Hymn of Hymns as publish his complete works, which took

its Poem of the Week. It describes it as five years to achieve. It appeared in 1952 ‘an anti-hymn, psalm-like in some of its in twenty-four volumes. The set is When David Rodker and his wife Leah left structures, but owing nothing to the currently priced at about £4,000. Poland in 1893 they settled in pieties of church or synagogue. . . for all Manchester. His son John said later that John Rodker had a varied love life. His its angry denunciation, it's a bracing, ‘as Rodker was a Polish name he adopted association with Sonia Cohen produced a funny, and unexpectedly sympathetic for a time the name of Solomon . . . but I daughter, Joan, though they never poem’. have as long as I can remember been married. His first wife, Mary Butts, known as John Rodker’. When John was . . . the prurulent pestilent wind, whom he married in 1916, was a six the family moved to London and and the pullulating sea. modernist poet and occultist. Mary David set up as a corset-maker, not an The eternal infinite, cosmical, helped him with the Ovid Press and they uncommon profession for immigrant blue, had a daughter, Camilla. But the Jews. The child was sent to the Jews Free deep, unfathomed, boundless, marriage didn’t last. He then met and School, but was mainly self-educated, free, married the painter Barbara McKenzie- neither of his parents being readers. The racing, wild, mysterious sea – Smith; they had a son John Paul who later boy showed promise as a linguist, and its argus-eyed, winged and took the name of his step-father, read voraciously about poetry and art. He lanthorned dwellers. E.A.Morrison. always maintained that it was his interest When war broke out in 1914 Rodker His godmother was Moura Budberg, the in the French language that turned him to refused to enlist. He declared himself a extraordinary Russian woman who was poetry, and he became well known as a conscientious objector and went on the the mistress of H.G. Wells and Maxim translator of French literature. run with the poet R.C. Trevelyan. They Gorky, reputedly a Soviet spy, and the The years before the First World War were arrested and sent to prison, before great aunt of the politician Nick Clegg. were a fruitful time for young Jews being transferred to the Home Office Finally he married a Parisian bookseller, growing up in the East End, and it was Work Centre, Princetown, formerly Marianne Rais. here that a distinguished group of Dartmoor Prison. By now his poetry was John Rodker died in 1955. His eldest immigrant Jews – writers, artists, poets becoming well known, and he was part of child, Joan, was a political activist and and musicians – became known as the a circle of distinguished writers, British, television producer, Camilla had a brief Whitechapel Boys, among them Isaac American and French. In 1919 he started liaison with Nikolaus Pevsner before she Rosenberg, David Bomberg, Mark Gertler the Ovid Press, a small private press married Henry Israel, and John Paul, who and Joseph Leftwich. They met in the which published works by T.S. Eliot, Ezra went to Eton and then to King’s College, Whitechapel Art Gallery; recalling that Pound, Wyndham Lewis and James Cambridge, has had a distinguished time, Leftwich, an eminent writer and Joyce, with illustrations by Gaudier- career in computer science. journalist, said that they met almost every Brzeska, Roger Fry and Renoir. The Press day, talking together far into the night. had a life of only a year, but Rodker then Philippa Bernard ‘All our bright youth were there.’ He took on the Foreign Editorship of the New remembered Rodker’s ambition that one York journal, The Little Review, a post day he would have his obituary in The formerly held by Ezra Pound. Times. That ambition was fulfilled. Oliver Elton’s In 1920 Rodker went to Paris. At that English version Like so many of his contemporaries time the first edition of James Joyce’s published by Rodker was confused by his background Ulysses was censored, so Rodker took on Rodker and the changes he now found in his life. the editing of a second edition, and began His silent anxieties about his place in the translating some of Joyce’s other works

literary world were reflected in his poetry into French. He found that translating

14 Poetry Page

One Breath

Invisible, intangible, transient breath

Unreal, very real breath of life

‘And God breathed into man’s nostrils

And man became a human being’

One breath and man is in God’s image

One breath and man is human

One breath and existence becomes conscious life

One breath and man is different from the rest of Creation

One breath and man is conscious of God’s existence

One breath, multiplying itself through time

One breath, terminal and eternal

One breath, man’s spiritual link

The very breath of God, the very essence of man

A giant who conceives abstractions reduced to dust

Dust to dust when life/time partnership is over

God and man’s relationship goes on beyond time/life

Colette Littman

15 Anglo-Jewish History

One such was John Traske. Anglican church. Dorothy was a John Traske - schoolteacher who taught her pupils Judaiser Traske was born about 1583 in Somerset about the Saturday Sabbath and was and became a schoolmaster, though he locked up in the New Prison, Maiden

(C1583-1636) had no university training. He was Lane, which was devoted exclusively to ordained in 1611 and began preaching in the incarceration of religious prisoners. the area around his home, Axminster and By the middle of the seventeenth century, Honiton, then venturing further afield, to Traske, who seemed to have little the Jews had been absent from England East Anglia, north of Ely. His opinions awareness of the politics of the nation, for more than three hundred years. were becoming more radical and the then tried to convert the King, James I, to Some Jews had remained after the authorities were wary that he was his ideas, writing inflammatory letters to expulsion, some had fled here to escape converting his listeners to a dangerous him and sending manuscripts setting out the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal, and acceptance of his ideas. He published his revolutionary ideas. This could not be those who were in England worshipped several pamphlets, A Pearl for a Prince, allowed to continue and Traske was secretly, and outwardly had to conform to Christ’s Kingdom Discovered and arrested. The charge was that of Christianity. Few Englishmen had ever Heaven’s Joy. These set out his ideas that ‘detraction and scandal on the King’s met a Jew, but the Bible, now available to true believers could commit no sin, that most excellent majesty’. He was tried in read in their own language, and accessible the elect could always recognise one Star Chamber; at the time Bishop in printed form, was their solace and joy. another, and that they should share all Lancelot Andrewes said, ‘It is a good work Scholars in the two universities studied their goods in common. to make a Jew a Christian, but to make few subjects, but theology was nearly Christian men Jews have ever been always one of them, and once England he began to adopt a holden a foul act and severely to be under Henry VIII had become a punished – he is a very Christened Jew, a Protestant country, with the King as way of life directly Maran (Marrano) the worst Jew there is.’ Supreme Head of the Church, more taken from Mosaic law Traske was convicted of ‘scandalising the attention was paid to the Old Testament Ecclesiastical government’, and for a and its influence on thought and belief. as set out in the Book ‘seditious practice and purpose to divert In order to examine the origins of Bible of Leviticus. His Majesty’s subjects from their translation it was necessary to go back to obedience.’ The sentence was that he the original Hebrew and Aramaic. Who At about this time, coming to London, he should be degraded, fined, whipped, had a knowledge of Hebrew except the began to adopt a way of life directly taken pilloried, branded, to have his ears nailed Jews and where were they when they were from Mosaic law, as set out in the Book of to the pillory, and to be jailed at the King’s needed? Hebrew became an essential Leviticus. He adopted Jewish dietary pleasure. The brand on his forehead was part of academic scholarship. We have laws; there was no way in which he could a J signifying a Jew, and he was forced discussed before in this journal the story get access to kosher food, but he would while in prison to eat swine’s flesh. of Jacob Barnet, the Jewish scholar at not eat blood nor the flesh of swine nor The number of the Traskes’ believers was Oxford who fled before he could be mix meat and milk dishes. He ate only increasing. A contemporary wrote, ‘You converted, and Immanuel Tremellius, also ‘white, unleavened bread’ after the rise of will not think what a number of foolish th born a Jew, who was appointed King’s the moon on 14 March and refused to followers he hath in this town and some Reader in Hebrew at Cambridge light fires, burn lights or dress meat on other parts, and yet he hath not long been University. Their contributions to Sundays, though he still celebrated the of this opinion. He and divers of them are Hebrew learning were important to these Sabbath on that day. However, in prison, but continue obstinate, whereby new investigations into what the Jews influenced by a London tailor named a man may see that there can arise no believed and how they led their lives. Hamlet Jackson, who maintained he had such absurd opinion but shall find been struck by ‘a blinding white light The Puritan ethic in England was by now followers and disciples.’ while travelling on a Saturday’, he very strong. Queen Elizabeth had laid decided that the Biblical injunction to rest The ghastly punishment proved too much considerable reliance on her Puritan on the seventh day meant a Saturday, and for John Traske. He repented, was statesmen such as William Cecil and his acted accordingly. Jackson himself pardoned and was allowed to resume his son Robert and by the time her successor, eventually went to Amsterdam and preaching. His wife Dorothy, however, James I, was on the throne, the Puritans converted to Judaism. continued, publishing A Treatise on were disseminating their reliance on the Liberty from Judaism. It seems that they Little if anything is known about a Old Testament and the fundamentalism also held Jewish ideas of not mixing with previous marriage, but in 1617 Traske of the Bible. So it is hardly surprising that Gentiles, for in an article in Transactions married his second wife, Dorothy Coome, Judaism was having an influence on the of the Jewish Historical Society by Henry an even more convinced Sabbatarian than minds of those who sought to practise Phillips, a letter to Dorothy is quoted as their religion and to live according to the he was himself, and together they formed saying: ‘… it was not safe to eat, drink, to Levitical laws. a secret ‘Judaical’ sect outside the

16 Community come into a house, to sit down, nor buy anything in a Market, nor walk in the The streets, for fear of touching others that observed not those laws, and so was unclean.’ Dorothy became ill while still In 1932 three distinguished Anglo- in prison and issued orders that she Jewish figures, Professor Cecil Roth, should not be buried in any church or Alfred Rubens and Wilfred Samuel, saw churchyard but in the Fields. their dream realised. Together they had Moishe Rabinowitz in the late 1930s long had a vision of a Jewish Museum fled his native land of Germany. ‘...it was not safe to eat, in London, to show some of the Jewish He sold all his assets. converted them treasures accumulated over many to gold and then had five sets of solid drink, to come into a centuries by Jewish families living in gold false teeth made. house, to sit down, nor this country. The Museum occupied several floors of the building in Woburn When he arrived in New York the buy anything in a House in Bloomsbury, in the university customs official was perplexed as to area of London. why anybody would have five sets of Market, nor walk in the gold teeth. streets, for fear of The glass cases displayed Jewish ritual silver – Kiddush cups, spice boxes, So Moishe explained: ‘We Orthodox touching others that candlesticks – as well as appurtenances Jews have two separate sets of dishes observed not those for Sifre Torah, rimmonim (crowns), for meat products and dairy products laws, and so was hoshen (breastplates) and yadim but I am so kosher and so religious I (pointers). There were books, scrolls also have separate sets of teeth.’ unclean.’ and other Jewish possessions - many The customs official shook his head the gifts of wealthy English Jews. and said, ‘Well that accounts for two It did not take long for Traske to resume In 1983 a new museum was founded, sets of teeth. What about the other his heretical leanings, not this time as a the London Museum of Jewish Life. three?’ ‘Judaiser’ but with the idea that believers This was to commemorate and preserve were free from sin, an antinomian view Moishe then said "Vell us very the history of the Jews of the East End, which rejects laws or legalism and is religious Orthodox Jews we use so grievously destroyed during World against moral, religious, or social norms. separate dishes for Passover, but I am War II. It was situated in Finchley, in Such opinions were growing in Puritan so religious I have separate teeth for the Sternberg Centre, and showed England in the seventeenth century. Passover too, one set for meat and one something of the horrors of the However Traske and his followers were for dairy food. Holocaust and the experiences of careful not to confront the authorities, refugees from Nazism. The customs official slapped his head continuing to preach informally in and then said, ‘You must be a very London, Dorset and Gloucestershire. He In 1994 a splendid new Jewish Museum religious man with separate teeth for ended his life as a Baptist, a member of was founded in an old piano factory in food and dairy products and likewise the small Independent Church of the Camden Town, a three-minute walk for Passover. That accounts for four Jacob-Lathrop Congregation in from Camden Town Underground. It is sets of teeth. What about the fifth set?’ Southwark. The pastor, Henry Jessey, a listed Victorian building in an elegant believed in the Sabbath being celebrated street away from the noise and traffic. ‘Vell, to tell you the truth...once in a on Saturday and was active in the move The house was large enough to while I like a ham sandvich.’ to readmit the Jews to England. John accommodate both Museums and Traske died in 1636 and is buried in eventually the Finchley Museum Lambeth churchyard. brought its treasures to be added to the older one. A third Jewish Museum

joined them in 2015, the Jewish Philippa Bernard Military Museum, formerly in Hendon which showed the part played by Jews in every conflict since the Boer War.

The Museum holds exhibitions, lectures and other events, as well as its regular

showcases. On the ground floor is an original medieval Mikva, discovered during excavations in the City.

17

Jewish History

river which according to Eldad ‘rolls sand a further country, where never mankind The Ten Lost Tribes and stones with such force that if in its dwelt, that they might keep there their course it encountered a mountain of iron statutes.’ Many of the early explorers, it would grind it to powder. On Friday at finding unknown peoples in the new lands sunset a cloud envelops the river, so that they reached, attributed them to the no man is able to cross it. At the close of missing Jews. Marco Polo, exploring the Sabbath the river resumes its torrent Armenia, found a King called ‘David of stones and sand. We on this side of the Melic’ which he translated as King David, river may talk to them on the other side, and Columbus also believed he had found but neither can they come to us nor can in the Indians of America traces of the we go to them.’ The river was accordingly missing Jews. named after the Sabbath. In an interesting article in Philosemitism The most credible account of the resting and the Readmission of the Jews to Ethiopian Jews place of the missing tribes was that they England, by David Katz, the author had indeed come to settle in East Africa, makes the point that all discoveries of One of the most intriguing mysteries in in Ethiopia. The present-day Jewish new peoples in distant lands agreed that the history of the Jewish people is that of Ethiopians are believed to be their ‘they must in some way be descended the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel. Many descendants. Israel later welcomed many from Adam, if not from Noah as well’. So scholars, historians, investigators and of them, where they became acclimatised clearly the line of descent, if not directly cranks have searched for the answer, and with astonishing rapidity. attributable to the known Jews of the in a short article such as this one cannot Bible, must derive from those who had hope to solve - or even fully to examine - But there were other claimants. vanished. the problem. For the stories go back to Wherever a group of Jews was found the ancient history of the Jews, when the living in a remote part of the world, they Many of these early explorers of the New twelve tribes, descendants of Jacob, split were considered as the remnants of one of World were Spanish Christians, with into two kingdoms: Israel in the north of the lost tribes. In Kaifeng in China (as some knowledge of Biblical tradition, the Holy Land, consisting of Asher, Dan, appeared in the Quarterly of July 2017) a such as circumcision, which when they Ephraim, Gad, Issachar, Manasseh, small Jewish community living there was found was practised by the native peoples, Naphtali, Reuben, Simeon and Zebulun; one possibility. Another was the was, it seemed, further proof of Jewish and the remaining two, Judah and discovery of Antonio de Montezinos, also ancestry. Benjamin, the kingdom of Judah, in the known as Aharon Levi, a Marrano from Perhaps the most interesting theories of south. Portugal, who insisted that he had found the whereabouts of the lost tribes comes one of the Ten Lost Tribes living in the In 721 BCE the Assyrians conquered from what are often known as the British jungles of Ecuador. When Menasseh ben northern Palestine and the Jewish tribes Israelites. They believe that Britons are Israel came to England to persuade Oliver were assimilated by them and vanished ‘genetically, racially, and linguistically the Cromwell to allow the Jews to return he from history. But did they? Since that direct descendants of the ten lost tribes’. supported Montezinos’ suggestion in his time the mysterious disappearance of At the turn of the nineteenth century book The Hope of Israel, in which he those ten tribes has intrigued both Jews some of the more eccentric members of argued that until there were Jews ‘in and non-Jews, who are convinced that the movement dug up parts of the Hill of every corner of the earth’, the Messiah one day they will be found, living perhaps Tara in County Meath in the belief that could not come; so England, too, had to in secret in some far distant part of the the Ark of the Covenant was buried there, have a Jewish community. world. India has claimed them, so has doing much damage to one of Ireland's Japan. They were in earliest times most ancient royal and archaeological associated with the coming of the sites. Messiah, with whom they would return. ‘they must in some way be descended Further investigation into the One of the first to raise the possibility of whereabouts of the tribes has continued finding the lost Jews was a Jewish from Adam, if not to intrigue explorers and historians. traveller known as Eldad ha-Dani, living from Noah as well’. Perhaps the most valid explanation lies in in the ninth century CE, who claimed to the general movement of Jews away from be a member of the tribe of Dan (one of those who would wish to destroy them, the lost tribes). He believed that he had resulting in assimilation, secret worship located the missing Jews in Abyssinia by a Some of the speculation on what or lapse of faith. river known as Sambation (some happened to the tribes rests on the geographers place it in the Middle East), mention in the book of Esdras in the mentioned in several early accounts, Apocrypha that ‘they would leave the including that of Josephus, as a strange multitude of the heathen and go forth into

18 Culture

A Musical Family the age of ten. She performed on stage with Michael Tippett with whom he with another young friend - they were worked at Morley College. Tippett known as the Stone Sisters, though they dedicated the ritual dances in A were neither of the name Stone nor Midsummer Marriage to Goehr. At the sisters. She left Russia at the age of BBC, Goehr was conductor of the Theatre

fourteen and went to Berlin where she Orchestra. This life-long interest in the lived until she and Walter, together with theatre and film extended to opera; their three-month-old son, Alexander, Goehr conducted in 1952 the first

had to leave. On arriving in the UK she recording of L’Incoronazione di Poppea, began to take her hobby of photography later issued as a long-play recording, seriously. She studied and observed the which won a Grand Prix du Disque. He Walter Goehr photographer, Bill Brandt. After Brandt was also a much-valued teacher of During the war I was evacuated with my showed her photographs to Tom composition and conducting. family to Amersham in Buckinghamshire. Hopkinson at the Hulton Picture Library, Walter and Laelia divorced in the 1950s Many Jewish families lived nearby, and her work was published in the Picture and Walter married Jean Morrison, a most of the children knew each other. Post and Lilliput and later in The secretary and publisher. Laelia continued One young boy, Alexander (known as Observer. her career as an eminent photographer, Sandy) became part of our circle of writing several books about her friends. Slightly suspicious at first, as we profession. Among them are Faces: knew his parents were from Germany, we Profiles of Dogs (with Vita Sackville- soon welcomed him and we all became Laelia Goehr West), Musicians in Camera (with John quite close. We did not know then that Photograph Amis), and Suki A Little Tiger (with we were friends with a very distinguished by Bill Brandt Elspeth Huxley). Her portrait of the family - the Goehrs. Walter was a conductor Sir Adrian Boult is in the renowned conductor and composer. His National Portrait Gallery. wife Laelia was a famous photographer, and Alexander grew up to be a Walter’s work for the record company distinguished composer. included preparing music for recordings,

accompanying singers (including John Although this article is principally about Alexander McCormack and Gigli), and often Goehr Walter Goehr, the family achieved such conducting works, unacknowledged on distinction in many different fields - the label. He was assistant to Stravinsky Laelia was a violinist and photographer, at the first recording of Les Noces, and Alexander a composer, and his daughter was himself the conductor of the first Lydia a Professor of Philosophy - that Alexander studied at the Royal recording of Bizet’s Symphony in they must all find a place in the story. Manchester College of Music. In his C Major, Tchaikovsky’s lst Piano Concerto composition classes he became friends Walter was born in Berlin, in 1903, into a and Rachmaninoff’s 2nd Piano Concerto, with young composers Peter Maxwell Jewish family, who encouraged his with the soloist Benno Moiseiwitsch. Davies and Harrison Birtwistle and with evident musicianship, sending him to the When war came the Goehrs were well pianist John Ogdon, with whom he Hochschule fὓr Musik, where he studied established in their adopted country. founded the New Music Manchester under Arnold Schӧ nberg. He was already Walter was employed by the BBC, Group. He studied in Paris with Messaien conducting and writing his own arranging and conducting works by and in 1971 he was appointed West Riding compositions. He was soon offered a musicians varying from Haydn and Professor of Music at the University of position with Berlin Radio and worked Mozart to Mussorgsky and Duke Leeds. Goehr left Leeds in 1976 when he too in the German theatre, until, in 1932, Ellington. He was responsible for much was appointed Professor of Music at he was forced to leave the country when of the BBC’s radio music as well as Cambridge University where he taught Jews could no longer be employed in conducting film music, including that for until his retirement in 1999. His daughter national organisations. He was invited by A Matter of Life and Death, Great Lydia is a Professor of Philosophy at the recording company EMI (at that time Expectations and Colonel Blimp. To Columbia University, with a particular The Gramophone Company) to come to prevent himself being vilified because of interest in the philosophy of music. London with a promise of engagements his German name, he called himself On the night of 4th December 1960 Walter with his own orchestra, the Orchestra George Walter. Raymonde. Goehr conducted a performance of After the war was over Walter led a series Handel’s Messiah, but tragically, he died In 1930 Goehr had married Laelia Rivlin of concerts at the Wigmore Hall, with a as soon as the concert was over. He was who was born in Kiev in 1908. As a child wide range of programmes, such as the buried at Paddington New Cemetery (now she studied piano at the Conservatoire first performance of Benjamin Britten’s Mill Hill Cemetery). and gave her first public performance at Serenade, and began a long collaboration Philippa Bernard

19 Comment merchants and traders - Torah cannot be but you shall fear your God, I am the found among them, but craftiness can be Lord. (Lev. 19:14) is a prohibition of Jewish Business found. deception. An estate agent may not dupe a young couple into buying a house with Ethics Both Torah and Talmud therefore go into structural faults. He is a professional with surprising detail on what you should do, more knowledge than them, so he is paying particular attention to weights and putting a stumbling block before them, measures. You shall not falsify measures who are ‘blind’. What is the first question we are asked of length, weight, or capacity. You shall after we die? It is not: Did you study Torah have an honest balance, an honest weight, We have to go beyond the letter of the law, regularly? That is only the second question. an honest ephah, and an honest hin. (Lev Lifnim mishurat hadin. Particularly when According to the Talmud, the first question 19: 35-36). [An ephah is a measure of we are in a position of trust, we have to be is: Nasata V'netata Be'emunah – Did you grain, a hin a liquid measure.] This is seen to be honest. Why? And you shall be conduct your business affairs with honesty elaborated in the Mishnah: The wholesaler guiltless before the Lord and before Israel. and probity? So central is ethical conduct must clean out his measures once every (Num 23:22) You shall not desecrate My of business in Torah and in the teaching of thirty days and the householder once holy name, that I may be sanctified in the the rabbis. Again, One who deals honestly every twelve months... The retailer cleans midst of the people of Israel - I am the in business, and his fellow men are his measures twice a week and polishes Lord who sanctifies you. (Lev 22:32) pleased with him, is considered as if he his weights once a week; and cleans out Do all these injunctions apply to business had fulfilled the entire Torah. his scale before every weighing. today? (Commentary on Exodus 15:26) Here is justice at work and it applies just as On a Friday in 1870 just before the Franco- So what are the fundamental bases of much today. We have inspectors of weights German War broke out, Mr. Beer, of Beer, Jewish business ethics? The answer is love and measures, and the ideas of being Sondheimer and Co., left his office for the and justice, the guiding principles of all ‘ripped off’ or ‘short changed’ are still Sabbath. He had large holdings in copper that we do. anathema. and other metals necessary for the war. Love: Love your neighbour as yourself. The porter received a number of telegrams, (Lev 19:18) This is the major principle of we have only one life, which he presented to Mr. Beer on Sunday the Torah, says Rabbi Akiva (40-137 CE). morning. They came from the War And famously, Rabbi Hillel (110-10 BCE) there is only one code Ministry and offered to buy all metals in said to the gentile who challenged him to of ethics for Jews Mr. Beer’s possession; each successive wire recite the entire Torah standing on one increased the price. Mr. Beer informed the foot, What is hateful to you, do not do to War Department that he would have your neighbour. That is the whole Torah. accepted the first offer and that he had Both love and justice are served by The rest is commentary. Who is your failed to answer it because it was the avoiding deception. When you sell neighbour? Your neighbour in a business Sabbath. He would sell the government all anything to your neighbour or buy context is your customer, your employee, his merchandise at the first price. The War anything from your neighbour, you shall your colleague, your boss, your supplier, Ministry was so impressed by this example not deceive one another. (Lev 25:14) Do your shareholder and the community in of living Judaism that it made the firm its not deceive one another, but fear your which you work, to which you pay tax and main supplier. (lifnim mishurat hadin) God, for I the Lord am your God. (Lev which grants you a licence to carry on your 25:17). You may not sell a second-hand car with business. rust spots painted over. (gneivat da’at) There are three forms of deception, ona’at Justice: Justice, justice you shall pursue. mamon (monetary deception), ona’at It is permissible for a Jew to make a fair (Deut 16:20) Rabbi Ya’akov Yitzchak of devarim (verbal deception) and gneivat profit but not to overcharge. (ona’at Pzhysha (1766-1814) asked, Why is ‘justice’ da’at (theft of the mind). The Talmud mamon) repeated? Not only must the ends we elaborates: There are seven kinds of pursue be just, but so too must the means. You may not go into a shoe shop, try on thieves: the first is he who steals the mind We must conduct our business fairly, several pairs, decide on one and then go of his neighbour. And similarly: Our Sages justly, charging a just price, not ripping the home and buy it online. You are deceiving have taught: one should not sell a sandal customer off, and delivering a full measure. the shopkeeper into thinking that he may made from the leather of an animal that sell you a pair. (ona’at devarim) These principles are simple to enunciate died of disease as if it was made from the but not so easy to apply. For instance Ben leather of an animal that was slaughtered, To conclude this brief essay, we have only Sira (c 180 BCE) said, A merchant can because he is misleading the customer. one life, there is only one code of ethics for hardly keep himself from wrongdoing, Jews. We don’t have one code for business, The famous but much misunderstood and a storekeeper will not be acquitted of another for family, a third for community injunction, You shall not curse the deaf sin. And the Talmud notes, Travelling life and so on. We are obliged by Jewish nor put a stumbling block before the blind,

20

law to obey the law of the land but our ethical obligations go beyond what we would regard as legal obligations. Thus Sayings of the Rabbis the overarching principles of love and justice apply to our business dealings just as much as to our other activities.

The War Ministry was so impressed by this example of living Judaism that it made He who mixes with unclean things becomes unclean himself; he whose the firm its main associations are pure becomes more holy with each day. supplier

The last word goes to Rav Nachman of

Kossover who was asked: ‘Can we think of the Lord when we are engaged in buying and selling?’ ‘Surely we can,’ answered the Understand a man by his deeds and words; the impressions of others lead to Rabbi. ‘If we are able to think of business false judgment. when we are praying, we should be able to think of praying when we are doing business.’

[Note: Talmudic references are available for those who are interested.]

Chris Rees Whoever destroys a single life is as guilty as though he had destroyed the entire

world and whoever rescues a single life earns as much merit as though he had rescued the entire world.

He who has more learning than goodness is like a tree with many branches and few roots, which the first wind throws down; whilst he whose works are greater

than his knowledge is like a tree with many roots and fewer branches, which all the winds of heaven cannot uproot

Man has three friends on whose company he relies: First, wealth which goes with him only while good fortune lasts; Second, his relatives - they go only as far as the grave and leave him there; the Third friend, his good deeds, go with him

beyond the grave.

21 Editorial

Our contributors

The article on p13 of this issue is by one of our younger members. We are delighted that she took the time to contribute to our Quarterly and would hope that this will encourage others of our junior membership to send us pieces of interest.

An opportunity

It has recently been suggested that some members might like to play a part in befriending others in the congregation who need a little care and attention. Some are lonely and would appreciate the occasional telephone call or even a short visit for a cup of tea. Others are confined to their home and might be pleased to have a lift now and again in order for them to be able to visit the Synagogue.

A committee has been formed to encourage participation in the project. Those who wish to take part would need to provide consent to Westminster Synagogue to submit and process an application on their behalf to the DBS in order to prove their suitability.

Initially, contact either Gary Sakol or Hilary Ashleigh to find out more about this worthwhile enterprise.

Perhaps someone reading this would like to ask for such help, in which case Rabbi Benji would be very pleased to receive the request.

Our Garden

Members may not be aware that the garden at the front of Kent House is professionally maintained. We can visit it on Saturday mornings - and at other times by arrangement. It can be used for social occasions, too. We propose publishing a regular report on its progress as the seasons change. Here are a couple of pictures taken in the Spring.

22

Community Matters

Education Davina Carter - Kita Bet (5-7 year I’ve been teaching GCSE at Westminster olds) at Or Shabbat Synagogue since 2008. I grew up in the by I’ve always especially loved Jewish rituals United States, where I studied Judaism Nick and the comfort they can bring. Saturday at Gratz College and English, Folklore at Or Shabbat is my favourite day of the and Anthropology at the University of Young week as I get to hang out with all my Pennsylvania (BA and MA). For many Head of favourite little people. It’s a huge years I worked both for the Reform Education privilege to help the kids explore the Movement and the Leo Baeck College in rituals, stories, sounds, smells and tastes Community Development and as a of the Jewish year. I received a Steiner specialist in family and teenage school education with a huge emphasis education. This led me to GCSE, where as Shana tova! The new academic year has on imagination, practical skills and Examinations Officer, I co-ordinated the begun and we have a greater range of artistic expression and went on to study GCSE exam centre at LBC and lifelong learning opportunities than ever art and languages at university. When subsequently began to work for AQA before. Although our programmes are I’m not at Westminster, I work as exam board. I love teaching post-bnei well advertised, I wanted to enable some teacher, photographer, private tutor and mitzvah students, because they volunteer of our wonderful teachers to introduce translator - though not always in that to spend two years learning and I can see themselves. Hopefully this will provide order. them develop into thoughtful and mature further encouragement for you or young people who value their Jewish members of your family to sign up for Jonathan Young - Kita Gimel (7-9 identity and Judaism’s religious and our courses. Please get in touch with me year olds) at Or Shabbat and B’nei ethical teachings. at [email protected] for Mitzvah (11-13) more information. I grew up at South West Essex and Ilana Alexander - Prayer Book Settlement Reform Synagogue where I Hebrew for adults, and Hebrew Emily Daines - Tots Shabbat (0-3s) was a Help Teacher and sang in the teaching at Or Shabbat and Kita Aleph cover Youth Choir for many years. Since I was born in Tel Aviv three years before I am a mother of four and have been studying drama at university, I have Israel’s independence and moved to working in Early Years for the past ten sixteen years of experience as an actor, London in 1968 after meeting my years, the last five of which I have been director, producer, writer and musician husband. After the Army I went to Tel teaching the Reception class in a Jewish and I am the Artistic Director of the Aviv University to study Hebrew school in North London. I did a BA in theatre company NMT Automatics, a Literature and I later gained a degree Linguistics and Hebrew at UCL, MA in company which fuses dance, drama and from the Open University. In the last Philosophy at the University of music, updates classical texts and myths twenty years I have prepared seventy-five Nottingham and went on to specialise in – making them relevant for a modern children for B’nei Mitzvah. Teaching the Early Childhood Education at audience. These are all elements that I Torah is a big privilege for me as I love to Northampton before doing my PGCE. I like to weave into my classes. pass it on and teach the students about love trying to find meaningful ways to their roots. I also love teaching Hebrew teach young children the foundations of Sofi Shall - Kita Daled (9-11 year on Saturdays where converts attend and Judaism - mostly through fun activities, olds) at Or Shabbat and Kabbalat want to know more and more about Israeli dance and lots of music! Torah (Teens, 13-15) Judaism. I’ve been working with Westminster for Rachel Hosker - Kita Aleph (3-5 the past three years and it feels like Shai Grosskopf - Modern year olds) at Or Shabbat home. I grew up in Bromley Reform Conversational Hebrew for adults I trained at Royal Central School of Synagogue and was a long term member I was born in Israel and lived there until Speech and Drama and work as an Actor of the youth movement RSY-Netzer. I’m my late 30's. Languages and culture have and Movement Director. I’m from a qualified social worker working with always been my passion and joy so it was Manchester, grew up at Menorah children and families, having recently just natural for me to find myself later in Synagogue and loved spending my completed my MA at Goldsmiths. Prior life as a Hebrew teacher. I studied summers on RSY-Netzer Camps. So to that, I did my undergraduate degree in Humanities up to Masters level at much so, when I was eighteen I spent a Geography at Cambridge University. In university, and was a professional officer year on Sh’nat Netzer, living on Kibbutz 2017 I completed the Rene Cassin in the IDF for many years until finally and in Jerusalem. I’m really grateful for Fellowship programme and from this training to become a teacher. I was Head the Westminster community which has have begun a Jewish Detention Visitors of Hebrew as a Modern Foreign been an anchor for me in London over group in order to support those in Language at the JCoSS school in London the past couple of years, and I love detention and explore the idea of but stepped back from full-time teaching getting creative, reading stories and solidarity as a Jewish value. to look after my daughters. In addition to learning with Kita Aleph kids, and they my courses at Westminster, I teach on a enjoy it when I play the ukulele! Janet Berenson - GCSE for Teens number of Hebrew ulpan courses for the aged 13-16 WZO around London. 23

WESTMINSTER SYNAGOGUE Kent House, Rutland Gardens, London SW7 1BX

Planning Your Diary Contacting the Synagogue

RABBI Rabbi Benji Stanley [email protected] T: 020 7052 9712 Chanukah 1st Night Jeffrey Ohrenstein [email protected] Sunday 2nd December CHAIRMAN OF THE EXECUTIVE

Chanukah 8th Night EXECUTIVE Gary Sakol [email protected] DIRECTOR T: 020 7052 9713 Sunday 9th December

EDUCATION Nick Young [email protected] 2019 T: 020 7052 9714 EVENTS & COMMUNICATIONS Jon Zecharia [email protected] Purim T: 020 7052 9711 MANAGER

st Thursday 21 March KIDDUSHIM Hilary Ashleigh [email protected]

T: 020 7052 9717

Seder Night MITZVOT Maya Kayukwa [email protected]

Friday 19th April MEMBERSHIP Darcy Goldstein [email protected]

LIFECYCLE Ben Shaw - PA to the [email protected] Pesach 1st Day ENQUIRIES Rabbinic Team T: 020 7052 9701

th Saturday 20 April CZECH SCROLLS Jeffrey Ohrenstein [email protected] T: 020 7584 3740 MUSEUM

Pesach Last Day GENERAL Nivi Chatterjee Duari [email protected] Friday 26th April ENQUIRIES T: 020 7584 3953/020 7052 9700

Erev Shavuot Monday to Friday: EMERGENCIES In the first instance, please call Saturday 9th June the Synagogue Office: 020 7052 9710 Evenings and weekends: please e-mail Rabbi Benji Stanley Shavuot [email protected]

Sunday 10th June

Please send letters, articles, photographs or other items of interest for publication in the Westminster Synagogue Quarterly directly to the Synagogue office or e-mail to [email protected]

WESTMINSTER SYNAGOGUE Kent House Rutland Gardens London SW7 1BX