ESTMINSTER UARTERLY Volume XI No.4 October 2020

The Great , on the occasion of the Royal visit 1809. . Print by Thomas Rowlandson in ‘The Microcosm of London’

The Great Synagogue, London The Dark Lady Leonard Woolf The Disobedient Diplomat

From the Rabbi

truth to – power; even to Ultimate for now ; the loss of any immediate power. return to normalcy, as we continue to

manage these losses together. We need to That is the moment that Abraham had look at the loss that we feel - and that stood exactly here previously. In fact, in others feel. Otherwise we bury our heads the actual moment that we are told in the sand - and there is no Jewish established the Amidah, - in Genesis spiritual practice that is to cultivate this. 19,27-29: Abraham rose in the morning Otherwise we just breed our fear and to the place that he had stood when he anxiety. had faced up to the Eternal. Now he looked down to face the cities of Sodom We can look out honestly at this earth, and Gomorrah and behold smoke rose and pay attention to pain and from the earth like the smoke of an oven, destruction, for it is only with this act and so the cities of the plain were that we can also find that other posture destroyed. of decisive, effective action. I have to be We begin a new Jewish year, but this honest - we have to be honest- it is the The posture that we learn to inculcate time, as we do so, we need to very basis of our daily, lived Judaism, every day, at the beginning of the day, is acknowledge what has been lost. As a two feet planted, and open-eyed. We one of looking honestly out to the very community we have cared for each other have adapted and supported each other face of the earth. It is one of looking at beautifully and adapted strongly, using tremendously and we will continue to do loss; of looking at the loss of that which technology for Services and learning, and so. good old-fashioned phone calls to see you had passionately stood up for the day how we’re all doing. Yet, however well we earlier and still you have the courage and do as a community, we know, if we are resilience to stand there again, firmly and honest, that still something is not right. open-eyed. It is one of looking at pain and destruction. We are to stand up in We can learn from Abraham, our the world and look out, each asking ancestor, to confront loss honestly. In the ‘What have I lost? What have others Talmud we are told that the morning lost? Can I look at that loss, and Rabbi Benji Stanley Amidah, a key act of spiritual practice, sympathetically hear it, can I affirm my was established by Abraham: ‘Abraham presence in this world in the face of it?’ fixed the morning Amidah, as it says in the Torah, (Genesis 19) Abraham rose in the morning to the place in which he had We need to look at the stood,’ and it continues, ‘and there is no standing other than prayer…’ loss that we feel - and

So, what was Abraham doing in that act that others feel of standing, and what can we learn from him about the posture we are to cultivate every day from early in the morning I had been avoiding checking for a long onwards? He rose in the morning to the time but when I finally did so, at the time place in which he had stood. He had of writing this message, there had been stood there one chapter and one day much loss. More than 822 thousand lives earlier when he had heard that the cities had been taken by this pandemic. Just a of Sodom and Gomorrah might be few days ago on Yom Kippur we may destroyed. Then he stood up to the have felt these words especially keenly:

Divine, if one can say such a thing, ‘People of faith have passed away who demanding: ‘Should the Judge of all the were strong in good works; valiant, they earth not do justice? Will You sweep stood in the breach, turning away away the innocent along with the guilty?’ calamity’. and then, with the most polite chutzpah, he negotiates God down, to agree that if We may look at our own sense of loss there are just ten innocent people, the too: the things we miss, the things we want; our loss of confidence in ourselves cities will not be destroyed. We may bring this act of standing to our lives and and in authority, and the things we took spiritual practice. To stand up for justice, for granted; our lack of physical and for others, to relate to - and to speak gathering together in our beautiful shul

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Anglo-Jewish History including Lytton Strachey, Clive Bell and father, Leslie. When he died Virginia was Leonard Woolf Thoby Stephen, the brother of Vanessa much disturbed, her state of mind not (1880-1969) (who married Clive) and Virginia. Many helped by the death of her brother, Thoby. of his friends from his Cambridge days She turned to writing as a release, working remained close to him to the end of their on her first novel, The Voyage Out. lives, including such distinguished figures Leonard visited her at the house she as George Moore, John Maynard Keynes, rented at Firle in Sussex, and found George Trevelyan and E.M. Forster. himself in close touch with the Stephen Leonard himself, having been awarded his family and their friends. He too was BA, decided to stay on for another year to writing, about his experiences in Ceylon take the Civil Service examinations. At (The Village in the Jungle), some poetry, about this time he was visited in his rooms and hundreds of letters, to Lytton by Thoby Steven’s sisters, Vanessa and Strachey and to many of his former Virginia. He described the visit as slightly Cambridge friends. He moved into the awkward, none of the group socially at house in Brunswick Square occupied by ease. Vanessa and Clive and their children, together with Maynard Keynes, Duncan Coming down from University, Leonard Grant, Adrian (Virginia’s younger brother) would have liked to be a writer. However, and Virginia herself. he was offered a Cadetship in the Civil Service in Ceylon and decided to take it. Leonard was also writing a diary, partly Portrait by Vanessa Bell Arriving in Colombo, Leonard found written in code to hide it from prying eyes, himself in a very different world from that but a few months after arriving back in Leonard Woolf, a British political theorist, of Cambridge, and indeed from his home England he wrote, ‘Bloomsbury really author, publisher and civil servant, was territory of Kensington. He was sent up came into existence and I fell in love with one of many men whose wives are better country to the small town of Jaffna, taking Virginia.’ He wrote poems about her, and known than they are themselves. Virginia with him a manservant, his fox terrier was very concerned about his forthcoming Woolf was perhaps the best known of that Charles and seventy volumes of the works return to Ceylon. He wrote to her, ‘I never eccentric group of writers and artists who of Voltaire. He acquitted himself well in realised how much I loved you until we are usually referred to as the Bloomsbury the Service and gained a promotion, but talked about my going back to Ceylon. Group, or even the Bloomsberries. But in was increasingly anxious to see London After that I could think of nothing else but spite of the fact that Virginia was again. He was due a year’s leave and in you.’ He proposed but Vanessa advised indisputably anti-Semitic, she married a the summer of 1911 he sailed for England. against the match unless her sister was in Jew who adored her, and who never There he made new friends, such as love, telling her not to worry about his attempted to deny his Judaism. Rupert Brooke, Bertrand Russell and Jewishness. Virginia’s mental state was Leonard Woolf was born in 1880 into a Goldie Lowes Dickinson. Virginia looked, not good, and Leonard was worried both cultured liberal Jewish family. His he wrote later, ‘even more beautiful than about her and about his return to Ceylon. parents, Sidney and Marie, had ten ever’. Finally he sent in his resignation from the children, of whom Leonard was the third. Civil Service. Virginia seemed uncertain

He grew up in a comfortable, intelligent about their future together. ‘Possibly your family, described in the first volume of his being a Jew comes in at this point. You autobiography, Sowing. He was sent to seem so foreign. And then I am fearfully

St. Paul’s School, and won a classical unstable.’ scholarship to Trinity College, Cambridge, A few weeks later she suddenly told him where he was the first Jew to be elected to Virginia Woolf she loved him and they should be married. the Apostles, the intellectual society of the The wedding was at St. Pancras Registry University, founded in 1820. The Apostles Office. Not one member of his family was were later to include the spies Guy invited. Virginia frequently referred to Burgess, Donald MacLean, and Kim him, particularly within her own family, as Philby. the ‘penniless Jew’ which he certainly was. At Cambridge Leonard flourished, well In spite of his intellectual intelligence and suited to the slightly effete, highly his education, he still could not feel at intelligent atmosphere of the twenties, Virginia Stephen had had a troubled life. home in the Bloomsbury circle. Virginia quickly making friends in spite of his Her mother died when she was thirteen. made no attempt to hide her contempt of rather shy, retiring nature. He found She never went to school, teaching herself ; marrying one was part of her himself at one with some of those who what she felt she needed to know, her step rebellion against convention within her were to form the Bloomsbury Group, -sister also died suddenly; she was cared circle. Discussing sex, as all the among them writers, poets and artists, for by her brothers and her terminally ill Bloomsburys did quite openly, they

4 seemed to have achieved some way of Sackville West, the first edition of T.S. attached to Trekkie and they became living happily together which suited them Eliot’s The Waste Land and the Hogarth lovers, Leonard finding a peace of mind both, though Leonard worried constantly Shakespeare. The press is still a valuable that he had never enjoyed with Virginia. about Virginia’s mental health. They were part of English literary publishing. She was Leonard's companion on his both busy writing and Virginia’s novel The travels to , Greece, Israel, and his In 1919 the Woolfs bought Monks House Voyage Out was accepted for publication, memorable return to Ceylon in 1960. in the village of Rodmell outside Lewes. It as was Leonard’s The Village in the was on the river Ouse, without electricity Leonard visited Israel on only one Jungle. He was also involved with or mains drainage, and Leonard became occasion. He was politically an anti- socialist thinkers, particularly Beatrice an almost-full-time gardener. He was Zionist, but loved the country. A very and Sidney Webb and the Fabian Society, now editor of the International Review English Jew, he wrote about ‘those contributing to the Co-operative News and literary editor of The Nation. Much unshaven, long-haired Orthodox Jews, and other left-wing journals. When war of the time he had left he spent looking who fill me with despair.’ But his Jewish broke out he was rejected for military after Virginia, whose mental health was background later encouraged him to service on health grounds, joining the very variable. realise the peril Israel was in and wrote in Labour Party, and writing for the New the last volume of the autobiography that Statesman. He also completed another Leonard was appalled by the growing the situation in 1967 was ‘so appalling and novel The Wise Virgins, in which he fascism in , and when war broke delicate that no one ought to say anything decries the values - and vulgarity - of out they left the London house altogether to incite either side to further violence.’ families such as his own, and the and stayed at Rodmell. Leonard joined snobbish, overcritical ideas of Virginia’s. the local Fire Service. The house was in direct line of German bombers on their Her health was deteriorating again; she way to or from London; unexploded ate little, deluded about the people bombs landed on the river banks. around her, and on a high programme of Virginia said, ‘I don’t want to die yet.’ drugs. One night she took an overdose, and after the doctors brought her round At the beginning of 1941 she seemed frail, Leonard was at his wits’ end as to how to walking through the water meadows and Trekkie cope. Suicide being a crime, the patient returning wet and ill. At the end of March could be certified, and he was horrified at she left the house for a walk and Leonard the thought. For a while they borrowed a found two letters, one to him and one to friend’s house at East Grinstead where Vanessa. She wrote, ‘I feel certain I am

Virginia could recover. going mad again.’ She said that she was hearing voices and could not concentrate. He ran out of the house and searched the

garden and the banks of the river. Virginia was nowhere to be found, but he Trekkie made the last part of his life a was sure she was dead, probably by very happy one. ‘To know you and love drowning as she had always promised. you has been the best thing in life,’ he Not for three terrible weeks did he find wrote. He continued writing, producing her body, caught in the reeds of the river five volumes of autobiography, which some way from the house. form a remarkable picture of England and its literary, political and social life in the In the weeks after Virginia’s death, first half of the twentieth century. His Leonard shunned the company of most of work helped to lay the foundations of the his friends. One friend, who had worked Hogarth House policy of the League of Nations and the at the Hogarth Press and was a writer United Nations and of the welfare state. herself, was Alice Ritchie, who was now

dying of cancer and whom he visited in Leonard Woolf died in 1969 at his beloved In London, the Woolfs had taken a house hospital. Her sister was an artist, always Monks House. He left the house to in Richmond - Hogarth House - and it known as Trekkie after the South African Trekkie and it is now owned by the was from here that together they set up in meaning of ‘trek’ as determination. She National Trust and open to the public. 1917 the Hogarth Press, publishing a contributed many illustrations for the series of well-designed hand printed Hogarth books. She was married to Ian books. The couple bought a hand press Parsons who worked for Chatto and and taught themselves how to use it. The Windus which eventually took over the Philippa Bernard press was set up in the dining room of Hogarth Press. Hogarth House lending its name to the Leonard moved back to London and publishing company they founded. Their shared the Parsons’ house. He was very publications included works by Vita

5 The Arts The Dark Lady In 1558 Queen Elizabeth I attained the patrons, all women, two short prose throne and brought to her Court a dedications, the title poem on Christ's

considerable standard of culture, herself a Passion (viewed entirely from a female woman of high intelligence, interested in perspective), and the first country-house literature, music and art. The Bassano poem printed in English, The Description

family continued as musicians to of Cooke-ham. It would be fair to describe Elizabeth’s Court, and Emilia herself was a Salve Deus as the first feminist publication royal favourite. Much of what we know in England: all of its dedicatees are

about her comes from notes made by women, the poem on the Passion Simon Forman, the physician and Court specifically argues the virtues of women as Astrologer whom Emilia visited frequently. opposed to the vices of men, and the

His notebooks were the first casebooks author’s own style and method shows no kept by an English medical practitioner, influence of masculine lines of thought or and he notes that Emilia was ambitious, dependence. She advocates and praises Portrait by Nicholas Hillyard anxious to make her way into the female virtue and Christian piety, and aristocratic circles of Elizabethan England. reflects a desire for an idealised classless world. It is hardly surprising that the book On 27th January this year the Daily Mail The Queen’s first cousin was Henry Carey, has also been deemed radical in its published a review of a most startling lst Baron Hunsdon, the son of Mary Boleyn; outlook. book. John Hudson’s Shakespeare’s Dark he held several royal posts, eventually Lady maintains that Shakespeare’s appointed Lord Chamberlain of the It is of interest, and perhaps a tribute to greatest works were written by a Jewish Household. Emilia became his mistress, to her literary skill, that the book was woman from a family of Venetian be kept in considerable luxury, until she published in 1611, the same year as the musicians living in London! In 1611 Emilia became pregnant and was married off to a King James version of the Bible; John Lanier published Salve Deus Rex cousin, Alfonso Lanier, of another family Donne's First Anniversary; several Judaeorum (Hail God, King of the Jews), of court musicians from Rouen. They were printings and reprintings of quarto plays said to be the first book of poetry married at St.Botolph’s. However, Emilia by Shakespeare, Ben Jonson, and published in England by a woman). seems to have been happier with Carey Christopher Marlowe; George Chapman's Hudson maintains that she is a credible than with Lanier. Simon Forman noted translation of Homer's Iliad; and the first candidate for the ‘dark lady’ referred to in that ‘the nobleman that is dead hath loved collected edition of Edmund Spenser's Shakespeare’s sonnets. her well and kept her and did maintain her works. long, but her husband dealt hardly with Emilia was born in London in 1569 to the Alfonso Lanier died in 1613, and her and spent and consumed her goods, Bassano family of musicians. They were impoverished by her husband’s and she is now in debt.’ She named her believed to be of Jewish extraction, extravagance, Emilia opened a school for son after his father, Henry, and possibly the reason for their departure the children of the nobility (though few subsequently had a daughter, Odillya, who from Italy at a time of anti-Jewish feeling. families of consequence lived in the died in infancy. They had come to England in 1539 where district). She rented premises in St. Giles- they were welcomed to the Court of Henry in-the-Fields (St. Giles Church is known as VIII and appointed as court musicians. the Poets’ Church) but was soon unable to

Emilia was the daughter of Baptista pay the rent and was arrested. The school Bassano, who married an English woman, quickly found itself with few pupils and Margaret Johnson. Emilia was baptised at had to be closed. the parish church of St. Botolph’s, After her son’s marriage Emilia tried to Bishopsgate. She seems to have been well provide for his children, particularly to educated, under the care of Susan, educate them in music. She was involved Dowager Duchess of Kent, an intelligent in several more court cases, suing her woman who moved in court circles and brother-in-law for monies from her late was in touch with Humanist and husband’s estate. She eventually received Protestant learning. The Duchess insisted her due, and is noted as a ‘pensioner’, that that women should receive as is someone in receipt of a regular income. comprehensive an education as did men. She died in 1645 and is buried in St. Emilia was taught Latin, History and James’s Church, Clerkenwell. Theology and much attention was paid to her reading. It is known that she read the The theory that Emilia Lanier was the works of Petrarch, Boccaccio, Ovid and Emilia’s book of poetry was the first by a Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s Sonnets Agrippa, as well English writers such as woman seeking a patron. The volume derives mainly from A.L. Rowse’s book Edmund Spenser and Chaucer. consists of a series of poems to individual Shakespeare's Sonnets - the Problem

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Solved. Rowse believed she was Bacon and several others, all based on the feisty Elizabethan woman we know her to Shakespeare’s mistress and he used his theory that an ordinary commoner could have been. investigation of Simon Forman’s diaries not have had the learning, wit or The story of Emilia Lanier has all the to put forward his theory. The first of the experience to have done so. A long and qualities of a first-rate thriller. Her Dark Lady sonnets (No. 127) starts: fascinating article in the American mysterious background, her brilliant journal, The Atlantic by Elizabeth In the old age black was not counted command of literary ideas, her association Winkler, comes down strongly in favour fair, with the greatest writer of all time, all of a woman as the mysterious author, and Or if it were, it bore not beauty's point to an urgent need for more research. name; that woman, she suggests, was Emilia Was she Jewish? If so, this must add to But now is black beauty's successive Lanier. It is certainly true that Rowse’s theory, for the author of the plays heir, Shakespeare’s women are strong, knows much about Jewish tradition and And beauty slandered with a attractive, independent and worldly - a at a time when there should have been no bastard shame: faithful description of Emilia herself. Jews in England, he (or she) sympathises The general supposition at the time was Modern scholarship has proved that even with the villain Shylock in his that Englishwomen were usually fair, and women were indeed involved in the predicament - If you prick us do we not that darkness of hair and skin was Elizabethan theatre, even though they bleed? If you tickle us do we not laugh? unusual and unappreciated. Clearly could not appear on the stage. They are Other plays show evidence of a knowledge Emilia’s heritage of Italian/Jewish known to have financed drama, taken part of Judaism. Midsummer Night’s ancestry would incline towards her being in the direction and staging and to have draws from a passage in the Talmud about dark, though commentators who interpret been widely read in the background marriage vows; spoken Hebrew is mixed this as being of African descent may be research. Their greatest drawback was into the nonsense language of All’s Well exaggerating. Sonnet 130 emphasises the that they had to remain anonymous. That Ends Well. It is intriguing to quality of the lady’s colouring: remember the story of Roderigo Lopez,

My mistress' eyes are nothing like the the London Jew who was accused of sun; plotting to poison the Queen and executed Coral is far more red, than her lips in 1594. Perhaps Emilia knew of the affair

red: and used it in as the background for The If snow be white, why then her Merchant of Venice, first published in the breasts are dun; same year. If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head. What still remains to be discovered?

The strongly sexual allusions to this dark Future scholars may yet solve the beauty reinforce the idea that dark mystery. Shakespeareans will not welcome proof of Emilia’s work, but the passion was a feature of Shakespeare’s poetic writing, but do not necessarily canon of English literature can only be mean either that he had ever met Emilia enhanced by a new Elizabethan genius. (never proved) or that he was writing of a The names of other women have been put real figure at all. His ‘dark lady’ was forward as candidates: Mary Sidney, Philippa Bernard almost unattainable, and their Countess of Bedford and sister of Sir relationship wounded him greatly. Philip, was an obvious choice. Virginia However, the conventions of the Woolf believed the idea was ridiculous. Elizabethan court leaned towards the She suggests that ‘it would have been mystical, dream-like vision of love and impossible, completely and entirely, for beauty, so the practical possibilities of any woman to have written the plays of Shakespeare knowing or even having met Shakespeare in the age of Shakespeare’. Emilia are by no means essential to the Nevertheless Winkler rightly comments theory. In the sonnets, music is often that although we know a great deal about mentioned, again encouraging Rowse Shakespeare – his home life, his career as (and others) to believe Emilia’s ancestry an , his financial status – nowhere do could fit the picture. we find much about him as a writer. When it comes to the belief that Emilia The theory of Emilia as the feminine actually wrote Shakespeare’s plays, the Shakespeare has validity enough for The theory is perhaps even shakier. Rowse Globe to put on in 2018 the play Emilia by certainly inclined to this idea, as have Morgan Lloyd Malcolm, in which Emilia others before and after him. Many names is portrayed not only as Shakespeare’s have been suggested - Edward de Vere, mistress from whom he ‘borrowed’ much 17th Earl of Oxford, Marlowe, Francis of his work but as the attractive, scholarly,

7 The Arts dropped out of school and began depression and that indeed her mother drawing on her own. In 1936 she was had not died of ‘flu but had committed (1917-1943) admitted to the famous State Art suicide. That is when her grandfather Academy in which allowed only unveiled the real story of her mother, 1.5 percent of the school intake to be and also that her aunt, her great-

Jews. There she received conventional grandmother, her great-uncle and her but excellent training and probably grandmother’s nephew had all killed observed modern art at the Nazis’ themselves. What a profoundly

famous Degenerate Art Show in 1938. devastating effect all this must have had She also attended the Kulturbund’s on the vulnerable young woman. many outstanding performances for In May 1940 France’s Vichy government Jewish audiences, where she learned to imprisoned German nationals as see art as a source of morale and as a France’s enemies and sent Charlottte means of self-expression, when little of and her grandfather to the concentration that was allowed. She studied painting camp of Gurs in the Pyrenees, where The Jewish Museum of London recently there for two years, but by the summer of Charlotte watched many artists produce mounted an exhibition of the works of 1938 the anti-Semitic policy of Hitler's works, under wretched conditions. Charlotte Salomon, including the Third Reich meant that it was too Released after a few months, they massive Life? or Theatre? The paintings dangerous for her to continue attending returned to the Villefranche home of of this gifted and tormented artist are the college and she did not return, Ottilie Moore, to whom Charlotte still relatively unknown, mainly because despite winning a prize. dedicated the artwork she was about to they do not appear on the international begin. She was, hardly surprisingly, art market. The reason is that her whole facing a nervous breakdown but was archive belongs to the protective fortunate to have been put in the care of Charlotte Salomon Foundation, which is a Dr. Moridis who counselled her based at the Jewish Historical Museum through her depression and advised her in Amsterdam. Self portrait to paint. He became a trusted friend. Charlotte’s life was a strange one. Her Supporting herself by painting greeting father, Albert, was a prosperous surgeon cards and portraits for Ottilie Moore, she in Berlin. Her mother, Franziska, was a eventually moved away from her sensitive and troubled woman with a grandfather and in 1941 began creating dark mental past who committed suicide her enormous autobiographical Charlotte’s father was briefly interned in - after several previous attempts - when masterpiece in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat, Sachsenhausen concentration camp in Charlotte was only eight years old. The where an innkeeper remembered her November 1938, after Kristallnacht, and family told the little girl that her mother humming tunes while painting. on his release, the Salomon family had died from influenza. decided to leave . Charlotte, In 1930 Albert Salomon was married then aged twenty, was sent to stay in again, this time to an singer France with her maternal grandparents. named Paula Lindberg. She brought into They lived in a cottage in the grounds of Charlotte’s life many acquaintances from a luxurious villa, L'Ermitage, which no Dreaming the musical world of Berlin and a strong longer exists. It was owned by a wealthy of her Jewish practice that resulted in her American, Ottilie Moore, who went on to mother confirmation at a synagogue. Charlotte shelter a number of Jewish children. became very fond of Paula, who Then Charlotte and her grandparents left organised singing lessons for her L’Ermitage and went to live in an stepdaughter. Her teacher was Alfred apartment in Nice. Shortly after the

Wolfsohn, Paula’s accompanist, a very outbreak of war in September 1939, charismatic man on whom Charlotte Charlotte's grandmother took her own developed a huge crush. life. She had stockpiled barbiturates for when the German army arrived, but After the Nazis came to power in 1933, when she was denied access to her Charlotte’s father lost his job and began Charlotte rented a room in the pension medication, she instead tried and failed practising at the Jewish Hospital in La Belle Aurore in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat to hang herself and eventually succeeded Berlin. Paula Salomon’s opera career and there she commenced the haunting by throwing herself out of a window. also came to an end and she began and extraordinary work. This massive singing for the newly formed Jewish It was then that poor Charlotte learned artwork tells the story of her Berlin Cultural Association (the Kulturbund), that her mother’s side of the family, the Jewish family from up to while Charlotte, at around age sixteen, Grünwalds, were all subject to terrible the day in 1941 when she decided to

8 paint her life rather than to take it, then version of her relationship with Wolfsohn monumental work to Dr. Moridis, sat down by the Mediterranean ‘and saw corresponds with reality, but he was Charlotte and her husband, Alexander, deep into the heart of mankind’. Whilst in undoubtedly her first love. were dragged from their house and the South of France, Charlotte married transported by rail from Nice to the Nazi Amongst the items in this epic work, Alexander Nager, like herself, a German ‘processing centre’ at Drancy near Paris. Charlotte recalls that spending a night in a Jewish refugee . Charlotte was twenty-six and was five crowded train is preferable to spending months pregnant. She was supposed to be one night with her grandfather: ‘I'd rather forgotten, erased from history, along with have ten more nights like this, than a the millions of Jews murdered in the single one alone with him’. In 2015, a 1940s, but before she was put on a train to stunning letter of thirty-five pages, which her death she had set down everything had been kept secret for decades, was about herself, her family and her world. released by a Parisian publisher. It reveals So the monumental work remains as the possibility of sexual abuse by her witness to her life. detested grandfather. Also in the letter is

the startling revelation that she murdered Ottilie Moore only received the package him by lacing an omelette with the when she returned to Europe in 1947. She barbiturates which her grandmother had passed it on to Albert and Paula Salomon,

been collecting in order to commit suicide. who had survived the war, hiding in Holland. They donated it to the Jewish The way she tells her story is full of Historical Museum in Amsterdam. Albert tragedy, but the telling also reveals her sly eventually resumed his career as a humour and wit. The series begins with physician and Paula became a highly detailed and multi-layered images distinguished teacher of voice, though She began her series of 769 paintings by of the life and relationship between her never again a singer. Charlotte’s lover stating that she was driven by ‘the mother and father. As the story unfolds, Alfred Wolfsohn had fled to England question: whether to take my own life or the style gets broader and more where he, too, trained singers. undertake something wildly unusual’. In expressionistic. The last 'chapters' are the space of two years, she painted over almost violent in their expression, as if she Some of her work is very dreamlike and one thousand gouaches. She edited the is aware of her impending fate and can reminiscent of Chagall, while occasionally paintings, re-arranged them, and added hardly wait to write and paint the details Van Gogh comes to mind. It does not take texts, captions, and overlays. As the of her story as the Gestapo close in on her a psychiatrist to read Charlotte’s innkeeper had said, she had a habit of life. tormented life experience in her paintings humming songs to herself while painting. and yet there is something so uplifting in

her vibrant palette that seems to override The entire work was a slightly fantastic the sadness of her subject. autobiography preserving the main events of her life - her mother's death, studying Since 1992 a primary school in Berlin has art in the shadow of the Third Reich, her borne the name of Charlotte Salomon and relationship with her grandparents - but in 2006 a street in Berlin-Rummelsburg she altered all the names and employed a was named after her. On April 21, 2012 a strong element of fantasy and some Stolperstein in front of her former humour. She also added notes about residential house in Berlin- appropriate music to increase the Charlottenburg, Wielandstrasse 15, was dramatic effect, and she called this work dedicated to her and a Memorial Plaque

Ein Singspiel, or lyrical drama. on the facade of the building commemorates this extraordinary artist. A large part of Life? or Theatre? is about her obsession with one Amadeus Daberlohn, a voice teacher whom she had met through her stepmother, who she In 1943, as the Nazis intensified their called Paulinka Bimbam (Charlotte gave search for Jews living in the South of all her characters humorous, often France, Charlotte handed the work - punning, pseudonyms). These sections are addressed to Ottilie Moore - to her friend honest and compelling accounts of her Dr. Moridis. She inscribed Ottilie’s name passionate relationship with Amadeus at the top, and told the doctor, ‘Keep this Daberlohn (alias Alfred Wolfsohn) – the safe, it is my whole life’. In October of one person who took her artistic work Claire Connick 1943, not long after handing this seriously. One cannot know if Charlotte’s

9 Around The World defence team were Jews. indicated not just political or social The embarrassment but an overriding Looking back as Jews, we can see that it concern for the well-being of the Jewish also presented a dilemma for the South community, even if that was at the African Jewish Community. Prior to the expense of other people in . trial there was a telling moment which is recounted by the leader of the defence team, Joel Joffe (later Baron Joffe) in his

book The State vs . Joffe had attended a meeting with the Percy Yutar prosecutor, Dr Percy Yutar, at the offices

Lilliesleaf Farm Museum of the Security police. After the meeting Yutar took Joffe aside and said that it was quite remarkable that he had been th On 11 July 1963 a laundry van came working on the case for a month and slowly up the drive of Lilliesleaf Farm, a hadn’t heard a single anti-Semitic word The trial lasted until June 1964. All the smallholding in the suburb of Rivonia, a from the police. Joffe responded that he defendants were charged with sabotage, few miles outside . It didn’t think this remarkable, and that the conspiracy and furthering the objectives pulled up by the farmhouse. The rear police would hardly make anti-Semitic of communism. Although these charges doors opened and out leapt several burly remarks in the presence of a Jewish carried the possibility of a death policemen with dogs. There was a collaborator. At which, as Joffe recounts, sentence, this was not mandatory as it meeting taking place inside the Yutar bridled and said, ‘if you were a was for treason. All the defendants farmhouse but one of the participants policeman, Joffe, wouldn’t it make you pleaded not guilty. The defence case was glanced out of the window. ‘Its the anti-Semitic to have people like that the unjust political conditions in police,’ he yelled. Chaos ensued as the Bernstein and Goldberg going round South Africa forced them to undertake participants tried to get away. But it was stirring up the Bantu?’. Many in the the actions which they did because there too late. The building was surrounded Nationalist government were virulently were no other means of bringing about and they were all taken into custody. anti-Semitic and a number of its senior political change. members including the Prime Minister For the feared South African Security There were many dramatic moments. had been imprisoned during the war for Branch, it was a triumph. At a stroke, One of these came early on when Yutar Nazi activities. How could the Jewish they had caught the top echelon of the announced that all charges against Bob community and individual Jews give ANC and the South African Communist Hepple (a human rights lawyer) would be such people their support? Party red-handed in the course of dropped, because he had agreed to planning a sabotage campaign, and had become a witness for the prosecution. collected enough evidence to identify the He was released, but to the

entire leadership - including Nelson embarrassment of the prosecution he Mandela - and send them all to the immediately fled the country. However, gallows. The government and the the prosecution produced another star

Nationalist press were cock-a-hoop. It witness - a disaffected ANC member was a chance to show the world the called Bruno Mtolo who had been to forces South Africa was up against, and Joel Joffe meetings and had received training as a

to demonstrate the independence of the saboteur. He was able to identify South African judicial system. But more Goldberg, Mandela and many others. than that, it was a chance to get rid of several people who had long been a thorn Perhaps the crucial point came towards the end of the trial when the defence had in the government’s side. For the defendants it was a chance to expose the to present its witnesses. Mandela evils of to the watching world, Implicit in what Yutar was saying was the indicated that he would not submit to on a platform which the apparatus of threat that should cross-examination but instead would state security was powerless to silence. take care not to be overtly critical of the make a statement from the witness box, government or support revolutionary as was his right under the law. Both The ‘Rivonia Trial’, as it came to be causes. Throughout the apartheid regime leading Counsel and trial th known, began on the 9 October 1963. It the Board of Deputies maintained a attorney Joel Joffe advised against this. was a pivotal moment in South African neutral and non-political position. Even However, Mandela, Sisulu and the others history. What is not well known is the though many prominent rabbis spoke out were insistent. They were not prepared to extent of Jewish involvement in the trial. from the pulpit, the Jewish community’s pass up this opportunity to bring their The Prosecutor, six of the thirteen feeling of vulnerability was always a cause to the attention of the world, in arrested after the raid and three of the constraint. Yutar’s response to Joffe order as Joffe said: ... to explain

10 precisely what they had been aiming to the accused will be one of life do and why … and to nail what they imprisonment. regarded as slanders and distortions There was pandemonium in the court as made against them by the prosecution. Justice de Wet the defendants and the spectators realised This tactic had its risks. It meant that what that lives were to be spared. There was a Mandela said would carry little formal wonderful moment when Denis weight as evidence. When Bram Fischer Goldberg’s elderly mother who was hard rose to announce to the court that Nelson of hearing shouted to her son, ‘What is Mandela would be making a statement happening, what did he say?’ And sigh as the moment of tension passed. and not submitting to cross-examination Goldberg, who was about to begin a life- Some women in the gallery burst into Yutar, was wrong-footed. He had been time prison sentence, shouted back, ‘Its tears. preparing to cross-examine Mandela for life Mom, and life is wonderful!’ weeks and saw this as a crucial moment of The trial judge was Justice Quartus de What lessons does the Rivonia Trial hold his prosecution. It had not occurred to Wet. He was regarded by the defence for us as Jews? One of the overarching him that Mandela might slip from his (and attorneys as a fair and independently- concerns of the Torah and the teachings of the state’s) control in this way. minded man, who would brook no the Prophets is for equality and justice for political interference in his court. all people in the land of Israel, not just the Nevertheless, he had all the prejudices of Jews. The concern of the prosecutor, Dr his race and background. De Wet found Yutar, was to do what was necessary to that there was no case against Kantor and preserve the safety and well-being of the he was immediately discharged. Rusty South African Jewish Community - a tiny Nelson Bernstein was found not guilty of the minority of the population. He believed Mandela charges. The remaining defendants were this was more important than to uphold found guilty. They had reason to expect the cause of justice and freedom for all. the death penalty. The South African government demanded it, despite Although many of the Jews involved in the

international opinion and the eloquent trial did not practise as Jews, the tenets of arguments of the defence attorneys. their religion ran deep inside them. They Sentence was passed on the 12th June were prepared to fight to uphold these In his speech Mandela dealt with the 1964. De Wet’s remarks were short and to despite the fearsome risks for themselves evidence against him and his colleagues. the point: and their families. Ultimately, they were All attempts, he said, to find a political proved right. The safety which Dr. Yutar solution were rebuffed. Despite all the The crime of which the accused have been strove for was illusory. Twenty-five years wrongs done to the black people, despite convicted, that is the main crime, the later, the country was on the brink of a all the violence, Mandela offered an olive crime of conspiracy, is in essence one of bloody revolution and the white branch. These were his concluding words: high treason. The State has decided not to community, including the Jewish charge the crime in this form. Bearing I have cherished the ideal of a democratic community within it, were in grave this in mind, and giving the matter very and free society in which all persons live danger. Had it not been for the efforts of serious consideration, I have decided not together in harmony and with equal the Jewish defendants and the stalwart to impose the supreme penalty which in a opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope defence team at the Rivonia trial, there case like this would usually be the proper to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, may have been no Mandela to rescue penalty for the crime. But consistent with it is an ideal for which I am prepared to South Africa and there may well have been my duty, that is the only leniency which I die. no peaceful democratic transition of can show. The sentence in the case of all power. Mandela’s speech, and the calm and reasoned manner in which it was delivered, had a huge effect on those who Jeremy Solnick heard it. Joffe describes it thus:

He sat down in a moment of profound silence, the kind of silence that I remember only in climactic moments in the theatre before the applause thunders out. Here in court there was no applause. He had spoken for two hours, and for perhaps thirty seconds there was silence.

From the public benches one could hear Detectives in the living room of people release their breath with a deep Lilliesleaf Farm

11

Anglo-Jewish History

romance languages, in particular Italian. and Italian art, a library containing Cecil Roth He read history and obtained a First and valuable Hebrew manuscripts and printed (1899-1970) then a D.Phil. He conscientiously refused books and the chance of encountering to sit examinations on the Sabbath or leading Jewish scholars from all over the

Jewish festivals; this then involved world, meant a great deal to the young missing one or even two papers, but did men and women at the University. not affect his success. In 1941 he published his History of the Always interested in Italian history, his Jews in England, still regarded as the

thesis, his first published work, was The standard work on the subject, though it Last Florentine Republic. He was later to does not, of course, cover the history of write The History of the Jews in Italy. the Holocaust. It has been reprinted

Whilst working on his doctoral thesis in many times. Italy he had established friendships and Roth’s interest in art and book illustration good contacts both within the Jewish led him to collaborate on another community and in academic circles, and Haggadah, this time the famous Szyk had realised the significance of ritual Haggadah, an elaborate edition of the objets d'art. He had also developed a book, illustrated by the Polish-Jewish capacity to speak engagingly in public. artist Arthur Szyk. Roth had, in fact, He was elected a fellow of the Royal In a tribute to Cecil Roth after his death, made a particular study of illuminated Historical Society, and began to specialise the Oxford Chabad Society called him one medieval Haggadot, and formed his own in Jewish studies, an interest from his of the greatest Jewish historians of the fine collection of illuminated Ketubbot, childhood. twentieth century, a recognized expert in ritual silver, rare books and manuscripts - Jewish art and a fine educator. In any In 1928 he married Irene Davis, the now shared between Leeds University and review of Anglo-Jewish historical writing, daughter of a property developer, and was the Beth Tzedec Synagogue in Toronto. Roth’s name will be one of the first to be able to earn a living as a freelance writer. recalled, not only for his vast output, Pursuing his interest in Jewish history, he ranging from books on Italian Jewry to published books on the Spanish his seminal work on the Jews of England, Inquisition, the Marranos, and a life of but also for his meticulous examination of Menasseh Ben Israel, as well as many Jewish archives all over the world, and his articles in learned journals, and a new editorship of the Encyclopaedia Judaica, edition of the Haggadah, with which was published in 1971, shortly after illustrations by the artist Alfred his death. Rutherston, of the Rothenstein family, published by the Soncino Press. Cecil Roth, one of four sons, was born in 1899 to Joseph and Etty Roth in Dalston, In 1939 Oxford University created for him London. Both parents were descended a special Readership in Post-Biblical from rabbinic families in Poland. Joseph Jewish Studies. He and Irene made their engaged a tutor, Rabbi Moshe Vilenski, to home in the city, entertaining and teach his four children: David, Daniel, mentoring Jewish students. He acted as a Leon, and Cecil. Joseph was a father-figure through the changing face of Roth travelled extensively, both to manufacturer of builders’ supplies, and he Oxford Jewry, due to the war-time arrival America and to Israel, where his brother and his wife were anxious that their of new waves of undergraduates. It Leon held a Chair in Philosophy. children should receive a good Jewish became a provincial community that Recognition of Cecil’s scholarly ability education as well as a secular one. The remains atypical, because of the great beyond the Jewish community led to his boys learned Hebrew from the Geniza distinction of some of the professional having contributed, in 1932, a chapter scholar Jacob Mann, and attended the academics who maintain various degrees entitled 'The Jews in the Middle Ages' to City of London School. Both Cecil and of involvement in its Synagogue-centred vol. 7 of The Cambridge Medieval Leon fought in the First World War, activities. Together with Irene, he History - its inclusion there itself before being awarded scholarships to afforded an unofficial, and for that very constituting a landmark in twentieth university; Leon went on to become a reason most valuable, chaplaincy service century historiography. distinguished philosopher. to the increasing number of Jewish students at Oxford, for whom he kept In 1958 Roth exercised his interest in At Merton College, Oxford, Cecil took open house on Saturday afternoons. The antiquities and early manuscripts by with him a good enough knowledge of warmth of the Roths’ hospitality, offered publishing The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Latin, both for later research and to in a gracious home decorated with Jewish Historical Approach. He had always liked enable him to acquire fluency in several

12

the Jewish Historical Society, and later remarking on the proposition by other revised into three volumes. scholars of the doubt of Moses’ existence,

insisting himself that there was no such The Encyclopaedia Judaica involved a doubt. He was pursued and denigrated huge amount of work, with close attention for the accusation and suffered a heart to detail. Roth planned the allocation of attack, standing down from his academic space, edited the contributions from other position. scholars and wrote much of it himself. It replaced the old Jewish Encyclopaedia of Roth was able to continue with his work 1905, long out of date, and covers wide on the Encyclopaedia and was appointed

areas of the Jewish world and civilization, to a post at the City University of New including Jewish history of all ages, York. culture, language, scripture, and religious In 1969 the Italian government made him teachings, with articles by Israeli, Commander of the Order of Merit for American and European professional services to Italian culture. He died in Rutherston’s Haggaddah subject specialists. Roth did not live to Jerusalem in 1970, leaving a vast legacy of see it published, though he had finished articles, books, art and antiquities, as well historical detection and the book called the editing and proofing before he died. as the opinion of much of the Western for a new investigation into the discovery, Cecil Roth was also much in demand for world that he had been one of the greatest in which the author identified the lecture tours on the many Jewish subjects of Jewish historians. In 1982 Irene Qumran sect with the Zealots rather than in which he excelled, travelling, usually published her own memoir of her the Essenes, causing scholarly debate for with Irene, all across the world, revealing husband, Cecil Roth: Historian without some years to come. He had become to his audiences a scope of Jewish Tears. In its obituary, the Jewish interested in the Jewish Historical Society scholarship then hardly known outside Chronicle wrote, ‘His aesthetic sensitivity of England, the oldest historical and academic circles. He had the facility to not only made him a discriminating art learned society of its kind in Europe, explain to non-scholarly, popular groups collector, but it was he who put Jewish art founded in 1893 by the foremost Anglo- what had hitherto been confined to on the map of Jewish scholarship, and Jewish scholars and communal leaders of university or rabbinical organisations, revealed it as an important source for the the day. Roth became President of the and was perhaps more welcome in study of Jewish history. His love for and Society, in the footsteps of Lucien Wolf, America and Israel than in Britain. vast knowledge of Jewish liturgy in its F.D. Mocatta, Israel Zangwill, and Sir many facets, also sprang from a mixture Isaiah Berlin. In a book of essays - Cecil and Irene moved to Jerusalem to of religious and aesthetic motives.’ Remember the Days - published by the enable him to continue working for the Society in his honour in 1966, the University there, but he became involved Foreword by V.D. Lipman notes that Roth in a contretemps with a Rabbi who served as President for longer than accused him of alleging that Moses had anyone else and ‘presided over notable never existed. He had in fact been Philippa Bernard events in the Society’s history such as the fiftieth anniversary of its foundation, and the celebration of the Tercentenary of the Resettlement’.

In 1964 Roth retired from the University but not from his work on Jewish history, for he was appointed the following year to the post of visiting Professor at Bar-Ilan University in Israel. With his usual habit of taking on increasingly heavy workloads, he also undertook what was probably his most lasting legacy, the Editorship of the newly founded Encyclopaedia Judaica, a vast work of some sixteen volumes, still the greatest reference work on Jewish scholarship. He had already edited a new version of the Magna Bibliotheca Anglo-Judaica, the great bibliography of Anglo-Jewish history, published under the auspices of Cecil Roth in his study at Oxford

13 Around the World The Extraordinary He reached Baghdad and executed his Piedmontese town of Vercelli, ready to business affairs with the Caliph. Haroun cross the when spring came. It took Story of the Elephant al-Rashid then entrusted a most precious Hannibal just sixteen days to reach Italy gift for Isaac to bring back to with his much larger train, but Isaac and Abul-Abbas , an elephant called Abul- Abul-Abbas took nearly three months to Abbas, meaning in Arabic ‘Son of the reach Charlemagne’s court in Aachen. Lion’, expressing strength and courage. Abul-Abbas was exhibited as ‘a marvel It seems that Isaac’s two companions from the East’ according to later perished before they could set off on the accounts. Some indicate that when Abul- return journey, so it was left to Isaac to Abbas arrived, it was marched through escort the elephant back alone. various towns in Germany, including It was a long and perilous journey. He Speyer, Strasburg, Verdun, Augsburg, started by following the merchants’ route and Paderborn, to the astonishment of down to Egypt and then travelled onlookers, as an ostentatious display of westward along the Egyptian coast and the emperor's might, and was eventually into what is today Tunis and , housed in Augsburg in what is now then known as Ifriqiya (Africa). Here he southern Bavaria. It later travelled with is thought to have received assistance Charlemagne on his route into France. from the Governor Ibrahim ibn al- Aghlab, appointed by Haroun al-Rashid. The next stage in the journey was to some historians have A picture of Abul-Abbas from cross the Mediterranean, so he and his assumed that the eleventh century companion travelled to , an animal was a ‘war important city - now in . Jews I was intrigued, as I’m sure many of our were among the original settlers of elephant’ readers were, by the mention in Peter Kairouan, and the community had played Beyfus’s article about Charlemagne and an important role in Jewish history, a the Jews (Westminster Quarterly, April As this was a military expedition, some world centre of Talmudic and Halachic 2020), of an elephant brought back by historians have assumed that the animal scholarship, where Isaac would surely Isaac the Jew to his master, was a ‘war elephant’, an elephant that is have felt at home. Charlemagne, as a gift from Haroun al- trained and guided by humans for Rashid. How, I wondered, could a They crossed the Mediterranean and combat. The war elephant's main use was medieval Jew have travelled from landed in in October 801. Unable to charge the enemy, breaking their Baghdad to Aachen (then part of France) to continue the journey northward in ranks and instilling terror. accompanied by such a huge beast? winter, they moved on to the small Some added details about the elephant's Which route did he take? How did he death, stating it was in its forties and feed the animal? But I suppose if already suffering from rheumatism when Hannibal could cross the Alps with thirty it accompanied Charlemagne in the -seven elephants nearly a thousand years campaign across the Rhine heading to before, then an enterprising Jew might Friesland. According to these sources, in try it with just one. a spell of bad weather, Abul-Abbas Isaac was born in the eighth century CE developed a case of pneumonia. His in Narbonne in southern France, a centre keepers were able to transport the beast of Jewish learning. He came from a as far as Münster, where it collapsed and distinguished family. His father was an died. important figure in Jewish affairs, and Several later speculative reports about his mother was a daughter of the poet Abul-Abbas have called it a ‘white’ Eleazar ben Kalir. Isaac himself was a elephant for which there appears to be no prominent merchant, experienced in proof, nor is it certain whether he was an trading with Eastern nations, and soon Indian or an African elephant. attracted the notice of Charlemagne, who Nevertheless there is no doubt that Isaac sent him on a mission to Baghdad to visit the Jew will go down in history as the the Caliph, Haroun al-Rashid, the fifth only Jewish traveller known to have Abbasid Caliph His instructions were to accompanied an elephant from Baghdad bring back some treasures from the East. to Aachen. Isaac set out in 797, accompanied by two Philippa Bernard other diplomats, Lantfroi and Sigismond. Charlemagne and Abul-Abbas

14 Around the World

usually a visa from a foreign nation, or a claimed that, thanks to his diplomatic The Disobedient valid boat ticket. This was difficult, status, the Nazis would not dare harm Diplomat however, because at the 1938 Évian us as long as he remained in our home. Conference, thirty-one countries - which So he continued to visit our house on a Feng-Shan Ho included Canada, Australia, and New permanent basis to protect us.’ Zealand - refused to accept Jewish After his retirement in 1973, the immigrants. The only country willing to government of Taiwan denied Ho a accept Jews was the Dominican pension on the grounds, common then, Republic, which offered to accept up to that he had been subpoenaed and 100,000 refugees. refused to cooperate with Diplomatic For humanitarian reasons and acting Services, and had not properly against the orders of his superior, Chen accounted for a small sum in an Jie, the Chinese ambassador to Berlin, embassy expense account. These Ho started to provide visas to Shanghai charges are now widely believed to have to anyone who asked, even if they been politically motivated. wished to travel elsewhere. Part of Feng-Shan Ho died on 28th September Shanghai at this time was still under the 1997 in San Francisco, at the age of control of the Republic of China after ninety-six. He was survived by his the occupation by the Japanese during daughter Manli Ho, and by his son, the second Sino-Japanese War. Monto Ho who died in 2013. Monto was Twelve hundred visas were issued by Ho a Chinese-American professor of

in only the first three months of his microbiology, virology, and infectious Feng-Shan Ho was born on 10th holding office as Consul-General. In diseases. A strange echo of the past in September 1901 in Yiyang, Hunan direct contravention of the instructions today’s Corvid 19 epidemic. Province, China. His father died when of his Superior, Ho continued to provide Ho’s actions were finally recognized, Ho was seven years old. A diligent and these visas until he was ordered to posthumously, when he was awarded hard-working student, he managed to return to China in May 1940. The exact the title Righteous Among the Nations enter the Yali School in the provincial number of visas given by Ho to Jewish by Yad Vashem at a ceremony in 2001. capital of Changsha and later Yale-in- refugees is unknown. What is known is In 2015, his daughter represented her China University. He attended the that he issued his 200th visa in June father to receive a meritorious Ludwig Maximilian University of 1938, and signed the 1906th visa on 27th certificate for his diplomatic services - Munich in 1929 and received his October 1938. How many Jews were presented - amazingly - by the Chinese doctorate in political economics in 1932. saved through his actions is unknown, government, with the participation of but given that Ho issued nearly 2,000 It was only after his death that the representatives from Israel! visas just during his first six months in extent of this diplomat’s success in his post, the number may well be in the saving Jewish lives became known, thousands. when evidence of survivors who had benefited from Ho’s aid began to reach Many of those helped by Ho did indeed

Yad Vashem. reach Shanghai, either by boat from Italy or overland via the Soviet Union. In 1935, Ho started his diplomatic Many others made use of their visas to career within the Foreign Ministry of the reach other destinations, including the Republic of China. His first posting was Philippines and what was then in Turkey. He was appointed First Palestine. The parents of the Secretary- Secretary at the Chinese legation in General of the World Jewish Congress in 1937. When was and Vice Chairman of the Yad Vashem annexed by in 1938, and Council, Dr. Israel Singer, were able to the legation was turned into a travel to Cuba because of these visas. Consulate, Ho was assigned the post of Consul-General. One story is told by Lilith-Sylvia Doron,

who escaped to Israel. She had met Ho After Kristallnacht in 1938, the accidentally, as both watched Hitler situation became rapidly more difficult entering Vienna, on 11th March 1938 - a Statue of Dr Feng-Shan Ho for the almost 200,000 Austrian Jews. time when physical assaults were being at the Jewish Refugees Museum The only way for them to escape the in Shanghai waged by the Nazis against the city’s Nazi threat was to leave Europe. But in Jews. She said ‘Ho, who knew my order to leave, they had to provide proof family, accompanied me home. He of permission of entry elsewhere - Claire Connick

15 Anglo -Jewish History a handsome house, Herring Court, concern in her husband’s business as a Judith Hart Levy overlooking the river at Richmond and diamond merchant. Judith’s son

(1706-1803) adopted Elias Levy as his ward. Benjamin also died young, so her daughter Isabella would eventually come Moses’ daughter, Judith, was born in into a large fortune. She married into 1706, the second of six children. Her the English aristocracy as a result of the mother was also a wealthy woman in her matchmaking efforts of a friend of her own right. Samuel Levy was a leading mother, the Duchess of member of the Great Synagogue of Northumberland, who lived at Syon London, having three children, of whom House where Judith was often invited to the youngest, Elias, was a child when he dine. was left an orphan in 1704. In his will, his father expressed the desire that the Sadly Isabella too died a few years after

boy should be brought up ‘in some the marriage, and Judith, bereft of most profession in the Jewish learning, of her family, moved into Albermarle whether as a Rabby or a Physitian’. He Street, with very few Jewish neighbours

was to live with his great-uncle, Jacob and hardly any of her family nearby. Heilbuth, with his own servant to attend She now felt that with few loved ones on him, and a certain Rabbi Moses was around her she had no need to be as

to be paid £25 annually for four years thrifty as she had been, and began for teaching him; subsequently he was to spending her large fortune more be sent abroad to complete his lavishly, investing in a large carriage and

Mrs Judith Levy education. Matters did not work out horses and furnishing her house as more The Rich Jewess usually called quite as Benjamin Levy had planned: fitting for a person of wealth and good The Queen of Richmond Green but Elias had a thorough Jewish taste. She does not seem to have had a

education. very attractive personality, with few When the first Ashkenazi congregation friends, believing that all who came in He was attracted by the bright eyes and was founded in London in 1690, it was contact with her were after her money. brighter prospects of his cousin, Judith largely established and paid for by She had little connection with the Hart, Moses's second daughter. It was a Moses Hart, a wealthy Jew from Breslau Jewish community or the Synagogue her brilliant match; for her father is said to and son of a Rabbi. He was one of the father had founded. have invested Elias's property in South ‘Twelve Jew Brokers’ permitted to Sea Stock, and to have sold out before However, she kept in close touch with become members of the Royal the ‘Bubble’. From both sides, therefore, her mother and sisters and spent much Exchange. His brother, Aaron Hart, was the marriage was a desirable one, and it of her time at the big house her father regarded as the principal Rabbi of the took place in 1727. had bought in Richmond, or at the small Ashkenazi Jews in London during his house she owned there in Maids of time as the Rabbi of the Great Judith was an astute businesswoman, Honour Row. She was a colourful Synagogue, though the term Chief Rabbi helping in her husband’s affairs, as personality and in her lifetime saw the was not used until the occupancy of many Jewish women did, and insisting rise of the Jewish Community in Solomon Hirschell. on acting as his clerk and personal England, watching it grow from a few secretary to save money. Her dowry on Although Moses Hart was a careful hundred in number to many thousands. marriage had been £10,000 with an businessman and kept close control over When the Great Synagogue was rebuilt annual income of £500, and at her his financial affairs, he also ventured on in 1790 she handsomely assisted the father's death she was to inherit £6,000 the lottery and won a considerable sum project to the extent of donating £4,000. per year. However, soon after her to add to his wealth. State lotteries marriage she went to her Father and Judith lived to a great age but was began in this country as early as the demanded more money, as she unhappy in the last fifty years of her life, 1690s and were established by the Bank discovered that her sisters' dowries had spent as a widow and an eccentric of England. Moses Hart married been larger. recluse. She achieved local recognition Prudence Heilbuth, a daughter of by her good works and eccentricities, Samuel Heilbuth, one of the early The couple’s first home was in and was generally known in Richmond members of the Great Synagogue, and Bishopsgate Street in the city; they then as The Queen of Richmond Green. sister-in-law of Benjamin Levy, one of took a large house in Wellclose Street in Judith Hart Levy died at the remarkable the wealthiest Jews in England. They Whitechapel. Judith and Elias had two age of ninety-seven in 1803. bought a large house in Isleworth, an children, Benjamin and Isabella, but area that was becoming popular with Elias died in 1750 followed six years London Jews anxious to move out into later by Judith’s father, leaving her a

the country. Moses Hart then moved to very wealthy woman, with an active

16 Anglo-Jewish History

Cornwall. ‘They were great Lewis Rosenberg friends when they were young; Surfboard pioneer they came from very poor families, so they had to be quite We are familiar with many areas of creative about their holidays. sport where Jews have been famous Uncle Harry told me about – ‘Kid’ Berg, boxing; Harold their trips to Cornwall, they Abrahams, running; Angela Buxton, went camping there, went tennis; Stirling Moss racing; and his roller-skating and cycling. They sister Pat, horse riding; Mark Spitz, even made their own tents. He swimming; Yossi Benayoun and mentioned surfing too, but I Ricky George, football; Ali Bacher never realised that was and Ray Philips, cricket - to name unusual. They were ahead of but a few - but who knew that four Jewish the family had film of surfing exploits on a their time. They would buy their food lads from the East End of London would wooden longboard in the late twenties, we from farmers and he mentioned that they start a craze for surfing in the United were totally blown away. We took the would tell the farmer they were Jewish Kingdom? reels of fragile 9.5mm stock to the local when he tried to sell them meat - they film archive for them to be preserved and only bought milk produce or vegetables.’ Lewis Rosenberg had been inspired after transferred to digital tape ... It was only watching a film of surfers standing on Sadly, the group’s surfing fun was cut then we realised just how special this film their boards in Australia and decided that short by the Second World War, and the is. It is a national treasure, as it shows the he, too, should experience surfing. The seven-foot board which had been lovingly earliest recorded footage of surfing in East End is a long way from Bondi Beach, shaped from solid piece of wood was Britain. We knew that belly-boarding was but in the summer of 1929 Lewis and stolen from Lewis’s home in London. It is happening at this time but this film is very three of his friends, Harry Rochlin and highly unlikely that the thief would have significant. Lewis and his friends appear Fred and Ben Elvey, decided to try out known it was a treasured surfboard - a to have seen standing-up surfing on a this strange new sport. Lewis carved a remarkable piece of history. newsreel from Australia and just thought seven-foot wooden surfboard from balsa that they would like to have a go at that. wood, and the boys took it in turns to He was a highly inventive man. Not only keep their balance on it, teetering above did he create a surfboard with no the waves of Holywell Bay, in Cornwall. references to draw from, but he also The boys, all in their twenties, had been created a waterproof cover for his camera riding their four-foot long wooden body and actually took it out on the water. This boards in the West Country and the has changed how the surfing community Channel Islands for quite a while, but this view their history.’ was something entirely different. Included in the video is an interview with However, not only did they try to teach Harry Rochlin, who died, age ninety-six, themselves how to surf standing on their in 2007. The film shows the friends board, but they also filmed their exploits - smiling and posing for the camera. At the and the soundless black-and-white film, beach they lie flat on the surfboard, and recorded on fragile 9.5mm stock, on one attempt to ride the waves standing, often of the first home movie cameras, captures falling and splashing back into the sea. It their excitement. It is almost incredible is thought to be the first time that surfers that these first British surfers were are recorded standing up in this Country capable of filming from the surfer's angle, with rudimentary equipment, while riding In the interview, Rochlin says ‘We swam waves. A small segment of the film out and when the waves came in, my appeared in a BBC4 documentary Sea friend Lewis tried to stand on the board, Fever in May 2010. like they did in Australia. After a lot of These photographs are all stills from the practice, we managed to do it. It was The footage was passed on to Lewis film - hence the rather poor quality of incredible. It really brings back memories. Rosenberg's daughter, Sue Clamp, who reproduction. It was really thrilling, to be able to stand kept it in her attic until suddenly on the board and go on to the beach.’. rediscovering it and handing it over to the Museum of British Surfing in Braunton, Barbara Steinberg, Harry Rochlin's great- Claire Connick North Devon. Peter Robinson, the niece, said she remembered him and founder of the Museum, said: ‘When Sue Lewis Rosenberg, whom she called Uncle visited one of our exhibitions and told us Lew, talking about their holidays in

17 Anglo-Jewish History need to examine the political and conversion. It was the purpose of many of Oliver Cromwell and the religious background of the Country at the missionary sects of Christianity to Jewish Question large. Christianity, as the Puritan bring unbelievers into the fold and this movement of that time understood it, was could hardly be done if they were not based to a very large extent on the Old within reach. Another aspect of this

Testament scriptures. Many of the clergy leaning towards toleration was the of the seventeenth century spoke and possibility that if all religions were free to wrote Hebrew fluently. There was a worship in this country, then not only

strong inclination for the more radical Jews, but also those outside the branches of Christianity - Lutherans, mainstream Church of England - the non- Presbyterians, Calvinists, Sabbatarians - Conformists - would be at liberty to follow

to obey the Old Testament to the letter, their own ideas and practices. Puritanism using Old Testament names for their was growing rapidly, perhaps in contrast children, and invoking the wrath of the to the excesses of Stuart control of the Elsewhere in this edition of the God of the Hebrew Bible on sinners and church (the Divine Right of Kings), just as Westminster Quarterly we write about wrong-doers. Thus a Puritan in the political sphere, Cromwell’s the distinguished Jewish historian, Cecil fundamentalist return to the Bible would Roundheads had cast out the leadership Roth, and mention his interest in Jewish inevitably encourage a warmer more of the crown. The Civil War, like the historical detection. We had not realised, tolerant attitude towards the Jews, the Russian Revolution, was the great when that article was written, that one of people of ancient Israel. Some adherents leveller, the movement in which all men Roth’s greatest discoveries was his went rather too far, being accused of were to be equal, all religions tolerated. solution to the old mystery of the Judaistic practices by circumcising their Except of course that some religious were apparently missing confirmation of the sons and celebrating the Sabbath day on more equal than others. There was now readmission of the Jews to England. Saturday. Some were even imprisoned no national church, no monarch to be the In 1655 the Jews returned to England, for this, and two Arians died at the stake head of it, and no religious leaders to then a Commonwealth, under the for refusing to acknowledge Jesus as the press for the elimination of religious governance of Oliver Cromwell, Lord Messiah. They were the last two minorities. Protector, but nothing in the English Englishmen to be burned at the stake Everything now seemed to revolve around records of the time has ever confirmed purely for their religious beliefs. Others Cromwell himself. The Dutch War was this. Why not? claimed to lead Englishmen back to the largely based on mercantile Promised Land, and one poor deluded The expulsion of the Jews by Edward I in considerations, and Jews seemed to bring farmer declared himself king of Israel, 1290 did not mean that all those of Jewish prosperity wherever they went. Cromwell able to divide the sea to cross over into his extraction vanished completely from this was desperately anxious to improve kingdom. The atmosphere in England country. Officially there were no Jews in England’s trade. Many of the most towards the Jewish people had certainly England after 1290, but during this time, prosperous merchants in the City of become more favourable. often called the Middle Period of Anglo- London were of Jewish origin and had Jewish history, we do know that Jewish Several suggestions were made public, links with entrepreneurs in Europe and as life, secret and very discreet, did continue. asking for the Jews to be allowed to far afield as the West Indies, and these Physicians, merchants and traders with worship freely in London, including a could provide a very useful network of Jewish names appear in documents or in pamphlet published by Edward Nicholas, spies and informers or ‘intelligencers’ as court records. The Domus Conversorum An Apology for the honourable nation of they were known. or House of Converts, existed in Chancery the Jews, and all the Sons of Israel, Lane for converted Jews. Marranos, the blaming England’s neglect of the Jews for Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition, all her tribulations. Roth even suggests worshipped in secret unknown to the that it might have been written by authorities. Queen Elizabeth had a Menasseh ben Israel as a form of Jewish doctor, Roderigo Lopez, whose propaganda. trial for attempting to poison the Queen is What is quite clear is that a spirit of fully documented. Even Shakespeare, general religious toleration was becoming whose Shylock is one of the best-known more evident, and the old medieval Jewish characters in English literature, attitudes of hatred and suspicion towards must have known or come across some those who had crucified Jesus, was Jews to be able to build such a vivid diminishing. It is true that this more character. tolerant view of religious practice was Menasseh ben Israel was originally To understand the circumstances which partly due to the hope that if Jews were warned not to come to London from led to the Readmission of the Jews, we readmitted they would be available for Amsterdam himself to deliver his petition

1 8

requesting that Jews be allowed to return negotiations should take. One declared to look at the Order Book of the Council to England. It was too dangerous as that the Jews were attempting to buy of State for 25th June 1656. To his England was at war with Holland. But he their way in; they would provide amazement he discovered, what no one sent an emissary, Manuel Dormido, £500,000 (an enormous sum in those had previously realised, that the pages of together with Menasseh’s own son, days) in return for which they would get the Order Book for that date were Samuel Soeiro. Dormido’s petition for St. Paul’s Cathedral to convert into a missing. It now seems certain that the the Readmission was referred to a small synagogue, and the Bodleian Library at petition was actually granted on that day committee set up for the purpose, but it Oxford for offices from which to conduct but the written record was destroyed. If, was turned down, and Dormido suggested their affairs. Some say the offer was as seems likely, Cromwell confirmed the that Menasseh must come himself. He turned down, others that Cromwell asked decision in writing to Menasseh, then he agreed, and arrived in London in for £800,000 or that they demanded to would surely have taken it back with him September 1655, just before the Jewish be granted the City of London! to Amsterdam. Holy Days, which were actually celebrated Roth describes fully the appearance of the openly in London. Order Book without its vital missing He asked, in his famous petition, for a pages. ‘It is out of the question,’ he place to live and to worship. His reasons writes, ‘that they were removed for some for coming to England, he said, were to casual and incidental reason … the text seek freedom to pray, to bring Jews back has been cut off by a knife, one might say into England so that the Messiah might ferociously (or else hurriedly), in a jagged come, to bring prosperity to the English line, leaving a wide and unsightly margin people through financial expertise, and which makes the gap brutally obvious.’ finally to enjoy the respect and affection Roth’s investigations could go no further. of a country he had always admired. A The rest is supposition. It seems unlikely further more practical note asked that all Silver Salver Bearing the ‘Arms of that the Jews striving for recognition had discriminatory laws should be repealed; the Tribe of Judah’ - said to have anything to do with the desecration of the that and cemeteries should be been presented to Oliver Cromwell Order Book, nor that those opposing permitted; that Jews should be allowed by Menasseh ben Israel them could achieve much by it. Perhaps to trade freely, and they should govern (owned by Sir Samuel Montagu) something totally unrelated had themselves, subject only to the laws of happened in Council that day. It would England, which they would of course Although an acceptance by Cromwell of seem that no copies were kept, all matters obey. the petition seemed to be imminent, the being of course recorded by hand. Council dragged its feet, as Menasseh Cromwell now proposed that ‘the Jews stayed on in London, by now depressed Once Cromwell died in 1658 anti-Jewish may be admitted into this nation to trade by the delay. In the early months of 1656 attitudes again broke out. Tracts and and traffic and dwell among us as nothing seemed to be happening. Roth pamphlets showed a virulently hostile providence shall give occasion.’ suggests that Cromwell had forgotten all tendency, the Lord Mayor complained Parliament was unsure, and appointed a about it, but on 25th June it was again about the number of Jews in the city, and sub-committee (as it usually does) to drawn to the Council’s attention. There there were demands for all Jews to be handle the matter. This in turn rustled up appears to be no confirmation as to banished from the country. Jews began several of the Protector’s most trusted whether or not it was accepted. This is once again to go into hiding and to political allies. Their discussion revolved the mystery which so intrigued Cecil worship in secret. Their saviour, around two proposals: whether it was Roth. July passed with no apparent strangely enough, was Charles II, who lawful to admit the Jews, and if so, under decision, but then Menasseh returned to seems to have been genuinely in favour of what terms. The legal question was easily Amsterdam telling the Dutch authorities retaining his Jewish subjects. After resolved, and the answer made it very that all was now well and asking for a further attempts to banish them, clear to that - and all subsequent - Torah scroll for the newly founded countered by petitions from the Jews to generations how the Jews came back to Synagogue of London, together with a remain, the Privy Council issued an England. There was no law which suggestion for a Rabbi to minister to the assurance in writing that His Majesty’s forbade the return. The Expulsion of new congregation. Jewish subjects would not be disturbed 1290 was an act of royal prerogative and and that they might enjoy the same related only to those immediately Why then, asks Roth, is there no favours as they had before ‘as long as they concerned, not their descendants or any reference to the favourable decision in the demean themselves peaceably and quietly other Jews wishing to live in this country. Order Book? Did Cromwell take it upon with due obedience to His Majesty’s laws The banishment, therefore, was a total himself to allow the readmission of the and without scandal to his Government.’ misconception of English law. Jews? Why was there no official record? Roth contacted the Public Record Office Philippa Bernard Rumours flew as to what exact shape the

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The Arts Removing the ways. A really easy way to start, and the Some of the artists I work with feature most immediate, is with Instagram. Every here, Anna Louise Felstead is one of them.

Mystique of Buying artist has an Instagram account. You can Technically highly proficient she works fast view their work and direct message to and creates cityscapes as well as portraits Art buy. You can also find out about talks and and takes commissions too, including

interviews they might be taking part in watercolour portraits of your house or Collecting art can seem to be an with other artists, galleries, institutions favourite place; Simon McCheung uses intimidating prospect but the art world and major art collectors photography to produce striking images and artists are more approachable than which comment on sustainability, climate If you don’t know any artists and want to you might think and there are more change and our place in both urban and make a start, an excellent way of doing so avenues than ever before which allow the wild environments. and also actually supporting them in what process of buying or collecting art to be could otherwise be an impossible time in less elusive and more enjoyable. This terms of exposure and sales is via a article is about removing the mystique growing number of initiatives started for from sourcing and looking at and by artists where you can dip in and see contemporary art and some pointers on Tower Bridge paintings, prints, watercolours, sculptures, how to start your own collection - my main by photography, ceramics , textiles and so on. focus being on young and/or emerging Anna-Louise Felstead artists. An excellent and affordable one is #artistsupportpledge, or at In my work as an independent art artistsupportpledge.com. Started by consultant and curator, I source and British artist, Matthew Burrows, new commission work in various mediums studies, sketches and finished including photography and sculpture for or ‘resolved’ pieces of work are posted on private buyers and interior designers; I Instagram on a daily basis with an absolute also curate selling exhibitions at private maximum price of £200. Established, as If you are feeling intrepid and like the idea clubs, offices and other venues and I am well as lesser known artists are taking part. of commissioned work with an element of always on the lookout for new places to Every time an artist sells £1000’s worth, surprise, check out ‘Lockdown showcase the work of young artists and put they themselves pledge to buy a work Commission’ at subjectmatterart.com – them on the radar. equivalent to 20% from another for just £150 a small selection of As a buyer, you are nurturing a creative participating artist they admire, thereby photographers, textile and mixed media process and supporting a living artist’s supporting each other. Incredibly over £20 artists will create a work based on career. The best starting point is to look at million has already been generated! And information you provide them with and as much art as possible and in as many works sell fast! you will have a unique personalised different venues as possible, educating artwork by rising artists who believe in It is a truly fantastic opportunity to follow yourself as you go along, trusting your own ‘breaking down stereotypes, transparency your taste and instinct as well as instinct and taste, and putting aside the in pricing, challenging art world elitism supporting the global artist community notion that you are making an investment and inspiring new art buyers’. They have during Covid-19. And don’t be shy, if you – buying from living artists is not a been online since 2011 but their voices are like a work of a particular artist but it has commodity but an act of putting faith in an more pertinent now than ever. sold, message them, ask them what else artist and relishing the work they create. It they are working on or are posting next, Another initiative, Project Papyrophilia, is may be satisfying to see the value increase start a conversation. a platform for works on paper only. It is a but it is never guaranteed. continuous online exhibition with a

Now is actually an optimal time to explore maximum price of £250, set up by artist and buy art. Take the time to visit all the Zavier Ellis, who also runs the Charlie options we would have in regular/non- Smith London Gallery. Go to

Covid times, including art fairs, making #projectpapyrophilia on Instagram or studio visits especially during Open Studio online to Project Papyrophilia, or weeks or weekends, checking out art charliesmithlondon.com. The mix of works college degree shows and even something by both rising and established artists, and obvious like the Royal Academy Summer including world-renowned artists, is Exhibition where the entire display is for refreshing, helps to remove some of the sale, join gallery and museum mailing lists, barriers between known and emerging many of these are now online. artists. The internet and social media bring art and Interstellar//Awoken by More artists are also doing it for artists right into our lives in a variety of Simon McCheung themselves at The V-Art Show - basically

20

Tradition an Open Studios on Zoom which enables and do check Artnet; on Instagram there The Shofar us to enter, and chat to various artists in are art critics to follow as well as curators We are all familiar with the sound of the their studios about their work. removing and artists’ champions such as Shofar blown on the High Holy Days in any formality and allowing for candour #thegreatwomenartists, also on podcast. the Synagogue, but we may not be aware and direct engagement. New small independent galleries have of some of the conditions that attach to Some whose work may appeal are popped up in big numbers in recent years. the appearance of the ram’s horn and to sculptor Mark Beattie, digital and mixed Hopefully these galleries will survive. the performance of the Shofar blower - media artist Michael Wallner, They too have taken to hosting an the Ba’al Tekiah - who must be of photographers Gina Soden, and Roy’s increased number of talks and interviews ‘blameless character and conspicuous People, printmaker Matt Jukes and online and on Instagram which are easy devotion’. painters Caroline Banks, Alex McIntyre to access as well. This ancient musical instrument recalls and Sarah Needham. Alternatively, buying small works or the Akeda, when Abraham saved his son In regular/non-Covid times, an actual limited edition prints by established living Isaac by sacrificing a ram caught in the visit to an artist’s studio is perhaps the artists will not necessarily break the bank thicket. It is first mentioned in the Bible most pleasurable and rewarding part if you want to go down that route, and in Exodus 19; the blast of a Shofar along the art collecting path. Engaging they can perhaps more easily be sold on if emanating from the thick cloud on with the artists, joining them on their you decide to switch pieces around at any Mount Sinai makes the Israelites tremble journey and supporting their career is an point. You can pick up a small work or in awe. The Shofar could in fact be the important aspect of art collecting, making print by David Hockney or by David horn of any kosher animal, except a cow - it an altogether more personal and Shrigley and still feel very connected with because of the association with the meaningful experience. Artists enjoy the contemporary art scene. golden calf - but it must be curved, meeting art buyers, talking about their symbolic of man’s readiness to bow in work and sharing their knowledge submission to God. Like the modern bugle, it has no way of altering the pitch; Degree shows, for example at Central the sound is varied by the lips of the Saint Martins, the Royal College of Art, blower, and it is not an easy instrument and Goldsmiths, are also worth checking to control. It is held towards the right out if you have the time – you may with the wider end upward. discover the next Hirst, Hockney or Kapoor. In Biblical times the Shofar was blown

on the occasion of the New Moon and the There are other options such as The Art Jubilee Year. It was also used in war, for Car Boot Fair, a semi-open air art market signalling and alerting the troops or held at different venues a couple of times The National Theatre by announcing victory. It was blown when a year where artists literally pitch up in Michael Wallner Joshua conquered Jericho. At one time their cars and offer their time and their it was blown on Shabbat but this was work, often for charity. Internationally later forbidden in Orthodox Synagogues, known highly experimental Rob and Nick TV programmes such as Portrait Artist of as it involved the Ba’al Tekiah in ‘work’ Carter, a husband and wife team, are the Year and Landscape Artist of the Year on the Sabbath. It is often blown in usually there as well as Ryan Callanan, are a good way to observe artists at work times of trouble and it may be heard - in known as RYCA with his mash up of – Christabel Blackburn, latest winner of Progressive congregations - during the modern pop cultural motifs in the form of the Portrait Artist of the Year Award is course of the present pandemic. We hear prints and sculptures. one to watch. Grayson Perry’s Art Club, it on Rosh Hashanah and marking the Art Fairs operate on many levels – from on TV every Monday evening is an end of Yom Kippur. the high end Frieze Fair to The Affordable invigorating look at what he considers to There are three distinct sounds blown on Art Fair and The Other Art Fair. At The be art and is most encouraging, opening the Shofar: tekiah (the long single blast), Other Art Fair, artists exhibit their own our eyes and minds, again breaking the shevarim (three broken sounds) and work themselves, again a wonderful and stigma of what makes so called good art. tekiah gedolah (the ‘great sound’ - a blast gentle way to discover new work and meet Do contact me for any names of galleries, to be as long as the blower can make it). new artists directly. There is greater artists or if you have any more questions, In the synagogue a blessing is said before transparency now with prices being made I would be more than happy to share. the Shofar is blown. It has now become a visible online, this is encouraging and [email protected] traditional emblem for the Jewish again serves to de-mystify the art world. religion across the world. Orit Schreiber There are plenty of podcasts and online . newspapers and magazines if you want to learn more - Talk Art is one of these and The Art Newspaper is a respected source,

21 Editorial

In June this year, just too late for inclusion in the July issue of this magazine, we learned that Rabbi Benji had been selected to be one of Hadar’s Jewish Wisdom Fellows. www.hadar.org Designed for Jewish Professionals, the Fellowship offers those who have been chosen, the opportunity to embark on a ‘learning and thought development project dedicated to wrestling with the questions currently confronting the Jewish community and the world.’ Hadar state that they received over 270 nominations for this prestigious fellowship and that from these, they have ‘selected an outstanding cohort of professionals who represent a diverse background, age range, and have a wide reach within the many corners of the Jewish communal field.’

Rabbi Benji declared himself to be very excited about being able to join this elite group of Jewish professionals from around the world. He said that he looked forward to bringing the learning back to Westminster Synagogue and beyond. We congratulate him on the appointment – which also brings great kudos to our community.

From Michael Benson in Israel

I must begin by stressing how much I enjoy reading the Westminster Quarterly in far away Beer Sheba where I've been living since 1964. There's always something new and interesting – and the latest edition is no exception! The article about the Beasts of the Bible was indeed most informative but I would like to add two comments.

Philippa mentioned insects, locusts etc. ‘which may not sound very attractive to the modern Jew’. Indeed I personally don't find them attractive. And there is also a problem to identify which kinds are actually kosher. However, for centuries, Jews of Morocco, Algeria and Yemen maintained the tradition of feasting on the desert locust - Schistocerca gregaria - while the Jews of Europe ceased consuming them. From a Jewish Law perspective, locusts have the same standing as fish. They do not require kosher slaughter and are considered pareve - neither meat nor milk. While Yemenite Jews unequivocally deem desert locusts kosher, the tradition concerning migratory locusts is more ambiguous. The tradition of eating locusts is dying out, partly because locust swarms reach Israel less frequently, thanks to international efforts, and partly because Israeli Jews have embraced Western cultural food norms

But it may be that locusts are not just dangerous plagues! Elifelet is a quiet farming community of 614 people in the hills north of the Sea of Galilee. This moshav in northern Israel has the rare distinction of being home to Hargol FoodTech and the world’s largest commercial grasshopper farm. The company is forging ahead to expand production to meet burgeoning demand. Once mature and ready to harvest, the locusts are frozen. The cold kills the invertebrates painlessly. The company will market both whole locusts, which will be roughly a third of Hargol’s output, and neutral protein powder for food manufacturers. More details can, of course; be found on Google!

My second comment is about how much we care for our animals. Jewish Law states very clearly that it is forbidden to eat before we've fed our animals. There are lots of sources and here are just two:

The Talmud, Tractate Brachot 40a - ‘as Rav Yehuda said: One is prohibited from eating before feeding his animals, as it is stated: “And I will give grass in your fields for your animals” and only then: “And you shall eat and be satisfied” (Deuteronomy 11:15).’ In the verse, preparation of food for one’s cattle precedes preparation of one’s own food. Consequently, it is considered part of the preparation for one’s own meal. Rambam Laws of Slaves Ch. 9 Law 8 - ‘The sages of old were in the habit of sharing with the slave every dish they ate, and they fed the cattle as well as the slaves before they themselves sat down to eat’ Thanks again for all the interesting articles. I'm already looking forward to the next edition.

22 Poetry page

EXPERIENCING PASSOVER 2020

EXPERIENCING PASSOVER 2020 EXPERIENCING PASSOVER 2020 I know only a few questions as relevant,

OnlyI know a few only as important, a few questions as spiritually as relevant related I know only a few questions as relevant Only a few as important, as spiritually related Only aYes few a asfew important, as moving, as as spiritually timeless related Yes a few as moving, as timeless As the questionYes a few Jews as moving, ask on asPassover timeless night As the question Jews ask on Passover night As theA question Jewswhich ask defines on Passover them night A question which defines them A question whichA question resonates which through defines their them generations A question which resonate through their generations A JewishA question mystical which bond resonate which through makes themtheir generationsOne People The Jewish lasting mystical bond The Jewish lasting mystical bond “Why‘Why isis thisthis nightnight differentdifferent fromfrom allall otherother nights?”nights?’ “Why is this night different from all other nights?” AA nightnight beyondbeyond thethe realityreality ofof TimeTime A night beyond the reality of Time AA nightnight experiencedexperienced everyevery yearyear asas ifif forfor thethe firstfirst timetime A night experienced every year as if for the first time

MagicMagic isis notnot exclusiveexclusive toto childhoodchildhood Magic is not exclusive to childhood Magic,Magic, aa worldworld beyondbeyond thethe usualusual patternpattern ofof lifelife Magic, a world beyond the usual pattern of life A world I experienced on Passover 2020 AA world world I Iexperienced experienced on on Passover Passover 2020 2020 On Corona Passover I touched a screen OnOn Corona Corona Passover, Passover I Itouched touched a a screen screen A magic screen through which I transcended isolation AA magic magic screen screen through through which which I Itranscended transcended isolation isolation A small magical surface thanks to which I celebrated with other families AA small small magical magical surface surface thanks thanks to to which which I Icelebrated celebrated with with other other families families A magic link which took me all the way to Jerusalem AA magic magic link link which which took took me me all all the the way way to to Jerusalem Jerusalem Jerusalem the end of the great journey JerusalemJerusalem the the end end of of the the great great journey journey The great Jewish journey The great Jewish journey A journey throughThe countries,great Messianic continents, Jewish a journey through Time A journey through countries, continents, a journey through Time A journeyA journeythrough Moses countries, started continents, in Egypt athat journey very nightthrough Time A journey Moses started in Egypt that very night AA journey night forever Moses different started in from Egypt all that other very nights night A night forever different from all other nights A night forever different from all other nights

ColetteColette LittmanLittman Colette Littman

23

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