ESTMINSTER Volume VIII No.4 UARTERLY October 2017

Cain slaying Abel by Sebastiano Ricci (1659-1734)

From the Rabbi

effect on the fate of the Jews of Europe. acceptance of converts for the purposes The whole of humanity and the political of the Law of Return whichever and social life were affected, stopping the movements or factions they come from. healthy evolution of the World. A further example is the inability to I am now reading another of Robert provide a place for all Jews without Harris’s books, Dictator, and my ‘must exception to worship at the Western read’ list includes Douglas Murray’s The Wall. It should not matter whether they Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, wish to have egalitarian services or if Identity, Islam. I am close to despair they firmly believe in, and practise, when I realise how little we have learnt equality between sexes. Surely both men from the wisdom of Ecclesiastes’s words, and women have a right not only to ‘That which hath been is that which shall worship together but also to enjoy the be, and that which hath been done is that beauty of holding and reading from the which shall be done; and there is nothing Torah Scroll. new under the sun’.(1:9) They are not As we look forward to Simchat Torah, as only painfully true but will remain so well as drawing wisdom from it – until we learn not to repeat the mistakes rejoicing and dancing - we should, in the Dear Friends of the past. Dictator impresses upon us New Year 5778, have a world with fewer that one day we can celebrate someone’s I very much hope that you have enjoyed a tears and more wisdom; a world without heroism and the next he can be lovely summer and have returned well extremism, giving us all a sense of having assassinated and that this really rested, refreshed, and ready to meet the learned from the past. The Torah tells it happened. Today we experience battles of the world. There is no doubt as it is, and is so much easier to adopt character assassination through social that we live in turbulent times; the world and to accept what we need. media. How do we defend ourselves is a fragile place. There seems to be a lack when the word spreads like wildfire and Wishing you a very Happy, Healthy New of leadership, resoluteness and there is no stopping it? Year - Chag Sameach - and let us dance experience. There is no end to the blame with the Torah of enlightenment. game played throughout society, Extremist views, in whichever guise they governments, local authorities and appear, need to be stopped as they may B’Shalom companies. The malaise of extremism lead to the destruction of civilised society that we are seeing hurts our society, which would take many lifetimes to destroying humanity’s dignity and recover. We witness this in general and, purpose. in particular, within our own Jewish society. Sad to say, there are many In the past few months I have read examples, such the attack on a Rabbi several books – or in fact listened to who spoke the truth about love; them. In view of what is happening something which is so important in the around us, I felt even more concerned life of all human beings, irrespective of Rabbi Thomas when I finished Philip Roth’s book The who they are and how they wish to Plot Against America as I thought that it express it. was all taking place in the past but then I realised that it could all occur again. Surely both men and Robert Harris’s Conclave certainly could have happened and the question is, women have a right would it happen or indeed could it not only to worship happen, in this way? Philip Sands’ book East West Street is a family saga which at together but also to the same time highlights the individuals enjoy the beauty of who brought us the legal concepts of ‘Genocide’ and ‘Crimes Against holding and reading

Humanity’ - Hersch Lauterpacht and from the Torah Scroll Rafael Lemkin. These ideas came about because of the devastation of Europe and Another example is the Israeli the loss of lives in the horrors of the Government’s attempt to destroy Second World War, when systematic something which has worked well for plans, organized, directed and executed almost seventy years, that is the by Government, had such a devastating 3

ANGLO-JEWISH HISTORY

Unsung Jewish where the regiment took ship to France, saw a sniper just behind the German lines landing at Marseilles. The Indian troops, and tried to shoot him. But the sniper Heroes - under the command of Captain Roly fired first and Frank was mortally Lt. Frank de Pass Grimshaw were to reinforce the British wounded. Grimshaw and a fellow officer Expeditionary Force and took up station rushed to his aid, but dazed by the at Festubert, a small village in northern explosions they were too late. The brave France, not far from Béthune. A vivid young Jew was dead. For his bravery he account of the fighting is given in was awarded the Victoria Cross, the first Grimshaw’s Indian Cavalry Officer, Jew to receive it and the first soldier of an 1914/15, published in 1986 by Costello. Indian regiment. Frank’s Commanding Officer wrote of him, ‘The very perfect The newly arrived troops from India type of British officer, he united to found that the Germans had driven a sap singular personal beauty, a charm of up to the parapet surrounding their manner and a degree of valour which dugout. Sapping is a term used in siege made him the idol of his men’. A fellow operations. A trench excavated under officer wrote to his parents, ‘He was quite defensive musket or artillery fire that was the most gallant fellow it had ever been intended to advance a besieging army's my good fortune to meet.’ Frank was position was referred to as a sap (the buried at Béthune. The burial was word sapper is still used in military delayed to find out the wishes of the operations). Thus the Allied men were family, but it was agreed that his last clearly exposed to fire from the enemy, resting place should be near the site of his and Lt. de Pass volunteered to guard the bravery. Grimshaw comments that the Sir Eliot and his wife Beatrice de Pass, breach until, in daylight, one of his men sound of the guns could be heard at the Sephardi Jews, lived in Kensington, with crawled out to reconnoitre the Germans’ funeral. their three sons. The family had come to position. He reported that they were England in 1660 shortly after the Re- holed up only ten yards away, protected admission of the Jews. The name was by a sandbag traverse. From here they originally Shalom, which they changed threw bombs towards the English and first of all to the Spanish de Paz and Indian troops, causing considerable finally to the English de Pass. Their injuries. Frank, with two of his Indian second son, Frank, attended the Abbey men, crawled out along the sap until they School and then went on to Rugby, where reached the German traverse, where they he was a contemporary of Rupert Brooke. placed an explosive charge and blew it up, Sir Eliot was a West India merchant and saving further damage to his company. the family was prosperous, moving in the high society of the time. Frank was an intelligent young man, a fine polo player Lt. de Pass volunteered and a good linguist. Rabbi Reuben Livingstone conducting to guard the breach the Memorial Service After leaving school he decided to make the army his career and attended the One hundred years after the death of Royal Military Academy at Woolwich. A day or two later, while visiting Frank de Pass, a Memorial Service was Commissioned into the Royal Horse neighbouring positions occupied by the held in Victoria Embankment Gardens Artillery, he went to India after being Indian regiments, he came across a where a Victoria Cross Commemorative made a lieutenant and transferred to the wounded Sepoy lying outside his trench. Paving Stone was laid in his memory. 34th Prince Albert Victor’s Own Poona Sepoys were Indian soldiers from The citation was read out by Lt. Col. Horse. He studied Persian and infantry regiments fighting for the British Johnny Kitson, Frank’s great-nephew. A Hindustani so that he was able to talk to - a cavalry trooper was a Sowar. He took bugler sounded the Last Post and the his men in the regiment and was a man with him and they brought the service was conducted by Military appointed orderly officer to Lt. General Indian back to safety. Grimshaw was not Chaplain Rabbi Reuben Livingstone and Sir Percy Lake, Chief of the General Staff pleased. ‘A British officer is worth more Rabbi Joseph Dweck of the Bevis Marks in India. A year later, when Frank was than a wounded Sepoy. I know these Synagogue. Also at the parade were twenty-seven years old and engaged to be things cannot be measured in that way’. soldiers from local military units married, the First World War broke out Meanwhile, the Germans had repaired the representing the past, present and future in Europe. traverse and the heavy bombardment of military service. Eric Pickles, then The 34th Poona Horse was then stationed started again. In an attempt to repair the Community Secretary and always a at Secunderabad. It was sent to Bombay damage to their protective parapet, Frank particular friend of the Jewish people,

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said, ‘The legacy of men like Frank and other side’. Technically, the collection is their acts of supreme valour in service of We Were There brilliantly organised and will be shown their country is the Britain of today, Too online, giving a clear picture of Jewish life united by shared values, where there is during the war. It tells of distinguished mutual respect and tolerance of all faiths. figures such as the cookery writer, An exciting new community project, aided Over the course of the centenary, we have Florence Greenberg, who served as a by the Lottery Fund, has been created to the opportunity to stop and reflect on nurse, Siegfried Sassoon, the poet and commemorate the part Jews played in the these great displays of bravery and by the Isaac Rosenberg, the poet/artist as well as First World War. Called We Were There laying of commemorative stones we will some of the many ordinary Jewish Too, it aims to put on record the ensure that there are permanent Londoners who stayed at home but still experiences of the Jewish community in memorials to all of our First World War played their part in the conflict. the 1914-18 war by means of diaries, heroes.’ letters, memories and stories handed The whole collection will be accessible down to later generations. The results online, with search facilities to look for will all be digitised and put on an people, places and events that might be interactive website held by the British there. Volunteers are being sought to

Library, making it possible to read first- assist in the work and the project will hand what our forebears were involved offer help to those seeking information in, not only at the Front but at home, at about what happened during the war. school and in the houses and streets of The website states ‘If you think you have London, so that these memories are not a family member who lived in London

lost. during the war, or are interested to research a name in the British Jewry The website tells us, ‘Volunteers from Book of Honour, on a Synagogue Jewish and non-Jewish schools, and Memorial Board, a gravestone or a host of informal education groups, will work other memorials, then we will help you to with, and be trained alongside, adult find out more about them and build a volunteers to develop the digital project Personal Record.’ This is an important and collect the materials that will be venture in the field of Jewish history. housed on the site. The findings will be The stone marking his grave at Béthune interpreted imaginatively to attract, inform and educate visitors about the roles and sacrifices of Jewish Londoners. Frank de Pass’s dress tunic is on display We Were There Too is supported by a at the Jewish Military Museum, a part of wide range of religious and secular the Jewish Museum in Camden Town. Jewish organisations.’ His name appears on the Board of In the Westminster Quarterly we have Honour at Bevis Marks, on the Memorial often written of the personal experiences Gates at Hyde Park and at Rugby School. of the war, of our members and those who

came before them, so it is appropriate that we should ask our readers to try to recall what happened to their fathers, mothers or grandparents in London during those terrible years.

One fascinating revelation that the organisers of We Were There Too found in the course of their investigations was a collection of Cheder books of 1915 discovered in a cupboard of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue. They contained poems, stories and pictures written by the children of the religion school which revealed much of the experiences – and the heartache – of these young children while their fathers were away at the war.

Some of the material comes from Card drawn by Sybil Isbicki—a pupil The dress tunic worn by de Pass, on Germany, in the form of postcards and of the LJS religion school display at the Jewish Museum letters from Jews who fought ‘on the 5

Comment

Deborah - The surrendered them to King Jabin of enemy was more important than her own Canaan.’ glory. Barak was not prepared to try to Biblical Joan of Arc save his people from the most powerful The Israelites had no ruler and the loose army in the region without Deborah, who tribal coalition of Israel was headed by had been the master of strategy and Deborah. The date that archaeologists tactics. Indeed, military historians give the estimate for the period is 1125 BCE. We credit for the eventual triumph to read about her in chapter 4: ‘Deborah wife Deborah. However, I think that it was of Lappidot, was a prophetess. She led their friendship and cooperation that led Israel at the time. She used to sit under the to the final outcome. The plan devised by palm of Deborah, between Ramah and Deborah and Barak was to mass the Bethel in the hill country of Ephraim, and Israelites on Mount Tabor, which was a the Israelites would come to her for defensible base against which the chariots Archaeological remains of Megiddo decisions’. The Bible also tells us that had no chance of success. The next move Jabin and his commander, Sisera, The book of Judges deals with a turbulent was to try to force Sisera and his army to oppressed Israel for twenty years and had period in the history of the Israelites. The leave their vigil at the foot of Mount Tabor at their disposal nine hundred iron book is full of significant events and well and push them onto the open plain of the chariots. It says that Deborah summoned known stories, among them that of valley of Jezreel. The Israelites would Barak, the son of Abinoam, and told him: Samson’s life. The crowning glory of the then charge down from Mount Tabor and ‘The Lord, the God of Israel, has book is the battle between the Canaanites, attack Sisera’s army at the moment when commanded: Go! March up to the Mount and their military commander Sisera, and the chariots were bogged down in mushy of Tabor and take with you ten thousand the Israelites and their two military ground around the river Kishon, made men of Naphtali and Zebulun’. In the leaders, Barak and Deborah. The battle treacherous by a storm which caused the Canaanite army Deborah and Barak faced with its triumphant outcome is told twice river to overflow. The strategy worked. a superior power because of its nine in the Bible: once in a prose style and the The Canaanites lost the battle and with it hundred iron chariots and its regular other in a poem sung by Deborah. The their supremacy over northen Galilee. infantry. In his book Battles of the Bible only other time we have the same form of Sisera fled to find refuge at the home of Chaim Herzog says that the number of the repetition is when Moses and the Israelites Yael, who was an ally of the Israelites, but Canaanites’ chariots can be verified by come out of Egypt. Moreover the decisive instead of finding a refuge, he found death comparing it with the number of the battle of the Israelites was an inspiration at her hands. Deborah mentions the deed Canaanites’ chariots quoted by Pharaoh three thousand years later for the fledgling in her poem with these striking words: Thutmose, during the battle between him country, Israel, fighting the war of ‘She struck Sisera, crushed his head, and the Canaanites at Megiddo in 1468 independence against four Arab countries smashed and pierced his temple’. BCE. in 1947. In both cases the few overcame Deborah includes in her beautifully crafted the many and the mighty. ...the Lord will deliver poem another woman, the mother of When Abraham came from Ur to the land Sisera, who peers through the window that God promised him, the Bible tells us: Sisera into the hands of waiting for her son to arrive: ‘Through the ‘And the Canaanite was then in the land’. a woman window peered Sisera’s mother, behind This is how Joshua and the Israelites the lattice she whined: Why is his chariot found the country four hundred years so long in coming? Why so late the clatter Deborah approached Barak and told him later. Joshua conquered the land of of his wheels?’ Deborah appears to us here to march to Mount Tabor with ten Canaan but the conquest left Canaanite not only as a military leader, tough and thousand men and that she would lead enclaves. After Joshua’s death the coastal determined, but as a sensitive woman, Sisera to the Wadi of Kishon. Barak’s area and the Jezreel valley, and connecting down to earth and human, who gives a response, almost childlike, was roads to the Sea of Galilee and the Jordan thought for her foe’s mother in her astonishing. ‘If you will go with me, I will valley to the south, were still securely in agonizing moments. Deborah has become go; if not, I will not go’. Deborah’s answer the hands of the Canaanites. Their king, one of a line of Biblical heroines, from was no less astonishing. ‘Very well, I will Jabin, and his commander, Sisera, had as Sarah to Miriam, Esther, Judith and go with you. However, there will be no allies the kings who ruled the remaining finally Salome Alexandra, who headed the glory for you in the course you are taking, towns skirting the Jezreel valley. These Hasmonean kingdom in 76-67 BCE. We for then the Lord will deliver Sisera into were the kings of the fortified towns of regard Deborah as the French people the hands of a woman’. This succinct Taanach, Megiddo and Dor. One can still regard their Joan of Arc: as a leader and dialogue throws light on Deborah as a see today the archaeological remains of patriot who, inspired by God, changed the decisive, fearless leader who was at the these towns. During these events, the course of history. same time humble - very much as Joan of Bible tells us, ‘The Israelites again did Arc is portrayed. The goal of the mission what was offensive to the Lord. God to deliver Deborah’s people from the IA

6 Jewish History

Biblical passages follows when God asks Rabbis to believe that this was the Villains in the Bible Cain where Abel is. ‘Am I my brother’s retribution for murdering his brother 1 Cain keeper?’ he replies. with a stone. Another has him killed by his grandson, who mistook the horn for The story goes on to tell of God’s anger, that of a wild beast. cursing the killer and banishing him to the land of Nod. Cain replies that his The story of Cain and Abel is one of the The story of Cain and Abel, the sons of punishment is ‘more than I can bear’. most intricate, philosophically, in the Eve, has left its mark on generations of God marks him for life so that wherever Bible. The story of the first murder, Jews and non-Jews ever since Cain, the he wanders no one will kill him. The bringing in its train repentance and first murderer, slew his younger brother. Mark of Cain has come to represent a retribution, is brought to life by the very Many legends have grown up around the curse or disfigurement, but in fact it was simplicity with which it is told. Every story, for the Bible gives little detail about to indicate that God accepted Cain’s human emotion is present - envy, the circumstances of the event. We are repentance, so that even though he was jealousy, hatred, fear - all leading to a not told why God refused Cain’s to be banished from his land to wander in wealth of debate and discussion in sacrificial offering and accepted Abel’s. the wilderness, no one should take his subsequent generations, from the We do not know whether Cain realised – life. We are not told what the Mark was – Kabbalah to Freud. The symbolism of never having experienced a death – what some take it to mean that he received a the account in Genesis has suggested that would happen if he attacked his brother scar or even that his skin turned black, even if the story is a myth, as many later with stones. We do not even know for leading later to enmity towards dark- theologians believe, there can be no certain who was the father of the two skinned people. Other legends have it doubt of the depiction of the fallibility of boys. The Bible says that ‘Adam knew that the mark was a horn, growing from man and his relationship with God. Eve’ but when Eve says that, ‘I have his forehead, from which springs the later gotten a man from the Lord’, many idea that all Jews bore horns. commentators interpret that as indicating that it was perhaps the Serpent who fathered Cain.

Cain holding a sheaf of Cain in the act of wheat as if it is a weapon. murdering his brother. His face is twisted in hate, but his brother Abel seems oblivious of the danger behind him.

The fourth chapter of Genesis explains The villainy of Cain has caught the Then Cain takes a wife. This must the few facts: that Cain was ‘a tiller of the imagination of writers, artists and indicate that Eve later gave birth to girls, ground’ and Abel was ‘a keeper of sheep’. composers; Byron wrote a play, Cain, in as there were no other people on earth, The two agricultural occupations have which he sympathises with Cain in view and therefore Cain must have married often clashed. Then come the sacrifices of his brother’s hypocrisy and one of his sisters - one is named as Awan, to God, with Abel offering ‘the firstlings sanctimony. In music John Tavener the most likely of several children, boys of his flock and of the fat thereof’. Cain’s composed a powerful cantata, Cain and and girls, that Eve later bore to Adam. sacrifice was simply ‘the fruit of the Abel, and many artists, from Tintoretto to The name, not mentioned in the Bible, is ground’. This has been suggested as Rubens, have depicted the age-old story noted in the Book of Jubilees, sometimes being of poor quality, perhaps the of Cain and Abel. The pictures above are known as the Lesser Genesis, an ancient remnants of Cain’s own meal, which God sections of a very large and complex Jewish religious work, which claims to refused. This was the provocation which fifteenth century Flemish polyptich present ‘the history of the division of the led to murder. God explains reasonably altarpiece in St. Babo’s Cathedral, Ghent. days of the Law, of the events of the that good deeds deserve well, and bad Attributed to the brothers Hubert and years, the year-weeks, and the jubilees of deeds are met with disdain and Jan van Eyck it is considered a the world’ as revealed to Moses (in contempt. Cain seems to be mulling this masterpiece of European art and one of addition to the Torah) by angels while he over for he goes to talk with Abel. The the world’s treasures was on Mount Sinai. Cain had four sons, discussion must have become heated for of whom the eldest, Enoch, is sometimes John Steinbeck’s novel East of Eden (the Cain resorts to violence and Abel dies. confused with another Enoch, the great- Biblical location of the Land of Nod) The vividness of the simple tale enables grandfather of Noah. One tradition says retells the story in the form of two us to understand quite clearly what is that Cain died when the stones of his American families confronting each happening. One of the most quoted house fell in upon him, leading the other.

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Jewish History

Women of Worth 1 The young widow, now with a small regularly and obey the laws of the daughter, Ana - sometimes known as Catholic church, but she fasted on Yom Gracia Mendes Nasi Reyna - decided to move to Antwerp. Kippur, ate matzo at Passover and with She had been unhappy at the idea of her family, prayed on the Sabbath, bringing up a family in a country where though discreetly and in private. Jews were unwelcome and decided to However her wealth made her vulnerable join her husband’s family and enter into and her young daughter was a very the family business. After Francisco’s eligible match for some of the great early death Diogo continued to expand aristocrats of the time. The Regent the Mendes affairs, acquiring huge parts Queen of France approached her to plead of the growing spice and pepper trade – for Ana’s hand in marriage for the he was soon known as the Spice King of nephew of the Emperor Charles V, Europe. Antwerp itself was the centre of Maximilian, who later became Holy the continent’s finance and business Roman Emperor. The dowry was a great operations, many of them under the temptation for the suitor but Beatrice control of the Marrano Jews. But the showed an independence of spirit, city was under constant investigation by refusing to allow her child to be married Portugal, where the Inquisition had not off in such a way. Nevertheless, she In his book about the Nasi/Mendes yet begun, and shortly before Beatrice’s decided it was expedient to leave family, Cecil Roth says, ‘The role of the arrival, Diogo himself was imprisoned Amsterdam for a safer home and with Jewish woman in history having been for illicit trading and assisting the Jewish her daughter, her sister and Brianda’s essentially domestic (though not for that community. He was freed but it was child, escaped to Venice. reason any less important), there were becoming clear that Antwerp was in peril until the past generation very few It was a long and tedious journey, politically, religiously and financially, as outstanding Jewesses who could form through France and over the Alps to a the Pope moved nearer to claiming other the subject of biography.’ This story is city where Jews were not very welcome, European nations for the Catholic about one of them. especially those whose commercial church. Beatrice was wary of being able enterprise and financial acumen posed a Gracia Mendes Nasi was born in to bring up her daughter (her sister threat to the Venetian business Portugal in 1510. She belonged to an Brianda married Diogo) in safety having community. Nevertheless, the middle of Aragonese family of Jews who were been instrumental with her brother-in- the sixteenth century was a period of forced to convert to Christianity and took law in helping Jews to escape to a safe considerable expansion in this beautiful the name of de Luna, and Gracia haven in other countries. The wealth of city where great palaces were being built (Spanish for the Hebrew Hannah, the family enabled them to protect along the canals, furnished with superb meaning grace) was christened Beatrice. Portuguese Jews to undertake the works of art, and church festivals were Many of these conversos or Marranos journey across the Alps to Italy, and frequent, while their pageants and fled to Portugal where the Inquisition often on to Turkey where they could be carnivals attracted visitors from across took hold later than it did in Spain. Here safe. She arranged the inns where they the world. for a short while they were able to could stay, safe houses and provisions maintain their Judaism, but the Catholic for the journey. Many died on the way Beatrice and her family chose a house in insistence on expelling (or converting) but through her good offices others were the centre of Venice, not in the ghetto all the Jews soon extended to Portugal, able to reach safety. but on the Grand Canal; they were still and the family had to accept Christianity. nominally Christians, though their home However, Antwerp was becoming a was a centre for escaping Marranos. She At the age of eighteen Beatrice married dangerous city for the secret Jews, and was a dominant figure in local society, her uncle, Francisco Mendes, a wealthy she decided to move again, this time wealthy and capable, with a prosperous, trader in spices. They were married perhaps to Italy or Turkey, with Diogo international empire under her control. according to the rites of the Catholic and his family. But before they could However, Brianda, the widow of Diogo church at the Cathedral in Lisbon, escape Diogo died, leaving his estate and Mendes, greatly resented her sister’s though they also had a secret Jewish his whole commercial enterprise to position, having been left out of his will ceremony with a ketubah. Francisco and Beatrice. Now she had to stay. by her husband, determined to get a fair his brother Diogo were bankers and She was one of the wealthiest women in share of the inheritance for her daughter international traders, known across the Western Europe, and was determined to and herself. She went to the authorities, civilised world, with agents and offices in do all she could, not only to help her accusing Beatrice of ‘Judaizing’, India and the Far East. Beatrice’s fellow Jews to safety and to provide for suggesting that she was about to leave husband died only a few years later, and them, but also to maintain a Jewish life for Turkey with all her possessions, her she inherited, with her brother-in-law, a as best she could while nominally a good daughter and her niece, where they vast empire trading in silver and spices, Christian. She had to attend services would resume their lives as practising with offices in Antwerp.

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Jews, depriving the city of a very valuable homes. Gracia was a charming hostess, believed to feed eighty of them at her table commercial asset. Beatrice was arrested organising salons in her house and every day. She was known as La Señora, and the two girls were sent to a nunnery. overseeing some of the newly printed but although she was on good terms with vernacular translations of the Hebrew the court and the nobility, her household But Beatrice had friends at court. It had scriptures, among them the Ferrara Bible, was run on the domestic lines that a well- long been her aim to reach a Sephardi version in Ladino, published born, wealthy Jewish family was Constantinople eventually where she in 1552, with one edition dedicated to the accustomed to, speaking Spanish or knew Jews were welcome and were Duke of Ferrara and another to ‘the noble Portuguese at home. Apart from her care treated with favour. The Sultan’s Jewish -hearted Jewess, Doña Gracia Nasi’. for the Jews fleeing oppression, she also doctor was a good friend of the Mendes opened a yeshiva in Constantinople, and family. He may have had in mind to In Ferrara, Gracia continued her work of unusually for the time, was instrumental marry his son to Beatrice’s daughter, but saving Marranos escaping with their in gaining permission for the Jewish in any case he informed the Sultan of the property from Spain and Portugal to find community there to worship in whichever problem, who immediately took them sanctuary either in Ferrara itself or in synagogue they wished. under his protection. Turkey. In his dedication to Gracia in a contemporary work, Consolation for the A year or so after arriving in Diplomatically, Venice could not afford to Tribulations of Israel, the author Samuel Constantinople, Gracia was joined by her cross swords with the head of the Usque wrote, ‘She has been your tried brother’s son, Joao Miguez, who took the Ottoman Empire. Beatrice and her strength in your weakness, a bank where Jewish name of Joseph Nasi and married daughter were freed, but she was by no the weary rest, a fountain of clear water her daughter, now called Reyna. The means ready yet to leave for Turkey. Her where the parched may drink, a fruit- story of Joseph Nasi’s rise to fame at the business affairs needed sorting out and laden shady tree where the hungry eat Sublime Porte is well known. He became she was involved with many of the and the desolate find rest.’ Many of these famous as an international diplomat for Marranos whose fate was in her hands. refugees had to leave the city when plague the Sultan and was created Duke of However, Venice was clearly unsafe. She struck. Gracia helped them with money Naxos. He was closely involved with his would need to show herself a much more and supplies until the danger was over aunt’s affairs. It was probably Joseph’s devoted Christian to be able to stay there, and they could return. But Ferraran Jews influence that enabled Gracia to carry out so she moved herself, her family and her were doomed to the same fate as others in her husband’s last wish – to be buried in fortune to Ferrara. There, under the Catholic countries and the Nasi family felt the Holy Land. He was finally interred in protection of the Duke and joined, to the time had come when they must yet the Valley of Jehoshaphat. everyone’s surprise, by Brianda and her again seek a safer home. They left for daughter, she could live openly as a Jew. This sixteenth century link to Palestine Constantinople. They took back the old family name of was extended when in 1561 Joseph was Nasi and she dropped her Christian name Their arrival in Turkey was spectacular. granted by the Sultan the ruins of the old of Beatrice to become once again Gracia. The company, in four huge coaches, was city of Tiberias, together with its accompanied by an escort of forty armed surrounding villages. Here Gracia and men, and brought with them servants, Joseph established a Jewish settlement splendid clothing, jewels and all the offering safe homes for the refugees from necessities of life. They scattered money Spain and Portugal. It was Gracia’s to the crowds who came to watch, and intention to end her days beside her made big donations to the charities of the husband in her historic Jewish homeland. city. There were at this time a great It is believed that she never actually number of Jews in Turkey, the majority in reached it - neither the exact date of her Constantinople. They far outnumbered death nor the location of her grave are the Christians there, though not of course known. She was deeply mourned by the the Muslims. They followed several Sultan and his court as well as by the different professions: moneylenders, poorest Marranos whom she had doctors and scholars, as well as working supported. Cecil Roth referred to her as as dealers in precious stones, traders, one of the greatest Jewish women ever craftsmen and artisans. They were used, known. She deserves the title. Memorial Stone for Gracia’s too, as interpreters and respected for their 500th anniversary attachment to their families and to their

religion. Ferrara had long been a safe home for practising Jews. There was a fine The Nasis, as in Venice, preferred to live PB synagogue, founded in 1493 though outside the Jewish quarter, taking a fine destroyed in 1944 by the Fascists. The house in Galatea, where most Europeans wealthy inhabitants of the city welcomed lived. Here, as usual, Gracia supported scholars, poets, writers and artists to their those poorer than herself – she was

9

Jewish History

Righteous Among certain professions and from some citizens. Anger was also chosen later as a government posts, from intermarriage Righteous Gentile. the Nations with non-Jews, and restricting travel. Early in 1944, America and the Allies Raoul’s partner, Kalman Lauer, who had established the War Refugee Board. Its 1 Raoul Wallenberg welcomed the young Swede into his remit was to investigate and report on home, once out of Hungary now found the welfare of those nations in Europe himself unable to return home. Raoul, whose citizens were under the however, as a citizen of a neutral state, oppression of the Nazi regime, and see could still move freely around Europe, what could be done to help. The fate of and kept Lauer informed about his the Hungarians was particularly family and their mutual business mentioned. A link with the Jewish interests. He already spoke fluent community of Sweden, led by Sweden’s Russian and soon learnt Hungarian, Chief Rabbi, Marcus Ehrenpreis, sought making himself familiar with the Nazis’ a suitable person - an accredited controlling administrative methods. diplomat - to travel to Budapest to Gradually, the world was becoming negotiate. The first choice was Count aware of the ‘Final Solution’ that the Bernadotte, a distinguished member of Germans planned for the Jews in their the Swedish Red Cross and related to the Commemorative Postage Stamp occupied territories, but the tide was royal family of Sweden. He was rejected turning against them. The Hungarian Among those who were honoured as leader Miklos Horthy began secret talks ‘Righteous among the Nations’ for their with the Allies. The country was service to the Jewish people, one name occupied by German troops in March stands out as having saved some 100,000 1944 and Horthy was placed under house Jews from the Holocaust – Raoul arrest, with a pro-German puppet Wallenberg. He was born in a small government installed in Budapest. Until town outside Stockholm in 1912, to a now Hungary’s Jews had escaped the distinguished family of diplomats, horrors that the Jews of Germany and academics and businessmen. His father the other occupied countries of Europe had died before he was born and he was had experienced, but it was not long brought up by his mother’s family. It before they were rounded up and began was intended that he should go into the the terrible train journeys to Auschwitz family business, but having graduated and other concentration camps in with honours at university he wanted to Eastern Europe, under the authority of be an architect. Adolf Eichmann. Churchill wrote, ‘There Statue in Budapest

He went to America to study at the is no doubt that this persecution of Jews University of Michigan, winning a medal in Hungary and their expulsion from by the Hungarians. and the Americans for the undergraduate with the most enemy territory is probably the greatest chose instead Raoul Wallenberg who was impressive academic record. His family and most horrible crime ever committed duly assigned to the Swedish Embassy in sent him first to South Africa to gain in the whole history of the world.’ Budapest. experience in commerce and in his By the time he arrived nearly half a chosen career, and then to Haifa, where He climbed up on the million Hungarian Jews had already for the first time he found himself among been deported and only about 230,000 Jews, though he claimed a distant Jewish roof of the train and were left in the country. He and his descent on his mother’s side. began handing in colleague, Anger, began issuing Back in Sweden he was introduced to a protective passes Schutzpassen - protective passports, Jewish Hungarian businessman and which declared the bearer to be a together they set up an international The Jews of Budapest sought help from Swedish citizen who could not be company dealing in food and catering the embassies in the capital city to try to deported. Wallenberg deliberately made called the Mid-European Trading obtain passes to leave Hungary for other the passes as formidable as possible Company. Raoul’s language skills and countries. One young diplomat at the though they were not legal. But the his business acumen led to many trips to Swedish Embassy, Per Anger, started German and Hungarian authorities were European countries even in German- negotiating for passes allowing these impressed by the bright blue and yellow occupied countries (Sweden remained Hungarian Jews to adopt Sweden as their print, surmounted by the heraldic coat of neutral throughout the war). As early country, which meant that they would arms of the Three Crowns of Sweden and as 1938, Hungary had passed a series of not have to wear the yellow Magen as many stamps and signatures as anti-Jewish laws, excluding Jews from David, and could be treated as Swedish possible.

1 0

When the Germans refused to admit the בּהרוּ נרוֹקר passes, Wallenberg approached the wife of the Hungarian Foreign Minister, Baroness Elisabeth Kemény who persuaded her husband to honour 9,000 of the spurious Hebrew Corner passes. His next step was to find shelter for as many of the Jewish community as Zion, Tsion, in Hebrew, was a name which he could house in Budapest. He rented meant Israel and also Jerusalem. We read several buildings, calling them The in the book of Samuel, ‘But David Swedish Library or The Swedish captured the stronghold of Tsion; it is now Research Institute and draped them in the city of David’. The origin of the name Swedish flags. They were eventually able occupied many biblical commentators. to house some 10,000 Jews. According to one explanation, Tsion means a fortified place - mevoutsar in An interesting account of Wallenberg’s Hebrew - and the root of this word is personal practical efforts for the Jews was made of the letters, tsadi, vav, nun (most told by Sandor Ardai, one of his drivers. Memorial in Tel Aviv verb roots in Hebrew have three letters). ‘He climbed up on the roof of the train and The Russian army arrived in Budapest Another possibility is that the root is tsadi, began handing in protective passes shortly afterwards and escorted yud, nun which belongs also to words in through the doors which were not yet Wallenberg out of Hungary. He was never the Bible that refer to a stone or stones sealed. He ignored orders from the seen again. What happened to him? marking signposts or landmarks; where Germans for him to get down, then the Several theories have been put forward. for example, burial stones were erected as Arrow Cross men began shooting and Did he die in Russia? Is he still alive? in the book of Ezekiel: ‘And those who shouting at him to go away. He ignored Several books have been written about the traverse the country make their rounds, them and calmly continued handing out life of Raoul Wallenberg and about his any one of them who sees a human bone passports to the hands that were reaching death. One is reviewed here on page 14. shall erect a marker (tsion)’. out for them. I believe the Arrow Cross What is not in doubt is the fact that he men deliberately aimed over his head, as However, most scholars prefer to associate saved some 100,000 Hungarian Jews not one shot hit him, which would have the word Tsion with a different root, tsadi, from certain death. He is honoured as a been impossible otherwise. I think this is yud, yud which makes up words ‘Righteous Gentile’ and commemorated at what they did because they were so indicating dryness. Ezekiel laments: ‘And Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, but how he impressed by his courage. After now she is planted in the desert, in ground died remains a mystery. Wallenberg had handed over the last of that is arid and parched.’ A place that is the passports he ordered all those who arid in Hebrew is tsiah therefore Tsion had one to leave the train and walk to the could mean a dry, barren place. Jerusalem caravan of cars parked nearby, all marked indeed borders the Judean desert. Similar in Swedish colours. I don't remember to that is the name of the desert Tsin (in exactly how many, but he saved dozens off English, Zin) where Moses and the that train, and the Germans and Arrow Israelites stayed and where Miriam died Cross were so dumbfounded they let him and was buried. Another explanation get away with it.’ offers the idea that the word originates

As the war neared its end the Nazis from animals that lived in the area. Isaiah calls these animals tziem. stepped up their campaign against the

Jews of Hungary, instituting the terrible Lastly, the movement of the nineteenth ‘death marches’ where thousands of Jews century that called for the return of the were forced to march towards the Austrian Jews to their old land was called Zionism - border - some 200 kilometres - and in Tsionut, in Hebrew - originating from the January 1945 Wallenberg discovered that word Tsion. Psalm 132 says: ‘For the Lord Eichmann was planning to massacre the This photograph was sent by Lucy has chosen Zion. He has desired it for His whole of Budapest’s ghetto. Through Leveson, whose article appears on habitation’. The Zionist movement Wallenberg’s good offices a message was page 14. reached its goal with the creation of Israel sent through to the General in charge of in 1948. This year we celebrated sixty nine German troops in Hungary, suggesting years. May there be many more. Amen. that the General would be held personally responsible and hanged as a war criminal PB at the end of the war. The massacre was IA stopped.

11 Book Review

reads like a spy thriller. The story

The involves many well-known names, Liquidation of including those of Robert Maxwell and Board of Deputies Raoul Victor Rothschild. It also incidentally Wallenberg recounts gruesome details of Eichmann’s The Grenfell Tower by actual, physical anti-Semitism. tragedy

Nigel Bance It is known that Eichmann and/or his

associates were prepared to barter one Deputies were very moved at the plenary million Hungarian, Romanian and session of 25th June by the report by an Published only in Slovakian Jews for American-built trucks officer of the Bayswater Synagogue. paperback by – one hundred Jews per truck. In 1944 Asta Print Early in the morning on the day after the 2016 Joel Brand, a Hungarian Jew, was in Istanbul to negotiate with the Jewish appalling tragedy of the fire at Grenfell Agency. At this time, international Tower, members of the Synagogue, the governments were increasingly aware of nearest to the Tower, emailed each other The subtitle of this fascinating book – the plight of Hungarian Jews, and the US to see what could be done to help. Within Uncovered: The Missing Evidence. Nikita set up a War Refugee board. However, in an hour, several presented themselves at Khrushchev’s secret investigation - tells England, Churchill was against the mass the scene, together with the Rabbi (it was you why I found this to be such a emigration of Jews to Palestine in case it on Shabbat) to offer their premises, with compelling story. shelter, food, clothing and support to upset the Arabs! The Jewish Agency sent While researching nuclear espionage, urgent messages to the Chief Rabbi of those whose lives were totally changed by Nigel Bance stumbled upon Raoul Stockholm, urging him to ask the King of the terrible event.

Wallenberg’s grim story - a story which Sweden to intervene. The fact that these were Jews, while the had remained hidden until his Bance discovered that, at a meeting in the victims were Muslims, Christians or of no extraordinary discovery. He gradually Russian Foreign Ministry in October religion at all, had no impact on their unravelled the mystery surrounding the 1989, between the Russian Deputy willingness to be of service to their fellow fate of the Swedish diplomat responsible Foreign Minister and the Chairman of the Londoners. Toys were collected for the for saving thousands of Jews, leading one KGB on one side, and members of the children, together with blankets, clothing of the most extensive and successful Raoul Wallenberg Association on the and anything else that could help those rescue efforts during the Nazi era. During other, an envelope was produced which suffering such an upheaval. his research, Bance, the British contained evidence that Wallenberg had investigative journalist, was given In later weeks, as the extent of the tragedy been in Russian hands. Among the unprecedented access to the account of became clearer and the victims tried to contents of the envelope were his what actually happened to Wallenberg. retain some vestige of their shattered diplomatic passport, his diary and lives, a nursery operating out of the In Moscow, in 2002, he viewed the never- address book for 1944, his Budapest car Synagogue offered two free places to before-seen archives of Colonel General registration document, a gold cigarette children of the homeless. This nursery, Ivan Serov, the notorious chief of the case, a Budapest gun permit and various known as Keren’s, is one of three Jewish KGB. Inside was a veritable feast of WW2 currencies in quite large amounts. schools for the youngest children, but the and Cold War intelligence secrets However, his Swedish passport, which he acceptance of Judaism is not a necessity including detail on Serov’s investigation always carried, was not among the items. for those who attend. The Synagogue into Wallenberg’s arrest, interrogation How Soviet documents, including the staff, together with those of other nearby and subsequent execution. congregations, such as the New West End private papers of General Serov, came Wallenberg had been snatched by the into Bance’s hands, despite the fact that and Brondesbury Park, have also KGB in Pest in 1945 and sent to Lubyanka most records were destroyed, is the responded to the tragedy, liaising with the prison. Few believed that he had died amazing part of this story which involves relief organisers to offer any help they there of a heart attack in 1947, as officially a plot by Khrushchev to remove the could.

stated by the Soviets. As Bance perpetrators of Wallenberg’s murder Jonathan Arkush, President of the Board, discovered, he did die in 1947 – but not of from the Politburo - in order to further congratulated Bayswater and all others a heart attack; he was liquidated. his own ambitions. who had offered help in one of the

The author made many trips to Moscow The book contains several photographs, greatest tragedies to hit London in recent during his research into Soviet nuclear many in colour, and comprehensive years. espionage and it was on one of these, in appendices which are helpful in the bar of his hotel, that a document was understanding this complicated account PB Westminster passed to him. It gave an actual account of a dreadful wrong. Synagogue’s Deputy to the Board of the liquidation of Raoul Wallenberg. CC This set him off on a trail which now

12 Around the World

accept angels and demons as a part of the shall have the linen breeches upon his Jewish Sects - spiritual world. Any ordinances or flesh, and shall be girded with a linen The Sadducees behaviour not written into Moses’ law they girdle and with the linen mitre shall he be did not recognise, paying little heed to the attired’. He should also, they believed, traditions handed down by the fathers or kindle the incense on the Day of the authority of the teachers. Their Atonement outside the Temple, rather interpretation of that Law was minutely than within it, so that he might be wrapped and rigorously obeyed; this included ‘An in smoke externally as well as clothed in eye for an eye’, proof of virginity upon Shekinah (the light of God’s presence) marriage, instructions as to a brother-in- inside. law taking his late brother’s widow as his Many of the customs traditionally attached own wife, rights of inheritance and the to Jewish festivals were opposed by the dating of Festivals. God’s powers did not, Sadducees, including water libation, they believed, extend to participation in processions, shaking the Lulav and the daily life. opinion, accepted by the Pharisees, that The duties of the Sadducees related mainly touching the Torah rendered hands Pharisees and Sadducees to their presence in the Temple, the centre unclean. They did not lay Tefillin nor by James Tissot (1836-1902) of ancient Biblical social as well as approve of the erection of an Eruv, which religious life. They were not as numerous at that time consisted of merging several The Sadducees in Biblical times were one as the Pharisees, so although their leader private houses together so that meals of three Jewish sects who largely was known as the High Priest and Leader could be carried from one to another on controlled the religious affairs of their of the Council, the Sanhedrin, in any the Sabbath. people, the other two being the Essenes debate they might be outvoted. However When the Second Temple fell in 70 CE the (already discussed in our last issue) and there was another, more political, council duties of the Sadducees inevitably came to the Pharisees. The name is generally composed entirely of Sadducees, which an end and they seem to have vanished believed to stem from their descent from exercised considerable power, backed by from history, though some historians Zadok the Priest, grandson of Aaron, who the Romans. This was virtually a police maintain that their place was taken by the helped King David during the revolt of court and was responsible for the trial and Karaites, who also believe only in the Absalom and was subsequently conviction of Jesus. The wealth and status Written Law. The disputes between the instrumental in bringing King Solomon to of the Sadducees added to the control they Pharisees and the Sadducees before the fall the throne. were able to exercise over their fellow of the Temple were much more serious Jews. Some represented the community This priestly caste came from the wealthy than some of the trivialities already internationally, collected taxes, equipped aristocratic classes of contemporary mentioned, but with no Temple to care for and led the army and mediated in Israelites after the return from exile of they were clearly without purpose. The domestic disputes. Masters had to pay for Abraham and his people to the land of Sanhedrin, too, was diminished and the wrongs committed by their slaves, and if a Canaan, from which they had fled after the long-standing rivalry with the Pharisees man committed perjury through which a destruction of the First Temple by deteriorated into petty squabbles and prisoner was convicted he could only be Nebuchadnezzar. Josephus, recounting minor disagreements. The decisions of the executed if that prisoner suffered the death the hierarchy of that time in The Jewish Rabbis in the schools and in law were penalty. War, did not approve. Distinguishing absolute, not only in Palestine but in the them from the well-meaning Pharisees, he The wealth and status Diaspora. Life for the Israelites was says that, even towards each other, they reorganised. A double system of ‘show a more disagreeable spirit, and in of the Sadducees added government developed between the their relations with men like themselves to the control they were Romans and the Pharisees, with the they are as harsh as they might be to Romans at Caesarea and the scholarly foreigners.’ They were active in Judea at able to exercise over leaders in Jabneh and other towns, with the time of the Second Temple in about 515 their fellow Jews the Synagogue and the house of study BCE until its destruction in 70 CE. becoming the centre of local life. Cecil Roth in his Short History of the Jewish The main distinction between the In the Temple they considered themselves People, says, ‘The educational system was Sadducees and the Pharisees was that the supreme, solely able to perform sacrifices developed until it attained a perfection former did not accept the Oral Law, only which they themselves paid for, claiming unrealised in Europe until the nineteenth that handed down to Moses by God on the that the best portions were the priest’s. century was far advanced.’ It did not stop Tablets of Stone, the Written Law. This Their views on purity were stringent in the the Jews disagreeing with their neighbours they obeyed implicitly, not believing, as the extreme, with particular attention paid to or with each other. Pharisees did, in resurrection or even the the Biblical instruction that the priest immortality of the soul. Nor did they ‘should put on the holy linen coat, and he

11 3

Around the World

as it appeared on the many life-saving Jewish Life in passports he signed in Hungary between Stockholm June 1944 and 17th January 1945, the date when he disappeared. He was Towards the end of May, a friend and I finally declared dead only very recently. visited Stockholm. It is a beautiful time Close by, on the paving stones, are long, of year there and Lake Malaren, on which strange figures, carved in black bronze, Stockholm stands, glitters in the by the Danish sculptor, Kirsten Ortwed. sunlight. The evenings are long, which is They reminded me of the title of the late conducive to staying out late and Mira Hamermesh’s book, River of Dogs. wandering through the old town of This Monument was chilling and Gamla Stan and through parts of the unforgettable. modern city. The organ pipes in the Great Next to the Synagogue A wonderful tourist guide had been Synagogue, recommended to us. She was not only in a very The old centre has been knocked down Jewish, but very knowledgeable about narrow alley and a new community centre or Beit, Jewish life in the city. Stockholm has a is the meaning Home, is emerging. We were population of seven thousand Jews, Holocaust able to visit the wing which is already though at least half of them are secular. Memorial. finished and it was very impressive. There are three synagogues, two Carved into Light and airy, it contains a Orthodox and one Reform. Some of the the right Kindergarten, a Kosher shop and a present day Jews are descendants of hand wall are restaurant, as well as the European those who were rescued by the Danish the names of Institute for Jewish Studies and the Resistance and who settled in Sweden. those who Maccabi office. I would have been very died in the Holocaust and immediately happy to stay for lunch, which was being below each group of names is the name prepared at the time we visited, as it of their present-day family. looked delicious! We then went into the Great Synagogue, Marianne told us that generally there was entering from a small street named little anti-Semitism in Stockholm, unlike Warendorffgatan, close to the Malmo and more recently in the town of Wallenberg and Holocaust memorials. Umea, in the north of Sweden, where the The Synagogue was designed by a non- Jewish community centre has had to Jewish architect, Frederick Wilhelm close down because of such anti-Jewish Scholander, using Moorish Revival Sculptures by Kirsten Rotwed. feeling. motifs on the exterior of the building. It

Marianne, our guide, first showed us the was finished in 1870. Prior to this Raoul Wallenberg Monument, a large building, there were two eighteenth stone globe, (See photograph on page 11) century synagogues in Gamla Stan. which bears the following inscription, Entering the Sanctuary, which is written in Swedish and the twenty two furnished in dark, painted wood, I other languages representing the noticed a beautiful rose-shaped window countries from where victims of the above the Ark. The Ark is covered in Holocaust came:- ‘The road was straight sumptuous heavy, red and gold velvet when Jews were deported to death. The curtains. Next to the reader’s desk, is a road was winding, dangerous and full of large Menorah, probably bronze. The obstacles when Jews were trying to windows around the Sanctuary are escape from their murderers’. Of course, engraved, but without stained glass. it was not only dangerous for Jews to Immediately facing the Bimah, high escape, but also for those trying to help above the entrance to the Sanctuary, is a them, like Wallenberg who was a Inside the Great Synagogue very unusual pipe organ. It is unusual humane Swedish diplomat. On the because the pipes are inside the All in all, it was a most interesting opposite side of the globe is the name of reproductions of Torah scrolls. Services morning and I am grateful to Marianne, Aaron Isaac who was the first Jew to are Masorti and egalitarian and women for explaining everything to us so clearly come to Sweden in the mid-eighteenth can form part of a minyan. and for showing us so much. century. Immediately in front of the

Globe, on the paving stones, is a copy of Finally, our guide took us to the new Raoul Wallenberg’s signature in bronze, Jewish Community Centre in Stockholm. LL

14

The Arts

the highest international levels and under The second celebration, and one which I Georg Solti his musical directorship the status of the helped to organise, was held, by A personal memory company was recognised and its title permission of John and Norma Major, at changed to the Royal Opera. After No.10 Downing Street and was to raise London, he became music director of the money for ORT, an organisation which we Chicago Symphony Orchestra, a post in featured in the April issue of this which he remained for twenty two years. Quarterly. This occasion was also a In 1991he became the orchestra's Music surprise dinner party and this time the Director Laureate, a position which he surprise element was the inclusion among held until his death. Amazingly, during the guests of Placido Domingo, Kiri Te his time in Chicago he was also Director of Kanawa, Felicity Lott, Ann Murray, Philip the Orchestre de Paris from 1972 until Langridge and Graham Johnson. After 1975 and principal conductor of the dinner, a huge birthday cake was London Philharmonic Orchestra from produced and Solti was serenaded with a 1979 until 1983! rendering of Happy Birthday by some of the most distinguished and wonderful Solti conducted the Israel Philharmonic voices of the day! Orchestra in 1994, on a tour of concerts in

Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Munich. He said Because of his background, ORT was near that the IPO ought to be called the to Sir Georg’s heart and he was always Through our friendship with his wife Russian Philharmonic Orchestra, as so ready to help in the raising of funds. One Valerie, my husband and I came to know many of the players came from the former year, at our request, he persuaded Murray and admire Sir Georg Solti - one of this Soviet Union and that their inclusion had Perahia to perform with him at the century’s most brilliant conductors and a improved the quality of the orchestra Guildhall in a recital, for which only the leading figure of musical culture in immensely. members of the chamber group were paid. Europe and the US who won many This splendid evening also produced a international honours for his recordings. large sum for the charity.

Born in Budapest in October 1912, he One special memory I have of him. I was studied composition and piano at the to have lunch with Valerie. When I Budapest Conservatory, making his arrived at the house, she was out. She had professional debut in 1930 as a répétiteur forgotten our arrangement! However, Sir with the Budapest Opera. Georg was there. He said, ‘I don’t know where she is but if you will wait here while In 1937, Toscanini selected him as his I make a short trip to my dentist, we will assistant at the Salzburg Festival. While have lunch together’. When he returned he was there, because of the developing home, we had an al fresco lunch and then Nazi situation and because he was a Jew, walked in their garden, admiring and his mother sent him a telegram, DON’T On the Rostrum naming the roses. I quickly forgave COME HOME. So he stayed in Valerie! Switzerland as a refugee, turning again to Of the many celebrations of his 80th th the piano for his livelihood, and in 1942 birthday in 1992, two were particularly Georg Solti died on 5 September 1997, th he was awarded first prize in the Concours significant for me. The first was a dinner just before his 85 birthday. Valerie International in Geneva. party held at Buckingham Palace to which found a tiny Hebrew prayer book which had belonged to his father and which Sir Over the years he had many varied and nearly all the immediate members of the Georg had always treasured, and it was rewarding posts with orchestras all over Royal Family came and to which my late from this that Kaddish was recited at his the world. His memoirs – Solti on Solti, husband and I were invited. An impromptu orchestra was formed with funeral. published in 1997 by Chatto & Windus – make fascinating reading.* In 1944 he soloists from every one of the orchestras met Valerie Pitts, a journalist and from around the world who had played television personality and they married in under Solti’s baton. They played without a 1967. They had two daughters and there conductor. Solti knew nothing of the CC

are now four grandchildren. He became a arrangements and was taken totally by surprise. Speaking from the platform after British citizen in 1972 and was knighted for his outstanding contribution to music. the concert, his wife Valerie told him that the evening’s beautiful music had been In 1961 he became musical director of the proof that conductors were totally * This book is in the Reinhart Library Covent Garden Opera Company. During unnecessary! In his book he talks about his ten years there, he raised standards to this wonderful surprise party. 11 5

Th e Arts

Amedeo Modigliani was introduced to the work of Toulouse- Lautrec, and then finally he travelled to (1884-1920) Paris.

He soon found a home in the artists’ quarter, Montparnasse, where he formed a strong friendship with Constantin Brancusi. He also became close to Jacob Epstein and together they aimed to set up a studio, with a shared vision to create a Temple of Beauty to be enjoyed by all, for which Modigliani created drawings and With his friend Picasso paintings of the intended stone caryatids dirty bourgeois’. This work was influenced for ‘The Pillars of Tenderness’ which by his love of the Renaissance, but his style would support the imagined Temple. The soon changed as he came into contact with Temple was never built, but the paintings contemporary artists. of the caryatids are still occasionally Tate Modern will be presenting some of exhibited. One is in the Walsall Art In his youth he had also contracted the most memorable art of the 20th Gallery. tuberculosis and the terrible illness, very century at its comprehensive prevalent in France at the time, retrospective of Modigliani’s work, from reappeared. Unwilling to reveal it to his 23 Nov 2017 - 2 Apr 2018. In friends and colleagues, he is believed to anticipation, here is a brief view of this have adopted the addiction to drink and great Jewish artist’s life and work. drugs to disguise the disease. He became almost a caricature of the Parisian garret Amedeo Modigliani was born in 1884 to a artist, having affairs, using hashish and distinguished Sephardi family in Livorno appearing nearly always drunk. (Leghorn), the same city where Moses Montefiore was born. His mother, Early in his life in Paris, Amedeo began an Eugenia, was from a scholarly French affair with the Russian woman poet who family of intellectual Jews (they claimed also had a studio in his building, Anna to trace their ancestry back to Spinoza). Akhmatova. She influenced much of his Amedeo was the fourth child, whose birth early work, but after a year or two coincided with the disastrous financial together, she eventually returned to her

collapse of his father's business interests. Caryatid in the Walsall Art husband. Amedeo had by now almost Amedeo's birth saved the family from Gallery abandoned the sculptures on which he ruin; according to an ancient law, had been working when he arrived in creditors could not seize the bed of a Paris, and turned to painting, particularly Coming from a somewhat proper pregnant woman or a mother with a new- portraiture. He painted most of the bourgeois background, Amedeo, on born child. The bailiffs entered the distinguished artists and writers with arriving in Paris, appeared neatly dressed family's home just as Eugenia went into whom he had become friends, Picasso, and well behaved. He was a little shocked labour; the family protected their most Soutine and Cocteau among them. by the manners and behaviour of his valuable assets by piling them on top of fellow artists, commenting about Picasso her. that even though the man was a genius, As a child Amedeo suffered from typhoid that did not excuse his uncouth fever and pleurisy and had to leave school appearance. However, he soon acquired early. Always interested in art, he was the relaxed clothing and bohemian able to join the studio of the Italian artist, manners of the workshops. His Guglielmo Micheli, whose work was previously clean and ordered studio mainly landscapes in oil and watercolour, became slovenly and untidy, with his though the young pupil was able to study canvasses piled into heaps and the décor still life, portraiture and the nude. He was going to rack and ruin. He himself drank also interested in reading some of the too much and began taking drugs. Not great philosophers, especially Nietzsche. only did he remove all the trappings of his In 1902 he moved to Florence where his middle class heritage from his studio, but life-long love of the Renaissance took hold he also set about destroying practically all (to influence his later work) and then to of his own early work, which he described Venice, where at the Biennale of 1905 he as ‘childish baubles, done when I was a Jean Cocteau

16

When war broke out in 1914 he tried to its terrible fate on one whose body was illuminates how the artist’s heritage as enlist but was refused on health grounds. in no condition to fight. He died in an Italian Sephardi Jew is pivotal to That same year, the English painter Nina January 1920, after his neighbour found understanding his artistic output. Hamnett came to Paris. Amedeo him delirious in bed with Jeanne who The Museum says the exhibition introduced himself to her at the Café La was expecting her second child any day. ‘considers the celebrated artist shortly Rotonde as ‘Modigliani, painter and The hospital could do nothing for him after he arrived in Paris in 1906, when Jew.’ They remained good friends, but and he died within a few hours. Most of the city was still roiling with anti- the following year he met the young the artistic community of Paris attended Semitism after the long-running tumult woman who was to become his mistress the funeral, but Jeanne, taken back to of the Dreyfus Affair and the influx of for the rest of his life, and whom he her parents’ home, flung herself from the foreign emigrés. Modigliani’s Italian- painted several times, Jeanne window the day after his death, killing Sephardic background helped forge a Hebuterne. herself and her unborn child. Amedeo complex cultural identity that rested in was buried at the Pere Lachaise part on the ability of Italian Jews Cemetery. As far as can be seen Judaism historically to assimilate and embrace played little part in his adult life. He was diversity. The exhibition shows that friendly with other Jewish artists but he Modigliani’s art cannot be fully does not seem to have been religious in understood without acknowledging the any way. ways the artist responded to the social

realities that he confronted in the unprecedented artistic melting pot of Paris. The drawings from the Alexandre collection reveal the emerging artist Jeanne Hebuterne himself, enmeshed in his own particular identity quandary, struggling to discover She was only nineteen when they met, what portraiture might mean in a and was cut off by her family when they modern world of racial complexity.’ realised she was living with a Jew and a drunkard. On December 3, 1917, Among the works featured are a Modigliani's first (and only) one-man mysterious, unfinished portrait of Dr. exhibition opened at the Berthe Weill Alexandre - never seen before in Gallery. The chief of the Paris police was America - impressions of the theatre, life scandalized by Modigliani's nudes and studies and female nudes, among them forced him to close the exhibition within the Russian poet Anna Akhmatova, with a few hours of its opening. He and whom he had had an affair before Jeanne moved to Nice, and in meeting Hebuterne. November 1918 she gave birth to a With his portrait of Jeanne daughter, also called Jeanne. Jeanne, a suicide, was buried elsewhere. Modigliani was modifying and It was not until 1930 that her embittered improving on his art until his paintings, family allowed her body to be moved to especially the portraits, took on the rest beside her husband. A single familiar characteristics by which we tombstone remembers them both. His know him today. The long faces and epitaph reads: ‘Struck down by Death at almond eyes owe much to his love of the moment of glory.’ Hers reads: African art, combined with the Cubist ‘Devoted companion to the extreme overtones which he admired so much sacrifice.’ He died in poverty having when he came to Paris. The nudes given away much of his work to buy follow a similar style, but behind all his meals, but his reputation has grown work is an intensely intellectual greatly since his death. The forthcoming appreciation of mind and body. Critics exhibition at Tate Modern of have found in his work evidence of his Modigliani’s work will be the most life of squalor and dissipation; he extensive ever mounted in this country. Unfinished portrait of Dr. Alexandre certainly refused to bow to the Another exhibition of Modgliani’s works conventions of bourgeois nude painting, has opened in New York at the Jewish neither flattering his sitters nor taking Museum. It features some of his early commissions from wealthy clients. works acquired by his close friend and

Amedeo’s sad life ended as might have first patron, Dr. Paul Alexandre. been expected. The tuberculosis worked Entitled Modigliani Unmasked, it PB 17

Community

Newcastle, in New South Wales, I won a Gervase de Peyer, with whom I recorded Jobs People Do scholarship to study at the NSW and performed worldwide for over forty Gwenneth (Stone) Conservatorium of Music. My musical years. world had opened up! Following a recital I gave in 1968, I was Pryor My first experience of public performance introduced to one member of the Concert Pianist was taking part in a students’ concert held audience, Roger Stone, who was to in the large Newcastle City Hall. I become my future husband. A keen

remember being captivated by the bright pianist himself, he soon became my lights shining on the keyboard of the large manager and all through his life he guided grand piano. The mixture of thrill, nerves and encouraged me through my career. I and excitement on that occasion made a owe much of my success to his energy and deep and lasting impression. enthusiasm - and it was he who introduced me to Westminster Soon after this I was selected to study Synagogue! My work became a with Raymond Fischer, a dedicated and combination of solo recitals, concerto fine pianist and teacher who gave me performances, chamber music playing enormous encouragement and support and teaching. Eventually it included with exciting and stimulating lessons. He bringing up our two children and running continued to be my coach and mentor a busy home. here in the UK for many years and most of you reading this column will know him I have wonderful memories of playing in as an organist of our Synagogue. so many venues such as the Royal Festival Hall, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Wigmore After school I became a full-time music Hall, Lincoln Centre (New York) and the student at the Conservatorium and loved I vividly remember surprising myself as a Sydney Opera House. my years there, performing and teenager at school in Australia when studying. In 1961, the last year of my Being a concert pianist is not a career to asked by the Careers’ Adviser what job I course, I won an overseas travelling choose: rather it chooses you! It is a would like to pursue after school. ‘I want scholarship which was for two years’ difficult career, highly competitive and to be a concert pianist’ I said. I had never study at the Royal College of Music in involves constant practising, much of it really given this any serious thought, but London. (Two years living here has now alone for long hours. Dedication, there it was, so certain! stretched to five decades!) This brought discipline, good health and stamina are all

Until then, I had not had any experience experiences in several international piano needed. Music is a career you feel of the world of professional music competitions and many new and exciting compelled to follow and I am privileged to making. My parents, however, loved opportunities to perform. have had this ‘job’ which I have so loved music and my father played the piano for and which has been so fulfilling. pleasure. They used to tell me how, at the Being a concert pianist age of three, I would climb on to the piano stool at home and begin playing little is not a career to tunes by ear. I recall playing the piano at choose: rather it kindergarten for the children to sing and dance and performing ‘My First Sonata’ chooses you! by the Australian composer Alfred Hill at the age of six with my violinist brother, On winning the Hopkinson gold medal at aged nine. graduation, I was invited to play Mendelssohn’s double piano concerto in It was at this time that I started formal Vienna’s beautiful Musikverein. The piano lessons. We were living in the new College then sponsored my London debut capital, Canberra, in the 1940s where at the Wigmore Hall in 1965. I went on there was at the time only one piano to play in solo and chamber music recitals teacher! She was so strict, I was terrified and as soloist with orchestras. As a of her! Nevertheless, I kept playing as I chamber music player, I enjoyed a long had always done (rather ignoring the and rewarding musical partnership with ‘hammer’ exercises she gave me to the violinist, Carlos Villa, with whom I practise) and the piano continued to be travelled widely in Europe and South

my beloved ‘friend’. After a couple of America and made several years, I changed teachers and at the age of recordings. Later I formed a valuable Record sleeve for a 1987 LP thirteen, when my family moved to partnership with the eminent clarinettist,

18 Poetry Page

IN TRANSIT

Time my homeland, that of life Is intangible and real Constant and transient Exists through my awareness of its reality

Is real through the reality of its existence.

‘Here and Now’ Time’s mysterious conveyor belt

Connected and free

Pivotal, actual and transient

Bridging the hours through its perceived constancy

Carries me from start to finish As I transit the space of my life Progressing unaware of moving

It will leave me as and where we started co-existing

Helpless with no say in the matter

It will desert me where Time and life part Helpless with no say in the matter Homeless, with no hope of progressing Bereft of Time here and now And I wonder the reason for Time interlude

Time/Life, energy parting Eternity

CL

19

The Chairman of Westminster Synagogue invites you to participate in a series of events to celebrate our 60th Anniversary by honouring our past as well as celebrating our future. Our programme will also ensure that the community has the opportunity to welcome Rabbi Benji and to thank Rabbi Thomas.

Diarise Thursday,10th May 2018 when we will host an event to thank Rabbi Thomas for his twenty years of dedicated service to our community.

Send us a photo of your simcha and/or kippah if you had a Wedding, Bar/Bat Mitzvah or your Marriage or Baby blessed at Westminster Synagogue during our 60 years.

Time to embark on that great bucket list challenge or that little resolution you keep postponing. Add a fun and charitable dimension to your personal or sporting challenge by fundraising for the synagogue. Your participation will increase the health of our community as well as our coffers! Keep an eye out for our JustGiving page with details on how to donate.

Publication of our long promised Synagogue recipe book is planned to celebrate our anniversary but only if you submit your favourite recipes! Be it a recipe that has been in your family for 60 years, one that you’ve made at least 60 times or one that takes 60 minutes to prepare - or even to eat!

Sunday, 8th October 2017 marks the return of our Supper Quiz. Festivals such as Chanukah, Seder and our Purim spiel will be given a 60th celebratory twist, as well as other events, which will be publicised as the year progresses.

Make our year a success by taking part in the ways outlined above

For more information about the 60th Anniversary Year or to submit an item for any of the above initiatives, contact 60@ westminstersynagogue.org

20

Jewish History

One reason for Gershom’s constant travels In 1929 a British publisher, Jacob The Soncino Press lay in the contemporary political anti- Davidson, revived the Soncino Press in

Jewish situation, and by competition in London, promising to continue the high the printing industry. He set up his standard of printing established by the printing shop successively in Soncino, original Soncinos. There was also a group Casamaggiore, Brescia, Barco, Fano, of German scholars, including Albert Pesaro, Ortona, Rimini, and Cesena in Einstein, who set up in the nineteen Italy; then in Salonica and Constantinople twenties the Soncino Gesellschaft der in Turkey, where he died in 1534. A Freunde des Jὓdischen Bὓcher, but this devout Jew, Gershom sometimes had to was shut down by the Nazis in 1937. The print texts glorifying Christianity and modern Soncino Press publishes Jewish flouting the Jews and their religion. books and Hebrew texts accepted by most Sometimes he would take out portions of religious factions. The texts are based on Jewish works which he knew the church traditional Jewish sources and have been would find objectionable, later reinstating edited by several distinguished scholars, them as if to challenge his Christian including Rabbi Joseph Hertz and Rabbi The first book to be printed by means of readers. Martin Luther is believed to have Abraham Cohen. metal moveable type was Johannes used Gershom's Hebrew Bible -- printed The Soncino Books of the Bible is a set of Gutenberg’s 42-line Bible which appeared in Brescia in 1494 -- for his German Hebrew Bible commentaries, covering the in 1456. Only a few years later an Italian translation of the Bible. whole Tanakh in fourteen volumes. The Ashkenazi family living in Soncino in In all, Gershom Soncino printed more first volume to appear was The Book of Northern Italy published the first Hebrew than one hundred Hebrew books and an Psalms in 1945, and the last was book, an edition of the Talmud tractate equal number in Latin and Italian. His Chronicles in 1952. Each volume contains Berakot. They called their undertaking production was not only prodigious but the Hebrew and English texts of the Old The Soncino Press. also superb in quality. Among his books Testament in parallel columns, with a The Soncino family, pioneers of early was the first Hebrew Bible to appear with running commentary below them. The printing, were meticulous about their vowels in printed form. Hebrew text in Psalms is that of C. D. work, insisting not only on the fine clear Ginsburg's earlier (1894) edition. This led Gershom left a son, Eleazar, living in black lettering, but the translations and to protests, since Ginsburg had converted Turkey, who continued the business, versions of the Biblical text they used. to Christianity, so subsequent volumes bringing to the Ottoman Empire the They specialised in Jewish literature, the used a copy of Meir Letteris' second tradition of fine printing and Hebrew Bible and the Talmud, though some other (1866) edition of the Hebrew text. Both books. A period of Jewish repression religious works were printed. The press Hebrew texts are scrupulous versions of forced the Soncino presses to close, was started by Israel Soncino, a physician, the Masoretic Text, so the differences although some members of the family are together with his son Joshua, who lived in between them are small. The English known to have been printing occasional Naples, and they were succeeded by translation is the Jewish Publication volumes throughout the sixteenth century. perhaps the leading member of the family Society of America version of 1917. This is Gershom Soncino, son of Joshua’s a remarkable work of scholarship and fine brother, Israel. Gershom was a great printing, used by Jews all over the world, traveller – in fact he made a pun of his in spite of its now somewhat old fashioned name, spelling it Ger Sham, meaning a wording. ‘stranger there’. He went to France to The Soncino Press has continued to collect manuscripts for printing, and was produce Jewish works in handsome instrumental in helping Portuguese and editions. In 1961 it announced the Spanish Jews to escape from persecution. publication of an eighteen volume edition His printed edition of Petrarch is of the English translation of the dedicated to Cesare Borgia and he Babylonian Talmud. Its tradition of introduced it by referring to the Latin, Jewish printing is continued today with Greek and Hebrew type cut by Francesco the same attention to quality that the early da Bologna, the type cutter for the great printers in the village of Soncino brought medieval printer Aldus. He chose as the to their work more than six hundred years logo for the Press the tower which still ago. appears today on books printed by the modern Soncino Press, and also introduced the use of an initial letter to PB indicate the beginning of a text, as well as A page of the first book printed by folio markings, which signalled the correct Gershom Soncino, in the rare book order of the text for the page binder. division of the Jefferson Library 21

Editorial

Sixty years ago, a handful of us bravely tackled the task of setting up a new congregation and now we are a thriving and ever-expanding community in which those of us who remember the early days take enormous pride. Probably the last link to our founding Rabbi Dr Harold Reinhart has just died at the age of 104. Marian Berkett was a brilliant New Orleans lawyer who retained her sharp mentality to the very end. Her father was the president of the Baton Rouge Synagogue where Rabbi Reinhart took up his first post. Mrs Flora Reinhart made Purim costumes for the young Marian and her sister Rhea! We have been so very fortunate in Rabbi Reinhart’s two successors – each one bringing his own special qualities to the office. Now we look forward to welcoming Rabbi Benji and we wish him a long, happy and successful tenure. At the same time, we wish Rabbi Thomas a well-deserved holiday and anticipate with pleasure his return in his new status as Rabbi Emeritus.

From EG

In the wonderful Quarterly there are many articles of interest!

Perhaps a year ago there was the article on Jewish lawyers. Given that it was my dear mother’s Yahrzeit recently, it seems appropriate to recall her father, Leopold Hyman Woolfe - sadly I knew neither of my grandfathers - who in 1925 was ‘Senior Partner in the firm of Woolfe and Woolfe of London and partner in the firm of Wainwright, Woolfe and Browne of Great Grimsby’. The captioned photograph I have of him, which unfortunately is tightly framed and does not scan, also notes that ‘He is Hon Solicitor to the League of Arts (which no longer exists). Mr Woolfe’s recreations are golf and fishing’. Much research to do there!

More recently there was the article on J Lyons & Co. I wonder if I am the only member of the Synagogue to have worked for them? It was in 1971 just after I had left school. Fired up by the works of George Orwell, and fresh from the study of industrial relations as part of my Economics course, I wanted to experience repetitive work in a factory environment. Cadby Hall in Hammersmith (just) was close to home so I worked there as a porter for three months and joined the National Union of Bakers. My main job was to unload unsold returned bread from delivery vans onto the lorry for the pig farm - certainly repetitive.

And in the latest edition, the article on the Jews of Kaifeng. Have you come across a novel called The Bondmaid by Pearl S Buck? It deals with the dying out of the Jews of Kaifeng. I was lent it many years ago by a lady who worked with me. Not so long ago I tracked down a second hand copy to re-read – but almost needless to say it has sat on my shelf in the pile of books intended to be read.

From GT

Your article about the Essenes was very interesting, and the fact they were forbidden to use the latrine on the Sabbath (the mind boggles!) reminded me of my first visit to Jerusalem several years ago. As the coach drew up, revealing signs which indicated the Western Wall, the courier indicated where the toilets were, warning us that the ultra orthodox who also used it, were forbidden to flush on the Sabbath!!

22

Community Matters

Another very effective initiative is our Aleph-Bet in eleven short video tutorials. Education partnership with PJ Library. Our families The method is excellent for visual sign up with PJ, who each month send a learners, teaching the letters as by Jewish-themed bedtime story book (or pictograms, and we have had many Nick occasionally a CD) to children aged from youngsters - mainly B’nei Mitzvah six months to eight years old. A recent students as well as some adults - who, Young survey of families commissioned by the over the course of a summer or within a

Head of organisation reported that 94% of short period, have learned to read Education families discuss Jewish concepts or Hebrew competently. If you are values from the books and 96% said PJ interested, please head to the website and Library has added value to how their take a trial lesson and if you would like to One of the most critical challenges for a family thinks about or practises Judaism. purchase a three-month licence for £20, let us know and we can make the children’s Jewish educational We know from our own feedback that programme such as ours is the arrangements. families in the Westminster Synagogue connection between the Synagogue and community recognise that same positive Finally, for B’nei Mitvah students, in the home. Of course we focus much of impact. If you, or somebody you know, January 2016 we launched our BM our efforts on what we do in Synagogue; would benefit from this ground-breaking handbook. This booklet serves as a guide teaching Jewish knowledge and skills, scheme, then please sign them up at for our Bar and Bat Mitzvah students in integration with the community, www.pj libr ar y.or g.u k or pass on to the months leading up to their providing formative and memorable them ceremonies, with tasks and activities that Jewish experiences to develop Jewish that website address. enrich their journey towards Jewish identity and ‘enculturate’ etc. However, Now, for something slightly more formal: adulthood. Counting down from the we know that the family is the most the subject of homework. Some parents twelve-month point, the students have essential educator that children may have over the years have asked us to provide one exercise each month relating to their and that our Jewish education is most follow-up activities that they can do with Jewish identity, and another that helps successful when it supplements what is their children at home in order to them to become familiar with our provided by families at home. To this support what their child learns at Or Services and the role that they and other end, we have developed a number of Shabbat. For that reason, and also to family members will play on their big initiatives in order to ‘bridge the gap’ keep families up to date with our events day. Many of the tasks involve other between synagogue and home, and to and happenings, I send out a weekly members of the family, such as assist parents as they support their e-letter containing the week’s study conversations with grandparents about children’s Jewish identity. Jewish life when they were young, or topics, and also providing a section with Our cutest, and probably the most links to websites and educational with parents about what it actually important enterprise of all, is that of our resources which are connected to those means to them that their child is now Shabbat Bears. We have two small teddy topics. So, for example, when studying about to become a Jewish adult. Other bears - each wearing kippah and tallit, the festivals, I provide links to pages that tasks include watching Jewish films, who come as part of a Shabbat back-pack offer information about the festivals, reading Jewish-inspired stories, and a containing a kiddush kit with relevant prayers, stories, links to tzedakah project. It is our hope that candlesticks, candles, a silver grape juice YouTube videos, recipes and craft ideas. these activities provide added value and cup, a mini-siddur with the Shabbat For younger students there may be links resonance for the student and for their prayers and a CD of Shabbat music. to colouring sheets, and for our older families as they come of age Jewishly. Every week during term-time, our bears students and parents there may be The handbook can also be accessed go home with one of our Or Shabbat recommended articles around these online, for anybody who is interested: families who make a special effort to themes or based on the weekly Torah h tt p://westmin stersynag ogue. or g/ celebrate Shabbat with their furry guest portion. The e-letter usually reaches content/b nei -mitzvah -countd own . of honour! The backpack also contains a inboxes on a Tuesday. Please let me know These are just some of the ways in which notebook which is by now full of diary if you are not receiving it but would like we are trying to provide our families with entries written by our children, as well as to do so. the tools to support their children’s photographs of our bears assisting with What about Hebrew learning? We can Jewish education. If you have any the blessings or enjoying Friday night recommend a textbook, Zman Likro, that questions about these initiatives, or dinner. Our Shabbat Bears are returned can be worked through at home and is suggestions for others, I am always to the Synagogue each week, and if your suitable for children and adults. If you happy to hear from you at children or grandchildren are interested nick@ westmin stersynag ogue . or g . want to learn to read Hebrew in a hurry in taking one of our bears home for one however, we recommend Shabbat, please let me know and we’d be h tt p://r osenwa sser.c o.uk . This delighted to assist. website, set up by Ofra Rosenwasser, teaches the 23

Planning Your Diary Contacting the Synagogue

RABBI Rabbi Dr. Thomas [email protected] Salamon T: 020 7052 9712

Erev Sukkot CHAIRMAN OF THE Jeffrey Ohrenstein [email protected] EXECUTIVE Wednesday 4th October EDUCATION Nick Young [email protected] T:020 7052 9714

Sukkot EVENTS & Jon Zecharia [email protected] COMMUNICATIONS T: 020 7052 9711 th Thursday 5 October MANAGER

MITZVOT & Hilary Ashleigh [email protected] Erev Simchat Torah KIDDUSHIM T: 020 7052 9717

Wednesday 11th October MEMBERSHIP David Connick [email protected]

Simchat Torah LIFECYCLE Melissa Hamilton [email protected] ENQUIRIES

Thursday 12th October

GENERAL Caitlin Potter [email protected] ENQUIRIES T: 020 7584 3953/020 7052 9710 Chanukah 1st night

th Tuesday 12 December ROOM HIRE Gary Sakol [email protected] Executive Director T: 020 7052 9713

th Chanukah 8 night Jeffrey Ohrenstein [email protected] Tuesday 19th December CZECH SCROLLS MUSEUM T: 020 7584 3741

EMERGENCIES Monday to Friday: in the first instance, please call the Synagogue Office: 020 7052 9710

Evenings & weekends: please e-mail Rabbi Dr. Thomas Salamon [email protected]

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

WESTMINSTER SYNAGOGUE Kent House Rutland Gardens London SW7 1BX

Planning Your Diary Contacting the Synagogue

RABBI Rabbi Dr. Thomas [email protected] Salamon T: 020 7052 9712

Erev Sukkot CHAIRMAN OF THE Jeffrey Ohrenstein [email protected] EXECUTIVE Wednesday 4th October EDUCATION Nick Young [email protected] T:020 7052 9714

Sukkot EVENTS & Jon Zecharia [email protected] COMMUNICATIONS T: 020 7052 9711 th Thursday 5 October MANAGER

MITZVOT & Hilary Ashleigh [email protected] Erev Simchat Torah KIDDUSHIM T: 020 7052 9717

Wednesday 11th October MEMBERSHIP David Connick [email protected]

Simchat Torah LIFECYCLE Melissa Hamilton [email protected] ENQUIRIES

Thursday 12th October

GENERAL Caitlin Potter [email protected] ENQUIRIES T: 020 7584 3953/020 7052 9710 Chanukah 1st night

th Tuesday 12 December ROOM HIRE Gary Sakol [email protected] Executive Director T: 020 7052 9713

th Chanukah 8 night

Jeffrey Ohrenstein [email protected] th CZECH SCROLLS Tuesday 19 December T: 020 7584 3741 MUSEUM

EMERGENCIES Monday to Friday: in the first instance, please call the Synagogue Office: 020 7052 9710

Evenings & weekends: please e-mail Rabbi Dr. Thomas Salamon [email protected]

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

WESTMINSTER SYNAGOGUE Kent House Rutland Gardens London SW7 1BX