ESTMINSTER UARTERLY Volume XII No.1 January 2021

A Jewish society wedding c.1892

Anglo-Jewish High Society The and the Holocaust The Children Smuggler ‘The Little Doctor’

From the Rabbi

‘Woe is me, perhaps because I have have identified; they suggest that, as the sinned, the world around me is being Festival itself marks increased darkness,

darkened and returning to its state of let the candles reflect this reality too.

chaos and confusion; this then is the Remove one each day, starting with the kind of death to which I have been eighth. The view of the School of Hillel sentenced from Heaven!’ So he began may also acknowledge that the world is

keeping an eight-day fast. getting darker, but the ritual response is

the opposite. When the world gets darker But as he observed the winter solstice we bring more light. and noted the day getting increasingly longer, he said, ‘This is the world’s So let us pay respect to both views. course’, and he set forth to keep an eight- Together we have the strength in our day festival. community to acknowledge the darkness in the world, and also to bring more light. (Adapted from the Babylonian Talmud, Many of us in the last year have stepped tractate Avodah Zara, page 8a.) up to contact and care for other members of our community, and we have benefited Together we have the from the resulting conversations and How do we respond to increased relations. We have found new creativity darkness? In ’s short story, strength in our to ensure our togetherness, building Before the Law, a man spends his whole community to special High Holy Days. We have seen life waiting. His eyesight begins to fail, our learning for all ages, and, in many and he doesn’t know ‘whether the world acknowledge the ways, our community goes from strength is really darker or whether his eyes are darkness in the world to strength, finding connection, song, only deceiving him’. support, inspiration and motivation. Kafka’s protagonist does not know The story conveys a world in which we In this etiology of Chanukah, with its ‘whether the world is really darker or live with uncertainty, fear and loneliness, charming psychological and natural whether his eyes are only deceiving him’. with ageing and death, in which we don’t resonances, the Festival is an We are brave enough together to see the know if we are holding ourselves back or acknowledgement of the darkness darkness, and to bring light. being held back, whether the world is around us. The human in the story has a really darker or our eyes are only vital insight that he, and we, might have deceiving us. Some of us may have felt missed; after fasting to reverse the increased darkness recently, in our darkness that brings such fear, the world altered, narrower reality, in a heightened gets lighter, and the human might have awareness of the chaos and injustice attributed this to his action, but instead around us, and in the sadness that can he has learnt, ‘this is the world’s course’. come with this time of year. Chanukah In the darkness, the whole world revolves Rabbi Benji Stanley that we so joyfully celebrated last month entirely and frighteningly around him in can guide us in how to respond to his head, but he moves from fear to a increased darkness. broader perspective. We see in this story the need to acknowledge darkness and to The Festival falls in the darkest time of the year. With each day the world gets assimilate it into a more mature darker, for unlike most festivals that fall awareness of the world around us. in the middle of the Hebrew month, As a Festival that marks increased Chanukah begins towards the end of darkness, a famous disagreement about

Kislev, so the moon is also at its thinnest. how to light your candles, takes on more While explanations of Chanukah light. In the Talmud, 21b:- normally focus on the victory of a small group of Maccabean fighters over a larger ‘The School of Shammai maintains: on the first day eight lights are lit and Hellenizing force - or the miracle of a small amount of oil lasting for eight days thereafter they are gradually reduced; - there is another story to be found about but the School of Hillel says: on the first day one is lit and thereafter they are Chanukah in the Talmud:- progressively increased…’ Our Rabbis taught: When Adam HaRishon (the first human, Adam) saw The view of the school of Shammai in fact the day getting gradually shorter, he said, reflects an aspect of the Festival that we

3

Around the World border, and thence to safety. As will be children to stay alive during an escape. The Child Smuggler: obvious, travelling with large groups of Thanks to art lessons in , Marcel children was anything but easy. But had another useful talent - as a forger. He Marceau had a secret weapon - his began by altering his passport, giving (1923-2007) training as a mime. himself a less obviously Jewish name. His Marcel was born in , in initials did not change, but Mangel

1923. His father, Charles Mangel, was a became Marceau (chosen as a patriotic kosher butcher originally from Będzin, gesture, because one of Napoleon’s most Poland. His mother, Anne Werzberg, celebrated generals was a Marceau). With

came from Yabluniv, in present-day just ink and crayons, he began doctoring Ukraine. When the boy was four years old, identification papers for dozens of young the family moved to and, after . As German youths were

France's invasion by , they drafted into Hitler’s armies in their fled to Limoges. Marcel was then sixteen. hundreds of thousands, German factories were short of labour, and the Reichstag Since his mother had taken him to the issued orders to commandeer boys and cinema aged five, Marcel had been girls in their late teens from the occupied fascinated by . The silent countries. comedian, beloved around the world as ‘the Little Tramp’ in a shabby bowler hat Marceau altered the birth dates on official

and tail-coat, made the boy cry with documents to make teenagers seem even laughter. After Hitler rose to power, younger than they were. Instead of being Marcel would entertain his friends with a shipped off to be slave labourers on

‘Bip the ’ routine, imitating Chaplin as the Führer, armaments production lines in Germany, complete with stick-on moustache and the youngsters could remain in France - penguin walk. His hero worship grew into often to join the Resistance. As the years pass, more and more an obsession with the and, by his discoveries of heroic acts, performed in The also posed as a Boy Scout leader teens, he was determined to be an actor – the 1940s, are gradually being revealed. to trick the authorities. He went disguised although his father wanted him to take The Westminster Quarterly is taking as a Scout leader and took twenty-four over the butcher’s shop. pleasure in recounting some of them and Jewish children, also in Scout uniforms, here is yet another amazing story which Marcel’s cousin , a soldier through the forests to the border, where tells how a brilliant actor used his skills to with the French army, had been captured someone else was waiting to take them rescue children from under the noses of and sent to a German prisoner-of-war into Switzerland. the Nazis. Everyone knows the late camp from which he escaped and made Once, when he unexpectedly ran into a brilliant , a most famous his way back to France, where he tracked group of German soldiers towards the end for his stage persona, ‘Bip the Clown’. He down the Mangel family. Marcel had to of the war, he pretended he was a member referred to mime as ‘the art of silence’ and join the Resistance, he said - but the of the French Army and called for (non- he performed professionally worldwide for teenager was too young to join a guerrilla existent) back-up. The Germans fled! over sixty years - but how many know of brigade. Instead, he had different skills his daring and courage during the Second that made him invaluable to the Free World war? French Forces. Loinger knew how Marcel

could help him. At an orphanage in the Marceau Marceau was recruited to help Parisian suburb of Sèvres, ninety Jewish the by a cousin, who children were being cared for in secret. was a commander in the secret unit, OSE They could not go out, or even play (Oeuvre de Secours aux Enfants), a noisily, for fear of being discovered. The Jewish relief group that smuggled Jewish OSE hoped to spirit them out of France to children from occupied France to neutral safety, but until then Marcel could countries. The group was part of the entertain them. French Jewish Resistance in France, (Organisation Juive de Combat - OJC, The budding actor did more than that. aka Armée Juive). The OJC, which was Using his gift for communication without composed of nine clandestine Jewish words, he began training the orphans in networks, rescued thousands of children the art of staying silent - moving without and adults during the Holocaust in noise, speaking in sign language. His France. Their mission was to evacuate the lessons quickly formed part of the OSE children who had been hiding in a French curriculum of physical education and Marceau in 2004 orphanage and get them to the Swiss survival skills - all aimed at helping the

4 Marceau’s exploits were just a few of the Dramatic Art in the daring, and creative, feats pulled off by Theatre in , where he studied with A Lockdown Poem the French Resistance. The OCE was teachers such as Joshua Smith, Étienne particularly ingenious; for example, while Decroux and Jean-Louis Barrault. We received this from Valery Rees smuggling children over the border, one whose daughter, Susannah Cogger, Later, he established his own Resistance fighter realized that the Nazis sent it to her. school in Paris - one of my cousins never searched sandwiches that had studied with him - and subsequently set mayonnaise on them, since the grease up the Marceau Foundation to promote might dirty their uniforms. As a result, DON’T KNOW WHICH the art. Among his various awards and they hid children’s ID cards in honours he was made Grand Officier de YOM TOV IT IS mayonnaise-smeared sandwiches! la Légion d'Honneur and was awarded But by 1943, as the tide turned against the the National Order of Merit in France. He Germans and Hitler intensified his plans won an Emmy Award for his work on We’re walking around in for the mass murder of across television, was elected a member of the slippers Europe, it became too dangerous for the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin and was like it’s Tisha B’Av OSE’s orphaned children to remain in declared a ‘National Treasure’ in Japan.

France. Jewish families were being But for thousands of people, Marceau's rounded up and thrown into detention greatest performance was in using his We’re wearing masks camps. uncanny skills to save scores of Jewish like it’s Purim children from the Nazis. More than 75,000, about a quarter of the total Jewish population in France, were Marceau died in a retirement home in We’re trembling deported to concentration camps in the , France, in 2007 at the age of like it’s Rosh Hashana East - including more than 10,000 eighty four. At his burial ceremony, the children. Barely three per cent survived to second movement of Mozart's Piano the end of the war. In 1944 Marcel's Concerto No. 21 (which Marceau long We’re hungry father was captured by the Gestapo and used as an accompaniment for an elegant like it’s Yom Kippur deported to the Auschwitz concentration mime routine) was played, as was the camp, where he was killed. Marcel's Sarabande from Bach's Cello Suite No. 5. mother survived. He is buried at the Père Lachaise We’re only allowed to eat Cemetery in Paris. Marcel and his younger brother, Alain, outside joined the French Resistance in Limoges. like it’s Sukkot and, after the , enlisted in the French army. Owing to Marceau's fluency in English, French, and German, Claire Connick We’re sitting by the window he worked as a liaison officer with General like it’s Hanukkah George Patton's Third Army. As an author, Marceau published two We’re eating fruits books for children, the Marcel Marceau like it’s Tu B’Shvat Alphabet Book and the Marcel Marceau Counting Book, and poetry and illustrations, including La ballade de Everyone is walking around Paris et du Monde (The Ballad of Paris with cleaning wipes and of the World), an art book which he like it’s Pesach wrote in 1966, and The Story of Bip, written and illustrated by Marceau and published by Harper and Row. In 1974, he We’re eating meals with our posed for artist Kenneth Hari and worked families and sleeping until on paintings and drawings that resulted in noon a book, and the art work appeared in like it’s Shabbat many museum collections. In 1982, Le Troisième Œil, (The Third Eye), his collection of ten original lithographs, was So what holiday is this? published in Paris with an accompanying ‘Cause I’m ready to make text by Marceau. Havdalah now! After the war ended in 1945, he enrolled as a student in 's School of

5 Anglo-Jewish History High Society Those Jews who moved in the highest Synagogue in London declared that those financial circles in London were often in receipt of the synagogue’s charities

in Anglo-Jewry related, forming what Chaim Bermant would have sixpence deducted from their called The Cousinhood, in his book of that allowance if they were absent from title. Many of these were Ashkenazim - services.

Rothschilds, Cohens and Goldsmids, for Another cause for complaint, voiced example - but gradually they were frequently by the Rabbis, was the becoming absorbed into the earlier behaviour of some wealthy Jews engaged families who had come over at the time of in financial affairs, who left the synagogue the Readmission, including the after the service to rush to the Exchange, , , da Costas or or to London’s many coffee houses, to Mendes. When the Sephardi Moses check on their investments. The wealth of wished to marry Judith, the these prosperous Jews was in itself a cause daughter of the Ashkenazi Levy Barent for concern for many conservative Cohen, the at first Englishmen. They were nervous that it forbade the marriage taking place there, might disturb the equilibrium of the state, but in view of Moses’ active participation Moses Montefiore as as well as that of the Church. How easy and generous contributions, the ceremony a young man would it be, they felt, for landed estates to was finally permitted. be bought up together with the right to By the time the first Georgian monarch These prosperous Jews were joined in the sway elections, to influence justice and to was on the throne of England, some fifty early years of the nineteenth century by the change the English way of life. Abraham years after the Readmission, the Jewish Sassoons, who were already wealthy, and Benjamin Goldsmid were lending community was already split, divided by owning land and property in the Middle money to the Government, adding to the religious affiliation – Sephardi and East and India. The leading members of nervousness about Jewish wealth, and by Ashkenazi – by wealth, often but not these successful families set up financial the time the Rothschilds’ extraordinary always along the same lines, and by social institutions, went into banking, or the power became a feature of British financial advancement. It is often assumed that it diamond business and were soon among circles, many influential leaders were very was the Spanish/Portuguese element the leading industrialists of their time, worried indeed. Their feelings were not among them who were the wealthy ones, lending money to foreign governments (as allayed by the anti-Semitic writings of but this was not always the case. Only well as the British), to royalty, the William Cobbett, who wrote, ‘I dislike twelve Jewish stockbrokers were permitted aristocracy and even the Church. them as people that never work, and a on the Royal Exchange, but these included form of wretches who live by the trick … The religious attitudes of most of these Ashkenazi names as well as Sephardi. their whole lives are spent in getting at wealthy Jewish families still retained their However, the members of Bevis Marks money somehow or other.’ close affiliation with their synagogues and considered themselves somewhat superior their traditions. They kept kosher homes, - in manners, education and general walked to synagogue on Shabbat and, in ‘Englishness’ - to their brethren from the main, married within the faith. Sir Eastern Europe or Germany. The Moses Montefiore and his wife walked population of the Jewish community in from their palatial home in Piccadilly to England was then roughly one third Bevis Marks -a distance of about eight Ashkenazi to two-thirds Sephardi. miles - every Saturday and back again after The majority of in the Service. Hannah Rothschild, though

Hanoverian England were very wealthy married to a non-Jew (Lord Rosebery, indeed, though the Synagogue at Bevis later Prime Minister) continued to Marks had an active system in place to care maintain all the traditions of a Jewish for their less fortunate members. At the home, and insisted that she be buried as a top of the social pyramid were the Jew. Her engagement brought forth stockbrokers, merchant bankers and what considerable disapproval. The Jewish we might today call captains of industry. Chronicle wrote, ‘A sad example has been Hannah, Lady Rosebery (née Before the middle of the nineteenth set, which, we pray God, may not be Rothschild) century, Jews could not be called to the productive of dreadful consequences.’ Bar or attend university, so few were of the Attendance at synagogue was required in professional class, except for the doctors. As time went on, those Jewish families most families, though the numbers The medical profession had long been who had achieved a high degree of wealth, declined considerably with time. Some attractive to Jews, though not many usually second or even third generation synagogues had to hire men to make up a attained a very lucrative position. immigrants, were anxious to take their minyan, and the Ashkenazi Hambro

6 place in the upper levels of society within Chotzner opened the first house for six drank fine wines, cut off for a large part of the English aristocracy. The first essential Jewish boys, where they could receive not their lives from their Jewish neighbours. was to find a house where they could feel only the general education for which the Some rich Jews became involved in comfortable, could entertain their new- school was famous, but also further racehorse ownership, but with the found friends as well as their own schooling in Jewish studies and a kosher exception of the they extended family, and where their children home. However, this unusual event was were excluded from Jockey Club could grow up to be educated, socially preceded in 1878 by the Jewish House at membership. aware young people - a life often denied to Clifton College, later to become Polack’s their parents. It was the country estates House (see Westminster Quarterly, April Gradually the attention to Jewish of the English upper classes that most 2020). tradition which had obtained in the early attracted them. Those who made their years of the eighteenth century began to On the whole the Jewish elite of England money in the City - and this was the lapse. As time went on more Jewish in Georgian times did not pay much majority - needed to be within reach of children married out of the faith, fewer attention to secular learning as such. their offices, so the ideal answer was to families attended Sabbath services Their ideas for the education of their sons find a fine home within a short distance of regularly and by the time the leaders of were more related to the boys’ future, so town. Isleworth and other small towns the Reform Movement opened their own what they felt was important was a along the Thames were among the first synagogue near Marble Arch, much had knowledge of the counting-house, or choices. Twickenham, Teddington and changed. Most of the leaders of the new perhaps practical engineering. It was not Richmond were popular, as were the West London Synagogue of until Sir Isaac Lyon Goldsmid took a hand rolling hills of the Chilterns where the were wealthy, well-established Ashkenazi in the establishment of University College Rothschilds set up a network of mansions and Sephardi Jews, as the name of the in London that Jews could obtain a full easily linked by carriage or even by congregation stressed. further education. The older universities signalling (they used carrier pigeons to were closed to them. The ultimate achievement in social convey the result of the Battle of climbing was of course friendship with Waterloo). The Goldsmids preferred the The aspirations of the Jewish elite were to royalty. Edward VII met the Rothschilds south-west suburbs: Roehampton, be as much like English gentlemen as they while up at Cambridge, and the Sassoons Morden or Merton. could. Their dress and their behaviour when he went to India. He seemed to followed the latest fashions, as did that of The interiors of these homes were superb, enjoy the company of Jewish people. their wives and daughters. Women with fine collections of pictures, porcelain Another friend was Sir Ernest Cassel, a seldom wore a wig, and the men were and other beautiful furnishings. fabulously wealthy Prussian-born Jew, mostly clean-shaven, or if they wore Extensive grounds surrounded them, and who was prepared to lend Edward large beards these were in the latest style, a large staff of servants tended to their sums of money. It was rumoured that the though when the chazan of the New owners’ needs. The collecting activities of friendship was so close that Windsor Synagogue appeared without his beard he the property owners were much in Castle was referred to as Windsor Cassel! was severely reprimanded. Complaints evidence; Walter Rothschild’s natural were also made about low-cut dresses, However friendly members of the Jewish history museum in Tring, the collection of and the Victorian crinolines which caused community may have been with the royal rhododendrons and azaleas at Exbury considerable shortage of space when the family, it was not until later in the Gardens, the sculptures, tapestries and synagogue was crowded. twentieth century that they were accepted paintings at Waddesdon Manor, all served into society for themselves and not for to show not only the wealth of the owners, Dinner parties, balls and soirées were part their money. They were achieving success but their taste and discrimination. of the Jewish social calendar, as were in other fields, , sport, literature outings to the theatre, taking the waters Another most important feature in the life and although the Fascist movement found or bathing in the sea. The gentlemen of the Jewish upper classes, was supporters in some non-Jewish members played cards, attended the races and education, as it has always been for of the upper classes, the majority were Jewish people. Few Jews attended appalled by what was happening in English public schools until the middle of Germany and the rest of Europe, as well the nineteenth century. Those who did as in England. Finally, it was the Second were mostly from families who had World War that virtually destroyed the converted to Christianity. Samson class structure of Britain, brought about Gideon’s son, also Samson, had a increased religious toleration and enabled Baronetcy conferred upon him at the age the Jews to take their place in almost of fifteen while at Eton College, his family every field of human endeavour. having converted, and Benjamin

D’Israeli’s two brothers went to Winchester. One of the earliest public Waddesden Manor - home of the schools to admit practising Jews was Rothshchilds Philippa Bernard Harrow, where in 1880 the Rev. Joseph

7 Around the World it was nicknamed ‘Temple Emil’. By the but it was not until his Filipina wife, The Story of Jews in early 1930s, the Jewish community of Lori,- joined in with singing Hava numbered around 500 people. Nagila at a wedding in the UK, that the The Philippines Manila-based director-cinematographer Then a new chapter in its history opened. discovered the truth of President A friendly game of Poker with the Quezon’s plan. ‘She had no idea it was a President of the Philippines was the Hebrew song,’ said Rosen. ‘She was so starting point for an extraordinary plan surprised when I told her, because she to save thousands of Jews living in said it was just something that everyone Germany and Austria. Two of the sang in the street. There are so many players that evening were brothers – dialects in the Philippines, they all Alex and Herbert Frieder - who had a assumed it was another one.’ cigar factory in the Islands. News coming out of Europe of the rise of Rosen decided to find out more. He

violent anti-Semitism had alarmed them spoke to members of Manila’s small and they decided to ask for President Jewish community and, to his Manuel Quezon’s help to bring at least astonishment, learned the story of how,

A Seder celebration in Manila some of the endangered Jews to safety. between 1938 and the early 1940s, in 1925 former Philippine President, Manuel L. Also playing was Paul McNutt, a former Quezon had rescued over 1,200 German The Spanish Inquisition in the sixteenth Governor of Indiana and, at the time, the and Austrian Jews and brought them to century forced many Jews in Spain to American High Commissioner to the the pre-war Philippines, at a time when convert to Christianity - or to flee. These Philippines. At that time President few countries were prepared to take in Jewish ‘New Christians’ were known as Quezon’s military adviser was Lt. Col. Jewish refugees. marranos. The first permanent Dwight D. Eisenhower. settlement of Jews in the Philippines So, in 2018, Rosen, decided to make a during the Spanish colonial years began film about the Philippine rescue. He with the arrival of three Levy brothers called it Quezon’s Game. It depicts how from -Lorraine who were escaping this much-loved President fought against the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian critics and anti-Semitism in order to War in 1870. Along with them was undertake the operation, aided by US another notable Jew from the Alsace diplomats, businessman Alex Frieder, his region, Leopold Kahn. brother Herbert, and Quezon’s friend and military adviser - and future US The opening of the Suez Canal in March president - Dwight D. Eisenhower. 1869 provided a more direct trading Together they persuaded a reluctant route between Europe and the President Franklin Roosevelt - and an ‘What I found to be so amazing was that Philippines, allowing businesses to grow openly hostile State Department - to not only did people overseas not know and the number of Jews in the grant 1,200 visas to Jews, many of whom the story, but most Filipinos didn’t Philippines to increase. The Levy had professional backgrounds. Although either, including Lori. It was kind of lost brothers were subsequently joined by the original intention had been to try to in history and only the Jewish Turkish, Syrian, and Egyptian Jews, rescue 10,000 Jews, the rapidly community here knew about it,’ he says. creating a multi-ethnic Jewish deteriorating situation in Europe and Rosen also discovered that while Quezon population of about fifty people by the foot dragging by American diplomats was intent on saving Jewish lives, he end of the Spanish period. forced an amendment to the plan. was actually dying of tuberculosis. It was not until the Spanish-American The arrival of 1,200 co-religionists

War at the end of the nineteenth century, stretched the resources of the small when the United States took control of Philippine Jewish community. President the islands from Spain in 1898, that the Quezon himself offered personal

Jewish community was allowed to assistance in welcoming them. A genuine practise Judaism openly. humanitarian, he gave land to help to settle the new immigrants. It was only after World War I, when many Jewish refugees arrived from In 2003 Frank Ephraim, a volunteer at

Russia to escape persecution, that the the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jewish community was formally Washington, published the following organised. By 1922, an immigrant named extraordinary story in Escape to Manila. President Manuel L. Quezon Emil Bachrach secured so much support Matthew Rosen, a British Jew, had (1878-1944) for a grand new synagogue building that moved to the Philippines in the 1980s

8 Community

JCORE works in three main areas:- 1. Educating both the Jewish community and beyond about issues of

race equality.

2. Promoting knowledge and understanding between different minority groups and encouraging the

commitment of the Jewish community in this and stimulating active involvement in its pursuit. President Quezon welcoming Jewish The Jewish Council for Racial refugees on 23rd April 1940, at the Equality was founded in 1976 by Dr 3. Providing help and support to dedication of Marikina Hall, which Edie Friedman. Originally named the asylum seekers and those granted he constructed on his own property to house the newly arrived Jewish Social Responsibility Council refugee status or leave to remain immigrants. (JSRC), Dr Friedman wanted to create through the provision of donations, an organisation that would give full vocational training, advice and expression to the concern, as Jews, for befriending. Advocating and justice both in the UK and in the Third campaigning at all levels to help World. As the JSRC developed, it alleviate suffering and poverty became clear that it was more amongst asylum seekers in the UK. successful focusing on a few specific Another valuable branch of the work of areas such as educating the Jewish this organisation is its Refugee Doctors community, developing Black-Jewish Mentoring Scheme. Started in 2013, it dialogue and working with refugees. To aims to pair refugee doctors with UK- reflect more accurately the role of the trained doctors who can mentor them organisation, the JSRC was renamed and help them requalify so that they in 1994, becoming The Jewish Council The old ‘Temple Emil’ are able to practise in the UK. This for Racial Equality (JCORE) project continues the work that JCORE JCORE works both inside and outside has been doing since the 1980s to help the Jewish community to provide a refugee doctors in the UK. Jewish voice on race and asylum issues JCORE has produced a number of in the UK. Delivering race-equality Publications:- education for all ages, it provides practical action to support refugees Let’s Make a Difference: Teaching and asylum seekers, promotes Black- Anti-racism in Primary Schools – A Asian-Jewish dialogue, and campaigns Jewish Perspective, Dr Edie Friedman, at all levels on race and asylum issues. Hazel Woolfson, Sheila Freedman and The interior of the present Synagogue It works with a number of other Shirley Murgraff (1999) organisations to achieve this, including Unaccompanied Refugee Children: CCJO René Cassin, Hope not Hate, Unfortunately, ‘Temple Emil’ did not Have the Lessons Been Learnt?, Jack British Red Cross, Unite Against survive the war or the Japanese Gilbert (2001) occupation of the islands. Japanese troops Fascism, The Baobab Centre for Young had used it to store munitions, and it Survivors, The Children's Society, Making a Difference: Promoting Race burned to the ground during the 1945 Freedom from Torture, The Refugee Equality in Secondary Schools, Youth . After the war, while a Council and the British Medical Groups and Adult Education – a new Synagogue was being built, many Association. Jewish Perspective, Dr Edie Friedman (2002) Jews left the Philippines for or the The central idea of this Organisation is United States, and the community was a concern that social justice should be Start With a Difference: Promoting greatly diminished. However, today, the an integral part of Jewish identity and Race Equality in the Early Years – A Beit Yaacov Synagogue has a thriving its relationship with the rest of society Jewish Perspective, Julie Taylor congregation. The only Synagogue in the and that it is therefore necessary for (2006) Philippines, it follows the Sephardic Jews in the UK to speak out against Reluctant Refuge: The Story of tradition but caters to Jews of all racism and for the rights of asylum Asylum in Britain, Dr Edie Friedman backgrounds. Their Rabbi is also a seekers and refugees – knowing what and Reva Klein (2008) Shochet. happens when others stand by and do Claire Connick nothing.

9 Around The World earnest and distinguished work.’ more than mountains to establish Morris Young: However, after two years he had to hospitals in remote areas, and the laws of The Little Doctor abandon his studies before graduating, hygiene in semi-desert provinces where due to financial difficulties. He was thriving communities now enjoy a fine (1810-1950) supporting himself, with little help from bill of health.’ his family, and the discipline of medicine By now Morris Young was accepted by involved considerable expenditure on the Company authorities and the local equipment (including cadavers!) and people. He was greatly helped by his textbooks, and the money soon ran out. remarkable medical knowledge and by Morris replied to an advertisement for a his familiarity with many languages,

doctor to accompany a railway survey including Arabic, Persian, French and party in Luristan, in what is now western Hebrew. During World War I he did Iran and, in spite of not yet being much to help the allies to prevent

qualified, spent a year there, gaining a German infiltration into Persia and the affection for and interest in the Country, oilfields. He was mentioned in which was to stand him in good stead despatches and in 1917 he was made

later. He returned to Glasgow, finished C.I.E. (Companion of the Indian Empire) his medical degree and graduated first by the Indian Government for his class in 1905. He specialised in services.

pathology and then surgery, his first love This was not the only award Morris I was talking recently to Synagogue in which he became internationally Young received. A few years after the member Evelyn Stoddard, and the famous. He came joint top of the class in C.I.E., the Persian staff of the Company conversation turned to family ancestry. operative surgery and was awarded a presented him with a silver tray and tea- Evelyn mentioned her uncle Morris and medal. His class was among the first to set. At the presentation. Mr. J.A. showed me a book about him. Uncle wear sterile gowns, masks and caps, Jamieson said, ‘Your friends in Persia Morris turned out to have had a most instead of the traditional frockcoats. ask your acceptance of a small token of distinguished medical career, so I It was becoming obvious to the young their affection and gratitude for the many investigated further. doctor that if he were to proceed in his personal services and kindnesses you Born Moshe Yudalevich in Kremenchuk, profession unhindered by his past family have bestowed among them without in Russia in 1880, he was the first son of links he would have to apply for British stint, during twenty years’ distinguished Reuven and Batya Yudalevich, who nationality. This he did in 1907 and once career in Persia.’ He was also granted a emigrated with their family, when Moshe granted his new passport, Morris was Coronation Medal. The Reza Shah was two, to Rishon LeZion, Israel, where invited to join the Anglo-Persian Oil Coronation Medal was established in Reuven was one of the original founders. Company (later BP). The year after 1926 in commemoration of the The Settlement, aided at first by Edmund graduating he returned to south-west coronation of Reza Shah Pahlavi on April de Rothschild, is now the fourth largest Persia as the Company’s Medical Officer. 24, 1926. The citation (in translation) city in Israel. Batya was aware that her Later, The Times, in its obituary, reads, ‘ AND SUN. His Imperial young son showed a mental strength described him as, ‘small in stature, Majesty, May His Reign Be Long, has beyond his years, and she was anxious vibrant with energy, his accent granted a medal of commemoration of for him to have a first class education. undimmed from his student days in the coronation to Dr. Young, She chose, perhaps unusually, Glasgow Glasgow.’ He was known as ‘The Little Medical Officer of the Anglo-Persian Oil University, where he was to study Doctor’. Company. He is accordingly entitled to medicine. wear it.’ Determined to give all he had to the job First of all, having little English, he in hand, Morris learned the local enrolled in the Hutcheson Town Public language and immersed himself in the School, where after only two years, and customs and way of life of his patients, having changed his name from Moses giving his care and medical attention not Youdelevitz (a European corruption of only to the employees of the Company the Russian) to Morris Young, he entered but also to anyone who needed him. His the University. The University record task was not made easier by lack of states, ‘Although considerably equipment and medicine, and also by the handicapped by many manifest often entrenched antipathy to Western difficulties and disadvantages, he quickly medicine. However, by his professional came to the front rank and caught the skill and his obvious regard for his With HM The Queen Mother notice and commendation of his patients he was soon accepted. The and Sir Alexander Fleming professors by his sound abilities and his obituary goes on to explain; ‘he moved at St. Mary’s Hospital

10 Incidentally

The company changed its name to the producing vaccines for the military, but Anglo-Iranian Oil Co, and hired geologist was soon recalled to Paddington to work George Bernard Reynolds to do the at St. Mary’s with Sir Alexander Fleming. A True Story prospecting in the Iranian desert. He was involved with the practical Conditions were extremely harsh: application of Fleming’s discovery of smallpox raged, bandits and warlords penicillin, work which continued to A frail elderly Jew was living ruled, water was all but unavailable, and occupy him for almost the rest of his life. contentedly in his Care Home. A temperatures often soared past 50°C. In 1944 he wrote a long article in the oil Rabbi called to wish him well for After several years of prospecting, with no company’s magazine Naft called Rosh Hashana, for which he was very signs of oil, the Company was forced to ‘Penicillin – Its Discovery and Properties’ grateful. sell its rights to the Burmah Oil Company. in which in layman’s terms he explains However in 1923, a large quantity of oil Fleming’s work and the extraordinary ‘Would you like some Matzos?’ the was found at Naftkhana and in that year, effect it had on infections. In 1947 after Rabbis asked. Burmah employed Winston Churchill as a the war he was asked to advise on the Slightly puzzled at the thought of paid consultant to lobby the British post-war pattern of the home medical Matza for New Year, but glad of any government to allow AIOC to have service of the Oil Company, now British change in his diet, the gentleman said exclusive rights to Persian oil resources, Petroleum. He was made a Governor of that he would. which were subsequently granted. In the hospital. 1925, it received concessions in the The Rabbi reached for his bag and Morris Young retired from active work in Mesopotamian oil resources from the took out some books. ‘Here you are’, 1949. He died in 1950 at St. Mary’s Iraqi government under British mandate. he said, bringing out some Machzors! Hospital where he had spent so much of It finally struck oil in Iraq on 14 October his later working life. In 1952 a plaque 1927. was placed in the hospital Morris’s work was increasing, sometimes commemorating his work. At the in terrible conditions. He described it unveiling, Sir Alexander Fleming said of himself, ‘Scarcely did the caravan come to him, ‘Dr. Young had three outstanding a halt than men, women and children characteristics. He had unfailing energy – would crowd round beseeching the Hakim having started a task he would work until (doctor or wise man) to prescribe for its completion and would never complaints in which Western medicine acknowledge defeat, no matter how much has little more than antiquarian interest.’ effort or personal sacrifice it required. He Always fascinated by ophthalmology from was never influenced in any way by the his medical school days he became aware importance or otherwise of the persons of the terrible scourge of trachoma - the with whom he was in contact, and all eye disease - operating for the first time in received the same painstaking treatment cataract surgery for the local head-man. and consideration at his hands.’ He practised first on the eyes of a dead sheep, then on a live one, before operating successfully on the head-man. His stature Did you know……? greatly increased, having ‘made a blind man see’. CHABAD

Morris Young was also a pioneer Is an acronym for :- photographer in Persia, taking some of the Chochmah, earliest pictures of the tribesmen and countryside of his locality. His love of Binah, was another of his occupations, and Daat the friends he made throughout his life were a source of affection and (wisdom, understanding knowledge) companionship, though he never married. the mission statement of the Lubavitch Chassidim In 1936 Morris retired from the Company Philippa Bernard but was far from satisfied with an idle life. He came back to England and joined the team of Sir Almoth Wright at the Bacteriological Research Laboratory in St. Mary’s Hospital in London. He spent some time with a small staff at Ealing,

11

Culture marry the widow of his brother ( Arthur, become popular, mainly because of the Hebrew Manuscripts in the case of Henry) if he died without pop star Madonna’s involvement with this Journeys of the issue. However, in Leviticus 18: 16, 20:21, ancient esoteric movement. Central to an marriage to a sister-in-law is prohibited. understanding of Kabbalah is a detailed written Word Henry consulted a number of Hebraists, study of the Hebrew alphabet, where each including Jacob Rafael of Modena, but letter has significance. One of the exhibits Jacob argued the command in is a thirteenth century CE book written by

Deuteronomy overrode Leviticus and thus a Sephardi Kabbalist, Jacob ha-Kohen. He Henry was legally married to Catherine, analysed the shape of each letter, and much to the Tudor king’s chagrin. claimed by so doing one could understand

Interestingly, the issue of levirate a little more of God’s nature and His marriage caused something of a split creation. In his book he examines in detail

between Rashi and Maimonides, the two Hebrew letters: ayin and peh. former following the Talmudic ruling, Another Spanish Kabbalist, Abraham while Maimonides upheld in , developed a unique mystical

declaring the legitimacy of levirate method that he claimed would enable one marriage. to reach a state of union with God. The fifteenth century CE book on display Talking about marriage brings me on to shows circles containing Abulafia’s the ketubot that are on display. The instructions for meditation, very similar marriage contract has been part of Jewish to the practices of Eastern mystics. By life for over 2000 years, and the rights combing Hebrew letters, reciting and granted to women predate any such legal Page from the First Gaster Bible visualising God’s name, by correct protection afforded by Christian society. breathing and posture, one will be able to It should be remembered the Married draw closer to God. Women’s Property Act dates only from The British Library is hosting a 1870. Written in Aramaic, the ketubah The British Library is fortunate to have remarkable exhibition of Jewish grants women legal and financial rights if one of the earliest, albeit incomplete, manuscripts, until April 2021. Currently, their marriage ends through divorce, surviving Hebrew biblical codices, known because of Covid-19, it is necessary to desertion or death of the husband. Once as the First Gaster Bible, and dating from book tickets online, choosing an available again, as illustrated by the beautiful the 10th century CE. Although we don’t time slot. nineteenth century Moroccan ketubah, have details of its production, it is thought Jewish artists were influenced by the to have been created in Egypt. It has We know the Jews were among the first culture in which they lived. In the one many gold embellishments that reflect globe-trotters, and the rich array of from one can see Islamic Islamic artistic motifs. documents is evidence of the influence, with geometric patterns and cosmopolitan nature of Judaism. These I remember, in the 1960s, borrowing a images from the natural world. It was an manuscripts, drawn from the four corners library book entitled Chinese Jews, by interesting exercise to compare the older, of the Earth, testify to the symbiotic Professor White, who was Bishop of very ornate ketubah, with a modern one relationship Jews have had, and still have, Henan province in China. He documented that is on loan. with their non-Jewish neighbours. The the history of the Jews of Kaifeng, and in subject-matter of these artefacts is very his book there are a number of diverse, covering religion, Kabbalah, illustrations, showing Chinese Jews, in music, law, philosophy, and traditional dress, pigtails included, on the alchemy. bimah.

Some forty manuscripts feature, showing I was delighted to see a Sefer Torah from a high level of calligraphic skill, with some Kaifeng. It probably dates from the 17th beautiful illuminated texts. For the century CE, and is some forty-two metres student of Jewish history, or indeed long; and that is long for a Torah Scroll. English history, some of the manuscripts Ninety-four strips of soft sheepskin were are a treasure trove. There is, for instance, sewn together using silk thread, rather an autographed responsum of Moses than animal sinews. Kaifeng Jews were Maimonides to Jacob Rafael of Modena, established as early as the first century concerning the annulment of Henry VIII’s An Italian Ketubah CE. Jesuit missionaries were fascinated by levirate marriage to Catherine of Aragon. their Torah Scrolls, believing them to be Reference to levirate marriage is found in uncorrupted, but in the event they are People have always been fascinated by the Deuteronomy 25: 5-6, and states there is identical to that of conventional scripture. mystical. In recent times Kabbalah has an obligation of a surviving brother to

12 Community It is unknown how many Jews live in China. Because the Communist regime is generally hostile toward religious communities, some Chinese Jews have made aliyah, leaving perhaps about 1,000 living in Kaifeng. Where Orthodox Judaism defines Jewishness in matrilineal terms, Chinese Jews based their Jewishness on patrilineal descent, the original biblical definition. With relations between Israel and the People’s Republic of China becoming closer through trade and scientific cooperation, we may see a re-flowering of Jewish Mona Siddiqi & Laura Marks communities in China. Nisa-Nashim brings Jewish and Muslim women together to inspire and lead Another very special exhibit was a social change. The group was founded by Laura Marks, OBE - who was the Megillah Esther, beautifully decorated, original instigator of Mitzvah Day - and Julie Siddiqi. It aims to create positive and just under four metres long. The experiences and understanding about people from different backgrounds, illuminations tell the story of Esther. As particularly Jews and Muslims. Local groups, coupled with strategic many of you know, the name of God does partnerships, provide a unique voice when advising government bodies, not appear in the Megillah, but the policymakers and others, on how to promote social cohesion. The group ‘hidden presence’ is highlighted in this members believe in the ability of women to build cohesion and positive change. Scroll. It also includes contemporary It is a national network, aiming to counter the corrosive nature of prejudice images of people enjoying the Festival of against ‘Outsider’ groups, and celebrating similarity whilst recognising Purim, a graphic circumcision scene, a difference. Venetian galleon, and in addition, two Founded in July 2015, the idea was to bring the Jewish and Muslim elephants and a rhinoceros! communities together through the women, by building understanding and friendships. Nisa-Nashim does this through a range of shared initiatives at the grass roots level all around the UK, led by a peer-mentoring model using co-chair partnerships of Jewish and Muslim women. Its vision is of a society in which negative misconceptions of those who are different from us are challenged, specifically with regard to the relationship between gender and religion.

Since its inception, Nisa-Nashim has established twenty-four groups of women across the UK, each co-chaired by a Jewish and a Muslim woman. Each group is committed to building bridges and to helping tackle the local and broader issues of today. Groups are based on location and/or special interest, with an average of thirty members. Monthly programming platforms are provided, and there is support for a Muslim/Jewish co-chair team in each group. Events have included

Iftars (the communal meal at the end of Ramadan), Rosh Hashana celebrations, Finally, the exhibition does not neglect visits to Mosques and Synagogues, and days of social action, moving on, now, to Jewish involvement with science and issues of and anti-Muslim Hatred. mathematics. A sage cannot understand Nisa-Nashim (‘women’ in Arabic and Hebrew) is trying to find a way out of the the Tanakh and Talmud if he does not clash of ideologies of Muslims and Jews by bringing together women in many study astronomy. He cannot understand walks of life and revealing how much they have in common rather than astronomy if he does not first study concentrating on their differences. geometry because it is a ladder ‘resting on the earth with its top reaching to heaven’. The words, paraphrased in part, of the twelfth century CE commentator and philosopher Abraham ibn Ezra. This is not an exhaustive account of a fabulous exhibition, but a thumbnail sketch of what I found of particular interest. Peter Beyfus Members of Nisa-Nashim under the Succah at Alyth Gardens Synagogue

13

Anglo-Jewish History A Philanthropic than any other British subject to develop Walter also paid to have suitable cases the oil fields of the East. and 100 frames made in which to display Family: the collection - at a cost of £370, which In 1897 he formed the Shell oil company, today would be about £50,000! The Bearsteds named after his first business, which sold painted seashells. He was knighted in A few years earlier, in 1919, the first Lady 1898 for assisting in the salvage of HMS Bearsted had donated to the Museum her

Victorious which had run aground off collection of 343 prints and fifty-one Port Said. In 1907, Samuel's company books, produced by the Victorian combined with a Netherlands company printing pioneer George Baxter. And in

to create the Royal Dutch Shell 1924 Lord Bearsted paid for the building Company. of an extension to the Museum to house the prints donated by his wife and also Marcus Samuel was Lord Mayor of the Japanese art collection which had London from 1902 to 1903 and was made been contributed by his son. The Lady a in 1903. In recognition of Bearsted Wing was opened on the 1st May Shell's contribution to the British cause 1925 by Lady Bearsted herself. At the in the First World War, he was created time of the opening, Lord Bearsted said; 1st Viscount Bearsted of Maidstone in ‘Any little debt of gratitude that the 1921. His country estate at The Mote in people of Maidstone owe me has been Maidstone was sold after his death to discharged long ago, because they Maidstone Borough Council for use as a Marcus Samuel the conferred on me the honour, which I 1st Viscount Bearsted public park - now known as Mote Park. have always extremely appreciated, of The house has since been used as an making me an Honorary Freeman of the orphanage and a nursing home. It has Borough.’ Many Jewish families that have achieved now been converted into retirement success have found a way to show their housing. appreciation of their good fortune by Marcus’s son, Walter Horace Samuel, making a significant donation to this who succeeded him, was a keen collector country: for example Nathan of Japanese art and because of his Rothschild’s housing for the poor in the business connections and extensive East End of London and more recently, travels in Japan was ideally placed to the Sacklers having enabled the National indulge his passion. He amassed a large Gallery and the Royal Academy of Arts to and very fine collection of Edo-period increase their exhibition spaces. woodblock prints, swords, lacquer-work, Another generous philanthropist was personal adornments, armour and select Marcus Samuel. He was born in pieces of ceramic. This valuable Some of the Edo period collection Whitechapel into an Iraqi Jewish family collection of two thousand Japanese at the Maidstone Museum from Mesopotamia. His father, also artefacts was passed to the Maidstone named Marcus Samuel, ran a successful Museum through the National Art Undoubtedly a man of discernment, import-export business, M. Samuel & Collections Fund in 1923. It was Walter Samuel had amassed his Co., trading in the Far East, which he supported by an extensive library of 300 collection from 1905-1923. There were carried on with his brother, Samuel reference books. sword fittings such as tsuba (sword Samuel. guards), inro (portable medicine boxes),

netsuke (toggles for inro) - carvings in It was during a visit to Japan that he wood and ivory, many representing became involved in the petroleum subjects from Japanese mythology, daily industry. He started in a small way as the life, animals, and other scenes from shipper of oil from Russia to the Far nature – together with traditional East, and the business gradually lacquered writing boxes and well- developed into the huge Shell decorated items of domestic furniture organization of today. He was closely including a budai (lacquer writing table) associated with the Japanese and matching suzuribako (inkstone box), government in the development of trade. and several bronzes. The jewel of this His firm was entrusted with the issue of amazing collection is undoubtedly the the first Japanese £ 4,500,000 gold loan. assembly of woodblock prints by famous He introduced the transportation of The Samuel collection on display Edo period woodblock print masters. petroleum in bulk through the Suez in 1925 in the Lady Bearsted Wing These include Hokusai’s ‘Great Wave off Canal, and is said to have done more of the Museum.

14

Kanagawa’ and ‘Red Fuji’, plus a Germany during the 1930s and for peace complete set of Hiroshige’s ‘Hoeido to be restored in what was then Tokaido Way’ series. There are also Palestine. He and his wife, Elizabeth, decorative bronzes and cloisonné recognised that great wealth brought enamels of outstandingly fine work. great responsibility. They both made regular and substantial donations to a

range of charities from hospitals and children’s societies to seaman’s missions, and from cancer charities to

Jewish schools.

Walter gave the grounds surrounding his father’s estate in to the people of Maidstone. His wife supported the

Bearsted Maternity Hospitals with donations, and during the Second World

War, personally helped with supervision

and management. He gave money to the A rabbi, a minister, and a priest were National Art Collections Fund and playing poker when the police raided donated paintings to National the game.

Frances (née Benjamin), the collections, served as Chairman of the st Turning to the priest, the lead police 1 Viscountess Bearsted board of trustees for the National officer said, ‘Father Murphy, were you Gallery and was a Trustee at the Tate for After the death of his father, the second gambling?’ Turning his eyes to heaven, a time, as well as Chairman of the East Lord Bearsted continued to collect art the priest whispered, ‘Lord, forgive me End’s Whitechapel Gallery. and he transformed Upton House in for what I am about to do.’ To the Warwickshire into a haven for his police officer, he then said, ‘No, officer; beautiful and ever-increasing art I was not gambling.’ The officer then collection which contains pieces by asked the minister, ‘Pastor Johnson, Rembrandt, Canaletto, George Stubbs, were you gambling?’ Again, after an Hans Holbein the Younger and Hogarth. appeal to heaven, the minister replied, His house and collection were donated ‘No, officer; I was not gambling.’ to the National Trust in 1948. Turning to the rabbi, the officer again asked, ‘Rabbi Goldstein, were you

gambling?’ Shrugging his shoulders, the rabbi replied, ‘With whom?’ _____ Upton House

Following his death in 1948, the Times obituary succinctly captured

the man: Rich in possessions, Lord Bearsted spent unostentatiously and wisely, and shrewd in his judgments he

maintained a happy balance in his life The Bearsted Memorial between sympathy and recreation. Hospital in Stoke Newington which closed in 1980 Claire Connick _____ Walter Samuel supported many Jewish Five year-old Melanie asked her charities including financing the grandma how old she was. Grandma

Bearsted Memorial Hospital in Stoke replied she was so old she didn't Newington and the Bearsted Maternity remember any more. Home at Hampton Court (founded by Melanie said, 'If you don't the 1st Viscount). He also campaigned remember you must look in the back of for the emigration of Jews from Nazi your panties. Mine say five to six.'

15 Book Review then find deep friendship and embracing forgiveness, even after Bassam won a of the their common humanity, is landmark case of wrongful death.

inspirational. APEIROGON There are many brief, but powerful

by The book has an unusual structure, interventions from unforgettable divided into 1,001 chapters (following characters; a timorous orthodox rabbi Colum McCann 1,001 Nights), some short, epigrammatic who comes every day uninvited to

factoids, some grainy images or silently sit shiva outside Rami’s home, reference material, often replaying parts having also lost a child to a suicide

of the lead-up to each of the deaths, with bomber and embraced the cause of

the centrepieces (the two Chapter 500s, finding peace; the French high-wire Bloomsbury ascending and descending) being the full walker who walked across first-person intimate accounts of Rami the Himmon valley in 1987 (the subject

and Bassam, something clearly polished of another McCann book), a Palestinian by having given these speeches experimental musician (Dalia el-Fahum) hundreds of times to international who disappears in the desert, diversions

audiences in dozens of countries. on Borges, Darwish, and many more. Irish writer Colum McCann has written Apeirogon contains multitudes of

a sprawling and deeply moving account stories, each one more affective than of two fathers – one Israeli (Rami it will appeal to any the next. Elhanan), one Palestinian (Bassam reader with a wide The fathers are now united as best Aramin) who are united in their grief friends, travelling the world and over the tragic loss of their daughters, spectrum of interests lecturing on their grief and their hope Smadar (13 at the time) and Abir (just 10 for the future as part of the Forgiveness years old). One was killed by a suicide Project, and the subject of a moving bomber, the other shot by an 18-year old I defy anyone reading the book to hold documentary, Within The Eye of The Israeli soldier, with the incidents back the tears after McCann’s build-up Storm. As the parent of a teenage happening just a few miles apart in of contributory details and backstories, daughter, the same age as Smadar, and . These are real-life events, then plunging into each father’s mirror- having just hosted Israeli soldiers for the fictionalised and leavened with a wide image attempts to make sense of the Peace of Mind project, this book was full variety of digressions, deftly weaving tragic losses that unite them, and lead of emotional touch-points for me. elements of history, mathematics, them both to devote themselves to the science, ornithology and humour into Parent’s Circle movement, dedicated to It will surely be among the books of the what is would otherwise be a difficult, preserving the lives of remaining year on many lists, and deserves to be heartrending story. children, and the impossibility of read for its deep empathy and forgetting, even for a moment, humanity. Rami says in his central The diversions create a rich context for the crushing weight of recurring chapter that he had ‘stumbled upon the stories that by themselves would be memory. Along the way, there are many most important question of them all; excruciatingly painful to read. Along the thoughtful - and, I am reliably informed what can you do, personally, in order to way, the main characters have their lives by Israelis, precise - details about Israeli try to help prevent this unbearable pain fleshed out into many dimensions by society. For example, the candy bracelet for others?’ McCann has not found an elaborating their complicated on ten-year-old Abir’s wrist, which she answer to the tragic and intractable backstories, Samdar’s father having never got to eat as she was shot, coming situation, but has given us a deeply been a graphic artist after his military out of a sweet shop; or the musical affecting book full of clues. service and mother Nurit being a peace motifs that waft in to remind Rami of his activist and academic and daughter of a daughter Smadar’s love for certain prominent Israeli general (who songs. embraced the peace movement late in life), while Abir’s father has a The book’s odd title comes from the Richard Kramer complicated past, spending seven years name of a shape with a countably

in prison for throwing a hand grenade at infinite number of sides; the way Israeli soldiers, then doing a degree in McCann has written it will appeal to any Peace Studies in Bradford, while his wife reader with a wide spectrum of interests,

maintains a dignified silence, until she and its power lies in the indirect can no longer bear to do so. approach to the evolution of both men’s thinking, traversing from grief, to blame, The coming together of these two men and finally to embrace hope and and their families over shared grief, to

16 Book Review

wanted to live in. They took the best of handed her a few hundred-mark notes

many concepts and ideologies to create a and she ran out of the back door of the community of equals in a secular house. Marianne describes running for Lives environment. her life and her first stop was at a Bund Reclaimed owned building in Essen. Her entire Obviously, a great deal of this book by family perished but her life on the run, describes events of which we are all too moving from Bund place to Bund place, Mark Roseman familiar, the rise of Hitler in Germany, and afterwards, is completely captured in Kristallnacht, the closing in on the Jewish Oxford University this enthralling account. community and the devastation of the Press Holocaust. But this is all seen through the It is very clear that the allegiance of the 2019 eyes of Bund members who witnessed Bund’s members came at some cost, these barbaric acts and set out to lessen obviously its underground activities, the suffering wherever they could. opposing Hitler’s regime, created Accounts are given of the stealth-like potential peril for all who were involved, change in status of the Jews, the but the social cost of allegiance to an all

subsequent persecution and the embracing lifestyle meant that some I have known Mark my entire life; he is harrowing sights of Jews being members found themselves ostracised my cousin and our paths have crossed at transported to the death camps, crammed from their own families. Another paradox regular intervals. In Spring 2001 I think, I into cattle trucks in utterly appalling exists here, as while heroic efforts were took my three- and four-year-old conditions. made by many, some members - and daughters to visit him while he undertook those connected to them - left to join the historic research in Düsseldorf. We spent Wehrmacht. a day in Cologne, a day in the rain at the painstakingly Lives Reclaimed was painstakingly zoo in Wuppertal and had walks with him researched and researched and is sympathetically written along the Rhine. I realise now that this with Mark’s trademark style of always book was then in its earliest stages. sympathetically using precisely the right word at exactly It tells the story of the Bund - a small, non written the right point. The footnotes extend to political organisation with a founding almost 100 pages and they too should be group of nine men and women - some read for context. Much of the book is Jews, some connected to Jews and some The members of the Bund did not flinch based on interviews and conversations, whose values were of no particular in the eye of great danger; they gave undertaken during almost twenty years of denomination at all. Their shared refuge to many who were being hunted research, which makes it so personal. principles created ‘a socialist life-and- down by the Nazis, they organised travel There are a number of places where the struggle community in the industrial identity cards which helped some to evade authenticity of information is examined heartland’ of the Ruhr, led by the death and they gave both moral and and the interpretation is always thorough inspirational and charismatic Artur physical support to those who were in the and conclusive. Jacobs. depths of despair. Their tactics were part After the war the Bund members of a clandestine operation that was We all tend to think of communes in struggled and failed to find the place in conducted over the entire course of the terms of free love, sex and drugs but this history that the Bund deserved, but in war and which always seemed to be one commune was certainly on a much higher writing this book, Mark Roseman has now step ahead of the authorities, who knew plane. Although the lives of its members done that for them. they existed but were never able to get a were difficult to separate from the group, grasp of them. the individual’s natural rights and freedoms were respected in the context of We are also reintroduced to Marianne the needs of the whole. Recognition of Strauss, the subject of Mark’s superb work Jan Mernane gender inequality, the importance of The Past in Hiding - another piece of education and a combination of, quite meticulous research. This book begins paradoxically, Kantian and Marxist with a knock at the door of the Strauss theory, lay at the heart of the Bund’s family home at 10am on a Monday existence. A rejection of bourgeois morning in August 1942. The two most convention meant that the group feared Gestapo officers in Essen had attracted members from the complete arrived to give the family two hours to range of social strata and they all came prepare for transport to the East. When together at organised events to discuss the officers became pre-occupied with and imagine the type of world that they all looting the property, Marianne’s father

17 Anglo-Jewish History

Norwood Jewish Jewish Association of Parents of In 1996, Norwood merged with Backward Children established the Ravenswood, and opened family centres Orphanage Ravenswood Foundation. The in Redbridge and Hackney. It was called Ravenswood residential school was Norwood Ravenswood for six years before established when a house in Crowthorne, finally changing its name to Norwood in Berkshire was purchased by four families 2002. Several more homes were founded to provide care and education for four in the following years, one for the eleven-year-old boys. After the orthodox community in Hackney and acquisition of a second home and a farm others for children with special five years later, the Ravenswood educational needs, a nursery in Hendon Foundation was formed. and a home in Hendon for adults with disabilities such as autism and Aspergers. In the 1950s, nine family houses were built or acquired by Norwood in South The Norwood/Ravenswood organisation London with the aim of giving children a makes full use of modern technology both homely environment. The old Orphanage in the running of the foundation and in

became redundant and was eventually teaching those who live there how to use Perhaps one of the best known of all demolished in 1963. The Norwood family computers, mobile phones and other Jewish charities, Norwood began life as homes were moved to North London and modern methods of communication. the Jews’ Hospital in 1795. Two brothers, eventually closed one by one, with the last Fundraising is vital to Norwood as many among the wealthiest Jews in London, one closing its doors in 1992. of its services receive little or no Abraham and Benjamin Goldsmid, government funding at all. Norwood appealed for funds to create relief for the needs to raise £12m every year. Many and Jewish poor. Their patron was the Duke varied ways of raising money are of Sussex, Queen Victoria’s uncle, noted undertaken by the Jewish and non-Jewish for his interest in Jewish causes. The community: cycle rides, mountaineering, Jewish Orphan Asylum, as the hospital and events for all ages and abilities. became, had its first home in 1831 in International event destinations have Leman Street, in the East End. In the included Northern Thailand, Kenya, early years only seven children were South Africa, India, Croatia, Israel, Italy, housed there, but numbers quickly grew Austria, Vietnam & Cambodia, Prague and by 1860 some sixty poor Jewish and the Sahara Desert. orphans occupied the small building. The Dining Hall in the early days The Foundation is now one of the biggest In 1928 the London Taxi Drivers’ Fund and most active in the United Kingdom for Underprivileged Children started its and has brought untold help and relief to In 1985, Norwood opened its first annual day trips to the seaside, a well- many thousands of Jews of all ages and registered residential home for adults publicised event which brought the backgrounds in its two hundred-year with learning disabilities. Five years later, Orphanage to the notice of the general existence. the Kennedy Leigh Children and Family public and the name was changed to the Centre in Hendon was opened, offering Philippa Bernard Norwood Jewish Orphanage. When practical advice and support to families World War II broke out in 1939 the living with learning disability or facing children, like so many young Londoners, social disadvantage. The centre also were evacuated to escape the Blitz, most housed Binoh, Norwood's education and of them to homes in Hertford and therapy service that supports children Worthing. The house itself was taken with special educational needs. over by the London Fire Brigade, as a training centre. Although numbers were declining after the war, as many children needing help were taken to live with other Jewish families, the foundation continued - with the name changed again, this time to the Norwood Home for Jewish Children. It was becoming clear that some families were needing help with children with both physical and mental handicaps, and in 1953 a group calling themselves the From the archives - A Gymnastic Display

1 8 Community

favourite time for this latter form of while the rest of the congregation Bringing up Isaac behaviour. For these reasons, attending paraded, sang and danced around with the Services and cheder has always been larger Scrolls. His small face was upturned nerve-wracking for us. It’s not that we with an expression of deep pride and don’t know if Isaac is going to misbehave. belonging. It is fanciful to believe that a

Rather, we wonder just how heinous will celestial beam shone directly on his head - be the crimes he commits. it was surely just the coincidental position of a ceiling light - but he certainly looked We are always amazed and awed at the as if he had connected to something kindness and patience shown to us by deeper and not of our everyday life. other congregants and parents at the two Synagogues where we have been In the taxi home that night, Isaac and his members; Havurah Shalom in Portland, brother Benjo both snuggled up close to

Oregon, and Westminster Synagogue in me - it was chilly and I was feeling jolly. London. Our dear community at ‘Dad, that was so fun’ whispered Isaac, Westminster even went as far as offering entirely calm. These are words I never

one-to-one support, so that Isaac could expected a ten-year-old son of mine to say attend Shabbat school in relative calm. of a religious service! Attending Shul with Isaac though, still Isaac still behaves badly in the Synagogue. causes us great anxiety. What if he But maybe not quite as appallingly as It’s often challenging to raise any child. It misbehaves during a Service? What if he before. Perhaps he, even my Isaac, has can be even tougher to raise a child with punches some other child? What if he found his place, close to the Torah, close special needs. And bringing up a child somehow gets close to a Torah scroll and to The Word. with special needs in the Jewish faith desecrates it in some way? Despite the presents its own special, Jewish Note: This was written in November last best efforts of all those around us, we have challenges. year. Isaac, now eleven, is an enthusiastic always been extremely uncomfortable member of the B’nei Mitzvah class and Judaism is a religion of rituals that must taking Isaac to Synagogue. reads Hebrew well. We look forward to be learned, prayers that must be intoned; Most important of all, Isaac himself never getting back into Shul together in person, a difficult dead language, and a million seemed to enjoy it much. sometime soon. tiny rules that lie in wait to show one up as someone who hasn’t quite achieved During the celebration of Simchat Torah a mastery of it. We Jews pride ourselves on year ago, something changed. It was my Robert James Sandler our depth of knowledge of the rites. For first time attending this Festival and I someone who has difficulty learning and, didn’t really know what to expect. I had a more importantly, following the norms of general idea, of course. We all everyday society, religious practice can be around with the Torah and there’s whisky. a minefield of potential failure. At some point in the festivities, Isaac and I Our son, Isaac, has Down’s Syndrome. He found ourselves holding a Torah Scroll attends a mainstream school, loves together. Rather, I was holding it and playing and watching football, enjoys simultaneously letting Isaac touch it - but learning and reading about dinosaurs and not so much that he could be at risk of other terrifying creatures. In many ways - doing something insane with it. We were perhaps in most ways - he is a typical ten- dancing around, he wildly, and me year-old boy. He also does seem to enjoy guardedly. Then he pulled me down to his studying Hebrew with me and loves level and shouted in my ear ‘Dad. I want connecting the phonemes with English to hold the Torah.’ Despite my initial words. Isaac enjoys learning to pronounce refusal, there was something in his eyes the Hebrew words. that made me believe it would be alright. I told him he couldn’t hold this one because Isaac’s ability to follow the rules of society it was too heavy but that I would find that however, is not his strong point. While smaller, child-size one, for him for the often charming and loving, he also shakes next go-around. his fist aggressively at sweet old ladies, swears navally at his teachers, kicks other In time for the next bout of singing, I supporters at football matches and passes managed to position Isaac with a Torah wind loudly whenever he judges it to be Scroll that he could comfortably manage. the most disruptive. Shul is occasionally a He stood like a statue on the platform

19

Judaica An Exquisite Piece This extraordinary item of Jewish art has appeared on a Chassidic website. There is quite a mystery attached to it. It is believed to be the work of an Israeli Silversmith, Yosi Swed. At first glance it appears to be a coffee pot but examined closely it reveals many secrets...

4. In the next layer...

5. ...a spice box. The Hebrew 1. The ‘coffee pot’ on the base ‘Bsamim’

2. The top becomes... 6. Then we find a Ner Tamid...

3. … a dreidel 7. ...containing a Megillah Esther

20

11. and underneath them...

8. Next, an Etrog holder

and finally….

9. The lid of the Etrog holder 12… a Kiddush cup containing...

14 … a Chanukiah !

10. A pair of candlesticks follow...

13 ..a Seder plate

So far, it has proved impossible find out any more about this remarkable object. If any one has any further information on the subject it would be gratefully received.

21 Editorial

We are sure that everyone will join us in congratulating all those involved in the wonderful way in which the congregation was enabled to experience the High Holy Days. The music in particular, enhanced the Festivals. The amazing attention to detail which allowed members to participate from their homes was nothing short of miraculous and surely entailed an enormous amount of planning and hard work.

We have been intrigued by a series of pictures sent to us by a reader in America, (pages 20-21). We have been unable to find any further references to the artist, Yosi Swed. But, whatever its background, this delicate miniature is undoubtedly worthy of more research. If anyone wishes to delve further, they could start with this link: popchassid.com › update-hidden-synagogue-just-a-piece...

In the July 2018 issue of the Quarterly we wrote of Chiune Sugihara, the Japanese diplomat who saved many Jews and who was recognised by in 1984. It is good to know that he was recently honoured once again - this time in the Japanese city of Numazu.

Valery Rees writes:- Dear Philippa, Claire and Colette,

I have had a quiet day today (apart from making a birthday lunch for two seventeen year old grandchildren and their family), so I really enjoyed putting my feet up this afternoon and reading the July edition of the Quarterly. You all write so well, and on topics of such interest. It is truly an extraordinary achievement to have produced so many editions of this publication, year after year, at such a high level of quality and interest.

I include Colette in this letter of appreciation because we are always sure to find one of her deep meditations expressed in their poetic beauty among the historic and other articles. I must also add Benji, for his thoughtful opening pages. Heartfelt thanks to you all for inventing a magnificent tradition and sustaining it for so long!

Jill Leuw writes:- Thank you so much for arranging for us to receive your superb magazine which, as always was overflowing with incredibly well-researched articles on a number of fascinating subjects. It is an uplifting read but what a lot of work you and Claire must do.

Clifford Gundle writes:- On behalf of my wife Sooozee and myself, I would like to thank you for the very fine contribution you make to publishing the Westminster Quarterly magazine.

We have just received the October issue and I must say we do compliment you on the conscientious effort and hard work that you put in to producing this amazing quarterly magazine. I know you do it each quarter and I also know it takes a huge amount of time, effort and dedication to produce such a fine document.

22 Poetry page

Connecting EXPERIENCING PASSOVER 2020 EXPERIENCING PASSOVER 2020

I know only a few questions as relevant II knowhad no only concept a few of time questions when very as relevantyoung Only a few as important, as spiritually related OnlyTime a few did as not important, exist, did not as structurespiritually Life related Yes a few as moving, as timeless Life wasYes a reassuring a few as repetitionmoving, ofas familiar timeless things As the question Jews ask on Passover night A patchworkAs garden the question of longings, Jews dependency, ask on Passover vulnerability night and anxiety A question which defines them But myA grandmotherquestion which told storiesdefines of themher past A question which resonate through their generations A questionMy past which was resonatean undiscovered through country their then generations The Jewish lasting mystical bond I and the Theworld Jewish had just lasting emerged mystical from primeval bond sleep “Why is this night different from all other nights?” And a“Why newly is-born this sun night shone different on the newly from-built all other Pyramids nights?” beyond A night beyond the reality of Time A night beyond the reality of Time A night experienced every year as if for the first time A nightI did not experienced know then that every I too year will as yearn if for for the the firstpast time

That I too will strive to hold it longer Magic is not exclusive to childhood Hold thoseMagic once is vividnot exclusiveimages Time’s to childhood distance blurs Magic, a world beyond the usual pattern of life ThoseMagic, once a powerfulworld beyond emotions the Time’s usual wake pattern disperses... of life A world I experienced on Passover 2020 ThoseA world unconnected I experienced experiences on Passover Time connects 2020 On Corona Passover I touched a screen ClustersOn Corona of atoms Passover the cold lightI touched of moon a screenreveals A magic screen through which I transcended isolation AClusters magic ofscreen unrealised through hopes which adrift acrossI transcended the Space isolationof Life A small magical surface thanks to which I celebrated with other families A small magical surfaceLife thanks which justifies to which the ICreation celebrated with other families A magic link which took me all the way to Jerusalem A magic linkLife whichwhich evolves took meforward all the with way Time to Jerusalem Jerusalem the end of the great journey JerusalemMulti-dimensional the end life, of themiraculous great journey life, The great Jewish journey Life mysterious,The great complex, Jewish unfathomable journey life A journey through countries, continents, a journey through Time A journey Lifethrough which countries,comes from continents,beyond the Circle a journey of Time through Time A journey Moses started in Egypt that very night A journeyLife which Moses connects started Bereshit in Egypt and the that last very day night A night forever different from all other nights Life, the mysticalA night umbilical forever corddifferent which fromconnects all Creatorother nights and Creation

Colette Littman Colette Littman Colette Littman

23

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