ESTMINSTER UARTERLY Volume IX No.2 April 2018

The Ashkenazi Haggadah represents a very interesting example of Hebrew manuscript from Southern Germany, possibly Ulm. It is also known as The Londoner Haggadah.

The Art of the Haggadah The Exchequer of the Jews The Golem The Strange Case of Hermann Cohen

From the Rabbi

shlepping to Kosher Kingdom, or getting didn’t know as much as I wanted to. It’s lost in the text of the Haggadah. The because of this that I’m determined to central commandment of this festival continue to find time to learn and to that we’re in now is, in fact, one of practise as well as teach.

imagination and storytelling. The Excuse me talking about myself. I only do Mishnah, in Tractate Pesachim, teaches it because ‘we all have a story of self’. So us: ‘In every generation you have to see let’s each continue to articulate ours and yourself as if you yourself left Egypt, as it live ours. Tell a story to remember what says in the Torah (Exodus 13) you must you’re grateful for and what you’re narrate to your children on that day, committed to. It’s because of this that saying, it is because of this that the was done for me. Merciful did for me in my leaving When I was twelve and at St Anthony’s Egypt’. Why must we see ourselves Abraham Joshua Heschel was invited in School, where we called our teachers by individually as having come out of Egypt, 1953 to a Jewish Educators’ Conference. their first names, our English teacher, a and how can we tell a story about being He may have surprised some teachers burly Irishman called Con, started our present, when we’re not sure that we there by explaining: ‘The teacher is not lesson in an unexpected way: ‘Now,’ he were? Say: it is because of this that the an automatic fountain from which said, ‘I think all of you know that my Merciful did for me in my leaving Egypt. intellectual beverages may be obtained. father recently passed away, and now I’m He is either a witness or a stranger. To The Seder may be over, but we can each back here already at work teaching you guide a pupil into the promised land, he still tell our story. What kind of story? again. You could think that means that I must have been there himself’. One that has you at its heart. Adonai didn’t care about my father, that I’m not Asah li, that the Merciful did for me. A Have you been there? When? What was it very upset. Well, you should know that’s story of gratitude. It is a story like this, like? How did you choose to get there? not the case. Now, back to the lesson’. and the act of telling it, that can change How are you choosing to return? To get At the time I was slightly embarrassed. It the way you see yourself, as if you’ve to the promised land, to experience the seemed to me in that twelve year old left Egypt; a story that you can recall, power of change and growth we may moment a little personal - he certainly feel and share. need to be courageous, while trying not wasn’t meant to be the topic of our lesson to be reckless; to articulate and pursue For me, it’s because of this. It’s because and I wasn’t sure why he was telling us our own passions and self-interest, my mother wouldn’t let us out on Friday this at all. Now I know that this small without being selfish; to avoid nights, and developed a hamishe Jewish interjection, this two- or three-line story, conformity without lapsing into cuisine from risotto recipes and was the most important thing that Con extremity. Ottolenghi. It’s because of this that taught me. I have no idea what books or Shabbat is at the heart of my Judaism, I have the privilege of a job in which I poems Con taught me that year, or because of this that I’m trying to apply hear people’s stories. Let’s sit and hear indeed over many years (and he was a the creating of priorities. It’s because I each others’. If you can gather a group of good teacher) but I do know that he saw the power of Shabbat to punctuate people together I’ll be there to get to cared about his father. He taught me that my life and bring together people at know you all. Tuesday evenings are good and he taught me the power of sharing times of stress, and anxiety and illness for me, and if those don’t work for you personally. and loss, and also much, much joy. then let us know what wo uld work. To This Pesach, I would like us each to arrange to meet up just email me at It’s because of this that the Lord did for think about what our personal stories r abbi@ westminstersynag ogue . or g me. It’s because six months after having are, and to try sharing them. We might met Leah, of wanting to spend all our Tell your story. It’s because of this, try sharing them with our children, or time together, of learning from her and because of overcoming nerves in our students, our friends and family, and being intrigued by her, I had the courage burgeoning love, because of risotto and initially ourselves. You are obligated to to say to her at dinner ‘when this year missing out, because of overcoming self- tell a powerful story with yourself at the ends and you have to study in LA and I doubt. Tell these stories to our heart of it. have to study in London I hope we can community and to yourself - so you know When we are uncertain about the stay together’. And it’s because of this that you’re leaving Egypt. possibility of hope and change in our that I now have the love to enjoy hard Pesach Sameach, Happy Pesach. lives and in the world, it is stories rather weeks, and the love to know that work than abstract lessons and arguments that must be an important part of my life, but allow us to truly know that change is not all of it. possible. Indeed, our Torah not only It’s because of this. It’s because of expresses itself as a story but it insists choosing to study for a year in in New that we must continue to tell our stories. York City at a very observant Yeshiva and You may have thought that the central Rabbi Benji Stanley discovering that, compared to others, I activity of Pesach was eating matzah, or 3

Jewish History

The Art of the The Golden Haggadah believed to have been taken out of Spain by Spanish Jews escaping from the The family Haggadah Inquisition and to have been hidden until for whom it was finally sold to the National the 'Golden Museum in Sarajevo in 1894. The story Haggadah' of its flight was told in the novel The was made People of the Book, by Geraldine Brooks. must have During World War II, the manuscript was been rich hidden from the Nazis by the Museum's indeed. It Chief Librarian, who at risk to his own was created life, smuggled the Haggadah out of in Barcelona Sarajevo. He gave it to a Muslim cleric in in about Zenica, where it was hidden under the 1320, by two artists working together, Cairo Genizah Haggadah floorboards of either a mosque or a and stylistically is an example of both Muslim home. During the Bosnian War, Jewish and Gothic art. Artists at that ‘And thou shalt tell thy son in that day, the manuscript survived a museum break time, of whatever faith, were exchanging saying: It is because of that which the -in and it was discovered on the floor with ideas and techniques. This cross-cultural LORD did for me when I came forth out many other items thieves believed were borrowing of artistic styles happened of Egypt.’ These words from the book of not valuable. It survived in an throughout Europe, but was especially Exodus, which we recite every year at the underground bank vault during the Siege strong in medieval Spain, where Jews, Seder table, are the inspiration for some of Sarajevo by Serb forces. The President Christians and Muslims lived together for of the most beautiful illuminated of Bosnia presented the manuscript at a many centuries. The Golden Haggadah, manuscripts that the Jewish people community Seder in 1995. In October now in the British Library, is bound in possess. The word Haggadah, meaning 2012, the Haggadah's future was in doubt brown Morocco calf of about 1600, blind narrative or telling, represents the story after funding for the Museum dried up. tooled, with the remains of its original of Jewish freedom and is very precious to However, the Haggadah was again on clasps still visible. It is written in all Jews, regardless of their origin or display by September 2015, following the Sephardi ‘square’ script on vellum. It was affiliation. National Museum's re-opening. acquired by the British Museum in 1865 The earliest Haggadot to be preserved together with 322 other early Hebrew The Sarajevo Haggadah is also were found in the Cairo Genizah and are manuscripts for the sum of £1000, and is handsomely illustrated. It is illuminated now in America. One dated to about today worth many millions. It has fifty- in copper and gold, and opens with thirty 1000 CE, which is almost complete and is six illustrations; the first twenty-seven -four pages of illustrations of scenes from one of the earliest Hebrew manuscripts scenes are from Genesis starting with the Bible from creation to the death of written on paper, is now in the Adam naming the animals, the next Moses. Its pages are stained with wine, Annenberg Research Institute at the twenty-six show the Exodus story and the evidence that it was used at many University of Pennsylvania. Another, final three depict medieval domestic Passover Seders. almost as old and also found in Cairo, is Passover scenes. All are painted in in the Library of the Jewish Theological shining colours on a gold background. Seminary in New York. There is a facsimile in the Reinhart The Darmstädter Haggadah Library. However it was in the Middle Ages that One of the

the great illuminated manuscripts were earliest written, known today for their wonderful Ashkenazi The Sarajevo Haggadah illustrations in bright colours, silver and Haggadot is the gold. Although Jewish tradition forbids Darmstädter of the representation of the human figure, about 1430. It is the Haggadah was mainly intended for decorated with use at home, and its purpose was initial word educational, so Jewish scribes and artists panels and two felt free to illustrate it with scenes of the full page Jewish men and women in the stories of miniatures. the Bible. Indeed it was traditionally the It also adapts medieval Christian most lavishly decorated of all Jewish illustration to show the importance of sacred writings, giving well-to-do Jews of Almost contemporary with the Golden study and discussion at the Seder table. the middle ages a chance to demonstrate Haggadah is the Sarajevo Haggadah, One miniature shows every figure – men their wealth and good taste as well as owned by the National Museum of Bosnia and women - holding a book and reading their piety. and Herzegovina in Sarajevo. It is the Passover story. Others show teachers

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and students, or country and hunting The Sister Haggadah and gouache scenes The original is in the Darmstädter illuminations Known as the University Library. with pictures Sister Haggadah and text on the because of its same page. The The Bird’s Head Haggadah resemblance to book has an the Golden Some scholars interesting Haggadah, the consider this history. As the illustrations in Haggadah to Nazis moved this book show be the earliest into Eastern women at the surviving Europe the artists took out some political Seder Ashkenazi allusions, such as the swastikas on the table. One illuminated armbands of Egyptian soldiers, though he presides over manuscript. left the Hitler moustache on the Wicked the table while others are clearly taking Human figures Son. He could not find a European part in the ceremony. However, only the are painted publisher to take it on, and it was men hold books, which to some with birds’ eventually published in London, Szyk commentators suggests that women of the heads. It comes from Germany, written travelling there to supervise the time could not read. The book was about 1290, and is now in the Israel production. It was reviewed in The Times written in the latter half of the fourteenth Museum in Jerusalem. The illustrations as ‘worthy to be placed among the most century in Catalonia and has many are in the margins, brightly coloured, and beautiful books that the hand of man has similarities to the Golden Haggadah. The showing scenes from Exodus and from produced.’ The 1940 edition was limited biblical miniatures in both manuscripts Jewish ritual. There is much humour in to 250 numbered copies, and dedicated to were most likely based on a common the pictures, a boy with a bulbous nose, King George VI. This Haggadah has been model, but the iconography here is angels with blank faces and Egyptian reproduced many times since with a new simpler and less sophisticated. It is in soldiers in helmets with the visors down. luxury limited edition, produced by digital the British Library. printing and with an updated translation

and commentary published in California The Ashkenazi Haggadah in 2008. The Washington Haggadah Held by the This Haggadah British was also The Interfaith Haggadah Library, this decorated by Joel Haggadah of In 2008 the West London Synagogue ben Simeon and the fifteenth published an given to the century is Interfaith Haggadah, Library of unusual in sourcing texts about Congress in that the artist freedom from other Washington. It is known. His faiths. It was was probably name appears designed and written written in at the end of by Tina Elliott. ‘As Northern Italy in the book: ‘I am Joel ben Simeon Feibush, an Interfaith about 1478 and is illuminator: My heart counsels me to reply Haggadah, it was felt illustrated in the margins, showing the to him who asks and says, who painted important to include four sons, the roasting of the Passover these [pages]? I shall answer him: I am he, quotations and commentary from other lamb, and other pictures of the Seder Feibush, called Joel.’ faiths, in particular the sons and daughters meal. The calligraphy is particularly fine of Abraham (Christians, Muslims and Living in Germany, Feibush illustrated the with birds and beasts woven into the Jews),’ the Introduction reads, and goes book of ninety-eight pages with marginal writing. The figures wear the typical on to say, ‘It is our hope that this miniatures, illuminated initial letters and medieval dress of country folk, in bright Haggadah will enlighten, educate and other ornaments. The little drawings are colours, and this book too has wine stains excite all participants at a Seder and just of domestic scenes, animals and other from a Seder of long ago. as we hope to live in a world without creatures as well as the conventional The Szyk Haggadah barriers so too has this Haggadah been Seder stories. The text was written by designed without any borders or barriers.’ Eleazar of Worms. A fine reproduction The art of writing a Haggadah has not was written by David Goldstein in 1997 disappeared. A very handsome Haggadah and published by Thames and Hudson. was illustrated by the Polish-Jewish artist Arthur Szyk between 1934 and 1936. There are forty-eight full page watercolour

5

The Arts

Chaim Soutine spent two weeks staring at Rembrandt’s restaurants. The recent exhibition at the The Jewish Bride. Courtauld Gallery - Cooks, Waiters & (1893-1943) Bellboys - provided powerful images of In 1915, living in a residence for other humble folk in boldly coloured uniforms. struggling artists in Montparnasse,

Soutine was introduced to Amedeo

Modigliani and they became close friends. An older, more sophisticated man, Modigliani helped Soutine, who was shy Portrait by and rather gauche, to gain confidence in The Pastry Amedeo himself. Modigliani’s art dealer, Leopold Chef Modigliani Zborowski, impressed with his work,

offered to represent Soutine.

Inspired by Rembrandt’s still life of a

carcass - The Slaughtered Ox - Soutine enraged his neighbours in the residence by Their expressions leave one in no doubt keeping an animal carcass in his studio so about their personalities. The little down- that he could paint it. After hanging the Towards the end of 2017 there were two trodden pastry chef makes one wish to be side of beef which he bought at a Parisian significant exhibitions of the works of able to comfort him, while the arrogant slaughterhouse, he had someone fetch a Jewish artists who were friends, head waiter stares out at the world with ill bucket of fresh cow’s blood every few days Modigliani - whose story we published in -disguised disdain. All the paintings are so that he could regularly pour it over the the October 2017 issue of this Quarterly - executed in thick impasto and give the carcass to ensure that it stayed the bright and Soutine. Their friendship was slightly impression of having been done with great colour of newly-cut meat. He had to keep surprising as they were very different passion but also with a deliberate desire to fanning away the flies and his neighbours characters and came from contrasting send a message about these people and complained to the police about the awful backgrounds. their condition. He distorts the features stench. Health inspectors had to be and concentrates on the eyes, and in doing Chaim Soutine’s father was a very persuaded to let him complete the so he seems to tell a whole story of the religious tailor. Chaim and his ten siblings painting before carting the beef away. sitters’ condition. It is as if his bad temper grew up in Russia in the predominantly However, they taught him to inject the and his depression are poured into the Jewish village of Smilovitchi, in what is meat with formaldehyde in order to arrest paint which he layers on the canvas. His now Belarus. A talented artist from an the decay. There is a story that Marc whites are full of different shades and yet early age, he drew a portrait of a Chagall saw the blood from the carcass really white, his reds are a vibrant blood- neighbour, whose sons beat him for leaking out into the corridor outside colour. He captures the essence of the disobeying the Talmudic injunction Soutine’s room and rushed out screaming sitter. Each painting tells a story. One forbidding the creation of a ‘graven image’. that someone had killed Soutine! There KNOWS the person, their pride, Because of the beating, Soutine’s mother are many stories about Soutine’s bad vulnerability, melancholy and demanded - and received - compensation temper and poor personal hygiene. One awkwardness. Even the chairs become an for the attack and with the money, young anecdote tells that a severe earache was integral part of the tale. Perhaps his early Chaim aged only sixteen travelled to found to be caused by a bedbug that had experience of religious persecution had an nearby Minsk and then to the Vilna lodged in his ear and had to be removed by influence on his personality and his art. Academy of Fine Arts, which was one of a doctor. the very few academies that would accept After World War I, the art dealer Paul Guillaume began to champion his work. Jews. At a showing which he arranged, a When he was nineteen he went to Paris painting from this series, that of a pastry and enrolled at the Ecole des Beaux Arts cook, was seen in 1923 by an American where he studied under Fernand Cormon. collector, Albert C. Barnes. He demanded He used to spend hours at the Louvre The Carcass to see more paintings by Soutine and absorbing the works of Goya, El Greco, of Beef bought some fifty works on the spot. This Tintoretto, Ingres and Courbet. However helped lift Soutine out of his desperate the paintings of Rembrandt had the circumstances and brought him to greater greatest impact on him and he made prominence. It enabled him to stay in several trips to Amsterdam and apparently good hotels and to eat in the restaurants slept on a bench outside the Rijksmuseum where he found new models for his in order to spend more time with the In the early 1920’s - the ‘roaring twenties’ - paintings. His portraits of hotel and Rembrandt collection. There is a story, Soutine became fascinated by the cooks restaurant workers became especially which may or may not be true, that he and waiting staff of French hotels and prized by other collectors and today are

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To say I live and breathe books is an Community considered among his greatest achievements. The Reinhart understatement yet I can’t quite decide Library what excites me the most about them. Soutine produced the majority of his From the crumpled edges of a thoroughly works from 1920 to 1929. From 1930 to read novel, to old books with the familiar 1935, the interior designer Madeleine musty aroma that clings and lingers. Castaing and her husband welcomed him Perhaps it is their extraordinary ability to to their summer home, the mansion of bring people together, allowing us access Lèves, becoming his patrons, so that to a variety of epochs and different Soutine could hold his first exhibition in worlds. Whatever it may be, the power of Chicago in 1935. He seldom showed his the stories and of the people lift off the works, but he did take part in the page and continue to keep us all important exhibition The Origins and inextricably linked. Development of International Independent Art held at the Galerie The library is open to members every Nationale du Jeu de Paume in 1937 in Saturday morning, and weekdays by The Reinhart Library was established in Paris, where he was at last hailed as a appointment. To reserve a book, send an memory of Rabbi Dr. Harold Reinhart, great painter. Soon afterwards France e-mail with the title and author to Minister of Westminster Synagogue from was invaded by German troops. As a Jew, admin@ westmin stersynago gu e.or g its inception in 1957 until his death in Soutine had to escape from the French and we will reserve it for you. If you can't August, 1969. The collection of books capital and hide in order to avoid arrest find a book you are looking for, please let reflects the diverse backgrounds and by the Gestapo. He moved from one place us know what it is by email and the interests of our congregants. Our library to another and was sometimes forced to Library Committee would be delighted to is probably one of the most up-to-date seek shelter in forests, sleeping outdoors. investigate the possibility of obtaining a Jewish libraries in London. In addition to Suffering from a stomach ulcer and copy. the main library, we also maintain bleeding badly, he left a safe hiding place Rabbinic and Reference libraries which As we continue to celebrate the Sixtieth for Paris in order to undergo emergency are available to our members by Anniversary of our congregation why not surgery. appointment, as well as the Children’s help us to add sixty books to the Reinhart and Or Shabbat Libraries. We are looking Library. for new or nearly new fact or fiction, both Library Thing is a useful resource to adult and children’s books with Jewish browse the titles - books and DVDs - we content and/or a Jewish author. have in our collections. You can do so The Head online via w ww. libr ar yth ing.com/pr There are many ways for you to support Waiter ofile/ the library. Firstly, with our Adopt a

kenth ous e or download the Book initiative whereby you can sponsor LibraryThing a book on our Wishlist. Please feel free to app. With this one can look for titles by check the Wishlist to select one, or if you category and search the catalogue by title have a book in mind e-mail the Library or author. Committee who will be in touch with you.

Secondly, volunteer your time - there's I am absolutely delighted to have taken always something to do in one of our four As Rembrandt and Goya greatly over the role of Librarian. Over the years influenced Soutine, so in his turn did his libraries at Kent House. I have enjoyed going to and participating work influence, amongst others, Bacon in riveting discussions at the Mayfair Most of all, please come and browse the and de Kooning. De Kooning said of him Library and JW3 book clubs respectively. shelves of your library and borrow a book that he ‘distorted the picture but not the I have also had the pleasure of for yourself or a member of your family. people’. He is also quoted as saying ‘I've contributing to the Westminster Weekly If you have any suggestions or want to always been crazy about Soutine - all of newsletter Book of the Week segment, talk about a book or author, do let us his paintings. Maybe it's the lushness of with recommendations and reviews of know. the paint. He builds up a surface that publications available in our library. I My vision for the future of our library looks like a material, like a substance’. was previously immersed in the honours the past and ensures that we publishing world, working at Hodder & Chaim Soutine died in 1943 from a enjoy the full potential of our collections. Stoughton, John Murray Press and perforated ulcer and was interred in the By introducing a book club, literary salon Headline, firstly, in the editorial arena Cimetière du Montparnasse. Some years and showcasing our members that are and later in legal, contracts and later, Roald Dahl placed him as a authors, I very much hope that you will permissions. In addition, I have spent a character in his short story Skin. enjoy the projects.

little over a decade as a freelance writer CC in print, digital and more recently radio. MK

7

Jewish Culture

Jewish Poets 2 the countryside and of country pursuits sent to Craiglockhart Hospital near was to have much influence on Edinburgh, where he became friendly Siegfried Sassoon Siegfried’s later writing. with Wilfred Owen, whose war poems

have been compared favourably with (1886-1967) He seems to have had a somewhat Sassoon’s. Once recovered he decided to miserable childhood; his mother was return to his unit, (though before doing determined to bring him up as an so he threw his Military Cross into the aristocratic gentleman, sending him to Thames) and was posted to Palestine. preparatory school and then to Marlborough. He made few friends, He seems to have been much influenced preferring music and poetry to team by the country, probably because of his sports, often feeling awkward and lonely. Jewish ancestry, writing from there, He went up to Clare College at On the rock-strewn hills I heard Cambridge but left without taking a The anger of guns that shook degree, aware of his homosexual Echoes along the glen. orientation when he met David Thomas, In my heart was the song of a bird, who died in the 1914-18 war, and with And the sorrowless tale of the brook, whom he lived briefly. And scorn for the deeds of men.

Siegfried was already writing poems, Returning with his old battalion to though most of his time was spent riding France, he was again wounded and came to hounds, playing cricket and collecting back to England for good. Two books of books, as recounted vividly in the first war poems were published: The Old volume of his autobiography, Memoirs of Siegfried Sassoon’s father, Alfred, was Hunstman and Counter Attack. He now a Foxhunting Man, published after the one of the three children of Rachel and turned to a literary career, being war in 1928. Before war was he declared Reuben Sassoon. Reuben died when appointed the first literary editor of the he said, ‘France was a lady, Russia was a Alfred was only six and his mother Daily Herald, when it was reconstituted bear, and performing in the county spoiled him outrageously. He was a after the war. Among the distinguished cricket team was much more important promising musician, though the family writers he commissioned to contribute to than either of them’. the paper were Arnold Bennett, somewhat disapproved when she presented him with two Stradivarius When war came in 1914, Siegfried joined Charlotte Mew, E.M. Forster and Osbert violins. Rachel was heartbroken when the Sussex Yeomanry and the following Sitwell. He also met William Walton who he became the first Sassoon to marry a year was commissioned into the Royal dedicated his Portsmouth Point overture non-Jewish woman, and apparently Welch Fusiliers, where he met Robert to him. He became involved in Labour rushed to the synagogue (Bevis Marks) Graves, and was sent to France. He politics, though he was not active in to curse any children they might have. showed great courage in battle (it earned Parliamentary affairs. He went on a brief She never mentioned his name again. him the nickname Mad Jack), and was lecture tour in America, but came back to Alfred Sassoon’s wife, Theresa awarded the MC, with a commendation London where in the ensuing years he Thornycroft, came from an old English for the VC which was unsuccessful. His published several more books family, which included the distinguished war poems are among the greatest of of poetry. sculptor Thomas Thornycroft and she English descriptions of the horrors of All his life Siegfried had kept diaries, was herself an artist, painting several war, one of the best known being Attack: describing his life as a young man-about- pictures of the Royal family. town and then as a soldier. These were Lines of grey muttering faces, masked with fear, Nevertheless when Siegfried was born in They leave their trenches, going over the top, later published in the form of novels as 1886 he was technically not a Jew. While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists, Memoirs of a Foxhunting Man, where he Later, during the First World War, when And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists, assumes the of personality of George most of his best poetry was published, he Flounders in mud. O Jesus, make it stop! Sherston, to be followed by Memoirs of wrote in The Old Huntsman, an Infantry Officer, and then Sherston’s In April 1917 he was wounded and sent Progress, the first volume winning both Religion beats me. I’m amazed at folk back to Britain. Here he made his the James Tait Black prize and the Drinking the gospels in and never scratching famous protest against war, writing to Hawthornden Prize. Their heads for questions. When I was a lad his commanding officer, ‘I am making I learned a bit from mother, and never thought this statement as an act of wilful defiance To educate myself for prayers and psalms. Although he became friendly with many of military authority, because I believe distinguished writers, poets and The marriage was not happy, and Alfred that the War is being deliberately musicians, he seemed still to be seeking left home a few years later, leaving his prolonged by those who have the power happiness in his personal life. He had three sons, Michael, Siegfried and Hamo, to end it.’ The letter was read out in the several affairs, notably with Ivor Novello, who was killed in Gallipoli, to be brought House of Commons, and he was deemed Glen Byam Shaw and the Hon. Stephen up by their talented mother. Her love of to be suffering from shellshock. He was Tennant, but in 1933 he went to live at

8

Jewish History

took instruction in the faith from the Abbé Teffont Magna in Wiltshire; he married The Strange Case Legrande and was baptised under the Hester Gatty and they had a son, George, of Hermann Cohen name of Marie-Augustin-Henri. buying Heytesbury House, near Salisbury. Immediately he began to study for the However, the marriage ended in 1945 and (1820-1871) priesthood, but was refused by the Siegfried continued to live there for the Benedictine Order and turned instead to rest of his life. the Carmelites, especially that more

He continued to write, this time in the austere branch, the Discalced (barefoot) form of autobiographies: The Old Century Carmelites. They owe their origin to the and Seven More Years, The Weald of beginnings on Mount Carmel in Israel Youth and Siegfried’s Journey. He was under the prophet Elijah. still writing poetry, publishing Collected A successful concert enabled Hermann to Poems in 1947. But it is clear that he was clear his debts and a visit to Rome still seeking the companion he had never Hermann Cohen (not the German-Jewish obtained the dispensation necessary for a philosopher of the same name) was born found. He wrote: newly converted postulant. He entered the in Hamburg in 1821 to the prosperous Carmelite monastery at Le Broussey in The hour grows late, and I outlive my friends, Jewish family of David Cohen and his wife Remaining, since I must, with memoried mind, Rions and took the religious name of Rosalie. The family belonged to the That for consolement deepeningly depends, Augustine Marie of the Blessed Sacrament. Reform synagogue in Hamburg, and young On hoarded time, enriched and redesigned. He became a priest in 1851 at the age of So is it with us all. And thus we find Hermann was taught the basics of Hebrew thirty. He was a popular preacher, Endeared survivals, that our thought defends. and the Jewish faith. As a child he showed addressing audiences all over Europe and early musical promise and his father took an active part in restoring the He finally found peace and satisfaction arranged concerts for him when he was Carmelites to France, founding several where he least expected it – in religion. In only seven years old. He was a precocious priories in France. He renewed his 1957 he was received into the Roman child, already learning the bad habits friendship with Liszt who was himself now Catholic Church at Downside Abbey, much (gambling and getting into debt) which in Holy Orders. encouraged and helped by the nuns of were to pursue him through his early life. Stanbrook Abbey. The Abbey Press later In 1862 Hermann Cohen, or rather Father published fine editions of some of his In 1834 his mother took him and her other Augustine Marie, came to London at the poetry, including the collection he wrote in children – against her husband’s wishes – invitation of Cardinal Wiseman, to revive acknowledgement of his gratitude for the to Paris to help him in his musical career the Carmelite order. Catholic life in warmth and happiness he found there, The and to keep him out of harm’s way. He England was reviving and in 1850 Path to Peace. was forbidden as a foreigner from joining Wiseman had been appointed Cardinal by the Paris Conservatoire, but Rosalie Siegfried Sassoon died of cancer at his Pope Pius IX. Hermann re-established the persuaded Franz Liszt to take him on as a Discalced Carmelite Church in 1866. It home in 1967, having kept fit and well pupil where he became something of a was designed by Pugin and dedicated by almost to the end, playing cricket, writing prodigy. He was introduced to Liszt’s Cardinal Manning. The priory adjoined it. and in touch with many of his distinguished circle of friends, including It was destroyed by bombs in 1944 but a distinguished friends. He was appointed George Sand who was much taken by the new Church, designed by Sir Giles Scott CBE in 1951, and received the Queen’s handsome young man. He was also was opened in 1960. Medal for Poetry in 1965. In 2010, Dream befriended by a young priest, the Abbé de Voices: Siegfried Sassoon, Memory and Lammenais, who had been Hermann returned to France. When War, a major exhibition of Sassoon's life excommunicated for publishing a radical Germans were banished from France in and archive, was held at Cambridge document questioning belief. the Franco-Prussian War he went to University. Geneva, but moved to Berlin to minister to Cohen then joined Liszt in Geneva, where French prisoners in Spandau Prison. As His obituary in The Times said, ‘All his life although only thirteen, he played in he had been deeply spiritual: and when he prison chaplain he worked to help them in several public concerts and began teaching terrible conditions, but caught smallpox discovered a means of expressing a faith, pupils himself. He was also taken under and died in 1871 at the age of fifty. He was fortunately for him it did not drive him the wing of Liszt’s lover, the Countess buried in St. Hedwig’s Church in Berlin. from the world but brought him into it. Marie d’Agoult, and returned with them to More than ever was he happy to see - Paris. But his debts were mounting and he The cause for Hermann Cohen (Father indeed he had always been at his best with was already leading a dissolute life, where Auguste Marie) to be canonised as a saint - one or two chosen friends. his gambling threatened to ruin his career. of the Holy Church has been accepted for investigation by the Holy See. A book PB It was while Cohen was playing in the about him - A Life of Hermann Cohen – church of St. Valѐre in Paris that he From Franz Liszt to St. John of the Cross experienced an overwhelming belief that by Timothy Tierney - is in the Reinhart for him conversion to Catholicism was the Library. only way that he could live his life. He 9

Jewish History

Women of Worth 3 It soon became clear that the purpose of was ostensibly to buy presents and a Cebà’s attention was to convert her to portrait for Aprosio. Sarra Copia Christianity and the long exchange came Paluzzi was dismissed from his post as to an end. His letters to her have been (1592-1641) secretary to a Venetian nobleman, to be maintained in a Venice Library, but of rescued by Sarra who saw that he was hers to him no trace remains. properly clothed and housed, with a This association between the young regular income. But again he deceived Jewess and her Christian correspondent her, helping himself to her possessions was followed by another between Sarra and money, and escaping to Friuli. On and Baldassare Bonifacio, deacon of his return he approached her again, and Treviso and later Bishop of Capodistria. again she stood by him until finally he He had often attended the glittering and his accomplices bled her dry and she salons that Sarra held in her Venetian denounced them to the authorities. home but in 1621 he published A After Paluzzi’s disgrace and death, Sarra Discourse on the Immortality of the continued to write poetry and to hold her Soul, in which he accused her of heresy salons for the intelligentsia of Venice. and of not believing in the soul’s Her literary accomplishments seem to immortality, an intrinsic belief for both have stood the Venetian Jewish Jews and Christians. This was a threat to community in good stead, raising its the Jewish community as well as to reputation among contemporary writers. Sarra’s own intellectual and religious The Venice Ghetto in the seventeenth Some of her work has been republished integrity. She replied at once in a lengthy century was a place of culture, intellect in anthologies of Italian literature. She is Manifesto, denying Bonifacio’s claims and beauty where women were mentioned in Giorgio Bassani’s The and accusations. It begins with a poem, encouraged to participate in the world of Garden of the Finzi-Continis. Although art and literature in which they lived. O Lord, Thou know’st my inmost hope and she and her husband had no children she thought, is often spoken of as being a woman of One prominent Jewish family was that of Thou know’st whene’er before thy Judgment Simon and Ricca Coppia, whose throne grace and beauty, generous to her daughters, Rachel, Esther and Sarra were I shed salt tears, and uttered many a moan. friends, and always acknowledging her educated intelligent women playing an ‘Twas not for vanities that I besought, Jewish inheritance. important role in family life and with a O turn on me Thy look with mercy fraught. Sarra died in 1641. The Hebrew good knowledge of Jewish practice and inscription on her grave stone reads history, as well as being versed in several Sarra’s scholarship – she used both the (in English): languages. Sarra, born in 1592, married New and the Old Testaments to back her

Jacob Sullam, a wealthy business man theories, as well as references to Dante, Josephus and Aristotle – marked her out and leader of the Jewish community. This is the stone of the as not only a woman and a Jewess, but distinguished She was introduced to an Italian drama, the possessor of a formidable intellect, Lady Sara, wife of the living L’Ester, written by a monk from Genoa, hardly known in contemporary Venetian Jacobbe Sullam Ansaldo Cebà, and wrote to him Jewish circles. She sent a copy to Cebà, The exterminating angel loosed his dart expressing her admiration and her but he failed to reply for seven months, Mortally wounding Sara. spiritual love. She told him that she slept and then without sympathy. Their Wise among wives, the support with the book under her pillow. friendship ended. of derelicts, The wretched found in her a There began a long correspondence, Another visitor to Sarra’s salon was a companion and friend. verging on the sexual, though they never Frenchman, Fra Angelico Aprosio, who If now she is given irreparably in actually met. They exchanged sonnets had heard of her ‘Academy’ and attended prey to the insects and pictures, writing of their friendship On the Predestined Day the good with enthusiasm. But this apparently Lord will say: as if it were a romance. He told her that innocent friendship was also betrayed, Return, return, O Shulammite, her name, spelt with two p’s and this time by Sarra’s teacher, Numidio She passed away on the sixth day meaning ‘couple’ in Italian, meant that Paluzzi. Jealous perhaps of Aprosio’s (Friday) they would indeed be a couple when they 5 Adar 5401 of the Jewish era. presence, he accused Sarra of May her soul enjoy eternal met in heaven. She removed the second plagiarising some of his writings, Beatitude. p from her name, but sent him a sonnet including the Manifesto and published with a portrait of herself: his theory, much of which was believed. This is the image of one who in her heart He also absconded with some of her Bears only thine image carved, money, forging a letter from Aprosio Who pointing to her bosom tells the world, declaring his love for Sarra; the money Here I wear my idol, let all adore him.

10

Anglo-Jewish History

The Exchequer of and much of Jewry was destroyed. The to make their living for the next fifteen following year came the massacre at years, so Jews could thenceforth make a the Jews Clifford’s Tower in York after which living in England only as merchants, papers and documents relating to the farmers, craftsmen or soldiers, not loans made by the Jewish community professions to which they were were burned in the nave of York Minster. traditionally accustomed. The destruction of the records caused It was the duty of the Exchequer to considerable confusion in the affairs both execute these rules, and they had to of the Jews and of those indebted to them, present their accounts regularly. They and in 1194 the King ordered that also had to ensure that when a Jew died duplicates should be made in future of all there should accrue to the King one third such transactions. The special division of the value of his goods, of his known as ‘Aaron’s Exchequer’ now had to outstanding debts and of the value of his expand to deal with other Jewish affairs The Jew’s House, Lincoln house or property. by Samuel Hieronymus and was called the Exchequer of the Jews. Grimm circa 1784 The Exchequer of the Jews also acted as a Four justices of the Jews were chosen to Court. If a Jew found himself at odds with Aaron of Lincoln, a Jewish financier born administer the new division, two Christian a neighbour regarding land rights, or about 1125, was believed to be the and two Jewish. They were barons of the indeed with another Jew, the Court wealthiest man in England. He lent Exchequer, under the Chief Justice and convened to hear the case. Its judgment money to the King, Richard I, to the the Treasurer. The two first Jews to hold applied, too, when a Jew converted to nobility and to the monastic houses, the office were Joseph Aaron and Christianity or was convicted of a crime, including those of St. Albans, Lincoln and Benjamin de Talemunt. Their duties were in which case the King had claim to his Peterborough Cathedrals. He used to oversee any quarrels or disagreements possessions, as if he had died. Every time agents, set up throughout the country, and between Jews and Christians mainly to do a Jew was involved in a criminal case, the has been considered by some to have been with finance, check on repayments and Exchequer could exercise its right to England’s first banker. An ancient house ensure that all transactions were fairly supervise the outcome of the case, in Lincoln, believed to be Aaron’s, is one recorded, in all the larger towns across particularly where appeal by a Jew was of the earliest extant town houses in England where there was a Jewish concerned. England. It is situated on Steep Hill in community. Lincoln, immediately below Jew's Court. However, most of the cases which came As time went by the Exchequer expanded before the Exchequer involved financial In early England, the Jews were at the to control more of Jewish life, to include dealings, often relating to land deals beck and call of the King, who virtually supervision of where Jews might live, so between Christian and Jew. Where it was ‘owned’ them and their possessions. that any Jewish family who wished to a Jew suing a Christian for repayment of a When Aaron died in 1186, Richard move house or transfer to another town, debt, the local sheriff had to make sure claimed his assets and the money owed to had to ask permission, pay a fee, and that for two Sabbaths running him; so great were Aaron’s complicated notify the Sheriff of the town to which it announcement of the circumstances was financial enterprises, that it was was going. In 1275 Edward I passed The made in the synagogue calling for him to considered necessary to set up an entirely Statute of the Jews which detailed more appear at the Exchequer on a specific date new department of the Court of specifically exactly the requirements of to state his case. Exchequer to deal with them. Called the community regarding its status in the ‘Aaron’s Exchequer’, it needed a treasurer country. By now the Court had practically With no advantages accruing to the Court and a clerk working solely on Aaron’s milked dry the wealth of most of the Jews; from the now impoverished Jews, the affairs, which were vast, extending if they were no longer able to lend money King - Edward I - took the final step of overseas, and including loans for corn, at interest, their value to the King was ordering the expulsion from Britain of all property, armour and any other limited, and the new Statute included the Jews in the kingdom. In 1290 they commodity which might serve as surety strict regulations on their behaviour. were forced to flee, not to return for more for advances of money. Usury was outlawed in every form and than 350 years. debtors of Jews were no longer liable for Official documents detailing such loans certain debts. Jews were not allowed to were kept in archae or chests, with the live outside certain cities and towns, and paper record (chirograph) torn in two, any Jew above the age of seven had to The lender and borrower each retaining one wear a yellow badge of felt on his or her Jew’s half which, when matched up, served as House outer clothing, six inches by three inches. proof of ownership. today All Jews from the age of twelve had to pay At the time of the coronation of Richard I a special tax of three pence annually. in 1189, the Jews suffered appalling Christians were forbidden to live among violence at the hands of the London mob Jews. Jews were licensed to buy farmland

11 Around the World

parish, (which he refused), he felt deeply A Dual Heritage in his heart, that the God he was taught from the pulpit was not the God he read about in the Bible, the God of the Hebrews. In his letters to his mother, he ...‘see, my son, all this is ours but we have was expressing doubts and rebellion. to leave it all behind and run! I want you to look at it for the last time!….’ It took him twenty-five years to have a spiritual revelation and know for certain A toddler of three years old could not that the Bible was divinely inspired and grasp the meaning of the words of his the supreme authority was God. By then mother as he stared at the family’s wealth. he had founded a school, become a parents, I felt the necessity to discover the That night the young widow Anghel successful businessman and married the country of Armenia, the other part of my twenty-three years old, her three-year old grand-daughter of Elkan Heinemann, a roots and finally to see Mount Ararat, its son Ara and two-year old daughter German Jewish banker. He was then majestic twin peaks, our legendary Archaluis, got into a carriage in the inspired by his strong personal daily mystical mountain, the resting place of middle of the night and fled their home relationship with God and started a Noah’s Ark. knowing that their hours of life were religious movement to bring Christians to counted. ‘The Young Turks’ were on a Ararat is mentioned four times in the repentance before God and the Jewish rampage to kill all Armenian families in Bible: First in Genesis 8:4 – And the Ark people and bring them to full Teshuvah Turkey. A couple of days earlier, her rested in the seventh month, on the for the sins of anti-Semitism. Obviously, husband Mihran, and all the men in the seventeenth day of the month upon the this created quite a storm in the household, had been taken and savagely mountains of Ararat. The second and international Christian world. killed. third times are found in Kings II 19:37 How does this story relate to Westminster and Isaiah 37:38, where it translates We are in Chorun, Northern Turkey in the Synagogue? Ara was my father and Elkan Ararat into the Land of Armenia where spring of 1915. Heinemann was my maternal grand- Adam-Melech and Sharezer, sons of Anghel and her children were travelling by father and his Jewish wife Frederique was Sanheriv fled and found refuge after night, hiding by day, witnessing the from Prague. murdering their father in Nineveh. The horrors of the massacres, of decapitated fourth time Ararat is mentioned in the Every Shabbat, before entering men hung on trees, scraping for food with Bible is in Jeremiah 51:27, here it Westminster Synagogue, the Turkish flag only their bodies to keep them warm in interestingly mentions the kingdoms of at the end of the street is an ever-present the cold nights. It took months before this Ararat and their fight against Medo- reminder of my painful Armenian young family found refuge in Greece. Ara Persia: ‘Set you up a banner in the land, heritage and at the same time, the Czech was placed in an orphanage and his blow the shofar among the nations, Torah Scroll is a tangible reminder of my mother and sister in another refugee prepare the nations against her, (Bavel) Jewish heritage related to my great camp. Twelve years of struggle went by call together against her the kingdoms of maternal grandmother. Being a Jew and before a miracle happened: a Swiss family Ararat, Minni and Ashkenaz, appoint a an Armenian is a rare and heavy burden was taking young Armenian refugee boys captain against her, cause the horses to or should I say a rare heritage. Last year, in a small school near Geneva. Anghel’s come up as hairy locusts. Ashkenaz was April 24th was Yom Ha’Shoah, it fell on prayers were answered and she one of the sons of Gomer, the grandson of the same date that all Armenians accompanied her treasured son on the Japhet, becoming one of the kingdoms of commemorate the Genocide of 1.5 million boat that would carry him first to the land of Armenia. men, women and children slaughtered by Marseille, then on a train journey to the Turks. That day, the dual pain had a Like the land of Israel, dating as far back Switzerland, knowing it could be the last double weight of intensity. as the times of Babylon, Armenians have time she would ever be able to hold him. been at war against pagan nations. My Jewish roots have always been clear, Ara arrived in Begnin, a small village near Kingdom after kingdom, invasion after that’s who I am, the immense sense of Geneva, with no belongings except for the invasion, they still remained a separate belonging to the family and land of Israel. determination to succeed. Very rapidly he entity, never totally swallowed into the What about the other side of my heritage? got accepted for the university in Caucasian pagan people. Why was my father so intensely Lausanne, aiming for a doctorate in connected with the Jews to the point that Noah prayed and prophesied in Genesis 9 theology. He was studying Latin, Greek he was saying that his existence was for that Japhet would one day be enlarged and German by night and in order to pay Israel? It must have been more than and blessed but under the tents of Shem. for his room and board, he privately because he had married my mother z”l. Since Armenians proudly continue to tutored young students. Being Armenian is part of my history, my state that they are one of the missing During all those years, he was on his painful past, my open wound, and a deep tribes, then maybe they should reconsider ultimate quest for the absolute Truth. yearning for a land inaccessible for their spiritual allegiances, and worship After graduating and being offered a generations. After the passing of both my God under the covering of that tent. It

12

seems that they had a sense that this tent Interestingly enough, one of the most Church for dealing with Antiquities, the would be their protection. Similarities link ancient observatories in the world is site covered a large area near the southern Jewish history to Armenians as we just located in Armenia; Karahunj dates back bank of the Arpa River which feeds into saw how it relates to Ashkenazis in the 7,500 years. The other one of Metsamor is the Araxis, the largest river in Armenia in land of Armenia, we can trace the tribe of 2,800 years old and permitted our the Ararat valley. The inscriptions on the Benjamin back to Armenian Jewry. Stories Armenian ancestors to develop geometry tombstones had no other letters than from the Middle Ages describe them as the at such a high level that they could actually Hebrew and were written on beautiful ‘Free Jews’. measure latitudes and longitudes, develop granite stones, obviously the Jews of the the theory that the earth was round, and to region knew Aramean and one inscription During the first century, the Armenian predict solar and lunar eclipses long before marked the death of a community member King Tigran II took Jews captive from the Egyptians. Armenian architecture dating to the equivalent year of 1289 CE. Israel and brought them to Armenia. King resisted tremendous earthquakes and The team of researchers were convinced Shupur II, during the fourth century C.E, wars, mostly due to its use of geometry in that it was not a passing community but a deported Jews back to Persia and since the construction of fortified cities and well-established thriving one, a new-found then Persian dynasties successfully temples. Its complex systems of squares, diaspora, according to Prof. Stone, one invaded Armenia until the Bagratid feudal rectangles, circles and straight lines that probably arrived by foot from Persia, dynasty restored the Kingdom of Armenia crossing motifs, rendered buildings as not far from the Silk Road. and claimed King David as their ancestor. strong as modern-day technology. As in The Mongols invaded Armenia, Georgia Trading was prolific on the Silk Road Judaism, knowledge was key and without and Persia in the thirteenth/fourteenth during that time, gold, precious stones and it no one could understand the laws of century. The rulers of the region did not luxurious carpets were a dominant part of nature. Armenians considered geometry fight but surrendered wisely, allowing the commercial activities. In 1375 the to have magical powers, the key to survival community to continue to grow and Mamelukes conquered Armenia and since and the revelation to the secrets of the flourish. Again, according to the Hebrew then there were no more traces of universe. Convinced that the six-branched University team, the community must Armenian Jewry. Some were assimilated star had magical powers, they have lasted a few centuries. More recently, in Kurdish communities and it took nearly incorporated the wheel of immortality in Armenia attracted Jews from the Soviet five centuries for them to reappear. the Star of David and included those Union during WWII, a place relatively free symbols in numerous decorations of from anti-Semitism. But the economic churches, monuments and sacred art. That difficulties resulting from the is why most churches were constructed independence of Armenia from the USSR with the geometrical shape of the hexagon and the war with the neighbouring state of to sustain their domes or simply to protect Azerbaijan caused most of the Jews to them with sacred powers. move to Israel. Today, the small community of about 250 people is led by a Chabad Rabbi and maintains good relations with Armenians.

Each Yom Hashoah, we should remember During my first visit to Armenia, while that the Armenian Genocide paved the crisscrossing the country and visiting way to Hitler’s Final Solution as he said in historical monuments, I was stunned to 1939: ‘Who after all, speaks today of the see so many Magen David in church annihilation of the Armenians?’ Winston ornaments and architectures. Since Churchill described it as an administrative ancient times, Armenians represented the holocaust and noted: ‘This crime was Wheel of Eternity inside a Magen David. It is only recently that traces of an ancient planned and executed for political reasons. This wheel is one of the most important community were discovered. Prof. Michael The opportunity presented itself for symbols of its religious culture. Obviously, Stone, head of the Armenian studies clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race’. most of the world associates the six- programme at the Hebrew University in The world was silent then, leading to the pointed star with Judaism dating back to Jerusalem, led a team of researchers to a Shoah, the worse crime of the human race. the seventeenth century but nothing much site in southern Armenia where a random was said of its utilization by the Armenian As we sadly face recurring anti-Semitism, excavation revealed inscriptions engraved culture. we remember our past and know that our on tombstones, they were quotations from Deliverance comes only from the Shield of Since the dawn of ages, Armenians were the Bible and Hebrew names. The Ben-Zvi Avraham. known to be strong mathematicians, Institute for the Study of Jewish Eastern architects and artisans. They were highly communities and Israeli Antiquities SS skilled in geometry and astronomy and funded the expedition. All the necessary could predict astronomical phenomena. permits were produced by the Armenian

113

Around The World

The Dubrovnik A narrow flight of stairs leads directly to a The doors of the Ark are quite exquisite. place where entrance tickets to the Sadly they were locked so we couldn’t see Synagogue museum are sold for a token fee, the desk inside it. However, we were told that it managed by a very friendly and held several Scrolls, one of which is said knowledgeable non-Jewish woman. The to have originated in Spain in the walls of the museum hold old thirteenth or fourteenth centuries and photographs and documents, including a been brought to Dubrovnik after the list of the earthquake victims of 1667 and 1492 expulsions. many more items related to the Jewish history of Dubrovnik.

More steps lead up to the sanctuary. Three wide arches divide the room and the huge bimah into front and rear areas. The women’s area was historically at the back but later was accommodated in a gallery created by annexing a room from the third floor of the adjacent building. A very dainty decorative latticework separates it from the area below. At the end of a glorious week cycling in Croatia, Bettina and I spent a day exploring the fascinating city of

Dubrovnik. Having walked the city walls early to beat the huge cruise ship and Today, the Jewish community in Game of Thrones crowds, we searched Dubrovnik is very small, approximately out the Synagogue before scuttling back thirty people, although only seventeen to the serenity of our hotel. officially registered in the 2001 census. Because of the small numbers, the shul Our orienteering skills are not the best, does not have a resident Rabbi. Whilst so even armed with the address and a the shul holds services on High map we were pleasantly surprised to find Holydays, it is only able to hold Shabbat the street we were looking for after only and other services intermittently, when a three complete tours of the vicinity! Rabbi from a neighbouring community The Synagogue in Dubrovnik is the visits to officiate. oldest Sephardic synagogue still in use I am not sure what it was about the shul today in the world and the second oldest that was so moving; perhaps its history. Synagogue in Europe (after the one in Or, maybe its delicate beauty. Or its aura Prague). It is said to have been The Synagogue is not large but was of prayer. Or the feeling that comes from established in 1352 but only gained legal probably adequate for the Dubrovnik it being so sadly under-used. Maybe a status in the city in 1408. It is in a street Jewish community, whose numbers mixture of all of these and more. called Zudioska Ulike – the Jewish peaked between the sixteenth and the Whatever it was, it was certainly a very Street. This is directly off the main high twentieth centuries at about 260 emotional visit and one we will not easily street and now looks like any other street members in 1830. forget. in the old town. In the beginning, though, it was a ghetto, so the alley was DC closed at the top and at the lower (main street) end, access was controlled by a gate. In ghetto times, Jews were only allowed to live in this particular street so the entire community existed in this one enclosed road.

A little way up the terraced road is the entrance to the Synagogue; a pretty but unobtrusive entrance (we missed it on the first pass!) with various books and small items on display outside, including a beautiful very old Haggadah.

14 Poetry Page

DEFINING MEMORIES

Memories; what are memories? Invisible, soundless, three-dimensional Intangible records of transient moments Emotionally subjected therefore unique Fleeting images encapsulating space and time Undefinable memories encompassing life Its joys, its poignancy, its spirituality, its mystery

Memories ephemeral and lasting, transient and recurring

Memories reversing Time’s forward motion Re-aligning the past, trailing nostalgia Memories will we part you and me?

I shall take away with me

The love given me

And the smiles I shall not see I shall take away with me The light which guides me And the wind from the sea The wind; less transient than me

CL

11 5

The Golem describes Adam as a golem for the period witchcraft and necromancing. The ability before the spark of life passed to him from to inspire the clay was not just anybody’s God. In the world of animated imagery, – it demanded high accomplishment in Jewish Golem. Michelangelo’s vision of Adam’s mysticism and Kabbalah, a test of the awakening was brought to life for Melvyn scholarship of the protagonist, and took Medieval city Bragg’s South Bank Show using Lloyd place in trance-like ecstasy. To this extent legend from Prague. Webber’s Variations on a Paganini it is comparable with the ‘japa’, a mantra caprice. in Buddhism and Hinduism consisting of Giant clay low-voiced repetition of the Name to Compiled in the first Diaspora, the monster. engender a ‘higher state’ of consciousness Talmud has passed down a concept from and ‘communion with the Divine’. Here at least five centuries BCE. Biblical angels, at least is a similarity with Zoroastrian demons and stories like Noah’s find priestly practice which consisted of analogues in Zoroastrianism with which mumbled repetition of the avestas – but ‘Great men were once capable of great the Jews lived in Diaspora, but not the then that method of learning scriptures by miracles.’ Isaac Loeb Peretz tells us so, to Golem. Theorists have suggested that it heart exists in Jainism, Sikhism and many open his version of the best-known Golem stemmed from the far older Egyptian other faiths, with a Christian analogue in story set in Prague, short enough to fit on practice of burying figurines with the the repetition of Hail Mary, Paternoster a single page. In the sixteenth century dead as servants in the afterlife, animated and so on, programmed by worry-beads. Rabbi Loeb ben Bezalel created the Golem by the characters depicted on them. from clay to destroy our enemies, but However, the Israeli historian Gershom The Word is axiomatic, but it may be reversed his act of creation when the Scholem observed that there is little written, and processes emerged from Golem’s devastation got out of hand, and account of deeds or movement of the Kabbalistic numerology and alphabetic stored the lifeless clay in the attic of the earliest Golems – they were clay figures symbolism. In one version, the letters Altneu synagogue in Prague where no-one around which rituals were performed, aleph, mem and tav were written on the may look upon it, especially not pregnant which were then destroyed, their role Golem’s forehead or on parchment placed women. Now nobody knows the Name he merely to potentiate the mystical rapture in its mouth, spelling emet, truth. Erasing whispered to bring it alive. ‘What are we of the ritual. The Golem as saviour/ the aleph changed the word to met, death, to do?’ asks Peretz. destroyer is a much later development. and the creature collapsed. The Golem of Chelm, a seventeenth century Polish town There are fuller versions, by Isaac It is most significant that the Talmudic mocked for its foolish inhabitants, Bashevis Singer among others, many creature was mute. In Judaism, the outgrew Rabbi Eliahu who created it. He Golems from elsewhere than Prague, and essence of creation is in the Word of God: slyly ordered it to kneel to remove his no shortage of great men of the past, ‘and God said Let there be light’. To make boots and was able to erase the aleph on reputed to have known the secrets of the point, one Jewish source remarks that its forehead, but it collapsed upon him animating the clay. Its influence on other abracadabra derives from avra k’davra, and killed him. fiction, and the allegories and lessons it Aramaic for ‘I create as I speak’, although offers, have grown with our technology, the translation is approximate. Later, especially since the animated image Christianity characterised the messiah as The unthreatening became the medium of popular story- the ‘Word made flesh’, another older Golem persists in telling. As Peretz’s closing question mysterious phrase to be understood in a signals, the mystery of how to switch it on non-verbal sort of way. The Sefer the Mishnah, the is irresistible. Yetzirah, ‘Book of Creation’, composed in meaning extending to the first half-millennium CE, provides The Golem was a creature modelled in instructions for the animation of a Golem, ‘uncultivated’, and in clay or mud and magically brought to life from which the critical information is by Jewish savants. (A Golem was made of modern Hebrew interpreted in various ways by later wood and door-hinges by eleventh rabbis. This method involves singing and unintelligent and century Solomon ibn Gabirol of Malaga, dancing; one suggests the preliminary clumsy but he was suspected of fornicating with it burial of the creature, another the use of a and made to destroy it. The golem is an special container. Undoing the spell ersatz form of life since, crucially, it has As well as mute, the Golem in these stories consisted of performing the ritual in no soul which only God can convey – is crude – it is not Michelangelo’s David, reverse. Rabbi Loeb whispered His Name, golem means unfinished or half-formed, a and illustrations of it are barely refined. hashem, into the ear of the doll, and term used just once in the Bible in Psalm Megalithic power is symbolically perhaps he also said avra k’davra. contained by moulding it into anthropoid 139. However, it is a very ancient idea. The Talmud tells of Golems, always with Whatever the method, no authority form. Perhaps its very shapelessness the limitation that they could not speak, explains why the practice did not fall foul makes animation permissible, patently a such as Jeremiah’s. In Sanhedrin 38b, it of the Deuteronomic interdiction of product of human imperfection in no

16

danger of breaching the second insecurity and poverty of shtetl life. The the ecstasy of creation – the Golem was commandment against idolatry; whereas coincidence of dates with the advent of no longer mute. The moral now concerns animating a creature in His image would printing and the European renaissance is megalomania or irresponsible technical be to usurp God’s creative prerogative. In also to be expected. Jakob Grimm, of the overreach, but not its hubris. the story of Jeremiah’s Golem, the fairy-tale Brothers, published his The century also brought a science of prophet wrote Elohim emet on its Teutonic Mythology in 1835, but in mind to explain the Golem’s origin. forehead, but the creature erased the 1808, in his Journal for Hermits, he had Jung’s ‘shadow’, the dark unconscious of aleph changing ‘God is truth’ to ‘God is reported on Golems created by Polish struggling primal fears and impulses, dead’. With newly-acquired speech, it Jews: unable to speak, brought alive by a was also the source of creativity, to be lectured the prophet on just such cypher, growing ever larger until tapped into by young teenagers as the usurpation and hubris. destroyed by erasing a letter. ‘Dark Side’ in Star Wars. The ‘collective The second commandment is easily In the world which hatched the Golem, unconscious’ reflected cultural understood before the seductive beauty wise men dealt cautiously with God and phenomena in the individual, generating of ancient Greek statuary. However, it magic, knowing that power can spin out shared fantasies. Latterly, the Golem has also conjures an idea of hugeness with of control. Sermons on youthful even been analysed as a form of birth limitations, very much like the Golem, as recklessness were conveyed in children’s bypassing woman, with all the socio- in Psalm 135: ‘They have mouths but tales like Grimm’s, echoed latterly by political significance now attached to they speak not, eyes have they but they Mickey overwhelmed in Fantasia, to gender issues – but not much of see not…’ Both may be understood to Paul Dukas’s music, L’Apprenti Sorcier. Judaism. teach the dangers in symbolism. A third That music was written in 1897 as a Before the Hypertext Transfer Protocol characteristic of the later Golem is that it symphonic setting for the poem Der powered up the Web, the Trivial File continues to grow until it is too big to be Zauberlehring from exactly a century Transfer Protocol could spin out of reined in. Allegorically, the symbol grows earlier, by whom else but Goethe. 1797 control just like the apprentice’s and takes over from the complex reality was also the date of birth of Mary broomsticks, transferring more and more for which it was initially only a metaphor. Shelley, and her story of Frankenstein buckets of information until it crashed Its adherents commit to the symbol was published only twenty years later. It the Internet – a loop known as the which thinly exemplifies and simplifies has no demonstrable ancestry in the Sorcerer’s Apprentice Syndrome. Now, the perceptions that gave birth to it – Golem, but its parts were assembled on well into the day of artificial intelligence and they are taken over by its moral and the banks of Lac Leman as Lord Byron in robotics, many of us are worried that intellectual limitations: as the Psalm and the Shelleys read German ghost like the Golem or the broomsticks, there continues, ‘those that bow down to them stories to one another to fill dark is vast interest in the magic word to make shall become like unto them’. The idea of evenings, and we feel entitled to presume them go; but do we really know how or an amoral Golem force spiralling out that it emerged from the same Mittel- when to make them stop? from initial satisfaction to growing European culture. Likewise, Goya’s anxiety and horror has a wide allegorical uneasy paintings of the shapeless reach, to Faustian hubris, to the abuse of Colossus are from the same early power, to the negation of personal nineteenth century, influenced no doubt responsibility by allegiance, to the by Napoleon’s Spanish campaign but corruption of violence, and much more. portraying the same foreboding.

The unthreatening older Golem persists By the twentieth century, the Golem had in the Mishnah, the meaning extending moved beyond Jewish culture and begun to ‘uncultivated’, and in modern Hebrew to represent the perceived dangers of unintelligent and clumsy. It is science, latterly turbo-charged with overshadowed by the proliferation of artificial intelligence. Meyrink’s novel stories of an ungovernable creature in The Golem in 1915 had enormous the ‘early modern period’ as observed by success. Karel Capek’s 1920s play Scholem, who dates the period’s Rossum’s Universal Robots introduced The Sorcerer’s Apprentice from beginning to the Iberian expulsion of the term which came to represent Disney’s ‘Fantasia’ 1492. That heralded a diminution in manufactured anthropoids, and Asimov rabbinical authority and a rise in invented three rules for their control. Kabbalistic study, leading to eighteenth (Gollum in Lord of the Rings is a red century Chasidism aiming to bring that herring.) Loss of control became the mysticism to the wider Jewish major theme, as in the Terminator film population (like Chabad today). The series, the TV series Humans, and the metamorphosis into saviour/destroyer, film I, Robot. Forgotten was the modesty and the lament in Peretz’s final question, of the early concept, the scholarly JE are easy to understand against the attempt to grow closer to the divine, and

17 Jewis h His to ry

crippling taxation and repression. In 70 in some of the smaller towns, Nola, Bacoli The Jews of CE the Temple fell and many Jews and Capua. returned to Italy, finding homes in towns In Herculaneum, the small prosperous Pompeii and cities up and down the mainland. town where many wealthy Roman Many were of the lower orders of society, landowners made their homes, there are especially the slaves who served in the traces of the remains of Jewish slaves, on Browsing through the shelves of the armies and the prisoners who in Rome tombstones and inscriptions and even in Reinhart Library, a thin book bound in were put to building the great Colosseum. witnesses to court cases. In Pompeii, silvery card caught my eye. The title read Some of the exiles settled in Naples and however, there are signs that a more The Jews in Pompeii, Herculaneum, the other towns of the Campania region, commercially minded Jewish community Stabiae and in the Cities of Campania including Herculaneum and Pompeii. made its presence felt. One, Youdaikou, Felix. Did this refer to the volcanic During the years before the fall of the was a wealthy wine merchant, who sold eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 C.E.? Temple several natural phenomena both best quality wines as well as Could there have been Jews living in disturbed the people of the region. everyday table wines, to the local those ancient Italian cities, decimated by Jewish commentators ascribed them to a inhabitants. He was sufficiently rich to the huge flood of hot lava, and preserved forthcoming disaster in Palestine: a have slaves of his own. He sold wine to almost in their entirety for subsequent comet had been seen in the heavens, the owner of a large inn in the town, who generations to gaze at? Indeed there tracing the sky for six months; a may also have been Jewish, his name – A. were. One year after the extermination of devastating earthquake, not unusual in Cossius Libanus – indicates a mountain those cities an anonymous Jewish author the area, had destroyed much of the in the Palestine/Syria area, while Cossius ascribed the tragedy to God’s vengeance surrounding countryside. One soothsayer may derive from the Cush area of for the destruction of the Temple in foretold that sometime after the Temple Ethiopia in Africa, mentioned in the Jerusalem, which happened nine years fell ‘fire from the bosom of the earth Bible. Another Libanus served in the Villa almost to the day before Vesuvius would be flung into the infinite space of of the Mysteries. A few inscriptions in erupted. He was the first to tell the story. the heavens, falling in the form of a rain Hebrew have been found etched into the There had been Jews living in Rome and of fire on many cities in Italy.’ walls of houses overwhelmed by the hot Naples even before Jerusalem was lava of the eruption. destroyed. Alexander the Great had It is however the sculpture and paintings conquered Judaea, and all around the There had been Jews that indicate most clearly the presence of Mediterranean Jewish communities had living in Rome and Jews in the towns destroyed by the sprung up: along the North African coast, Naples even before eruption of Vesuvius. Remembering that in the Greek archipelago, in Egypt and this took place only sixty years after the Babylonia, and then in Italy. Jerusalem was death of Christ, it is possible to imagine The Jewish population of Rome grew destroyed. that paintings depicting Old Testament rapidly, swelled by Jewish soldiers scenes may well have been instigated by returning from war, and the capital itself One of the most important cities of the Jews, if not their own work. Sodom and was becoming a sophisticated Campania region was Puteoli, now Gomorrah, Jonah and the Whale and the cosmopolitan city with good opportunities Pozzuoli, an important port for Rome and Judgment of Solomon have all been for commerce and financial enterprise. a great trading post for the area. It is identified when the buildings of Pompeii The Jews were useful to Julius Caesar known that there was a Jewish were revealed. The Solomon painting is who granted them privileges, including community there. Josephus visited the believed to be the oldest existing Biblical freedom of worship, of self-jurisdiction city and mentions in his Antiquitates painting. and the right to form communities of Judaicae that Puteoli’s Jews were tricked The book referred to above is difficult to their own. But in 19 CE with changes of into believing that a visitor to the read in English; it is haltingly translated government they aroused the enmity of community was Alexander, the son of and full of typographical errors. Frequent the Senate and were banished from Herod. They welcomed the impostor with references are made to further Rome, losing all their ritual property, open arms and great merrymaking. The archaeological work being done on the their books and sometimes their lives. Jews played an important part in the site (it was first published in 1979), so it They were sent to one of the most commercial activities of Puteoli; they may well be that there is more to be found unhealthy and uninhabitable parts of the manufactured glass, fabrics and purple in this fascinating story of a Jewish country, Sardinia. However, when dye. Some of the inscriptions found after presence in the ruins. Tiberius’s anti-Semitic minister Sejanus the eruption bear Jewish names, fell, the Senate allowed them to return. including a gravestone reading Hic PB requiescat in pace Benus filia Rebbetis The Jewish War broke out in 66 CE, when Abundantis (Here lies in peace Benus, Jews living in Palestine rose up against daughter of Rabbi Abundantis). She was their Roman masters, protesting against seventeen years old. There were Jews too

18 Jobs People Do

choosing the area in which they wish to also asked to list their activities and write Educational major. The liberal arts curriculum in essays that reflect their co-curricular particular, offers students two years in passions and pursuits. In the holistic Consultant which to explore different fields before application review process, the student is

declaring their specific major. evaluated as a whole individual, beyond just their academic qualifications. Another draw is the emphasis on extracurricular activities that help the The student should be open to navigating students to build connections with others the educational offerings of different while learning valuable skills outside the countries before resolving on where to classroom. These activities range from apply. For Jewish students seeking a community service and volunteer welcoming environment on campus, it is programmes to sports and arts, among also recommended that they explore the others. The strong and vibrant plethora of universities in countries such residential life on campus thus allows as Canada, Israel and across Europe. students to bond over co-curricular Particularly in Israel, there has been a pursuits beyond the classroom walls. recent increase in undergraduate

programmes offered entirely in English, Students will also find an active Jewish where students also benefit from having life on campus at many universities, with easy access to Hebrew courses. Exploring Overseas the Hillel organization embracing the University Options range of Jewish backgrounds and While determining the student’s experiences from all around the world. university path, the cost of education The process of applying to university is Hillel is represented in more than 550 also constitutes an important component possibly the most important chapter in colleges and communities throughout of the decision-making process. It is any teenager’s life. Deciding where to important to keep in mind, however, that apply has an impact on the kinds and Students will also find there is a difference between the quoted range of educational, extracurricular and price and the actual amount families employment opportunities that the an active Jewish life on need to pay. In the States, for example, student will have access to, as well as campus at many there are both generous merit-based determining the network of friends he or scholarships and financial aid she will get to build in these formative universities opportunities for successful students,

years. With the changing landscape of which can even cover the full cost of higher education, an increasing number education. It is critical to learn about the of students are considering universities North America and globally, fostering an nuances between the price advertised on overseas. According to the Institute of inclusive community that offers many the websites and the financial aid that International Education, for instance, the opportunities for involvement, such as the student is qualified to apply for, in number of students going to the States planning social action events, leading order to be able to make an educated from the UK has increased by 25% over Shabbat services and cultivating lifelong decision. the past five years. Having worked with friendships. There are also other clubs hundreds of students over the last and organizations such as the Jewish decade, I can confidently say that the Student Union and the Jewish Students DA process works best if the student and the Association which help students to parents are well informed about the explore and celebrate their Jewish

different options that are available, in identity. Universities vary in the range order to make decisions that best fit the and kinds of Jewish life events that they student’s interests and goals. offer, so this is an important criterion to consider and get advice on from your As an educational consultant, I specialize counsellor while researching best fit post Debbi Antebi is the Co-Founder and in providing guidance for American Director of College Counseling at -secondary institutions. college and university applications. With College Sense Ltd. She works with high over 4,000 colleges and universities, the Just as education extends inside and school students who are applying to universities in the States and across the students have a wide spectrum of higher outside the classroom, the application world. Her contact details are education institutions to choose from in process to American universities deb b i@ college sen se.c o.uk the States. Unlike the UK system, there is evaluates both the academic and the no strict limit to the number of extra-curricular profile of each student. applications one can submit. In addition to high school grades, Furthermore, the American system gives standardized test scores and students much more flexibility while recommendation letters, students are

19 Jobs People Do

around the country, I am so proud to say progressive Jewish society for students. I University Chaplain that tiny NLJC gathered more than 130 was invited by their co-coordinator, a

people, including at least twenty students Liberal Jewish Synagogue member, to from the UEA, together for a Sukkot teach and spend Shabbat with the Service in our community-built sukkah students. I gave the dvar torah at their where a multi-faith Sanctuary Norfolk Friday evening service and met many other delegation asked Norfolk County Council students at Cambridge JSOC’s Shabbat to finally commit to welcoming fifty Syrian dinner, then taught on Shabbat day. As I refugee families to Norfolk. The keep finding with my campus visits, the momentum created by this campaign, of students are so happy to have a chaplain which our event was a part and for which visit, especially a young, Liberal one. one of our congregants was a founding 26th-27th November member, eventually led to Norfolk County Sent out 200 Chanukkah packs to Council's agreement! Great Britain, Ireland, Israel, and Europe 30th-31st October It is my fifth year doing this work, and the Durham JSOC weekend visit As part of the overall programme for series of excerpts which follow are some of students and young adults at LJ, I send out As university students finished their first the more interesting examples of the kind yearly student packs three times a year - on full month of term, Chief Executive Danny of work I do. These will give people an Chanukkah, Purim or Pesach (depending Rich and I visited Durham University insight into my work in a fun and diverse on when student Easter break falls), and together for the last Shabbat in October. way. Exam Stress Packs in May. I think perhaps On the Friday evening, we hosted a warm our Chanukkah packs are the most loved, Middle Eastern food Shabbat dinner for Excerpts from the Autumn Diary as they provide everything needed for the JSOC, a regular group of about twenty of a University Chaplain for the students to celebrate a warm Chanukkah students. On Saturday, I met with an LJ Alliance of Progressive Judaism far from home: a chanukkiah, candles, student leader and then the former JSOC dreidel, and gelt/gold coins. This year we president, a Progressive student running 30th September sent out 200 packs to students across for National President of the UJS, before Leeds JSOC Lunch & Learn Great Britain, covering literally dozens of hosting a bagel Lunch & Learn with a Kicking off the first week of university different universities, as well as to students dozen students. I also presented current term, I was invited by Leeds JSOC to teach far from large Jewish communities in Durham JSOC President Simon Zeffertt at their weekly Lunch & Learn for guest Ireland and Europe, and to our LJY gap with our new LJ Students Shabbat kit. speakers. I grabbed coffee and year student in Israel. conversation with a Progressive student 5th November 27th-28th November leader first, and then twenty students and I Songs of Praise filming for Interfaith Week Union of Jewish Students Training packed into the JSOC sukkah for two hours Summit In an early project filmed for Songs of to read and debate Jewish thinking on the For perhaps the first time ever, the UJS Praise about Interfaith Week, I was part of meaning of Jerusalem and Zion. Students invited two chaplains to its yearly Training a Jewish/Christian team making food to go from across the spectrum attended: Liberal Summit for incoming JSOC committees all to the homeless shelter at King’s Cross Jewish students whom I know well from across the country - and one of them was a Methodist Church. LSE’s main chaplain for two summers as Welfare Officer on Liberal Liberal rabbi. For every Orthodox service students and one of my London chaplaincy Judaism's Kadimah summer camp through over the Shabbat, we had between fifteen counterparts, Reverend Dr James Walters, to an ex-charedi young woman. The and twenty five Progressive students as well as Christian and Jewish students Progressive student leaders then kindly praying in our ‘Egal’ service next door, and young adults, were on hand to help accompanied me back to the train station, including the Chief Executive of the UJS, make traditional Jewish strudel and as I continued to hear about their lives on David Brown, and the then UJS National Christmas mince pies. Interfaith work is an campus. President, Hannah Brady. The UJS also important part of being a student chaplain rd themed much of their Training Summit Shabbat, 3 October on Britain’s multicultural campuses, Sukkot Resettlement Action, around inclusivity, which included much especially as the Jewish Societies interact Norwich Liberal Jewish Community discussion and learning about the with the larger religious student body on Along with my student and young adult denominations in Judaism - and many campus. work, I am the rabbi of the thriving questions directed to me - and Keshet UK Norwich Liberal Jewish Community in 20th-21st November coming in to speak about LGBT inclusivity Norfolk, with upwards of seventy Cambridge Egalitarian Minyan and in the Jewish community. JSOC weekend visit members, where I also liaise with the small University of East Anglia JSOC and its As part of LJ Students’ support of Rabbi Leah Jordan students. As part of a campaign of similar Progressive Jewish life on campuses, we Rabbi Jordan is the wife of actions led by other Liberal communities annually funded a small budget for Rabbi Benji Stanley. Cambridge Egalitarian Minyan, a

20

Book Review בּהרוּ נרוֹקר by Devora Hebrew Corner Baum

Published by Yale Ayalon Gilad, in the Israeli newspaper University Haaretz, notes that near Mosul in Iraq, Press Solly Jacobs is on his deathbed and archaeologists found in Nineveh, 2017 knows the end is near. His nurse, his

Assyria, lists of trees that were used for wife, his daughter and two sons, are sacrifice by the king of Assyria, Why is this book different from all with him. Ashurbanipal. One of them was other books? Because while being an in- He asks for two witnesses to be present bedolach which came later to be called depth examination of the Jewish psyche, it and a camcorder be in place to record bdellium. This word appears twice in is also written with great humour – and his last wishes, and when all is ready he the Bible. First in Genesis, describing contains some amusing quotations. begins to speak: the Garden of Eden: ‘and the gold of The Author has tackled an interesting that land is good; there is bdellium.’ In ‘My son, Bernie, I want you to take the subject with great clarity and a lightness of the Book of Numbers, when God sent Mayfair houses. touch. She explores the emotions and manna to the Israelites during their passions that are engendered in the soul of ‘My daughter Essie, you take the wanderings, we read; ‘Now the manna the Jew when she explains in her inimitable apartments over in the East End. was like coriander seed, and the way what feeling jewish means. appearance thereof as the appearance My son, Josh, I want you to take the of bdellium.’ Whilst being intellectually stimulating, Dr offices in the City Centre. Baum’s book gives us cause to think about From the Greek translation of the Bible Sarah, my dear wife, please take all the how we regard ourselves in the context of to the Latin version, the word came to residential buildings on the banks of the our Jewishness. She has researched her be called bdellium, meaning aromatic river.’ subject deeply and quotes many well-known resin. In the Midrash it was decided names to support her interpretations. In The nurse and witnesses are blown that it meant a precious stone. Rabbi each chapter she examines the negative away as they did not realize his Saadiah, the Gaon, called it a pearl and feelings that we can experience – under extensive holdings, and as Solly slips so did Judah Halevi and Don Isaac such headings as Guilt, Envy, Mother love, away, the nurse says, ‘Mrs. Jacobs, your Abravanel. However, Rashi determined Self-hatred and Paranoia. husband must have been such a hard- that the word mean crystal. Other working man to have accumulated all rabbis followed him, such as Rabbi Devorah includes a few apposite and very this property’. Joseph Caro, the author of the prepared funny jokes along the way to reinforce her Table of Jewish Laws called in Hebrew conclusions. It is an absorbing subject The wife replies, ‘The bastard had a the Shulchan Aruch. During the Jewish expertly handled . paper round.’ Enlightenment period of the nineteenth Also by this author, is century, the word was adopted as Rashi The Jewish Joke: An had interpreted in the twelfth century, Sent in by CR Essay with Examples meaning crystal. Others followed until (less Essay, More the present times. Examples) which is a The word can be used as a surname, delightful bedside book such as Dr. Veksler-Bedolach. You may containing many like to know that she heads the familiar and some archaeological team which recently unfamiliar jokes. found a seal around the Kotel (the Both these books are in Western Wall) dating from the first the Reinhart Library. Temple 2,700 years ago. CC

Devorah Baum lectures in English IA Literature at Southampton University. She is also a researcher in the Study of Jewish/ non-Jewish Relations at the Parkes Institute – a part of that University. 21 Editorial

Why is this cookery book different from all other cookery books?

DC found this in a Paul Hollywood Baking Book. Spot the (deliberate?) mistake. We are not

sure if this is Paul’s April Fool’s joke, or if he was misinformed by his friend!

From HS

Recently, together with his two great nieces and his great niece-in-law (Julia Shelley, Emma Hussey and Cindy Shelley), I was invited to a Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony to honour Otto Schiff*, and seven others, for their humanitarian work during the Nazi era.

The event was organised by the Department of Housing and Communities and took place in the Grand Locarno Suite at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office. Speakers included the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Chief Rabbi and the Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson. A 'British Heroes of the Holocaust Medal’ was awarded to a representative of each person honoured. It would seem as if this was a catch up of awards which might well have been given in earlier years, although Otto Schiff was awarded the CBE in his lifetime.

*His story appeared in the January issue of this magazine –Ed.

22

Community Matters

Education lived and studied abroad including lifetime. spending the last two years in America Our Kabbalat Torah group is not the only working on a city literacy project in a teens programme that we are very by deprived inner city environment, is an excited about at the Synagogue. After excellent role model and educator for the Nick lying dormant for two years without group. Rabbi Benji and I will also work takers, this year also sees the return of Young with the group from time to time, as well our GCSE group. The GCSE group, as bringing in guest speakers as we did in Head of comprising four students, meets once per November when Holocaust survivor Education week after school to study the two Janet Singer Applefield came. religions of Judaism and Christianity

For the community service element, we alongside each other. You may be aware work to find ways in which all members that the previous GCSE curriculum of the group can contribute to Synagogue enabled students to focus only on One question that every Synagogue is life. The whole group were ushers at our Judaism, but the progressive movements dealing with, and generally precipitates Czech Scrolls Commemorative Service in in this country have welcomed the new much gnashing of teeth and pulling of November. Some are working with the government requirement to study two hair, is how to engage teenagers after children of Or Shabbat as Help Teachers. religions as it broadens interfaith they become Bar or Bat Mitzvah at the Others are Museum Guides. All will be understanding alongside deepening the age of thirteen. We have been working on involved in lay leading during the course, knowledge of Judaism. this for some time, and we have been which this year will culminate in them The course includes religious history and delighted to offer our teens the chance to leading a Friday night service, and next practice, core beliefs and ethics of the train as young leaders at Or Shabbat, or year they will graduate by leading a two religions, and the comparative to become Czech Scroll Museum Guides. Saturday morning service together. element really enables our students to However, although we have tried to form The possibility for running this sharpen their analytical skills. The youth groups in the past in various programme first arose because we have a teacher of the course is Janet Berenson guises, most recently in collaboration group of boys and girls who are B’nei who is hugely experienced, works closely with Habonim Dror in 2013/14, we have Mitzvah graduates who wanted to with the examination boards and has a never managed to create a programme maintain contact with their group. They track record of enabling our students to that a group of our teenagers commit to were already meeting up and staying in achieve the absolute best of their at the Synagogue over a sustained period. touch outside of the Synagogue, and we potential over the years which in many Or at least we haven’t succeeded until were delighted to explore the possibility cases has meant A and A* grades (or now! of providing a space for them in grades 7-9 in current GCSE parlance). In October we began our first ever Synagogue, as well as giving them the The fact of taking the exams a year early, Kabbalat Torah group. Kabbalat Torah opportunity to further their Jewish in year 10, also serves as excellent literally meaning ‘Acceptance of Torah’ is knowledge and to remain engaged with preparation for the students for year 11 essentially closest to a confirmation the community. As of January 2018, we when they do the bulk of their GCSEs at programme. The students commit to two have nine students in the class aged school. years in a programme that enables them between thirteen and fifteen, which is a As I write this, we are coming to Pesach to strengthen the friendships made with terrific number for our first group. And, and the Spring break, when thoughts their peers during the B’nei Mitzvah we hope that more will join in September begin to turn to the next school year Programme, to extend their Jewish from our most recent BM cohort (once all of those exams are out of the learning, and to give back and participate (meaning that we may need to run way). Well, now for our teenagers we in the community in various ways. parallel groups). have some excellent post-B’nei Mitzvah How exactly does it work? Essentially the We imagine that a highlight of the course options. Please do be in touch if you group gathers monthly on a Friday night will be the trip to Budapest which we are would like more information at for sessions with their mentor, Harriet planning for November. We have run this nick@ westmin stersynag ogue . or g and Rivkin. The learning sessions cover trip twice before, with other Liberal and encourage any teen that you know to Jewish topics of interest and relevance Reform Synagogues, and it has proved to come and join us! for young adults including, for example be a fantastic way for the students to I wish you Pesach Sameach. studying leadership at Chanukkah time, encounter the experience of Central modern slavery around Pesach time and European Judaism during the 20th the lessons of the Holocaust around century pre- and post-war, and following Holocaust Memorial Day. Harriet, having the Cold War. They have also been able herself grown up at Westminster to connect to a broader network of Synagogue, taught at Or Shabbat, and Jewish teens and have Jewish with her wisdom gained from having experiences that will stay with them for a

23

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

Planning Your Diary Contacting the Synagogue

RABBI Rabbi Benji Stanley [email protected] T: 020 7052 9712

CHAIRMAN OF THE Jeffrey Ohrenstein [email protected] EXECUTIVE Erev Yom Hashoah EXECUTIVE Gary Sakol [email protected] Wednesday 11th April DIRECTOR T: 020 7052 9713

Yom Hashoah EDUCATION Nick Young [email protected] Thursday 12th April T: 020 7052 9714 EVENTS & Jon Zecharia [email protected] COMMUNICATIONS T: 020 7052 9711 MANAGER Erev Yom

Ha’atzmaut MITZVOT & Hilary Ashleigh [email protected] KIDDUSHIM T: 020 7052 9717 Wednesday 18th April

MEMBERSHIP David Connick [email protected] Yom Ha’atzmaut LIFECYCLE Melissa Hamilton [email protected] Thursday 19th April ENQUIRIES PA to the Rabbinic T: 020 7052 9701 Team

Erev Shavuot CZECH SCROLLS Jeffrey Ohrenstein [email protected] MUSEUM T: 020 7584 3740 Saturday 19th May Nivi Chatterjee Duari [email protected] GENERAL ENQUIRIES T: 020 7584 3953/020 7052 9700 Shavuot

Sunday 20th May EMERGENCIES Monday to Friday: In the first instance, please call the Synagogue Office: 020 7052 9710

Evenings and weekends: please e-mail Rabbi Benji Stanley [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