ESTMINSTER Volume VIII No.3 July 2017 UARTERLY Leo Marks with a coded message on silk Lifecycle events Inside this issue Westminster Welcomes its New Members Deborah Iliffe From the Rabbi 3 Andrew Percy Ludmila Kozyritskaya Unsung Jewish Heroes 3 4 Robert & Sharona Schalaudek Courtney Granville & Daniel Rosenthal Jewish Charities 3 - AJEX 6 Saskia Rolland-Bezem 7 Sayings of the Rabbis The Talmudist 8 Birth Trudy Leonard - a daughter for Alison & Harrison on 7th Marc Hebrew Corner 8 Baby Blessings 9 The Pact of Omar Trudy Leonard on 31st March Samuel Raba on 29th April 10 The Story of Moss Bros th Rafaella Baroukh on 6 May The Essenes 12 B’nei Mitzvah Skylar Sweidan on 13th May The Jews of Kaifeng 14 Olivia Matthewson on 3rd June Strangers in Strange Lands 16 Andrea Okun on 10th June th Isabelle Samuels on 17 June Jobs People Do 18 Auf Ruf Poetry Page 19 Emma Sharav & Barry Marshall Wedding Rabbi Angelus Kafka 20 Emma Sharav & Barry Marshall Editorial 22 Marriage Blessing Matthew Rhodes & Kathryn Adamson Education Report 23 Deaths Victor Sandelson on 4th March Howard Karshan on 21st March Albert Alfandary on 18th April th Raymond Eskapa on 10 May Condolences We offer sincere condolences to Bernice Sandelson on the death of her husband Johnny Sandelson on the death of his father Linda Karshan on the death of her husband Thomas Karshan on the death of his father Ruth Alfandary on the death of her husband Peter Alfandary on the death of his father 2 From the Rabbi script as is known today. It is therefore important at least to learn to read Hebrew, though of course So what about God’s language? I believe understanding it is also important. As we that God speaks other languages, and my have just celebrated Israel’s Birthday, reasoning is that the first word, ANOCHI and more recently remembered the - translated as ‘I’ in the Ten giving of the Ten Commandments - Commandments - is not Hebrew but an through the Festival of Shavuot - we are ancient Egyptian word. I learnt that the also, through Hebrew, reiterating our reason why He commenced with that links to our ancient land, its language, its word was to tell the Israelites that He history and the Bible itself. understood them, knew where they came from and would be prepared to guide Knowing a language means also knowing them to the Promised Land. We also the people better and connecting with know that some of our prayers are not in them through their culture and history. Hebrew but in Aramaic, a language The more languages we know, the closer spoken by Jews in the Persian Empire. we are to other people and nations. The Torah was translated into Aramaic Knowing more means less violence and Dear Friends, by Onkelos, a Roman national, who more understanding and gives us an I have been asked many times ‘Why do converted to Judaism and who lived in appreciation of who we are as individuals we need to learn Hebrew and where do the second Century CE. Also, the and as a people. So, when you go on your the script and language come from?’ ‘If Kaddish prayer, which we recite at travels this summer, try to learn about God only speaks Hebrew how does He funerals and on anniversaries of death the folk whose countries you visit, understand us?’ and ‘Why Hebrew?’ was written in Aramaic, and so we have connect with them and appreciate their indirectly been given permission to recite way of life. The truth of the matter is that I have no our prayers in the vernacular. Something definitive answers to any of those When we say in our prayers that God like 200 years ago, Reform Jews started questions. Asking rabbis, Google or knows all our secrets, whether they are in to pray in German, English and other Yahoo or any of the other search engines the open or hidden, we can assume that languages. For example, well before the would not or could not give me answers. God speaks our and other people’s so-called Pittsburgh Platform of 1885, languages and of course ‘God knows and By coincidence, something in which I do American Reform Jews were ready to understands’. I do not know why or how not believe, just this week I received my abandon Hebrew as the language of God spoke the Hebrew of our Bible, save friend and colleague Rabbi Jeremy prayer and to conduct services almost that perhaps the Hebrews heard him first Rosen’s Blog, in which he mentions and entirely in English, with English hymns and recorded His words in their recommends The Story of Hebrew by sung by the choir. language. Lewis Glinert. Whilst I have not yet read this book, I understand as Jeremy put it, when you go on your I wish you a pleasant summer holiday that it is ‘an interesting, brilliant, and I look forward to seeing you informative, readable and enjoyable travels this summer, refreshed and re-energised, romp through the history of Hebrew try to learn about the B’Shalom. from its earliest beginnings to the present day. It is a must-have for any folk whose countries thinking person's Jewish library.’ I will of you visit, connect with course get this book but in the meantime, them and appreciate let me share some of my thoughts on those questions. their way of life. We know from the Gezer Calendar (circa Fortunately, the eighteen rabbis who Rabbi Thomas 925 BCE) - Gezer being a town which was convened the Pittsburgh Conference, twenty miles west of Jerusalem - that the though it remained unofficial, still spoke original script may have been Phoenician of the importance of Hebrew. or paleo-Hebrew and slightly different from the square Assyrian script of the Whilst I am glad that we pray in Hebrew Babylonian Exile of 586 BCE which we and English I am also glad that we have use today. However, according to the not abandoned Hebrew, as that would Talmudic Tractate Megillah 2b, some of have severed our connection with the the letters may have been from well past - and of course Hebrew maintains a before that date, and that the carving of link with our fellow Jews in Israel and the Ten Commandments used the same around the world. 3 ANGLO-JEWISH HISTORY Unsung Jewish and wrongly assumed that Leo was problems with censorship, and certain related to Sir Simon Marks, the head of passages were cut out. However, it is a Heroes 3 the business, so meriting special very amusing account of his wartime Leo Marks (1920- 2001) treatment. His helpers were also experiences, and many of the participants provided with some of M & S’s special in SOE appear in its pages. Those who cakes. He was soon appointed as head of are familiar with stories of the resistance the Codes and Ciphers Department, will recognise such distinguished names tasked with keeping contact with Britain’s as Odette and Peter Churchill, ‘Tommy’ agents on the continent, whose messages Yeo-Thomas (the White Rabbit), Col. back to England were vital in the support Maurice Buckmaster who ran many of the of the work of the resistance movements. agents from London, Noor Inayat Khan, the Indian girl eventually killed at When Marks joined the department he Dachau, and many others. found the coding systems insecure and easily broken by the enemy. Agents used double transposition codes, usually based on a poem known to headquarters and to the men and women in the field. However, these poems were frequently We do not often connect Jews with the also familiar to the Germans and could glamorous, though very dangerous, world easily be unravelled, or in the worst of of counter espionage. One of the greatest cases revealed when agents were was undoubtedly Col. Ewen Montagu captured and tortured. Marks conceived who planned and executed the project the idea of writing his own poems for Violette Szabo for whom he later known as The Man Who Never Was. them which could not be known by the provided the poem Perhaps because of the Jewish penchant Germans. The most famous is one he for plots, puzzles and conspiracy – many wrote for the agent Violette Szabo, killed Leo Marks was too much of a Jews were involved in the cipher by the Gestapo, and it appears in the film nonconformist to knuckle down easily to headquarters at Bletchley Park – it is not about her, Carve Her Name with Pride. military command. He frequently found surprising that others played a vital part himself at odds with those superior to during World War II in protecting Britain him in rank (he was a 2nd Lieutenant from invasion and supporting her allies in The life that I have when he joined the service) and his the fight against Germany. Is all that I have And the life that I have Jewishness led to some suspicion as to One who is less known, though his work Is yours. where his loyalties lay. But he was a great was just as vital to the war effort, was Leo favourite with the girls working on Marks. He was the son of the antiquarian The love that I have decoding at SOE’s unit at Grendon bookseller Ben Marks, who achieved fame Of the life that I have Underwood, where Grendon Hall became as the owner of the bookshop at 84 Is yours and yours and yours. Station 53. The ‘Grendon Girls’, some of Charing Cross Road, when Helen Hanff them very young, were all recruited from published the wartime letters exchanged A sleep I shall have the FANY’s (First Aid Nursing between herself and the shop.