ESTMINSTER Volume XI No.1 UARTERLY January 2020 Walter Rothschild and his zebra-drawn carriage outside the Albert Hall The Eccentric Walter Rothschild The Disputation of Paris Synagogues of Siena and Florence Humour in the Bible From the Rabbi question is resolved in the Talmud as dwells. We see that our job, for each of follows:- us, is to give light to others. The human lighting and arranging of the The miracle is only that just one candle Ner Tamid, the perennial light, is needed can give, can devote itself to others, and primarily, not for its practical light but to it will not go out first, but it will give testimony - Edut -to humans that illuminate longest. In giving, we gain the Divine presence dwells among us. from others; we contribute to an The Talmud goes on to say that it exponential economy rather than a provides this testimony because the light sparse one. In giving, we establish in the that is being described in the Torah is the world a currency of kindness that will one light that is used to light all the last forever, for all generations, like that Let us bring the light. The world at times others in the Menorah and yet it is the light. We will pass it on to those who are can feel darker. Right now, the shorter, light that lasts the longest. with us and come after us. The light that dimmer days may bring us down. At the This Rabbinic answer as to why we need we bring provides testimony of time of writing, our country is mired in to bring the light ourselves is itself community and resilience, and this is some murkiness. Furthermore, we have puzzling. We are told that the act of where we find not only testimony to the seen in recent years a rise in hateful lighting this single candle is not needed Eternal, but the inspiration to bring ethno-nationalism and a resurgence of so much for practical light but actually to greater divinity to our world - one cannot discriminatory discourse and violent provide testimony that the Divine dwells replicate a top-down miracle. action against minorities, including anti- with us. Yet, then, we might ask: if what Semitism. What’s more, we are as aware Focus on bringing light to others. Put this is needed is testimony that the Divine as ever of our concern for our loved ones, at the heart of your life. Sustain yourself dwells with us, wouldn’t that divine their waning health and their loneliness - on those memories of such goodness - for column of light coming from the sky be and our own. At times the world can feel they will last. They can outlast all. Build much better testimony? Wouldn’t a darker and we may call out for some sort your life and our world from this better world be much better testimony of miracle. kindness. for belief in the good? With the festival of Hanukkah just Re-adjust your focus. The good is there. behind us, we find a related Rabbinic The good will last. It may not be clearly teaching not to look for light to suddenly Focus on bringing visible right now in the looking out into shine from God but rather to bring it light to others. the world; it is there in the staying close. ourselves. In Chapter 24 of Leviticus we Put this at the heart It is there in a persistent commitment to hear this about the Menorah, the dwelling with others, to doing one’s best candelabrum that we associate with of your life. Sustain to bring light, and to receive it. Hanukkah ‘Command the people of yourself on those I have seen this light in our community. Israel to bring to you pure, beaten, olive Ilana Alexander used to describe the oil to light an eternal light on the memories of such members who looked after her as Menorah’ and the next verse says, ‘Aaron goodness - for they ‘angels’, and, in the face of such should arrange this light just by the Veil darkness, this community also cared for of the Testimony in the Tent of Meeting will last. the Linseys. Help us to bring more light; from evening until morning in front of to develop the strategy and resources to the Eternal continually’. This is what we can learn from the train a cohort of volunteers to visit the In the Talmud our Rabbis essentially ask, Talmud. We need to readjust our focus. lonely; and do let us know if you would ‘well if there is a long-lasting light that is In this world we do not rely on a divine like to be calling and visiting. When the needed right in front of the Eternal in the column of light. Our Rabbis elsewhere world can feel darker, our Judaism centre of the Tent of Meeting, why teach us that the shechina, the Divine teaches us to bring the light. Presence, comes to dwell when ten doesn’t the Eternal take care of that detail themselves? After all isn’t God the people come together in community, or source of both light and eternity?’. In the when two people come together to learn; words of the Talmud, ‘for the people to we need to bring the light, it’s not the light this light why is it needed? Didn’t other way round, if we wait for the Divine Rabbi Benji Stanley the people of Israel, all the forty years Presence to be completely manifest that they walked in the wilderness, walk before stepping forward, we might be exclusively in divine light- a cloud by day, waiting rather a long time. We look at and a pillar of light by night?’. that menorah and we learn the need to give light to others. We not only learn the Why do the people need to bring the need, we see the everyday possibility. We light? Why doesn’t the Divine? The see that this kindness is where the Divine 3 Anglo-Jewish History well as others both close to and far away dinner party, she complained to him about Flora Solomon from her - as he later became the founder the company's salary policies. She had (1895-1984) of Amnesty International. In 1939 he took learned that staff often did not eat lunch the surname of Benenson, acceding to his there because they could not afford it. She dying Grandfather’s wishes. said to Marks, ‘It's firms like Marks & Spencer that give Jews a bad name’. He At Christmas 1923 Harold Solomon, responded by giving her the job of looking whom Peter adored, suffered a serious after staff welfare! riding accident outside Jerusalem and was confined to a wheelchair. The family In her new position, she pioneered the returned to London, where the marriage development of the staff welfare system - collapsed. In 1927 Flora became the including subsidised medical services. mistress of the former Russian leader These practices directly influenced the Alexander Kerensky. In her Labour concept of the Welfare State and autobiography, Baku to Baker Street the creation of the British National Health (written with Barnet Litvinoff, 1984), Service in 1948. As a result, Marks & littered with the names of the prominent Spencer acquired the reputation of being from Eleanor Roosevelt to Chaim the working man's paradise. Not content Weizmann, she confessed to being an with her welfare work, the next episode in unsatisfactory mother; indeed she was to her life saw her founding the Blackmore cause Peter much anguish throughout her Press, a British printing house. life. Harold died in Switzerland, the day But now Flora Solomon’s life became before Peter's ninth birthday. The boy was much more complicated. She was a long- With so many different aspects to Flora inconsolable: Flora wrote of her son's time friend of British intelligence officer Solomon’s fascinating life, it was difficult relationship with his father, ‘He had been Kim Philby and she was the matchmaker to decide which of them should be treated the limbs the man on the first floor never between him and his second wife Aileen. as the salient feature. It proved to be a possessed, and I believe he prayed daily Nearly twenty-five years later, however, daunting task. Her story reads like a for the miracle to make his father whole’. she was to play the key role in exposing novel. his treachery, leading to the master spy’s Flora was born in Pinsk, which was flight to Moscow. Whilst working in Spain originally in Russia but is now part of as The Times correspondent on Franco's Belarus. Her father, Grigori Benenson, side of the Civil War, Philby proposed that was a Russian Jewish multimillionaire she become a Soviet agent. His friend banker and oil tycoon who made his from Cambridge, Guy Burgess, was fortune in the oil fields of Baku and who simultaneously trying to recruit her into wielded considerable economic influence MI6. Had both moves succeeded she in Tsarist Russia. He was banker to the would have become a double agent! Tsar and had dealings with Rasputin, who approached him for money. After the Bolsheviks seized power in November 1917, the family fled Russia for Britain where they had influential connections. In London, Flora met and married Harold Solomon, a member of a London Brig-Gen. Harold Solomon stockbroking family and a career soldier who was a Brigadier-General in the First In the 1930s, before the Second World World War.