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SCoJeC has submitted a response to the consultation "Reshaping Care for Older People: The Contribution of Faith Communities".
http://www.scojec.org/consultations/consultations.html

MEMO 349 A weekly overview of information of interest to minority ethnic communities in Scotland, including parliamentary activity at Holyrood and Westminster, new publications, consultations, forthcoming conferences and news reports.
http://www.scojec.org/memo/2013/memo_349_29_april_2013.pdf

http://www.thesaint-online.com/2013/04/jewish-charity-ball-goes-ahead-de...

Well done to all the organisers of this event and thanks to the thugs for boosting the proceeds

Postscript:

Demonisation of Israel and falsification of history ran riot at LSE’s Middle East Centre’s ‘discussion’ (for which, read vilification and slander) last night. “The Commentator” has already posted Richard Millett’s clip of John Snow giving credence to the “Jewish Lobby” trope.

http://www.thecommentator.com/article/3370/anti_zionist_media_bias_here_...

Snow was the ultra-sympathetic ‘chair’ of a panel comprising the spurious historian Ilan Pappe, former Chatham House Research Director Professor Rosemary Hollis, anti-Israel activist Karma Nabulsi and Peter Kosminsky, the director of the fictional TV series masquerading as fact, "The Promise".

I sent the following letter to the JC earlier this week in response to Jonathan Goldberg's article last week:

http://www.thejc.com/lifestyle/ask-qc/106261/why-ronnie-fraser-case-agai...

I could not disagree more with Jonathan Goldberg. He clearly has not read the Equality Act. If he had, he would not suggest that it is as fanciful to argue that Zionism should be a protected characteristic as to argue that supporting Tottenham Hotspur should be a protected characteristic “because so many Jews do”. “Belief” is a protected characteristic in the Act independently of religion. So someone who discriminates against a Zionist is in breach of the Act regardless of the victim’s religion (or absence of a religion). It is up to the judiciary to decide what constitutes a ‘belief’. The fact that there are Christian Zionists and Jewish anti-Zionists is entirely irrelevant.

SCoJeC Director Ephraim Borowski presented "Thought for the Day" on BBC Scotland: "Not all Equality is Equal".
http://www.scojec.org/pov/tftd/tftd.html

It would not have been possible for anybody to have ignored the fact that The Sunday Times published last week their so-called “Rich List”. It has been trailed for months and is still being heavily publicised every day by The Times. I always get excited reading this magazine – then get bored with it very quickly. In fact, more than bored. Actually I become very disenchanted reading it. The wealth of the people listed in this magazine – albeit it is probably largely inaccurate is quoted in telephone numbers. How can anybody living with a mortgage, trying to survive month to month relate to a “wealth figue “ quoted in multiple billions”

One of the reasons that it can be interesting to read the Rich List – and sometimes part of the fun of it - is spotting how many Jewish people there may be in the list. There are a number! There are also a number in one of the sub-lists – which is the “Giving” List, and there are many people in this list who are giving away very substantial amounts of money. Yet as a proportion of our overall wealth, we do not give away as much as the “rich” give away in the United States – one of the reasons for this is that the Tax Breaks for Giving in America are more generous than they are here.

Last year’s Dilnot Commission made a number of important recommendations to the Government on how to deal with the perennial and unsolved problem of funding long term care of older people. After much procrastination the government have announced that they will (sort of) in due course probably be implementing a number of the recommendations. Albeit as I have said before in these columns, all that glitters is not gold and there is still a lot of small print to be worked out and to be read. Dilnot spoke in terms of a figure of £1.7m being the annual “price tag” for implementation. The combined wealth of those in the Rich List is £450bn. One figure has nothing to do with the other – ie £450bn against £1.7m. However it does prompt one to think of the wider question of distribution of wealth and societal priorities. If it is true that all it takes to deal in a fairly satisfactory manner with the problem of funding for older people is £1.7bn, why on earth are we not addressing it? In relative terms, this is a very small amount and certainly as Andrew Dilnot himself contends it is a very small proportion of GDP. Yet successive governments have stalled and fudged for decades for the simple reason they feel the problem is too big to deal with – and presumably they feel that dealing with it is in itself not going to be a vote-winner.

MEMO 348 A weekly overview of information of interest to minority ethnic communities in Scotland, including parliamentary activity at Holyrood and Westminster, new publications, consultations, forthcoming conferences and news reports.
http://www.scojec.org/memo/2013/memo_348_22_april_2013.pdf