Your blogs

Fourteen people attended SCoJeC's Purim party in Lochaline, organised by our first volunteer Local Ambassador, Linda Martin.
http://www.scojec.org/news/2013/13ii_purim/purim.html

MEMO 341 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_341_25_february_2013.pdf

SCoJeC outreach worker Fiona Frank has been in Shetland to accompany photographer Judah Passow on his Creative Scotland funded project to make a photographic record of Jewish life in Scotland.
http://www.scojec.org/news/2013/13i_shetland/shetland.html

Scotland is generally a welcoming place for Jewish people to live, as the findings of our Being Jewish in Scotland project showed, but it is important not to be too complacent, since the answer to a recent question in the Scottish Parliament gives cause for concern about the pattern of religious hatred in Scotland.
http://www.scojec.org/news/2013/13ii_hate_crime.html

As further analysis of the 2011 Census data starts to trickle through, it’s fascinating to watch. Based on the information which we have, we see the gradual movement of the epicentre of our community – whilst on the one hand the Haredi community continues to grow rapidly primarily in North East London and in Manchester, at the same time there is another phenomena at play. This is the gradual drift of the community further north to South Hertfordshire. Whilst this has been a trend which has been in play now for many years, the population movement is now becoming very significant. Similarly the community in certain parts of Manchester continues to expand rapidly.

Such information is enormously valuable to those providing services within the community. One needs to know where demand for services is likely to come from in the future and where it is likely that demand will decline. Yet whilst this information is invaluable to us, one must also recognise the limits of that data. That excellent organisation, JPR, has already done first class work in producing the information which we have thus far and in the fullness of time will be doing further analysis as more and more information becomes available.

Any charitable organisation providing services in the community must be appreciative of the value of this work. Yet numbers of course do not tell the whole story. In the first instance we need to remind ourselves that the question regarding religion in the Census is an optional one. We can therefore assume that not every Jewish person in the country has chosen to answer this optional question – albeit demographers are able to make assumptions on the likely response rate to that question and therefore are able to make further projections.

At the last Board of Deputies meeting I suggested that until the LibDems deal properly with David Ward MP, decent people should have nothing to do with the LibDems and should not vote for them. The next speaker was Jonathan Davies who is a Vice Chair of LibDem Friends of Israel. He accused me of being 'party political'.

Nothing is further from the truth.

I am on record as speaking out against antisemitic remarks from members of all three Parties.

http://cifwatch.com/2009/11/10/shlomo-the-sandlout/

The good news is that Shlomo Sand (at the Frontline Club in London on Tuesday night) has become so extreme that he will convince no-one. Only a hardened antisemite could possibly find him credible, and that only because he appears to give that prejudice an intellectual underpinning.

Maybe it was Simon Schama's ridicule that pushed him to the extreme:

Did you visit SCoJeC’s website last year, perhaps to read back issues of "Four Corners", participate in our "Being Jewish in Scotland" project, find out about events taking place around Scotland, use the interactive "Jewish Way of Life" teaching resource, or look something up in the "Guide to Jewish Facilities in Scotland"? If so you weren’t alone, as the website received more than half a million ‘hits’ in 2012 (557 433 to be precise!), and, we’re delighted that you’ve taken the time to tell us, amongst other praise, that it’s “very interesting and impressive”, “superb!”, “comprehensive and easy to use”.
http://www.scojec.org/news/2013/13i_stats.html