Chief plans broadcast on crunch

The credit crunch will be the focus of the Chief Rabbi’s Rosh Hashanah broadcast this year.

In his annual New Year message, to be aired on Monday, September 14, Chief Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks speaks to financial experts on whether faith can help us out of the recession.

Entitled A More Gracious Life, the programme will feature an interview with the BBC’s economics editor, Robert Peston, to discuss why the markets failed and what we have learned since the downturn.

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Israel’s economy recovering

The Bank of Israel has raised interest rates from 0.5 per cent to 0.75 per cent, becoming the first central bank in the developed world to push up interest rates since the credit crunch began.

Bank of Israel Governor Stanley Fischer said he does not expect others to follow his lead.

“Interest rates in the world’s leading economies will remain unchanged until the end of 2009 and maybe mid-2010. In contrast to Israel, those countries have low inflation.”

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Company withdraws "Rothschild" leaflet

A financial offer e-mailed to 80,000 people has been withdrawn by the company that published it after a complaint about the way it referred to the Rothschild banking family.

The offer, distributed by Fleet Street Publications, referred to the 239-year-old “Rothschild Recession Code” with a history of the family inferring that it secretly controlled world finance.

The idea behind the e-mail shot was to offer investors the chance to buy the same shares as the Rothschilds.

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Recession-hit UK families plead for Israel tour grants

One-in-five families planning to send their children on Reform Judaism Israel tours and UK summer camps are applying for bursaries as the credit crunch bites.

Such is the demand for financial assistance that the Movement for Reform Judaism has launched an appeal to raise £10,000 for additional financial assistance.

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Going back in time to deal with recession

As a response to the recession, Reform Judaism has instigated Living in the age of Anxiety, a series examining the issue through Jewish teachings.

The course launched with a lecture on leadership at the Sternberg Centre in Finchley by Reform chief executive Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand. The series was inspired by David Karat, who explained: “I have been working in finance for 30 years and I find that every day there is new information on the economic crisis that most people struggle to absorb.

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Jerusalem: Yad Vashem cash woe

Holocaust research and commemoration programmes have been hit by the global recession and Israel’s security problems.

Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, which opened a new $50m museum four years ago, has been forced to freeze some of its main programmes. Among them was an initiative to collect the names of all the Jews murdered in the Holocaust — with 3.5 million gathered so far; to record survivors’ testimonies; and to compile an encyclopedia of Jewish communities.

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Recession splits the Clubhouse

A pioneering Orthodox organisation that helps young people and families in trouble is to be broken up into separate charities as a consequence of the economic climate.

Harris Rosenberg, until recently head of grants and commissioning at the Northwest Clubhouse in London, said that rather continuing as an umbrella body, “a better way to protect our services to those in need of support in our community was to split it”.

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Aliyah interest rises as British recession bites

A combination of the credit crunch and rising antisemitism is encouraging more British Jews to consider buying homes in Israel, according to exhibitors and visitors at an Israel property fair in London.

Among the 200 browsers at the Marriott Hotel Swiss Cottage was retired engineer David Marks, 65, who observed: “This country has declined significantly over the last few years. Though I own my own house, I will be unable to afford to pay the council tax on my property once my wife stops working.

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