Posts by Jenni Frazer

Pro-Israel activist's case against UCU fails

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 10:10:15 +0000

A blistering rejection of pro-Israel activist Ronnie Fraser's case against the academic union, UCU, was published on Seder night by a London employment tribunal.

In a 49-page ruling, the Employment Judge, AM Snelson, sitting with Mr A Grant and Lady Sedley, rejected Mr Fraser's claims of unlawful harassment by the UCU, and dismissed the entire proceedings.

The reserved judgment was issued in respect of nearly three weeks of hearings which took place in October and November last year. In a stern rebuke in the conclusion of the judgment, Judge Snelson wrote: "Lessons should be learned from this sorry saga. We greatly regret that the case was ever brought. At heart, it represents an impermissible attempt to achieve a political end by litigious means...What makes this litigation doubly regrettable is its gargantuan scale."

The judge rebuked the litigants, saying "the Employment Tribunals are a hard-pressed public service and it is not right that their limited resources should be squandered as they have been."

Although the tribunal said that Mr Fraser had impressed them "as a sincere witness" with "nothing synthetic about his displays of emotion", there were harsh words for several others who gave evidence during the hearing, particularly the chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, Jeremy Newmark, whose testimony was rejected as untrue.

Two MPs - one has since resigned from Parliament - were also criticised for giving "glib evidence, appearing supremely confident of the rightness of their positions... Both parliamentarians clearly enjoyed making speeches. Neither seemed at ease with the idea of being required to answer a question not to his liking."

Mr Fraser said that he was "naturally disappointed" at the decision but added that he was "grateful that the hearing provided us with the opportunity to raise and discuss in great detail the issues of discrimination and antisemitism which are so important to Anglo-Jewry."

He expressed particular concern over a statement in the judgment that "a belief in the Zionist project or an attachment to Israel" was "not intrinsically a part of Jewishness".

Mr Fraser commented: "For the court to say that as Jews we do not have an attachment to Israel is disappointing considering we have been yearning for Israel for 2000 years and it has been in our prayers all that time."

He said; "As a member of the Board of Deputies, I intend to campaign for us as a community to accept a definition of Jewishness which includes a connection with Israel and the adoption of a definition of anti-semitism."

Desert Island castaway helps out Glasgow Girls

Jenni Frazer — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 10:37:17 +0000

Desert Island Discs’ castaways normally get just eight records to take to their mythical island in the sun.

But the lucky — or greedy — television and film producer, Steve Morrison, managed to play 12 iconic tracks at a fundraising evening held by the charity, Glasgow Girls in London.

As the name suggests, the group consists of Scottish ex-pats who put on events to help fund welfare projects in their home city. This week the spotlight fell on a man more usually behind the camera, whose career in TV and film has garnered him Royal Television Society awards, Baftas, and even Oscars.

Most closely associated with Granada TV, latterly as director of programmes, the Glasgow-born Mr Morrison is universally associated with his father’s south-side kosher delicatessen, Michael Morrison and Son. Jokey and affable, he ran through a breakneck overview of his work, starting in the 1960s when he was one of the first to book the singer Lulu for a charity event for the Glasgow Jewish Old Age Home.

Following a three year stint at Edinburgh University he went to work for Third World First, a charity established by Philip, one of Robert Maxwell’s sons, and then attended the National Film School as a producer trainee. His scoop film, which secured him a job with World in Action, was the occupation by supporters of the charity Shelter of the London skyscraper, Centrepoint. The exclusive footage of the occupation was his entry to working with Granada.

Interviewed by the award-winning ITN film-maker Lucy Manning, Mr Morrison also spoke about the invitation he received from Lord Bernstein, chairman of Granada, to complete a film of harrowing footage from Belsen.

These days Mr Morrison is head of All3Media, Britain’s largest independent TV production company.
For the curious, his desert island luxury was “1,001 whiskies”, while his book was 1,001 Books to Read Before You Die. The event raised £3,500.

New York comes to Scandinavia

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 17:20:00 +0000

Boston-born Derek B Miller is a senior fellow with the United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research, with a slew of security-based academic degrees behind him. It is an unlikely background for the writer of one of the best novels of the year, the majestic Norwegian by Night, starring the magnetic, 82-year-old hero, Sheldon Horowitz.

Horowitz, an ex-marine, is a man brimming with memory and regret. With great reluctance, he has moved to Oslo to live with his granddaughter Rhea and her husband, Lars. It is not a good fit. Sheldon and his late wife, Mabel, brought up Rhea after her father, Sheldon’s son Saul, was killed in Vietnam but Sheldon, at the opening of the novel, seems profoundly out of place. He is an old New York Jew, and Oslo is, to put it mildly, not his milieu.

But then something happens to upset the Norwegian applecart. In the apartment complex where Sheldon lives, a woman is murdered. He rescues the woman’s six-year-old son and goes on the run with him in one of the most improbable link-ups in fiction, drawing deeply on his experience of 50 years earlier when he was a marine in Korea.

En route, we learn a great deal about Sheldon’s relationship with his late son, his guilt and despair at his loss and that of Mabel. She had been sure that Sheldon had dementia. The reader knows better.

We also learn of Sheldon’s passionate Jewish identity, Miller craftily introducing the subject into the mouths of Norwegian policemen, almost none of whom has ever encountered a Jew.

Norwegian by Night is much more than an enjoyable thriller. It is a beautifully written tale of loss and love and, in Sheldon Horowitz, Miller has created an outstanding, if unlikely, hero.

More ﬁve-star hotels for Israel

Jenni Frazer — Fri, 08 Mar 2013 11:00:01 +0000

Last year we reported that Israel’s Tourism Minister, Stas Misezhnikov, was keen to improve travel to Israel. He told us at November’s World Travel Market: “We need an extra 19,000 hotel rooms to increase competition and reduce room rates.” Mr Misezhnikov insisted: “There will be no more paying five-star prices for three-star hotels.”

Mr Misezhnikov is no longer minister as a result of the January elections, but the thinking remains the same. And one of the hotel groups which hopes to respond to his call is Britain’s Isrotel Hotel Chain, founded in 1984 by the late David Lewis.

Mr Lewis died in August 2011 but since his death the Isrotel portfolio of hotels has increased to 15, and a further two are due to open this year.

Nahum Kara, the company’s vice-president for marketing and sales, is optimistic. “There is a demand for five-star luxury hotels,” he says. To prove the point, Isrotel has now created its Exclusive Collection of hotels within its main group: the Royal Beach in Eilat, the Carmel Forest Spa Resort, the spectacular Bresheeth desert hotel in Mitzpe Ramon, and what will be Tel Aviv’s first brand-new hotel for 19 years, the flagship Royal Beach Tel Aviv.

The latter opens in the summer and features the fourth-floor swimming pool. “It’s been designed so that you feel as though you are on a cruise; you won’t be able to see the street, but you will feel as though you are on board ship. There will be a sea view from each of the 230 suites and rooms. It will be a door-to-door service from the point of landing in Israel, even providing assistance checking in and out of the airport.”

Another of the Exclusive Collection hotels will be Cramim (Vineyards), due to open in June. Cramim is due to be a central Israel version of the Carmel Forest Spa. Just 15 minutes from Jerusalem in Kiryat Anavim, Cramim, says Nahum Kara, will offer “a different type of spa treatment, based on vinotherapy”. This involves rubbing the skin with the residue of wine grapes; as Cramim is “in the heart of the wine region” there should be no shortage of resources. Cramim will differ from Carmel Forest in that it will welcome children.

Apart from Cramim, Isrotel is planning its first Jerusalem hotel due to open in the German Colony in 2015. And the company is also negotiating to run a four-star business hotel in Herzliya. Nevertheless, despite all this expansion, Mr Kara knows he has an awareness problem. “In 2012, only 170,000 UK passport holders came to Israel. Our research showed a deterioration of feeling towards Israel in the general market, but we also know there are challenges in bringing younger Jews here.”

His answer is to diversify and improve the “complete vacation environment” on offer at so many of the company hotels: from entertainment to sports facilities, from children’s creches to fine dining. He is not, he says, in the business of scaling down Isrotel’s offerings to the “boutique” hotels. Instead, he says, Isrotel has different things to offer, not least spa facilities, now available at the newly renovated Isrotel Dead Sea Resort and Spa in addition to Carmel Forest and Cramim.

As for Mr Kara himself, he is a much-travelled individual. So how does he judge his room for the night when he turns up at an unknown inn?

“Ah,” he smiles. “It’s all in the bathroom. If the hotel’s bathroom is super-clean, taken care of properly, with good products and a really efficient shower — to me, that’s the sign of a great hotel.” Everything else, he assures me, is commentary.

Encapsulated: UK Jews for future reference

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 10:45:54 +0000

Sir Trevor Chinn put it simply. “As a community, we have a decision to make. Do we accept decline as inevitable, or do we challenge it?”

There seemed no doubt that, on a cold but sunny morning in the grounds of JW3, the new Jewish Community Centre for London, the decision had been taken to take the challenge to the barricades.

At the conclusion of a three-month-long campaign on Jewish identity, jointly run by the Jewish Chronicle and JW3, it was time to bury a time capsule, inscribed with Theodor Herzl’s fierce dictum, “If you will it, it is no dream.” Inside the capsule, due to be opened in March 2113, are hundreds of testimonies of what being Jewish means in today’s Britain. Responses range from little children to nonagenarians, from the well-known and privileged to the low-key private person.

Three winning pieces of art, the work of London Jewish schoolchildren, have also gone in the capsule, together with Prince Charles’s speech to the 250th anniversary of the Board of Deputies, a copy of The Boys by Sir Martin Gilbert, signed by Holocaust survivor Ben Helfgott, and copies of the JC. The JC’s round table debate from Rosh Hashana 2011 is included, and a piece of parchment, inscribed with the Hebrew word “Shalom”, and signed by rabbis from across the religious spectrum — Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, Sephardi leader Rabbi Abraham Levy, Masorti’s Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, Reform rabbis Laura Janner-Klausner and Julia Neuberger, and the Liberal movement’s Rabbi Danny Rich. Israeli ambassador Daniel Taub also signed the parchment.

Sir Trevor, a board member of JW3, buried the capsule with Nick Viner, outgoing chief executive of the charity.

His successor, Ray Simonson, who will be in place when the centre opens in September, said: “We are building something unique, transforming the physical landscape of the London Jewish community, and a catalyst for revitalising it.”

In a century’s time, it is hoped, our descendants will open the time capsule and understand something of the forces driving Anglo-Jewry, on a cold sunny morning in March 2013.

Goodbye to all that

Jenni Frazer — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 14:09:34 +0000

Today is our last day in Furnival Street; our last day in the City. The JC is moving and as the paper does so, years worth of memories of life in this maddening, rackety building, come flooding back.

When I joined as a (very) junior reporter there was a hierarchy which almost defies belief today. It was hard to work out who was who, from the ancient man who, apparently as a messenger of 14, had actually brought the Balfour Declaration to the paper for publication, to the several defiantly foreign men who mangled the English language in their speech, but who produced beautiful copy.

There was an antique Dickensian whose clothes were so old they were dark green with age; he, it was rumoured, had once been Green Flag, a legendary travel editor. Our actual travel editor, when I arrived, was known far and wide as The Captain, a tribute to his near heroic appetite for cruises.

Those who manned our front desk were uniformly odd. There was one who had once been the deputy mayor of Hackney, whose conversation with the one-eyed Moshe Dayan has gone down in JC history: "'Ere, there's a bloke dahn 'ere with an eyepatch, says he knows the editor." There was a messenger (we had messengers in those days) known as Jockey Joe, a cheery Romany who relieved many of the staff of money for dodgy bets. Another messenger spoke fluent Korean, was an expert in origami, and wrote children's books. We also had a beloved handyman whose contribution to clearing our pipes was to pour hydrochloric acid down them - astonishing that the building did not fall about our ears after this stunt.

There have been romances, ancient and modern; there have been editors who liked to sleep, and those to whom the notion of sleep seemed crazy. Of one editor it was said that he took his head off when he got home and placed it on charge, overnight.

Once we had a room full of sub-editors with vacuum pipes above them; onion-skin thin copy paper was wrapped into one of the vacuum tubes, which then whooshed through the pipes to the composing room in the basement. Downstairs the comps practised the black art of the print, hammering the hot metal into place and laughing at the junior reporters. Long strips of copy hung about the place, fragrant with the smell of cow gum.

On the first floor we had a proofreading department, presided over by a gently-spoken non-Jewish countryman who had mastered every arcane Jewish expression and title. "No, my maid," he would tell me. "They don't have troops in the Jewish Lads' Brigade." Who knew? Over in classified, another philosemitic non-Jew ruled what went into adverts, taking especial care that young men advertising for a flatmate didn't disguise their wish for a female friend. On George's watch, that was not allowed.

Each of the editors had his (they were all men, except for the women's editor, who didn't count) own office, with a light outside the door. A red light meant no entry unless one wished for imminent death. For at least one editor it meant he was taking his afternoon shloff.

Up in the art room, a skylight permitted a direct view of Robert Maxwell, the newspaper tycoon, flying his helicopter to and from the neighbouring Daily Mirror building. And once we had a party on the roof, beach umbrellas and all, to welcome the King and Queen of Jordan.

Next door to our building is a long-established City pub. Sometimes we would proof pages there; at any rate, the editors usually knew where to find us. It is called The Castle, though we long wanted to re-name it The Egg and Onion.

At 172 years old, the JC has survived by adapting, and we will certainly do that in our new home. But Furnival Street, it is fair to say, will never be the same. We will all miss it.

Is anything OK with your meal?

Jenni Frazer — Mon, 04 Mar 2013 09:15:18 +0000

Our people, as we all know, love to do three things: eat, talk, and complain.

And boy, was the complaining to the fore on Sunday at Jewish Book Week 2013, when the Financial Times food writer - and sometime elegant restaurateur - Nicholas Lander took to the stage. With him was the restaurant owner Russell Norman, whose venture into Jewish-style eating with his deli, Mishkin's, has divided foodies. (Kosher foodies won't eat there because it's not kosher; other foodies reckon that it's not authentic enough.)

In Lander's book, The Art of the Restaurateur, detailing the highs and lows of the restaurant business, he said his first condition for running a restaurant was "a sense of humour". You couldn't do it without one, he opined, reckoning that the vast human hordes who troop through his restaurants must be both amused and amusing.

Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. True, the Book Week talk was a lunchtime event without any actual lunch on offer (although I did spy at least one man carefully unwrapping his cellophaned sandwich in the back row), but almost to a man (and woman) the audience wanted to complain.

What they didn't like about restaurants could have made a book in itself. The noise. The acoustics. The loud music. And don't forget the chairs that were always far too hard and never, ever padded enough. And don't let us get started on the hazards of tipping, over-enthusiastic waiters, what to do about sending food back, or even, as one woman fretfully declared: "The people who were laughing too loudly and enjoying themselves too much."

It did make me wonder quite why many of these complainers bothered going out to eat, if it were such a dismal experience. It was like being trapped inside a giant Michael Winner bubble (zichrono livracha) in which moan followed moan. Winner, of course, raised this complaining to an art form in his eponymous Sunday Times column, much of which concentrated on how close his table was to the kitchen or the coach party which had followed him into the restaurant.

The Times food critic Giles Coren, fondly recalling this last weekend, recorded Winner's eruption into food criticism in a torrent of asterisks: "And then into the dining room in the early Nineties burst Michael Winner: 'Call that a f***ing table? That's not a f***ing table, that's a sideboard with a knife and fork on it! Don't you know who I am? I'm Michael f***ing Winner, and I want that table over there, the big one for eight people. Yes, it's just me and the lovely Miss Seagrove, but I need room to spread out. I don't care who's sitting on it now. I don't care if it's the Queen of f***ing Sheba - who happens to be a very close personal friend of mine, just ask Marlon Brando - chuck her off or I'll have you fired. Now, what's this menu? I'm not eating this s***! Bring me a steak and kidney pie. And send someone round to Claridge's for a treacle pudding. I'm not eating yours, it's f***ing disgusting!'"

A good half of Lander and Norman's audience were devotees of this frothing school of behaviour - at least, according to what they said to Lander and Norman.

My bet is that most of the serial complainers bitching about the sheer unalloyed dreadfulness of eating out in high-end restaurants are pretty much pussycats when it comes to tucking their napkins in. They bow to the apparent superior knowledge of the sommelier, they are frightened of sending food back lest it re-arrive having been spat on (or worse), they eat mediocre meals and drink below average alcohol, and they think that paying an obscene amount of money for lunch or dinner somehow sanctifies the experience of dining out.

Much closer to the mark was Lander's re-telling of the Woody Allen story about the two old Jewish women eating in the Catskills. The food, they agreed with each other, was terrible. "And such small portions!"

Danny Danon’s big ideas? Draft Arabs and reject two states

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 15:45:39 +0000

Likud Knesset member Danny Danon is nothing if not bullish. His political opinions are, to put it mildly, at odds even with his own party leader. In the last Knesset he was deputy speaker but he has managed to disagree with the political establishment on almost every important issue, from vehemently opposing the disengagement from Gaza when Ariel Sharon was in charge, to attacking the principle of a two-state solution, to which even Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu subscribes.

Mr Danon’s views are laid out in a new book, Israel, The Will To Prevail, aimed primarily at an American readership. “Talks on the establishment of a Palestinian state must cease, effective immediately,” he writes. Expanding on this theme in a Tel Aviv coffee shop, Mr Danon declares: “The main issue is that there should not be a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria. You can see what’s happening in Gaza. I’m not saying we should not negotiate, but we should come up with a different solution.”

His book describes a vision of a “three-state solution” in which Israel, Jordan and Egypt will be involved. “Our goal is to have the majority of land in Judea and Samaria without a Palestinian population, which includes Jewish communities and the vacant land. We would not annex those areas heavily populated with Palestinians. What we would do is offer Palestinians connection with Palestinian towns, where they would be able to travel freely from place to place without being stopped by roadblocks... as for civil issues, different regional centres would run the daily civic life of Palestinians.”

I wondered how Mr Danon thought this scheme would play with President Barack Obama, due to make his first visit as president to Israel in the coming months. But the MK sidestepped the question, instead claiming that his first approach to Mr Obama would be to ask him to release the convicted US spy, Jonathan Pollard.

I ask what else might be on his “shopping list” of requests to Mr Obama. Iran, Mr Danon says, is top of the list. He wants America to apply “crippling sanctions” to Iran.

Inevitably our discussion comes round to “sharing the burden” of national service. Mr Danon would like Israeli Arabs to do national service, too, he says. “They could be in the army or they could be firefighters. They should give something back to the country. We shouldn’t force them to do this, to put them on a bus or something, but we should tell them — sharing the burden can be to their benefit.”

Old guard reeling as politics is reinvented

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:55:03 +0000

“I advertise products that I don’t necessarily consume,” says Sefi Shaked. But even with this as a caveat, it is not so easy to understand why a left-wing, secular, former Meretz voter would apply his considerable talents to promoting the right-wing religious politician Naftali Bennett — and catapult him to 12 seats in the new Knesset.

Three weeks after the latest Israeli general elections, the old certainties, by which it was relatively simple to predict which way politics would jump, are no longer in place. At the time of writing there is still no coalition and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appears to be flailing in his attempts to bring in Mr Bennett, his former chief of staff, and the even more high-achieving Yair Lapid and his 19-seat Yesh Atid party. Each day the rumour-mill grinds out more off-the-wall suggestions — even including a further set of elections.

But for now, some of those involved in the shift of the political landscape that took place in January are looking at Israeli politics with fresh eyes; fresh eyes plainly wanted by the voters.

Sefi Shaked is clearly a flag-carrier for the fresh approach. A gangly and amiable, cosmopolitan Israeli who heads his own advertising agency, he was recruited to work with the Bennett campaign and its new party, Jewish Home. In fact, he says, he would have worked with Meretz, perhaps his more natural party, but he did not get on with its campaign manager. He is no stranger to working with right-wing parties: he ran Mr Netanyahu’s campaign advertising in 2009.

“I went to meet Bennett, and I understood that on 70 per cent of the issues facing Israel, we agree. On economy, the equality of the burden in the military, on helping not just the strong.”

In fact, says Mr Shaked, with no trace of the ad-man’s cynicism, his meeting with Mr Bennett was “an enchanting evening. Bennett is like me and my friends, only with a yarmulke.

“I asked him two questions that were really a red line for me. I asked what they thought about uniting with Otzma l’Israel, which in my opinion is a racist party, and they said no. And I asked them what they think about gays, and they gave me a really nice answer. They said, they deserve equal rights, but religious gay marriage in Israel is unacceptable to them. When you think about it, I also don’t need that, you can’t change thousands of years of biblical culture. But as long as there are equal rights for gay couples… so I ended up with a politician that I believe in, even though I don’t agree with him on one thing — a future Palestinian state.”

Even, says Mr Shaked, if Israel had a left-wing prime minister, the possibility of creating a Palestinian state would be slim to zero, not least in the wake of missiles falling on Tel Aviv in the last few months. So for now, he is content to have built up Mr Bennett, who became, very rapidly, a word-of-mouth international phenomenon before the January 22 elections.

Israel needs a new generation of politicians, says Mr Shaked. “These were the first elections in which people voted in the same way as they vote in a reality show… you know, ‘I like Lapid, he’s nice, I believe in Bennett...’ People already had their views of right and left, but when it came to the brand-set, they voted for the politicians that they most ‘loved’, the same as in the reality shows. About three per cent of voters will have read a party’s manifesto. Right and left are still important, but more important is now old and new.”

His big challenge, he says, was to move Mr Bennett’s Jewish Home party from a sectarian grouping to become an “A-list party which accumulates votes from all over Israeli society. A lot of my left-wing friends in Tel Aviv saw Mr Bennett and said they were going to vote for him, that they liked him, he was interesting.”

If the elections had been confined to voters under 30, says Mr Shaked, Mr Bennett and Mr Lapid between them would have got more seats than Mr Netanyahu. “They speak the digital language, the social network language, and these are the media that affect them the most. Even strategy changes once the consumer can answer you, once it’s not a monologue but a dialogue between the politician and the voters. Our whole campaign consisted of user-generated content and not copywriters who wrote slogans. The slogan, ‘Bennett is a brother’, came from teenagers supporting him on the net.”

Two things played into the Bennett campaign. “First there was the war. When people are being bombed, they become more right-wing. Here we had Netanyahu as prime minister and still they got bombed. So who is more right-wing than Netanyahu? Bennett, right-wing, but still sane.”

The second, and more important watershed for Mr Bennett, was his appearance on the Nissim Mishal political talk show. “Mishal is a very tough interviewer. He asked Bennett, would you, as a soldier, evacuate people from their homes in the case of a peace agreement? And he said no, I will break an order, I will go to jail. We were not ready for this question. But once he said it, such a big argument began that it raised his awareness to 90 per cent. All we had to do was manipulate the media currents in our direction.” In fact, Mr Bennett backtracked after 24 hours but, according to Mr Shaked, “Israelis take the hypothetical very seriously.”

If Mr Bennett is a new kind of Israeli politician, so, too, is the US rabbi Dov Lipman, the new media star of Yesh Atid.

Days before we speak, Rabbi Lipman renounced his US citizenship in order to sit in the Knesset — he and his family made aliyah in 2004 from Silver Springs, Maryland, where he was a popular modern Orthodox rabbi.

He, his wife and four children made their home in Beit Shemesh, not far from Jerusalem. The town became a by-word for extremist behaviour among the strictly Orthodox.

For Rabbi Lipman, the lightning-rod moment came when he went to see what was going on at a demonstration held in Beit Shemesh over the apparent desecration of graves. “People started throwing stones and rocks at the police. One of the rocks hit me on the leg, and it was bleeding. I thought, what is going on here, that Jews will be throwing rocks at other Jews in Israel? I believe that the average Orthodox person will not be violent — but that the state of Israeli society had enabled the violence to happen.”

The rabbi picked up the rock, which sits today in his Knesset office, a symbol of what turned him into an activist in Beit Shemesh and then a campaigner for Mr Lapid.

As only the third “Anglo” to be elected as an MK, Rabbi Lipman has an entirely different political heritage on which to draw. “When I was younger I worked as an intern for the Michigan Congressman, John Dingell. So I understood about forging a relationship with constituents.” Accordingly, he has introduced a “constituency surgery” to be held in his Knesset office on Sunday mornings. “170,000 Anglo-Saxon voters in Israel have never had anyone to speak to directly. That’s going to change.”

Each of the 19 Yesh Atid Knesset members, Rabbi Lipman explained, “have divided the country into regions and will be responsible for different areas. This is the new politics.”

How Britain is transforming the Galilee

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 21 Feb 2013 14:16:10 +0000

If there is one word which is used repeatedly in the Galilee, it is “vision.” Sometimes, looking around the northern region of Israel and realising the range of the challenges, vision is about all there is: a vision of the future of the country which, little by little, is changing for the better with British input.

Last week, marking his last official visit to Israel as chief rabbi, Lord Sacks led a group of UJIA supporters to a number of the charity’s projects in the Galilee. The variety of the projects is dramatic and practical, echoing a heartfelt plea from many British Jews that their work in Israel should be about people, not buildings. There are certainly buildings — but their purpose is directed entirely at the regeneration of a neglected part of Israel, and the UJIA vision appears to be paying off.

Slowly but surely, the Galilee is changing under the watchful eyes of its UJIA partners. On Israel’s northernmost border, in Kiryat Shemona, a town once crime and drug-riddled, UJIA is working with Tel Hai Academic College, now a magnet for a diverse student population of Jews, Druze, Christians and Muslims.

Tel Hai is now the largest employer in the Upper Galilee and proudly offers a range of BA and MA courses, with cutting-edge biotechnology, environmental sciences, food and nutritional sciences, and computer science departments. “We wouldn’t be able to do this without you”, Professor Yona Chen, president of Tel Hai, told the UJIA supporters.

Over at Yeshivat Netiv Tefachot, Rabbi Eyal Greiner told the UJIA much the same thing. Netiv Tefachot, between Tiberias and Karmiel, is a hesder yeshiva — designed for young Orthodox men who serve in the Israeli army in specialist units. It is home to 110 young adults, from high-risk backgrounds and poor urban neighbourhoods. It offers a five-year programme of Torah and practical studies. The students graduate with a thorough knowledge of Jewish sources, a professional qualification where appropriate, and an impressive roster of volunteering at local schools and farms. Thanks to the UJIA and its partner, the Rashi Foundation, a new beit midrash (synagogue) will be built on the Tefachot campus.

Since the yeshiva was first established in 2001, new young families have moved in to the adjoining moshav, and now 100 new plots are being prepared for young couples on Moshav Tefachot.

All of this is the stuff of brochures and glossy hand-outs: what no-one expected was the joyous, dancing and musical welcome to the UJIA donors from the yeshiva members, a genuine, unprompted embrace of the diaspora partnership. Yes, there will be a building at Netiv Tefachot, but it’s plainly the people who make the difference.

Over in the notional capital of the Galilee, Sfat, two Britons, Professor Mary Rudolf and Professor Michael Weingarten, are making a difference in one of the UJIA’s most exciting projects — the brand new Bar-Ilan University Medical School.

Designated by the Israeli government as a national priority initiative, because of the national shortage of doctors, the school aims to breath new life into the Galilee by groundbreaking research and wooing back to Israel top medics who have been working abroad.

Londoner Mary Rudolf is one of them. She was, for 20 years, a consultant paediatrician at Leeds General Infirmary and honorary professor of child health at Leeds University. In January 2012 she joined fellow Brit Michael Weingarten, vice-dean of the Faculty of Medicine, to become professor of public health.

The UJIA is one of four partner organisations, working with the Israeli government, which have enabled the core buildings of the campus to be built in a record eight-and-a-half months.

Now the school is educating 120 new medical students and working with all the hospitals in the Galilee, including three in Nazareth. “Our aim,” said Professor Weingarten, “is to bring up a generation of Israeli doctors who are not just technically brilliant, but are truly committed to the patients and the community in which we work.”

Professor Rudolf, using the “vision” word again, added: “This place is a public health dream in the Galilee; and our vision is that this place will transform the region.”

To date there are just 15 faculty members, but they are doing extraordinary research, focusing particularly on two areas: cancer and Alzheimer’s. It is hoped to build the numbers up to 40, bringing them back from Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Oxbridge, to establish labs at the Medical School. President Shimon Peres was in no doubt: “When the faculty is completed,” he said, “it will change the face of Israel.”

Just north of the port city of Akko, another academic institution, supported by UJIA, is trying to do much the same thing. The Western Galilee College (WGC) has recruited the super-smart Brigadier-General Eival Gilady, said to be the “intellectual father” of the Gaza disengagement plan, as its chair of governors. He is also chief executive of the Portland Trust in Israel and the chairman and co-founder of the Israel-Palestinian Chamber of Commerce.

Wearing all these hats Brig-Gen Gilady is helping WGC, academically credited in 1994, to transform itself into the management hub of Israel, with a strong British presence supporting the initiative — Sir Harry Solomon, co-founder of the Portland Trust, is chairman of the WGC board of trustees.

WGC, described as the UJIA’s flagship capital project, is building a state-of-the-art school of management on its its campus, due to be completed by October 2014. The Gilady vision is nothing if not ambitious. “Seventy-five per cent of our students come from families where they are the first generation to have a higher education,” he says. “Fifty-two per cent of the Galilee is not Jewish, and 40 per cent of our students are Arab.

“The real change is the difference we are making to women: 72 per cent of the Arab students are women, and we are transforming their lives.” He has the backing of Cherie Blair, whose foundation is paying for a special women’s empowerment programme at WGC. (Blair herself is receiving an honorary doctorate from Ben-Gurion University in May for her work with women in underprivileged communities.)

Gilady is confident that the economic growth in the Galilee will keep pace with the number of management-savvy, techno-literate graduates whom WGC is turning out each year. Even if he is wrong in the short term, in the long term the huge input of UJIA in the region, and its carefully thought-through projects, are clearly bound to make a difference.

The vision for the Galilee is being methodically planned in the UK. Jewish learning and economic improvement are marching side-by-side. Israelis and their British partners are changing the region, quietly but effectively.

Chief Rabbi defends Rupert Murdoch during Israel tour

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 16:30:00 +0000

Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks made an unexpectedly robust defence of media tycoon Rupert Murdoch this week, declaring that Israel did not have “a better or more significant friend in the world” than Mr Murdoch.

Lord Sacks spoke during his last official visit to Israel as chief rabbi, in a mission to the northern projects of the UJIA.

Speaking at the Tel Hai academic college in Kiryat Shemona, he identified the “number one problem” facing the Jewish world as the return of antisemitism to Europe.

He gave a downbeat assessment of the future for European Jewry, with Norwegian Jews leaving that country, Dutch Jews departing, and with so many French Jews now in London that a French minyan had been set up at St John’s Wood Synagogue.

Lord Sacks described antisemitism as “a set of contradictions. Jews were hated in the 19th century because they were rich.

And because they were poor. Because they were capitalists, because they were communists. Like a virus, the chief rabbi observed, “antisemitism mutates… and we are living through one of the great mutations.”

Jews could not fight antisemitism alone, the chief rabbi said. “How do we persuade the non-Jewish world to see antisemitism not just as a Jewish problem, but as their problem? A civilisation or a country that has no room for Jews has no room for humanity.”

The UJIA mission, which included visits to a Galilee yeshiva for Orthodox boys who do army service, an Ethiopian absorption centre, and the Bar-Ilan medical school, was paralleled by the annual study trip of the UK Task Force, led by Labour peer Lord Beecham.

The Task Force works in Jewish and Arab sectors of Israel. This year’s programme included sessions with the Kadi of Jerusalem, Dr Iyad Zahalka, and the chief executive of the Jerusalem YMCA, Forsan Hussein.

Sunday Times editor unreservedly apologises for Netanyahu cartoon

Jenni Frazer — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 18:51:22 +0000

Martin Ivens, acting editor of the Sunday Times, has apologised "unreservedly" for the publication of Gerald Scarfe's cartoon of Benjamin Netanyahu this weekend.

Speaking to a rapidly convened meeting of Anglo-Jewish leaders, Mr Ivens, accompanied by other News International senior staff, said: "You will know that the Sunday Times abhors antisemitism and would never set out to cause offence to the Jewish people - or any other ethnic or religious group. That was not the intention last Sunday.

"Everyone knows that Gerald Scarfe is consistently brutal and bloody in his depictions, but last weekend - by his own admission - he crossed a line. The timing - on Holocaust Memorial Day - was inexcusable. The associations on this occasion were grotesque and on behalf of the paper I would like to apologise unreservedly for the offence we clearly caused. This was a terrible mistake."

Jewish community organisations present at the meeting told Mr Ivens that Jews and others in the UK had reacted to the cartoon with a "visceral disgust that is unprecedented in recent years." He was told about the history of the blood libel. "The use of blood, including on occasion the actual blood libel, persists in extreme Arab and Iranian propaganda. It is a profoundly disturbing example of the adaption of antisemitism for modern day usage."

Mick Davis, chair of the Jewish Leadership Council, welcomed the "genuine apology" from the Sunday Times. He said he appreciated the urgency and respect with which the paper had treated Jewish communal concerns.

Inquiring minds

Jenni Frazer — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 09:44:42 +0000

Let us unpick the events of the week so far. On Sunday, it was Holocaust Memorial Day: a yearly event initiated by the British government to mark, in line with many other countries, the attempted complete annihilation of a people. It is right and proper that HMD is used as an educational tool to mark other genocides. It is not right and proper to make a moral equivalence between what happened to the Jews between 1933 and 1945, and what is happening today in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

On Holocaust Memorial Day the editors at the Sunday Times chose to publish two curiosities: a peculiar magazine story about David Irving, the Holocaust denier, and the tours he is running in concentration camps; and the by-now bizarre cartoon from Gerald Scarfe, featuring a bloodthirsty Benjamin Netanyahu building a wall and using murdered Palestinians for its cement.

Scarfe himself has said he very much regretted the timing of the publication, claiming he did not know that it was HMD. But even if it had not been the anniversary, the cartoon was not just offensive - but missed the point in its comment on the Israeli elections. Netanyahu did not win an overwhelming victory and nor did the anti-peace camp forces in Israel.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not the cartoon was antisemitic, I wonder at the initial response of the Sunday Times editors who chose to defend Scarfe by pointing to the Irving story. This is as if to say, oh, we were critical of Israel but here's another piece where we were nice about Jews. So that's all right, then.

Meanwhile, in another part of the forest, the LibDem MP David Ward is either too stupid or too malicious to understand the impact of his remarks about "the Jews" who had failed to learn the lessons of history. Buying in completely to this moral equivalence argument which has now become the belief of choice for the chatterati, Ward drew a comparison with what had happened in Europe to what he believed was currently being perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinians. Not only did he not appear to understand the implications of what he had said, only hours after signing the HMD Book of Remembrance, he continued to maintain his argument.

On Sunday night the BBC screened a quietly powerful documentary to mark Holocaust Memorial Day, a film made by Lisa Bryer, producer of The Last King of Scotland, about her aunt, Henia. Henia was the perfect illustration of a Holocaust survivor. If there was a ghetto or a concentration camp or a death march, Henia had been there, survivng in ways even she did not know how. And yet, despite all the truly terrible experiences Henia had undergone, even she was shocked and horrified at what she saw at the gates of Bergen Belsen: the rotting piles of decomposing bodies, the mountain of corpses.

If David Ward or Gerald Scarfe could point to a parallel horror in Israel, their criticism might - just might - have a kernel of legitimacy. But of course they cannot; and to try to compare such experiences, or tot up death numbers as Jonathan Dimbleby did at the weekend, is futile.

What is most distressing about this week's events is the growing acceptance of questions such as "Does Israel deserve a future?" as was voiced on the BBC's Any Questions, and nobody even blinks. The essence of HMD is being distorted and manipulated and we must genuinely wonder about our place in this country.

Murdoch apology over Sunday Times Scarfe Israel cartoon

Jenni Frazer — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 08:45:33 +0000

Rupert Murdoch, whose company owns the Sunday Times, has apologised over the Gerald Scarfe cartoon which appeared in the paper at the weekend, calling it "grotesque."

Mr Murdoch took to Twitter to denounce the cartoon, which featured a bloodthirsty Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, building a wall with the bodies of Palestinians. In his tweet a clearly exasperated Mr Murdoch said that Gerald Scarfe had never "reflected the opinions of the Sunday Times. Nevertheless, we owe major apology for grotesque, offensive cartoon."

Though welcoming Mr Murdoch's apology, Abraham Foxman of the New York-based Anti-Defamation League said: We nevertheless found it disturbing that the newspaper's senior editors have vigorously defended the cartoon as a form of legitimate criticism. The cartoon, which is so shocking and reminiscent of the virulently antisemitic cartoons we see routinely in the Arab press, is clearly indefensible.”

My Jewish identity

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 12:54:10 +0000

I have been thinking recently about the question of Jewish identity, a matter sparked by our current joint project with JW3, the Jewish Community Centre for London. We set people the task of trying to define their Jewishness in an unenviable 50 words, which is a lot harder than it sounds.

Being Jewish in Britain is sometimes the easiest thing in the world, sometimes the most difficult. At any given moment we can fade into the wallpaper if we choose, blending with the general population. At other times we may decide to be out and loud, in-your-face Jews, full-on. It's a bit of a tightrope act.

Here's my take, anyway. Not for a time capsule, just for what I'm feeling at the moment.

Survival; difference; making a difference; belonging; longing; a sense of history, a sense of place; knowing who I am and who I am not; laughing, fighting and aggravating, but understanding that in the end, we only have each other; and hope.

And yes, I know that's not 50 words.

Britain's anger with Israel over 1982 Lebanon War

Jenni Frazer — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 01:33:01 +0000

Despite expressions of concern about the "brutal attack " on Israel's ambassador to the UK, Shlomo Argov, Margaret Thatcher's government in 1982 had very little time for Israel and its invasion of southern Lebanon.

Papers from 1982, just released by the National Archives under the 30-year rule, reveal a government more concerned with maintaining ostensible balance in the Middle East than in recognising Israel's determination to stamp out terrorism from its northern border.

On June 3 1982 Shlomo Argov, leaving a central London hotel after a charity dinner, was shot in the head by Palestinian terrorists, an assassination attempt from which the ambassador never recovered and which provided the spark for Ariel Sharon to spearhead Israel's incursion into Lebanon. But Cabinet and Foreign Office papers — apart from one anonymous handwritten scrawl "Argov shot in London" — barely refer to the shooting.

Overwhelmed with managing the Falklands War, Mrs Thatcher — though MP for Finchley and Golders Green — drew a comparison with invaded Lebanon in Argentina's invasion of the Falkland Islands.

Francis Pym, Foreign Secretary, made it clear publicly that Britain wholeheartedly condemned Israel's invasion. In private, the papers confirm, Britain was furious with Israel. A Foreign Office memo states: "It would be odd if we were now to conduct bilateral business with the Israelis as though nothing had happened."

An invitation to Israel to attend the British Army Equipment Exhibition was withdrawn and licences for arms sales were stopped, the papers reveal, though the Foreign Office noted bitterly that "we have considered the possibility that the likelihood of Israeli arms sales to Argentina will be increased, but given what we know of Israel's attitude and practice on this already, we do not believe that this is likely to make much difference in practice."

The papers include considerable discussion as to what was to happen to the Palestinians in Lebanon. King Hussein of Jordan, in an emotional July 4 letter to US President Ronald Reagan, included in the files, recommended that the PLO should go to Egypt: "if they must leave Lebanon, then Egypt is the best choice for them to go to. The PLO will then become truly Palestinian."

Ambassador Richard Viets, the American ambassador to Jordan, gave a comprehensive guide to regional thinking when he briefed the British ambassador in Amman. On July 6, the British ambassador wrote to London: "The Americans had concluded four or five days ago that Egypt was the logical place for the PLO to go and President Reagan had sent a message to President Mubarak proposing this. [But] Mubarak had told the US ambassador in Cairo that the proposal was unacceptable. Mubarak claimed that his colleagues in the Egyptian goverment had already expressed their dismay at his earlier offer that the PLO should establish a government in exile in Egypt and added that Egyptian public opinion would not stand for the transfer of the PLO to Cairo... Mubarak had agreed that the Palestinians were an Arab problem and favoured their dispersal in different Arab countries, in which case Egypt would be prepared to take its share of them."

Later, in response to the proposed visit of a Lebanese delegation to Britain, Mrs Thatcher wrote: "I will be delighted to see two foreign ministers but NOT a PLO representative". The Prime Minister noted in the file that "the US just does not realise the resentment she is causing in the Middle East". Mrs Thatcher stated that she did not want the United States and Britain to act alone in taking measures against Israel.

Swift defeat sees Nazis in London

Jenni Frazer — Fri, 21 Dec 2012 12:54:59 +0000

Recent literature has been full of “what-iffery” writing about the possible dystopian results of a German victory in the Second World War. From Martin Amis to Robert Harris, this is a well-trodden path, and, it has to be conceded, not one that wins universal applause.

Now it is the turn of the best-selling historical novelist C J Sansom, whose Shardlake thriller series, set in 14th- and 15th-century England, has won a devoted following — and may, indeed, fill that Hilary Mantel-shaped hole in one’s reading while waiting for her next book.

Sansom has also written a well-received stand-alone novel, Winter in Madrid, about the Spanish Civil War. In the latest, Dominion (Mantle Books, £18.99), he abandons, to some extent, his quest for recreating a historically accurate world and instead offers a parallel universe, full of fog and mystery.

The book opens in 1952 in a Britain that has lost a war with Germany which lasted a scant year from 1939 to 1940. Only France and Britain continue to have a Jewish community; all other Jews in Europe have been swept away to the east, there to perish in Nazi gas ovens. Britain’s Jews wear yellow stars and the entire country is fearful of a government led by Lord Beaverbrook, Oswald Mosley, Lloyd George and Enoch Powell.

Churchill is the renegade head of the Resistance movement, never sleeping two nights in the same place. Hitler is dying and the most powerful Nazis are jockeying for position as his successor.
And into this toxic mix the reader is left to wonder: what if? What would the British have done, if its Jews had been marched away for deportation?

Sansom offers a chilling answer with a scene in which rounded-up London Jews are trooped through Tottenham Court Road, guarded by watchful, blackshirted, auxiliary policemen and viewed with smug satisfaction by some, and undisguised horror by others.

The book’s main protagonist, David Fitzgerald, is desperately trying to cover up his own Jewish identity. And on his tail is a crack Gestapo man, flown over from Berlin especially for his expertise in rounding up Jews.
Sansom’s skill is in providing the anxious reader with the conundrum: what would I have done? Or, more generally and dramatically: What if?

Kinloss shul is proud but sad to see its rabbi leave

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 18:30:00 +0000

He is known throughout his congregation as “Super Rabbi” and the gentle joke is that, under the dynamic Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis’s pristine white shirt, there is a large letter R for rabbi, or S for super, or even Spurs, his favourite team.

But, this week, members of Finchley Synagogue — or Kinloss, as it is widely known —were in a bitter-sweet mood.

As long-time member Peter Sheldon, chairman of the Chief Rabbinate Trust, put it: “UK Jewry’s gain is Finchley’s loss. Rabbi Mirvis is a giant of a figure in our community. He turned around a dispirited, disunited and diminishing community into the flagship community of the United Synagogue.

“He is filled with new ideas and initiatives. He has a way of bringing people in — and keeping them there. And he has built a situation where the community is more than just the leader, it is also lay people, empowered to do more.”

Rabbi Mirvis has trodden in the path of predecessors more than once. As Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1984 to 1992, he succeeded Lord Jakobovits, chief rabbi before Lord Sacks; and as rabbi of the Western Marble Arch Synagogue from 1992 to 1996, he succeeded Lord Sacks in the post.

He arrived at Kinloss when it was at its lowest ebb. Its charismatic but tempestuous minister, Rabbi Isaac “Blazes” Bernstein, had died suddenly in the summer of 1994, and half the congregation appeared to be at odds with the other half. Some of the membership had begun meeting in what was defiantly termed the Alternative Minyan, separate from the main shul.

As Peter Sheldon recalls, Rabbi Mirvis, once appointed, “made clear his intention to heal wounds and unite the community. He would have preferred the breakaway Alternative Minyan to come back into the main shul. But he recognised that, within the minyan, were a lot of young people who were there, not because of the existing conflict within the shul, but because of a desire to have a different kind of service.”

So Rabbi Mirvis announced that Finchley would offer facilities to as many minyanim as there were needs. Today, the Alternative Minyan, now known simply as the Minyan at Kinloss, is one of a number of different services offered at the synagogue, including an early-morning minyan for those who want to pray before commuting into the city, and a dedicated Persian minyan for the many members of the shul who came from Iran.

Super Rabbi Mirvis, says Peter Sheldon, makes an appearance at every minyan; and, blessed with “a phenomenal memory”, has often given the same sermon, word-for-word, without notes, at three successive services in the building.

The rabbi’s “softly, softly” approach has extended itself to his response to women in the community, says Mr Sheldon. “He was the first rabbi to introduce batmitzvahs into the main shul, and has encouraged many communities that women should take a leading role.

“But he strongly believes in evolution, not revolution. He does things slowly, takes his time. He introduced megillah readings for women, but not, at first, in the main shul. He moved cautiously: now, for Purim 2013, there will be megillah readings for women in the main shul.”

Peter Sheldon praised his soon-to-depart rabbi as “a gifted orator, very affable — I have never seen him lose his temper. Of course we will miss him. But there is exactly the same feeling now about replacing Rabbi Mirvis, as existed when it came to deciding to replace Lord Sacks as chief rabbi. We always do: and somewhere out there is another rabbi, with great potential, whom we will welcome into Kinloss.”

The people’s chief: Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis appointed as Sacks's successor

Jenni Frazer — Thu, 20 Dec 2012 11:08:35 +0000

Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who on Monday night was chosen as the successor to Lord Sacks, has said he wants to be an accessible chief rabbi and to have “warm… constructive” relations with “sister Jewish movements”.

He will use his office to act as “a catalyst for deepening commitment to Jewish identity, values and learning.”

Speaking to the JC the day after his appointment, the current rabbi of Finchley Synagogue said he has already been developing his vision. “I have a very clear idea of it and have an appetite for it. My wife and I are hugely excited at the prospect”.

Rabbi Mirvis also revealed that the decision to apply for the post was “easy”, a result of many people telling him he had what it takes.

“It didn’t start out with me thinking, ‘I want this position’. Rather, over a number of years, people have told me that they think I have the makings for a good chief rabbi. Obviously, during the past year or two that has intensified. I have drawn a lot of encouragement from the huge amount of support expressed by many people.”

He said that his role at Finchley shul and previous experience as Chief Rabbi of Ireland was what made others think of his suitability.

“I have been involved in the transformation of a dysfunctional community into a flagship congregation.”

Although Rabbi Mirvis has been careful not to spell out the specifics of what he intends to do, he outlined three areas in which he wants to work.

“The first is national leadership, representing the community at the highest possible levels, including government level and interfaith level.

“Second is education, both formal and informal for all ages and interest groups.

“And the third is community development. It is there that I see our rabbis as the keys to strengthening our communities.”

Rabbi Mirvis pledged commitment to “those who are involved in our communities and those who are not yet involved in our communities.”

He said he drew encouragement from the recent census “because there was a presumption that there was a steady slide of decline”.

But he is “troubled” by one aspect of it: “There is every indication that there are many more Jewish people in Britain — there are numerous Israelis, there are many who are Jewish and who do not express it in a ready fashion.”

His aim would be to serve both “the interests of those already involved and also those who are not.”

Asked how he would interact with other denominations, Rabbi Mirvis said: “I would seek to have — hopefully — warm, friendly and constructive relationships with the heads of our sister Jewish movements.”

He said that now was not the time to talk about Limmud, which Lord Sacks has refused to visit. “Obviously, I have a very clear idea. But Lord Sacks is chief rabbi until August 2013. My policies will become known on the day after he steps down. There will be a lot to say about that.”

Perhaps the biggest clue to the Mirvis chief rabbinate style came when he spoke about the d’var Torah which he gave to the group which endorsed his appointment on Monday evening.

“I spoke about Joseph, who adopted a dual form of leadership. One was a gentle mensch, and at the same time he was an authority. He needed to get some tough moves going in order to save that country.

"And I, likewise, would see a great leader as somebody who is a man of the people, who loves people and reaches out to them — being a mensch is of critical importance to me, but at the same time one needs to be a strong leader and to use one’s authority where appropriate in order to ensure one’s success.”

“Overall, accessibility is the key,” Rabbi Mirvis declared. “I have always prided myself on being an accessible rabbi, and I certainly want to be an accessible chief rabbi.

"My wife and I are looking forward to spending as many Shabbatot as possible within communities, reaching out, educating and hopefully inspiring communities.”

Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis to be next UK chief rabbi

Jenni Frazer — Mon, 17 Dec 2012 17:00:40 +0000

Britain's chief rabbi-designate is to be Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis of Finchley Synagogue, the United Synagogue has announced.

He will be Anglo-Jewry's 11th chief rabbi. And, like most of his predecessors, Rabbi Mirvis is not British-born.

But the 56-year-old South African-born rabbi, the son and grandson of religious leaders, has spent a large part of his career serving Anglo-Saxon communities.

This, of course, is not his first chief rabbinate. He was Chief Rabbi of Ireland from 1985 to 1992, and for three years before that was minister of Dublin's Adelaide Road Synagogue.

Rabbi Mirvis comes from a family of rabbis and teachers. His grandfather, Rev Lazar Mirvis, was a minister in Johannesburg, while his father, Rabbi Dr Lionel Mirvis, led the Claremont Synagogue and also the Wynberg Hebrew Congregation in Cape Town.

His mother, Freida, was principal of the Athlone Teachers Training College, which, during the apartheid years, was the only college for black teachers of pre-school instruction in South Africa.

After leaving Cape Town for Israel, where he attended a number of yeshivot and obtained his semicha (rabbinical qualification), Rabbi Mirvis married Zimbabwe-born Valerie Kaplan, a former senior social worker with Jewish Care, who now works for a local authority in the same capacity. The couple have four sons.

Along the way Rabbi Mirvis qualified as a shochet, mohel and chazan. Between 1992 and 1996 he was the rabbi of Marble Arch Synagogue. Since 1996 he has become synonymous with the ever-growing Finchley Synagogue, one of the biggest congregations in London.

A member of his congregation said on Monday night: "The congregation is torn. They know he is the best candidate to be chief rabbi. But they will miss him desperately. They think he is irreplaceable."

It is more than two years since Lord Sacks’ retirement date was announced.

His departure was announced at a United Synagogue council meeting on December 13, 2010.

Then US President Simon Hochhauser made clear that there would be a successor and said focus groups would be used during the recruitment process.

Rabbi Mirvis was the long-time frontrunner for the role, but the US selection procedure nonetheless took months longer than expected. It was first intended to name the new chief by Rosh Hashanah 2012.