Posts by Jennifer Lipman

Immigrant problem? We should be flattered they choose the UK

Jennifer Lipman — Sun, 19 May 2013 09:00:28 +0100

The British should be flattered that so many refugees and immigrants want to settle in the UK. That is the view of one of the country’s best-loved children’s authors, seven decades after she herself found refuge from the Nazis in London.

Speaking in the week that tougher rules on immigrants were included in the Queen’s Speech, Judith Kerr noted the growing public mood against new arrivals, but said: “It’s nothing to do with immigration, just to do with the number of people who all have to go somewhere, and it’s rather flattering that they all want to come here.”

She insisted that immigrants should not be deterred from coming to Britain but that they would do well to follow the example of the Jews who arrived in the 1930s and learn English and adopt British customs as quickly as possible.

Mrs Kerr is famous for her two classic works for children — The Tiger Who Came to Tea and the Mog the cat series, — and for When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit, the fictionalised memoir of her Jewish family’s escape from Berlin to Switzerland, France and finally Britain. The book is considered a good way of introducing children to the events of the Holocaust.

The writer turns 90 at the start of next month and to mark the event, publisher Harper Collins is releasing Judith Kerr’s Creatures, a book bringing together her biography and hundreds of her illustrations, including early drawings that formed the basis of The Tiger Who Came to Tea and Mog.

Mrs Kerr was made an OBE last year, an honour she welcomed, “because I came here as a refugee and to put it simply, it’s very nice to know that nobody regrets having let me in.

“I keep coming across Jewish refugees [who got similar honours], and I’m terribly pleased because it means that we did good.”

The author quickly became fluent in English when she arrived in London and is adamant that all immigrants should learn the language.

She said: “You should learn it as fast as you can and you should abide by what is normal in the country, even if it is different from what you are used to, because it’s only polite.

“The people who came here in the 1930s were ready to follow the rules as it were. My father used to say: ‘We are guests in this country’ which is a good attitude.”

The new book chronicles the period from the Kerr family’s frantic departure from Germany in 1933 to her time as a BBC employee and her marriage to screenwriter Nigel Kneale in the early ’50s. It is, she says a chance to “put right” a previous depiction of her father, Alfred.

In the Bombs on Aunt Daisy trilogy, “Papa” is portrayed as inactive, even passive, a representation Mrs Kerr now knows to be untrue, having discovered his private papers.

“I’ve found out a lot of things since I wrote the book about my father, which worried me, because I totally misrepresented him. I thought I must write about what really happened.”

One letter she found was Alfred Kerr’s plea to Albert Einstein in 1936. “My father said: ‘There’s going to be a war in Europe, I must get my children out’. So he knew then what was at stake,” said Mrs Kerr.

She puts her continued popularity as a writer down to “luck”, although she wishes people would remember her for more than Tiger. “It’s the first thing I ever did and I worked terribly hard to get better,” she said.

Heroic spy was inspiration for Bond girl Vesper Lynd

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 17 May 2013 18:00:28 +0100

The daring exploits of a Jewish-born secret agent who was parachuted into France during the Second World War have been celebrated at a ceremony in London.

Krystyna Skarbek, whose mother was from an assimilated Jewish family, left her home in Poland after the Nazi invasion and made her way to Britain. She volunteered to work as an agent from British intelligence, returning to Poland on numerous missions to recruit couriers.

Towards the end of the war she was dispatched to France to gather intelligence and boost the Allied war effort, for which she was decorated with the George Medal for bravery.

Known in Britain by the name Christine Granville, she mixed in glamorous circles and allegedly had an affair with James Bond author Ian Fleming, reportedly even inspiring the character Vesper Lyn in Casino Royale.

But in 1952 she was stabbed to death by a man who had become obsessed with her, and was buried in relative anonymity in Kensal Green, west London.

On Friday, 61 years after her death, her courage was saluted at an event organised by the Polish Heritage Society, which is planning to renovate her grave and restore her name to prominence.

Mazeltov! Sitcom to feature a wedding under the chupah

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 17 May 2013 17:30:28 +0100

A Jewish wedding is on the cards for British television audiences next year after Channel 4 announced that a third series of the hit comedy Friday Night Dinner has been commissioned.

The sitcom, starring Tamsin Greig and Simon Bird, follows the Jewish Goodman family at their weekly Shabbat meals. A spokesman has confirmed that an episode will feature a wedding with a Jewish bride and groom, although he declined to reveal who the family might be wishing mazeltov to under the chupah.

The third outing of the Bafta-nominated series will be filmed on location in north London over the summer and is scheduled to air next year.

Writer Robert Popper has admitted drawing on his own family life in creating the series, which draws much of its comedy from awkward and often uncomfortable situations, and from troublesome visitors to the Goodman home.

Storylines in the new series will involve sex education lectures, inappropriate admirers and tattoos.

Mr Popper, whose previous credits include Peep Show, Bo’Selecta and South Park, said: “I’m so excited to be making a new series with such a fantastic cast once again. I really could not be happier,” he said.

Nerys Evans, deputy head of comedy for Channel 4, said: “Roberts’s created such a brilliantly warm and funny world, and the cast are just sublime.”

Prize author: Hawking is wrong over boycott

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:50:28 +0100

Two writers with links to the Hebrew University in Jerusalem have been nominated for a major British-based literary prize.

Croatian-born author Josip Novakovich, who is a visiting professor of creative writing at the university, and Israeli novelist Aharon Appelfeld, who studied there, are among the 10 nominees in the running for the £60,000 international Man Booker Award, which is due to be presented in London next week.

The prize was last claimed by Phillip Roth and is open to writers working in any language.

Speaking ahead of the award ceremony, Mr Novakovich said he disagreed with fellow academic Stephen Hawking’s decision to boycott a conference in Jerusalem next month.

“In general I don’t believe in boycotts,” he said.

“No matter what anyone thinks of the politics the only way to resolve an impasse is through dialogue, so it is always better to come and discuss it.”

Mr Nova-kovich, who teaches both Hebrew- and Arabic-speakers at the university, added that academics would do better to adopt a policy of talking to everyone.

“It would make it easier to reach a common solution,” he said. “Going to Israel is far better than saying no to dialogue — no dialogue actually resolves nothing.”

Living in Jerusalem, he said he was struck by how well the different religious groups co-existed in the Old City — something, he noted, which was too rarely acknowledged by the media.

“My attitude in literature is to look at a story and see what is working and then do it more, and I think politically it should be the same — let’s see what is working and let’s try to make it stronger.”

He said he did not expect to win the award, because the other nominees “have been published way more than I have”, but he was looking forward to meeting other writers, including Mr Appelfeld.

Melanie Phillips sets up her own media empire

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 17 May 2013 15:30:28 +0100

Journalist and political commentator Melanie Phillips has launched her own media company publishing high-brow books as well as selling branded tote bags and mobile phone covers.

Ms Phillips, a high-profile columnist for the Daily Mail and the JC, and a prolific author, has set up EM (short for Electric Media) in an effort, she said, to stand up for the little guy.

The company will bypass traditional publishers to release books on digital platforms, as well as producing a range of merchandise.

Topics being covered by EM publications include the parenting of teenagers, royalty and the scapegoating of intellectuals.

The company will publish Ms Phillips’s own work — top of the list is her autobiography, Guardian Angel, My Story, My Britain — as well as work by her husband, legal journalist Joshua Rozenberg.

She said: “ EM books will have broad appeal over a wide variety of topics, all aimed at the centre ground of public opinion — and the Middle East will have a place within that”.

Ms Phillips explained that the aim of the company was “speaking truth to power, standing up for the little guy and giving voice to those on the decent, commonsense, middle-ground who find themselves marginalised by the gatekeepers of public discourse”.

Israel's Eurovision entry 2013: Rak Bishvilo by Moran Mazor

Jennifer Lipman — Tue, 14 May 2013 12:47:50 +0100

Israel will be going for a place in the final of this year's Eurovision Song Contest on Thursday. The competition, which is being held in Malmo, was first held in 1956.

Ms Mazor, who won the first season of an Israeli reality series, is the daughter of immigrants from Georgia to Israel.

She said: "I am proud to represent Israel and I am sure I will bring honour to my country, family and friends."

Hytner: Othello's race 'not a big deal' to the Venetians

Jennifer Lipman — Tue, 14 May 2013 10:24:34 +0100

The racism in Othello is not as pronounced as the antisemitism in the Merchant of Venice, the director of the National theatre said this week.

Sir Nicholas Hytner, whose critically acclaimed production of Othello starring Adrian Lester and Rory Kinnear is currently selling-out at the National, expressed his view in conversation with JC theatre critic John Nathan at the London Jewish Cultural Centre on Monday evening.

Discussing how the interpretation and reaction to William Shakespeare's work has changed over time, he noted that in 1604, London audiences would have had a very different response to a man with black skin than they did in 1804 or 1904.

"It was written before we had learnt to be as racist as we became," he said. "I give you as evidence of this the Merchant of Venice. Same city, same world, there isn't a page in Merchant of Venice which isn't obsessed with Shylock's Jewishness."

Sir Nicholas, who is only the second person to have run the National Theatre for more than a decade, described Merchant as "an antisemitic play which contains within it a criticism of antisemitism".

"Everybody in the play is antisemitic, they ascribe everything bad that is done to Shylock's Jewishness," he said. "You can't imagine Shylock being appointed commander of the armed forces.

"In Othello it's not a big deal to the Venetian duke and the senators of Venice that they are appointing a Moor. Not many people in Othello are vocally racist."

Sir Nicholas, who announced earlier this year that he was standing down from the National in March 2015, said he hoped his swansong would be a production of a new play by an up and coming writer. Although he gave no indication of who his preferred successor would be, he said it was great "for a theatre to have an artist as chief executive".

His tenure at the National has seen collaborations with Habima, the Israeli theatre company that faced boycott calls when it performed at the Globe Theatre last year. "I don't personally agree with boycotts," he said. "None of my colleagues said let's not work with them."

But he also revealed that as a young pupil of Manchester Grammar School, he initiated his own boycott – of the school's Jewish choir, joining the non-religious one instead. "The standards were not high enough in the Jewish choir so I boycotted it on musical grounds."

Chagall exhibition to open at Tate Liverpool

Jennifer Lipman — Mon, 13 May 2013 17:13:33 +0100

An exhibition dedicated to the career of Russian-Jewish artist Marc Chagall is to open in Liverpool next month.

Fifteen years after the last major retrospective of his work in the UK, and 27 years after his death at the age of 97, Tate Liverpool is to remind art-lovers of the modernist painter's genius.

Among the 70 paintings displayed will be self-portraits, the series of large murals the artist completed in 1920 for Moscow's State Yiddish Chamber Theatre, as well as examples of his magical, dream-like scenes of Jewish life in the shtetl. The exhibition will concentrate in particular on his early development as a painter in the burgeoning avant-garde movement.

Born into a religious family, the son of a herring merchant, Moishe Shagall (as he was known) grew up in what is now Belarus, in the Pale of Settlement.

He left home to study art in St Petersburg at the age of 20, then moved to Paris. He returned to Russia and was forced to stay there during the First World War, and later sought refuge in the United States during the Holocaust.

Much of his work contained Jewish themes, including his famous Jerusalem Windows, at the Hadassah hospital in Israel, which depict the time when Jacob blessed his sons and they saw visions of the future.

Young director hopes to emulate Billy Elliot success

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 10 May 2013 11:30:43 +0100

A director who already has a string of stage hits to her name has been appointed to a prestigious post at London’s Young Vic theatre.

Natalie Abrahami, whose recent production of After Miss Julie was praised by critics, has been chosen as the associate director at the Waterloo venue under the Genesis Fellowship scheme to encourage young theatre talent.

The two-year posting will give her the opportunity to direct her own projects at one of the country’s most original theatres, as well as work closely with artistic director David Lan.

Ms Abrahami, whose directing experience began with a Cambridge University production of Arthur Miller’s Kristallnacht play Broken Glass, has Israeli parents and speaks Hebrew.

After five years as the co-artistic director of the Gate Theatre in London, — where Billy Elliot director Stephen Daldry also honed his craft — Ms Abrahami said she was looking forward to working at the larger venue.

She trained at the Young Vic and said she considers Mr Lan as a mentor.

“He has been running this theatre innovatively for a decade so it’s really exciting to be involved,” she said. “It’s a wonderful learning experience.”

Ms Abrahami added that she hoped to follow in Mr Daldry’s footsteps and work in a variety of media, including opera and film. “I have a short attention span — having lots of different projects on the go is great,” she joked.

The director added that she would welcome the chance to work with international theatre companies, including those from Israel.

“That would be something I would very much enjoy,” she said.

She responded robustly to culture secretary Maria Miller’s recent call that the arts should demonstrate their economic worth.

“The arts do contribute to the economy. I feel that we have already shown that. Particularly with the cultural Olympiad last year — that made the case so clear.”

Mr Lan said he was delighted to welcome Ms Abrahami back to the Young Vic.

“After Miss Julie demonstrated her powers as a director. I know it was just one illustration of what she will go on to achieve.”

The adventure writer who tried to kill Hitler

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 10 May 2013 10:30:00 +0100

As a teenager he attempted to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Seven decades later Henry Wermuth is busy writing adventure stories, but his own life has been far more dramatic than his fiction.

The Holocaust survivor, who lives in north-west London and recently celebrated his 90th birthday, has just published his third novel, The Rescue of the Murdered Consul’s Children, a tale of revenge set partly in the Wild West.

Born in Frankfurt, he was deported with his family to Poland in 1938. Over the next seven years, he was transferred from concentration camp to concentration camp, including Auschwitz.

Remarkably, he and his father, Bernhard, were together throughout the war, but Bernhard died just days before liberation. “It has haunted me my whole life that there was a possibility we could have escaped,” Mr Wermuth said.

He has never discovered the exact fate of his mother and sister, but it was for them that he mounted an audacious attempt to kill Hitler in 1942.

Mr Wermuth was in a labour camp called Klaj when he heard that the Nazi leader was expected to pass through the town to boost the morale of troops following heavy losses at Stalingrad.

“That night, I smuggled myself out of the camp — in this particular camp it was possible to do so,” he said.

He walked the two kilometres to the station, where he found logs and stones that he placed on the tracks to derail the train. The next morning, he said: “A train passed with three wagons, and in the window was a man who I recognised by the mustache as Hitler.

“I stood there mesmerised, waiting for the crash, but it never came. Either a local farmer or someone patrolling must have removed the logs.”

An account of Mr Wermuth’s experience in the Holocaust, Breathe Deeply my Son, is now in its seventh edition. His bravery was honoured by Germany in 1995 with a medal.

Today he remains about modest his attempt on Hitler’s life. “My mother and sister had been deported, I hoped to free them,” he said. “At the time I was 19 — I didn’t think about the consequences.”

Bob Dylan anti-bomb lyrics to be sold at London auction

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 10 May 2013 09:42:17 +0100

Bob Dylan "knew what he was doing" from the very start of his career, according to the man who played a key role in the singer's musical education.

Israel "Izzy" Young was running the Folklore Center in Greenwich Village in the early 1960s when a young Jewish musician called Robert Zimmerman walked in. The two, who are still in touch today, became good friends, with Mr Young later organising Dylan's first concert in Manhattan and Dylan writing a song about the centre.

Fifty years later Mr Young is selling a rare piece of music memorabilia - the typewritten lyrics of a Dylan anti-nuclear song that was never released.

Go Away you Bomb, which is being auctioned by Christie's in London next month and is expected to fetch up to £35,000, was written in 1963 while Dylan was working on his second album. "Why didn't it come out? I've never found out - I've only asked him about 50 times," said Mr Young.

He recalled how Dylan started making friends with the musicians who gathered at the centre. "I didn't know him from anybody but the next thing you know he was playing with everybody and not trying to show how much better he was," said Mr Young, who now lives in Stockholm. "He was collaborative, not at all about showing off. After a month or so he came to me with some songs. I flipped, and I don't flip very often. I said this is really terrific."

Mr Young said from the outset it was clear that the young musician was "a terrific talent. He listened and he picked things up, got ideas for songs all over the place. He didn't miss a trick."

He said he had no idea how much the lyrics were worth. "Here's a song with the original corrections in," he added. "Nobody else has got anything like that."

London exhibition to celebrate Amy Winehouse as family girl

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 10 May 2013 08:14:04 +0100

Previously unseen photographs of Amy Winehouse at her brother's barmitzvah, along with childhood treasures and examples of her distinctive outfits, are to form part of the first major exhibition celebrating the singer's work and highlighting her Jewish heritage.

Amy Winehouse: A Family Portrait is being curated by the singer's older brother, Alex Winehouse, and will be on show at the Jewish Museum in Camden, just yards from the home in which she died in July 2011.

Although she was only 27 at the time, she had already achieved huge success in her musical career, with two bestselling albums and a string of awards.

But if in life her struggles with alcohol and drugs sometimes overshadowed her talent, the exhibition will show another, largely unknown side to Winehouse - as a proud daughter and sister growing up in Southgate in what her brother describes as "a typical Jewish family".

"Amy was someone who was incredibly proud of her Jewish-London roots," said Mr Winehouse, who has worked on the display with his wife Riva. "Whereas other families would go to the seaside on a sunny day, we'd always go down to the East End [where the family had its roots].

"That was who we were, and what we were. We weren't religious, but we were traditional. I hope, in this most fitting of places, that the world gets to see this other side not just to Amy, but to our typical Jewish family."

Visitors to the exhibition, which opens on July 3, will be introduced to the Winehouse who enjoyed Friday night dinners and was close to her grandmother.

Among the displays will be a battered suitcase filled with photographs of loved-ones, which Winehouse and her father Mitch looked through just days before her death, as well as her record collection, the vintage bar she installed in her Camden home, her first guitar - which was originally shared with Alex - and her school uniform.

The exhibition will take visitors through the family's story in London's East End, starting with the arrival of her paternal great great-grandparents as immigrants from Belarus in the 1890s, and the Commercial Street barbershop that her great-grandparents, Benjamin and Fanny, opened.

Fans may be intrigued to study photographs of Winehouse as the younger sister of the barmitzvah boy, or discover that her grandmother, Cynthia, once dated the jazz musician, Ronnie Scott.

They will also be able to see a selection of Winehouse's iconic fashion choices, from the dress she wore when she preformed at Glastonbury in 2008 to the outfit she had on in the video for her single, Tears Dry On their Own.

Abigail Morris, chief executive of the Jewish Museum, said: "Amy Winehouse was an immensely talented, iconic and inspirational singer and she was a Jewish girl from North London.

"It is fitting that the Jewish Museum in her beloved Camden Town should be the place to tell her story.

Wedding bells as Friday Night Dinner gets third series

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:53:23 +0100

Tamsin Greig and Simon Bird will be back filming on location in north London this summer, after a third series of the television comedy Friday Night Dinner was commissioned.

The series, which visits the Goodman family as they eat their Shabbat meal and follows them as they face awkward and often uncomfortable situations and deal with troublesome visitors, is written by Robert Popper.

Mr Popper, who has admitted occasionally drawing on his own family life in writing the series, is a Bafta-winning producer whose previous credits include Peep Show, Bo'Selecta and South Park.

"I'm so excited to be making a new series with such a fantastic cast once again. I really could not be happier," he said. "Well I could, if say, I'd taught crows how to speak and they, in turn, taught me how to fly."

The third outing of Friday Night Dinner will air on Channel 4 next year, but will be filmed in the north London area over the summer. On offer will be plots involving sex education lectures, terrible tattoos and a wedding – although whether a chupah will be involved remains to be seen.

"Roberts's created such a brilliantly warm and funny world," said Nerys Evans, deputy head of comedy for Channel 4. "The cast are just sublime, we can't wait to join them for more Friday Night Dinners next year."

Poem by celebrated Victorian feminist sold at auction

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 09 May 2013 16:32:10 +0100

One of the final writings of a Victorian Jew who Oscar Wilde praised as a "girl of genius" has been auctioned for £3,500.

The poem by Amy Levy, At Dawn, was sold at Bonhams on Wednesday for £500 more than anticipated.

Written around 1889, shortly before Levy's suicide, it is the first time any of her work had been made for sale.

A feminist who had a relationship with the novelist Vernon Lee, Levy defied the expectations of her middle-class Jewish upbringing, becoming Newnham College Cambridge's first Jewish woman student.

Despite her premature death at 27, she was a prolific writer, publishing books and essays and attracting praise from Wilde.

"When you think of the prejudices women of the time faced, and for her to face them as a Jew, then [her story] is even more extraordinary," said Roy Davids, who sold the poem.

Refugees who escaped to ‘Downton’

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 03 May 2013 11:30:13 +0100

V When 18-year-old Hortense arrived in Surrey to work as a domestic cook, she suffered a huge culture shock. The educated daughter of a Jewish doctor in Breslau, Germany, she was used to having servants, not being one.

But for Hortense, this employment was a matter of life and death. She was one of thousands of Jews who fled Nazi-occupied Europe to work in British households. Eighty years ago, the British government lifted visa restrictions, granting temporary asylum for Jewish refugees who were to be employed as domestics. As war drew nearer, it was for many the only means of escape.

Between 1933 and 1939, they found jobs by answering advertisements in newspapers, including the JC. It is thought that at least 15,000 visas were issued, most to women aged between 15 and 45.

Their experiences, in non-Jewish and Jewish homes, are described in a new book by historian Lucy Lethbridge. The stories are reminiscent of below-stairs life as depicted in TV’s Downton Abbey.

Hortense, now Mrs Hortense Gordon says her time in domestic service was “quite difficult at first. My mother gave me a small cookery book and here I came, to a very English house, where I was cooking foods I had never eaten. It was quite strange — for example, meat in pastry was totally unknown in Germany.”

Like Mrs Gordon, most of the refugees had not previously worked as servants, and came from privileged backgrounds. “They certainly weren’t typical domestics,” says Ms Lethbridge.

The Jewish servants found themselves in a strange position — the accountant’s daughter working as a maid for an accountant, the celebrated German actor who explained he had learnt his skills as a butler at the grand hotels he had stayed at all his life.

The reception from other staff was a further problem. “It wasn’t exactly jealousy but there was a sort of chippiness from the other servants about these highly educated foreigners,” explains Ms Lethbridge. “The refugees felt terribly in-between — it was very difficult.”

Mrs Gordon, who now has a role with the Association of Jewish Refugees, remembers the family she worked for as friendly but quite reserved, and recalls that she was “very much in the kitchen.

“It was hard work but I didn’t query anything, I just did as I was told. I was not unhappy but I wasn’t very happy. I was totally alone but I got on with it.”

Some refugee servants encountered hostility because they were German, or met with overt antisemitism. According to refugees Edith Argy, who was 18 when she arrived in Britain from Germany, such hostility made domestic service “a miserable chapter” in their lives.

“I found it very hard to adjust,” says Mrs Argy. She worked as a servant for 16 months, in nine different homes. “I had never done any housework before. In fact, I was so unhappy and so lonely in my first job that I no longer wanted to live.”

By the time war broke out in 1939, many refugees had been employed in British households for several years. Nonetheless, many were interned on suspicion of being enemy agents. “The Daily Mail led the campaign, warning: ‘We are nicely honeycombed with little cells of potential betrayal’.”

After 1939, it became very difficult for anyone to keep a domestic at all because of war work, and indeed, the refugees “were greatly in demand because they were educated and spoke languages,” says Ms Lethbridge.

Hortense left her employer in Surrey in 1941 and trained as a nurse. The lady of the house came to her wedding, and she remembers on a return visit being introduced as “Hortense, who used to be our lady-cook”.

“Once I changed my status, the whole attitude changed,” she laughed. “Overall, I was lucky. I counted my blessings.”

‘Servants: A Downstairs View of Twentieth-Century Britain’, by Lucy Lethbridge is published by Bloomsbury at £8.99

Arts value is ‘far beyond money’

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 03 May 2013 11:00:13 +0100

The benefits of the arts cannot always be measured in economic terms, leading figures in the Jewish cultural sphere warned this week.

Responding to Culture Secretary Maria Miller’s call for the arts to demonstrate their economic value to qualify for public funding, the chief executive of the Jewish Museum in London insisted that cultural projects were not something you could “put a price on”, not least because “you can’t know in advance” what will be successful.

Abigail Morris said: “You can’t measure the arts in straight economic terms, because some things that are hugely successful now, weren’t at first.” She pointed out that arts represent only a tiny portion of government spending.

The Jewish Museum relies on both public and private funding, but makes back just 20 or 25 per cent of its costs by bringing visitors through the door. “We are vital to community cohesion and combating antisemitism, which you can’t really put a price on. You can’t really say what the commercial value of that is but you know how bad it is when there are riots,” said Ms Morris.

Hester Abrams, the director of the annual Jewish Book Week festival, agreed that the benefits of the arts sometimes only became apparent “over decades or generations”.

Ms Abrams said that Ms Miller’s comments did not represent a significant departure from those of the previous Labour government. “They agree the arts are very, very important. It’s more about the specific targets they set and whether they are reachable or defensible,” she explained.

“The worry is that funding will shrink. If we don’t have government support, the arts become an ivory tower and private donors become the one leg that you stand on. You’ve got to have diverse sources of funding.”

Helen Frais, the cultural director of the Leeds-based Makor and JFest international, said they had applied for public funding but had been rejected. She called on Ms Miller to make the application process less time-consuming. “You waste months doing paperwork,” she said.

Nate Silver predicts 'crash and burn' for UK independence Party

Jennifer Lipman — Fri, 03 May 2013 10:08:58 +0100

The UK Independence Party could "crash and burn" in the same way as the tea party did at the last US elections, the pollster Nate Silver told a London audience on Tuesday.

Mr Silver, who is celebrated for accurately predicting the outcome of the presidential election in all 50 US states last November, was in the UK to discuss his new book, The Signal and the Noise.

Speaking to an audience at an Intelligence Squared event, he said: "If you had the [general] election today it's clear Labour would gain a lot of seats, probably a majority, but two years is a long time.

"Since the tea party eventually crashed and burned in the US I think Ukip might meet a similar fate eventually."

Mr Silver, who described the US Republican party as in some parts having become "detached from empiricism" contrasted the US and UK systems, stating his admiration for Britain's "sensible… smart, competent MPs".

He was modest about his record of electoral prediction. "We get a lot of credit for calling all 50 states right, but everything really was on a probability scale," he said. "But I'll take the credit – it was a good year."

Mr Silver, who has a Jewish father, spoke about "failures of prediction" including before the financial crash of 2008 and ahead of natural disasters, such as the Japanese earthquake of 2010.

But while he emphasised the importance of analysing data , he also warned that "it is dangerous to overestimate our capabilities".

He reassured that machines, despite being able to process data faster than humans, were not going to take over.

"The big problem with this is that computer programmes are designed by human beings, who introduce assumptions and problems into the code," he said, giving Sat Nav systems as an example of where sophisticated computer prediction could be undone.

And he spoke of the dangers of prediction in the political arena. "It worries me a little that campaigns are getting more efficient at targeting voters – there is a thin line between targeting and manipulation."

Top Hat? Top show, say Olivier judges

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 02 May 2013 15:15:13 +0100

The daughter of the legendary composer Irving Berlin has spoken of her delight that the West End musical Top Hat is introducing her father’s music to a new generation of theatre-goers.

Elizabeth Peters also said she was thrilled that the production had been honoured at this year’s Olivier awards.

“It deserves it,” she said. “I think my father would be thrilled — it’s just wonderful to hear that music live on the stage.”

Top Hat, which is produced by Kenny Wax, won three awards at the Oliviers, including best new musical, as well as prizes for best choreography and costumes.

The production came about after a conversation Mr Wax had over tea, when friends suggested that what with the recession, and the popularity of BBC One’s Strictly Come Dancing, it would be natural to have a Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers musical on in the West End.

After initial reluctance, he eventually convinced Berlin’s daughters that the project would be a success.

“I explained that I had an eight-year-old daughter who had never heard of Irving Berlin,” he revealed. “I said that they need to reopen the catalogue to this generation so they know all his wonderful songs.”

Berlin, born 125 years ago next week, emigrated to New York as a child to escape the pogroms in Tsarist Russia. He wrote some 1,200 songs, including classics like White Tie and Tails and Cheek to Cheek, which feature in Top Hat.

“He was the son of a long line of cantors and that’s really where his musical interest came from,” said Mr Wax, who grew up in Hale, in Cheshire, and attended Carmel College. “His songs are really timeless.”

The musical, which is running at the Aldwych Theatre, is one of several classic showstoppers on in the West End at the moment, including Singing in the Rain and A Chorus Line. “It’s a bit of a cliché but in these recessionary times people do want to go out and have a big feel-good evening,” said Mr Wax.

“In terms of the size of the cast, the choreography, it’s an old fashioned dance musical,” he added. “It’s absolutely down the street of my parents’ generation.”

A national tour starts in summer 2014, and there has been interest from producers as far afield as Korea and Japan. In the long term, the hope is for Top Hat to become a staple of amateur theatre, as is the case with classics like Oklahoma and Carousel.

“We hope we’ll be on in the West End for some time,” said Mr Wax. “The word of mouth is so positive at the moment but there are a lot of shows competing for a limited market.”

Mrs Peters, who lives in the United States, said she would love to see Top Hat transfer to Broadway. “In the theatre, you never know how something will turn out, so we feel very lucky it has gone so well.”

I’ve made mistakes over apprentices, says Lord Sugar

Jennifer Lipman — Thu, 02 May 2013 14:00:00 +0100

Lord Sugar admitted that there have been “occasions where I got it wrong” in the Apprentice boardroom, as he launched the ninth series of the BBC reality show this week.

The East End-born businessman, who has a fortune of £860 million according to the latest Rich List figures, acknowledged that he was “not perfect” in judging contestants and had let promising apprentices slip through the net.

But he said previous winners had gone on to achieve success — although he refused to comment on former winner Stella English, who unsuccessfully brought an employment tribunal against him. Lord Sugar said that of the 160 people who had come through the boardroom, he had not yet fired anyone who had gone on to become “a new Branson or Zuckerberg”.

Commenting on the 2013 hopefuls, including St Albans businesswoman Luisa Zissman who claims to have “the energy of a Duracell bunny, the sex appeal of Jessica Rabbit, and a brain like Einstein”, he denied that the show had lost the balance between “credibility and entertainment”.

“Too far down the entertainment route? You wouldn’t ask if you turned up to some of the auditions and saw the people with Mohican hair, painted gold and pink, with bones through the nose and all that stuff,” he said. He hoped the programme helped to “open the eyes of young people to enterprise and business”.

As with the last two series, candidates are competing not for a job but for Lord Sugar to become their partner and invest £250,000 into their business plan. He said that both recent winners were now running profitable businesses.

Although “the BBC like to have me screaming and shouting at people most of the time”, he hoped that the show offered entrepreneurs proof that success could be achieved, even for those starting with very little funding.

“I would go into business with [one of the fired] but what I’d have to do is wait a couple of years until the programme is over,” he added. “I keep in contact with a lot of them. We keep good relationships and there are occasions they come to me for advice.”

The line-up in this series does not replicate that of 2010, when there were four Jewish candidates. But Mrs Zissman, who owns Dixie’s Cupcakery in
St Albans, is married to Oliver Zissman, once part of Jewish Care’s Next Generation committee. He founded a gym equipment company with his brother, Elliot, and appeared on BBC Three’s The Last Millionaire in 2008.

‘The Apprentice’ BBC1 May 7, 9pm

Apprentice candidate with the 'last millionaire' husband

Jennifer Lipman — Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:48:34 +0100

An Apprentice candidate who describes herself as having "the energy of a Duracell bunny, the sex appeal of Jessica Rabbit, and a brain like Einstein" is married to a Jewish businessman who once appeared on another BBC reality series.

Luisa Zissman, the 25-year-old owner of a cupcake company, is married to Oliver Zissman.

The couple live in St Albans, where Mrs Zissman opened the 1950s themed Dixie's Cupcakery in 2011, selling artisan and made-to-order treats.

Now she is hoping to triumph in the ninth series of the contest and walk away with a £250,000 investment from Lord Sugar.

She may well have taken tips on surviving a television contest from her husband, who five years ago appeared on the BBC Three series The Last Millionaire. The programme pitted entrepreneurs against each other on business tasks in foreign locations. Mr Zissman, who told the BBC at the time that "anyone who says they can do without money is a liar", was a winner in the second episode of the series.

Once part of Jewish Care's Next Generation committee, Mr Zissman founded Total Fitness, a company renting and selling gym equipment to individuals and businesses, with his brother Elliot in 1997. Within a few years, they had developed a celebrity clientele, working with well-known names including Julia Roberts and Glenn Close, and by 2007 the business was turning over £5.2 million a year.

In 2004 the brothers were named Young Entrepreneurs of the Year at the Parcelforce Worldwide Small Business Awards.

Writing on the Dixie's Cupcakery Facebook page in 2011, Ms Zissman posted a link to a blog post about the creation of the company. "Hopefully will put a few rumours to rest about my 'rich husband!'," she said. "I wish… I wouldn't work and would be a spa queen if that were the case."