The Education Secretary Damian Hinds was warmly applauded on Thursday when he called on Britain to be “nurturing and protective” of its British Jewish community on a visit to Yavneh College in Elstree.
The community was “a very special and important part of British society and it has never been more important than today to say that,” he said.
Whereas he had once thought of antisemitism as a thing of the past, he said he could never have imagined it would happening in Britain and the subject of documentaries on television today.
Mr Hinds, the fourth Education Secretary to visit the college since its opening in 2006, came to cut the ribbon on the new building of the primary school on the site of the college campus.
Chatting to the children of the primary, which opened in temporary premises on the site of the college in 2016, as he toured their new home, he said they were “truly delightful” and taught by “clearly inspirational staff.
Yavneh, he said, was an “amazing school”.
The Education Secretary had special praise for president of the Yavneh Academy Trust Benjamin Perl, whose vision to open schools had been “so fundamental” to Jewish education.
Pronouncing in immaculate Hebrew the school motto olam chesed yiboneh, “a world built on kindness”, Mr Hinds said it “says a lot about your school”.
And there may be more to celebrate. The executive head of the schools, Spencer Lewis, indicated that the primary's first Ofsted inspection, carried out a couple of weeks ago, had gone well.
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis recalled the origins of the school’s name, the talmudic academy established by Yochanan ben Zakkai in Israel shortly before the Roman destruction of the Second Temple.
Yavneh had, “literally saved the Jewish people,” Rabbi Mirvis said. “Because without outstanding education, we have no future.”
Yavneh’s chairman Sue Nyman said two words summed up her feelings whenever she visited the schools; “Joy and Pride”.
The primary children were always “so busy they don’t have time to misbehave.”
