Opinion
Anglo-Jewry always pulls together in a crisis
The generous response to our Kol Nidrei Appeal is in keeping with our community’s tradition
October 13, 2022 09:20
3 min read
The generous response to our Kol Nidrei Appeal is in keeping with our community’s tradition
October 13, 2022 09:20For the past 13 years, I have been launching Kol Nidrei Appeals from the pulpit. I had become convinced that the single largest determinant of the sum of money people are likely to donate on Yom Kippur was the amount they gave last year. No matter how passionate the pitch or how worthy the cause, everyone knows this appeal is coming and I was pretty sure that people generally give the same amount each time.
This year, however, I was proved wrong. The amount of money pledged in my own shul was significantly higher than usual. The key takeaway for me from this was how critical the particular cause was. Without question, the need will only continue to grow — and I believe that we all have a duty to do whatever we can to support it.
Like every community, we thought long and hard about which charity to support for our appeal. Over the course of these discussions, we came to the realisation that this year there was a critical cause central to the lives of every member of every community in this country — the cost of living crisis. So we used the Kol Nidrei Appeal as an opportunity to launch a Cost of Living Relief Fund for members of our own community struggling this winter.
Unlike other years, there would be no splitting of funds and no shared causes.
Every penny raised would go to this cause alone — a crisis fund for people struggling to pay their bills, heat their homes, or facing any other unexpected living expense this winter.
My pitch was simple. We are now clearly in more than just a financial crisis. Individuals and families sitting next to us in shul who were relatively secure yesterday are having to rethink everything. Some are seeing the stability they thought they had, whether in terms of energy costs or looming mortgage rates, swept out from underneath them. And for larger than average families, or families with kosher food expenses, the “average cost of living” declaimed nationally is pretty irrelevant.
“Tonight, we come together,” I said on Kol Nidrei, “to ask a basic question regarding our priorities in charitable giving. We must ask ourselves, what can we do now, here, this year, during this crisis, this place, to make a difference?
“For those able to support this appeal and contribute to the new fund, please give as generously as you can. And for those in need of help, even if it is just to tide you over the next few months, please reach out.
“No-one should have to suffer in silence.”
Importantly, I do not believe that the magnificent response from my community to this appeal was exceptional. I am sure that communities up and down the country saw the same level of response. Because since time immemorial we have come together as a people, and as British Jews in particular, to make a difference when called upon to do so. After all, as a community, we have been here before.
This was how the Soup Kitchen for the Jewish Poor was founded in 1854 in Spitalfields. In 1847, the recently appointed Chief Rabbi Nathan Marcus Adler visited Jewish families in the slums of the East End.
As graphically described by the JC at the time, he was ready to “grope through the dark, narrow courts and alleys” and ascend “the miserable attics”, in order to find out why so many families weren’t sending their children to school.
Their response was as simple as it was shocking. They depended each day on a “providential benefactor”, often a family member, bringing something for the children to eat. Sometimes their benefactor would come late in the day. But without the food package, the children could starve — so they would often miss out on school.
As the JC reported, the Chief Rabbi did not depart “without leaving at least so much as would provide a breakfast for the family on the following day”. By 1867, the Soup Kitchen was distributing some 78,000 food parcels to 600 families.
Whether as community leaders, or simply those who care deeply about the community, it is clear that supporting people through this crisis is the call of the hour. As our community came together to lift people out of the depths of Victorian poverty, so, too, it is our obligation to do whatever we can to help our brothers and sisters through this turbulent economic period. The means of support are well established throughout the community. It is our task to ensure that we are there for those who need us now.
Yoni Birnbaum is Rabbi of Kehillas Toras Chaim, Hendon