Andy Burnham was right to choose Jewish Care as the setting for his announcement on the future of social care. He was also right to recognise the specifically Jewish values that have helped make it one of the country’s outstanding care providers. At a time when British Jews have ample reason to wonder whether their contribution to this country is properly understood, that recognition matters.
Jewish Care supports some 12,000 people through residential care, community services and practical assistance. Its achievement lies not only in the scale and quality of what it provides, but in its understanding of the people it serves. Care is not merely the efficient delivery of meals, medication and physical support, but also the preservation of dignity and belonging.
Nor is Jewish Care alone in this vital work. Organisations including Norwood, which supports neurodiverse people; Kisharon Langdon, which assists autistic people and those with disabilities; Paperweight, which helps families navigate welfare, debt and financial hardship; and the Fed, which provides care across Greater Manchester, all reflect the same Jewish ethic, as do many others.
Britain’s Jewish community has long understood that it must take responsibility for its vulnerable members: the elderly, the sick, the bereaved, the disabled, the poor and those who might otherwise be left isolated. That responsibility is sustained by professional staff, devoted volunteers and donors who give generously.
That sense of responsibility at Jewish Care and similar organisations has ancient roots. Jewish teaching begins with the belief that every human being is created in the image of God and therefore possesses an irreducible dignity. From that follows the obligation to care for the stranger, the widow, the orphan and the poor. Cain’s question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?”, receives, across millennia of Jewish teaching and practice, an unequivocal answer: yes, we are our brothers’ and our sisters’ keepers.
That obligation does not stop at the boundaries of the community. Jewish charities have long served the wider public, often quietly and without demanding applause. Hatzola ambulances, including those recently targeted in an appalling arson attack, respond to emergencies involving Jews and non-Jews alike. The point is not that Jewish institutions are uniquely virtuous, but that this communal instinct to organise and volunteer offers a useful example to the country at large.
The figures are striking. Jews account for only around 0.5 per cent of the population of England and Wales, yet a 2019 study by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research estimated that Jewish charities represented approximately 1.5 per cent of registered charities. This profusion of organisations can sometimes exasperate donors faced with competing appeals, but ultimately it reflects a spirit of which the community can justifiably be proud.
Whatever shape the reforms ultimately take, the scale and cost of social care mean that even the most efficient public system is unlikely to provide everything that organisations such as Jewish Care and Norwood seek to offer. Their work depends not only on dedicated staff and professional expertise, but also on the philanthropy that makes possible additional time, attention, cultural understanding and personal warmth.
That is not a substitute for effective public provision, but a complement to it and may also require a wider appeal to civic duty. In an age increasingly defined by sectarian politics instead of national unity, that may be the hardest reform of all.
Burnham came to Jewish Care to set out how to repair a broken system but he was also standing in a place that demonstrates something he cannot so easily decree: that a decent society depends not only on competent government, but on people accepting responsibility for one another. Our community can take quiet pride in the example it sets.
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