Antisemitism education
I do applaud Dr Gewolb’s efforts and other volunteers who visit schools (Letters, June 5) to allow pupils to engage with a Jewish person. However, is all this good work falling on deaf ears? I never see any mention of non-Jewish schoolchildren and university students speaking out when their Jewish “friends” are attacked and harangued for just being Jewish.
Perhaps more time could be spent educating non-Jewish parents, teachers and lecturers?
Llewellyn Gaba
Cardiff
Gratitude to Britain?
When Daniel Finkelstein (We must call out antisemitism – without making it feel normal, JC May 29) says, “We should celebrate the fact that Britain in its finest hour came to our rescue”, that is wishful thinking.
Before the Second World War in response to Kristallnacht in 1938, Britain allowed roughly 10,000 predominantly Jewish children from Nazi-controlled territories to enter the UK. However, the government mandated that charities and private foster families bear all financial costs, and explicitly refused to allow the children’s parents to accompany them. British people and volunteers such as Sir Nicholas Winton also independently orchestrated the rescue of 669 predominantly Jewish children from Czechoslovakia in 1939, safely bringing them to British foster homes.
When the war began in September 1939, Britain effectively shut down official Jewish immigration to the UK. In an attempt to appease Arab leaders, Britain maintained strict limits on Jewish immigration to Palestine. In 1942, the MV Struma – a chartered ship carrying nearly 800 Jewish refugees – was denied landing rights in Palestine by the British, towed out to sea by Turkish authorities, and sunk by a Soviet submarine.
By the time the full extent of the Nazis’ Final Solution was known, the Allies concluded that rescuing European Jews was impractical, deciding instead that the best way to save them was simply to win the war as quickly as possible. British troops did directly participate in the liberation of concentration camps, encountering horrific conditions at Bergen-Belsen in 1945. But Britain refused to allow mass immigration of Jewish Holocaust survivors into Britain or its territories following the war’s conclusion.
Even now, I think that the government is not being driven by moral principles, or even facts, but by self-flagellating political expediency.
Lewis Herlitz
Leigh on Sea
Union dues
In view of the attitude of Unison towards Israel and its desire for the adoption of BDS and voluntary donations to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (Labour insiders fear party’s top union funder will push anti-Israel policy, JC June 5), I suggest it includes a clause asking members with ovarian cancer not to accept the vaccine being developed at the Weizmann Institute (Israeli scientists in ovarian cancer vaccine breakthrough, JC June 5). Why should treatment being developed in a pariah state be allowed to contaminate the rest of the world (including Palestinians)?
Alan Miller
WD18
Kick it out
The World Cup 2026 is now starting in earnest with its usual razzmatazz and publicity. But there is a darker side too.
With several players who have made anti-Israel comments as well as the Gary Lineker World Cup podcast, there is a danger of Israel and Israeli football being brought to the table. This comes at a time when the Irish are trying to have their Nations Cup games against Israel in September and October 2026 cancelled.
Fortunately, banner and flag waving has been banned from the tournament but nevertheless the opportunity to condemn Israel and its policies and support the Palestinians as happened in the 2024 Paris Olympics remains and should not be ignored.
Football and the World Cup must not be used as a political platform. We wait with bated breath.
Jonathan Metliss
Chairman, Action Against Discrimination
W1
Graveside comfort
How wonderful Shiral Mesik had a hologram of her late father at her wedding. It must have been a great comfort to her (Hologram of bride’s dearly departed dad lights up her wedding in Israel, JC June 5)
At my late husband’s stone setting I had a life-size cardboard cut-out of him standing next to his stone. As the gathering was about him and many were speaking about him, I thought it much nicer that family and friends should see his smiling face, and not just his stone.
Helen Simpson
Jerusalem
Super matchmaker
I read with interest Rob Rinder’s column about his matchmaking success (I’ve made five happy marriages – you should be a shadchan too, JC June 5), and his view that bringing people together is an important part of community life.
I have helped create more than 25 successful marriages and many more long relationships via my long-established Date on A Plate Jewish singles events. Rather than relying on forms and questionnaires, which can be rather impersonal, I focus on bringing people together naturally through small-group social activities based on cooking a delicious meal together under my tuition.
Food has a unique way of bringing people together, creating happiness, conversation and connection. For many Jewish singles, it is the perfect first step towards finding love. The format is safe, friendly and secure and being a modern-day shadchan is incredibly rewarding.
If matchmaking earns Rob a special place in heaven, then I hope to also see him there one day.
Denise Phillips
Northwood
Family roots
It was a happy occasion on Saturday when Peter Phillips, the son of the Princess Royal, married a paediatric nurse, Harriet Sperling, who works in the National Health.
Harriet, in fact, is a descendant of the Dutch Jewish banking family de Zoete, through her paternal grandmother, Eleanor de Zoete. Eleanor married Major Geoffrey Thomas Sanders, who became the High Sheriff of Gloucestershire and the first editor of the Stroud News.
The founder of the English family, Samuel, arrived in Georgian England from Amsterdam when that city was occupied by French troops. First recorded as a hatmaker and then as a merchant in Mincing Lane, he is buried in Highgate Cemetery. His son, Samuel Herman de Zoute became a stockbroker and rose to become chairman of the Stock Exchange and a noted art collector. Descendants include the cricketer Herman Walter de Zoute, who played for Essex and Hertfordshire. and the distinguished ballet dancer and teacher Beryl de Zoute.
Members of the de Zoute family were victims of the Holocaust in Holland, but the English branch are no longer of the Jewish faith. Harriet has worked at the Evelina Children’s Hospital, which was named after Evelina de Rothschild, who died tragically in childbirth.
Doreen Berger
The Jewish Genealogical Society of Great Britain
AJEX are seeking family of Fl Lt Cyril Jewell who was killed in a flying training accident in February 1918 and buried in St Mary’s Churchyard, Ide Hill, Kent – not unusual in war time. Please contact me at martin.sugarman@yahoo.co.uk.
Martin Sugarman
AJEX archivist
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