Colin ShindlerIn 1970 the Jewish community in Britain initiated the first programme to train Jewish Studies teachers in the UK. An agreement had been reached between Jews’ College and Trent Park Teachers Training College in North West London. Any euphoria, however, was quickly dissipated. As with all new courses, the aspirational skills of the initiators far … Read more
Is contact with a foreign university the same as support for the regime? The essentially Trotskyist boycotters of Israeli academic institutions certainly believe so. But so does Student Rights, associated with the Henry Jackson Society think-tank, which has attacked SOAS for agreeing to teach students a master’s degree in Finance at Tripoli’s Al Fatah University … Read more
Arieh Handler was known to generations of British Jews for his intensive contribution to communal life, from founding Bnei Akiva in the 1930s to campaigning for Soviet Jewry in the 1980s. Yet his proudest moment was listening to Ben-Gurion reading out the Declaration of the State of Israel in Tel Aviv on May 14 1948. … Read more
Anna Finchas born Letchworth 11 April 1950 died Edgware 17 November 2010 Anna Finchas belonged to that undeclared tradition of Jewish women who hold the fabric of Jewish life together. Such people remain quietly in the background, doing good deeds and repairing the world. Following a diagnosis of breast cancer at the age of 32, … Read more
Em Habanim An evening of chizuk took place last week to remember Mrs Anna Finchas o”h at the Edgware Adath Yisroel synagogue. The evening was in aid of Em Habanim, Jerusalem’s support centre for orthodox single mothers and their children. Mrs. F. Frank introduced the proceedings and recalled the quiet yet influential presence that … Read more
Anna Finchas My sister-in-law, Anna Finchas, who has died of cancer, aged 60, was an unusual combination of conceptual artist and ultra-orthodox Jew. She once commented: ‘I don’t see myself as a Jewish artist or as an Orthodox artist or as a woman artist. You don’t have to be Jewish to understand my work; I … Read more
Ian J. Bickerton, The Arab-Israeli Conflict: a History Published by Reaktion Books (London 2009), pp. 244, price £15.95 This is a broad and familiar narrative of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The author believes that violence has not solved anything and argues concisely that only concerted diplomacy will bring results. While this is clearly logical and … Read more
The Balfour Declaration: The Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict By Jonathan Schneer Published by Random House, (New York 2010), pp. 432 price $30 The Balfour Declaration was the British charter of November 1917 that viewed “with favour” the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people in Palestine. Of course, David Lloyd George and … Read more
The Prime Ministers: An Intimate Narrative of Israeli Leadership by Yehuda Avner Published by Toby Press, pp. price £19.99 This is a work of recollections, reminiscences and vignettes. Yehuda Avner’s life spans the lifetime of the state of Israel – and in one sense, he tells the traditional story from his earliest days in … Read more
The definition and meaning of Jewishness is an ongoing and indeed eternal preoccupation of the Jewish people. The British writer Howard Jacobson is no exception to the army of explainers. In his latest novel, he looks at the 70 faces of Jewish identity through fictional characters – and leads the reader into a House of … Read more