New Jewish Thought

A new blog

Today I read in the Evening Standard on the Thursday the 10th of April 2008. The headline reads stop picking on Jewish schools, Balls Told. It talks about how the children Secretary Ed Ball has been unfairly attacking Jewish schools over their admissions policy. The article continues by saying how the president of the board deputies for British Jews Henry Grunwald recognized the problem but felt that they were being unfairly picked on. I went to Sinai primary school and after a year and a half at another school which was non-Jewish I tried to go into the JFS from what I heard it is common practice for Jewish schools to ask extra payments. This helps  shows how many of the divisions there are in the Jewish community.

At the weekend I saw another result of how we run the Jewish community in this country and how such policies are now damaging it. In the Jewish Chronicle I read that over 50% of Israelis living in Great Britain did not mix with local Jewish people.  This may not sound that important but there around 50,000 of them in the United Kingdom.  What is more shocking is that I'm not surprised as I know the reasons why they've not mixed with the bulk of the community in the United Kingdom secondly I was not surprised at the result.  To understand why it's really happened you really need to just see what is going on. 

One friend of mine born in Israel who had spent most of her life in South Africa told me after two years living in London. After encountering London's Jewish community she had been totally put off of being Jewish.  When she first came to this country she joined of a couple of organisations here in London.  She was not a one-off.  When I was younger 10 years ago I too was a member of the organisation FZY. Unlike the other young people who went to Jewish schools or private I went to a normal comprehensive.  I soon found myself that I could not mix with the other members as they had all known one another from the age of 10.  I was a 16-year-old and I found myself in a community which claimed I was a member but which none of the people who were there are really seen me as a member.  The result in years according to a few friends (I don't know for certain if this is true) that the UK Jewish community is known to have the highest levels of social exclusion of any community in the United Kingdom.

I saw a repeat of this when I was at university in Manchester, a acquaintance of mine had come from India. His parents are originally from London but they'd moved to India on business. Whenever he tried to join a Jewish organisation he was turned down. Both his parents were Jewish in fact they were both members of the United Synagogue. After a few months he gave up he became one of the heads of the Manchester University Senate. When he warned a number of you UJS members about motion one he was ignored. The result was an anti-Zionist motion was almost passed by the University of Manchester's students union. I can think of  other examples but I'm now going to talk more about what the media are saying and what I think could happen if we don't do something to stop this madness.

In the Jewish News a writer suggested that is the Jewish community here in Great Britain was falling numerically the more of us should move to Israel.  I could not think of all worst idea but I could also not just think of a more out of touch idea of reality than what this man is saying. 

In the law we are taught sometimes to read between the lines for example some unscrupulous landlords will call a leasehold a licences to remove their tenants when they want to sell their property. In the UK organisations say that people are not as Zionist as they should be.

  In the article in the Jewish Chronicle the Israelis were saying that every time they tried to get involved with the British Jewish community they could not.  The problem here is that I'm willing to bet it's not just Israelis who are having a bad time of trying to get involved with Britain's Jewish community.  As I read the article in the Jewish News I actually felt fairly sick. 

From my time in the Weitzman Institute I knew for a fact that most Israelis strongly believe in the survival of the European Jewish community and the last thing they would want would be us all moving to Israel.  In any case these days we live in a more and more globalised world some Israelis see this as a big advantage for a small state in a poor part of the world which just happens to be a first world state.  I read in the Guardian yesterday that there are food shortages in Egypt and it hit the point even stronger than before what I had read in city of oranges as it showed just how unstable the Middle East was. 

In the last chapter of the book City of Oranges they talk about the Russian Jewish immigrants and how some of them are using drugs and one of the people they're interviewing is suggesting that immigration into Israel should be reduced.  You may ask how this has anything to do with our community.

What shows just how unrealistic that writer is in the Jewish News? Some of the worst offenders are trying to help people in Israel but if you actually meet the people running the organisation's what you tend to find middle-class British-born public school educated Jewish people. 

Sometimes you hear about it from Israelis I was the only British Jew studying at the Weitzman Institute. I spoke to the Israelis who was studying at the Weitzman Institute and had lived in Great Britain virtue all of them had been upset by how community treated them.  They told me they liked individual British Jews but they couldn't stand us as a community. 

So how can we stop this happening?  I would suggest more community projects but I think the projects need to be not run by people from inside the community unfortunately.  I've read about small American communities building campuses where they share the upkeep of elderly people but the solution to the problems with the British Jewish community I think would need to go deeper then this. 

In my last blog I talked about the growing Orthodox community. I can see in a matter of decades that at some point the ultraorthodox will make up the majority of the Jewish community of this country. If we have a minority of Jewish people who are rich middle-class many of the moving out to South Hertfordshire we are likely to end up with a similar community to the one that was in Holland last century.  My great- great-grandfather when he came over to Britain in 1870 met a nice Sephardic Dutch woman my great, great grandmother.  They fell in love and got married but I was always told that her family disapproved of him marrying her.  The reason for this was many of the Dutch Sephardic disliked the Ashkenazi immigrants.  In Holland itself the division was even worse between the two communities today in Britain's Jewish community with seeing I believe the late stages of a situation like that in Holland.  We have a large minority that is dictating increasingly to the majority on its own terms the sort of community it wants to see. Over the last few years we've seen increasingly the large sections of the Jewish community in this country resent the way it is being run.

It is now even catching the attention of our own government when they investigate Jewish schools in this country it sees how badly they treat the people they should be serving. More often than not the most students going to these schools will marry people who they meet at these schools or they met when they were a member of the youth movement. They then have children themselves they send them to the same youth movement and the cycle repeats itself. The problem is we live in a multi-ethnic society even in our own community is divided into different factions some of them are immigrants, some of them simply come from different parts of the country which does not have a big Jewish community. As I write this article I am becoming increasingly aware of just how badly our community is seen both at home in Israel and other parts of the world by both other Jewish people and Israelis. The message is simple things need to change if they don't we will have even worse problems in the next-generation. People don't take inequality in society ever if they did the present structure of Britain's Jewish community would be fine.

But to be blunt it is not...

Ian Rosmarin

 

Different Jewish Religions

As this is my first post here, I'll introduce myself: I'm Simcha, and I live in London NW4.

Here's a joke to start with: what is the shortest time interval possible for a secular Israeli? Answer, the time between the lights changing to green and the driver behind you blowing his horn. What is the shortest time interval possible for a frumme Yid? Answer, the time between turning off the heating in shul and turning on the air conditioning.

Differences of opinion are not only desirable, but essential for life in a physical world. If we all thought the same, there would be no new ideas, no inventions, and no progress. We have to have differences. The fun in life is to learn how to manage them.

Some years ago, I read a story in Wouk's "This is my God" about the Vilna Gaon. A friend of his came to visit him in his study and said to him, "Please look out of your window." The Gaon did so. "Look at your fellow Jews in the market", said his friend, "slaving away to earn a living through a welter of oppressive rules and regulations. If you had to live that way, would you still be the Vilna Gaon?" On hearing this, the Gaon broke down and wept, because he knew in his heart that the answer to his friend's question was a resounding no. With this story in mind, I have suggested to various people in the Jewish community an exercise in trading places. Let one of the Dayanim of Stamford Hill serve for one month as Rabbi of Plotznick United Synagogue. Let the Rabbi of Plotznick United Synagogue serve that time as Dayan in Stamford Hill. Have them compare notes, and then they will understand one another better. The reactions that I've had to this suggestion have caused me to realise that what is normally thought of as the religion of "orthodox" Judaism is not really one religion at all. It is lots of different religions, like many little circles on a piece of paper. Sometimes they intersect, and you can live in the intersection, other times they do not.

When I became aware of this, at first I was very disappointed. Having thought things over further, I can now see there is nothing unusual about this state of affairs. If we had lived in Temple times, I doubt we would have been able to guess whether the halachah would go according to Beit Shammai or Beit Hillel. We wouldn't even have been able to predict which out of the many belief systems then current in the Jewish world would be accepted as normative Judaism.

Today, you can attend a certain place of Jewish learning in my neighbourhood and be told that Independence Day and Jerusalem Day are halachically mandated Yomim Tovim. A few hundred metres away, you can attend a certain shtiebl and be told that Zionism is the greatest possible rebellion against God, and that the modern Hebrew language is an unholy tongue, founded on atheism. Both these institutions can quote copiously from our sources in order to justify their position.

The question is not whether either of them are right or wrong. The question is, given what we want to achieve, do these belief systems work?

The approach that I intend iyh to explore further is as follows. The first principle is to understand that everybody does exactly what is right given his model of the world. Therefore, there is no mileage in being against anyone. We have to get away from the paradigm of victims and villains. If something is happening to us that we do not like, then the question to ask ourselves is, what are we doing to perpetuate it? Or, to put it as the Baal Shem Tov did, sinners are mirrors in which we see our own shortcomings.

Secondly, there are certain steps to peace that we can all take, the first of which is to realise that there are elements in our belief system that are not working.

Thirdly, we can come to a realisation that we are all one. I'm not saying that we should behave as if we are all one, or what a good thing it would be if we were all one, but that we literally are all one, whether we like it or not. The fact that we are walking around in physical bodies makes it difficult to appreciate the fact of our essential oneness, but it exists none the less. Therefore, we don't merely do to one another as we would have done to ourselves, nor indeed do we refrain from doing to the other person that which is hateful to ourselves. Rather, we face the fact that whatever we are doing to the other person, we are doing to ourselves.

My intention in writing the above is to begin to develop another way of dialogue which may prove helpful. It's improbable that I will have anything more to say this side of Pesach, so I'll wish everyone a very happy and peaceful Yomtov.

My opinions on anything are subject to change. My love for you will not change.

 

 

What I was thinking...

This is my second article in a series of articles that I'm doing a new website new Jewish thought.  It's 2.52am in the morning and I am about to go to bed but just before I do I've decided to write my second post.  The post am writing is based on three sources one my time at the Weitzman Institute 2004 two a book I read about Israel or in particular Tel Aviv and Jaffa city of oranges and third and last the last Jewish Chronicle from last weekend.

I will start by telling you how it fits into New Jewish Thought, last week in the Jewish Chronicle I read that over 50% of Israelis living in Great Britain did not mix with local Jewish people.  This may not sound that important but their is 50,000 of them in the United Kingdom.  What is more shocking is that I'm not surprised first not surprise the reasons why they've not mixed with the bulk of the community in the United Kingdom secondly I was not surprised at the result.  To understand why it's really happening I really need to refer back to my own personal experience.  I have this friend born in Israel should spent most of her life in South Africa but she spent the last two years living in London.  When she first came to this country she joined was a member of a couple of Jewish organisations here in London.  I saw her just before she returned to South Africa just under a month ago and to my surprise she went from wanting to have more to do with the Jewish community in general to wanting nothing to do with it.  If she was a one-off I would be very surprised I talked about this in my last post but the article in the Jewish Chronicle got me thinking about it even more.  And then I remembered an article I've read in the Jewish News another Jewish paper where a Jewish writers suggested that is the Jewish community here in Great Britain was falling numerically the more of us should move to Israel.  I could not think of all worst idea but I could also not just think of a more out of touch idea of reality than what this man is saying.  In the law we are taught sometimes to read between the lines for example some leaseholds unscrupulous landlords will call licences to remove their tenants when they want to sell their property instead Jewish organisations in the UK which have already said are too small use other ways to stop people becoming for members.  From what I've heard recently many Jewish organisations unfortunately are using this method to hide what they really think about outsiders.  In the article in the Jewish Chronicle the Israelis were saying that every time they tried to get involved with the British Jewish community they could not.  The problem here is that I'm willing to bet it's not just Israelis who are having a bad time of trying to get involved with Britain's Jewish community.  As I read the article in the Jewish News I actually felt fairly sick.  From my time in the Weitzman Institute I knew for a fact that most Israelis strongly believe in the survival of the European Judaism and the last thing they would like to see it would be us all moving to Israel.  In any case these days we live in a more and more globalised world some Israelis see this as a big advantage for a small state in a poor part of the world which just happens to be a first world state.  I read in the Guardian yesterday that there are food shortages in Egypt and it hit the point even stronger than before what I had read in city of oranges as it showed just how unstable the middle east was.  In the last chapter of city of oranges they talk about the Russian Jewish immigrants and how some of them are taking drugs and one of the people they're interviewing is suggesting that immigration into Israel should be reduced.  You may ask how does this have anything to do with our community and with the other facts have written on this article so far.  But actually it's got an awful lot to do with what I've written about so far many Jewish organisations including the organisation my friend couldn't seem to join.  Same of the organisations that seem to be the worst offenders are trying to help people in Israel but if you actually meet the people running the organisation's what you tend to find middle-class British-born public school educated Jewish people.  This was what in the end forced my friend to leave the organisation she had in fact joined.  When I was younger 10 years ago I too was a member of the Jewish organisation a youth movement unlike the other people I knew in the youth movement and went to a comprehensive which was also non-Jewish.  I soon found myself that I could mix with the other members as they had all known one another from the age of 10.  I was a 16-year-old and I found myself in a community which claimed I was a member but which none of the people who were there are really saw me as a member.  The result in years according to a few friends in line (I don't know if a certain if this is true or not disclaimer) that the UK Jewish community is known to have the highest levels of social exclusion of any community in the United Kingdom.  From what I've seen I think it's likely when I was in Israel I was the only British Jew studying at the Weitzman Institute. I spoke to the Israelis who was studying at the Weitzman Institute and had lived in Great Britain virtue all of them had been upset by how community treated them.  If you told me they liked individual British Jews but they couldn't stand as a community.  The result has been and again I don't have any proof that some Israeli institutions do not allow European Jewish people to work in their facilities.  The prevailing view tends to be that we are seen as unsociable all these are symptoms of how we see ourselves today and have deep divisions.  It's not only how we treat each other but also how we treat newcomers I've experienced at first hand.  So how can we stop this happening?  I would suggest more community projects but I think the projects need to be not run by people from inside the community unfortunately.  I've read about small American communities building campuses where they share the upkeep of elderly people but the solution to the problems with the British Jewish community I think would need to go more deeper.  We need to change how they see the world and we need to open their eyes, in my last blog I talked about the growing Orthodox community.  After that first blog I started thinking of my grandmother's family they came from Holland.  My great-grandfather when he came over to Britain in 1870 met a nice Sephardic Dutch woman (my great great grandmother).  They fell in love and got married but I was always told that her family disapproved of him marrying her.  The reason for this was many of the Dutch Sephardic disliked the Ashkenazi immigrants.  In Holland itself the division was even worse between the two communities today in Britain's Jewish community with seeing I believe the late stages of a situation like that in Holland.  We have a large minority that is dictating increasingly to the majority on its own terms the sort of community it wants to see. I think the focus of nutritious salt should be to stop this from happening.

A very wide article.

By Ian Rosmarin

A few days ago I volunteered to start writing blogs for website, I've read through a few the articles in new Jewish thought.  I totally agree with my colleagues, we have a community that are too long has been ineffective.  In this first article I'm not going to excite references I am just going to cite my own experience.  I am 26 years old, I am a middle-class Jewish Londoner who is doing the GDL (law conversion course) at BPP Law School in Waterloo.  In just over five weeks I am due to do my first exam so my articles for the time being are going to be short.

I agree the different factions of the Jewish community in this country find it very hard to work together.  In fact I can't think of the last time I saw a very orthodox rabbi from Golders Green talk to a liberal rabbi from Brighton in fact have never seen them talk together.  Unless there is a threat from outside the community like for example anti-semitism.  At university in Manchester I often try to get involved with many of the organisations I was often told I had the wrong background.  Even though I was a member of the United Synagogue and both my parents were members the United Synagogue I was often told as I did not know the people who had founded some of these groups they did not think I would be a suitable member.  At first I thought that was something wrong with me but then I found out they were doing it to everyone.  When we talk about the problems different groups have working together we never ask why? 

I think the reason they find it hard to work together is because they will only work with people they trust and in general the people they trust other people they went to school with all the gone on tour with.  In America there were very few youth movements but the youth movements that are a huge, in the UK we have a community of around 300,000 people with 12 youth movements.  The result is we don't have the industries the scale, instead we often have organisations which are based around a small group of friends and their children.  This is not the way to run a community I can think of dozens of examples of Jewish charities in this country where there are three other charities that do the same job. 

What we need to ask is why is it different groups find it hard to work together but the second question we need to ask is why are there so many groups?  I think if we could get a few of these very small groups to merge or to change people's mind set maybe we could make a breakthrough.  At the moment I can think of is the least six or seven attempts to improve communication between different sections of the community which have failed.  At the same time I can think of different sections of the community which are identical but which have been different sections not because of their ideology or how they do things but because they were founded by different people.  I can even think of a recent example of the parents trying to get their child into the Jewish free School and being told you not Jewish.  Even though the children were practising Jewish and was seeing nonorthodox children going into the school which they wanted to go to they were not allowed in. 

What is surprising is that this is being allowed to carry on, what we need is a single Jewish policy in this country we also need a joined up system.  There's no point having people who say they represent us then having fallings out with other groups who we say do not represent us.  What immediately comes to mind is the fallout between the board of deputies and independent Jewish voices.  I don't agree with independent Jewish voices at the same time I don't agree with the board of deputies yet I am told they represent me.  What I found surprising was that when my Synagogue voted for a representative on the board of deputies there was only one candidate and the number of people who actually voted with less than half.  When I spoke to the representative it turned out this was the average number of members of any Synagogue who would vote in the elections in fact it's usually much lower.  The result here is that I would not agree that the board of deputies is effectively a democratic organisation. 

I think what we really need is a national Jewish chest or to give it a better name and national Jewish assembly Great Britain and Northern Ireland.  Such an organisation would try and get members from all over the United Kingdom I suspect in order to vote you'd have to show you have a least one Jewish grandparent.  Its rationale would be to help the development of the Jewish community in this country through cross denominational organisations at the moment it's only my idea.  I did speak to the representative from the board of deputies on the phone he told me that an idea like this had been looked in many parts of the community fearing they would lose control over other parts of their affairs and would be ironically forced to merge with other organisations so did the same job had blocked the setting up of this organisation.  He also told me that the bulk of the board of deputies believed that there was a need for this organisation in the very near future.

So that is my thought we need to ask ourselves not just how to get different sections of the community speak to each other but also what constitutes a section of the community.