Reform Chevra Kadisha
The article about Chevra Kadisha (JC, April 5) referred to the traditional community and was centred on the United Synagogue and similar congregations in London.
We wish to point out to your readers that the Reform synagogues in the same area and outside London perform the same mitzvah for our members and for other Jews who have died.
It is a right of anyone born Jewish, to have a tohorah when their days are ended.
We, in our synagogue (EHRS), have a well-established chevra kadisha of over 10 years, which works efficiently using Whatsapp to communicate promptly.
We also are content to perform the mitzvah for those who would prefer cremation.
We recently hosted a group meeting for men and women members of Chevra Kadisha on Adar Sheni 7 (Moses’s birthday) when many synagogues as far apart as St Albans and Belsize Square joined us to exchange thoughts, views and offers of help for the future.
Geoffrey Bard, Andie Lucas
co-chairs, EHRS Chevra Kadisha
Mental capacity
Social Care charities such as ours are monitoring with interest the landmark appeal to the courts by Rosa Monckton, challenging their application of the Mental Capacity Act. We are wholeheartedly committed to supporting the rights of people with learning disabilities to make decisions for themselves.
To that end, we have had conversations with the families of people who may lack capacity to make certain key decisions, to explore options around applications to the Court of Protection for deputyship to safeguard the wishes of their family members within a legal framework.
The limitations of the current legislation are far-reaching, from both a health and a financial perspective and what is clear is that there needs to be a greater awareness of the legal implications for a person who lacks capacity.
We are working to inform the families we work with of the importance of preparing for the future and exploring legal deputyship not only for the parents, but for siblings to allow for when the parents can no longer assume this role.
We are aware that, for all of us, capacity can change over time, and that people with Down’s Syndrome, for example, have an increased risk of developing dementia. The right of decision-making is further compromised where the courts are being forced to step in to make life-changing decisions about people they have never met.
Greater awareness is needed by parents and family members of the importance of providing legal safeguards in support of their children, and the implications if they don’t take these measures.
We would also look for the law to reflect a better sense of empathy and common sense and formalising the responsibility of the parent-carer in decision-making processes.
Richard Franklin
Chief Executive
Kisharon
Gloom for improvement
Jonathan Freedland (JC, April 5), in his analysis of Brexit, may have misplaced a few simple facts. He blames the present political chaos on the “doctrinaire dogmatism” of Brexiteers, which strikes a “gloomy chord in Jews.”
Such assertions will not do. The Brexit referendum was precipitated by a complacent Conservative Remainer for purely party political advantage — our Jewish-friendly, Prime Minister, David Cameron. Promising to see the issue through, he then promptly and shamefully resigned after a Leave result.
The Conservative party then gave over the responsibility of leaving to another Remainer at heart, Theresa May, who has also found herself, arguably, reneging on her brief.
Parliament promised to abide by the Referendum decision to leave what was becoming, and now remains, an increasingly autocratic and unaccountable “doctrinaire dogmatic” EU.
The overall mood of optimism and expectation created by the country’s majority decision to leave such an extremist-breeding political entity was systematically confounded by the determination of Remainers, and their majority in Parliament, to prevent such an outcome at all costs.
So any “gloomy chord in Jews,” any protracted ill-will’ now prevalent in the country, and the present descent of the British parliamentary system into chaos and humiliation, must surely be left at the feet of Remainers, and the Conservative party.
Further confounding Jonathan Freedland’s analysis — rather oddly under the circumstances — was the “antisemitic” Labour Party being mostly in favour of remaining in the EU.
If only Brexit had been sincerely accepted, and prepared for in the past two-and-a-half years, we probably would have been over the hump of our most serious economic difficulties, and been well on the way to dealing with the many urgent domestic issues so neglected by the intransigence of Remainers’ dogmatism.
Dr Stanley Jacobs
London SW18
Alarm bells
It’s not just the antisemitism. It’s not just the Islamophobia. It’s not just the racist chants at football matches or the oft-repeated slogans such as “Control of our borders”, “Bogus asylum-seekers”, “Make our own laws”, “Build the wall”, “Unelected foreigners”, “America is full”.
I am old enough to have lived through the 1930s and the Holocaust and I can recognise the signs that set alarm bells ringing in my ears.
Patriotism turned to Nationalism then to Fascism and Nazism. Now we hear talk of Populism. Is it different only in name? The rise of extreme right-wing and white supremacy movements, Islamism. Then there are political assassinations and international cyber warfare.
We need a credible movement to counter polarisation. Something that will pull people together rather than tearing them apart. Perhaps the new parliamentary group Change UK is a step in the right direction but what I do know is that if we don’t learn from history we are doomed to repeat it.
Neville Landau.
London SW19
Golan sovereignty
With regard to the Foreign Office’s non-recognition of Israel’s sovereignty in the Golan (JC, March 29) it is nevertheless a fact that territory acquired in a defensive war is not returned to the aggressor since it is a universal principle of law that the aggressor should not be rewarded.
This is why Belgium has as integral part-German territories from the First World War; Russia possesses Japanese islands; and the present borders of the Koreas and Vietnam were determined by force. The present borders of Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Ukraine, Russia were all determined by force. This is the situation everywhere and it is time to stop singling out Israel.
Dr Yair Sternberg
Cambridge
Ladies Convalescent Home
I am trying to make contact (my email is below) with women who came on the Kindertransport or whose family did and who lived at Wyberley Ladies Convalescent Home in Burgess Hill some time between 1 January 1939 and early 1941. A commemorative information Board is being put up in early June near where the House stood.
Lesley Urbach
London N3
Lcurbach@aol.com
