Geoff Roland, Keith Nickol, Michal Barak, Jonathan Hoffman, Raymond Turner, Dr Stanley Jacobs, Derek Taylor, Shimon Cohen, Lewis Herlitz and Stephen Vishnick share their views with JC readers
August 22, 2019 09:49
Baroness Deech is spot-on in her criticism of the plan to build a Holocaust memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens (JC, August 16), and also in her view of Marie van der Zyl’s ridiculous, I would say offensive, opinion of those opposing it as anti-Jewish or opposing Holocaust remembrance.
A few weeks ago in his JC article about it, the Chief Rabbi posed the question: “What better site could there be?” I would answer that one in the Jewish manner with the opposite question: “What worse site could there be?”
Digging up a leafy royal park near Parliament to build an ugly modernist structure, possibly damaging the trees and obstructing the view of the Palace of Westminster, is going to incur considerable resentment. The fact that it’s being done on behalf of the Jewish community means that its effect on the level of antisemitism could well be the opposite of what is intended.
This ill-thought-out-project needs to be stopped as soon as possible.
Geoff Roland
Sale, Manchester
Baroness Deech has right on her side. The proposed location of the memorial is ill-advised. The statue in Liverpool Street station to the Kindertransport children is in an appropriate location and what it depicts is easy to understand. Conversely, the proposed memorial is not in a location that relates specifically to the Holocaust.
Further, it irritates me that non-resident members of Westminster are very generous in building on the very limited green space we enjoy.
Keith Nickol
London WC2
Shoshanna Keats Jaskoll’s article (Bridging the divide, like a hospital or a garage, JC, August 9) highlights the challenges the Hebrew University faces as we seek to expand our minority student population. Diversity is a precondition for academic excellence and we are committed to a campus community that reflects a broad range of intellectual, social, and religious perspectives.
In recent academic years, we have, however, upped our efforts to ensure that every Arab student receives the support needed to succeed at Hebrew U — from pre-university preparatory programmes and summer language courses, to academic tutoring, mentorships and dropout prevention co-ordinators. We’re already seeing an increase in the number of Arab students and faculty for the upcoming school year.
Further, Arab students constitute some 50 per cent of our pharmacology and accounting and 33 per cent of nursing students. And, of course, numbers don’t tell the whole story: A short stroll on campus will reveal the tapestry of cultures that comprise our university population: Jews and Arabs, Druze and Christian, religious and secular, commuters and exchange students from every continent. In this way, Hebrew U will continue to serve as a platform for the open exchange of ideas and the rich cultural diversity that defines the city of Jerusalem.
Michal Barak
Executive Director, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s Centre for the Study of Multiculturalism and Diversity
You note that communal organisations are assessing the risks around No Deal (JC, August 16). Leaving the EU is immensely damaging for the economy and security of the UK, as well as for social harmony, as has been proved.
Before the 2016 referendum I begged the Chief Rabbi to speak out against Brexit. But I was told it would have breached charity law. I asked how then was it that the Archbishop of Canterbury felt able to speak out, the Church of England being a charity? I never received a reply.
Jonathan Hoffman
Middlesex
In 2016, I was undecided and wrestling with which way to vote. Despite what anybody says today, we were not offered any clear, sensible information. But shortly before Referendum Day, Chief Rabbi Mirvis, in BBC Radio 4’s Prayer for the Day, quoted an African saying. The gist was, “if you want to travel quickly, go alone, if you want to travel safely, go together”.
So my mind was instantly made up and today I remain a Remainer. However, Brexiteers certainly haven’t travelled quickly.
Raymond Turner
Stanmore
In his own precis of his volume, Deuteronomy: Renewal of the Sinai Covenant, Rabbi Lord Sacks (Judaism, August 9) contrasts Judaism favourably to the concept of original sin in Christianity: “ in the Hebrew Bible… we are punished for our own sins and not for distant ancestors…” but then says, the Bible visits “the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation.”
Moreover, Judaism comes close to another version of original sin when God says to Noah after the Flood: “the imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth…” A negativity further reinforced by our pervasive belief in the impossibility of achieving spiritual perfection in this world (as even Moses failed to).
While asserting that “Deuteronomy is directed not at blind obedience”, he compromises his view by going on to say that Deuteronomy “roots Jewish law less in the arbitrary will of the Creator…” thereby attesting to still significant blind obedience and arbitrary Divine action in Jewish Law.
He writes also that, despite Judaism having 613 commandments, nowhere is the term “obedience” used, and unlike Islam, neither are the terms “submission” or “surrender” to be found. Yet the semantics of “commandment” necessarily imply “obedience.” Therefore, in the Torah’s linguistic economy why state the obvious?
Furthermore, Deuteronomy says in 11:28 a curse will follow if God’s commandments are not followed — a strong incentive to obey! The concept of obedience also necessarily implies “surrender” of any contrary personal desires.
He quotes Maimonides as saying that “Judaism is directed at the perfection of the body and of the soul” but the “well-being of the soul can be obtained only after that of the body has been secured.” But this holistic spiritual teaching should be acknowledged as long pre-dating Maimonides. “Mens sana in corpore sano” was put thus more economically by the Roman poet Juvenal, possibly inspired by the more ancient pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, Thales of Miletus.
Finally, while admitting “Noah is the only person to be called ‘righteous’’ in the entire Hebrew Bible, Rabbi Sacks rather uncharitably proceeds to devalue him: “but in the end Noah saved only his family, not his generation. He “failed to be an inspiration to others.”
Yet It was God who allowed mankind to become so corrupt as to become irredeemable. Hardly a failure of Noah’s. And the Talmud conferred a great honour by naming a universal code of ethics after him. Noah fully obeyed God’s instructions to build the Ark (persisting over 50 years to do so). Brilliantly using his own intelligence, he repeatedly sent out birds to assess if the Flood had subsided sufficiently for habitation, thereby saving both humanity and the animal kingdom from drowning or starvation. If Noah is to be criticised, it is only later for becoming stone-drunk when he was 600 years old. And who can blame him after living in the Ark’s confined space for approximately 422 days cooped up with his family of seven and thousands of squawking animals.
Instead of diminishing Noah’s stature, I would have preferred Rabbi Sacks to challenge God for making it necessary for the post-Flood generation to become carnivores, (due to a lack of arable land), thereby unleashing untold misery on a blameless animal world, and contributing to the modern crisis of global warming.
Dr Stanley Jacobs
London SW18
In Stuart Goodman’s letter (August 16) he says “there must also be an ample body of scientific evidence against [shechita] to sustain the opposition of veterinarians”. No, there isn’t. I had a meeting with the Association of Veterinarians a few years ago and asked, as a layman, if there was such evidence. They admitted there wasn’t.
They also don’t seem to be as anxious to ban hunting, where the animals may be wounded and take days to die.
Derek Taylor
London NW11
Shechita UK does not claim that shechita is “the most humane method”, nor do we claim that shechita is “superior” to other methods, (Letters August 16).
Shechita is the Jewish religious humane method of animal slaughter for food and the only method allowed for Jews to eat meat.
Shimon Cohen
Shechita UK
Daniel Tunkel (Letters, August 16) lucidly explains how to bypass the quicksands of the get. But why should anyone have to think like this to overcome the intransigence of our dayanim?
Why should any Jewish woman have to perform legal somersaults, and indulge in rabbinically sanctioned bribery, to become free of a difficult marriage. Why can’t our dayanim and others just say: “the current situation is unacceptable and we will change it” ?
Lewis Herlitz
Leigh on Sea, Essex
Israel bans two hate-filled women from entering and the left go berserk.
Some 12-plus Muslim countries ban entry to eight million Israelis and the left remain silent.
Stephen Vishnick
Tel Aviv, Israel