Letters to the editor, April 11 2025 - The Jewish Chronicle

West Bank

We are two Orthodox Jews, passionate Zionists, loathe to publicly criticise Israel in the non-Jewish press, in case it strengthens our enemies, deeply cognisant of the difficulty of rooting out terrorists in the West Bank, but also deeply concerned by the widespread reports in the Israeli press of some Jewish residents of the West Bank, perpetrating unprovoked violence against ordinary Palestinian residents, with the Israeli Army or police standing by or helping the perpetrators.

The Rosh Yeshivah of Yeshivat Har Etzion, in Alon Shevut, Rabbi Moshe Lichtenstein, has criticised the morality of these attacks: ‘We have come, and I say it in the bluntest way, from a Judaism of Moshe and Aharon to a Judaism of Yiftach and Bar-Kochba. To a place where power becomes an independent value…This problem is rampant… harming people that should not be harmed…Jews who put on tefillin and observe Shabbat act with indiscriminate violence against populations, who forcefully take over…[and] hurt other people, whom we should not hurt…these things cause the Divine to exile.’

Ronen Bar, the head of the Shin Beth in a letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu, called the problem a threat to Israel’s security, international legitimacy and Jewish character, that requires a coalition of ministers, rabbis, teachers and government departments in order to address it.

We think UK Jews, should make the Israeli Government know what we think about this activity, by writing letters to the embassy or perhaps by pressuring the Jewish Leadership Council, the Board of Deputies, and the recently formed London Initiative, to call out this activity for what it is: a chillul haShem (a desecration of the Divine Name), that threatens the future of a Jewish democratic state.

Prof. David-Hillel Ruben

Emeritus Professor of Philosophy, the University of London

Dr Sheldon Stone, BSc, MD, FRCP

Retired Teaching Hospital Academic and NHS Consultant Physician

London NW4

Dialogue questions

I am wholeheartedly in favour of dialogue between Jews and Muslims (New scheme aims to ‘bridge dialogue gap’ on campus between Jews and Muslims) whether on campus or in the community. Your report on the Yad Fellowship inaugural summit quotes an observant Muslim participant, Yusuf Amin, as saying “Most of the Jewish students agreed with me about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – we all thought he wasn’t great.” Was there any discussion or indeed consensus on any contemporary Muslim leaders such as the Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran or Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey? If not, then we need to heed the call by Chief Rabbi Sir Ephraim Mervis referred to in the introduction to your article for Jews to be brave in challenging Muslims on Israel.

David Fobel

London NW8

Holocaust memorial

Lord Pickles laments that we are not prepared for Holocaust education after the passing of the survivors. He is right. Sadly, antisemitism and Holocaust trivialisation continue to increase despite the growing number of Holocaust ceremonies, memorials and educational ventures, the effects of which have never been measured. A new approach is needed, one that explains Jewish history, culture, religion and the foundation of Israel, where the Holocaust is set in context and not treated in isolation as an aberration of the past in another country. That is what the late Lord Sacks called for. The Holocaust organisations must stop combining the Shoah with other genocides, for that is what has diminished its meaning and opened the doors to Holocaust inversion. To build yet another memorial at a cost of £200m will be a waste of resources. The objections to the latest plan are not nimbyism or the risk of terrorism. It is the meaningless secondhand design and the political messaging of the inadequately small exhibition. The location in Westminster is set to be the site of 30 years of massive building works to repair the Palace of Westminster and it is the only green space for the residents of the social housing close by. The necessary strict security measures will be inimical to the atmosphere that should surround a memorial. Instead, available resources should be put to creating a new Jewish museum, presenting Jewish life in England over 1000 years, the Holocaust and the establishment of Israel, and to overhauling holocaust education to bring it into the 21st century.

Baroness Deech

House of Lords

Like others in the Jewish community, I appreciate Lord Pickles commitment to the fight against antisemitism. But I want to challenge his thoughts on the proposed Holocaust Memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens. First, there is no evidence that spending £200m on an under-sized and underground "Learning Centre", with no relationship to the recommendations of the 2015 Holocaust Commission, will have any effect on the resurgence of antisemitism in this country. What we badly need is a revitalisation of Holocaust education.

Second, opposition to building in a park is not "nimbyism" or anything to do with property values. Victoria Tower Gardens is a much loved and much used community park, which serves not just rich people but large areas of social housing for which it is the only local green space. It is not "neglected" but beautifully maintained by Royal Parks, and to suggest that it will be enhanced by the overpowering presence of a building designed, as its architect David Adjaye said, to "disrupt the pleasure of being in a park" - and which will attract over a million visitors a year, is absurd.

Nina Grunfeld

London SW1

Overground names

Jane Prinsley (Jewish names overlooked in rebranding of Overground, April 4) is wrong to say none of the selected names referenced the capital's Jewish heritage.

The Transport for London website says the following for the Weaver line:

"The area around Liverpool Street, Spitalfields, Bethnal Green and Hackney is known for the textile trade. It has been shaped by different migrant communities at different points in history. It kicked off with the Huguenots in the 17th century, who established a flourishing silk trade and were joined the next century by Irish weavers. searching for work after the collapse of the Irish linen trade. At the end of the 19th century and during the Second World War, Jewish families were fleeing antisemitism from eastern Europe. Their move to the area revitalised the garment industry, and they maintained the famous market at Petticoat Lane. By the 1960s, Bangladeshi immigration increased due to the area’s work opportunities in the textile and garment industry."

The TfL website says for the Mildmay line: "It celebrates Mildmay, a small but crucial charitable NHS hospital serving the NHS in Tower Hamlets, with a long history of helping Londoners in need."

The hospital's archives say that at the end of the 19th century, "Despite its strong evangelical Christian orientation, patients were admitted regardless of religion, and the hospital often treated members of the East End's Jewish community."

Furthermore, the Windrush line, which references the Caribbean communities, makes me think of our forebears who arrived in Britain on thousands of ships across the North Sea and English Channel from the 17th to 20th centuries.

Mark Drukker.

Reading

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