Posted By admin on August 16, 2023
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Second Temple era synagogue discovered in Russia - The Jerusalem Post
Posted By admin on August 16, 2023
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jewish honorific denoting exceptionally pious persons
asd (Hebrew: , "pious", "saintly", "godly man"; plural
The Hebrew word asd appears for the first time in the Torah (Deuteronomy 33:8) with respect to the tribe of Levi, and all throughout the Hebrew Book of Psalms, with its various declensions.[2] In classic rabbinic literature it differs from "Tzadik" ("righteous") by instead denoting one who goes beyond his ordinary duty. The literal meaning of asd derives from Chesed (
Rabbi Saadia Gaon, the medieval Hebrew linguist and biblical exegete, translated the Hebrew word asd in Psalm 18:26 into the Judeo-Arabic word
As a personal honorific, both "asd" and "Tzadik" could be applied independently to the same individual with both different qualities. The 18th-century Vilna Gaon, for instance, at that time the chief opponent of the new Jewish mystical movement that became known as "Hasidism", was renowned for his righteous life. In tribute to his scholarship, he became popularly honored with the formal title of "Genius", while amongst the Hasidic movement's leadership, despite his fierce opposition to their legalistic tendencies, he was respectfully referred to as "The Gaon, the asd from Vilna".
A general dictum in the Talmud (Baba Kama 30a) states: "He that wishes to be pious (Aramaic: asda), let him uphold the things described under the indemnity laws in the Mishnaic Order of Neziqin." Rava, differing, said: "Let him observe the things transcribed in Pirkei Avot." (ibid.)
Of the few known pious men in the early 2nd century, the Talmud acknowledges the following: "Wherever we read (in Talmudic writings), 'It is reported of a pious man', either R. Juda b. Baba it meant or R. Judah, the son of R. Ilai."[4]
In the aggregate, "asd" may also refer to members of any of the following Jewish movements:
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Posted By admin on August 16, 2023
NARSAQ, Greenland (JTA) This picturesque village on the southwestern coast of Greenland where famed Viking Erik the Red first arrived more than 1,000 years ago is about as off-the-beaten-path as one can get.
Sheep outnumber the towns population 20-1 and the only way to reach an airport is via helicopter or ship.
Yet for Paul Cohen, an American Jew who has lived here with his wife Monika for 22 years, Narsaqs remoteness is more than offset by its stunning landscapes, clean air and laidback lifestyle.
Its the Garden of Eden in many ways, said Cohen, who is 61. I feel like Im living in the heart of a national park. Theres this little spot of civilization surrounded by pristine wilderness and I have the unique privilege of being able to live and work here.
Greenland, a semi-autonomous territory of the Kingdom of Denmark, is the worlds largest island. Located between the Arctic and North Atlantic oceans, its three times the size of Texas. But its population is only 56,000, most of whom are Inuit, making Greenland the least densely populated territory in the world. About 80% of the islands surface is covered by an ice sheet.
The story of how Cohen ended up living in Greenland as likely the territorys only resident Jew outside of a military base has nearly as many undulations as the icebergs floating in nearby Tunulliarfik Fjord.
Describing himself as non-observant but culturally Jewish, Cohen grew up in Wisconsin and graduated with a degree in French from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 1991, he moved to Germany, where he met Monika. The two have been married 32 years and live alone in Narsaq with their Japanese Spitz dog they named Mikisoq (little one in Greenlandic).
A sample of the dramatic scenery in southern Greenland. (Dan Fellner)
Fluent in four languages English, German, French and Danish Cohen worked for nearly a decade as a translator and producer at DW-TV in Berlin. He and Monika first visited Greenland in 1993 as tourists.
I was just blown away by the warmth of the sun, he said. Endless summer days. We were just amazed at what we saw, but we had it in our heads that it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. We thought wed never come back.
They did come back three years later and decided then that it was a place that they wanted to spend the rest of their lives, despite the skepticism of their friends and family.
I think they thought it was some sort of phase, Cohen recalled. They didnt think it would work out. Its so off-the-charts in terms of a place to live.
They bought a fixer-upper house and returned in subsequent years to renovate it before making a permanent move to Narsaq in 2001.
You could say that Greenland infected us, like a virus, and we simply couldnt get it out of our system, Cohen said. Why fight it?
Initially, the plan was for Cohen to work remotely as a translator. However, the internet in Narsaq at the time was glacial in terms of its speed, so the couple made a living painting houses instead.
As internet speed improved, Cohen started to get more translating projects. He formed a business called Tuluttut Translations (tuluttut is the Greenlandic word for English). On a website for translators to promote their services, he jokingly wrote that he will work for blubber.
What was unique about me as a translator was that I was the only translator people knew who lived in Greenland, he says. I just thought it would make a fun tongue-in-cheek tagline.
Cohen has translated hundreds of articles from German to English for the English website of the news publication Der Spiegel as well as numerous academic books, including a 2014 book by German professor Marc Buggeln titled Slave Labor in Nazi Concentration Camps, published by Oxford University Press. Most of his translation work is German to English, but increasingly Danish to English.
Cohen, seen translating an academic article from Danish into English, works remotely as a translator. (Dan Fellner)
Additionally, Cohen and his wife run a business in Narsaq renting properties to travelers. The couple currently owns two summer cottages that can sleep a total of eight people. They do most of the renovations and repairs themselves.
When asked if he misses any of the creature comforts he took for granted in the United States and Western Europe, he pondered for a few seconds before saying he has pretty much everything in Narsaq he wants, other than some of his favorite fruits and vegetables such as eggplant that can be hard to come by at the local supermarket.
Perhaps his biggest challenge is getting home to visit his 85-year-old mother in Wisconsin, which he manages to do every couple of years. But its an arduous journey, involving either a helicopter ride or ferry trip from Narsaq to the nearest airport in Narsarsuaq, about 30 miles away since there are no roads in Greenland that connect towns and settlements.
From Narsarsuaq, Cohen flies to Iceland or Denmark as there are no flights from anywhere in Greenland to North America. Due to flight delays and bad weather, his last trip home from Wisconsin in February took 12 days.
Narsaqs economy is built on sheep farming and fishing. There is some tourism but the number of visitors is low compared to some other towns in western Greenland like Nuuk, Illulissat and Qaqortoqall, all of which attract more cruise ships. While Narsaqs population is only about 1,300, that still makes it Greenlands ninth-largest town.
As for Cohens neighbors, most of whom live in pastel-colored wooden homes that are a trademark of Greenland, he said he enjoys their go-with-the-flow outlook on life.
The town of Narsaq, located on the southwestern coast of Greenland, is home to about 1,300 people. (Dan Fellner)
You can generally just drop by and visit people without calling ahead of time and making some kind of arrangement, he said. That makes life more spontaneous.
There has never been an organized Jewish community in Greenland, other than the U.S. military base at Thule in far northwestern Greenland. Vilhjlmur rn Vilhjlmsson, an Icelandic-born historian and former senior researcher at the Danish Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, wrote a chapter about Jewish life in Greenland in the 2019 book Antisemitism in the North that originally appeared in a Danish journal called Rambam.
Vilhjlmsson writes that there were certainly Jews among the first Dutch whalers in the 16th and 17th centuries. But there were no definitive reports of Jewish life in Greenland until World War II, when the United States established a military base in Thule, which is just 950 miles from the North Pole.
In the 1950s, there were more than 50 Jewish servicemen stationed in Thule at one time. Passover seders and services were held for Shabbat and high holidays, at the time giving Greenland the distinction, Vilhjlmsson writes, of having the northernmost minyan in the world.
But in the rest of Greenland, there are no records of any Jewish services or events. There have been Jewish scientists, journalists, nurses and other professionals working in the territory but most were on short-term assignments.
In the absence of definitive records, its highly likely that Cohen has made history as the Jewish person with the longest continuous tenure living in Greenland 22 years and counting. He chuckled at the notion, saying it makes him feel like some sort of rare orchid on the tundra.
I like the idea, he said. There are very few Americans living here. So Im used to feeling like the oddball.
A sign welcomes visitors to Narsaq. (Dan Fellner)
Cohen says few Jewish tourists come to Narsaq, but when they do visit, they have a way of finding him. One observant Israeli couple whom he ate dinner with served food on paper plates with plastic cutlery, which they used in lieu of kosher dishes.
My name just screams Judaism, Cohen said. Its almost as if theres an unspoken secret handshake.
While Cohen isnt religious, he has a silver mezuzah hanging in his Narsaq home and enjoys late-night Hanukkah candle-lighting Zoom sessions with his family back in America.
He said that he and Monika plan to live the rest of the remainder of their lives in Narsaq, health permitting. For now, the couple has no desire to leave behind the solitude and unspoiled magnificence of Greenlands southwest coast.
Sometimes the ice recedes a bit and you find yourself walking on land that hasnt been exposed for thousands of years, he said. There are days when I feel not only like Im the only Jew in Greenland, but maybe the last person on Earth.
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The only Jew in remote Greenland sometimes feels like 'the last person ...
Posted By admin on August 16, 2023
British citizens who identify as Jewish
British Jews (often referred to collectively as British Jewry or Anglo-Jewry) are British citizens who identify as Jewish. The number of people who identified as Jews in the United Kingdom rose by just under 4% between 2001 and 2021.
The first recorded Jewish community in Britain was brought to England in 1070 by King William the Conqueror, who believed that what he assumed to be its commercial skills would make his newly won country more prosperous. At the end of the 12th century, a series of blood libels and fatal pogroms hit England, particularly the east coast. Notably, on 16 March 1190, in the run up to the Third Crusade, the Jewish population of York was massacred at the site where Clifford's Tower now stands,[2] and King Edward I of England passed the Statute of the Jewry (Statutum de Judaismo) in 1275, restricting the community's activities, most notably outlawing the practice of usury (charging interest).[3] When, 15 years later, Edward found that many of these provisions were ignored, he expelled the Jews from England. They emigrated to countries such as Poland which protected them by law. A small English community persisted in hiding despite the expulsion. Jews were not banned from Scotland, which until 1707 was an independent kingdom; however, there is no record of a Jewish presence in Scotland before the 18th century. Jews were also not banned in Wales at the time, but Wales was eventually annexed to England under Henry VIII, at which point the ban extended to Wales, also. There is only one known record of a Jew in Wales between 1290 and the annexation, but it is possible individuals did persist there beyond 1290.
A small community of conversos was identified in Bristol in 1609 and made to leave. In 1656, Oliver Cromwell made it clear that the ban on Jewish settlement in England and Wales would no longer be enforced, although when Rabbi Manasseh Ben Israel brought a petition to allow Jews to return, the majority of the Protectorate Government turned it down. Nonetheless, the community considers 1656 to mark the readmission of the Jews to England and Wales. In mid-nineteenth century Ireland, then ruled by the British, Daniel O'Connell, known as "The Liberator" for his work on Catholic Emancipation, worked successfully for the repeal of the "De Judaismo" law, which prescribed a special yellow badge for Jews.[4] Benjamin Disraeli (18041881), of Jewish birth although he joined the Church of England, served in government for three decades, twice as prime minister.
The oldest Jewish community in Britain is the Spanish and Portuguese Jewish community, which traces back to the 1630s (when it existed clandestinely, in London, before the readmission), and was unofficially legitimised in 1656, the date counted by the Jewish community as the re-admittance of the Jews to England (which at the time included Wales). A trickle of Ashkenazi immigration primarily from German countries continued from the late 17th century to the early 19th century, before a second wave of Ashkenazi immigration, a large wave of Ashkenazi Jewish immigration fleeing persecution in the Russian Empire, such as pogroms and the May Laws between 1880 and the imposition of tighter immigration restrictions in 1905. Many German and Polish Jews seeking to escape the Nazi Holocaust arrived in Britain before and after the Second World War.[5][bettersourceneeded] Around 80-90% of British Jews today are Ashkenazi.
Following de-colonisation, the late twentieth century saw Yemeni Jews, Iraqi Jews and Baghdadi Jews settle in the United Kingdom.[6][7][8] A multicultural community, in 2006, British Jews celebrated the 350th anniversary of the resettlement in England.[9]
According to the 2021 United Kingdom census, there were 271,327 Jews in England and Wales, or 0.5% of the overall population.[13] According to the 2011 census, 5,887 Jews lived in Scotland for a total of 277,214 self-identified Jews in Great Britain. This does not include much smaller communities in Northern Ireland or the Crown Dependencies. However, this final figure is considered an undercount. Demographers David Graham and Stanley Waterman give several reasons as for why: the underenumeration for censuses in general; the question did not record secular Jews; the voluntary nature of the question; suspicion by Jews of such questions; and the high non-response rate for large numbers of Haredi Jews.[14] By comparison, the Jewish Virtual Library estimated a Jewish population of 291,000 (not limited to adherents of Judaism) in 2012, making Britain's Jewish community the fifth largest in the world.[15] This equates to 0.43% of the population of the United Kingdom. The absolute number of Jews has been gradually rising since records began; in the 2011 census, 263,346 people in England and Wales answered "Jewish" to the voluntary question on religion, compared with 259,927 in of 2001.
The 2001 Census included a (voluntary) religion question ("What is your religion?") for the first time in its history;[n 1] 266,740 people listed their religion as "Jewish". However, the subject of who is a Jew is complex, and the religion question did not record people who may be Jewish through other means, such as ethnically and culturally. Of people who chose Jewish as their religion, 97% put White as their ethnic group. However, a report by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (JPR) suggests that, although there was an apparent option to write down "Jewish" for this question, it did not occur to many, because of "skin colour" and nationality bias, and that if "Jewish" was an explicit option, the resultsonly 2,594 respondents were Jewish solely by ethnicitywould have been different. The religion question appeared in the 2011 Census, but there was still no explicit option for "Jewish" in the ethnic-group question. The Board of Deputies had encouraged all Jews to indicate they were Jewish, either through the religion question or the ethnicity one.[20]
From 2005 to 2008, the Jewish population increased from 275,000 to 280,000, attributed largely to the high birth rates of Haredi (or ultra-Orthodox) Jews.[21] Research by the University of Manchester in 2007 showed that 75% of British Jewish births were to the Haredi community.[22] Ultra-Orthodox women have an average of 6.9 children, and secular Jewish women 1.65.[23] In 2015, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research reported that in England the orthodox community was growing by nearly 5% per year, while the non-haredi community was decreasing by 0.3% per year.[24] It has been also documented that in terms of births, between 2007 and 2015, the estimated number of Strictly Orthodox births per annum increased by 35%, rising from 1,431 to 1,932. Meanwhile, the estimated number of Mainstream (non-Strictly Orthodox) births per annum increased to a lesser extent over the same period, going from 1,844 to 1,889 (+2.4%).[25]
Going into the 19th century, the Jewish population was small, likely no more than 20,000 individuals. However, the population quadrupled in just a few decades after 1881 as a large number of Jews fled oppression in the Russian Empire. The population increased by as much as 50% between 1933 and 1945, with the United Kingdom admitting around 70,000 Jews between 1933 and 1938, and a further 80,000 between 1938 and 1945. The late 1940s and early 1950s proved to be the high point, numerically speaking, for British Jewry. A decline followed, as many of the new arrivals moved to Israel, moved back to Europe, or emigrated elsewhere, and many other individuals assimilated. The decline continued into the 1990s, but has since reversed. The estimates given before the 2001 Census are likely not directly comparable to the Census, as the Census is based purely on self-identification, whereas the estimates are based on community membership, and it is probably the decline from 450,000 to 266,740 is more like a decline from 450,000 to somewhere between 300,000 and 350,000 going by the metrics of the estimators. Contemporary Jewish demographers like Sergio DellaPergola give figures around 300,000 for the British Jewish population in the early 2010s, since when it has grown.
The great majority (83.2%) of Jews in England and Wales were born in the UK. In 2015, about 6% of Jews in England held an Israeli passport.[24] In 2019, the Office of National Statistics estimated that 21,000 people resident in the UK were born in Israel, up from 11,890 in 2001. Of the 21,000, 8,000 had Israeli nationality.[27] In 2013, it was reported that antisemitic attacks in France led to an exodus of French Jews to the UK. This has resulted in some synagogues establishing French-language Shabbat services.[28]
In 2018, 534 Britons emigrated to Israel, representing the third consecutive annual decline. The figure was one third down on 2015 and was the lowest for five years. Meanwhile, immigration of Jews from Israel is consistently higher than emigration of Jews to Israel, at a ratio of about 3:2, meaning the British Jewish community has a net gain of Jewish immigrants, to the point Israelis now represent around 6% of the British Jewish community.[29][30]
The majority of the Jews in the UK live in southeastern England, particularly in and around London. Around 145,480 Jews live in London itself - more than half the Jewish population of the entire country - notably the North London boroughs of Barnet (56,620), Hackney (17,430), Camden (10,080), Haringey (9,400), Harrow (7,300), Redbridge (6,410), Westminster (5,630), Brent (3,720), Enfield (3,710), Islington (2,710) and Kensington and Chelsea (2,680). There are also 30,220 Jews living in districts that abut London but are outside the boundaries of London itself, of which 21,270 are in southern Hertfordshire and 4,930 are in southwestern Essex, giving a total population of 175,690 Jews in London and the districts and boroughs immediately surrounding it, as compared to 95,640 in the rest of England and Wales combined.
In total, including communities some distance from London, just under 46,000 Jews live in the six counties bordering Greater London, of which two-thirds live in areas immediately adjacent to London. There are, in total, more than 26,400 Jews in Hertfordshire, of which 18,350 are in the borough of Hertsmere in southwestern Hertfordshire adjacent to Jewish areas in Barnet and Harrow. Towns and villages in Hertsmere with large Jewish populations include Borehamwood (6,160), Bushey (5,590), and Radlett (2,980). Some 30% of Radlett's population is Jewish, as is 20% of Bushey's and 17% of Borehamwood's, 21% of neighbouring Shenley's and 36% of nearby Elstree, which has a Jewish plurality. Further afield from London, there is also a significant community in St Albans, as well as other smaller communities throughout the county.[31] There are over 10,300 Jews in Essex, of which 4,380 live in the district of Epping Forest, in the county's southwest. There is also a significant community in Southend. In total, London and the counties around it are host to 70.56% of England and Wales' Jewish population, as of 2021.
The next most significant population is in Greater Manchester, a community of more than 28,000, mostly in Bury (10,730), Salford (10,370), Manchester (2,630), and Trafford (2,410).[32] There are also significant communities in Leeds (6,270),[33] Gateshead (2,910),[34] Brighton (2,460),[35] St Albans (2,240),[36] and Southend (2,060).[37] Some historically sizeable communities like Liverpool, Bournemouth and Birmingham have experienced a steady decline and now number fewer than 2,000 self-identifying Jews each; conversely, there are small but growing communities in places like Bristol, Oxford and Cambridge.
The most Jewish county in the UK is Hertfordshire, which is 2.23% Jewish; this is followed by the City of London, on 2.06%, and then Greater London on 1.63%. Greater Manchester is 1.00% Jewish, Essex is 0.70% and East Sussex is 0.65%. No other county is as much as 0.50% Jewish. The least Jewish county or principal area in England and Wales is Merthyr Tydfil, which is less than 0.01% Jewish despite once having had a significant community. Hertsmere and Barnet councils are the most Jewish local authorities in England, with Jews composing one in six and seven residents respectively. Finchley and Golders Green is the political constituency with the largest Jewish population in the UK.[38]
The Scottish population is concentrated in East Renfrewshire, where around 2,400 Jews live, over 40% of the Scottish Jewish population, largely in or near the town of Newton Mearns. Fewer than 900 Jews live in both Glasgow and Edinburgh; the remaining 30% of Scottish Jewry is scattered throughout the country. The largest Welsh community is in Cardiff, with almost 700 Jews, comprising about a third of the Welsh Jewish population and 0.19% of the population of Cardiff itself. The only synagogue in Northern Ireland is in Belfast, where the community has fewer than 100 active members,[39] although 335 people recorded their religion as Jewish in the Northern Irish census of 2011. There are small communities throughout the Channel Islands, and there is an active synagogue in St Brelade, Jersey, although the Jewish population of the island is only 49.[40][41] There is only a small number of Jews on the Isle of Man, with no synagogue.[42]
The British Jewish population has an older profile than the general population. In England and Wales, the median age of male Jews is 41.2, while the figure for all males is 36.1; Jewish females have a median age of 44.3, while the figure for all females is 38.1. About 24% of the community are over the age of 65 (compared to 16% of the general population of England and Wales). In the 2001 census, Jews were the only group in which the number of persons in the 75-plus cohorts outnumbered those in the 6574 cohort.[citation needed]
About 60% of school-age Jewish children attend Jewish schools.[43] Jewish day schools and yeshivas are found throughout the country. Jewish cultural studies and Hebrew language instruction are commonly offered at synagogues in the form of supplementary Hebrew schools or Sunday schools.
The majority of Jewish schools in Britain are funded by the government. Jewish educational centres are plentiful, large-scale projects. One of the country's most famous Jewish schools is the state-funded JFS in London which opened in 1732 and has about 2100 students. It is heavily over-subscribed and applies strict rules on admissions, which led to a discrimination court case, R (E) v Governing Body of JFS, in 2009.[44] In 2011, another large state-funded school opened in North London named JCoSS, the first cross-denomination Jewish secondary school in the UK.[45]
The Union of Jewish Students is an umbrella organisation that represents Jewish students at university. In 2011 there were over 50 Jewish Societies.[46]
British Jews generally have high levels of educational achievement. Compared to the general population, they are 40% less likely to have no qualifications, and 80% more likely to have "higher-level" qualifications. With the exception of under-25s, younger Jews tend to be better educated than older ones. However, dozens of the all-day educational establishments in the Haredi community of Stamford Hill, which are accused of neglecting secular skills such as English and maths, claim not to be schools under the meaning of the Department for Education.[49]
The annual Limmud festival is a high-profile educational event of the British Jewish community, attracting a wide range of international presenters.[50]
The 2001 UK Census showed that 30.5% of economically active Jews were self-employed, compared to a figure of 14.2% for the general population. Jews aged 1624 were less likely to be economically active than their counterparts in the general population; 89.2% of these were students. In a 2010 study, average income per working adult was 15.44 an hour. Median income and wealth were significantly higher than other religious groups.[52] In a 2015 study, poverty has risen the fastest per generation than other religious groups.[53]
In 2016, the Institute for Jewish Policy Research reported that the intermarriage rate for the Jewish community in the UK was 26%. This was less than half of the US rate of 58% and showed little change from the rate in the early 1980s of 23%, though more than twice the 11% level of the end of the 1960s. Around one third of the children of mixed marriages are brought up in the Jewish faith.[54][55]
There are around 454 synagogues in the country, and it is estimated that 56.3% of all households across the UK with at least one Jew living within them held synagogue membership in 2016.[56]:6 The percentage of households adhering to specific denominations is as follows:
Those in the United Kingdom who consider themselves Jews identify as follows:
The Stanmore and Canons Park Synagogue in the London Borough of Harrow said in 2015 that it had the largest membership of any single Orthodox synagogue in Europe.[57]
There are a number of Jewish newspapers, magazines and other media published in Britain on a national or regional level. The most well known is The Jewish Chronicle, founded in 1841 and the world's oldest continuously published Jewish newspaper.[58] Other publications include the Jewish News, Jewish Telegraph, Hamodia, the Jewish Tribune and Jewish Renaissance. In April 2020, The Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish News, which had announced plans to merge in February and later announced plans for a joint liquidation, continued as separate entities after the former was acquired by a consortium.
Cookbooks grew in popularity in Britain during the mid 1800s and shaped the overall cuisine that British Jews experienced by teaching and inspiring housewives how to cook. The shaping of Jewish food overtime told the story of their frequent migration throughout Europe. There was a lot of influence from Eastern European and Ashkenazi food. This resulted in the common staples of Anglo-Jewish women to keep bread, bagels, and potatoes consistently in their homes. Since, they had a history filled with Diaspora, dishes varied heavily and included fish, meat, spaghetti, pudding, or soup.[59]
Before the 2015 general election, 69% of British Jews surveyed were planning to vote for the Conservative Party, while 22% would vote for the Labour Party.[60] A May 2016 poll of British Jews showed 77% would vote Conservative, 13.4% Labour, and 7.3% Liberal Democrat.[61] An October 2019 poll of British Jews showed 64% would vote Conservative, 24% Liberal Democrat, and only 6% Labour.[62]
Jews are typically seen as predominantly middle-class, though historically many Jews lived in working-class communities of London. According to polling in 2015, politicians' attitudes towards Israel influence the vote of three out of four British Jews.[63][64]
In London, most of the top constituencies with the largest Jewish populations voted Conservative in the 2010 general election - these are namely, Finchley and Golders Green, Hendon, Harrow East, Chipping Barnet, Ilford North, and Hertsmere in Hertfordshire. The exceptions were Hackney North and Stoke Newington and Hampstead and Kilburn, which both voted Labour in the election. Outside the region, large Jewish constituencies voted for Labour, namely Bury South and Blackley and Broughton.[38]
Some MPs, such as Robert Jenrick and Keir Starmer, while not Jewish themselves, are married to Jews and have Jewish children.[69][70]
The earliest Jewish settlement was recorded in 1070, soon after the Norman Conquest. Jews living in the England at this time experienced religious discrimination and it is thought that the blood libel which accused Jews of ritual murder originated in Northern England, leading to massacres and increasing discrimination.[2] The Jewish presence continued until King Edward I's Edict of Expulsion in 1290.[3]
Jews were readmitted into the Commonwealth of England, Scotland and Ireland by Oliver Cromwell in 1655, though it is believed that crypto-Jews lived in England during the expulsion.[4] Jews were regularly subjected to discrimination and humiliation which waxed and waned over the centuries, gradually declining.[5]
In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the number of Jews in Britain greatly increased due to the exodus from Russia, which resulted in a large community forming in the East End of London.[6] Popular sentiment against immigration was used by the British Union of Fascists to incite hatred against Jews, leading to the Battle of Cable Street in 1936, when the fascists were forced to abandon their march through an area with a large Jewish population when the police clearing the way were unable to remove barricades defended by trade unionists, left wing groups and residents.[7]
In the aftermath of the Holocaust, undisguised racial hatred of Jews became unacceptable in British society. Outbursts of antisemitism emanating from far right groups continued, however, leading to the formation of the 43 Group led by Jewish ex-servicemen which broke up fascist meetings from 1945 to early 1950.
Records of antisemitic incidents have been compiled since 1984, although changing reporting practices and levels of reporting make comparison over time difficult. The Community Security Trust (CST) was formed in 1994 to "[protect] British Jews from antisemitism and related threats".[71] It works in conjunction with the police and other authorities to protect Jewish schools, Synagogues, and other community institutions.
British Jewish communal organisations include:
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Posted By admin on August 16, 2023
In the Arab world, much like it is in many other parts of the globe, millions are flocking to cinemas to watch "Oppenheimer," directed by Christopher Nolan, which portrays the life of physicist Robert Oppenheimer. But the film's Arabic subtitles omit Oppenheimer's Jewish identity. Instead, the term "Guraba" (foreigner) replaces "Jew." Sometimes, the word "Jew" is entirely omitted. Normally, the Arabic translation for "Jews" is "" ("Ya-hudi").
Many viewers, including Egyptian director Yusri Nasrallah, criticized the puzzling translation. Not known to be particularly pro-Israeli, Nasrallah expressed his dissatisfaction, saying, "The Arabic translation of the dialogues is extremely poor. There is no valid reason to translate 'Jew' as 'Jarib' or 'Jorbaa' (foreigner or foreigners). This is truly disappointing." The National website compared the omission to an earlier translation of the name of a playwright - Israel Horowitz who was translated as "Occupied Territories Horowitz.
The Lebanese subtitle company acknowledged a practice of pre-emptive self-censorship by their translators, a measure taken to secure the film's approval for screening in specific Arab nations. While not explicitly mentioning the replacement of "Jew" with "foreigner," the company indicated that for the past 15-20 years, they've followed this approach. "Certain issues," they explained to local media, "if left untouched, would result in requests for removal or alteration. Therefore, we automatically modify them to avoid the need to re-edit the film."
The company states that their translators consistently follow guidelines set by censorship boards across many Arab nations. "There are subjects we typically avoid addressing, this being one of them. Directly translating 'Jew' into Arabic could lead to film editing or removal upon screening," they explained. To ensure uninterrupted viewing and prevent excessive cuts, they opt for subtle translation adjustments. The company also said this approach extends to other words related to religiously sensitive matters on screen, including Israel, Jesus, or the Prophet Muhammad.
2 View gallery
Film was well-received in Saudi Arabia
(Photo: Tulip Entertainment)
Throughout the movie, translators seem to go out of their way not to mention the word "Jew" or "Jewish", including scenes where Oppenheimer speaks of his Jewish heritage or discusses how Jews seem to feel unwelcome amid rising tides of anti-semitism in 1930s Germany.
On the bright side, none of that seems to have dampened the success of the movie in the Arab world, with numbers showing that it has been well-received, grossing around $3.9 million in Saudi Arabia (signs of impending normalization?) and $2.8 million in the United Arab Emirates.
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On the cutting room floor: Arab subtitles omit 'Jew' from summer ...
Posted By admin on August 14, 2023
As a former Israeli ambassador and director general of the ministry of foreign affairs, Ive dedicated my professional life to representing and promoting Israels interests all around the world.
For many years, Israel has been veering away from a path of mutual recognition and peace with the Palestinians. Successive governments have doubled down on settlements and deepened military control over Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
But currently we are witnessing something new. The Benjamin Netanyahu-led ultranationalist government is racing towards annexation of the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), a manoeuvre which will not only end any chance of a two-state outcome, but also permanently entrench the daily humanitarian and anti-democratic nightmare that the Israeli occupation has become. During the last six months these methods have spilled into Israel itself, to a point of endangering our own precious democracy the basis of our proximity to the western world.
To this end, Australian foreign affairs minister Penny Wongs announcement on Tuesday that the federal government recognises the illegality of settlements under international law is a step in the right direction. While the Labor government is right to break away from previous governments, which failed to implement Australias commitment to international law and the two-state solution, Labor has a chance to take a real and decisive step in upholding its values by voting to recognise the state of Palestine at its national conference this month.
Now, more than ever, Israel needs the support of its friends, including Australia, to push back against the efforts of the Israeli government and help us continue striving towards two democratic states living peacefully side by side.
Successive Israeli governments have implemented policies on the ground to change the geography and demography of the OPT. They have largely sought to achieve this through the rapid expansion of settlements, which are illegal under international law. Almost 600,000 Israelis live in illegal settlements across the green line.
The settlements are located between and around Palestinian communities, creating enclaves of the Palestinian population. By isolating these communities into dense and fractured pockets, Israel is working towards the complete geographical fragmentation of the West Bank. Doing so will obstruct Palestinian territorial contiguity and achieve the Israeli ultranationalists dream of preventing the creation of a Palestinian state.
Its not just the speed, however, at which this new extremist Israeli government is progressing. It is promoting a clear intent to annex the Palestinian territories, a move which has so far been avoided by every Israeli government.
The Israeli right has always dreamed of a sole Israeli sovereign between the Mediterranean sea and the Jordan river. But with the rise in power of ultranationalistic parties in the Israeli body politic, its no surprise their dreams of annexation are explicitly spelled out in the governments coalition agreement. For example, it ensures the government will promote the exclusive and unquestionable right [of the Jewish people] to all areas of the land of Israel and commit the government to promote and develop settlements in all [its] parts.
Thousands of settler housing units have been approved, millions in the budget have been allocated to develop settlement roads and infrastructure, unauthorized settler outposts have gained recognition, and formerly evacuated settlements are being resettled. The flip side of this scale of growth of Israels settlement enterprise in this way is the impossibility of a Palestinian state.
The two cannot coexist, and the dream I worked for my entire career of a secure and democratic Israel at peace with its neighbours is not only being eroded, but completely obliterated. The recent escalation in Jenin and the countless other recent flare-ups prove that the cycle of violence can only be broken, and a real solution to the conflict found, by using the tools of diplomacy, rather than the tools of war.
This is where Australias recognition of the state of Palestine is relevant.
The international community must push back by giving Palestine increasing international legitimacy. Doing so sends a message that they will not stand idly by while Israels far right realises its agenda. More states must recognise Palestinian statehood to push back against this impending reality.
Australia has a deep, historical connection to the two-state solution. In 1947, Australias then foreign affairs minister was instrumental in pushing through the UN Partition Plan which first called for a two-state resolution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Australia was the first country to vote in favour of the plan despite outside pressures against it.
More than 75 years later, only half of that plan has been realised. The state of Israel exists and has been internationally recognised; recognising the state of Palestine keeps that decades-old promise.
I have worked with Australians for a long time and have always been impressed by their pursuit of fairness and justice in international diplomatic circles. Recognising the state of Palestine would be a natural extension of that ethos. Just as Palestine has not been given veto power over the existence of Israeli statehood, Israel must not be given veto power over Palestinian statehood.
Critics may argue that Australias distance from the region makes any intervention pointless, but that ignores decades of Australian activism in the region. The sustained economic and diplomatic ties between the two countries, not to mention the important role Australia has long played as an ally in diplomatic circles, provides a useful platform to draw a line in the sand on annexation.
While Australian recognition of the state of Palestine is long overdue, from an Israeli perspective, it could not be more timely.
Given the urgency of the Israeli government and its unfolding extremist agenda Israel needs Australia and its allies to help protect the democratic vision of its founding fathers, as enshrined in Israels 1948 declaration of independence.
Only by giving increased international legitimacy to a Palestinian state can we continue striving towards democracy and peace for all people in our region.
Alon Liel served as the director general of Israels ministry of foreign affairs and as the Israeli ambassador to South Africa
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Nearly every morning for three months, family members and survivors quietly gathered in a federal courtroom in Pittsburgh. They listened to witnesses recount the terror of the morning nearly five years ago when a gunman murdered 11 worshipers in their synagogue, and to witnesses who tried to explain what drove the man to commit such horror.
And on Wednesday, they listened as a judge announced the jurys unanimous decision that the gunman, Robert Bowers, should be condemned to die.
The verdict, after nearly 10 hours of deliberations by the jurors, was met with a mix of solemnity, gratitude and relief among the survivors and relatives of those killed.
Finally, justice has been served, said Leigh Stein, whose father, Dan Stein, was killed in the attack. Even though nothing will bring my dad back, I feel like a weight has been lifted.
The massacre, on Oct. 27, 2018, is considered the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history, and the death sentence is the first handed down in federal court during the Biden administration.
Hate crimes like this one inflict irreparable pain on individual victims and their loved ones, and lead entire communities to question their very belonging, Merrick B. Garland, the U.S. attorney general said in a statement. All Americans deserve to live free from the fear of hate-fueled violence, and the Justice Department will hold accountable those who perpetrate such acts.
At a hearing scheduled for Thursday morning, Robert Colville, a U.S. district judge, will formally impose the death sentence that the jury recommended.
The members of the three congregations that had been meeting for services in the Tree of Life synagogue on that gray and drizzly Sabbath morning in Pittsburgh have never come to a consensus about whether a death sentence would be a just outcome. But many had grown to appreciate the trial itself.
Some said that as raw and painful as the trial was at moments, it was the first time that they had truly learned what happened that day. To others, it signified a break with a long and tragic history of governments looking away when Jewish people were targets of violence.
The lengthy but fair judicial process, said Howard Fienberg, whose mother, Joyce Fienberg, was killed in the attack, was a marker and a reminder that we belong here. That this is where we are, this is where weve been, and this country is where we belong. We remain a part of it and we always will.
Weeks before deciding that Mr. Bowers should be sentenced to death, the same jury found him guilty on all 63 of the federal counts that he had been facing, including an array of hate crimes. The defense called no witnesses in that part of the trial, as there was never any dispute that Mr. Bowers had carried out the attack.
After declaring online that he needed to act to protect the white race, Mr. Bowers, armed with an AR-15 rifle and three handguns, stormed the synagogue shortly after the congregations Tree of Life, New Light and Dor Hadash had begun gathering in separate parts of the building for morning worship.
He stalked the hallways and chapels, murdering members of all three congregations. He shot and killed Cecil, 59, and David Rosenthal, 54, developmentally disabled brothers who always greeted worshipers at the door. In the passage leading to the chapel where Tree of Life had begun services, and then inside among the pews, he killed Ms. Fienberg, 75; Irving Younger, 69; and Sylvan Simon, 86, later returning to kill Mr. Simons wife, Bernice, 84.
He killed Rose Mallinger, 97, as she huddled under a pew with her daughter, whom he also shot and wounded. He killed Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66, of Dor Hadash, who had heard gunshots and run down the hallway to offer help. In a downstairs kitchen, he killed Richard Gottfried, 65, and Mr. Stein, 71, two members of New Light, and he shot Melvin Wax, 87, who had stepped out of a closet where he and others were hiding.
The police rushed to the synagogue and, after exchanging gunfire with Mr. Bowers, eventually cornered him in a classroom. A little over an hour after the attack began, he crawled out, wounded by gunfire and still espousing hatred of Jewish people. Six people, including four police officers, were wounded in the attack.
Mr. Bowerss defense team, which included Judy Clarke, a lawyer with a long record of defending people accused of capital crimes, had repeatedly offered to have Mr. Bowers plead guilty in exchange for life in prison without the possibility of release, but the government rejected these offers.
In the penalty phase of the trial, Mr. Bowerss lawyers argued that he had suffered throughout his life from severe mental illness and that he bore the emotional scars of a chaotic and unstable childhood. He had been committed to psychiatric hospitals multiple times during his life and tried to kill himself more than once.
Several experts called by the defense diagnosed him with schizophrenia, and one psychiatrist, who had interviewed him for nearly 40 hours, said he had become obsessed with delusions about his duty to fight the forces of Satan before the approaching apocalypse.
I wish we could have a conversation about the challenges he faced in life, how he tried and tried to make it in life, Ms. Clarke told the jury in her closing argument. I wish we could have a conversation about how he tried and failed, and tried again and failed again, and tried again. And I wish we could have that conversation about how he finally succumbed to his damaged brain and his mental illness.
But experts called by the government disputed many of these diagnoses, and argued that the virulently bigoted views that Mr. Bowers expressed about Jewish people and immigrants were not just products of his own delusional thinking but rather views shared by thousands of others on extremist websites. Prosecutors detailed the months of planning that he put into the attack, the studying of different potential targets and the hundreds of antisemitic posts that Mr. Bowers had made or shared on social media.
The defendant doesnt have schizophrenia, Eric Olshan, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, said in his closing argument. You know whats inside of his mind, he told the jury. Its filled with hate and common, extreme, white supremacist, antisemitic tropes.
The jury, apparently, agreed. At the conclusion of an earlier phase, in mid-July, jurors took only two hours to decide that Mr. Bowerss mental health problems were not severe enough to render him ineligible for the death penalty.
And in a long list of potentially mitigating factors that jurors were tasked with deciding alongside the ultimate verdict on Wednesday, they rejected the defenses characterizations of Mr. Bowerss delusions and unanimously concluded that he did not have schizophrenia.
Mr. Bowers will very likely spend years, if not decades, on death row as his case makes its way through the appeals process something that some of those who had opposed the pursuit of the death penalty have spoken of with dread. The announcement of the verdict did, at least temporarily, bring to a close one question that had loomed over the congregations for years. But many others remained unanswered.
Theres no going back to the way things were thats not going to happen, said Rabbi Doris Dyen, who had been in the parking lot that October morning to attend services with Dor Hadash, but stopped when she saw the shattered glass of the windows. She has since had difficulty finding a worship routine that feels right to her, she said. She said she looks forward to that changing, someday.
Jon Moss contributed reporting.
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