Points of Jew

Time to reach out

It never ceases to amaze me how exclusive our community can be. People are forever deploring the decline of the provinces but nobody ever seems willing to do anything about it.

Out here in the sticks, we are facing 60% assimilation. I am forever being approached by people who have a non-Jewish spouse or people whose spouse has married out, and the constant litany of exclusion and shunning is enough to make one despair of the Jewish community.

All too often people who marry out are not running away from Judaism but are desperate to be attracted back in. Their spouses are often the ones who encourage them to engage with their Jewishness.

On Rosh Hashanna we shall doubtless see many who have gone outside the community and married out. Their children may well be in shul.

Why do we leave it to groups like Lubavitch to pick up the pieces and gather these people in? We should reach out to married-outs; whilst not condoning their action we must accept that it has happened, move on and encourage them back into the fold.

At the worst we are being welcoming. At the best we may have a whole new Jewish family engaged in our community activities.

Update: Party leaders not wishing Jewish community a happy New Year

As we start to enter Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, not one of the major political party leaders has issued a New Year message to the Jewish community. 

Update: Looking at the Jewish News, I noticed messages from all of them, so oops! oops! and oops!  I guess dear readers you can make up your own mind as to my own importance :) or lack of it... But hey, I still had a greeting from Ken Livingstone.

But still, going to the respective websites of the party leaders, nothing can be found either. So if they have issued these messages, why are they not on their own websites, so all can see and indeed read.

And of the messages, Charles Kennedy is the winner for the most weak and lack of understanding the UK Jewish community.

Kennedy referenced Sir Jonathan Sacks, but not other Jewish communal leaders leaving the impression that Sir Jonathan is a leader for everyone, when in fact he is not.

He said of Sir Jonathan: "active role the Chief Rabbi has played with other faith groups."

Note to Charles:  What exactly has Sir Jonathan done to build bridges within his own community?

He goes on: "He (Sir Jonathan) provides outstanding spiritual leadership for the Jewish community and beyond."

Another note to Charles:  Speak to the many people who feel he provides a poor service to the community and then make up your mind as to whether Sir Jonathan is of any use to the community or merely just milking it as much as he can.

Only London Mayor Ken Livingstone has issued a message which said: "I am pleased to take this opportunity to send best wishes to London's Jewish community for a Rosh Hashanah of happiness, and a New Year of lasting peace."

In years gone by, Points of Jew sister site, SomethingJewish would have to prompt all the parties to get their message from each respective leader and it would work.  This year, SomethingJewish decided to let the leaders do it voluntariliy.  And the result, there is no message from any of the party leaders.

Feel free to make up your own mind as to what Messrs Blair, Howard and Kennedy will give as a reason for not yet wishing the Jewish community a happy New Year.

Maybe, they all just forgot or just had other things on their mind?

UK Jews want to stand up for Israel?

British Jews responding to an online poll want to see a campaign to counter the negative image that Israel gets in the media.

According to the YouGov survey which had 2,018 responses:

87% agreed with a statement that “the Jewish community of Britain should run an advertising and publicity campaign to help provide information about Israel and its position when it feels that Israel or its position have been unfairly portrayed in the media.”

1% believed the British media is biased in favour of Israel

92% believed it to be biased against Israel.

98% felt the media had considerable influence in shaping public opinion of Israel.

The poll was conducted on behalf of StandUp4Israel, an organisation made up of various media professionals.

But, despite these results, YouGov warned:

"since this was a self-selecting sample survey, we cannot claim the findings to be ‘representative’ of any particular group."

Speaking to the Jewish Chronicle, Marc Cave, one of the founders said:

"We didn’t want to know what the outside world thought. The object of our research was to find out if the Jewish community agreed with StandUp4Israel."

"The results are clear. My question is now to the leaders of the community as to what they want to do. If they don’t know what to say to the British public at large, we will help."

"Whispering diplomacy has its place but it is demonstrably not working by itself. We believe that advertising has a very important role, and the response to the poll shows that there is a natural and intense pent-up frustration in the community about making the case for Israel."

Meanwhile, StandUp4Israel continues with its plans to raise £1m from the Jewish Community to buy advertising space on billboards, in the cinema and in newspapers.

On its website, is a link to a PayPal donation with the following text:

We need £4 from every Jewish person in Britain to build a campaign war chest of £1 million. This will buy a year's worth of adverts in the national press, billboards placed outside the offices of Britain's key media and political organisations, and a 60-second commercial for the cinema and internet. 

Holy day broadcasting cock-up

The BBC is to re-schedule a Radio 4 programme that looks at the work of the Community Security Trust after realising that the original transmission date was due to take place on the second night of Rosh Hashanah at 8pm.

Surely, you consult a calendar before announcing a transmission date for something that has importance to the community it is being made about?

I find it very hard to understand how the scheduling department at Radio 4 didn't realise that certain dates in the calendar are sensitive to the Jewish community.

Within the BBC, those involved in making programmes and deciding on dates and times to broadcast them will have access to multifaith calendars to avoid these types of cock-ups.

They could even visit the BBC Religion website to check dates on the very useful multifaith calendar at:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/interactive/calendar/index.shtml

So what happened?

Even those Jews who are not very religious will generally focus their mind on spiritual issues during this time of year as well as spending the evening with family and friends, so is very unlikely to be near to a radio to listen to the programme.

But there is some good news, the broadcast will go out on October 9, the date of the original repeat which shouldn't cause any problems for Jews, let along followers of any other faith.

Learning from American Jews - we need to make our community more inclusive

In the United States, October is being made North American Inclusion Month by the Orthodox Union.

The OU is taking a lead by promoting positive inclusion of people with limited or no mobility at synagogues, which of course includes its own.

With a powerful ad that says "Every Jew Belongs in Shul" the message is pretty clear to the community, both its own Orthodox as well as others. We need to stop the discrimination being shown to Jews who cannot get to shul because of lack of access.

OU president Stephen J. Savitsky said:

“We want the message to go out from the Orthodox Union as a whole that inclusion is vital to the Jewish community, and that all of our children and adults who have disabilities must be included in all activities of our community – with an emphasis on their comfort and participation in the life of their synagogues,”

UK Jewish groups and communal leaders take note. Let's stop talking about doing things, let's actually start doing things now.

My own personal view of how badly the UK Jewish community treats those with limited or no mobility can be found in a comment piece written for SomethingJewish. Click here to read it.

Can we trust Jewish organisations and how they supervise kosher food?

Is there any reason why kosher meat and many of the "licensed" kosher butchers who sell it, fail to maintain basic levels of hygiene and cleanliness.

As a Jewish community we are being short changed and paying for it. We get sold cuts of meat that you wouldn't want to give to a dog. But as long as it is described as "kosher" it is fine. But, no, it is not fine.

The word "kosher" has become a byword for fit, proper and good. But in many cases these days, you can't rely on it. It might have the word "kosher" on it,  but it is far from fit and proper and potentially could be a danger to your health.

Why do we as a community have to put up with the poor standards that are evident in many of the retailers selling us food?

Last year Schlagman’s in Finchley, north west London was taken to court by Barnet Council over the filth and dirt in the shop.  They were fined £16,000 by Barnet Council for 11 heathly and safety breaches.

A report in the Jewish Chronicle said at the time:

In the koshering area the inspector had observed “live and dead beetles, meat debris and dirt on the floor.

Yet, the kosher organisation who was supposed to be supervising this butcher didn't seem to be too concerned with hygiene standards.  Why didn't the London Board for Shechita and its staff not see  that the food being sold and being offered to customers was coming into contact with all manner of vermin when they were doing inspections?

The London Board for Shechita is supposed to be charged on behalf of the community for maintaining standards. On it website it says:

The Board employs full-time Inspectors who visit every establishment at least once a day and check for the continuous integrity of the sealing process, monitoring the performance of the porging (removal of forbidden fats and sinews) and koshering (soaking, salting, and rinsing) processes carried-out by Board-approved personnel.

The Board further adds:

The public can safely rely on the vigilance of our Shomerim and Inspectors

Isn't it time they actually provided evidence of their work?  Are their records open to the public?  Can they show on their website, dates/times when their inspectors have been into an "establishment"?  If we go into a public toilet they show the last time they were cleaned, surely we should expect more from our kosher supervisors?

So you can have a steak sold in a butcher that has come into contact with bugs and the organisation that supervises the premises will still maintain it is "kosher". How could this Board and its own supervisors fail to see all the filth, the same filth that Barnet Council could see?

I say thank you to the local councils up and down the country who are visiting shops including Jewish shops and taking legal action against those who flaunt the hygiene rules.

Why are the Beth Dins and The Board not actually doing what the are supposed to do. They should not only make sure the products are "kosher" in terms of the way the animal was slaughtered, it should also mean that when it is sold, it is kept in a fit and proper condition - that means hygeinic.

Those who supervise food production for the community should be accountable to the community and if they are supervising food production, they need to do just that - otherwise what is the point of trusting them with food.

No wonder why so many Jews are either becoming vegetarian or buying non-kosher meat.

Do you trust kosher food production in the UK and the selling of kosher food to the public?

Labour expels Jewish member for heckling

I can't help feeling the scene yesterday when 82-year-old Walter Wolfgang was thrown out of the Labour Party conference was something reminiscent of that if a Jewish person had hecked Adolf Hitler circa 1935.

But this is 2005 and we are not in Nazi Germany. We are in modern Britain, a country that has democracy and free speech.

Walter himself had to flee Nazi Germany in 1937 and has been a Labour member for 52 years. But when it came to him heckling the word "nonsense" during Jack Straw's speech to Labour supporters in Brighton, he had to face the wrath of Labour's SS - stupid stewards who ejected him, despite his frailness.

Labour leader and PM Tony Blair has refused to meet Walter, but did said sorry.

"I can't do anything more than apologise profusely," he said.

Mr Blair, there is much more you can do. You can meet him and say sorry to Walter's face.

Updates:

Plenty of coverage everywhere on this. Just Google News for "Walter Wolfgang" to find it.

Progressive British Asian blog Picked Politics has made Walter its Hero of the Week.

News release - Points of Jew - the UK Jewish community blog that aims to connect with the community

Here's our first press release announcing Points of Jew

Points of Jew - Jewish issues from a UK perspective launches mid October 2005

Bloggers wanted to contribute

www.pointsofjew.com or http://jewish.typepad.com/pointsofjew/

28 September 2005  - Points of Jew is a "group" blog - an uberblog covering Jewish issues and politics with a focus looking at these areas from a UK perspective.

Points of Jew aims to represent the full spectrum of Jewish views. It is seeking people who have views and can express them, people who are fed up with the way in which existing Jewish media fails to tackle issues of concern to the community.

"From the left to the right, from the athiest to the ultra orthodox, from the Sephardi to the Askenazi, from the Levy to the Cohen  - Points of Jew is pretty much about being an inclusive blog reflecting Jewish news, current affairs and issues from a UK Jewish perspective," said Points of Jew
co-founder Leslie Bunder.

"Points of Jew is here to provide a way for Jewish voices to be heard, both inside our own community as well as outside of it," Bunder added.

In its statement of creation, Points of Jew has highlighted a number of reasons for establishing a UK Jewish group blog.

A lack of real Jewish media has left the Jewish community without a means to express itself.

What media there is, is out of touch and out of date with it readers.

Existing Jewish media refuses to tackle issues of importance to the community and becomes its own worse parody.

Points of Jew aims to provide the perspective, views and insight you don't see in existing Jewish media. We are about connecting with the community and the community connecting with us.

Points of Jew is here to provide a way for Jewish voices to be heard, both inside our own community as well as outside of it.

More information: www.pointsofjew.com or http://jewish.typepad.com/pointsofjew/

Points of Jew is supported by JMT Ventures, the UK-based Jewish digital media creators. Among the online properties JMT Ventures publish are: SomethingJewish (www.somethingjewish.co.uk), SomeoneJewish.com (www.someonejewish.com), Daily Jews (www.dailyjews.com),  JewishBlogging
(www.jewishblogging.com) and Jewish Jokes (www.jewishjokes.net)

Jews wanted!

I've been asked what type of Jews are wanted for Points of Jew?

Well, as an uberblog or group blog, Points of Jew aims to represent the full spectrum of Jewish perspectives. And that means, we need you.  We want people who have views and can express them, people who are fed up with the way in which existing Jewish media fails to tackle issues of concern to the community.

From the left to the right, from the athiest to the ultra orthodox, from the Sephardi to the Askenazi, from the Levy to the Cohen  - Points of Jew is pretty much about being an inclusive blog reflecting Jewish news, current affairs and issues from a UK Jewish perspective.

Points of Jew is here to provide a way for Jewish voices to be heard, both inside our own community as well as outside of it.

A lack of real Jewish media has left the Jewish community without a means to express itself. What media there is, is out of touch and out of date with it readers. It refuses to tackle issues of importance to the community and becomes its own worse parody.

Points of Jew aims to provide the perspective, views and insight you don't see in existing Jewish media. We are about connecting with the community and the community connecting with us.

So what type of topics will be discussed and debated?

We hope to engage readers with thought provoking and lively debate. This means covering topics such as: 

Is there a need for the Board of Deputies?

Why are synagogues so boring? What should they be doing to engage members.

How accountable are Jewish leaders to their communities?

Why does kosher meat have to be so expensive and generally poor quality? Why do we accept such low standards that the general public are not willing to accept?

Is there a need for multiple Beth Dins?

Does the Jewish community actually care for disabled members?

Isn't it time for United Synagogue rabbis and Liberal Rabbis to share an open platform?

Can the Jewish community do more to embrace those who wish to convert?

And much, much more.

Among the categories will be:

Religion
Students
Politics
Media
Culture
Israel
Community Issues
World Issues

If you are interested in being part of Points of Jew, write to us.

Welcome to Points of Jew

Welcome to this, the first posting on Points of Jew.

Points of Jew is a "group" blog - an uberblog covering Jewish issues and politics. Our focus is to look at these Jewish issues and politics from a UK Jewish perspective and share them with the wider community.

We are looking for writers who wish to contribute to Points of Jew and also to help shape its overall look and feel.  This is an open project for all Jewish perspectives and aims to be a melting pot for all Jews and their respective views.

Starting from the middle of October, we will be offering a daily update on what matters to us and more importantly, why it should matter to you.

From news and current affairs to conflicts and ways to resolve them within our own community, Points of Jew promises to be that  - a place where Jews can post their points of view.

If you would like to contribute, please get in touch letting us know what interests you and what you would like to write about.

You can email:  leslie@pointsofjew.com

best wishes

Leslie Bunder