This in courtesy of SomethingJewish.
You know it's that time of the year when the Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue is given a late night slot just before Rosh Hashanah to deliver his New Year message on BBC1.
And this year is no exception as Sir Jonathan Sacks goes in front of the screen for My Brother's Keeper and offers a reflection of the past year from tragedies such as the London Bombings and the South Asian Tsunami to showing how those with learning difficulties in the Jewish community can be integrated and given respect.
Sir Jonathan starts with the London Bombings and shows his speech at the Trafalgar Square memorial in which he invites all people to unite which is central to the rest of the programme. The key theme is understanding and respect for fellow human beings, something which Sir Jonathan is excellent in doing for interfaith, but has been criticised in the past for not showing within his own diverse community.
His interviews on screen are diverse. The Chancellor Gordon Brown offers his thoughts on why cancelling debt relief is important and talks of his own upbringing while Bob Geldof talks about his anger and how that is channelled into the positive work he has done in raising awareness of poverty in Africa.
We also are given a glimpse into the work of Jewish social action and how the Jewish community is concerned about world poverty and the importance to be involved in national and international events such as Make Poverty History.
From the theme of poverty, Sir Jonathan then tackles the issue of social inclusion and looks at those with learning disabilities and the work of Kisharon and its founder, Chava Lehman.. We see Heskey and how being involved in a school such as Kisharon has brought hope to his life, first as a child and now as an adult.
From there, the Chief Rabbi meets a couple who were caught up in the Asian Tsunami last December and how certain questions can never be answered. Amanda Simons says she was saved by a Thai man and a few hours later, she saw his dead body, she asks how does that happen. Her partner Daryl Phillips talks about the help and support he was given by local Thai people despite their own personal problems and tragedy that affected them.
Along with Amanda and Daryl, was Liran Yechiel who joined them and talked about how once things started to settle, they as a group went back to Thailand to offer help in rebuilding peoples lives. Sir Jonathan mentioned it was a Jewish group who went out there to which all three belonged and Daryl said it didn't matter to him what the group was as long as he was able to go back and help.
An attempt was made to show some diversity in the Jewish community, Amanda and Daryl did not conform to the general image that Sir Jonathan usually portrays of Jews in Britain, that of orthodox Jews. Daryl himself was not wearing a head covering.
So in that respect, the programme can be commended in not just showing those who subscribe to Sir Jonathan's own orthodox lifestyle.
Throughout the programme, we hear and see Sir Jonathan talk of respect for others and understanding each other, along with the need to looks at ways to improve the world and try to make things better.
To a certain extent, Sir Jonathan succeeded in delivering a message of hope. But deep down, one is left with a feeling of how sincere is he really? How much does Sir Jonathan actually care when off the camera and what is he doing himself to mend his own fractured community.
Only Sir Jonathan can answer those questions, but if he is able to start acting on his own message, then maybe he will be able to prove that what he says on TV, radio and print is something he can follow himself and therefore a path for others too.My Brother's Keeper is on BBC ONE 2 October
Yeah, so late at night even Liberal Jews are in bed. The BBC is SO inclusive, isn't it. Espoused irrevocably to the 11th Commandment of tolerance - didn't you know, there's a ketubah writ in stone in the Blue Peter Garden at Television Centre, right next to the statue of Petra - but disdainful of anything as archaic as fair play, they shove the Jews up the back alley of light entertainment assuming us all to be members of Insomnia Anonymous and willfully prefer to indulge each and every mawkish whimpering of self-abusing Moslems who have no-one else to blame but themselves for their plight. Even that "hairy lefty," (his own self-description) His Grace and Purpleness of Plush, the Arch Druid of Canterbury, gets better air time than that - even though his leftwing ramblings are utterly unintelligible even to his own. I have a friend - well, at the moment he is, provided he continues to stop referring to Israel as "Palestine" - who is a former Anglican vicar who converted to Catholicism for his own (and sincerely held) best reasons and now serves as a priest. He told me that in a monastary, the successor to St Augustine's right-on ponderings were read aloud at meal times in the best traditions of monastic scholasticism, resulting in intellectual dyspepsia all round - never mind the bowel-rumbling stodge. So he sits there, picking whatever it is that Anglican Archbishops have left over in their beards from lunch, while his Synod discusses the earnest necessity of a boycott of companies with commercial ties to Israel, while the Pope, sinisterly black-eyed and portrayed as the Arch Inquisitor, wouldn't get air time if he offered to marry the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. I mean marry him. Not marry him to someone else. At least they didn't broadcast it at 11.00 a.m. on a Saturday morning. Outrageous? No. Haven't you noticed? Barbara Plett's tear-stained drivel about Arafat, and Oral - Ooops! Freudian slip... nice and long and frilly - Orla Guerin's empassioned accusation that "Israel has stolen Christmas" were both broadcast at a time when observant Jews couldn't watch - or, most importantly, pick up the phone to complain. Conspiracy? You bet. Maybe Michael Grade - who attends the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St Johns Wood - gave them the tip off. When are Jews going to be treated again with respect in this country? And how can they be treated with respect if the BBC relegates us to numerical insignificance? You see, it's simple. Either you take the Orthodox description of the Jewish population of this country and count us as a mere 280,000. Or you are consistent with your liberal stance and you admit, as Julia Neuberger maintains quite methodically acording to the light in which she sees, that the Jewish population is in excess of some 600,000. That would make us some 200,000 souls more than the 400,000 Sikhs - nominally, Britain's largest ethnic minority. You can't have it both ways, Mr Grade. If the BBC persues a liberal line, we've got the edge and we're being abused. Oh, what of the 1.2 million Muslims in Britain, I hear you ask? Oh, go on, you did ask, didn't you! Well, that is just a ruse. You see, in generations past - and we're going back over 100 years to the time when an Indian, who just happened to be a Muslim, was first elected to Parliament - there never used to be a "Muslem" immigrant or citizen. Those seeking residency in Britain were randomly Bangladeshi, Pakistani, Indian, Iranian, Iraqi - whatever. To fall for the idea that there is one "Muslem" nation as we Jews are is to fall for the lie promulgated by what the BBC calls "militants" and what any sane, objective human being would call perverted Islamic fundamentalism. Mohammed promulgated his new religion in Medina - with or without those cosy fireside chats with Gabriel - and chose to see fit circumcision and a pastiche of Shechita ("halal") as elements best serving as attractive to the Jews there whom he sought to convert. When they refused, he had them slaughtered. That pastiche of Judaism continues and the indulgence of the biggest lie that best serves "militant" Islam is a belief that those disparate communities in this country are one and the same, with one and the same geopolitical, religious and cultural outlook, is the best lie since Goebbels spouted the Big One at Nuremburg. Where was I? Oh, yes, I saw the broadcast. As my grandmother used to say, "It was quite nice." But its niceness was more than somewhat marred by lurking, partisan, antipathetic and somewhat sinister, black-eyed lurkings behind the shoddy outfit headed by Mr Michael Grade (yep, you got it - who also attends the Liberal Jewish Synagogue in St Johns Wood). Strange the Pope has turne out so nice. Maybe it's because he's German.
Posted by: Lior | October 31, 2005 at 12:28 AM