Thought of the Week: Ignoring Laughable Fascists since 1933
Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 18 June 2015
According to the Rabbis the Temple and Jerusalem were destroyed because of groundless hatred. According to Psalm 89 the world will be built by love, olam chesed yibaneh. What about Golders Green?
This part of London is home to the highest concentration of Jews of all denominations in the UK and has been since the early years of the twentieth century. It is also home to a remarkable diversity of other faiths, Christians, Hindus, Muslims and Buddhists. We have all come together under the guidance of the London Jewish Forum and Hope not Hate to create #Golders Green Together – which tells the real story of Golders Green. Over the next two weeks we will be celebrating what it means to live in a place of mutual respect where hate has absolutely no place. Watch out and participate in a whole bunch of positive Hope not Hate actions. A small group of laughable fascists standing at the Golders Green War Memorial could not be less relevant to the area, just as it was irrelevant and properly ignored in Stamford Hill last year.
So on July 4th at Alyth, the Reform shul the heart of Golders Green since 1933, we will celebrate a joyful Bat Mitzvah, hear a brilliant Rabbi from Israel (Rabbi Oded Mazor) teaching and speaking, parallel this with a musical Tefillah Jam and then come together as a community for a welcoming Kiddush. We will then walk out into the reality of Golders Green as our fellow Jews come home from Shul among their neighbours of all faiths and none.
Before that date we intend to take action together with Dunstan Road United Synagogue and other faith groups in the area. This is what you can do:
1) Help distribute leaflets to local homes around the area which explain the Golders Green Together campaign – just turn up at the United Synagogue in Dunstan Road at 10:00 on Sunday 21st June and your help will be welcomed by the London Jewish Forum. All will be finished by 11:30
2) Help dress Golders Green on Friday 3rd July from 9:30 with gold and green ribbon and if you live in the area dress your home too! Alyth will be turning gold and green for the Shabbat on our forecourt.
3) Send a 300 word story to manpreet@hopenothate.org.uk about how our communities live together, for the edition of the Golders Green Together newspaper which will be distributed around the streets of Golders Green to on July 4th tell the real story of this area. Alyth will be putting in a story about the Big Iftar in which we welcome the local Muslim community to our Synagogue on the evening of Thursday 25th June
I will be co-ordinating Alyth’s response to the proposed 4th July demonstration on behalf of the Alyth Clergy Team which you see above. Please feel welcome to speak to me or any of the Alyth Clergy if you have any concerns or questions about this.
A further positive action which puts Alyth’s Jewish values out into the nation will be taking place on Wednesday 24th June. We have been invited by Mike Freer MP and other parliamentarians to come to the Houses of Parliament in the morning to speak with them about our feelings concerning our governments welcome or lack of it to Syrian and other refugees who have been crossing the Mediterranean and taking other dangerous routes, in an action being organised by Citizens UK of which Alyth is a member. They would be especially interested in hearing the views of our members who were themselves once refugees from Nazi Germany. If you would be willing to accompany me to Parliament on Wednesday morning please contact me on 020-8457 8791 or mark@alyth.org.uk. We will arrange minibus transport and travel together from Alyth at around 9:00 and return around 13:00.
Shabbat Shalom