Rosh Hashanah II: Tefilla in Sydney

 

Dedicated to Rabbi Eli Schlanger zt, the London born, assistant rabbi at Chabad-Lubavitch of Bondi and the other 14 kedoshim / holy souls, murdered in the terrorist attack in Sydney, Australia on 14^th December 2025, the 1^st Night of Chanukah 5786

On Rosh Hashanah, it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed.  How many will pass away and how many will be born.  Who will live and who will die; who in his due time and who before…but Repentance (Teshuvah), Prayer (Tefillah) and Charity (Tzedakah) will enable us to pass over the evil of the decree.

My sermons over these Yamim Noraim, Days of Awe are focusing on the three ways in which a Jew is able to use these holy days (and the eight in-between, known as the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah or Ten Days of Penitence) to appeal to Gd to ask for, as Rabbi Sacks ztl puts it ‘a royal or presidential pardon.’

Today, Tefillah, prayer.

It is nearly 9 months or 39 weeks or 273 days since the terrorist attack on Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia which left fourteen families’ lives shattered beyond belief.  The victims were Jewish and Gentile.

One of the most inspiring and moving books I’ve read this year is called ‘Conversations with My Rabbi: Timeless Teachings for a Fractured World’ by Rabbi Eli Schlanger and Nikki Goldstein, HarperElement Spirit (an inaugural Imprint of HarperCollins, 26^th May 2026 Conversations with My Rabbi: Timeless Teachings for a Fractured World: Amazon.co.uk: Goldstein, Nikki, Schlanger, Rabbi Eli: 9780008833367: Books

(Before I continue, I must give an honourable mention to the extraordinary memoir by Eli Sharabi – ‘Hostage’ of his experiences as a captive of Hamas in Gaza.  It is one of the books that deserves to be included in everyone’s library and was published in English on 21^st May

Hostage: OFFICIAL EDITION: The first memoir by an Israeli hostage: Amazon.co.uk: Sharabi, Eli: 9781800756557: Books )

In September 2022, Nikki Goldstein, an Australian journalist and writer, was admitted to St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney with what she thought was a ‘routine chest infection’.  On her website (https://nikkigoldsteinauthor.com/about-nikki), she writes:

“Within hours, the head of the ICU told me my heart would give out if they didn’t put me into an induced coma.  I had minutes.  I called my husband, told him I loved him, made him promise to keep my feet warm — I have always had cold feet, and the thought of lying intubated with no socks filled me with a specific, disproportionate anxiety that I have come to think of as entirely reasonable — and then everything went blank.”

The doctors told her husband Rowan and their teenage daughter, Liberty, to (as she puts it in the book), ‘prepare for the worst.’

Whilst they sat at my bedside – watching, waiting, holding my hand – Liberty nudged Rowan and whispered, “hey Dad…is that a rabbi over there?”

Rabbi Eli writes:

“It was the month of Ellul…a time of introspection, of returning, of soul-preparation before the High Holy Days.  I had been called to the ICU to visit a man from our community who’d taken a sudden, serious turn.  I arrived with my tefillin in one hand and a shofar in the other.  I stood quietly by the man’s bedside, whispered prayers into the space between us and sounded the shofar.  A cry.  A call.  A trembling, ancient sound that reached places words can’t…just as I stepped into the corridor, a man approached me.  He looked desperate and anxious.  “Rabbi,” he said, “can you please come say a prayer with my wife?  She’s Jewish.  I’ve had every religious minister in this hospital visit – but I haven’t seen a rabbi until now…”

Rabbi Eli followed Rowan back into the ICU where Nikki lay unconscious and saw Liberty sitting at her mother’s bedside with her head bowed and ‘tears streaming down her face.’ He explained the meaning of the shofar to Rowan (who isn’t Jewish) and Liberty and said that ‘it’s a wake-up call, a sound that pierces the heavens.  It’s not just heard, it’s felt’.  They ‘both nodded…and understood more than words can explain.’  ‘And so, I blew the shofar once more’ (following his previous visit).

He said a prayer and explained the mitzvah of giving charity, Tzedakah, which they said they would do.

And then he left.

He visited the hospital a week later and to his delight, she was now in the recovery ward on the 9^th level.

Nikki writes:

“What happened in that coma is the story I’ve been trying to understand ever since.  A rabbi appeared.  A shofar was blown.  Prayers were whispered into the space between my near-lifeless body and Heaven, and then, something shifted.  I woke up, and I was not the same person who had gone under.”

These most challenging of circumstances led to a loving, deep friendship between two Jews from opposite ends of the religious spectrum.  Their families connected and Nikki experienced a religious awakening that culminated in their deciding to write this book together.  One that, tragically, Nikki would complete on her own following Rabbi Eli’s murder on Bondi Beach.  The preface is dated December 17, 2025, three days after the massacre and the epilogue on January 22, 2026.  There is also an extremely moving afterword written by Rabbi Eli’s father-in-Law, Rabbi Yehoram Ulman, dated February 24^th.

Rabbi Eli and Nikki were weeks away from completing the project together.

The book is structured as an exchange of ideas built around Rabbi Eli’s lifelong desire to teach the Seven Noahide Laws to both Jews and non-Jews alike.  To make this world in which we live more ethical, compassionate and spiritual.

That Rabbi Eli left us the way he did is the cruellest irony imaginable granted the background behind and subject matter of this remarkable book.

Bondi Beach lies approximately 12 miles away from the house in which my maternal grandfather, Philip Vecht, was born.  He was given the middle name ‘Sydney’ to honour the city of his birth.  When I heard about the attack, my thoughts immediately turned to how differently things might have been.  Had my great-grandfather remained in Australia rather than travelling to South Africa, it is entirely possible that I, or someone in my family, could have been the sixteenth victim.  That realisation brought the horror of what had happened painfully close to home.

UveShofar Gadol Yitakah, VeKol demama dakah yishama…

A great shofar sounds and a still small voice is heard, angels rush forward and are held by trembling, shaking.  They say, “Here is the Day of Judgement visiting all the heavenly hosts for judgement – for even they are not innocent in Your eyes in judgement, and all who have come into this world pass before You like sheep”.

Yesterday, as it was Shabbat, we were bathed in the sound of silence.  Today, the Shofar blasts its way into the very essence, the very depths, the deepest, most embedded spiritual atoms that constitute our souls.

We are blessed not to find ourselves at death’s door like Nikki was on the day she was visited by Rabbi Eli.  With his shofar and his tefillot, his prayers, he rekindled the flame that had nearly been extinguished.  The lifeforce, that was ebbing away from her breath by breath, was miraculously restored.  With the horn of a ram, a voice and a prayer book.

In the Torah, Rosh Hashanah is referred to as ‘Yom Teruah’ – the Day of Blasting or the Day of Sounding the Shofar – that’s how integral this is to the festival itself.  The Hebrew word for breath is Neshima which contains the same Shoresh, root, as Neshama, a soul.

Judaism believes that Adam (and subsequently, Eve) were created on the Sixth Day which was Rosh Hashanah.  Gd breathed life into Adam and we communicate with Gd through the breath that we use to sound the Shofar.  They are one and the same.

We therefore need the shofar to wake us from our spiritual coma, in tandem with our voices and the prayers they recite.  No-one can explain why Gd chose to take Rabbi Eli and the fourteen other holy souls on that blissful Antipodean summer night. 

We are here to celebrate our existence for another year and be handed the opportunity to use this auspicious time to pray that this year will be different, better, memorable for the right reasons.

I will conclude with a quote from Nikki who writes in the epilogue

This book is a dedication to Rabbi Eli’s light and wisdom.  It’s our combined offering to G-d and to humankind.  Forgive me if these words seem hubristic; I don’t mean them to sound grandiose, but that was our intention and shared mission when we began this project.  We wanted to create something timeless, meaningful and useful…what would Eli have said? Simply, “Baruch Hashem.”

Friends, with the sound of the Shofar ringing in our ears and the echo of our prayers pouring from our lips, let us, together, work to make this world a better place.  For us, for Nikki and in the memory of Rabbi Eli Schlanger, Zecher Tzaddik Livracha.

Shana Tova and Chag Sameach.

Rosh Hashanah I: Teshuvah in New York City

 

Dedicated to the 2977 kedoshim / holy souls murdered in the terrorist attacks on 11^th September 2001 in the United States of America on 23^rd Ellul 5761.

On Rosh Hashanah, it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed.  How many will pass away and how many will be born.  Who will live and who will die; who in his due time and who before…but Repentance (Teshuvah), Prayer (Tefillah) and Charity (Tzedakah) will enable us to pass over the evil of the decree.

My sermons over these Yamim Noraim, Days of Awe will focus on the three ways in which a Jew is able to use these holy days and the seven in between, known as the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah or Ten Days of Penitence, to appeal to Gd to ask for, as Rabbi Sacks ztl puts it ‘a royal or presidential pardon.’

Today, Teshuvah, repentance.

It is 25 years or 300 months or 1,304 weeks and four days or 9,132 days since the afternoon when I was walking back to the Jewish Care Centre I was managing at the top of Rectory Lane in Edgware at the end of my lunch break.  As I made my way up the short road, one of our volunteers stopped to ask me whether I’d heard about the plane that had flown into one of the towers of the World Trade Centre in the heart of Manhattan.  I expressed surprise and said that I hadn’t.

At that time, I was running an IT training centre for people with visual impairments or physical disabilities such as MS and stroke survivors.  I made my way into the building to find our members ‘glued’ to the large TV screen we had in the lounge.  They were watching the events unfolding on the BBC.  A few minutes after I entered, we saw the second plane hit the South Tower and, later, the two buildings collapse within half an hour of each other.

Once seen, never forgotten.

A quarter of a century ago, yesterday.

A relative by marriage, Robert ‘Bob’ Speisman, was an executive vice president at the diamond company Lazare Kaplan International Inc.  On the morning of 11th September, he was travelling from Washington to Los Angeles in Business Class when his plane, American Airlines Flight 77, was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon.  He was 48 years old and is survived by my cousin Rena and their three daughters.

A few months later, in January 2002, I visited my grandmother ah who lived on the Upper West Side (near the junction between West 94th and West End Avenue).  As is my custom in New York, I went for a long walk downtown and came across a temporary photographic exhibition at Grand Central Station titled ‘Faces of Ground Zero’.  It consisted of numerous life-sized portraits of the heroes who saved lives on that fateful day, many of whom were firefighters who had lost their comrades.  I encountered one of these incredible individuals and he kindly agreed to have his photo taken next to the portrait of him in his FDNY uniform.  We spoke but there was very little he could say and to be honest, I didn’t know what to ask.  It was truly one of the most humbling moments of my life and one that I will never forget.

And then there was the most heartbreaking scene, which brought the scale of the disaster clearly into focus: the thousands of photographs of people who had been missing since that day, posted by their relatives and loved ones.

At the centre of this section of the station, the following was displayed:

“This wall has been erected for the sole purpose of those wishing to post pictures and/or descriptions of loved ones missing at the Twin Towers disaster scene.  Our hearts and prayers go out to you and your loved ones.  The employees of the MTA (Metropolitan Transportation Authority)/Metro North.”

A quarter of a century ago yesterday.

You may recall that during this time, Israel was experiencing a wave of almost daily terrorist attacks at the height of the second intifada.  Buses and coffee shops were destroyed by suicide (or to use the most accurate term, homicide) bombers and it felt as if simply being on a street anywhere in Israel was tantamount to putting your life in danger.  Close to 1,100 Israelis died during that hellish campaign orchestrated and conducted by six different Palestinian terrorist factions.

In Manhattan, following 9/11, there was a palpable feeling of unity between the residents of the city and the citizens of Medinat Yisrael.  I felt it with every step I took on the streets of that battered, bruised and traumatised city.  I had visited before but this felt nothing like the New York I knew and loved.  It had lost its ‘joie de vivre’, ‘mojo’, soul.  This was a metropolis submerged in a state of deep mourning.

Twenty-five years later, things are very different and especially since the events of our own version of 9/11 on Simchat Torah, 7th October, nearly three years ago, when, as we know, around 1,200 people were murdered and 251 were taken hostage into Gaza.

Back to New York.

What struck me then, four months following that day, was the feeling that the resilient New Yorkers (of whom my father zl was a perfect example) refused to be cowed or brow-beaten despite the trauma they had experienced.  There was a palpable sense of turning inwards and asking how this could have happened and why anyone would want to crash aeroplanes into the beautiful monuments that they cherished, that stood at the heart of everything it meant to be a proud American. 

The Twin Towers were New York.

The Pentagon is the shield that protects America and had they succeeded, the terrorists who took over United 93 would have flown it directly into either the Capitol, the seat of American democracy, or the White House which is of course the beating heart of the President of the United States, the most powerful man on the planet.

Manhattan was effectively an island of people who were engaged in the process of inner reckoning or alternatively the first step towards Teshuvah.

Today, as we know, is Rosh Hashanah, Yom Hadin – the Day of Judgement when Gd judges every living creature on earth.

It is a day when we ask ourselves how and why the year that has ended turned out the way it did and how we can try to ensure that this New Year will be so very different to the one that we bade farewell to as we lit our Yom Tov candles last night.  We also ask why the last twelve months were so challenging for Klal Yisrael.

Many of us believe that the focus of Rosh Hashanah is on Teshuvah or asking for forgiveness for our ‘crimes and misdemeanours’ (quoting Woody Allen’s famous 1989 film) over the previous year.  After all, we stridently declare that we will do Teshuvah (repentance), Tefilla (prayer) and Tzedakah (giving charity) in order to survive the decree that Gd may have decided to enact upon us during the course of this brand-new year.

However, this is not the case.  Rosh Hashanah is about looking forward, not back.  We have the rest of the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah (the Ten Days of Penitence) and the whole of Yom Kippur to ask for Selicha and Mechila (different stages of forgiveness) from our fellow human beings and ultimately from Gd Himself.  Rosh Hashanah is about looking forward.

Hoping that the 9/11/2001, 7/7/2005, 10/7/2023, 10/2/2025, 12/14/2025 (using the American format now that I am a fully-fledged passport-carrying citizen of the United States of America as of last December) can and will never take place again.

In 2001, we were all New Yorkers.

 Last year, we were Mancunians and Sydneysiders.

Since 2023, we have all been October 8^th Jews – irrespective of where we stand along the religious spectrum.

We know why they hate us because they always have.  That’s not something we can change in a day.  Our job is to work out how we can continue to hold our heads high as proud Jews, despite the hate and face 5787 with renewed vigour and self-belief in the knowledge that Gd Himself will never abandon us.  Never has.  Never will.

And that’s why Rosh Hashanah is so important.

We do not know why bad things happen to good people and such a question is beyond the scope of this Drasha. I refer you to an excellent article by Rabbi Sacks ztl which you can read at https://rabbisacks.org/archive/why-does-god-allow-terrible-things-to-happen-to-his-people/ and a video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rW1znjmPFE

Today as it is Shabbat, the shofar has been silenced but our voices are strong as they always have been and we must use them to speak from the depths of our hearts to Gd in Heaven and beseech him to ensure that the miracles we witnessed in the last few years (think about Israel’s stunning victories against our enemies) continue to protect our people and by extension the world.

We can do it.  You can do it.

May Hashem grant us a year of good health and peace and may we ultimately see the fruits of our labour over these auspicious days. May He answer all of our prayers.

Ketivah VeChatima Tovah, Shana Tova Umetukah and Shabbat Shalom.

Parashat Ki Tavo: The Greatest Investment We Can Make

 

The Voynich Manuscript presents one of the world’s greatest unsolved mysteries.

We know the following:

‘It is an illustrated codex, hand-written in an undeciphered script referred to as 'Voynichese'.  The vellum on which it is written has been carbon-dated to the early 15th century (1404–1438).  Stylistic analysis has indicated the manuscript may have been composed in Italy during the Italian Renaissance.’  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript

There is a debate as to who wrote it, where it originated (beyond speculation) and what its purpose was.  To this day, it has not been properly translated as no-one has been able to decipher the script it is written in.

Hypotheses range from believing it to be either a natural or constructed language, an unreadable code, a cipher or some other type of cryptography.  It could even be a work of fiction or a hoax, a reference tome consisting of an index or compendium of folklore.

Some say it is a work of fiction.  Its first confirmed owner was Georg Baresch, a 17th century alchemist from Prague and its name derives from the Polish book dealer who bought it in 1912, Wilfrid Voynich.  https://www.voynich.nu/letters.html

It is beyond the scope of this Drasha to go into the minutiae of the makeup of the manuscript but its focus and purpose seems to have been to serve as a pharmacopoeia, (from the ancient Hellenistic Greek word ‘pharmakopoiía’ which means ‘preparation of drugs’ which is similar to ‘pharmakon’ meaning drug and ‘logia’, the study and knowledge of this science) which is the preparation of drugs or drug making.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmacopoeia), a digest which addressed topics in medieval or early modern medicine.  Its numerous illustrations and their puzzling details have confounded the experts who have tried to decipher it over the centuries.  As a result, they have come up with many theories as to the book’s origin, the context of its text and its main purpose.

The topics it covers are sectioned thus:

Herbal (126 pages) - illustrations of European plants whose species are not fully identifiable.

Astronomical/Astrological (17 pages) - images of partly nude women holding stars related to the signs of the Zodiac, although the last two pages, namely Aquarius and Capricorn have been lost.

Balneological, the scientific study or therapeutic use of baths, especially those using natural mineral waters (https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/balneology) (20 pages) - small nude women, some wearing crowns, bathing in pools or tubs connected by an elaborate network of pipes.

Cosmological (14 pages) - illustrated maps with images of islands with castles and volcanoes.

Pharmaceutical (16 pages) – labelled drawings of isolated parts of plants such as leaves and roots in apothecary-type jars (a la Harry Potter!) interspersed with text.

Recipes (25 pages) - text broken into short paragraphs, each marked with a star in the left margin and at least 28 pages are missing, lost over time.

It is a document whose meaning and bizarre undecipherable text has confounded experts for over a hundred years and is currently stored at Yale University.  The latest attempt was by Rainer Hannig in 2020 who claimed that it was written in a form of medieval Hebrew with some words in Yiddish and Arabic.  Sadly, he died two years later and the Voynich Manuscript still holds onto its secrets six centuries after it was written.

Despite our being able to get man on the moon and back, split the atom and map the human genome, a 250 (or so) page vellum manuscript still confounds the greatest cryptological minds on the planet.

The Hinnom Scrolls were discovered by Gabriel Barkay (d. 11^th January 2026) in Ketef Hinnom, near the Hinnom Valley on the southern side of Jerusalem’s Old City walls in a 1979-80 archaeological dig.

They consist of two rolled-up silver Biblical scrolls that date back to the 7^th Century BCE.  When they were unrolled, the text revealed the ancient Priestly Blessing that we recite every morning in our Shacharit Prayer, asking Gd to bless and protect us (found in Parashat Naso, 6.24-26).  This is the earliest evidence of scripture found outside the Torah and is several centuries older than the Dead Sea Scrolls.  The script is the ancient Ktav Ivri or Paleo-Hebrew characters that predates the Ktav Ashurit that we are familiar with from our Siddurim, Torah scrolls and of course, modern Hebrew.  There is a debate in the Talmud as to whether Ktav Ashurit was brought into use by Ezra Hasofer (the Scribe) or whether it predated Ktav Ivri (i.e.  the Ten Commandments were inscribed in the latter), went out of use and then reappeared centuries later.

The more ancient script (Ktav Ivri) has evolved and been used by the Samaritans for more than two millennia to the present day.  They helped scholars such as the Ramban decipher the inscriptions on ancient Judean coins.

Unlike the Voynich Manuscript, the scrolls do not contain images or indecipherable language or codes and the text is familiar and understandable.  Experts point to the scrolls as evidence that the Torah was not written after the destruction of the first Beit Hamikdash.

Add in the Dead Sea Scrolls which were written in the later script and the Nash Papyrus, a second century BCE Egyptian manuscript that contains the Ten Commandments and the Shema, and you have irrevocable proof that the holy texts we use today are virtually identical to those that our ancestors read thousands of years ago.  (https://biblearchaeologyreport.com/2019/02/06/the-three-oldest-biblical-texts/)

This is very much the case when it comes to the initial pesukim/verses in this week’s Parasha.

Upon entering the Land of Israel (Canaan), we are instructed to bring our Bikkurim/first fruits in a basket to the Beit Hamikdash.  When you see the Cohen who is designated to deal with this, we make a declaration that we have ‘come into the land that the L-rd swore to our ancestors to give to us’.  Thereupon, the Cohen takes the basket and places it at the foot of the main altar in the Azarah (the courtyard leading to the Bayit/House where the Ark of the Covenant is situated).  We are then instructed to make a declaration that is instantly familiar to us as it forms a part of the Maggid section of the Haggadah and begins with ‘Arami Oved Avi’:

You shall then recite as follows before the L-rd your G-d, “My father was a fugitive Aramean.  He went down to Egypt with just a handful of souls and sojourned there; but there he became a great and very populous nation.  The Egyptians dealt cruelly with us and oppressed us; they imposed heavy labour upon us.  We cried to the L-rd, the G-d of our ancestors, and the -L-rd heard our voice and saw our plight, our misery, and our enslavement.  Gd brought us out from Egypt by a mighty hand, by an outstretched arm and awesome power, and by signs and portents, bringing us to this place and giving us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey.  And so, I now bring the first fruits of the soil that You, O L-rd, have given me.”

You shall leave the basket before the L-rd your G-d and bow low before the L-rd your G-d.

This is a message that we can all relate to, taken from the Torah that is embedded in the DNA of the Jewish people in a language that stems from the dawn of creation.  Indeed, we learn that this is the very same that Gd used to speak to Adam and Eve in Eden.

Like the Voynich Manuscript, the Torah also contains examples of Biblical science (e.g. the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the Ten Plagues), flora and fauna, recipes (Yaakov famously sold his lentil soup to his older twin) and so much more in language that is instantly recognisable, understandable and deeply resonant to humanity.  Who can fail to be moved by Gd’s refusal to allow Moshe Rabbeinu into Eretz Yisrael.

The Voynich Manuscript may hold its secrets for many more decades to come but its relevance (beyond historical puzzlement) is limited to those who want to attempt the challenge that has eluded so many others.

The Torah meanwhile (and by extension, the rest of Tanach) talks to us, teaches us lessons that are as relevant today as they were three millennia ago – without images, indecipherable script, codes and the possibility that the whole tome was written in a fraudulent manner.  The Torah is accessible to anyone at any time at no cost.

I know in which book I would rather invest my time and effort studying!

Shavuah Tov.

Breakfast and Learn at Edgware United Synagogue

Please click on the link to watch the video:

My ancestor, the Noda Biyehuda

Shabbat Nachamu.

My email to the NASUWT

Dear Sir/Madam

I am writing to formally give notice of my immediate resignation as a member of the NASUWT.

One of the reasons I joined the union many years ago was because I was impressed by your even-handed policies regarding Israel and Palestine. 

As a proud Jew and Zionist, I cannot and will not be party to any organisation that can put out a statement on 6th January 2026 that falsely and maliciously accuses Israel, a country that I love and admire of Genocide. 

As you will no doubt be aware, the then Foreign Secretary, David Lammy categorically concluded and stated on 11th September 2025 that there has been no genocide in Gaza. 

In Israel, I met with numerous reliable and respected sources on the ground including journalists, doctors and senior military personnel who confirmed this fact. Yet, you persisted in putting out this pernicious and vexatious statement which perpetuate lies emanating from Hamas, the perpetrators of the greatest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The UNHCR published a report on 27th May 2024 (https://www.un.org/unispal/document/coi-report-a-hrc-56-26-27may24/) stating the following (Part iv. articles 5, 6, 9 and 10):

5. In relation to the attack of 7 October in Israel, the Commission concludes on reasonable grounds that members of the military wings of Hamas and of other Palestinian armed groups, as well as Palestinian civilians who were directly participating in the hostilities, deliberately killed, injured, mistreated, took hostages and committed SGBV against: civilians, including Israeli citizens and foreign nationals; and members of the ISF, including soldiers considered hors de combat, in many locations in southern Israel. These actions constitute war crimes and violations and abuses of IHL and IHRL.

6. The Commission concludes that civilians were intentionally targeted, that the attack was premeditated and planned over a significant period, reflecting a high degree of organisation and coordination, and implemented in several locations at or about the same time. The attacks were led and coordinated by Hamas and implemented by the military wings of Hamas and six other Palestinian factions, with the participation of some Palestinian civilians.

9. The Commission concludes that members of the military wing of Hamas and Palestinian armed groups targeted women, including by wilful killings, abductions, and physical, mental and sexual abuse. These crimes were deliberate and, in several cases, enforced with violence, intentionally causing great suffering and serious injury to the victims. The Commission particularly notes that women were subjected to GBV during the course of their execution or Women and women’s bodies were used as victory trophies by male perpetrators and the abduction, violence and humiliation of women, were put on public display, either on the streets of the Gaza Strip or online.

10. The Commission identified patterns indicative of sexual violence in several locations and concludes that Israeli women were disproportionally subjected to these crimes. The attack on 7 October enabled perpetrators to commit SGBV and this violence was not isolated but perpetrated in similar ways in several locations and by multiple Palestinian perpetrators. 

This is the self-same organisation that NGOs, the media and other interested parties use as their main source of information and upon which, no doubt, you have based your statement.

Additionally, I was appalled to read that last month you passed a private motion on boycotting companies tied to Israeli settlements without prioritising this for debate at conference. I was led to believe that the NASUWT operated in a democratic manner that considered the views of all its members. I fail to understand why such a motion would not have been prioritised for debate at conference. If you really wish to canvas wide opinion, why act in such a secretive manner?

This comes at a time when Jewish children in non-Jewish schools are facing constant antisemitic harassment from fellow students, without schools engaging in wide-ranging education to provide a balanced and nuanced approach to the complicated situation in Israel and Gaza following the Hamas attacks on 7th October 2023 which led to the savage murder, rape and torture of over 1200 people and   kidnapping of 251 into Gaza including babies and children. A number of these, such as the Bibas family were murdered by Hamas during their captivity. 

I am therefore appalled that the NASUWT which claims to represent all its members has acted in such a reckless manner.

You were established to further and protect the rights of teachers and those involved in the teaching profession and not to perpetuate a false narrative that serves to create a tension which promotes racist and antisemitic attitudes and behaviour towards Jewish members of the teaching profession and crucially Jewish children. 

This is not a union that I wish to be part of. 

Kindly rescind my membership as of immediate effect and I will cancel my Direct Debit forthwith. 

Yours sincerely

Rabbi Claude Vecht-Wolf.

Parashat Shelach Lecha: We Have No Other Country

  

Then the Lord spoke to Moshe, “Send men to scout the land of Canaan, which I am going to give to the Israelites, one man from each of their ancestral tribes, each a leader among them.”  So Moshe sent them at the Lord’s command from the Wilderness of Paran.  They were all leading men among the Israelites. [Bamidbar 13.1-2]

There are certain songs that transcend the moment and become much more in that they define an era or take on a status beyond their original form.

One example that comes to mind is Vera Lynn’s ‘We’ll Meet Again’.  It has become synonymous with the Second World War, particularly amongst veterans who fought and tragically lost their comrades during the long and difficult campaigns across the globe.

In our Jewish world, such a status has been bestowed on Yerushalayim Shel Zahav, the song written before the Six Day War but which subsequently (and understandably) came to symbolise the anthem of the reunification of Jerusalem fifty-nine years ago, in tandem with our nation’s four-thousand-year connection to the holy city.

There is another less well-known song that I (and many others) would confer a similar status, particularly in the years following the massacre of 7^th October 2023.

It is called ‘Ein Li Eretz Acheret’ translated as ‘I Have No Other Country’ and it was written in 1982 with words composed by one of Israel’s most respected lyricists, Ehud Manor (d.  2005) and melody by Corinne Allal (d.  2024.)

Gali Atari, a popular singer recorded the song.

She had gained fame as the main vocalist in the group ‘Milk and Honey’ who famously won the Eurovision Song Contest in 1979 in Jerusalem with ‘Halleluyah’.

The (abridged) lyrics are translated thus:

I have no other country

even if my land is aflame

Just a word in Hebrew

pierces my veins and my soul -

With a painful body, with a hungry heart,

Here is my home.

I will not stay silent

because my country has changed her face

 

I will not give up reminding her

And sing in her ears

until she will open her eyes

I have no other country

until she will renew her glorious days

Until she will open her eyes

With a painful body, with a hungry heart,

Here is my home.

Ehud Manor wrote the song in memory of his late younger brother, Yehuda who had been killed in a tank battle against Egypt during the War of Attrition in 1968.  When Gali Atari sang it on her album, ‘Emtza September/Mid September’ in 1986, Israel was deeply divided in the midst of the First Lebanon War and this became its rallying cry and the era’s defining protest song.

A decade later, following the assassination of Yitzchak Rabin, she re-recorded the song for a tribute album by the cream of Israel’s popular artists, called ‘Shalom Chaver/Goodbye My Friend’ (recalling President Clinton’s famous greeting to his close friend at Rabin’s funeral) which came out shortly after the tragedy - one that almost led to a civil war.

It has been voted by the Israeli public as being Ehud Manor’s greatest composition.

More recently, it was the anthem sung by protestors for and against the Israeli Government’s controversial plans for Judicial Reform.  Once again, a country riven by different factions.

And then the ‘7^th October’ happened.

What makes the song so special is that it speaks to all lovers of Israel.  Everyone who considers themselves to be a Zionist, irrespective of their social status, nationality, religious belief or political leaning.  At the heart of the song is the title, ‘Ein Li Eretz Acheret – I have no other country’.

This is it.

I can be British, American, French or Australian but at the end of the day, the only country that I can truly call my own is Israel.  It’s the one place that the authorities cannot expel me from.  They cannot accuse me of having dual loyalties or acting in a subversive manner or throwing any other antisemitic tropes in my direction.

A single word in Hebrew pierces my veins and my soul.

Here and only here is my home.

They were not simple men.  Each was a leader among them.  They were all leading men amongst the Israelites.

So how could ten out of the twelve get it so wrong?  How could they come back and speak Lashon Hara, the worst kind of slander, regarding the land that Gd had promised to us through our patriarchs, Avraham, Yitzchak and Yaakov?  How could they?

And how can our fellow Jews, following the worst massacre since the Shoah, when Israel is under constant attack from nation after nation, do the same in the present day?

No-one who loves and cares about Israel should stay silent when her citizens act in a reckless and immoral manner.

·         An Israeli politician’s atrocious behaviour against the activists on the Flotilla must be condemned in the strongest language.

·         Settlers who violently assault and, in some cases, kill Palestinians or damage or destroy their property must face the strongest remedy under Israeli law, the least of which should be a lengthy custodial sentence.

·         Any member of Israeli society that disgraces the country and by extension the Jewish people, causing a Chillul Hashem, needs to be censured and punished.

How could they, the greatest men of their age get it so wrong?  How can those people I have referred to, act against G-d, the Torah and the land He gave us in perpetuity.  Nothing in our religion sanctions such behaviour and I will argue this to the n^th degree.  This is not the Judaism that I (and many of our co-religionists) want to have any part of.

They are not you and they are not me.

You may not like policies enacted by the current government of Israel, you may not even agree with the way the war has been conducted in all its theatres but how can anyone, who claims to be a lover of Zion, publicly give ammunition to our enemies so that they use it against us?

I will not stay silent because my country has changed her face.

I will not give up reminding her

And sing in her ears

Until she opens up her eyes.

Earlier this month, Stephnie and I visited the Nova Exhibition which was a harrowing experience.

Later that day, we had two speakers at our shul in Bushey.  One, Almog Meir Jan was one of the hostages who was rescued from Gaza by the IDF and Yamam (the elite, national counterterrorism and hostage-rescue unit operating under Israel’s Border Police) on 8^th June 2024 after eight months in captivity.  The chief Inspector, Arnon Zamora was killed leading the operation.

The other speaker was Ben Ladany, a soldier in a canine unit who was shot seven times during Operation Iron Sword in November 2023.  He suffered grievous injuries and was placed in an induced coma for several months but unfortunately his dog, Jack, was killed in the operation.

One of our members asked Ben how Israel, which had constructed the world’s most expensive and sophisticated hi-tech security barrier, could have fallen prey to the horrific events that transpired on that day in October.

He replied that because the Israelis were split over the reforms and disunited as a result, our enemies took advantage of this division. This reminded me of how my father zl used to say that internal discord amongst the Jews was much more of a threat to the State of Israel than anything that our adversaries could envisage. As we found out, he wasn’t wrong.

Those leaders in the desert, and their descendants in the land they reported on, forgot that that they, and we, only have no other country.  That’s it.  Warts and all, Israel is our one and only chance to live freely as Jews, irrespective of what kind of Jews we think we are.  Just because they were the leaders of their tribes didn’t give them the authority to speak ill of the land.

For whatever justified reason (and our Sages state many), they erred and the catastrophic result led to a further thirty-eight years of wandering in the desert and the deaths of thousands of people, most of whom should have entered the Promised Land a few weeks later.

When we, the Jewish people, criticise Israel, we betray the gift that has been given to us by Gd.  It is for this reason (and many more) that I have changed my status on social media so that it reflects my lifelong mission to be a ‘Rabbi, Zionist, Activist for the Jewish People and Israel’.  I will not be silent.

I and we have no other country and until she will renew her glorious days and
until she will open her eyes, with a painful body and with a hungry heart.

We will believe steadfast that, despite everything that happens to her, good or bad, here and only here - is our Jewish home.

Am Yisrael Chai and Shavuah Tov.