Jewish Small Communities Network

The “Manchester Klezmer” band

Susannah Cogger (treasurer)
Fiona Frank (event organiser)
of the Lancaster & Lakes Jewish Community

The Lancaster and Lakes Jewish Community have a new web site…

http://lancslakesjc.blogspot.com/

They also have a music social event coming up this weekend…

Saturday 29th September: Klezmer Dance led by Sue Cooper with band Manchester Klezmer, which will take place on at the Gregson Arts and Community Centre, Moorgate, Lancaster, starting 7.45. Tickets £8 in advance, £10 on the door

Tuesday 25 September 2007 09:00am & 21.30pm BBC Radio 4
Michael Buerk interviews the American journalist, Laura Blumenfeld, who talks about her decision to track down the man who shot her father. Laura was a student when her father, a New York Rabbi, was shot in the head by a Palestinian gunman. Twelve years later she went on an extraordinary journey to find the attacker. When she did find him, she made an astonishing choice to keep her identity secret.

additional link: Womans Hour 2002

Iranian state television is airing a drama series that claims that the Jews reached Palestine because of persecution during World War II.
The series, “A Zero Degree Turn” is aired weekly at prime time. It tells the story of a young Iranian named Habib Parsan, played by a well-known Iranian actor, Shihab Hassini, who goes to Paris to study at university before the war. He befriends a young Jewish woman by the name of Sarah Struk, who fears the growing strength of the Nazis in Germany.
So far the series shows considerable financial investment. It was filmed in Tehran, Budapest and Paris, and includes dozens of actors, some of whose voices are dubbed in Persian.
link: Read article in full

10 mins extract from an early episode
link: further video clips PART 2 :: PART 3

One year on after Israel’s confrontation with Hezbolah, Lisa Goldman entered Beirut via Jordan to make this report for Israeli TV.

Noam Galit is the father of Gilad Shalit, a corporal in the IDF, who has been a captive of Hamas for the last six months.
Noam Galit could be said to represent Israel’s silent majority. Israeli journalist Lisa Goldman has published a fascinating interview with Noam, which you can read on her web site On The Face

Watch these on YouTube

Yonatan Shapira - by Aya Korem

Sagi Zoref & Elad Choen

A new synagogue has been opened in the heart of the German city of Munich, 68 years after Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler ordered its predecessor torn down.

The sacred Jewish scrolls of the Torah were paraded through the streets to the cubic building in the city centre.

The new synagogue is seen as a symbol of the rebirth of Munich’s Jewish community, which was all but wiped out by the Nazis in World War II.

The ceremony came 68 years after the Nazi Kristallnacht anti-Jewish pogrom.

Kristallnacht - “night of broken glass” - was a nationwide wave of assaults on Jews and their property in Germany that preceded the Holocaust.

New synagogue is on Jakobsplatz in the heart of Munich. The design is a reminder of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem and the building is a symbol of rebirth for Germany’s Jews.

German President Horst Koehler was among hundreds of officials and religious leaders at the synagogue inauguration on Thursday.

The synagogue bears the name of its predecessor - Ohel Jakob (Jacob’s Tent).

Construction of the synagogue, along with a Jewish community centre and museum, cost 71.5m euros (£48m; $91.4m).

Some 9,300 Jews now live in Munich - the country’s second largest Jewish community.

At the ceremony President Koehler warned that “still today our dream of a normal Jewish life in Germany clashes with the reality that there is open and latent anti-Semitism and the number of violent acts motivated by right-wing extremism is rising”.

“It is the duty of all of us to get involved and act to prevent people being abused, injured or even murdered due to their religion, origin or appearance,” he said, quoted by Reuters news agency.

(source: bbc.co.uk/news)

Picture legend:
1. Main synagogue
2. Jewish museum
3. Community center

The complex includes a Jewish museum, a meeting centre, offices, school, kindergarten and kosher restaurant, combining facilities previously scattered across the city.

Non-Jewish Germans donated funds for the building and Bavaria’s government contributed 12 million euros, while the municipality of Munich provided 14.5 million euros for the museum and is to pay its running costs. The museum is due to open in late spring 2007.

The front of Oslo’s synagogue was sprayed with bullets on Sunday 17 Sept. No one was injured. Police said more than 10 shots were fired, probably from an automatic weapon, at the synagogue’s faade early Sunday morning.
Bullet holes were clearly visible in the walls of the synagogue after the attack, which was deplored by Joav Melchior, who’s only been rabbi in Oslo for a month.
On Tuesday 19 Sept four men of mixed origins were arrested in connection with the attack.
Despite being a small community, of around one thousand, the shool has heavy security when services are held. Newcomers are only permitted entrance if they show formal identification and armed police patrol the street.
Sunday’s shooting came less than a week after an Italian based Al Qaida plot targeting the site was uncovered.
The Bishop of Oslo, Ole Christian Kvarme, visited the synagogue on Monday along with Justice Minister Knut Storberget, who promised immediate security improvements at the synagogue at state expense.
An unattributed Muslim organisation in Oslo also told Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) on Tuesday that they had sent a letter of sympathy and support to the DMT, claiming they are all minorities in Norway and also should stand together.

Thanks to Lisa Goldman for drawing my attention to these pictures of Beirut’s synagogue. More photos can be seen on this blog