A GENTILE REMINDER OF INCREDIBLE BRITISH JEWS

A new film about Sir Nicholas Winton and the Kindertransport highlights Jewish refugees’ outstanding achievements.

With all the anti-semitism around us, I felt compelled to share this article from Nigel Farndale on Wednesday, December 27 2023, 9.00 pm, The Times,

What have the Jews ever given us? Apart from the theory of relativity, the Great American Songbook, psychoanalysis, various medical breakthroughs, including the vaccine against polio and some cool and useful words such as chutzpah and schtick?

Well, there’s comedy, for one thing. The often philosophical and black comedy of self-deprecation, to be specific. And I for one sometimes feel like the gentile dentist in Seinfeld, the one who wants to convert to Judaism “for the jokes”. Example: a Jewish mother is pushing a double pram. A passer-by asks how old her children are. “Well,” the mother says, “the doctor is three, and the lawyer is two.”

My Anglican atheism might be an obstacle to my conversion, but perhaps not an insurmountable one, if I know my Woody Allen. I can trace my “Jew envy” back to my teenage obsession with his films. I still have most of his sizeable collection on video and DVD, including the rubbish ones. Even after the campaign by his unhinged ex-wife to tarnish his reputation, I still always turn to his films whenever I want to cheer myself up.

A disproportionate number of my friends and colleagues over the years have been Jewish — disproportionate because the Jewish population in this country is so small, a mere 0.5 per cent. But the one I’ve been closest to — Damian was my best man, as I was his — is only Jew-ish. His father was technically Jewish but his mother wasn’t, which means he isn’t either, not properly. This became an issue when he fell for a Jewish girl. Her parents, both doctors of course, took a dim view of her “marrying out” (even though Damian is a lawyer). The parental compromise was that they would give their blessing, but only if the wedding service and reception was secular.

I was under strict instructions not to make any allusions to religion in my speech, so I teased Damian that I already had my opening worked out, a variation on a Larry David line, or it might have been Stephen Fry: “Ladies and Gentiles, Shebrews and Hebrews”. By putting me in a headlock, Damian persuaded me that, on balance, it might be best if I didn’t “go there”.

As it turned out, Jewish families enjoy weddings so much that the Jewish theme suddenly and joyously spilled out. It was after the speeches. Someone mischievously asked the band to play Hava Nagila and the next thing I knew I was one of four men who had lifted the laughing and still-seated bride up, a chair leg each, and we were performing a traditional Jewish wedding dance with her.

It’s not just the jokes I like, then, it’s the positive, resilient, big-hearted, can-do spirit. Take Times obituaries. These 1,500-word biographies are mostly a celebration of those who have made an impact in their field, which is why they are so life-affirming. And I’ve noticed how often the American subjects we feature are Jewish, mostly from the arts and entertainment industry, but not always, as with Henry Kissinger a few weeks ago.

Then a Jewish friend pointed out how often we also feature British Jews — again, a disproportionate number, given how small the Jewish population is here, a mere 270,000 or so. As I hadn’t noticed this, I did a quick survey. Three that leapt out from recent months were: Lord (Nigel) Lawson, the influential chancellor whose grandparents were immigrants from Russia and Eastern Europe, Sir Ben Helfgott, the Holocaust survivor who became an Olympic weightlifter, and Uwe Kitzinger, a refugee who became the leading Oxford don in the field of political science.

And then there were those who arrived on these shores as children, on the Kindertransport trains. These are the stories that have really left me gasping in admiration. Sir Erich Reich, for example, arrived here with nothing, set up a hugely successful tour company and became a prominent philanthropist; Professor Sir Guenter Treitel became a leading QC; Vera Gissing, an acclaimed translator; and Inge Bernstein, a top barrister; while Ingrid Wuga founded a thriving catering business; and Gerda Mayer and Kathe Strenitz both made waves in the arts.

All arrived here as children without their parents, often with just the clothes they stood up in, most not knowing how to speak the language, and yet they ended up making a significant enough contribution to British life to warrant an obituary in the paper of record.

Some of their stories will no doubt feature in One Life, a film I’m looking forward to watching next week when it is released. It stars Sir Anthony Hopkins as Sir Nicholas Winton, the man who saved 669 Jewish children from the Nazis, bringing them here on the Kindertransport. One of “Winton’s Children”, as they call themselves, is Lord (Alf) Dubs, the author of the Dubs amendment to enable today’s unaccompanied child refugees to come to Britain.

It was their ability to make the best of a bad situation that I really admire, with their creativity, intelligence and drive. And this is reflected in another joke, that every Jewish festival can be summarised as: “They tried to kill us, they failed, let’s eat!”

Another characteristic of Jewish immigrants seems to be their willingness to assimilate; not only that but their tendency to become loyal compatriots who insist on singing God Save the King as well as the Hatikvah. While researching a novel a few years ago, about a British Jew who competes in the Berlin Olympics, I visited a Jewish cemetery in Southsea and found the perfect metaphor for this assimilated Anglo-Jewish community. The gravestones had inscriptions on two sides. On the side facing the road, the inscription was in English. On the back it was in Hebrew. It was a local custom, apparently: they wanted to be seen as integrated on the outside, while maintaining a discreet Jewish identity on the inside. L’Chaim! I thought. To life!

And my wish for 2024

From the river to the sea

May we live in harmony.

And those that started a war

Be shown the exit door.

?May the leaders of our nations,

Seek peace and reconciliation.

No more to cause us strife,

For every man and wife.

May our children be colour-blind,

And seek only to be good and kind.

At the closing of the year

May we all be of good cheer.

And live 2024

With those that we adore.