For the JN by Jenni Frazer Nov 8 2021 Two Jewish women, TV presenters Victoria Coren Mitchell and Claudia Winkleman, have been lending support to Richard Ratcliffe, the husband of Iranian hostage Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, as he pursues a life-threatening hunger strike in central London. This week he asked the Jewish community to lend its backing […]
For the JC by Jenni Frazer Nov 2020 The year is 1841 — coincidentally the same year as the JC was established — and we are on a ship bound for Tasmania, sailing from London. And the passengers? One hundred and eighty women, all convicted of a variety of petty crimes. It’s a long journey […]
For JN December 2020 Martin Scorsese, one of the world’s leading film directors, has warmly accepted an invitation to teach a masterclass at Tel Aviv’s prestigious Steve Tisch film and television school when coronavirus restrictions are lifted globally. Mr Scorsese made his pledge in an hour-long discussion with lecturers and students of the film school, […]
For the JC July 2020 A 16-year campaign to recognise the Jewish heritage of a Battle of Britain pilot has ended in disappointment, after the Battle of Britain monuments team ruled out any change to its memorial in London. Geoffrey Ernest Goodman was born in Haifa, on August 10 1920, when Palestine was ruled by […]
For the JN by Jenni Frazer Dec 2019 Slowly, and almost by stealth, the strictly Orthodox world is changing. And nowhere is that more apparent than in Israel and the vexed question of getting Charedi men into the workplace, something that was previously unthinkable, but is now, gradually, becoming more and more acceptable. One man […]
Rory Stewart for JN Oct 2019 from Jenni Frazer Politician Rory Stewart is said to speak up to 11 languages, but until now Yiddish has not featured on the list. And yet Mr Stewart, one of 21 MPs thrown out of the Conservative Party over Brexit disagreements, and who has now declared his intention to […]
Column JN Sep 6 2019 by Jenni Frazer Sometimes it seems as though we reach out to mark anniversaries when the present-day news is almost too much to handle. It’s safer, somehow, to look back: the outbreak of the First World War, the handing over of the Balfour Declaration, the Armistice… And now we are […]
Gordon Brown for Jewish News July 8 2019 Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown has called for a radical overhaul of Britain’s methods of combatting racism, including the Labour Party agreeing a raft of tough new measures to tackle antisemitism. In a barnstorming speech given on Sunday at Hampstead Synagogue, the 17th annual Isaiah Berlin Lecture, […]
Dweck and Pepys by Jenni Frazer for the JC June 27 2018 A leading Sephardi rabbi has made an extraordinary social media apology for a comment he made about the 17th century diarist, Samuel Pepys. Rabbi Joseph Dweck, senior rabbi of the S & P community in London, had picked up on an entry in […]
Barak for JN May 29 2018 by Jenni Frazer Ehud Barak’s memoir has a what-it-says-on-the-tin title: “My Country, My Life, Fighting for Israel, Searching for Peace”. Israel’s 10th prime minister, from 1999 to 2001, is still, at 76, the joint most highly decorated soldier in Israel’s history, and it is clear that the one-time kibbutznik […]