Why you’ve probably never heard of Robert Smallbones.

By Glen BerdNo Comments
A British diplomat who saved some 40,000 Jews This is Robert Smallbones, career civil servant and diplomat, and his wife Inga. Between November 1938 and the outbreak of WW2, they helped OVER FORTY THOUSAND Jews escape the Nazis and get to Britain. Robert Smallbones was the child of Austrian parents, who'd emigrated to Britain before he was born. He went to Oxford, then joined the Foreign Office. There he made a name as a competent diplomat and all round friendly chap. In 1932, the Foreign Office sent him to Munich. More jobs in Germany followed until, by 1938 he was the British Consul-General in Frankfurt. Throughout that time, Smallbones and his family witnessed the growing Nazi horror. He wrote warnings to the FO about it constantly. Smallbones wasn't the only person in the Frankfurt Consulate horrified by this. His daughter once horse-whipped a Gestapo officer to try and prevent him taking a Jewish man off the street. By 1938, Consulate staff were also already secretly offering...
Read More

My Grandma, The Spy

By Glen BerdNo Comments
My grandma was a Holocaust survivor — and a secret WWII spy Zentelis lived with her grandmother, Bella Vital-Tihanyi (in photos), for a while but had no clue of the woman's past.  Stefano Giovannini     Enid Zentelis thought she knew everything about her grandmother, Bella Vital-Tihanyi — a Hungarian Holocaust survivor, mother of two and late-in-life avowed nudist who died in 1998. “She was my rock,” said Zentelis, who traveled the world with Bella and even lived with her for a time. Zentelis believed that Bella, born in 1915, had a straightforward war story. A neighbour turned in Bella as a Jew, and she spent several months in a Budapest prison. She survived the Nazi regime thanks to fake papers claiming she was a Swedish citizen waiting to go home. But Zentelis’ view changed in 2017 when the filmmaker and NYU professor, now 49, was going through her grandmother’s effects and came across a letter dated November 1945. It was from the wartime Allied Control Commission, thanking Bella...
Read More

Rabbi’s Corner – Inner Transformation vs Compartmentalisation

By Glen Berd1 Comment
Rabbi Surgery Please note that the Rabbi is available to meet congregants on Monday and Thursday. Please call 07917 548 386 if you would like an appointment.   Rabbi's Corner - Inner Transformation vs Compartmentalisation  The word Tzaraat is translated as a Leper but in truth this is a mistranslation most likely rooted in the Septuagint. See here for great article on this https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/is-a-metzora-the-same-as-a-leper-tazria-metzora/ by Daniel Kennemer founder of Mt Carmel Arabic Immersion. Hence, we will not translate the word and for this article we simply refer to Tzaraat as the affliction and Metzorah as the person with the affliction. The Torah's description of the Metzorah affliction is rather perplexing as it effects both the skin, people’s garments and even their homes. The person afflicted must leave the camp (only once the Kohen diagnoses the Tzaraat) and quarantine in total isolation until the affliction subsides. Prior to purification the Metzorah would be considered a source of spiritual impurity and if you came into contact with a Metzorah, you would become...
Read More

Mayer Hersh MBE (31 August 1926 – 8 October 2016)

By Glen Berd1 Comment
Auschwitz survivor who became a significant voice in Holocaust education after settling in Manchester in the UK After liberation, Mayer Hersh came to Britain with a Jewish refugee group and lived initially in the Lake District. Photograph: David Levene/The Guardian   Mayer Hersh, who died aged 90, became in the last 30 years of his life one of the foremost UK-based witnesses to the Holocaust. That he had lived to tell his story at all was little short of miraculous.   Nearly eighty years ago, Mayer Hersh was separated from his family in the Sieradz ghetto and went on a journey through numerous concentration camps, one of them being the Birkenau of Auschwitz Birkenau. He survived eighteen months at the heart of Birkenau and counted the trains arriving full, and the trains departing empty. And he saw the crematoria working 24/7, and "the smoke from the chimneys, all the time, the smoke from the chimneys." They could not have children, and towards the end of his life...
Read More

Yom HaZikaron 2021: Memories of the Fallen Never Fade

By Glen BerdNo Comments
Yom HaZikaron is a day of remembrance for all those who died in service protecting Israel, and latterly to all civilian victims of terrorist violence. Yom HaZikaron 2021: Memories of the Fallen Never Fade Israeli soldiers stand still during the ceremony marking Remembrance Day for Israel's fallen soldiers and victims of terror, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem's Old City, on April 13, 2021. A minute-long siren at 8 pm on Tuesday announced the start of one of the most difficult days in the Israeli calendar: Yom HaZikaron, Israel’s Memorial Day, the day of remembering the 23,928 people who gave their lives fighting for and defending the State of Israel, including victims of terror. All commercial venues closed at 7 pm in commemoration of the fallen. The siren followed a remembrance ceremony several hours earlier at the Yad LaBanim House in Jerusalem. Right after the siren, the country’s national service was held at the Western Wall Plaza in Jerusalem. The day, continuing into Wednesday, is marked by...
Read More

The Holocaust Twins

By Glen BerdNo Comments
Eva Mozes Kor - Holocaust Survivor Kept This Secret Hidden For 40 Years When the Nazi’s deported Eva Mozes to Auschwitz, she was forced to suffer unimaginable cruelty as the subject of human injections. Now 40 years later, Eva reveals the secret behind her astonishing story of survival. What happened to Eva during the Holocaust? And how did she break free? https://youtu.be/Hk87MXtt5qg...
Read More

HRH Prince Philip 1921-2021. RIP

By Glen BerdNo Comments
HRH Prince Philip, Queen Elizabeth II's husband, has died aged 99, Buckingham Palace has announced. The prince married Princess Elizabeth in 1947, five years before she became Queen, and was the longest-serving royal consort in British history. May He Rest In Peace.   Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has paid the following tribute to Prince Philip who died this morning: “On behalf of the Jewish communities of the Commonwealth, I send our most profound condolences to Her Majesty The Queen and the Royal Family on the passing of His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. "Over seven decades, he provided steadfast support to The Queen and gave exceptional service to our nation. We express our gratitude for all he has done for Britain and the Commonwealth. "I enjoyed immensely my personal conversations with the Duke of Edinburgh, during which I was deeply moved by his extraordinary sense of duty. A remarkable Royal, working well into his 90s, he became a role model for staying active in one’s...
Read More

Rabbi’s Corner – Living for a higher purpose beyond self

By Glen BerdNo Comments
Rabbi's Corner - Living for a higher purpose beyond self This week we read of the 8th day of the inauguration of the Tabernacle (Mishkan) where Hashem's presence resided. Numbers in Judaism have great significance. God creator of the universe is the greatest mathematician of all. The relationship between numbers that exists within nature is truly awe inspiring. Even more inspiring is the fact that the grey matter of our brains can fathom the underlying laws of creation in the language of numbers. The number 8 in Judaism is particularly significant. We just had Seder night that ended with a song about numbers from 1 to 13. Just as science has discovered fundamental constants within nature, there are also 13 fundamental "spiritual" constants "So who knows 8? I know 8. 8 are the days in which a baby is born and 7 are the days of the week (Whoo Haa! if you sing it the American way!) 7 in other words represents creation and everything within it....
Read More