Brigadier Simon Bell is handed the Sefer Torah by Lieut Eugene Berger

I am standing together with a unique Jewish congregation. It is largely made up of Jewish serving members of the British armed forces at a dedication service in memory of Lt Paul Mervis, of Second Battalion, The Rifles, who died in an explosion in June 2009 while trying to protect his platoon during a foot patrol in Afghanistan’s Northern Helmand province. Paul’s family are seated in the front row of the assembly.

L to R: Jean Etherton, Ralph Hofmann, Claude Bloch, Barbara Nathan and Valerie Bello

To watch a video of the event please click http://youtu.be/PN8xW5Sjmio

It is perhaps Ralph Hofmann who has really got to the core of why B’nai B’rith’s Heritage Days events are so important to diaspora Jewry. Ralph, who is the BBE President, was speaking at a presentation ceremony honouring  Valerie Bello and Barbara Nathan for their joint efforts in organising this increasingly popular cross-communal event and achieving a success which has led to around ninety different events being staged each September in the UK.

 He told an audience of around eighty BB members and individuals closely associated with the events that he considered Heritage Days to be the most important project in which the organisation is involved. He also remarked how serious he considers the spread of anti-Semitism in Europe today leading to a view that the presentation to both Jewry and, possibly more importantly, the wider community of the outstanding Jewish contribution to European culture is one of the ways of countering this threat. It was also, he said, a source of great pride that unlike our European counterparts who hold the event in one day, here in the UK the numerous happenings are spread over a fourteen day period involving a great deal of organisational effort

Ranging from the approaches to the Negev to the foothills of Mount Hermon, the third and latest of BBUK’s arranged missions to Israel could certainly claim to have covered impressive distances.  On the last night before departing for home, the 29-strong party sat around in a circle and reviewed their own personal highlights. By common agreement, the tour, entitled appropriately enough The Real Israel, was deemed to have certainly justified its title by the sheer scope and variety of its programme.

Not surprisingly, our group found the visit to Qiryat Gat particularly moving. This is the development town which has been the focus of a major part of BBUK's fund raising during the last 30 years. Originally, a development town at the northern gateway to the Negev, Qiryat Gat had a population of 20000 in 1990 which has since risen to over 55000. This increase is mainly due to the 30000 immigrants from 40 different origins, including Ethiopia, Russia and Central Asia, which has given the town an unemployment figure which at times has touched 13%. Good to learn, though, that the electronic giant Intel has established a massive presence in the town giving welcome employment to IT workers but that does not replace the loss of the textile factory run by Polgat. In a way, the dilemma of the town parallels the problems faced all over the western world: the transference of labour intensive industry to the Far East