Justin Cohen

1 week ago | jewishnews.co.uk | Justin Cohen

Most of us have never met Emily Damari but, during the 471 days of her captivity in Gaza, we adopted her as our own. We cried with her brave mother Mandy at rallies, we plastered the streets of Britain with her poster and we prayed for her return, our hopes rising and falling with each headline about a possible hostage deal. So when Spurs fans adapted the club’s traditional chant to ‘she’s one of our own’ to amplify calls for the return of their fellow supporter, it seemed especially fitting.

1 week ago | jewishnews.co.uk | Justin Cohen

A year-long search for social action “changemakers” to better the Jewish and wider worlds for decades to comes is launched this week by JW3, media partnered by Jewish News. The community centre is urging community members from teachers to students and artists to entrepreneurs with ideas to tackle the greatest challenges of the day to come forward for its first Social Action Incubator, Move Fast and Mend Things Things.

1 week ago | jewishnews.co.uk | Justin Cohen

Jonny Greenwood has hit out at those who forced the cancellation of two UK gigs with an Israeli musician and accused those calling for freedom of expression for rap group Kneecap of double standards. The June concerts by the Radiohead star and his long-term collaborator Dudu Tassa at Bristol’s Beacon and London’s Hackney Church were pulled last week, with the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel tweeting it would have whitewashed the “genocide” of Gaza.

3 weeks ago | jewishnews.co.uk | Justin Cohen

There was just one topic that dominated conversation in the UK Jewish community last week. On Wednesday, 36 members of the community’s representative body, the Board of Deputies came out in condemnation of Israel’s continued war in Gaza. The signatories claim that no key communal leader is speaking for them and they can no longer hold their tongue in the defence of Jewish values. Criticism has focused not just on the content of the letter – but also on the way they chose to air their feelings.

2 months ago | jewishnews.co.uk | Justin Cohen

Wes Streeting insisted that JLGB “matters now more than ever” amid rising antisemitism as Lord Levy urged the community not to take friends in government “for granted”. The youth movement marked its 130th anniversary with a reception in Parliament on Monday, which also featured the oldest members of the group and one of its youngest leaders, aged 100 and 18.