Holocaust survivors and Jewish educators recognised in King’s first Birthday Honours List
King Charles’ first such list since his accession to the throne recognises a number of celebrated members of the Jewish community.
Jenni Frazer is a freelance journalist
This year’s Birthday Honours List — King Charles’ first such list since his accession to the throne last September — recognises a number of members of the Jewish community for activities associated with the Holocaust and education.
Three people have been awarded CBEs for their work — Laura Marks, founder of Mitzvah Day, who has been recognised for her work in inter-faith relations, Holocaust and genocide commemoration, and the empowerment of women; and David Lewis and Anne Webber, who co-founded the Commission for Looted Art in Europe in 1999, and who have been listed for their services in restituting artworks looted by the Nazis.
Anne Webber told Jewish News: “This is a just wonderful honour for both me and David. I feel profoundly honoured, both personally and on behalf of our organisation. It is a hugely significant recognition of the importance of returning looted art and of highlighting the injustice of those brutal thefts. Our work is never just about an object, but of returning lives and families to the historical record”.
Ms Marks, whose previous OBE honour has been upgraded, said: “There is no doubt that this honour belongs not to me but to the thousands of volunteers, survivors, women, campaigners, staff members, trustees, broadcasters, family members and funders who have made my work over many years possible. I’m indebted to every one of them and hope that this recognition encourages more people to support our vital work to make our world safer, cleaner and fairer.” She is the co-founder of the Muslim-Jewish women’s network, Nisa-Nashim, and chairs the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
Five Holocaust survivors have been recognised for their services to Holocaust education. Four — Dr Martin Kapel, Rolf Penzias, Ike Alterman and Jacques Weisser — will receive the BEM, or British Empire Medal, while Suzanne Rapaport-Ripton is made MBE.
Ike Alterman, who came to Britain as one of the Windermere “Boys”, said he was “incredibly proud” of the honour, adding that “at the age of 95, I am as committed as ever to continue this crucial work with people of all ages”.
Raphi Bloom and Juliette Pearce of The Fed in Manchester, who nominated Ike for his award, said: “We are delighted and proud that Ike has been recognised by the King for his indefatigable work in the field of Holocaust education and awareness over the past five years. We see at first-hand, through The Fed’s My Voice project, just how much effort he puts into this work and the immense impact he has on thousands of people of all ages by sharing his life story. Continuing to do this at the age of 95 makes it even more incredible. Mazaltov, Ike!”
Two rabbis have been awarded MBEs — Rabbi Alan Plancey, former minister of Borehamwood and Elstree Synagogue, and Rabbi Shlomo Levin, senior rabbi at United Synagogue’s South Hampstead Synagogue.
Michael Newman, chief executive of the Association of Jewish Refugees, said: “We are so thrilled that these remarkable stalwarts of our community, and fellow members of the Association of Jewish Refugees, have been recognised for their dedication and contributions to Holocaust education and remembrance. They all give of themselves, so that communities throughout the country have the opportunity to hear from an eye-witness to the crimes of the Nazis.”
Anita Parmar, who heads the Holocaust Educational Trust’s Lessons from Auschwitz Project, has been awarded an OBE. The scheme, founded in 1999, has taken 41,000 teachers and students to the former concentration camp since its inception, in a unique programme supported by the Department for Education in England and the Scottish and Welsh governments.
Two rabbis have been awarded MBEs — Rabbi Alan Plancey, former minister of Borehamwood and Elstree Synagogue, and Rabbi Shlomo Levin, senior rabbi at United Synagogue’s South Hampstead Synagogue.
Scots-born Rabbi Plancey, 82, described his MBE, for political and public service, as “an absolute honour”, and said it reflected the appreciation of the wider community of the contribution of British Jews. “When I retired at 66 I entered politics”, he said, “and I have been mayor [of Hertsmere] twice. I’m also an honorary alderman. I would never have been able to do these things without the support of my wife and children, so this award is as much for them”. Rabbi Plancey’s son and daughter-in-law, Meir and Rachely, founded Camp Simcha.
Rabbi Levin, originally from South Africa, has been recognised “for services to interfaith and the Jewish community in Camden”. He and his wife Lynndy have provided rabbinical leadership at South Hampstead since 1984, with his son and daughter-in-law Rabbi Eli and Lauren Levin joining the “family business”. Rabbi Shlomo also teaches at the London School of Jewish Studies.
Emily Reuben, co-founder of the national charity Duchenne UK, has been awarded an OBE for her services in helping people with Duchenne muscular dystrophy. Both she and her co-founder Alex Johnson have been recognised for their work in setting up Duchenne UK in 2012, and leading it over the last 11 years. Both women have sons suffering from the condition, for which there is currently no cure.
Ms Reuben, who is chief executive of Duchenne UK, is a former reporter for CNN International and Channel 4 News, roles she gave up to help launch the charity. She said: “I am honoured to receive this award. I accept it not for myself, but on behalf of everyone at Duchenne UK. Without the support of Duchenne patients, their families, doctors and academics we could not have changed the world in the way that we are doing”.
Tania Cohen, chief executive of the charity 360 Giving, has been awarded an MBE for her “services to charity and social justice”. From a Sephardi family, she said she was “really privileged” to work for the charity, which she joined in 2020.
She has spent 25 years of her career working in the charitable sector, including time with — among others — the British Red Cross and Shelter, as well as being a trustee or holding a senior committee role with BBC Children in Need and the Fawcett Society, and a number of women’s aid charities.
She said: “I feel privileged to do the work that I do and lucky to have had the opportunity to work with so many amazing charities and colleagues. This honour is in recognition of all the committed and passionate people who inspire and motivate me to do the work I do every day”.
Also awarded an MBE is Professor Bencie Woll of University College London, in recognition of her services to higher education and deaf people. Professor Woll, a member of London’s New West End Synagogue, is originally from New York and became Britain’s first professor of sign language in 1995. She was founder and director of UCL’s Deafness, Cognition and Language Research Centre and is a specialist in researching British Sign Language (BSL). She told Jewish News that the timing of the award could not have been more appropriate since the Department of Education chose the same day to announce a public consultation on offering BSL as a GCSE subject.
In Cambridge, Professor David Abulafia was celebrating his CBE award. An emeritus professor of Mediterranean history at Cambridge University, he has been honoured for his services to scholarship. He described the giving of the award as “heartwarming — it’s really very nice to be recognised for scholarship. I’m really pleased”.
A maritime historian, Professor Abulafia comes from a venerable Sephardi family, whom he can trace back in a direct line to the expulsion of Jews from Spain in 1492. Some of his ancestors, he said, were rabbis and textile merchants in Safed, after fleeing Spain; by the 18th century other forebears were helping to re-settle Tiberias.
Currently working on a book about the Black Sea, the professor — like many of the honorees — observed how happy he was to have been included in the king’s first birthday honours list.
Dr Natalie Shenker, co-founder of the Human Milk Foundation charity, has also been awarded an MBE. The charity, based at Rothamsted Institute in Harpenden (Hertfordshire) provides donor human milk to sick, premature babies in hospital neonatal intensive care units.
Susy Stone, the former head of Akiva School and before that of Bell Lane School in Hendon, has been awarded a BEM for her services to education.
Three other awards appear in the honours list with a loose Jewish connection: the late novelist Martin Amis, the film director Stephen Frears, and the British Commissioner for Public Appointments, writer and broadcaster William Shawcross.
All three were given knighthoods. Amis, who died last month, is survived by his widow, Isabel Fonseca, a Jewish American writer with whom he had two daughters, who were brought up Jewish.
Frears, the director of films such as My Beautiful Laundrette and Dangerous Liaisons, as well as numerous TV programmes, is the son of a Jewish mother and an Anglican father. He has said he did not know that his mother was Jewish until he was in his late 20s. He told the Evening Standard: “I suspect it was a form of rebellion against her own parents. But when I found out I was Jewish I found it … not consoling, exactly, but a big part of the puzzle dropped into place”.
William Shawcross, who formerly headed the Charity Commission, is a member of the consortium that fronted the secret purchase of the Jewish Chronicle in 2020. He is the son of the renowned barrister Sir Hartley Shawcross, the leading prosecutor at the immediate post-war Nuremberg trials of senior Nazi figures.
The new Sir William Shawcross has been an outspoken critic of former Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn and a passionate Israel supporter, taking part in a whistle stop tour of the country last month led by Dame Vivien Duffield. He has lent his voice, too, to the new organisation, UK Israel Future Projects, which launched recently, with a highly emotional appeal on behalf of Israel.
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