It’s a Zion of the times! Luciana Berger names newborn son
Independent Group MP for Liverpool Wavertree has named second child Zion Benjamin Manny Goldsmith
Francine Wolfisz is the Features Editor for Jewish News.
Independent Group MP Luciana Berger has revealed the much-anticipated name of her newborn son.
Zion Benjamin Manny Goldsmith is the second child for Berger, 37, and her husband, Alistair, as well as a younger brother to their nearly 2-year-old daughter Amelie.
The Liverpool Wavertree MP welcomed her son into the world at the NHS Liverpool Women’s Hospital last Tuesday and took to Twitter to announce they were “brimming with happiness” at his arrival.
While not revealing her reasons for the given names, Zion’s middle name Manny may well be a nod to her great-uncle, trade union official and Labour MP Manny Shinwell, who served as a minister in the government of Ramsay MacDonald and as war secretary under Clement Attlee.
Shinwell was also, notoriously, the last MP to throw a punch in Parliament after taking exception to a Tory MP who suggested that he “get back to Poland”, a dig at his Polish-Jewish roots.
Ms Berger was one of the seven Labour MPs who quit the party on February 18 to found the Independent Group, explaining that she believed Jeremy Corbyn’s party had become “institutionally anti-Semitic”.
Labour’s deputy leader Tom Watson later said it was on “the worst day of shame in the party’s 120-year history” that “a bright, young, female, pregnant MP was bullied out of her own constituency by racist thugs”.
Last week, Mr Corbyn and Theresa May both congratulated Ms Berger on the birth of her son during their exchanges at Prime Minister’s Questions in the House of Commons.
Rabbi Sacks tweeted congratulations, writing: “Mazaltov, mazaltov! Wonderful news. May your new son bring you as much pride as you have given us all.
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