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Leap of faith: Remembrance
Jewish identity is woven with our British identity
At last year’s AJEX Remembrance Parade, I had the privilege of laying the wreath at the Cenotaph in memory of Jewish chaplains who have served in the British Armed Forces. I did so wearing the rabbinic gown that belonged to my grandfather, Reverend Dr Isaac Levy, who volunteered as an army chaplain in 1939 and went on to serve as Senior Jewish Chaplain. This year, inspired by the AJEX Family Medals Campaign, I will also (on my right-hand side) wear his medals.
I will not be alone. Many of us have something in our family that tells part of the story of the war. Medals, a photograph of someone in uniform, a letter kept long after anyone can remember the person who wrote it. I keep as a cherished possession a copy of the small prayerbook for Jewish sailors and soldiers that my grandfather had used during the war. Last year, in Belsen with AJEX for the 80th anniversary of the liberation, I read a prayer from this book. The same words would have been familiar to Jewish men and women in uniform, most of whose names I will never know.
At the Cenotaph on Sunday, some of us will be thinking of someone we knew. Others will pay tribute to a distant relative whose name they first heard from a parent or grandparent and there will be people there with no family connection to the Armed Forces. The parade belongs to all of us, an expression of our shared memory.
In the Book of Deuteronomy, we find a powerful articulation of Jewish collective memory, familiar to us from Seder night. In time to come, we are told, your children will ask you “what mean the laws, decrees and rules that the Eternal your God has given to you?” We answer, “avadim hayinu” – we were slaves. Jewish memory includes us all. In every generation, we place ourselves in direct relation to events through which we did not live and we do so as a collective. Public remembrance gives individual stories a meaning for us all. Together we affirm that our Jewish identity is woven with our British identity – part of our shared story.
This Sunday, for the first time, members of the Movement for Progressive Judaism will march together under our movement’s banner. Some of our synagogues have been taking part for years and will also march under their own. As a movement, we build on what those communities have done. We can bring more people to the parade and give veterans and their families more opportunities to tell their stories in our synagogues. I am proud that we will march in the company of Jews from across the community. We come from different congregations and traditions, and each of us has a part in preserving this history.
I have the extraordinary privilege of honouring my grandfather’s service. At the AJEX parade, for an afternoon in Whitehall, we remember one another’s families as well as our own.
Rabbi Josh Levy is Co-Lead of the Movement for Progressive Judaism
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