Wartime singer Vera Lynn ‘will be mourned by the Jewish community and beyond’

Wartime entertainer Dame Vera Lynn will be “mourned by the Jewish community and far beyond.”

So said Mike Bluestone, the chairman of the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (AJEX), who was among those in the community to pay tribute to the beloved artist who died earlier today at 103, surrounded by family.

Dame Vera, who was best known for her 1939 song ‘We’ll Meet Again’, “helped not just our troops but also the wider community get through the dark times of the Second World War and her passing will be mourned by the Jewish community and far beyond,” he said.

Bluestone recalled how his late father, Isidore, and his uncle Bill, both Second World War veterans, would describe “how moved and lifted their spirits were by Vera Lynn’s songs.”

Joining a chorus of praise for Dame Vera, Karen Pollock, chief executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, hailed the “special lady”, saying in a tweet on Thursday that she was a “British icon and source of hope and resilience”.

Read more: Five Jewish reasons to love the late, great Dame Vera Lynn