The United Synagogue

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Issue 43

Shalom and welcome to JEDmail 43!

I remember my school history teacher often asking us to do a cartoon of historical events at the end of pieces of work. I would always try and make it funny, because I associated (and still do) the word cartoon with humour. This was important as I couldn't (and still cannot) draw for toffee. He would often tell me that they didn't have to be funny, just explain something about the situation that we were learning about.

Well, cartoons are really no longer funny and have proved to be downright dangerous. Countries have no or little control over an inflammatory press, and then refuse to apologise when obvious hurt and harm has been caused. However, there does seem to be the obvious discrepancy from those who are complaining about anti-Muslim cartoons, when there have been the most horrendous anti-Jewish/anti-Zionist cartoons around for the last twenty years.

The winner of last years political cartoon awards in the UK was a terrible parody of Ariel Sharon, supposedly kissing but actually eating babies, reminiscent of blood libels and the worst caricatures of Jews that we have known. And we are now to be reminded of these by a competition to find the worst holocaust cartoon, launched by Iran’s largest paper.

The Iranian paper argues that those who allowed the anti-Muslim cartoons can surely have no problem with the Holocaust/anti-Jewish cartoons and to be honest, you can see their point. The thing that they don't get is that these cartoonists and their supporters hate Zionists (Jews?) as much as they hate Muslims.
So, if you hurt somebody you don't have to say sorry and cartoons are not funny anymore. That does seem to be a pretty miserable world to grow up in.

However, as the Chief Rabbi said in his Thought for the Day last week:
"Many schools I visit have children from as many as forty or fifty different countries. And the children I meet have a wisdom that sometimes we adults lack. They feel enlarged, not threatened, by diversity. They know not to assault someone else's deeply held convictions. ... they know that each of us cares deeply about something but not the same thing; and they try to respect that fact."

That does really put the pressure on us as teachers, but as the late, great Ted Wragg put it so succinctly:

"There is no higher calling. Without teachers, society would slide back into primitive squalor"

So we really need, at the same time, to both celebrate and take stock of our position in our community, society and the world. It is us who will make the difference as to whether the next generation are prepared to let the world continue in this state.

To that end, I urge you all to consider two courses of action.
Firstly, to take advantage of the situation and use it an obvious opportunity to show some real-life examples of what happens when we ignore issues around Shmirat Halashon and Halbanat Panim and how to try to observe them in a positive way in our lives.

Secondly, to highlight the work of good teachers and schools. Here in the UK, the Teaching Awards give us the opportunity to do just that (If you have a local equivalent, please take part in it and if not, try starting one). Every good teacher, learning assistant, headteacher, governor and school should be nominated so that we can publicly recognize the tremendous good that they are doing for us now and hopefully for all of us in the future.


Wishing you a relaxing break
JEDMASTER

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