Commonwealth Jewish Council

Purpose

The Commonwealth Jewish Council supports and protects Jewish communities within the Commonwealth and advances Commonwealth interests with campaigns, projects and shared Jewish values.

The CJC would not exist without our 38 communities, across the Commonwealth and from five continents. Together with our communities and on their behalf we work hard to ensure all are able to celebrate the Jewish religion, culture and maintain Jewish life safely. We do this through a number of ways, from funding Jewish programming, diplomatic engagement and campaigning.

Over thirty are across Africa, Asia and the Caribbean holding our most small and vulnerable communities often operating in dangerous environments, and some carrying out Jewish practices without a synagogue building or a Rabbi to offer any leadership and guidance. The resilience and energy of these communities are truly remarkable.

Focus of Activities

The CJC stands with Israel

Whatever your views on the complexities of the Middle East, all civilized people must be shocked by the savage inhumanity of the terrorist organisation Hamas's brutal, murderous rampage in Israel on October 7th. This was not warfare, nor a fight for freedom.

It was a simply designed to be, and was a massacre of Jews - babies, children, women and men, living ordinary lives, eating breakfast, enjoying a concert, working in the fields.

Our hearts go out to Israeli victims, Jews and non-Jews, as well as the innocent Palestinians in Gaza who have lost their lives as a consequence of this war that was started by Hamas' brutal attack and then left callously unprotected.

We also pray for the swift and safe return of the hostages, over a hundred of them, still held by Hamas and its allies in Gaza after more than a hundred days of terror.

Current Programmes

News


Commonwealth Day Monday 11th March 2024

What makes a people 'resilient'?

 

From the Jewish experience, it's not necessarily happening to have wonderful resources. Often Jews have been deeply impoverished and for millennia they anyway didn't have a place to call their own.

 

It's not about having friends who will sustain you.  Jews can easily remember feeling pretty friendless, and some feel that still today.

 

From Jewish history, the message seems to come back, that the first requirement for a resilient future is hope.

 

A community needs confidence that it will win through. It needs a vision of itself into the future and a determination to make this happen, regardless of current conditions.

 

For many, especially in small island nations, that must be incredibly difficult to sustain right now, with the pressure of rising sea levels and increasingly destructive weather events buffeting them. But simply struggling from crisis to crisis is necessarily exhausting.

 

Instead, we in the Commonwealth Jewish Council stand with them in the battle to create, articulate and project their vision for the future, built on their own confidence in themselves, that the future is theirs and they intend to grab it with both hands.

 

Let us all, on this Commonwealth Day, commit anew to helping these highly challenged states build their resilience of spirit and inspire us all. This is not a hopeless challenge.

 

It's exactly the opposite.

 

Clive A Lawton OBE JP

CEO - CJC


Welcome to our newest members

Lord Mendelsohn, President, and the Vice-Presidents of the Commonwealth Jewish Council are delighted to announce that Jewish communities in Cameroon, Guernsey and Grand Cayman have recently affiliated to the CJC. 

The CJC is a growing, vibrant family and we are proud to be represented across even more of the Commonwealth. We will continue to advocate on behalf of all of our communities, and on issues affecting us all.