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Our Newest Members
Lord Mendelsohn, President, and the Vice-Presidents of the Commonwealth Jewish Council are delighted to announce that Jewish communities in Cameroon, Grand Cayman, Grenada, Guernsey 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.
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
On a grey day, the streets around Big Ben, Parliament and Westminster Hall were alive with the colour and inspiration when the Commonwealth manifests itself. A third of the world’s population - 56 nations - have chosen to come together to explore and address common concerns. His Majesty King Charles (who for once was not present due to undergoing cancer treatment,) nevertheless sent a message and noted that we no longer all share a common history, but we come together over common ambitions. May they succeed for the benefit of our children and our children’s children.
Rabbi Netanel Kaszovitz visits Uganda for some teaching....."I just came back from Uganda last week after a very productive visit of teaching, Shechita, guiding and counselling, and a lot of work on the marriage programme"
