Care chiefs blast PM over Covid remarks

AN EMERGENCY appeal has been launched to protect the 48 headstones in Bath Jewish Burial Ground, the earliest of which dates back to 1812.

The appeal is being made by the Friends of the cemetery, whose chair, Christina Hilsenrath, said that unless £7,000 is raised,many headstones “will not survive another winter”.

She told the JC that the Friends could not find a grant-giving organisation “able to award money quickly enough to enable the work to be carried out before another winter of freeze and thaw”.

The burial ground was needed after Jews began to settle in the city in the 1750s. Following donations from London Jewry, it was extended in 1862 and restored in 1928.

“There is a long tradition of the Jewish community helping to preserve the cemetery,” Ms Hilsenrath told the JC. “We appeal to people to continue that. Once the headstones are lost, they are lost forever.”

The cemetery is open to the public three to four times a year and private visits can be arranged.

Friends of the burial ground are seeking funds to protect the graves

A £60,000 grant has also been sought to convert the cemetery’s outhouse into a Jewish heritage and learning centre to showcase the history of both the site and Bath’s community.

The Leche Trust, a charity supporting conservation projects, has donated funds towards the preservation of the chest tomb of surgeon-dentist

Joseph Sigmond. Although Bath has not had an active synagogue since 1903, a community started meeting again in 2019 — for the first time since 1940.

More than £500 has been raised locally for the cemetery but Ms Hilsenrath said the community was not big enough to contribute significantly.

COMMUNAL CARE home bosses have criticised Prime Minister Boris Johnson as misguided and insensitive for claiming that “too many care homes didn’t really follow the procedures” during the coronavirus outbreak.

There has been widespread anger among care providers over Mr Johnson’s remarks to the BBC. He also said that £600 million of funding for “Covid-compliance” in care homes had been made available — but the care sector needed to be “properly organised and supported”.

Nightingale Hammerson chief executive Helen Simmons said it was “remarkable for him not to be more sensitive.

“It’s important to make sure that statements that are made from politicians are evidence-based.”

She had already received an email from a resident’s relative who was “horrified” by the PM’s comments.

Ms Simmons claimed that when care homes were “really up against it, support wasn’t there” from the government.

“No PPE was made available until way too late — and then very little.” She added that Nightingale House had received only 500 masks from the government and the home had to source 30,000.

Ten per cent of residents at the Clapham home are aged 100 or over.

Two residents had died after testing positive for coronavirus.

Although welcoming the Covidcompliance funding, Ms Simmons pointed out that care homes “can’t backdate it” and could “only use it now”, when the peak of the pandemic had passed.

Paula Peake, chief executive of Jewish Choice in Wembley, branded Mr Johnson’s remarks “clumsy and misguided.

“Comments like this go out far and wide and we are just starting to rebuild as a sector the confidence again of the public,” Ms Peake told the JC.

Despite residents’ relatives being supportive “all the way”, there had been a lot of reputational damage to care homes during the pandemic.

Though there were seven coronavirus deaths at Jewish Choice, Ms Peake said the virus had been “fought off very quickly”.

Public Health England had given the home the “green light” when it came to hygiene and PPE.

Almost 30,000 more care home residents in England and Wales have died during the outbreak than in the same period in 2019.

Around two thirds of those additional deaths have been attributed to coronavirus.

When we were really up against it, support wasn’t there’