‘It’s important to find light in times of darkness’: how London’s Jewish centre has dealt with war in Gaza
When the curtain falls for the final time on Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Pig, Britain’s first professional Jewish pantomime, which ends on Sunday, the show will have been seen by more than 6,000 people, from ultra-Orthodox rabbis to LGBTQ+ groups.
It is a huge relief for Raymond Simonson, chief executive of JW3, the Jewish cultural and community centre in north London that staged the panto. “It was a gamble. We took something quintessentially British and stirred it up with Jewish culture in grandma’s chicken soup pot to see what would come out,” he said.
But in the aftermath of Hamas’s murderous assault on Israel on 7 October, Simonson also had to consider whether the show would go on at all. “We were just about to press the button on a publicity campaign, and we thought: can we go ahead? In the end, we decided it’s really important to find joy and light in times of darkness, so we had a muted marketing campaign, but word of mouth got out there very quickly.”
JW3, the brainchild of philanthropist Dame Vivien Duffield, opened in 2013 with Simonson at its helm. “I wanted to increase the quality, variety and volume of Jewish conversation,” he said. “Too often, the public conversations, either within the Jewish community or about the Jewish community, were one-dimensional – especially when we talk about things like Israel or the role of women or LGBTQ, or any of those kinds of issues. It gets screamy and shouty. We do have richer conversations, but they happen in private. I wanted to create a place that helps inspire them all year round.
“Variety was also a frustration. I did an experiment about 10 years ago, looking at the front pages of the two main weekly Jewish newspapers over a year. About 50-55% were about Israel, about 40-45% were about attacks on Jews – antisemitism, the Holocaust, attempts to ban kosher food and so on.
“That left 5-10% for the entirety of Jewish culture, Jewish history, Jewish life. I want people to be engaged with the music of Irving Berlin and Amy Winehouse, and the poetry of Yehuda Amichai, and the art of Chagall as well as the Holocaust and Israel.
“And, finally, volume. We’re a community that for so long was known as being very quiet, dialling down. We said from the beginning we want to turn the volume up.
“This building is not in an obvious Jewish neighbourhood, and we did something ridiculously radical for British Jewry: we put ‘JW3 Jewish community centre’ in massive letters on the outside. We put up billboards all over London, and we went on TV and radio, and talked about it openly. How can the next generation have a strong, proud Jewish identity if you dial down the Jewishness?”
Ten years after opening, JW3 buzzes with activity. An open space in front of the building is an ice rink in winter and an urban beach in summer. Visitors can join art, antenatal, self-defence, creative writing or history classes. People can learn Hebrew and French, and Arabic classes are starting this year. A cinema shows new releases and old favourites. A busy food bank delivers hot meals and groceries to local residents, nearly all non-Jewish.
It has not been without controversy. In 2017, a group of ultra-Orthodox rabbis called for a boycott of JW3 because it held a gay-themed week of events and provided a meeting space for gay Jewish parents. JW3 was promoting “a way of life which is in total contradiction to Orthodox Judaism and halacha [Jewish law]”, they said. Simonson stood firm, saying the centre was “open and inclusive”, and that “we believe we’re reflecting mainstream Jewish opinion”.
The centre had planned an autumn of events to celebrate its 10th birthday when Hamas attacked communities in southern Israel on 7 October, killing 1,200 people, kidnapping more than 200 and sparking a devastating war in Gaza. The attack came four days before a big anniversary fundraising gala dinner at JW3, with “bells, whistles, balloons, confetti, fun and comedy”, said Simonson. “We had to decide what to do. But I felt people need to be in community.”
The dinner went ahead with a more muted tone than had been planned. Simonson’s remarks to the guests included a quote from Leonard Bernstein, the celebrated Jewish-American conductor and composer: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
On a practical level, JW3 immediately stepped up its security. All visitors and staff now have their bags searched and a scanner passed over their body. The centre’s security budget is now nearly £600,000 a year, almost a third of which comes from a government grant. “We’re not a political organisation, but this is what we have to do. There’s no other cinema, no other theatre, no other ice rink that has to do this.”
It also opened its doors to Israelis who were in London because the Hamas attack took place on the last day of the Jewish high holidays. “Suddenly there were loads of Israelis, including people whose homes were destroyed or whose families were affected.
“On the first day we had 40-50 families here, and we started running day camps for the children. The puppet person came, and the balloon person and the magician – all to offer activities while the parents were on their computers, trying to sort things out.”
The centre also launched weekly “Israel briefings”, talks given by Israeli academics and educators on the war in Gaza. Simonson has sought a range of views. “The speakers are not there to be a spokesperson for the government, and they’re not there to be the opposition. Some are more supportive and some more critical.”
The “Jewish community” is, of course, made up of many different communities and individuals – religious, secular, rightwing, leftwing, and many who lie between those labels. But the trauma of 7 October was felt across the board, said Simonson.
“We have 3,000 people come through our doors every week and I have hundreds of conversations with them. And one of the things I hear a lot is people feeling really upset that the pain of 7 October for Jews was dismissed very quickly.
“Right now we are bruised and battered and numb.
“But I don’t think it’s permanent. It’s like being in a car crash – you move from the shock phase to the recovery phase. And that will happen, but we will be left with scars. We will live our lives, but we will always grieve. And many of us also keep a place in our hearts to grieve for the loss of innocent Palestinian lives.”
Interfaith relations – something JW3 has always cherished – have never been so strained, said Simonson. “It’s more important than ever to keep conversations going. Can we have an easy conversation about Israel-Gaza? No. Can we have a conversation about humanity and the loss of life and the pain we’re going through and being there for each other and sending each other love and being compassionate? Absolutely.
“And if we don’t do that, we dehumanise ourselves – and that is not Jewish belief, that is not Jewish values.”