Community carries the torch
POLISH-BORN DINAH GOULD, 99, from Kenton, will be the oldest of nearly 8,000 torchbearers selected to carry the Olympic flame through the streets of the UK this summer. The Liberal Jewish Synagogue member will be 100 when she carries the flame through Barnet. Mrs Gould still runs exercise classes for residents of her block of flats.
Simon Davies, 36, lives in Jewish Care’s Rela Goldhill Lodge. Born with athetoid cerebal palsy, Mr Davies volunteers full-time in the fundraising department of Jewish Care, and runs an online greeting cards company whose profits go to the charity.
The 36-year-old cannot walk or speak, but will carry the torch in his electronic wheelchair.
Leslie Lyndon, 67, the retired cantor at New North London Synagogue, was nominated by his stepson, for his religious work and “for the way he has managed his Alzheimer’s disease”.
Maccabi footballer Chloe Greenberg, 16, was nominated for her commitment to sport. “I take part in athletics for three different boroughs, playing tennis, table tennis, badminton and rounders,” she said. The JFS pupil is on the school Olympic committee and will miss an Israel tour with BBYO in order to carry the torch in Brent.
Jo Hyams, 28, who will carry the torch though Harrow, said she really wanted to carry the torch to face her “horrible shyness”. Ms Hyams works for Tikun, a Jewish charity in Temple Fortune, and set up a huge programme of activities for Jewish volunteers over Christmas and throughout the year.
PHD physiology student Nick Tiller, 29, has run marathons and long-distance challenges for the past decade, raising more than £15,000 for charities. He was nominated by a friend to be an Olympic torchbearer. And the run of 100 metres should be a walk in the park for torchbearer Paul Freedman, 87, who has run more than 20 marathons. The Romford Synagogue member has run the London Marathon for Jewish Care and Jewish Blind and Disabled, and was the marathon’s oldest runner last year.
Drugsline founder and Redbridge Chabad rabbi Aryeh Sufrin will carry the torch through Havering.
Torchbearer Michael Seres, 42, former chairman of Radlett United Synagogue, had a bowel transplant last year and has blogged throughout his illness – which hehopesmedicalteamswillusetolearn about the effects of the transplant.
Essex-born student Ricky Kaplan, 25, will be carrying the flame through Greenwich. The Nottingham Trent student said: “I was nominated because, as social action co-ordinator of Nottingham Jsoc, I set up Vscheme, which is a way of getting Jewish students to volunteer in the wider community..”
Dr Alan Naftalin, 62, secretary of the Jewish Medical Association, will be carrying the flame through Islington. A gynaecologist and a regular marathon runner, he arranges each year for Israeli medical students to visit the UK and meet leading medical professionals.
LJS member, Alexandra Cowan, will be carrying the flame in the Paralympic torch relay later in the year. Ms Cowan has multiple sclerosis and is a wheelchair user, who set up accessible services at the synagogue for people with disabilities.