FROM THE DESK OF RABBI RADER
On the event of the annual AJEX Remembrance Service on 9 November 2025, which was held at Brighton & Hove Hebrew Congregation.
I have been officiating at services like these for some forty years. Services at which we honour the memory of Jewish veterans who fought for their country; fought for freedom.
I remember those veterans. At our last AJEX service here I described them as ‘little old men with bowler hats’. They may have become little old men but in their youth they were strong, active and virile. They had their lives before them but they endangered those lives fighting for freedom; fighting for us. Amongst them were my father and uncles.
With the passage of time this service has taken on new meaning for me and become more personal, as those veterans have passed on and I feel that my generation, who still remember them, must shoulder the responsibility of respecting the memory of their dedication and sacrifice.
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In the few years since we last held this service here much has changed.
My wife and I have just returned from Melbourne, Australia where we celebrated my grandson’s Bar Mitzva. I attended the same synagogues as I did on my last visit there, nearly three years ago. But it was different, because now there are steel fences and armed guards outside those synagogues. Not surprising, as one Melbourne synagogue was burned down in an arson attack.
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On October 7th 2023 Hamas terrorists attacked Israel. Some 1200 Israelis were raped and killed in the most brutal, merciless and obscene manner. Some 250 were taken hostage. Hamas declared their intention to repeat this again and again.
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Between the River – that’s the River Jordan – and the Sea – that’s the Mediterranean Sea - live 7.3 million Jews. It is the stated desire and intent of Hamas, their allies and supporters to massacre every one of those 7.3 million Jews. When mobs gather together in this country, this city and other cities all over the world and chant ‘from the River to the Sea…..’ they are calling for the eradication of 7.3 million Jews.
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And on this occasion, at this service, we have to ask ourselves ‘is this the kind of society that the veterans we have gathered here to honour fought for, endangered themselves for and, in some cases, made the ultimate sacrifice for?’
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On 27th September 2016, Rabbi Sacks delivered a keynote address in the European Parliament.
He described Antisemitism as a mutating virus which takes different forms in different ages. In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated because of their religion. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century they were hated because of their race. Today they are hated because of their nation state, the state of Israel. It takes different forms but it remains the same thing: the view that Jews have no right to exist as free and equal human beings.
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He also said the following:
"Let me ask you this.
Whether you are Jewish or Christian or Muslim: would you stay in a country where you need armed police to guard you while you prayed?
Where your children need armed guards to protect them at school?
Where, if you wear a sign of your faith in public, you risk being abused or attacked?
Where, when your children go to university they are insulted and intimidated because of what is happening in some other part of the world?
Where, when they present their own view of the situation they are howled down and silenced?
This is happening to Jews throughout Europe.
In every single country in Europe, without exception, Jews are fearful for their or their children's future. If this continues, Jews will continue to leave Europe until, barring the frail and elderly, Europe will finally have become Judenrein."
This was in 2016 and these were prophetic words because this is exactly the situation we seem to find ourselves now.
Is this the kind of society; the kind of world our veterans fought for?
I often tell my community that there are a lot of good people out there; and there are!
I think I look reasonably Jewish. When I walk in the streets here I think most people realise I’m Jewish but, thank G-d, till now I have never had abuse directed at me. On the contrary, about five years ago - during a flare up of violence against Israel – I remember walking up Sackville Road and one person after the other turned to me and greeted me with ‘Shalom’.
But the last time I said this, a member of the congregation told me how he was out for a coffee with his family in Brighton, wearing his Kippa and someone came over and hit him.
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Just a few days ago, a friend of mine sent me this post:
I’m a British Jew.
I was born in England.
My parents were born in England.
Three of my grandparents were born in England.
The fourth, my paternal grandfather, had to flee Nazi Germany and was the only survivor of the entire Blond family, with his parents, brothers, uncles, aunts and cousins all being murdered in the concentration camps.
I have come today to Birmingham for the Aston Villa/Maccabi Tel Aviv football match to say I won’t stand for anyone telling me where I can and can’t go in my own country.
Do we live in the kind of country the Jewish veterans we honour today fought for?
During the Second World War, my Father was a sailor in the Royal Navy. His ship took part in the D-Day Landing. After VE Day he was sent, with two other sailors to a Naval Base in the Falkland Islands. They travelled, not on a military vessel but on a civilian cruise liner, stopping en route in Montevideo, Uruguay.
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During the Covid lockdown we received an email from a woman who had been going through her late mother’s papers and discovered a letter to her from my father. It’s an eleven page letter, written in the Hotel de Pyramides, Montevideo on Monday 10th September 1945; the day after Rosh Hashana. At the end of the letter he writes the following:
I don’t want to sound off onto any lengthy dissertation on peace, but I hope that remembrance of the past six years isn't limited to one hypocritical day.
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As long as we do keep in mind all the horrors of war, and the beauty of peace, then we stand a chance of retaining that peace - and if we can only turn all the work we've done to win the peace, into an effort to build that peace into something worthwhile then perhaps all the horrible carnage of the past six years will not have been in vain.
These are the words of a twenty year old.
On this occasion, as we gather to honour the memory of our Jewish veterans, we must ask ourselves the question ‘Is this just one hypocritical day?’ or are we making an effort, a true effort, on the other 364 days of the year to ensure that the descendants of those veterans will feel safe in our society and on our streets, will be able to go to their places of worship on Yom Kippur and all the other days of the year without worry. That the feelings and concerns of those descendants will be appreciated and respected.
For only by doing that will we have the kind of society those veterans fought for, and only by doing that will we have truly honoured their memory.