Yoni Jesner Conversations 2003

Sunday 2nd November 2003
Chief Rabbi Dr Jonathan Sacks and Natan Sharansky MK
Chair: Joshua Rozenberg

Marc Weinberg: Chief Rabbi and Elaine, Minister Sharansky, Deputy Ambassador, Peter Sheldon, Lady Jakobovitz, Yoni's family, ladies and gentlemen.

It is unfortunate that the Chairman, Howard Stanton, is unable to join us owing to a bereavement in Liverpool. So on behalf of the Chairman and the Trustees of the College I am delighted to welcome all 700 of you, both in this hall and the overflow, to the first of the Yoni Jesner Conversations.

We are thrilled we have attracted so many people to this event. However I am mindful of the reason for this evening. I personally knew Yoni as my chanich in Bnei Akiva and I recall his energy and passion for life. Everyone who knew him benefited from their encounters with him.

In this light the college is very, very proud to partner the Yoni Jesner Foundation for what I am sure will be a stimulating and inspiring evening. LSJS, as it is known, with its new professionals and lay leaders, will continue to develop and provide the community with exciting new programmes, both in the field of academia and lifelong learning.

All this has been made possible through the investment and support of Clive and Adrienne Marks of the Ashdown Trust, Mrs Susi Bradfield, Mr Michael Bradfield, Mrs Jeannette de Botton, the UJIA and the Pordes Trust. We are most grateful to each and every one of you.

 

Chief Rabbi, Minister Sharansky: we are truly, truly delighted that you are here today. So may I now invite Joshua Rozenberg, the Chair of the evening, to proceed?

 

Chair: Thank you very much indeed. Well, before we go any further I'd like to explain how all this is going to work. This is going to be a conversation about ideas and beliefs. It is not going to be, I hope, a debate about politics. We are going to be talking about how we as Jews confront our fears for the future and what we can learn from the very different experiences of our two speakers.

 

The plan is to talk for about an hour and then we'll take questions from the floor. But because I want to make sure that the questions relate to what we are actually going to discuss, I'll pick the questions and I'll ask them on your behalf. What I'd like you to do is to write your questions on a piece of paper, put your name on if you want me to read out your name: if you don't, then you don't have to. Pass them to the ends of the row and the theory is that somebody will collect them and bring them up, put them on the table behind me and so we'll come to those in an hour's time.

 

Now our distinguished guests need very little introduction from me. Both, like the State of Israel, were born in 1948. Dr Jonathan Sacks has been Chief Rabbi, as everybody knows, since 1991. He's a distinguished scholar and author and he is also now a grandfather. As you'll have seen in the JC, Eve and Josh celebrated the birth of a daughter appropriately enough on Simchat Torah. So, Mazel Tov!

 

Natan Sharansky was born in the Ukraine. He applied unsuccessfully for an exit visa to Israel in 1973. In 1977 he was arrested on trumped-up charges of treason and espionage and the following year he was sentenced to 13 years imprisonment, some of which he spent in a Siberian Gulag. After an international campaign, he was released in 1986, arriving in Israel the very same night. In 1995 he founded a political party, Yisrael b'Aliyah, to make immigration and absorption a national priority, and after the election in February of this year he was appointed Minister without Portfolio, responsible for Jerusalem, Social and Diaspora Affairs.

 

Gentlemen, you are both very welcome indeed.

 

Now this evening is inspired by the memory of Yoni Jesner from Glasgow who, as everybody knows, was one of six people who were killed in a suicide bombing on a bus in Tel-Aviv on the 19th September 2002. He was 19. Chief Rabbi, you paid a tribute to him at the time?

 

Chief Rabbi: Firstly, I would just like to thank Dayan Binstock and the St Johns Wood community for their hospitality.

Dayan Binstock, Lady Jakobovitz, friends: we are tonight in the presence of Yoni Jesner's family, his mother Marsha, his stepfather Geoffrey, his brothers Ari and Jared and his sister Yael, and of course we are mindful of his sister Gabriella as well.

 

Yoni Jesner was one of the truly outstanding young people of British Jewry. He was a leader of Bnei Akiva in Scotland; the leader of the Jewish Youth Council in Scotland; he led the delegation of Scottish Jewish youth to the Scottish Parliament. He taught Jewish studies. He was a member of the Chevra Kadisha. He ran youth and adult services in Gifnock shul in Glasgow. Because he cared above all about life and the sanctity of life, he had decided to develop his career as a doctor dedicated to pikuach nefesh. He had postponed his medical studies for a year to study at the yeshiva in Gush and had just extended it for a second year.

 

It was there that I had the privilege of meeting him. On the last occasion when we met we had 300 young people from our community studying in Israel, in Jerusalem, for a gap year. I was so proud of all of them. But amongst that group, each one of whom was a leader, Yoni stood out - quite clearly - by the depth of his convictions, by his sense of humour, by the way others turned to him, by the capacity he obviously had to inspire his contemporaries. He was a young man who achieved in his brief 19 years more than many of us will achieve in a lifetime. He was named Yoni after a great Jewish hero - Yoni Netanyahu, the hero of Entebbe. And, like him, he lost his life as a hero.

 

I cannot tell you how moved I am that even then, in the midst of their grief, Yoni's family spoke with the Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Aaron Lichtenstein of the Gush, and the family donated many of his organs to save lives, including in one case a kidney that went to a young Palestinian girl from East Jerusalem who had been waiting for two years for a compatible transplant.

 

He was - what can I say? - Noach matza chen [Noach found grace] - he found grace in everyone's eyes. And how moved I am, and I hope all of us are, that a young hero like Yoni, who lost his life so young, should be honoured by the presence with us tonight of one of the true heroes of our time, Natan Sharansky.

 

My prayer is that Yoni's memory should be an inspiration to young Jews throughout Britain and the world and that what he died for they will live for. Yehi zichro baruch. May his memory be a blessing. Amen.

 

Chair: Natan, would you like to add a few words - particularly, as the Chief Rabbi says, the family donated his kidney to a seven-year-old Palestinian girl from East Jerusalem. Does that gesture have any effect in Israel? Do people notice that? Do the Palestinians notice that?

 

Natan Sharansky: Well no doubt it is very meaningful for all of us. Listening now to the biography of Yoni and the reflections on him, I find that there are so many meaningful things for all of us. We in Israel have to deal with the problem of how to overcome the fear. After all, every morning my daughters go to school. We have to decide whether to permit them to take the bus or to take them by car. Or if they want to go to the cinema. I know how many warnings were received by our secret services just today. But I want my daughters to live normal lives, full lives. When I say to them, 'No, I don't want you to go,' they reply, 'Didn't you teach us that we should live normal lives?' So this question of how to overcome the fear is very important.

 

I can tell you from my own experience that we, the Soviet Jews, were full of fears of course. Our whole lives seemed absolutely in the hands of the authorities and we had absolutely no routes, no ways, no connections with people in history as to how to overcome this fear.

 

Chair: But how do you deal with fear?

 

Natan Sharansky: Yes, I want to come to this. Maybe it's a bit of a long way around, but this is very important. In fact in my life there were two levels of fear. The first level is when you simply feel yourself helpless in this world. Nobody can help you. You are facing this anti-Semitism. Then you find out that you have your history, your people, your country, your faith: that gives you a lot of strength. Suddenly you find out that there is a lot of meaning in your historical opposition to this regime and you can get a lot of strength from this. You feel yourself very strong. That is the first level.

 

But then there comes the second level. You are arrested and a very simple choice is put before you: you will be killed if you will not cooperate with the KGB, or you will stay alive if you cooperate with the KGB and then you can go to Israel. But then you have to justify to yourself why you will not cooperate with the KGB. When you feel yourself unprotected, you can feel that the connection with your people can help you to overcome it.

 

Then you find out that there is another fear in addition to this physical fear. People are created in the image of God. You have to fulfil this challenge, to be on the level of this challenge. That is why it is very important that you behave in accordance with being created in the image of God. That is why you should not cooperate with the KGB. That is why it is better to live in accordance with these principles and to die.

 

Now I come to your question. By the way, I only just now heard that Yoni was named after Yoni Netanyahu. For me it was such a powerful feeling at the time of Entebbe that the State of Israel sent aeroplanes to the end of world to save the people. Yoni Netanyahu's picture was on my wall when they came to arrest me. Each time when I was in prison in Siberia and I heard the aeroplane engines, it automatically reminded me of Yoni Netanyahu. Exactly as Yoni came to save the Jews, I was sure that the State of Israel would do the same.

 

So we see from the biography of Yoni that he found the way to be connected to his people in the most profound way. Here with Bnei Akiva and with all the mitzvoth: then in Israel to strengthen this connection with the Jewish State and the Jewish people. I know the yeshiva of Rav Lichtenstein is a wonderful instrument for building these bridges.

 

Then there is the second level: he is killed. I want you to know: our enemies do not choose whom to kill. Old and young, everyone. They want to kill as many as possible. We do not choose when we save lives. That is the message: that Yoni's family proved that people are created in the image of God. They behaved on this level of moral responsibility always - in life and in death. That is a very powerful reminder to all of us.

 

Chair: Well let's talk about fear, shall we? Chief Rabbi, what do you fear? You fear God. You've never been in the Gulag but does somebody who is truly pious fear only God and fear nothing else knowing that God will look after him or her? Or do we all, however much we have faith in God, do we all have fears which perhaps religion cannot really help us to cope with?

 

Chief Rabbi: It seems to me that most of us have had moments of fear. None of us in this room, I think, have faced the kind of fear and shown the kind of courage of Natan Sharansky. His courage under those circumstances I find absolutely breathtaking. We are in the presence of an adam gadol beYisrael - a true hero. But, you know, we've had our moments. I've had moments when I've stared the angel of death eyeball to eyeball at various times in different ways. It is very striking. Natan and I had a little conversation earlier this afternoon because he took out his little sefer tehillim - his book of psalms that kept him going throughout those years. I'd love to hear about that in a moment.

 

Of course he discovered in much deeper moments of fear what many of us discover - which I certainly discovered - that when push comes to shove, the words that keep you going are those famous words (and they are quoted in Natan's autobiography): Gam ki-eilech bgaye tsalmovet lo-era ra ki-ata imadee - Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death I will no fear no evil for You are with me.

 

We are a very strange people and we can take some very elevated philosophy and turn it into a little song for five-year-olds. But what kept me going at some of the toughest times in my life was a little song I learned from my kids: the famous words of Reb Nahman of Bratislav. I once had the zchut [privilege] of singing them with 900 Bnei Akiva kids on a freezing Friday night in Wales. All 900 of us were standing on the tables singing this song. The police came in, the non-Jewish police, and they also joined in this song.

 

Kol ha'olam culo gesher tza'ar me'od veha'ikar shelo lefached clal.

 

All of the world is a very narrow bridge and the main thing is to never be afraid at all.

 

When you are walking on a very narrow bridge, don't look down; don't look to either side; just look straight ahead and know that you are not alone.

 

Chair: Natan Sharansky, do you keep a sefer tehillim [book of psalms] with you all the time? The Chief Rabbi said you showed it to him. You have it? [Natan Sharansky takes out the little book from his breast pocket and shows it.] So tell us about that. What did it mean to you?

 

Natan Sharansky: First of all, I also sang that song. It's interesting how it comes up although we haven't spoken about it in advance.

 

Kol ha'olam culo gesher tza'ar me'od veha'ikar shelo lefached clal.

 

All of the world is a very narrow bridge and the most important thing is not to be afraid of anything.

 

That is a song which some guests from the Chassidic rabbi from New York taught to our group of refuseniks just a few weeks before I was arrested. Because of this I remembered the words because my Hebrew was too poor for this.

 

Then in the very small punishment cell of Lefortovo Prison where it was very dark and very cold and I was very hungry, and they were the most difficult days of interrogation, I started singing it. First of all, because of my 'big talent' in music I made all of them suffer from my singing! It was a very narrow cell and a very frightening moment. This song had to compensate me for the lack of the book of psalms.

 

Some days before I was arrested I received this book of psalms from a tourist also from New York. There were many tourists also from London, but this time it was one from New York. He gave me this book of psalms with a note from my wife: 'For a whole year I travelled all over the world with this book of psalms. I have a feeling that the time has come to send it to you.'

 

I will tell you frankly that I was too busy for such trifles as this small book. I was involved in the struggle against the KGB. Some of my dissident friends had already been arrested. I had to give press conferences practically every day. I was also expecting to be arrested.

 

Then, when I was arrested they confiscated all my things. I suddenly remembered this book and that something had made my wife feel that the time had come to send it to me. I started fighting for it. I spent more than a hundred days in the punishment cell only because I was demanding that they return this book to me. It was returned to me three years to the day after they took it. It took three years. Three years later it was given to me together with a telegram that my father had passed away. Of course such a time is always difficult, but especially so when you cannot be with your mother and with your family.

 

I started to read this book of psalms and I understood nothing. If you know only 500 words in Hebrew and you don't know the rules of where the sentence ends and where it begins, then it is very difficult to understand. So it took me much time in reading and re-reading and comparing a phrase I understood with another phrase to figure it out. I am a mathematician so I used all my knowledge of mathematics to decode this book.

 

When I found this phrase - Gam ki-eilech bgaye tsalmovet lo-era ra ki-ata imadee - it had been very difficult to find this phrase amongst a large number of unpunctuated letters. Suddenly I realised that ki-ata imadee meant 'You will be with me'. Who is 'You'? Is it God? Is it King David? Is it your wife? Is it the State of Israel? Everything is there. It is all of them coming together in this phrase in order to keep me strong.

 

Chair: And that is why you have called your memoirs Fear No Evil?

 

Natan Sharansky: Yes. That is why. It was the only piece of property which I took from prison and it is always with me.

 

Chief Rabbi: Permit me, if I may. Because of who is with us this evening, I want to just share with you for one minute a moment of true human courage.

 

On July 14th 1978, Natan stood before the courtroom to hear the verdict and I just want, if I may, to say a few of the words that the said on that day. He stood in front of the Court, if I am correct, and instead of addressing the Court he addressed his words to Avital and to the Jewish people. He said this:

 

"During my interrogation the chief investigators threatened me that I might be executed by a firing squad or imprisoned for at least 15 years. But if I agree to cooperate with the investigation for the purpose of destroying the Jewish emigration movement, they promise me freedom and a quick reunion with my wife. Five years ago I submitted my application to Israel. Now I am further than ever from my dream. It would seem to be a cause for regret but it is absolutely the other way around. I am happy. I am happy that I have lived honourably at peace with my conscience. I never compromised my soul, even under the threat of death. For more than 2000 years the Jewish people, my people, have been dispersed. But wherever they are, wherever Jews are found, every year they repeated 'Next year in Jerusalem'. Now when I am further than ever from my people, from Avital, facing many arduous years of imprisonment, I say, turning to my people, turning to Avital, Next year in Jerusalem. Now I turn to you the Court who were required to confirm a predetermined sentence. To you, I have nothing to say."

 

Those are words of a hero.

 

Natan Sharansky: On this optimistic note - ! I want to intervene. The Chief Rabbi is a great spiritual leader and I thank you for reminding me of this moment in my life. But I have to say that it is not fair now to speak about the courage of a person being in a Soviet prison. It was much easier than the daily life of Israelis today who insist on continuing normal life, on sending children by bus, on going to the cinemas and on behaving normally - and insist on not feeling hatred for the people around us. The Jews and the Palestinians: that is a very important thing and a very difficult thing.

 

Chair: And what keeps you going? What makes you carry on like that when you have these fears, when you have the practical problems, when you have the dangers? What makes you carry on? What makes you feel it's worthwhile?

 

Natan Sharansky: I think that what Israelis today is very similar (that is why I was referring to my experiences) to our experience of the past. We have only one people and one country and one place where we want to live and we want to live in accordance with those high moral principles which make us the Jewish people. That is why we want to live in safety but also in human dignity without hating the world, without hating people around you and feeling that that is a really full, deep life with your people and in your country. That is something very strong: unconscious, but very strong and very deep.

 

Chair: Now I fully accept that but I am not sure if that message has got across to the wider world because you went to the United States, I think a couple of weeks ago. You went around university campuses. You toured around 13 campuses in six days. Why did you go and what did you find? What did you learn and what were your impressions of American Jewish students?

 

Natan Sharansky: Well first of all I went to campuses because one of my responsibilities now is to deal with the problem of confronting anti-Semitism. Very quickly I found out that one of the major battlefields is the campuses. I was on certain campuses on the eastern coast, all the most famous and important universities. They were speaking there about human rights but I found a very strange situation. There were many who are viciously attacking Israel and supporting Yasser Arafat and other Arab countries, and they are all for human rights. They are for the rights of women, for the rights of minorities, for freedom of speech - and in fact they support the most awful totalitarian and dictatorial regimes.

 

So I tried to show this contradiction and I proved to be rather successful in showing this contradiction. But what I found out was that in all these universities up to 20 per cent of the students are Jewish. About 10 per cent are openly proud Jews, pro-Israel and so on. They may have different political views but they identify with the Jewish State and with the Jewish people. Less than 1 per cent are those whom I call 'self-hating Jews', who say that we don't need the State of Israel and that it only creates problems for us and that the sooner it disappears the better for mankind. There are only a very few of these. But the overwhelming majority of the Jews are either indifferent - not many - or are simply afraid to speak publicly because they say: Look, we know that our professors will not like it; we know that it can influence our grades and it means that it can influence our professional career.

 

For me this was very frightening because once I was amongst the Soviet Jews and we overcame this situation with the help of the Jews of the world and with the help of Israel. Today, if American Jews are really becoming the Jews of silence - then we really have a big problem. So I hope that it is very different in England. Tomorrow I will be in Oxford so I will see how different it is in England.

 

Chair: Chief Rabbi, let me ask you that. Are the problems that the Minister is talking about replicated in this country, or is it not so frightening and not so worrying?

 

Chief Rabbi: I was with the Oxford students last Wednesday and I asked them (including your daughter Abigail, Joshua): Is it that bad? - because I'd just read Natan's article. They told me that no, it wasn't. But I have to say that it is bad out there on some of the other campuses - Manchester, Leeds and a number of others where our students have really been on the front line. I went to support the students in one of the London colleges last summer where they had simply put up posters that said 'Co-existence' with the symbols of the major world faiths. I didn't think that the word 'co-exist' was a tendentious political statement. And yet all those posters were torn down and it really seemed to me that there was an atmosphere of intimidation and I say kol hakavod [all credit] to the Union of Jewish Students and to our Jewish students generally who have stood up, who have fought back, who have fought for the right of free speech. Because if free speech is not guaranteed at our universities, then where is it safe?

 

However, I want to add one thing that is painful. For a people of history, we seem to learn very little from history. One of the most tragic facts of the 19th century is that among anti-Semites some of the most vicious were Jews. Western Jews speaking about Ostjuden - the Jews from eastern Europe. And that was at the time a scandal and in retrospect a tragedy.

 

What really distressed me - and I don't think that today we have Jews who are anti-Semites but we have a number of significant Jews who are anti-Zionist and who lead the campaign against free speech. The day last Wednesday when I went to Oxford, Oxford University had itself just taken disciplinary action against a professor who had refused to accept a student as a research student simply because he was from Israel. Oxford University suspended him from duties for two months. He was forced to resign from his college and I thought: How wonderful! This is really standing up to it! But then I read the newspaper report that morning, Wednesday of last week [29 October], and I saw that somebody is standing up and defending his right to state his anti-Zionist views and to make known 'how intolerable the behaviour of the Israeli Government was' and his name was Cohen. Whether he was Jewish or not I didn't ask.

 

I thought: My goodness me! Have we learned nothing? Yes! We are entitled to disagree about Israeli policies. Yes! No Jews ever conducted conversations. Other people have conversations: we have arguments. That's life!

 

But - know how to say it. Know when to say it. Know in what context to say it. And never, ever endanger the future of your people. Therefore, one of the things that really distresses me - and it is true in the States as well - is that we haven't learned from the 19th century. Let us at least, if we have differences with a particular policy of the State of Israel, let us say so with love; let us say so with care; and let us say so in such a way that does not damage the standing of Israel in the eyes of the world.

 

Chair: Minister, you of course are Minister for the Diaspora. Is this a problem for Israel or is it a problem for the Diaspora? Is there something you can do? Or is there something we should do?

 

Natan Sharansky: First of all I believe that emphasising all the time the differences between Israel and the Diaspora is rather artificial because, in fact, practically all the problems are mutual problems. All the challenges are mutual challenges, exactly as our past is mutual and our future, I am sure, is mutual.

 

One of the reasons that anti-Semitism has succeeded so much in the last few years - and we really realised the danger of this phenomenon so late that in fact the level of anti-Semitism today is unprecedented since the Second World War - one of the reasons for this is that the Jews of the Diaspora and the Jews of Israel, each looked from their own angle. With regard to anti-Semitism, of course it was always serious for the Jews of the Diaspora. For Israelis, we are against anti-Semitism. We condemn it. We are ready to take all the victims of anti-Semitism to Israel. But it is not really our problem. It is a problem of Diaspora Jewry. If they feel it very strongly, so let them come to us.

 

On the other hand, anti-Israeli propaganda is something that of course has bewildered all of us in Israel. I am sure that Diaspora Jewry also felt very strongly about this double-standard towards Israel. But it wasn't viewed as really the problem of the Diaspora Jewry: it's a problem of bad propaganda for Israel. For others.

 

What anti-Semites proved in the last year is that in fact there is no difference between anti-Israeli propaganda and anti-Semitism. Double standards towards the Jews and double standards towards the Jewish State. We can see how in fact that today there is even a term for it - 'new anti-Semitism'. New anti-Semitism is when there is no difference between anti-Israeli propaganda and anti-Semitism.

 

So our enemies in fact remind us Israelis that anti-Semitism is our problem too and reminds Diaspora Jewry that anti-Israeli propaganda is their problem too. So in fact if I see any hope, and I do see a sign of optimism over what has been happening over the last year, it is again that, thanks to our enemies, we are united again. That again we feel that we have a common challenge. That is why we shouldn't blame Diaspora Jewry or shouldn't blame Israeli Jewry. It is our mutual challenge, our mutual problem and I am sure that in the end it will be our mutual victory.

 

Chair: Well you say it will be a mutual victory but it is no good if the anti-Semites have drawn Israelis and Diaspora Jews together on a losing side, on the victims' side. What can you do to fight this by the way in which Israel handles its hasbarah, its public relations? What can you do to make it easier for us in the Diaspora? And how can we fight this convergence between anti-Israel feeling and anti-Semitism?

 

Natan Sharansky: Well it would be ideal if we could have peace and everybody would be happy. But of course it is clear that it doesn't depend on us. So we have to be much more strong in our hasbarah. What does that mean? It means first of all that we have to remind ourselves - and by 'we' I mean all the Jews of the world - of the basic fact that the truth is with us. That we are the only small island of democracy in that totalitarian world. That we Jews, wherever we are, we follow these great principles of Yoni's family that we don't differentiate between people whose life has to be saved and who have to live in peace. We have to know the basic facts about Israel fighting a very difficult war and, being a democracy, making bigger efforts to keep itself as democratic as any other democracy in the world.

 

Chair: But you are not getting your message across, Minister.

 

Sharansky: Well, first of all I think that if all the Jews will accept and will recognise and will live with this, it would already be a very big achievement. Look, I can say what the mistakes of Israel are. There were historical mistakes. In Israel, from the moment it was created many of our leaders felt that for 2000 years we had to listen to what Gentiles think and to behave ourselves in accordance with what they used to think and say. Now that is not important. Now what is important is what we Jews are doing. I can understand that. This passion of the pioneers of Zionism might have been very helpful in some way. This approach is very unhelpful today.

 

But I have to say that even if we will overcome this problem - and we still have to overcome this problem - and put much more effort in, it is still very difficult to win in a world with such clear double standards. A world which very often doesn't want to hear our truth. Only our insistence, and our life in accordance with these principles, and, firstly, our agreement amongst ourselves that Diaspora Jewry and Israeli Jewry have to speak with one voice, can change the situation.

 

Chief: But, as I say, you are speaking with one voice and you are saying this, but the people aren't listening out there. Chief Rabbi?

 

Chief Rabbi: Can I just try and share with you a little thought experiment to show you how strange and how serious the issue is?

 

Imagine the following. Imagine that all of us were able to travel back in time 200 years to the stetl, Pinsk, Minsk, wherever it is. We go in. What are they doing? They are all sitting round the Beis Midrash. They are learning. We say that we have come from 200 years into the future and we have got news for you. We have got some good news and we have got some bad news. They say: 'Nu, chachamim, what have you got to say?'

 

We say: Well, listen to the good news: 200 years from now Jews are going to be the most courageous, the most remarkable soldiers in the world. - They are sitting round with their gemaras. 'Lunatics. Lunatics. Chess, yes. Gemara, yes. But soldiers? Soldiers! You're crazy! You're nuts! Come on then, tell us the bad news.'

 

The bad news is, chevra, 200 years from now Jews are going to lose an argument.

 

'Hayitachen? [Is that possible?]'

 

Jews! We lose everything else! There's only one thing we never lose. We never lose an argument. How come we lost this argument? Kavod haSa'ar [your honour, Minister] - we lost this argument.

 

There is actually an explanation for it, and it is serious. There is 'a wonderful piece of literature'. If ever you feel miserable about the Jewish people, read it. It's called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. According to this book, the Jewish people control the banks; they control the media; they control the economy; they control the world.

 

Little do they know that often we cannot even control a shul board meeting.

 

What this situation has shown is something seriously dysfunctional in the Jewish people. Let me say precisely what that is. The people of Israel are amongst the most heroic anywhere in the world. I would not claim, as a Diaspora Jew, any right to tell Israel how to conduct its Government, its policy, its army, its economy or its defence. There is only one thing we know in the Diaspora better than they know in Israel. Only one thing! That is: how to present Israel's case in the Diaspora.

 

French Jews know better than Israelis how to communicate the Israeli message in France. American Jews know better than Israelis how to communicate the Israeli message in America. British Jews know better how to communicate it in Britain and none of whom does it better, if I may say so Joshua, than one Melanie Phillips with whom I know you are familiar!

 

And now, kavod haSa'ar, if I can say this from the depths of my heart. We love Israel! We admire it! We will fight for it and never be intimidated. But let Israel and the Jews of the Diaspora work together so that we can help you present Israel's case.

 

Natan Sharansky: For sure I accept this proposal. But we have to disagree at least on something! So I think I have found something that I disagree with. You said that if we had come 200 years ago and would have said that Jews have lost the argument, it would be gewald! [disastrous] because it had never happened before.

 

I think that is simply not right. We never won arguments with goyim [non-Jews]. We won them amongst ourselves. But the fact is that in those days, in Minsk and Pinsk and so on, all the Gentiles were absolutely convinced of the blood libel. It was a very powerful thing. I think it was Chaim Raphael who said that it was a very good libel because every Jew knew that that was a lie and every Christian believed it. In Russia, definitely. Even in my day they believed it. So definitely then they believed.

 

So it meant that Jews lived with the feeling that even if all the world is against them, the world is wrong because we know that we are right. That is how we were winning the argument. We were winning the argument for ourselves.

 

With Zionism and the creation of the State of Israel, we had to win this argument with the world. And of course the Balfour Declaration meant that at some moment, for some weeks, we won this argument. But then we lost it again. Of course, after the Holocaust we won this argument. But at what price?

 

So the thing is now that maybe for the first ... [some words lost when tape turned over] ... the argument without the Holocaust, without paying this price. We are paying a very difficult price now and Yoni is a reminder of this. So maybe for the first time in history we have to win this challenge, to win the argument in the larger world without paying this awful price of the Holocaust. I have no doubt that this we can do only together: Israel and the Diaspora.

 

Chair: Let me ask you a question that's been handed up by somebody by the floor.

The Chief Rabbi has anticipated and already answered it so I'll ask it to the Minister. It is:

"Should Jewish people outside Israel speak out when they feel that the Israeli Government or the Israeli Army are committing immoral acts."

Should they speak out? Now this is somebody here who is not persuaded that it is a failure of public relations of hasbarah but is prepared to believe that the Israeli Government is misbehaving, or that the Israeli Army soldiers are exceeding their authority. That is how it seems to this individual here. There is no name on the piece of paper. What does that person do - what do we all do - when we think, by reading reports which strike us as plausible and as objective as it is possible to be, perhaps from the Israeli Press that we read online - and we think that the Israeli Government is behaving in a way that the speaker thinks is immoral? What do we do here?

 

Natan Sharansky: Two things. First of all I believe that - and this is in the deep nature of the Jewish people - if we feel that somebody, some person or some institution, is doing immoral acts, we speak out about it. We criticise it. Of course, thank God Israel is a democracy, the only democracy in that part of the world, and we do not want to stop being such a democracy.

 

The second thing which has to be said is that every person who makes such criticism about the State takes on a big responsibility. Definitely every Jew who knows what the consequences are for the Jewish State takes on a lot of responsibility by speaking out. So I would tell you: do it only when you are absolutely convinced: when you have studied the facts and when you have made a real investigation. Because it is such a big responsibility to accuse the Jewish State or the Jewish Government of immoral acts since you know how it will be used. So do it only when you know for sure.

 

This is not the time to bring up past incidences but I will tell you of one episode because I believe it is very powerful.

 

In the English Press at the end of March and in April of 2002 there was one article after another about awful murder, a 'massacre', scenes unprecedented since the Second World War, killing of masses of people and so on by the Israeli Government. We were accused by all the world. That is when Kofi Annan said, "Can all the world be wrong?" And we saying, "Yes it can."

 

I was sitting in my garden - and let me spend two minutes saying what we were doing in the garden. This was just after 125 of our people were killed in one month and just when more than twenty people were killed at the Passover table [in Natanya]. We had a very dramatic, painful meeting, in the garden, throughout the night. We decided that now we have no choice: we have to go to those places from which suicide bombers came.

 

We went to a small refugee camp in Jenin. It is really small for a refugee camp, 960 houses. From this small refugee camp more suicide bombers went out than from all the rest of the world, from all the globe. We knew that practically every house there was booby-trapped and that if we would go from house to house then we knew that our soldiers would be killed.

 

What would Russia do in such a case? We know from Chechin. What would Europe do? We know from Yugoslavia. What America would do we know from Afghanistan.

 

We decide that we would not use tanks and that we would not use aeroplanes. We would go from house to house.

 

After the first 13 soldiers were killed, there was another meeting of these leaders and professionals and it was decided to continue going from house to house. 23 soldiers were killed. 54 Palestinians were killed, 52 of whom were carrying weapons and so fighting against us. Only two were innocent victims who were killed in the fighting. About a thousand Palestinians went out alive because we did not use tanks.

 

Afterwards some of the families of the soldiers who were killed went to court. It will at some time reach the Supreme Court because they insist that it was immoral of the Israeli Government not to use tanks and not to use artillery. They ask why we risked our soldiers' lives. So I think that when it comes to the Supreme Court, Attorney-General Rubinstein will have to come to the court and explain why a Jewish democratic state how to behave as it did.

 

So for this type of an operation we were called by many newspapers - and the most vicious campaign was here in England - we were called 'the biggest criminals since the Second World War'.

 

So that is what I am saying. If you feel that something awful and immoral has been done by the Israel Government, I think you have the right to say so. But before you say anything remember that it is such a big responsibility that you have to be very sure that you know the facts.

 

Chair: Ok. Let me just ask you this question and then I'll come back to the Chief Rabbi. This is a short question but it is related to a question that I want to bring in. It's from Jeremy Weiss who is a University College of London anti-racism officer. He says:

How should he approach students who come to him and say 'The State of Israel has no right to exist' and that Israeli treatment of Palestinians is comparable to the Nazi treatment of Jews.

How does he, as a supporter of Israel, who shares the views that you have just said, how does he answer those who, as I say, you are simply not getting your message across to and who believe in the massacre that didn't happen and who believe that Israel is comparable to apartheid South Africa or Nazi Germany.

 

Natan Sharansky: Well, if we go back to a hundred years ago, what would this person have answered to those people who came to him and said: You Jews have no legitimate right to live because you are using the blood of Christians for matzah.

 

From my point of view, the blood libels or The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are absolutely the same type of statement as the statement that we are treating Palestinians in the same way as the Nazis were treating us. You don't have to study too many facts to understand the difference. I think that a Jewish activist has to know the difference and has to know how to answer.

 

Chair: Chief Rabbi?

 

Chief Rabbi: I think that Natan has identified what is in fact 'the big lie' of our time. I think this is a very, very serious issue, much more serious than hostility on British or American campuses. We are talking about a situation in which a Wall Street Journal opinion poll discovered that 48 per cent of Pakistanis questioned at random immediately after 9/11 believed that it was Israelis and Jews who actually planned and carried out 9/11.

 

We are dealing with anti-Semitism of a mediaeval kind: a 'blood libel' in the 21st century. Now don't forget that Moses Hess became a Zionist when he saw a blood libel in the 'advanced, sophisticated' age of 1841. But it is much worse than what Moses Hess encountered. Let me tell you why it is so serious.

 

It is because this new anti-Semitism has happened after 50 years of Holocaust education, 50 years of human rights and anti-racism legislation, 50 years of interfaith dialogue. I have always compared anti-Semitism not to a doctrine but to a virus.

(Of course very frum [religious] Jews think I'm talking about sins. 'What's he talking about? Aveiros?' [sins].)

But anti-Semitism is a virus and it has to be understood that way. We understand from Aids and HIV and all the rest of it that viruses can defeat the most sophisticated thing on this planet, which is the human immune system. It is a system of extraordinary complexity and power and it is there to fight viruses. Viruses defeat immune systems by mutating. And here I want to identify exactly what has happened.

How could it happen, after the whole world - the Nuremberg Trials, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights - how could the world put up with the new anti-Semitism? After all, five things became absolutely taboo:

Racism
Apartheid
Ethnic cleansing
Crimes against humanity
Attempted genocide

How could you beat an immune system that strong? And that was the demonic genius of the new anti-Semitism: to take those five things and say: Who is the world's greatest offender against them? (God forbid!) - the State of Israel. Therefore, if you are against racism, you must be against Israel. If you are against ethnic cleansing, you must be against Israel.

It is a lie so big and so vicious that it leaves us speechless. And I have to say: this is the big thing. The BBC, CNN, campus activism: these are little blips on the screen. But this is the big thing. When we were coming up in this country to the Christian millennium, there was a whole question: What do you do? Of course the Government put together a committee - which is how we got the Millennium Dome. (I'm sure it's available for simchas [celebrations] if you want to hire it!)

When they asked me beforehand what I thought should happen, I said that we believe not only in cyclical time - that time passes, but that we also believe in linear time: do we make progress? These past thousand years, I said, have not just been a thousand years. They have been a very significant thousand years: a thousand years in which, beginning even before the First Crusade but essentially with the First Crusade, in 1096, Jews were being persecuted throughout Europe because they are not Christian.

And I said that we can tell a great story of hope. That was in 1999. Because today, Jews and Christians, certainly in this country, meet together as friends, as real friends. That's a message of hope. But now, after September 29th 2000 and the beginning of Intifada Bet, 9/1/2001, a terrible spectre is reappearing only the context has changed. It is no longer Europe: it is the Middle East. It is no longer Christianity: it is Islam.

But all the old myths, from the blood libel to The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, shown on Egyptian state television a year ago for 40 consecutive days (all the days of Ramadan) and shown throughout the Arab world: the blood libel. A book by the Syrian defence minister Mustafa Tlass, The Matza of Zion, is still a bestseller and is still freely available. And here we are and yet again, Jews are the only people protesting. We are yet again having to fight this battle alone other than from the United States and a strong stand from the British Prime Minister.

I have to say: this is scary. This is serious and we have to work together on this. We have to show people that the fact that Israel exists is an attempt to remedy the worst, most protracted offence against human rights in all of history. Not just in 1945 but for 2000 years Israel was dispossessed by every colonial power, every imperialist power, thrown out of our land which we never left voluntarily. Also, that since the Declaration of Independence on May 14th 1948 - and all the more so at Camp David and all the more so at Taba - Israel has never ceased, in 55 years, to work for peace and not (God forbid!) for world supremacy or the elimination of anyone.

If a Palestinian child dies, that hurts us as Jews no less than if an Israeli child dies. We are committing crimes against humanity? We have to stand up strong to this because this is 'the big lie' and we must not stand alone. We must ask Christian leaders; we must ask Sikh and Hindu and Buddhist leaders; we must ask every Third World country for whom Israel should stand as a role model not (God forbid!) as a pariah; and we should ask every moderate Muslim who truly believes in Abraham and the God of Abraham, to stand shoulder to shoulder with us because anti-Zionism, or anti-Semitism, may begin with Jews but it never ever ends with Jews. Therefore, anti-Semitism is the primal crime against humanity.

We were different! Well every human being is different. And if we are punished and victimised for being different, so will the next lot and the next lot and ones after. And therefore let us stand together: Israel and the Diaspora, the Jewish people and all friends of humanity everywhere, and say that we are not prepared to let this language pass unchallenged.

Natan Sharansky: First of all, you have convinced me!

Chief Rabbi: If I've convinced the two of you - that's the hard part! The rest is easy.

Natan Sharansky: Well I can only strengthen the arguments. What I want to add is that we have had this difficult situation many times in the past. But today why I feel that the situation is maybe even more difficult is because on the one hand we have the awful anti-Semitism of the Muslim world which fully adopted the worst anti-Semitism of the Christian era - the blood libels and 'the Jewish plot against humanity' and spoiling the world. Everything from the past vicious anti-Semitism of the Christian world is today in the Muslim world.

Just yesterday a new serialisation started, made by Syria this time, which is the most vicious version of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. In it Rothschild is giving orders to kill all those goyim [non-Jews] who are undermining the Palestinians, and so on.

But the problem is that when we have had this vicious anti-Semitism from the Christian world in the past, the Muslim world was very tolerant towards the Jews. This time, the 'enlightened world' is very tolerant towards anti-Semitism, towards the anti-Semitism of the Muslims. Those very libels which were invented here in the Christian world - enlightened Europe knows so well that those were lies and they are tolerant.

Look at where this 'tolerance' started. I found out that this tolerance started together with the 'peace' process. When the peace process started in Oslo and elsewhere, we wanted so much to have peace that we didn't want to undermine it with criticism of the Arabs. If the Arabs, in order to continue moving towards peace, need to display some anti-Semitic passion towards Jews - ok, that will be for a short period of time. This tolerance towards anti-Semitism, which we have also seen over the past months, is, I believe, very dangerous.

For the first time we have half the world becoming viciously anti-Semitic - and the other half is absolutely tolerant [of this]. Here the most powerful argument which we have, which you just now mentioned, is that the world knows from recent experience that such anti-Semitism starts with Jews and then brings awful catastrophe for the whole world.

This is the very least which the leaders of Europe have to understand and here no doubt we will be glad to help you but you have to take the lead.

Chair: But is this understood in Israel? Obviously Israelis are aware of the Arab world, the Muslim world and so on, but do they realise that this is directed towards Diaspora Jews as well as towards Israelis? Or are you so, understandably, bound up with the problems of daily life and defending Israel that you don't see it as a problem for us? Or, if it is a problem for the Diaspora, then let the Diaspora sort it out.

Natan Sharansky: Well, that's what I was saying before. I think it was quite a common approach for many years, that anti-Semitism was something connected to the Diaspora. [It was thought that] it is only because Diaspora Jewry is not making aliyah - (by the way, I'll use this opportunity to say: Make aliyah!) - that is why there is anti-Semitism and, vice-versa, we felt that the problem of anti-Israeli propaganda is our problem and we didn't feel that was also a problem for Diaspora Jewry.

I believe that thinking has absolutely changed in the last three years with the rise of this new anti-Semitism. I think that today Israelis feel very strongly that there is practically no difference between us and the Diaspora and that we have to stand together.

Chair: Is Israel still a very fractured society? Is Israel becoming more fractured between the Orthodox and the Secular? I mean the Chief Rabbi was very kind and mentioned my wife [Melanie Philipps] who went to Israel recently as you know, and you met her. She was with some officials there and they went to a restaurant. Just before she sat down she said, "Well, is this a kosher restaurant? I keep kosher." And they were shocked because they could see that she looked Secular and so they assumed that she was totally Secular. They were unfamiliar with the British tradition of trying to be reasonably inclusive and tolerant. Is there a middle way in Israel at the moment? Or is Israel fractured between the religious and the non-religious Jews?

Natan Sharansky: First of all, Israeli is a very Jewish society. You will be surprised, because in spite of all the assimilational process it is a very Jewish society and that is why, of course, it is a fractured society! Every Jew is fractured in himself because every Jew has opposing opinions and every Israeli can definitely prove the opposite point of view as well as his own! So on this point you should not be worried. We continue to be a very vibrant Jewish society.

At the same time there is no doubt that we have a problem which I would say is to some extent specifically Israeli, exactly as there are some specific problems for the Diaspora. While at the time most Israeli Jews felt that as long as they serve in the army and speak Hebrew they are good Jews - that is the fulfilling of their Jewish mission as Israelis. I think it took time to understand that while of course it is extremely important that we have our language and that we speak our language, and that we are good soldiers - things which didn't exist 200 years ago - that if these do not go together with feeling yourself part of the great tradition of thousands of years of continuing Jewish civilisation, it is very dangerous.

I have to say that as a result we had and we have some intolerance and some infights which will take quite a long time for Israeli society to overcome. But the good news here is that I think that the dialogue with Diaspora Jewry - which has a different problem, which has the problem of assimilation when living in a non-Jewish society - but the more Israel understands that it has its own problem of assimilation and that Diaspora Jewry has its own problem of assimilation and that it is the same type of problem, so I believe that through dialogue with Diaspora Jewry Israel can come to more peace with its own problems and vice versa.

Using a personal example, I can say that when I came to Israel there was a 'public debate'! What will happen to us? Will I put on a kippa or will my wife take off her kisui rosh [headcovering]? This was because it was believed in our 'normal' society that it would be absolutely impossible that people who have different levels of religiosity can live together. As you see, it happened. I agree that in Israeli society there is more and more strong feeling that we need different types of Jews to live together. It doesn't happen easily because it's all connected with political activity and during the elections everybody, of course, wants support for his camp and to mobilise his own supporters and so on.

But just as Israel and Diaspora Jewry are becoming closer in understanding their challenges together, they are becoming closer to one another also inside Israel and, hopefully, inside the Diaspora.

Chair: Chief Rabbi, is it easier to be 'a good Jew' in the Diaspora than in Israel? I mean because you are surrounded by people who are not Jewish and you have to assert your Jewish identity all the time - or not, if you so choose - but at least you are aware that you are different. Or is it easier in Israel where you can be a secular Jew, you speak Hebrew all the time because that is the language, you live in the land of the Bible and yet you can feel nothing for the religious side that you, as a rabbi, support and encourage and help us with?

Chief Rabbi: The Ramban, Nachmanides, said something very beautiful in the 13th century. Incidentally, you know that Nachmanides lived in Spain and he was engaged in an argument known as the Barcelona Disputation in 1263 - an earlier attempt at hasbarah. Ramban did a very bad thing. He made the 'mistake' of winning, the end result of which was that he was sentenced to exile at the age of 70 in 1265. As you know, he said that that was the best thing that ever happened to him because it made him make aliyah!

Natan Sharansky: It is the best thing which happened to him!

Chief Rabbi: The Ramban said that it was the best thing and he says: Ha'ikar kol hamitzvot yoshvim be'eretz hashem - A mitzvah is something you can not do fully except in Israel, because when you do a mitzvah in Israel you are doing so in a landscape which is the landscape of the Bible. You are speaking the language of the Bible. You are living a calendar which is the calendar of the Bible and, therefore, Israel is where surely we would all aspire ourselves, or our children or our grandchildren to be, to live a completely full Jewish life.

But there is one thing with which we in the Diaspora may be able to help - and I call this my St Johns Wood story. It happened here in this Bet Midrash just along the corridor here. A certain Israeli ambassador (I won't tell you who) had decided that since Anglo-Jewry is mainly affiliated through synagogue, that part of his community relations should be to come to shul. He came to shul one Erev Shabbat to daven [pray] Kabbalat Shabbat [Eve of Sabbath service]. He was reading the English translation of kabbalat Shabbat. This includes many psalms, but he was reading the English translation. The next time he came round to see me he said, 'You know, I was reading the English translation in the siddur [prayer book] and, you know, it's really very good!'

I suddenly discovered that great truth that sometimes you have to travel a long way from home to realise that the greatest blessings are very close to you. Sometimes Israelis do come to the Diaspora and rediscover their Judaism, and if we can play a little part in that - how wonderful. And if they can give us a little share of the atmosphere of the air of Israel - mezeg avir shel Eretz Yisrael machkim - [the weather of the Land of Israel makes for wisdom]. How beautiful! Let us work together on that.

But one thing is sure: that if there is one thing ever - apart from the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai - that brought Jews together it was, tragically, a common enemy. We say in the Haggadah, talking about vayared Mitzrayma - our ancestors went to Egypt - vayehi shom legoi - there we became a nation. Why? Because we had a common enemy, the Egyptians. As long as the Jews were in Israel, the twelve sons of Jacob were arguing with another. As soon as they came to Egypt, they realised that we have a brit goral - a shared covenant of faith.

If the Almighty is telling us one thing loud and clear, He is saying to us: If you have the world against you, at least live in peace, mutual respect and tolerance towards one another. And if only that comes out of the present situation, dayenu [it would be enough].

Natan Sharansky: Just one thing. If we can do only one thing in regard to the Diaspora and Israel, I would suggest that there should be one book about Jewish civilisation which will be studied in every school in Israel and in every Jewish school in the Diaspora: for Reform Jewry, for Conservative Jewry, for Orthodox Jewry, for Sephardim, for Ashkenazim. Because what we really need is to live with the feeling that we have one common history. Unfortunately, for some people in Israel their history begins only in 1948 or from 1967. For many people in the Diaspora, the life of their community is to them the Jewish life of the world. But if only there was one book that every Jew would study and that they would have to read - whether in 6th grade or 7th grade or 8th grade or whatever - it would bring all of us to understand the basic facts from the past 3000 years which have united all of us. I think that would be a great step forward.

Chair: Ok. One more question from the floor and then a last question to you both. This is a question from Perry Livingstone. It is a personal question. He says:

"As a former student who demonstrated on behalf of Anatoly Sharansky (as you then were) I was wondering whether you had any knowledge of this activity that was taking place and, if so, did it help you in any way?"

 

Natan Sharansky: Well, first of all, mostly I didn't have any knowledge of it because in nine years of being a prisoner I had only two personal meetings during which I could really get some information. So I didn't know anything about most of the activity. But I did know that the world was fighting for me because I saw it through the behaviour of the KGB. In every confrontation with the KGB - and sometimes I was very close to death - at the last moment they would give up. They gave in to my demands - well, I wrote a whole book about it so I won't tell you now! That was the best proof that the KGB was under great pressure. It was the best proof that the Jewish world was fighting for me. Of course because I always believed that our people, my people, my country and my family are with me, that's what gave me strength.

There are many people who often ask me: Did you receive our letters which we sent? And have to tell them that, frankly, I didn't receive any of their letters which were sent to the prison. But, what was important was that the KGB received all these letters! That is what saved my life!

Chair: Another very quick question: I announced you as Minister without Portfolio responsible for Jerusalem, Social and Diaspora Affairs. Is that right? Are you Minister without Portfolio? Or have I got that wrong? Because I thought I'd got it from an Israeli Government website, but -

Natan Sharansky: Well, in fact I united two positions which were in the previous government. In the previous government, ... [?] was responsible for Diaspora Jewry and Minister Suissa was responsible for Jerusalem Affairs. I proposed to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to unite them because I believe that Jerusalem and the Diaspora need the same message and are very close to each other. The Ministry is in the process of being built, as you know.

Chair: Thank you for that. I didn't want to get it wrong. The last question is really to get you to sum up very briefly. It is really what you have learned from this conversation tonight. What you have learned from each other. What you will take away from talking to one another and exchanging your ideas. Minister, would you like to tell me?

Natan Sharansky: Well, first of all I got to know Yoni's wonderful family and I thank you for inviting me and giving me this unique opportunity.

Secondly, I found something out. I already knew this, but it is one thing to know something theoretically but another to hear personally that British Jewry has a very passionate spiritual leader who knows our history very well and who understands the importance of our fighting together and of our feeling of togetherness in the struggle against the challenges. I think if this passion will be shared by all British Jews it will be very important.

Chief Rabbi: Our imaginative horizons are shaped by lives and a courageous life lifts all of us. Today we've paid tribute to the memory of the late Yoni Jesner z"l, a young man who lifted my horizons as well as those of his contemporaries. And, lehavdil bein chaim lechaim [to distinguish from those still alive], we have heard the wonderful words of a man whose courage under pressure has been an inspiration to us all.

What I so hope is that instead of shmeissing one another, we give strength to one another: chazak chazak venitchazek. You be strong; we will be strong; and let us strengthen one another.

We have so many challenges ahead of us and yet we have so much to thank the Almighty for. Above all, the restoration of Jewish sovereignty, the return to our home - Medinat Yisrael - [the State of Israel] - the ingathering of Jews from 103 different countries. Israel inspires us. A friend is somebody who stays with you in difficult times no less than in good times.

I became a rabbi because of the inspiration I received at a very traumatic moment of Israel's history, the Six Day War which changed my life. I think it changed your life and the lives of Soviet Jews. Now Israel is going through equally tough times and I feel that the fact that that is bringing us together with our brothers and sisters in Israel can only be in the long run for the good because if you lift others you find that they lift you.

So may this Conversation be a model for many others. May we always work together and may we say, as you did to your KGB and your Russian court: leshanah haba beYerushalayim [next year in Jerusalem].

Chair: Thank you both very much indeed. Before we go, I'd like to introduce the Chairman of the Yoni Jesner Foundation, Yoni's brother Ari Jesner.

Ari Jesner: Just over a year ago it would have been beyond belief to imagine that nearly 700 people would be gathered here this evening for the first of the Yoni Jesner Conversations - all especially in the memory of Yoni.

It is a testament to the power of conversation and the draw of two renowned and distinguished figures but it is also testament to the enduring legacy of a very special young man.

Chief Rabbi and Minister Sharansky, thank you so much for taking us on such an exciting journey this evening. I felt as if I had the privilege of sitting in your living room and taking part in a private and special conversation. We have all been enriched by the experience and, on behalf of everyone here tonight, I would like to thank you both.

Joshua, you have had the toughest job this evening and yet you took it on so willingly. Thank you so much for taking on this huge responsibility and for steering the conversation so well.

It has been a real pleasure for me and the Yoni Jesner Foundation to work with Howard Stanton and Marc Weinberg and the London School of Jewish Studies. I have learned so much from you all. People with such vision and foresight are few and far between. Anglo-Jewry has an exciting future where the London School of Jewish Studies is concerned. The Foundation is privileged to have worked with you on the first of the Yoni Jesner Conversations and we look forward to working with you in the future.

To Syma Weinberg, thank you so much for all the coordinating and arranging that you have done for this evening and especially for all the advice which is always so welcome and valuable.

Thank you to Vera Golovensky for your time that you gave to Syma and me over Succoth in Israel and for coordinating this visit with us.

On behalf of the family, I would like to thank our fellow trustees of the Yoni Jesner Foundation: Jonathan Kestenbaum, David Cohen and Martin Paisner. You are the busiest people I know, but your selfless giving of your time and the concern you show towards this exciting new project assures me that we are in safe hands and gives me much confidence for the Foundation's future.

How Yoni would have enjoyed this evening. He loved conversation. As many of you may know, when Yoni died we found a list of aphorisms that he had written which he used as a kind of guide to live his life by. What never ceases to amaze me is that every time I open them and read them, I find that there is always one that is applicable to the situation at hand. This evening is no exception. I'd like to share a couple with you that relate to the notion of conversation as we experienced it this evening.

"Mental approaches to different problems and situations will vary from person to person. Be very aware of this fact when explaining or discussing. A different approach is not necessarily wrong."

And another:

"Go to people where they are, not where you want them to be."

This concept of conversation is not only expressed by Yoni in his aphorisms. The Chief Rabbi, writing in The Dignity of Difference and Natan Sharansky sitting in Chistopol Prison both express a similar appreciation of the value of conversation.

To converse is not where people talk at each other but rather it is a genuine form of respect: meeting them where they are and not where you are. Listening and understanding are key. No-one loses. Indeed, both are changed and grow through the experience because they know what reality looks like from a different perspective.

This is the essence of the Yoni Jesner Conversations. We hope that you will all not only take away from this evening the content of this particular conversation, but something more about the true nature of conversation itself and the importance it plays in our everyday lives and as a tool in building bridges across communities and cultures.

Many of you here this evening did not know Yoni. But I believe that to understand the Yoni Jesner Foundation you need to know a little about him.

Yoni was a remarkable young man. He achieved top grades at school, despite being extremely busy with communal work. Where he found the time to study is a mystery to us all. He was an inspirational youth leader and the head of Glasgow Bnei Akiva. He organised cross-communal events and inter-youth movement activities. Yoni was also a Jewish Studies tutor and led Jewish assemblies at the non-Jewish school he attended.

Yoni was concerned that when he left Glasgow there would be no-one to continue with these assemblies and so before he left to study at yeshiva in Israel Yoni turned down an inter-railing holiday around Europe with his friends and, instead, spent four weeks at the Community Centre in Glasgow writing assemblies for the entire year he would be away so that Glasgow and the Jewish pupils at his school would not have to go without.

Yoni leyned in shul almost every week and ran the children's and youth services. He was also the youngest volunteer at the Glasgow Jewish Burial Society. All this he accomplished before leaving Glasgow to go and study in Israel.

Yoni, with his drive and determination and infectious enthusiasm, as the Chief Rabbi mentioned earlier, achieved more in his 19 years than many people do in a lifetime.

The Yoni Jesner Foundation has been set up to perpetuate Yoni's memory and to continue the work Yoni devoted himself to during his lifetime. The aim of the Foundation is to build projects and initiative for the community that reflect Yoni's commitment to Judaism, his passion for education and, at the same time, his inquisitive nature and thirst for knowledge.

The projects of the Foundation are twofold in nature. Firstly, to give other young people the opportunity to do what Yoni was not able to complete. Yoni had not finished his time studying in Israel and he had not had an opportunity to return to London to take up his place to study medicine at University College London.

We have set up the Yoni Jesner Scholarships to help fund gap years in Israel and to help medical students fund their studies here in the UK. We are delighted that there are already students who are benefiting from these Scholarships.

Secondly, to create new projects which are true to Yoni's spirit and ideals. Tonight's Conversation brings to fruition the first of these and we look forward to informing you of others in due course.

The Foundation is also privileged to be hosting the internationally acclaimed Aviv String Quartet, together with the pianist Iddo Bar-Shai from Israel, who will be performing in Yoni's memory. This will take place at the Wigmore Hall on Sunday, 7th December. Information can be found on your seats and tickets are available outside in the foyer or directly from the Wigmore Hall.

If you are thinking of sponsorship possibilities, fundraising initiatives or educational activities, please think of the Yoni Jesner Foundation and building a partnership with us. Yoni had tremendous energy and would make things happen. Please be a part of the Yoni Jesner Foundation, our exciting new initiative, and together we can make sure that Yoni's memory lives on and that something positive comes out of this terrible tragedy.

Thank you all for being here tonight and for supporting us and for making this evening such a success.