Community Update
It is hard to believe it is almost four weeks since the darkest day in Jewish and Israeli history since the Holocaust.
We at SJRC have been grateful for all the community support we have had at both our vigil on October 9th and the Bring Them Home rally held last Sunday. These were opportunities for us to stand together as one, with our Israeli community members and to remember all those killed and those taken hostage.
We wanted to reassure you that we are in regular contact with the Brighton and Hove Council and Sussex Police to ensure the safety and wellbeing of our community. We have been working hard with the schools team at the council to make sure that all Jewish and Israeli pupils and teachers are offered support at this difficult time. We have also been providing appropriate briefing materials for head teachers so that they understand the situation and can ensure that staff and pupils don’t feel alienated or ostracised. If you have any issues with your child at school, please do contact us directly and we will be able to offer you support and engage with schools on your behalf.
We have also been regularly engaging with the local police. Many of you will have seen extra patrols around synagogues and Jewish communal venues just to provide an added layer of reassurance. Those of you who were at BNJC when we were doing our collection of items to send to Israel might have met two of the officers who popped in to have a chat and see how we were all doing.
As part of this engagement with the police, we want to share with you two events that will be happening. Tomorrow has been deemed National Palestinian Flag day. The police are aware that there are likely to be many Palestinian flags prominently displayed around the city. That may cause stress and anxiety for some people in the community. The police will be vigilant to ensure that they are not put near any of our communal buildings and will remove them if they see them. However, if you see a flag and it upsets you, you are perfectly within your rights to remove it. Please do not damage it but you can dispose of it. If, for any reason, somebody is waving a flag near you or any of our communal buildings or synagogues, please do call 999.
On Sunday there will be a rally and march held by the Brighton PSC - Palestinian Solidarity Committee. They will be meeting at 12:00 at Palmeira Square and will probably march to the Peace Statue. There will be a large and visible police presence to ensure they do not come further into Hove or near any of the synagogues nearby. The Police are aware that we see this march and its start location as being very provocative and intended to intimidate. We are in regular, frequent contact with them and will be throughout the weekend. We know this will cause upset to many people in the community. We have done our utmost to have the start point of the march changed. However as the PSC are not an organised group, the police have no one to negotiate with. We are sharing this information with you not to cause alarm, but to ensure that you know what is going on in the city and can take the appropriate action for you if necessary. Also to reassure you that we are monitoring the situation and are in close communication with the police.
More information to follow next week on our ongoing Bring Them Home campaign