An empty classroom. Photo: Wiki Commons.

I have just returned from a very moving and memorable reunion of pupils of the Jewish Boarding school Carmel College, which my father founded in 1948. The school closed in 1997.

It was often called the Jewish Eton. Those who attended the reunion ranged from its very first year, to its last. I experienced Carmel as a rebellious pupil, and years later as its headmaster and principal. We all agreed that Carmel had a profound impact on our lives in one way or another.

The reunion included a debate in which I participated — “That Carmel College was a failed Jewish educational experiment.”

The motion was overwhelmingly defeated because nearly everyone there looked back on their Carmel experience with affection and gratitude, even if some did not at the time.

But the question was whether Carmel could be considered a model for Jewish education or whether it was just a unique child of its time.

When my father started Carmel College in 1948, it was at a time when the British Empire still existed, and Britain was a haven for refugees escaping the horrors of European Jew hatred. But even in Britain, antisemitism was manifest and this encouraged many Jews to assimilate or hide their identities.

The idea of Jewish education horrified many as an impediment to integration. Opposition to the project was fierce. My father argued that Jewish students in non-Jewish schools would always feel like outsiders. In Carmel, they would have the confidence of being insiders and better adjusted when eventually they did go out into the world.

My father persevered and Carmel grew under his charismatic leadership. Its success looked like being an example of how to educate young Jews to be confident in their identity, academically successful, and familiar with Judaism and its rituals. The beauty of its campus and its riverside location were amongst its greatest attractions.

But my father’s intentions for the school were very different to the school that emerged. Originally, he hoped there would be a balance between the Jewish and the secular. But the Jewish side was always the orphan. Jewish teachers were less academic though they compensated by offering hospitality and warmth. Most of the pupils came from homes that were not religious, and didn’t care for a Jewish education. Many parents effectively undermined the Jewish ethos.

There were a few who came from religious backgrounds who did care, and those who wanted to, could find teachers on the campus to help them thrive both religiously and in Jewish studies. But for the majority, it was difficult having to keep Shabbat and Kashrut.

My father was a tolerant, open-minded man, and he came to accept the reality, but he gloried in those few who went on to become rabbis and scholars.

Carmel was always a very expensive option. Its financial burden was all the greater because it had to fund the extra Jewish curriculum and because it offered so many scholarships and reductions. And because it was independent and was not seen as part of the community, it was always a problem to raise funds.

In the last days of his life, my father — who was a passionate, religious Zionist and convinced of Israel’s future — had already made plans for the future by establishing a Carmel school in Israel. With the help of Nachum Goldman, the head of the World Jewish Congress, he acquired land in Zichron Yaakov and produced a prospectus. Unfortunately, his premature death at the age of 48 in 1962, put paid to the scheme. Carmel carried on after his death until it closed in 1997.

But its history does raise the issue of whether it was the ideal form of Jewish education. Jewish education in the Diaspora has exploded since those days, primarily in the form of day schools from across the whole spectrum of Jewish life. Many are not that successful in producing religiously committed young men and women — and often, they can have a negative effect. Yet there are examples, mainly in the US, where excellence in both areas prove that at least it is possible to get the best of both worlds.

There is much debate as to whether Jewish schools should be spending more time teaching non-religious subjects like Jewish history, to give young men and women the tools to fight back against antisemitism and have a sense of where they come from. In Israel, of course, there are different issues. From the start of the State of Israel, religious and secular provided opposing cultures. But today, there are many more schools that try to offer both.

The Carmel example was successful in bringing young Jewish boys (and then at a later stage girls), from all different backgrounds, countries, and cultures together in one educational space, where they could also taste a Jewish life, something that most of them did not see at home.

There is no perfect solution to the challenge of Jewish education. We continue to struggle with the issues of how to pass on our Jewish identity to the next generation. But it’s becoming clearer that the pressures of society and peer groups challenge religious observance. It is the home that is the most determining factor of whether someone will live a Jewish life or not — although even then, there are no guarantees.

The only area in Jewish life where there is exponential growth is in the Charedi world, and even then, there are dropouts. There are no guarantees. And, sadly, as a reaction to Jew hatred, many are finding their way back to the Jewish world. Perhaps most importantly, there are other tools for Jewish survival that did not exist 50 years ago, from Jewish evangelicals to organized visits to Israel.

There are no golden bullets. Whatever works. So, to end with an example of Athens and Jerusalem, Shakespeare said “Good wombs have borne bad sons” (The Tempest Act 1, Scene 2). But the Mishnah says, “You do not have to finish the work, but neither can you give up” (Ethics Chapter 2.21).

The author is a writer and rabbi, currently based in New York. 

Demonstrators against antisemitism in London on Sept. 8, 2025. Photo: Campaign Against Antisemitism

A synagogue and its nursery school in the Golders Green area of north London were targeted in an antisemitic attack on Thursday morning — the eighth such incident locally in just over a week amid a shocking surge of anti-Jewish hate crimes in the area.

The synagogue and Jewish nursery were smeared with excrement in an antisemitic outrage echoing a series of recent incidents targeting the local Jewish community.

“The desecration of another local synagogue and a children’s nursery with excrement is a vile, deliberate, and premeditated act of antisemitism,” Shomrim North West London, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and also serves as a neighborhood watch group, said in a statement.

“This marks the eighth antisemitic incident locally in just over a week, to directly target the local Jewish community,” the statement read. “These repeated attacks have left our community anxious, hurt, and increasingly worried.”

Local law enforcement confirmed they are reviewing CCTV footage and collecting evidence to identify the suspect and bring them to justice.

This latest anti-Jewish hate crime came just days after tens of thousands of people marched through London in a demonstration against antisemitism, amid rising levels of antisemitic incidents across the United Kingdom since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

In just over a week, seven Jewish premises in Barnet, the borough in which Golders Green is located, have been targeted in separate antisemitic incidents.

According to the Metropolitan Police, an investigation has been launched into the targeted attacks, all of which involved the use of bodily fluids.

During the incidents, a substance was smeared on four synagogues and a private residence, while a liquid was thrown at a school and over a car in two other attacks.

As the investigation continues, local police said they believe the same suspect is likely responsible for all seven offenses, which are being treated as religiously motivated criminal damage.

No arrests have been made so far, but law enforcement said it is actively engaging with the local Jewish community to provide reassurance and support.

The Community Security Trust (CST), a nonprofit charity that advises Britain’s Jewish community on security matters, condemned the recent wave of attacks and called on authorities to take immediate action.

“The extreme defilement of several Jewish locations in and around Golders Green is utterly abhorrent and deeply distressing,” CST said in a statement.

“CST is working closely with police and communal partners to support victims and help identify and apprehend the perpetrator,” it continued.

The Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) also denounced the attacks, calling for urgent measures to protect the Jewish community.

“These repeated incidents are leaving British Jews anxious and vulnerable in their own neighborhoods, not to mention disgusted,” CAA said in a statement.

Since the start of the war in Gaza, the United Kingdom has experienced a surge in antisemitic crimes and anti-Israel sentiment.

Last month, CST published a report showing there were 1,521 antisemitic incidents in the UK from January to June of this year. It marks the second-highest total of incidents ever recorded by CST in the first six months of any year, following the first half of 2024 in which 2,019 antisemitic incidents were recorded.

In total last year, CST recorded 3,528 antisemitic incidents for 2024, the country’s second worst year for antisemitism despite being an 18 percent drop from 2023’s record of 4,296.

In previous years, the numbers were significantly lower, with 1,662 incidents in 2022 and 2,261 hate crimes in 2021.

German national flag flutters on top of the Reichstag building, that seats the Germany’s lower house of parliament, the Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, March 25, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Lisi Niesner

Germany will support a United Nations resolution for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but does not believe the time has come to recognize a Palestinian state, a government spokesman told Reuters on Thursday.

“Germany will support such a resolution which simply describes the status quo in international law,” the spokesman said, adding that Berlin “has always advocated a two-state solution and is asking for that all the time.”

“The chancellor just mentioned two days ago again that Germany does not see that the time has come for the recognition of the Palestinian state,” the spokesman added.

Britain, France, Canada, Australia, and Belgium have all said they will recognize a Palestinian state at the United Nations General Assembly later this month, although London said it could hold back if Israel were to take steps to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and commit to a long-term peace process.

The United States strongly opposes any move by its European allies to recognize Palestinian independence.

Last week, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US has told other countries that recognition of a Palestinian state will cause more problems.

Those who see recognition as a largely symbolic gesture point to the negligible presence on the ground and limited influence in the conflict of countries such as China, India, Russia, and many Arab states that have recognized Palestinian independence for decades.