Steven Jaffe – Jewish Communities in Scotland and Northern Ireland

President Katrina welcomed everyone to the meeting, including the speaker, Steven Jaffe, who was going to talk about Jewish Communities in Scotland and Northern Ireland.  She also welcomed Sammy Stein, who had previously addressed the Club on a couple of occasions.

In this week’s piece of Interesting Rotary Information, President Katrina recalled an article from last year’s June/July Rotary magazine entitled “Toilet Twinning”.

Toilet Twinning invited people to twin their toilets with a latrine overseas or sponsor a household toilet – you receive a certificate & photo of your toilet twin and GPS co-ordinates!

At the time of printing last year more than 50 Rotary Clubs in the UK had become involved in Toilet Twinning. Along with 75 Inner Wheel Clubs they jointly raised over £58,000 at that time.

Toilet Twinning helps provide proper toilets, clean water and hygiene education, helping prevent the spread of disease in over 45 countries. Since 2010 it has twinned 140,000 toilets.

On the website they coin the phrase “Toilets, taps & training – a lifesaving trio” The project is part of the registered charity Tear Fund.

President Katrina introduced tonight’s speaker, Steven Jaffe, an advocate and public affairs consultant to the UK Jewish community.

Steven explained that Jews are a distinct and unique people, not necessarily defined by race, appearance, religion or where they lived. There are 14 million Jews in the world, 7 million of them in Israel.  Over the years, Jewish people have made a great contribution to the world.  Worldwide, 20% of the Nobel prizes have been awarded to Jews. Fifteen British Jews have won Nobel prizes.  They have been prominent in the world of entertainment with a wide range of actors and they have made significant contributions to music, commerce, industry, academia etc.

There are 5,800 Jews in Scotland, mainly in the Glasgow area, with tiny groups in various parts of the country.  They have made a positive contribution to Scottish society through music, TV, journalism, writing etc.  In 2014/15 there was some concern about antisemitism in Scotland and other parts of the UK.  This was caused by media reports of what was happening in the Gaza War.  This resulted in some extremists abusing Jews in the street, graffiti appearing and the boycotting of Jewish stalls in markets. 

In 2015 Sammy Stein set up a stall in Glasgow called “Friends of Israel” to inform people and answer questions about what was going on in Israel.  The stall was present in Buchanan Street up until Covid restrictions were imposed.  He said that he had encountered very little antisemitism at the stall and he had found the Scottish people to be very tolerant, open minded and friendly.

After Steven and Sammy had answered a series of questions put to them by the members, Andrew Murray proposed a humorous vote of thanks, thanking them for a very enlightening and entertaining talk.

President Katrina then paid tribute to our recently deceased member, Jim Rae, praising the charity work he had undertaken in Africa. This was followed by a moment’s silence. 

Secretary Ian reported that he had delivered a New Member’s Pack to David Grieve this afternoon and had enjoyed a socially distant chat with him outside, in line with Covid precautions.

Willie Talbot reported that the Bonus Ball winner was Ian Carrol.