‘It is sad that we have to pray behind locked doors’ – interview with the leader of Jersey’s Jewish community

  • The leader of the Island’s Jewish community speaks to the JEP about rising anti-semitism
  • Stephen Regal said that the community fear terror attacks

JERSEY is widely seen as a tolerant and peaceful Island where the crime rate is so low that many people leave their doors and cars unlocked.

But there is a small community in the Island that worships behind locked doors with a security guard outside.

That group is the 50-strong Jewish community of Jersey, whose religion hit the headlines recently in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks and other anti-semitic incidents across Europe, including one last weekend in London when six people were arrested after allegedly forcing their way into a synagogue and assaulting a worshipper.

To the passer-by, apart from the small Star of David on the outside, the building in which the Jersey group prays could easily be mistaken for a house.

  • Speed-dating was invented by a Rabbi in 1999 to help Jewish singles in Los Angeles to meet each other
  • The locust is the only insect that is considered Kosher in Judaism
  • Shiva – translated literally to seven – is the weeklong mourning period for first-degree relatives of the deceased, and it is the first part of structured mourning in Judaism
  • During Shiva, the mourners are required to abstain from participating in some of the most basic functions of everyday life, including cooking
  • It is customary to bring a Shiva basket to the family as a condolence gift, which would contain a variety of food items
  • Jews believe that you do not need to be Jewish to get into Heaven; everyone who lives an ethical life will be close to God in the afterlife
  • There is no Jewish Pope or single spiritual authority in Judaism

In January this year, following the terrorist attacks in France, the JEP reported that security measures at the building had been in place for a number of years in order to protect members of the Jewish community in the Island.

Stephen Regal, president of the Jersey Jewish Congregation, said that although he did not feel frightened when he prayed at the synagogue, the community ‘would be wrong not to address the security issue’.

‘Here in Jersey it is not so much of an important thing, because this is a very secure Island,’ said Mr Regal. ‘I guess we could be considered to be overreacting to the security issues, but synagogues are attacked and we have a duty to our members to have at least some level of security here. It is sad when people feel that they have to pray behind locked doors – that is a really terrible indictment of today’s society.’

Anti-semitism is prejudice or discrimination against Jews as a national, ethnic, religious or racial group. It is something to which even the Jewish community in Jersey has been subjected – over the years the synagogue has been vandalised and their cemetery has been broken into and damaged.

With almost 14 million Jews around the world – 0.2 per cent of the whole population – Mr Regal said he had hoped that anti-semitism would now be a thing of the past.

‘If you had talked to me in 1945 about anti-semitism in Europe, just after the West had fought a war about man’s inhumanity to man, I would have said that we were never going to have these problems again. But here we are, 70 years later, and the problems are recurring.

‘Man’s ability to be cruel to man is almost unlimited,’ the father of two added.

Mr Regal laying a wreath at the Maritime Museum on Holocaust Memorial Day

Mr Regal, who has been president of the community for 16 years, was born in London and moved to Jersey when he was just three months old. His parents were the ‘instigators of the revived Jersey Jewish Congregation’ in the late 1950s after the original congregation that existed in the latter part of the 18th and 19th century became defunct.

  • The synagogue is traditional and we follow a quite old-fashioned form of Judaism where men and women sit separately from each other.
  • There are historical and biblical reasons for that; it does not de-value the function of women in the synagogue, not by one centimetre.
  • Women are as important in the functioning of a viable synagogue as anybody. In fact, in our faith, the faith of the child goes through the women.
  • If a Jewess marries a gentile, they would be considered Jewish, whereas if a Jew marries a female gentile, the child would not be considered Jewish so women are fundamentally important.
  • The Hebrew for women, comes from the word teacher and that’s an obvious connection there. The mother’s duty among other things, not just to wash up and cook meals, their strength is in their intelligence. They allow the husband to think he runs the house but of course, they know better.
  • Up until the age of 13 the children can sit with whom they want) from then, they are segregated.

‘There was a group of Jewish people who decided that a place of religious worship and form of religious organisation was required, and my parents resurrected it.’

In Jersey there are about 55 families who practise Judaism in various degrees, but Mr Regal said that anybody who wanted to visit the synagogue, even if they were not Jewish, would be welcome.

‘We are not an evangelical faith – we’re not looking for converts – but it is a house of God, and if you wish to commune with God then you are welcome.

‘We don’t have a monopoly on God, we are just one of many religions. We have a strong belief that anybody who believes in God, irrespective of whether they are Jewish or not, will go to heaven.’

Mr Regal, who runs Regal Construction, revealed that although the Jewish community in Jersey was of ‘a reasonable size’, he would like to see more people attending the regular Saturday service. ‘There is a good social life attached to the synagogue and I would like to see a bit more integration for the regular services,’ he added.

When the Jersey Jewish community re-formed, Mr Regal said, the congregation were very much ‘wandering Jews’. They would initially meet at private houses to pray, before the then Rector of St Brelade loaned them the St Brelade Church hall.

The opportunity to buy the current synagogue arose in 1972, having previously been a Methodist chapel. The Methodist Church was happy that the building would continue to be used as a place of worship.

Speaking about the support that the community has had from the States, Mr Regal spoke kindly of Jersey’s authorities. He said that although they did not often ask for help from the States, they had given them ‘every facility’ to practise their faith in the way that they wish to.

‘At Passover we have to have different food, and that food we get from the UK and bring it back,’ he explained. ‘A few years ago it coincided with an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in the UK. Transportation was severely restricted and food was not allowed into Jersey without a licence. I contacted the Department of Agriculture and other States authorities and we received consent within a day to bring our food into Jersey.’

He said that this was a perfect example of how the Jewish community had been accommodated by the States, and that the authorities are not only helpful but ‘bend over backwards’ to help them.

‘Jersey is a very pluralistic society. It is very accepting of people who come here who can contribute and who want to work on behalf of themselves and on behalf of the Island. Jersey,’ he added, ‘is good at that.’

  • The organisation of Jewish synagogues are run on a semi-quasi business-like manner, we have a secretary and a treasurer.
  • Unlike other religions, we are precluded from carrying money on the Sabbath. If you wish to participate in anything you pay a membership fee, and we charge that every year.
  • We have a visiting minister, Rev Malcolm Weisman, who has been our visiting minister for more than 50 years. He comes to take the services on holy days. Rev Weisman will be here for the Passover service. (One service a week on Saturday)
  • It would be advantageous to have a Friday night service as well – we do at festivals and we always get a reasonable number of people.
  • The service generally lasts about 2 hours. Unlike other services, Saturday morning services are the same every week. We read from the Torah and that’s different every week.
  • We start at the beginning, at Genesis and we finish at Deuteronomy. We work our way all the way through the Torah week-to-week.
  • The whole service is in Hebrew apart from what we call the Loyal prayer which is for Her Majesty the Queen and the Government. That’s traditional throughout Judaism, in any country they will pray for the head of state, as well as the Government.
  • Interestingly, the Jews of Germany prior to 1938, prayed for Hitler because he was the elected Head of State.
  • When we finish reading the scroll, we start at the beginning and then work our way through to the end, and immediately we start back at the beginning again. That holiday is called Simchat Torah, and we get the scrolls out of the arc and we dance around with the scrolls , waving them in the air, singing and shouting.
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