Searching For Utopia

A society free from prejudice and discrimination may seem like a Utopian dream, but one Golders Green resident believes it could become reality.

The cultural divide between Britain and her native USA first hit Dr Edie Friedman when she arrived in Britain as a student in the 1970s.

She said: "There was a lot of Jewish involvement in a whole range of social issues, particularly civil rights. I come from an activist culture and I didn't find the same when I came to Britain."

Committed to the notion that British Jewry could play a larger role in combating racism, Dr Friedman established the Jewish Social Responsibility Council in 1976.

She said: "I feel strongly that in terms of Jewish teaching and because of Jewish experience as an immigrant refugee community, the community had an obligation to not only combat racism, but to develop a healthy multi-racial society that benefits us all."

Today the organisation is known as the Jewish Council for Racial Equality (J-CORE) -- it boasts the Chief Rabbi and Lord Janner QC among its patrons. Its work is broadly divided into three groups -- education, inter-faith dialogue and helping asylum seekers.

J-CORE has developed an education pack aimed primarily, though not exclusively, at Jewish children.

Dr Friedman said: "The materials are used in the classroom and the informal education sector. Young children learn that part and parcel of being Jewish is this commitment to promoting a multi-racial society."

The Breakfast Eaters, set up to foster informal Black-Jewish-Asian dialogue, meets every six weeks.

"About 15 people meet to talk and eat. There are a lot off difficult issues -- like the Middle East, like Farrakhan -- and there haven't been many opportunities to talk.

" From that we have developed a project to involve Black, Jewish and Asian lawyers to look at equal opportunities within the law and to recruit them to do more immigration work."

J-CORE's third area of work is with refugees -- campaigning against unfair legislation and dealing with its consequences.

"Currently local authorities are responsible for providing subsistence to asylum seekers. It's a bureaucratic cumbersome mess which never should have come about. We're hoping benefit will be reinstated and that there will be a fairer system for assessing people's claims.

"The idea is not to create a new underclass of people who are dependent on handouts. We have enough of a homeless population without wilfully creating more, and that's what this legislation does. It's immoral and unworkable."

But idealism aside, how does Dr Friedman feel the Jewish community has reacted to her work?

"I think there were a lot of suspicions at first, especially with the image of a young American coming to Britain and bringing the 1960s with her, but there's more of an acceptance now.

"There are a lot of demands within the Jewish community to fund a whole infrastructure of welfare, and this isn't necessarily seen as high priority. It's an uphill struggle -- to put it mildly."

Jewish-Christian Social Action in Barnet collects for asylum seekers. Quality clothes, bric-a-brac and household goods are collected on the first Tuesday of every month, between 6pm and 9pm, at Golders Green Trinity Methodist Church in Hodford Road. Toiletries and non-perishable foods are collected at the same time at St Albans Church, St Albans Close, Golders Green, and on the third Monday of every month, between 6pm and 9pm, at John Keble Church, 142 Deans Lane, Edgware.

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