Over 1500 Days Without a Visit

This Saturday is Gilad Shalit's 24th birthday, has been in captivity for four years and has been living without basic humanitarian rights.  The Red Cross, who are meant to ensure such rights, have yet to visit him.  Here is a letter that a cousin of mine who works for the Jewish Agency in Israel has written.  She suggests that it can be adjusted to your personal feelings and send it to one of the addresses at the bottom.

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I cannot express too strongly my disappointment at the clearly feeble and half-hearted attempts made by the ICRC to visit Gilad Shalit.

To claim on your web-site that you are still “working just as hard” to visit Gilad when you first failed 4 years ago only means that you have not increased the pressure nor have you shown- for years- any creative initiative.  For one small soldier the effort is apparently not worthwhile.

You have clearly never countered Hamas’ refusals by trying to “upgrade” your own efforts but have just carried on as before, knowing that you will continue to fail. When asked “What exactly have you asked Hamas to do?” you simply ignore your own interviewer’s question and give no real detail whatsoever, just the same old generalisations and platitutdes.  The conclusion must be that there is no detail to give.

To admit on your website that “there is only so much that we can do for them” is a total abandonment of your creed.  You no longer have true belief in your mission, and your double duties as messenger to one Israeli soldier and as protector of the poor and hungry in Gaza have led you into the worst ways of expediency, well on the road that leads to total defeat.  You have lost your own self-esteem and, I am convinced of it, that of many thousands of others.

It took you four years of failure before you even realised that “working behind the scenes” is a pointless, hopeless way of dealing with Hamas.  FOUR YEARS!!  Against this background, you could never persuade any reasonable man that you have been really trying at all.

Please think of these things…

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Suggested addresses:

For Near & Middle East:  dkrimitsas@icrc.org (Dorothea Krimitsas- Media Relations Officer)

Jerusalem: jerusalem.jer@icrc.org (Ms. Barbara Amstad)

International Office: Review@gva@icrc.org

Leeds Jewish Welfare Board

Either you all are, or will be, sick to death about me going on about my marathon. Nevertheless, there is a shockingly long way to go towards reaching my fundraising target of £2000. As such, I thought I’d give a little information below about the charity I am supporting. If you wish to sponsor me, please go to http://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/NeilClarke

Leeds Jewish Welfare Board are responsible for financing some of the most important work in the Jewish community of North Leeds. They ensure that every community member is looked after, regardless of their situation in life. Many of their services are also open to the wider non-Jewish community.

Here are some of their services:

• Older People's Services- activities and transport for those who are no longer able to cope with their normal activities of daily living or feel that they may need some support
• Manny Cussins Family Project- a range of activities and support to children, families and adults.
• The Rainbow Project- supports those with learning and physical disabilities through a wide range of residential, community support and day services.
• Moorcare-provide an accessible, personal and confidential home care service for adults living in their own homes. This covers the whole of the North East Leeds area irrespective of age, gender, race, colour, religion, disability and sexuality.
• Leeds Jewish Blind Society- offers social care support and advice for people who are struggling with visual problems together with access to helpful equipment. Now incorporates services for the hearing impaired

The Leeds Jewish Welfare Board are also responsible for running the Marjorie and Arnold Ziff Community Centre and setting up the Holocaust Survivors Friendship Association

Visit http://www.ljwb.co.uk for more information.

Primark: Too good to be true?

I

I don't like ethical decisions.  They take me away from the path I admire the most... that of least resistance.

This is a problem given that I shop at Primark a lot.  Maybe it's because I'm tight with money or maybe because I'm a man of simple tastes.  Whilst it's probably a mix of the two, I hope it is more the latter.  What is the point of getting something fancy when you are going to look back in ten years time "Why was I wearing that?".  Why go for something that is five times the price just because it has a brand name on it?  I suppose an argument can be brought that other shops are better quality.  However, just like M & S vegetables, they may be better but not five times better, so don't be a snob.  Also, no matter how good the quality is, my trousers will always develop a hole in the crotch.  It's natural law.

So Primark it is.... or is it?As the saying goes: "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is".  If the clothes are that cheap, there must be something wrong. 

However, just imagine that you have just had a whole menagerie of Jewish festivals, you are coming up to the last one and you have no shirts that are simultaneously both clean and dry.  Never happened, of course, but just imagine.  Now whilst in general you don't need a new shirt, you just want to buy something cheaply and quickly to avoid looking like a vagabond and vagrant in synagogue.  Here, old adages fly out the window and plenty of reasons come to reassure me:

• They probably have automated machines which cut down on costs
• Plus... they must buy in bulk which'll make them inexpensive
• Reasonable quality clothes are bound to be that cheap if they are part of last year's line and other shops will no longer stock them.
• They explicitly state on their website that they ensure all their suppliers are ethical
• They are regulated and so wouldn't be able to get away with unethical practices

So go on then.  Let's get a nice plain shirt for a few pounds.  After all, G-d will probably love me more in a Primark shirt than if I turn up in a "Shit Happens" T-Shirt.

II

Today however, Primark- again- have been found to source from unethical suppliers. 

Once before they were found to have imported clothes made in Indian slums where children laboured in poor conditions.  At the time, Primark investigated promptly and decided to stop using these factories once they were aware of the problem.  This is exemplary company policy- and I don't mean that in a sarcastic way.  Companies make mistakes and it would be unfair to accuse them of knowing what is happening.  This is especially so if they have done everything they can- such as send out auditors- to find out if the suppliers are kosher.  The mark of morality is not that you don't make mistakes but that you say sorry and correct the mistake instantly.

Yet, today BBC news reports in this link  about their undercover report into conditions at a TNS Knitwear factory, who make clothes for Primark.  The workers get paid as little as £3.50 an hour (a long way below the minimum wage) and for as much as twelve hours a day, seven days a week.  All the money gets paid out in cash and there is no paperwork.  This is just as well because many of the employees wouldn't be allowed on the books.  Amongst the workers are illegal immigrants and people claiming unemployment benefit.

Once again,  I'm sure there was no intentional wrongdoing on Primark's part.  They are part of the 'Ethical Trading Initiative' and they have a precise code of conduct suppliers should follow.  However, it makes one very uneasy that, rather this unethical practice being detected by their procedures, the scandal only emerged after an undercover investigation.  It makes one wonder how many other dodgy suppliers they have on their books.

III

I'm not usually one to advocate boycotts of anyone or anything.  They are ineffectual, firstly, because unless everyone boycotts them, then your action is merely symbolic.  No-one is going to listen to your voice and you won't be able to affect change.  Secondly, even if everyone did boycott a particular firm and they went bust, what would that achieve?  You will be scapegoating someone without doing anything about the problem.  It's like the police arresting an insignificant drug dealer when a) they haven't cut off the supply and b) there are plenty of insignificant drug dealers to take their place. 

In this case, the public will have got on their high horse about Primark, thought how wonderfully moral they are, and move on to the next cheap retailer.  That is, until they have been caught in an act of indiscretion, at which point you have another scapegoat. 

No, given that such retailing isn't on its way out soon, the best thing for regulators to do is help tighten up Primark's procedures and to help them enforce the policies they already have .  The right thing for the kind of people that will continue to bargain-shop is:  demand that wrongs are righted, and then shop in a place committed to an ethical policy (which Primark seem to be).

However, having said this, I will boycott Primark products and stop buying there.  This will be coupled with not buying from similar stores.  I realised that this incident hasn't taught me anything about Primark per se, but about this kind of trading in general.  When you look for the cheapest mass-produced products from anywhere in the world, you are bound to run into trouble. 

To use another drug metaphor, no matter how careful you are, if you are going to buy your ecstasy from a man in the club, you'll eventually end up with a dog pill.  No matter how good Primark's procedures are, when dealing with these types of firms, you are going to run into unethical suppliers.  While there is still a demand for these clothes, then these scandals will always arise.  My boycott then, one which ideally others would follow, is to stop going for financial shortcuts.  Go to a shop and pay a bit more money, but where you know the worker's will get a fair deal.  Cut off the demand.  Unfortunately, I don't see that happening.

Given that I'm in a metaphor mood, let's use one last one to sum up my position...

With certain foods, checking the ingredients and spotting a green 'v' on the packet is no guarantee that the product is kosher.  It's not even a guarantee that it's vegetarian!  If you want the hescher, you have to pay for the hescher.

What will You do? (or at least a prod up my own backside)

Oh, we are a species that like to get inspired. We see a TV programme here. A rousing speech is given there. EMotional blackmail round the corner and to the left. This prompts us into immediate action. The odd Live 8 here. The odd giving a few pence in the charity box there. A charity record in the dustbin after a few weeks. But what about long term? After we have marched to Gleneagles, broken the windows of a few MacDonalds, placated our guilt, done our bit?

It is so hard to keep inspiration going. I read 'To heal a Fractured World"; I read "What will you do? Forty-eight things to make a difference" and got very excited and planned how I was going to change the world. But other things got in the way.... oh well, I'll get inspired again one day.

But that isn't good enough. We shouldn't just do good when we feel like it, when our emotions sway us this way or that. Our lives should consist in acting out those values that we hold dear. Our whole lives should be filled with meaning and responsibility:

"We need to give voice to the Biblical message that serving G-d and our fellow human beings are inseperably linked. The greasted gift is to be able to give, and the life we lead is measured by the good we do. Let the title of this book be a challenge to us all: WHat will you do?
The Chief Rabbi Professor Doctor Sir Jonathan Sacks Esq. MA. pHD. A-Level, GCSE, SATS level 2

We should do good because it is good 'lishma' (for its own sake). We're not going to change the world instantly and doing our bit shouldn't be predicated on its consequences. It is the small things, the things which will help 'a bit'; the are the things we should be doing and doing all the time. None of life (including charity) should be based on those transcendent moments, those one off events, times of ecstatcy and total confidence. As Leibowitz says: Life is about the prose not the poetry. In a way goodness is mundane. It is about what we do in the warp and woof of life that ultimately accounts. This is no means natural to me... This is why I need to write this load of rubish to give me a big poke up the backside.

Tzedek is Hebrew for charity but also justice. It is not (just) the kind of thing just to help us feel good about ourselves but what we should do as a result of a conscience decision to be part of the ethical species 'man' rather than the biological species 'homo sapien'.

So the Chief's suggestions and those of the London School og Jewish studies 'Jewish Responsibility Project' Braap, Braap! (please G-d may I act upon them)...


1. GIve away a bag of clothes you never wear
2. Visit a residential home
3. Welcome people to your shul
4. Donate your hair to children suffereing from hair loss (oops... i initially typed 'donate your children who are suffering from hair loss! I hope there is nothing subconcious there. I know I'm disturbed but donating my children [Issaachar, Zebulin, Amalek and Devorah-Simcha-Shalom-Meyer-Moishe-Zalman] is a bit extreme)
5. Volunteer abroad this summer
6. Twin a bar/batmitzvah with a child abroad
7. Help the homeless at Christmas
8. Have a really happy brithday- everyone can bring something that will be given to charity
9. Help Israeli hospitals and medical research- save the world!
10. Charity box at home
11. Save a life- give blood
12. Make a gift of your chametz before Pesach
13. Give children's toys to a hospital
14. Adopt an Israeli family
15. Buy one FairTrade product next time you go shopping
16. Bring music into someones life
17. Make up a minyan at a funeral
18. Donate breast milk- for neonatal intensive care units [I've tried...]
19. Volunteer to help people with special needs
20. Learn basic first aid skills
21. Donate your old specs
22. Make the first cheque of a new chequebook out to charity
23. Join the bone marrow register
24. Teach an elderly person how to use email and the internet
25. Share your dog [don't cut it in two though]
26. Recycle your mobile phone
27. Bring Judaism to a residential home [presumably Jewish people in residential homes! Not jumping out at random old men an getting them to lay tefillin. But then again... Noachides... there's a market]
28. Befriend an elderly person
29. GIve money to improve a child's life [not random children offf the street! Through children's charities!]
30. Set up a support network in your community
31. Help keep our community safe... join CST [or be a vicious vidulante with sticks, stones and Qassam rockets... or don't]
32. Mark a bar/batmitzvah by doing something special
33. Visit a person in hospital [and bring grapes! grapes are vital! if you go without the grapes it is as if you have never been at all! COnfucious says 'bring grapes' Martin Luther King said 'bring grapes' Jesus 'grapes are love; bring grapes' Mr. Tom Ellsworth, 512 Artley Avenue, Suffolk with a broken leg says 'mmmm. I like grapes']
34. Give books [esp. those heretical ones. you dirty stopout]
35. Prepare a meal for someone who needs it
36. Help someone get to shul
37. Donate your wedding dress to a gemach
38. Speak up! (e.g. anti-semitism or against chicken flu.Whatever!)
39. Help the homeless on the street
40. Donate your old computer
41. Distribute leftover challas from your local kosher bakery [and is there isn't one in your local area, build one! especially in COrnwall where I would love to live]
42. Help the housebound
43. Visit a children's ward
44. At your next celebration, get someone to give to charity instead of you
45. SUpport a project in Israel and visit it
46. Help the homeless with general life skills
47. Visit a shiva house and comfort the mourners
48. Open a charity account

So there we go.

"There are many more ways than 48, but this is a great start. Everyone should read this book. Be different; make a difference"
Bob Geldof

Well if Bob Geldof says it.....