188体育

Good afternoon everyone, shalom aleichem.

They say you should open a speech with a joke.

How about this?

Did you hear the one about the Muslim politician in a room full of Rabbis?

I鈥檓 still working on the punch line鈥�

Seriously though, thank you all for inviting me today.

Thank you for welcoming me into this famous synagogue.

And thank you, Chief Rabbi, for that wonderful and very kind introduction.

It鈥檚 not often I agree with Gordon Brown.

But he was absolutely right when he described you as 鈥渁 great pastor, a great thinker and a great humanitarian鈥�.

I鈥檓 delighted that the UK has such a distinguished individual as Chief Rabbi.

Of course there are some people who say that Ephraim and I should not get along.

That our different beliefs make us natural enemies.

That鈥檚 nonsense.

I can look past the fact that he supports Tottenham鈥�

There鈥檚 one big similarity I鈥檝e found between Jews and Muslims.

It鈥檚 that all our parents are anxiously waiting for us to get proper jobs!

So let me congratulate Ephraim on the news that his son Danny has found gainful employment as senior rabbi of Mizrachi in Melbourne.

I鈥檓 a parent myself, I know how it fills you with pride when your children excel in any field.

---

Not long after Nigeria won its independence, the country found itself divided by deep-rooted ethnic and religious tensions.

In that time, the country鈥檚 first president, the Christian Nnamdi Azikiwe met with the premier of the Northern Nigeria region, a Muslim named Ahmadu Bello.

They talked about the need to bring their communities together.

To bridge the divide between them.

And Azikiwe ended the meeting by saying 鈥淟et us now forget our differences.鈥�

To which Bello replied, 鈥淣o 鈥� let us now understand our differences.鈥�

For me, that鈥檚 the key to making communities work in the diverse, multi-cultural country that is 21st century Britain.

There鈥檚 no point pretending we鈥檙e all the same.

Because we鈥檙e not.

There are more than 60 million of us in these islands.

We come from many different places, we worship different gods.

Some of us even vote for different political parties!

Our diversity can be a great strength, bringing many different views and experiences and outlooks to the table.

It can be used to create great things, whether in art, culture, business, politics, or in your local community.

If we try to ignore that then we all suffer.

I can鈥檛 tell you to forget that you鈥檙e Jewish any more than you can tell me to forget that I鈥檓 a Muslim.

It鈥檚 who we are, it鈥檚 a part of our life.

Trying to ignore that, trying to impose a one-size-fits-all vision of society, will not end well.

It will foster resentment and legitimise intolerance.

If we鈥檙e going to live with each other, work with each other and tolerate each other, we have to understand each other.

And that鈥檚 why strong, positive inter-faith dialogue is absolutely vital.

But it needs to be about more than the Chief Rabbi talking to the Archbishop of Canterbury.

It needs to be more than Jeremy Lawrence, the senior Rabbi here at Finchley, talking to Imam Maulana Oussama Sahmoui at the North Finchley Mosque.

Today I鈥檓 speaking to Rabbis as we look ahead to Yamim Noraim.

Tomorrow, I鈥檓 speaking at a reception to mark the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.

But it needs more than that, too.

Interfaith dialogue needs to happen at all levels of society.

It needs the ordinary members of your synagogues, the congregation from the local church, the people who attend the mosques and temples and gurdwaras.

All of us need to come together and see just how much common ground we share.

As rabbis, I think you鈥檙e in a great position to make that happen.

You are teachers, counsellors, leaders who can share the importance of dialogue and help to bring it about.

But don鈥檛 worry.

I鈥檓 not just going to stand here, and issue some kind of order, and expect you to get on with mobilising your flock. We all have a role to play.

I want to make sure government is playing its part.

Five years ago we started a programme called Near Neighbours.

It helps people set up and run small projects that bring different faith groups together to break down barriers.

And it has been an incredible success.

We鈥檝e seen Jewish, Muslim and Christian organisations in, for example, Leeds working together to set up a caf茅 where people of all faiths and none can get to know each other.

We鈥檝e seen the Nottingham Liberal Synagogue partnering with a local Muslim organisation to provide hot meals to vulnerable people.

We鈥檝e seen the Board of Deputies鈥� Rabbi Levy using Twitter to bring together girls from Jewish, Muslim and Christian faith schools so they can learn computer coding.

Altogether we鈥檝e seen more than a thousand small projects up and down the country.

And between them they鈥檝e helped a million people engage with their communities.

Projects like this help to build understanding between different groups.

And that makes them particularly important in the current climate.

We were all horrified by the spike in reported hate crime that followed the EU referendum.

The figures have now fallen back down.

But there are still far too many people facing threats, intimidation and even outright violence simply because of who they are.

And much of that hatred is directed towards Jews.

Last weekend I was saddened, but not surprised, when Yad Vashem鈥檚 Professor Yehuda Bauer said that if he were a British Jew he would feel concerned about the anti-Semitism that exists in this country.

I鈥檝e heard similar concerns from too many people.

And of course, the Jewish community knows all too well the corrosive effect of prejudice and intolerance.

As I鈥檝e said before, the Holocaust did not begin in the gas chambers of Auschwitz and Treblinka.

Indiscriminate killing is simply where hatred, if it鈥檚 left unchecked, reaches its tragic conclusion.

The Shoah began with nothing more than words.

Then came the insults, the boycotts, discrimination.

The noxious weed of anti-Semitism crept insidiously into everyday life, until the stage was set for violence, oppression and finally murder on a scale unprecedented before or since.

That鈥檚 why it鈥檚 so crucial that extremism, racism and violence is stopped in its tracks.

As a government, we鈥檙e maintaining strong legislation against racially and religiously motivated crime.

Our new Hate Crime Action Plan will make it easier to identify, report and record hate crime, and will provide new support for victims.

And we鈥檝e provided well over 拢13 million for improved security measures at Jewish schools, synagogues and community centres.

But the freedom to live and worship behind walls and under guard is no freedom at all.

Yes, we must do all we can to tackle the criminal manifestation of anti-Semitism and other religious bigotry.

But we also have to deal with the underlying attitudes that fuel it.

And that鈥檚 why programmes like the Near Neighbours projects I talked about earlier are so important.

Setting up a soup kitchen or teaching some girls to code might not sound like much in the grand scheme of things.

I know it will take much more than a pop-up caf茅 in Leeds to unwind decades, even centuries, of misunderstanding, disagreement and hatred.

But the small size of these projects I think is their strength.

They鈥檙e not vast, faceless, disconnected programmes in which government tells people in distant cities and towns what to think.

They鈥檙e local.

They鈥檙e community-based.

They build friendships across ethnic and religious divides, creating the trust that鈥檚 so important in resolving local issues, overcoming suspicion and defeating intolerance.

I spent the weekend scouring my bookshelves for some Talmudic wisdom I could cite to sum up my case.

Unfortunately it turns out I鈥檓 a very poor theological scholar!

And my Hebrew鈥檚 even worse than my Punjabi!

So instead I turned to a canon I鈥檓 more familiar with.

Where a wise old man says: 鈥淪ome believe it is only great power that can hold evil in check, but that is not what I have found. I found it is the small everyday deeds of ordinary folk that keep the darkness at bay鈥�.

Yes, that was Gandalf in the film of the Hobbit鈥�

However, the wizard makes an excellent point.

We can fight terrorists with bombs and bullets.

But the rising tide of intolerance, racism and bigotry won鈥檛 be defeated on the battlefield.

We will banish intolerance from this country only by changing minds.

By spreading understanding.

By talking to each other and realising that we might look different and sound different and believe different things, but that we are all human.

That we don鈥檛 just LIVE in the same community, we ARE the same community.

So let鈥檚 come together.

Let鈥檚 stand up to intolerance, together.

And let鈥檚 build a stronger, better Britain, together.

Not by ignoring our differences, but by understanding them.

By appreciating them.

By getting to know each other as people rather than as labels.

After all, it鈥檚 easy to hate a nameless, faceless enemy.

But it鈥檚 much harder to hate a familiar, friendly neighbour.

Shanah tova.