DINA SACKS: I hope we make you proud, my mentor, my father
'He recognised the beauty and the pain of life and knitted them together in a compulsion to build, to renew, to hope'
My earliest memories of my father are in the depths of his study at the bottom of the garden, keyboard clacking, surrounded by book-lined shelves; page after page he laboured over, focused, sometimes pacing, only coming up for air when we called him in for dinner, or occasionally, if it was important, a phone call.
Sometimes, on an inspired and magical evening, Beethoven or the Beatles played at full volume, and we were swept up in the tide of music and the embrace of his energy.
People came and went for meetings, gathered in our living room, eager to hear his words. There was a fervour, a purpose. When he walked, he walked fast. We had to run to catch up, physically and figuratively.
A couple of years ago I took my parents to see Hamilton, the musical, in which I had recognised my father in the laser-focused, driven, titular role.
He always knew he was running out of time, not believing that he would live past the age of 40, having had more than one previous brush with death. In fact, death was seemingly always in the back of his mind.
He encouraged me as a teenager to write my own obituary, in order to forge my path in life, so that I should be suitably remembered after it. He encouraged that in all of us – to ask, what do we live for? For what will we be remembered?
A few days before my father died my mother and I, walking in the park one Saturday, saw four men holding sheet music, singing in another language and then in English, of a time “when we will not be alone, for we have each other”.
Their voices transcended time and space.
On telling my father that evening, he recalled the scene in The Shawshank Redemption where, in an act of rebellion, the wrongly imprisoned Andy Dufresne plays a duet from Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro – music “so beautiful it can’t be expressed in words, and makes your heart ache because of it”.
My father’s mind was like that.
He recognised the beauty and the pain of life and knitted them together in a compulsion to build, to renew, to hope.
He loved the word hope.
It embodied the art of possibility; it empowered each of us to change our collective situation when the need required; it challenged us never to accept what should not be accepted.
There is a famous story of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Chasidism, who, when his community was faced with misfortune, would go to a certain place in the forest to meditate.
There he would light a fire, say a prayer, and the misfortune would be averted.
His successor, the Maggid of Mezrich, when facing similar difficulties, would go to the same place in the forest, and pray, though he did not know how to light the fire.
Still, the misfortune would be averted.
His successor knew the place in the forest, but did not know how to light the fire and did not know the prayer. However, the place was sufficient.
Then it fell to his successor to overcome misfortune.
He could not light the fire, did not know the prayer, and could not find the place in the forest. All he could do was to tell the story, and that was sufficient.
But, for my father, this wasn’t enough.
He didn’t want us just to tell the story of those that came before us.
He challenged us to rebuild, to fix that which had become broken, to renew that which had become old, to restore that which had been forgotten.
I hope we make you proud, my mentor, my father.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
