As part of their British Values Studies, a group of Year 9 girls visited Barnet Hill Academy, an Islamic faith school for girls between the ages of 11 to 16 years.

The girls introduced themselves, noting the similarities between names such as Miriam and Maryam. A starter activity, where the girls answered questions such as ‘The place where I feel happiest is…’ showed that they shared many of the same thoughts and feelings. On whiteboards, they wrote down what they did during the day and compared notes. Again, there were a lot of similarities. They were able to spend time with each other; chatting about their hobbies, their friends and their lives in general…in fact, they could not stop chatting! There was supposed to be a video, but it buffered! This did not halt the activities as a break with kosher snacks for all beckoned.

After the break, each girl drew a picture of something that represented her, then put it in a box and passed the box around. The pictures were then drawn out, and students had to discuss what they saw in the picture and tried to guess who the picture belonged to. Our girls also had a tour of Barnet Hill Academy: there are 44 girls in this secondary school which shares a site with a small mixed primary.

The Building Bridges morning was very successful, demonstrating that there is much more that unites us than divides us. Thank you to Mrs Abecasis for organising Tuesdays event, and to all the girls and their exemplary behaviour.

On Friday the 21st June, the Year 8 girls were honoured to have Marie van der Zyl, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews as their guest. Ms van der Zyl, who is an employment lawyer, took on the office of President of the Board of Deputies on 1st June 2018 and is only the second woman to hold the role.

Ms van der Zyl spoke to the girls about her background. She grew up in Woodford, Essex, and went on to study Law at The University of Liverpool. Her experiences of being at a school and a university with very few other Jewish students, helped to forge her strong Jewish identity. This would eventually lead her to her prestigious position at The Board of Deputies.

As a member of both the Mill Hill and The West London Synagogues, Ms van der Zyl spoke about the importance of volunteering within the community and giving back. Ms van der Zyl was very interested and pleased to hear about the various volunteering programmes that the Hasmonean girls are involved in, such as volunteering at Jewish Care.

The girls heard all about the work of The Board of Deputies focusing on building good inter faith and communal relations with all parts of the community.

Her presentation was followed by some very intelligent questioning. The session was very informative and the girls gained so much from hearing from such an eloquent and prestigious communal speaker.

Both schools reverberated to the sound of over 250 Year 5 students from a range of feeder schools enjoying their Step Up day at Hasmonean. At the Girls’ School, Textiles, Maths, Jewish Studies and Teambuilding was on the agenda, demonstrating the range of subjects on offer. It was fantastic to see over a hundred girls in attendance that were so highly engaged. The intake for 2020/21 looks like it could be our biggest yet. Our Year 7 and Year 9 students superbly helped the Year 5 visitors and were a real credit to the school.

At the Boys’ School, there was a wide array of activities taking place from Art and Science to Modern Hebrew and History. All of the students enjoyed the workshops and got a real feel of the pride that it gives to be a Hasmonean student. We look forward to welcoming many of the boys as Year 7 students in just over a year’s time!

Thank you to Ms Liley, Rabbi Obermeister and Mr Dabinett for their superbly smooth organisation!

As we approach the Transition days for the incoming Year 6 students, Rabbi Obermeister and Ms Liley are busy visiting the Primary Schools that feed into the schools. We are hugely excited about the students that will be joining us in September.

Rabbi Anthony Manning, Co-Director of Midreshet Tehillah gave shiurim in the Midrasha this week. He posed two questions: What are your Rabbis not telling you? Dealing with Difficult Questions in Haskafa and Thinking Jewishly – can everyone really be right? The Sixth Form really enjoyed his refreshing approach to serious questions, as well as having a taste of the seminary experience.

Rabbi Manning is quite an exceptional character, having graduated from Oxford with a Masters, and had a successful legal career as a partner in a London law firm, before choosing to make Aliyah and become a Rabbi and teacher. He and his family live in Alon Shvut. His children have completed their National Service: Asher in an IDF combat Unit and Yael in Sherut Leumi working with special needs children.

On Friday afternoon, the Year 8 girls had a very interesting speaker, Nathan Servi from the CST. He gave the girls a powerful insight into what exactly is meant by “antisemitism”. He introduced the subject by presenting the historical aspects of the blood libels and Church imagery from the Middle Ages. This led him to explore Nazi propaganda and the cartoons of the 1920’s and 1930’s, which drew inspiration from earlier anti-Semitic tropes. He concluded by demonstrating that similar themes still present themselves today and spread through social media. He also discussed the dangers of internet radicalisation and extremism.

We heard about the practical work that the CST does in the community and across many different schools, not just Jewish schools. We also heard about practical steps we should take when “out and about” to avoid confrontation and what to do in the event of seeing or hearing any anti-Semitic incident.

It was a very interesting presentation which was interjected with some excellent points from the Year 8 girls, as well as some very poignant questions.