Clive Lawton's comment in the London Jewish News following the MPH rally

I try to be a beacon of sweetness and light and I never criticise unless I absolutely can't avoid it, but this time I'm really cross with you.

Last Shabbat I was in Edinburgh with about a hundred other Jews taking part in the Make Poverty History rally. There are 200,000 Jews in London. Where were you?

Just to make sure I'm not hitting the wrong target, if you're struggling on a basic pension, stand back. If you've recently been bereaved, stand back. If you have to work 24/7 just to make ends meet, stand back. If you have three children under four, stand back.

Now, the rest of you, what's your excuse? Doesn't it burn your conscience that we live in comparative luxury, buying cheap food and clothes and jetting around the world, while others struggle just to keep themselves alive?

I've just thought of an excuse for you. Please use it. You're donating the money you might have spent going to Edinburgh to a charity that tries to help alleviate Third World poverty. If that's your excuse, I hope you've made the donation. But I know some of the excuses that some of you will come up with.

You'll say there's so much corruption in the Third World that any donation is pointless. So if you don't trust big organizations, give your money to small ones that go directly to the people on the ground like Tzedek or MaAfrika Tikkun. You might say you don't think that Africa deserves the money that's being given to it, so make your donation to World Jewish Aid or Tzedek, clearly earmarked for Latin America or Asia. Others of you may argue that it's just not a Jewish thing to help all these non-Jews, in which case you should read all the material produced by Tzedek, World Jewish Aid and MaAfrika Tikkun (which, and you can't get more Jewish, was co-founded by the Chief Rabbi of South Africa, Cyril Harris.)

Others might attempt the excuse that the demonstration was on Shabbat. The MPH Jewish Coalition made sure that everybody could keep Shabbat utterly. The United Synagogue representatives were continuously consulted and the Edinburgh Orthodox congregation provided wonderful communal meals for all who turned up.

And it was a model of togetherness. The Liberal community also hosted many visitors at their services, including three Liberal rabbis, and we all came together for meals at the shul. When we marched, for those who didn't want to carry water on Shabbat, Rabbi Rose of Edinburgh had arranged with St John's Church to hold a stock of water for the Jewish marchers when we came by. And you would have found inspiring the couple of hundred people who came into the 'faith tent' on Shabbat afternoon, only half of them Jewish, to celebrate a Shabbat moment with us, singing together, thinking about the unity of God's creation and the deep Jewish message that Shabbat is about freedom from slavery and that everyone has a right to feel like royalty at least occasionally.

So, anyway, you didn't go. For whatever reason, on this occasion, you didn't stand up to be counted. But it's not too late. Do something now. (You might even send a donation to one of those Catholic charities where you can adopt a goat, or one of these missionary set-ups that helps you sponsor a wide-eyed African child with all the condescension that Jewish principles reject - but you'd have to wonder why.) But what you really, really can't do is pretend it's not your business.

As you read this column, that cup of coffee by your hand is a symbol of the issues. It's all around you. Surely you wouldn't want your children to ask why you were just a bystander when people were dying and gross injustice was being perpetrated.

Clive A Lawton

5.7.05

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