Topics: Main Topic: Other, Jewish Community, Jewish Organisations, Strategic Planning, Policy, Demography, Haredi / Strictly Orthodox Jews, Care and Welfare, Health, Children, Youth, Poverty, Housing, Elderly Care, Age and Generational Issues
Abstract: At 28,075 Jewish people, Greater Manchester recorded the largest Jewish population in the UK
outside of London and adjacent Hertfordshire. At first sight, it appears to have grown by 12%
between 2011 and 2021, most likely driven largely by high birth-rates among the strictly Orthodox
community. Similarly, if the data eventually proves to be accurate, this constitutes a growth of 29%
over the twenty years between 2001 and 2021. Provisional estimates of the Haredi community
based on other data sources (such as Manchester Connections) suggest that the Haredi community
could be as large as 22,778 but, again, further analysis is needed before any firm conclusions can be
drawn. Whatever the final numbers, it is clear that Greater Manchester, which includes the largest
Eruv in the UK with a perimeter of more than 13 miles, covering parts of Prestwich, Crumpsall and
Higher Broughton, is an important and growing centre of Jewish life.
This report was commissioned by Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Regions
(GMJRC) to research and analyse community strengths and provide a mapping of Jewish
organisations in the Greater Manchester area. It was overseen by the GMJRC strategic group – a
group that was formed of Councils and organisations across the Jewish religious spectrum as a
response to the pandemic. It reviews services in seven themes: Children & Young People; Adult
Services; Older People; Health; Employment; Emergency Response; and Housing. As well as looking
at delivery, governance, leadership, and building assets, it also tries to understand where the gaps
and support needs are. As the demographics and relative sizes of the mainstream and strictly
Orthodox Jewish populations continue to change, this study represents an important examination
of both the challenges and opportunities of how the respective communities work together. As
these populations change across the UK, and beyond, the study will have significance to other cities
where these Jewish communities exist side by side.
The Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR) used a variety of data sources to identify organisations
delivering in each theme and built maps of that data which can be seen throughout this report.
Mobilise Public Ltd use several methods to gather data from these organisations in each theme.
The main approach was qualitative, using stakeholder interviews and focus group discussions with a
purposely selected sample of these organisations, and the evidence collected was supplemented
with a short survey which was issued to a larger number of organisations. The research was
coproduced with a subset of the strategic group through a series of facilitated sessions and was
designed to build a good understanding of delivery in each theme as well as an understanding of
challenges and opportunities in readiness for the strategic group to develop a more integrated
strategy for the Greater Manchester Jewish community
Abstract: What have those living with dementia lost? If they have lost aspects of their mind and self, who are they now? Are they 'normal'? Prevailing medical, therapeutic and sociopsychoanalytic interventions and studies on dementia, largely influenced by Tom Kitwood's person-centred approach, have focused mainly on revealing and evaluating the remaining intact bodily abilities and functions beyond loss. In contrast to this predominant understanding of dementia, my decade-long involvement in a Jewish Care Home as a volunteer and researcher has raised ontological, epistemological and practical critiques, acknowledging that we are never beyond loss but always alongside it, and that we simply do not know how to dwell well with it. Although the expressive and performative words, gestures and behaviours of those with dementia are often regarded as inarticulate, repetitive and nonsensical, these are the lived worlds of dementia that those affected feel, experience and live through, whilst continuously making relations and familiarising themselves with people, things, and their surroundings. This demands a paradigm shift in the ontological, epistemological and practical horizon within the study of dementia. Critically developing Canguilhem's notion of the normal and the abnormal, Ingold's dwelling perspective and Deleuze's concept of becoming, I redefine dementia not as a fixed mode of being but as a continuous process of becoming-dementia through an attentive engagement with one's immediate surroundings. In more detail, this study explores the ways in which people challenge the taken-for-granted concepts of loss and abnormality in five different dementia contexts: ethics, repetition, time, agency and emplacement. By rejecting medical preconceptions or categorisations, this study focuses on uncovering what loss does in everyday life rather than asking what loss means or what people lose. In particular, this study emphasises bodily movement, sensory perception and affect, not because of the language deterioration during dementia trajectories but because of a new way of understanding and new reality that those affected practise in daily life. Consequently, this study illustrates the immanent potential of the anthropological view for thinking and dwelling with those living with dementia alongside their limits and implications. This study is thus an autobiographical ethnographic testimony of my past decade living, learning, volunteering, studying and most importantly co-dwelling with those living with dementia. This is a collaborative co-production created with those involved, as without the participation of those affected and the co-presence of significant others, my work could not be done. Accordingly, there is neither a beginning nor end to this study, but a moving forward and generating dementia becoming as the lives of those affected and those who care for them unfold.
Abstract: Předložená studie analyzuje situaci v oblasti péče poskytované přeživším
šoa a ostatním obětem nacisticko-fašistické perzekuce na území Itálie (dále jen
studie) a vznikla na žádost a pro potřeby Evropského institutu odkazu šoa, o. p. s.
(dále jen ESLI), jemuž má sloužit především jako podpůrný nástroj pro
formulování jeho krátko-, středně- a dlouhodobých strategií v oblasti péče o
přeživší šoa a ostatní oběti nacisticko-fašistické perzekuce.
Tato studie v mnohém inspirativně a metodologicky vychází ze studie
Situace v oblasti péče poskytované přeživším holocaustu a ostatním obětem
nacistické perzekuce na území České republiky provedené výzkumným týmem
pod vedením PhDr. Dariny Sedláčkové (Praha: ESLI, 2012).
V úvodní kapitole je definována cílová skupina, na niž se studie
zaměřuje, jsou zde představena základní metodologická východiska, užívané
termíny a rozsah mapované péče. V závěru této části jsou uvedeny předpokládané
tendence ve vývoji potřeb výše definovaných cílových skupin.
Druhá kapitola obsahuje ucelený přehled platné italské legislativy
související s oblastí sociálního a důchodového zabezpečení a státní a
regionální/místní sociální podpory a obsahuje i souhrnný přehled specifických
opatření přijatých italským státem ke zlepšení životní situace cílových skupin,
eventuálně jejich pozůstalých. Kapitola je doplněna informacemi o
odškodňovacím programu Claims Conference na území Itálie.
Třetí kapitola prezentuje asociace a organizace, které sdružují přeživší
šoa a další oběti nacisticko-fašistické perzekuce v Itálii, popřípadě jejich pozůstalé.
Zmíněny jsou také organizace spojující účastníky národního boje za osvobození.
Čtvrtá kapitola analyzuje současný stav poskytování sociální péče
přeživším šoa a ostatním obětem nacisticko-fašistické perzekuce v Itálii z pohledu
praxe a jsou zmíněny regionální diverzity v poskytování sociální péče.
V poslední a závěrečné kapitole jsou shrnuta zjištěná fakta a jsou vedena
doporučení na zlepšení fungování systému sociální péče poskytované přeživším
druhé světové války a nacisticko-fašistické perzekuce. Tato doporučení vycházejí z reálných návrhů a praktických potřeb a mohla by efektivně vylepšit sociální
pozici cílové skupiny.
Součást studie tvoří rovněž příloha s přehledem relevantních italských
zákonů.
Vzhledem ke skutečnosti, že v průběhu vypracovávání studie postupně
docházelo k úpravám penzijního systému a k přechodu na nový, je na tyto
skutečnosti na patřičném místě upozorněno.
Autorka studie používá primárně italskou odbornou terminologii a
názvosloví a až v závorce uvádí český překlad. Je si však vědoma toho, že překlady
nejsou vždy zcela přesné, a to z toho důvodu, že v českém jazyce není vždy možné
najít přesný ekvivalent termínů.
Zároveň autorka také upozorňuje na skutečnost, že italský důchodový a
sociální systém je natolik složitou soustavou, že pro tuto studii byly vybrány
relevantní informace a data. Mimo fokus této práce byly ponechány nepodstatné
skutečnosti, stejně jako nejsou zmíněny například sociální příspěvky, jež již
v současné době nejsou v platnosti
Abstract: This article is concerned with what happens to precarious community buildings in times of austerity. It responds to a landscape of capitalist realism, in which instrumental, economic forms of value are mobilised to justify the closure of ordinary buildings whose survival is not identified as a political priority. The study focuses on two London cases of a library and an elderly day centre under threat of closure, and traces how grammars of austerity rendered these buildings substitutable. Considering how abstract sociological conceptions of value/s can struggle to break into the embedded common sense of austerity, the authors explore how ethnographic practices of collaboration and attentiveness can help amplify alternative expressions of the meanings of these buildings for their communities. Enacting a form of ethnographic witnessing, which learns from Wittgenstein, the authors highlight the creative, vernacular registers and gestures of library users and day centre members, and show how these were anchored in the buildings themselves. In this way, the article supplements noisier, more hyperbolic accounts of the violence of austerity by amplifying quotidian responses, which express how ordinary buildings and the forms of life they sustain, matter.
Abstract: Objectives. In Belgium, dominant ideological traditions – Christianity and non-religious humanism – have the floor in debates on euthanasia and hardly any attention is paid to the practices and attitudes of ethnic and religious minorities, for instance, Jews. This article aims to meet this lacuna.
Design. Qualitative empirical research was performed in the Orthodox Jewish community of Antwerp (Belgium) with a purposive sample of elderly Jewish (non-)Hasidic and secularised Orthodox women. In-depth interviews were conducted to elicit their attitudes towards (non-)voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide.
Results. The research reveals diverse views among women in the community on intentionally terminating a patient's life. Absolute rejection of every act which deliberately terminates life is found among the overwhelming majority of (religiously observant) Orthodox (Hasidic and non-Hasidic) women, as they have an unconditional faith and trust in God's sovereign power over the domain of life and death. On the other hand, the views of secularised Orthodox women – mostly irreligious women, who do not consider themselves Orthodox, thus not following Jewish law, yet say they belong to the Orthodox Jewish community –show an acceptance of voluntary euthanasia and assisted suicide but non-voluntary euthanasia is approached more negatively. As they perceive illness and death as merely profane facts, they stress a patient's absolute right towards self-determination, in particular with regard to one's end of life. Among non-Hasidic Orthodox respondents, more openness is found for cultivating a personal opinion which deviates from Jewish law and for the right of self-determination with regard to questions concerning life and death. In this study, these participants occupy an intermediate position.
Conclusion. Our study reveals an interplay between ethical attitudes on euthanasia and religious convictions. The image one has of a transcendental reality, or of God, has a stronger effect on one's (dis)approval of euthanasia than being (ir)religious.
Abstract: The initiative for Survey is given by Research and Documentation centre for
Holocaust victims and survivors in Zagreb, with support by Jewish community
Zagreb, Claims conference research funds and JOINT.
This is the second social Survey on the same population of Jewish community in
Zagreb. First survey which was realized before ten years – in 1995, had a great
success by providing with relevant data social and humanitarian work in Community,
what was important at that time, after the war in ex-Yugoslavia.
With the present research in 2005, we wish to obtain a key informant survey to
facilitate community social work, with respects to the needs of the Jewish elderly and
the implication of the aging in the Jewish community.
Objectives of the survey is to describe actual and recent situation and needs for the
elderly members of community older than 65 years, and to renew and support social
work, voluntaries actions and solidarity in the Jewish communities.
In the last ten years, between two surveys, we can perceive several mayor changes
in demographic, social, economical and health situation of the elderly, mainly
holocaust survivors:
Increased proportion of elderly persons in the Jewish population in Croatia
Increased proportion of persons, aged 75 years and more in the population of
elderly
The rise in the number of persons aged 75 and more, increase the number of
disabled elderly
Restrictions of public basic medical care and decline of public social welfare
expenditure
Worsening of the economical situation and lowering standard of living
Changes in the role of the Jewish family in caring for the elderly
Lack of the data in community on the needs of the elderly
