By Sandra Dwek 2025
This is one person’s partisan account of how a small amateur magazine in a small Jewish community far outlasted the brief it set itself and grew from its modest aims to become a triumph of its creators and its community.
I became involved in the Oxford Menorah Magazine almost at the outset. I arrived in the city in 1964 with Raymond, my new husband who was about to embark on his doctoral studies in Chemistry at the University.
We had both grown up in Manchester and took for granted the large synagogues and Jewish communal organisations which were run by worthy generations of our parents and grandparents and in which we had little interest or involvement.
It was a heady experience therefore to find that in Oxford different generations seemed to meld together and that like us, many of this community had migrated from other communities both in the UK and abroad. We found few barriers to separate differences of age, circumstances, beliefs, backgrounds, languages or lifestyles.
By 1966 Raymond’s doctoral research was completed. We moved from a rented flat in north Oxford to a small house in Kennington once our first child was on the way and I had given up my teaching job at Carmel College, the Jewish boys’ boarding school in nearby Wallingford. We sometimes attended Oxford’s Shul which was housed in a rather dilapidated building, a converted 19th century Baptist chapel in Jericho. Shabbat morning services were rather hit and miss depending on who turned up and whether there were any students or residents willing or competent to lead them.
With all this spare time on my hands between nappy washing and part time French teaching at a Catholic primary school in Cowley, I was persuaded to join one of the two local societies in the community, the Women’s Lodge of B’nai Brith.
Among the leaders and elders of the community at that time in the late 1960s were many residents with young families such as Alan and Margaret Curtis, George and Freda Silver, Ron and Helen May, Barbara and David Lewis, Dan and Rosie Kemp, Michael and Alison Bloom, Jose and David Patterson, Paul and Tessa Brodetsky, Gill and Norman Lipman, Richard and Natalie Koch, Wendy and Brian Fidler, Harry and Mildred Rosenberg, Peter and Joan Katz , Beryl and Ian Grant and these were among the inspirations for the birth in 1970 of the Oxford Menorah magazine. But it was was in the late 1960s when Miriam Kochan, a mother of three teenagers, newly arrived in Oxford, was persuaded with a few others to start a magazine that Jewish kids living here would write for and enjoy.
Fast forward several decades to where I ’m sitting in front of a pile of old and faded Oxford Menorah magazines in varying stages of rags and tatters.
Menorah and I have survived the ravages of 50 years together – me as reader, writer, parent (and latterly grandparent) of it and finally as editor when I took over from Brian Fidler and the late Richard Shock in January 2013. In the May 2020 issue, my last as editor, I selected a few of my favourite short pieces, especially some of those from its younger contributors.
I recalled that in May 1970 the first issue heralded the new era, proclaiming itself as ‘a bi-monthly magazine for young people (and their parents) with stories, competitions, articles, poems, book reviews, jokes and puzzles and a diary of communal events’.
Cheder sessions proved a rich seam of talent, which Miriam was quick to mine for articles, from the disparate youngsters, teachers and sometimes parents.
In that 50th year anniversary issue we reprinted several articles from the previous decades of Menorah: There was a piece by Menorah’s current editor, Susannah Brown age 10, describing an unruly disruption to a peaceful cheder class by some noisy succah building parents in November 1985; another by Juliet Dwek age 8 in January 1974, sending up the conversational gambits in My Hebrew Book; an article by 14 year old Maxine Bloom’s describing May Morning in July 1983, A consumer guide to Cheder – by Jeffrey Levicki, age 10 in Summer 2002, In March 2013, a Book review of The Book Thief by Leo Appel, age 13 and in September 2002, Alan Curtis wrote in the column My communal Diary, on why the OJC had decided not to introduce duchening into its services, and why the B’nai Brith joint lodge had decided to disband. In 2010 Kathy Shock mentioned a lone piece of Judaic art she found in the Ashmolean museum; and Jose Patterson in 2001 wrote about Seniors at the Playshul Seder.
After more than 30 years its greatly inspired editorial team of Miriam, Alan with Margaret as its business manager gracefully bowed out to much communal acclaim and a youthful Victoria Bentata and Ros Abramsky took over as editors in 2002. They were both actively involved with the cheder and hands-on with sourcing youngsters’ contributions. Some of these lively, often unorthodox pieces still resonate when we read them today and it’s gratifying to see that many of the young authors have stayed the course with their Judaism and their Oxford connections.
When Brian Fidler ably assisted by Richard Shock took over the editorship in 2009, Menorah became more polished, more costly and aspirational. It became rarer to get as much material from the younger generation, and Menorah’s columns encouraged adults’ opinions and started debates. Stories and poems continued sporadically, alongside adults’ articles and reports on the community’s social, religious and cultural events and societies that flourished under successive dedicated OJC Presidents.
Among the many lively contributions gratefully received, I must particularly mention the regular informative and fascinating regular contributions from the late Harold Pollins on local Jewish history.
Much credit should be given to all the many regular and occasional contributors to Menorah over the amazing 55 years, including: Victoria Bentata , Brian Fidler, Nick Usiskin, Tabitha Appel, Jane Appel, Glenda Abramson, Alison Ryde, Beatrice Lucas, Adele Moss for their book reviews; the Dwek family for articles ranging from food, jokes, stories, everyday life in Israel and a serial saga, the Cohens of Carterford; Ruth Deech for her incisive articles on Jewish politics, law, universities, Zionism, antisemitism; Wendy Fidler and Adele Moss for articles on CCJ, Interfaith, Limmud and an occasional d’var torah; Isaac Garson for articles on exotic Jewish locations and travel, Sephardi culture, Orthodox Jewish practice, Israeli innovations; Jane Appel for reports on Cheder, Mosaic events; Sarah Montagu on Women’s Tefillah groups, School visits to the Shul; John Dunston on Music, travels abroad of Jewish interest, family history; Judy and Jerry Ravetz for reviews of communal events; Rachel Symcox and Jill Shatz on Cheder, youth groups, humour; Mike Ward on Oxford Jewish heritage and Chevra Kadisha; Marian Roiser’s amusing anecdotes, travels abroad, Helping Hands volunteering; Alison Ryde, Renee Aronson, Joel Kaye, Alan Doran, Penny Faust with reviews of OJC and Mosaic events, personalities, Friendship Club events, Jewish jokes; Hilary Wainer, Jose Patterson and Tony Samuels on Jewish family stories, Israel War of Independence; Zoe Paskett for theatre reviews, Board of Deputies reports; Stuart Kenner on Jewish travels abroad; Lizzie Maisels ,Annie Bessey and Susie Dunston for WIZO projects; Wendy Jackson, Olga Samuels and Lidia Sciama for compelling family histories; Simon Ryde on OJC and communal finances; Fran Reichenberg for gardening holistically; Matthew Faulk and Mike Harper for humour and OxfordShir reports; Sally Roland, Sharon Fleming, Adam Sterrie and Jonathan Bard for Mosaic reports; Olga Samuels for art reviews; Anna Kochan for recipes; Rebecca Blumenfeld for Masorti, climate change; Lynton Appel for his Purimspiel review, David Silver and Anne Gardener on volunteering in India; Noam Schimmel on Jewish life in Washington DC; Susan Wollenberg for Music reviews; Jon Rowland on art, music and Mosaic reviews; David Hyams for the design of the new Ark; Steve Zimmer on the tragic Pittsburgh massacre and antisemitism; Louise Gordon’s delightful articles and Playshul reports; Peter Oppenheimer with incisive commentaries on politics, Mosaic lectures; Rachel Appel and Sarah Goodman on adventurous travels; David Russell on the Rwanda genocide ; Adam Sterrie for Interfaith, Jewish jokes.
Currently reduced from its original 6 issues to 3 issues each year Menorah continues to advertise and review forthcoming and recent communal events and organisations and to set out all relevant communal contact details. It is a very eclectic magazine and welcomes a variety of views and opinions, some ruffling feathers but all greatly interesting and thought provoking.
I was very grateful to my original co-editor Hugh Westbrook and to Ayala Kingsley, the current co-editor along with Susannah Salle, and to Sveta Sterrie, Menorah’s finance manager. Ayala was responsible for the revamped and more colourful, stylish ‘new look’ Menorah in September 2016.
The archives at Oxfordshire County Council houses many volumes of the original copies of Menorah magazine. I have many copies at home, the oldest one is number 6 issue of May 1971, celebrating its 1st anniversary with some delightful stories, poems and articles by the youngsters and featuring a heated argument about the cost of kosher meat initiated by yours truly and demolished expertly by the much-respected President of OJC George Silver!
