An Interview with Joe Lobenstein, Mayor of Hackney,
London.
His activities cover the whole spectrum of public life, and
he works on a totally voluntary basis. What impresses you
the most is the fact that he has been working continuously
for decades. That is how he raised his children, and his
grandchildren (and now great-grandchildren) are being raised
in the same atmosphere. Now he has come to Eretz
Yisroel for the bar mitzvah of his grandson. He
still lives in London, but several of his descendants live
in Eretz Yisroel, all of them bnei Torah.
Mr. Lobenstein told us that he has been a member of Hackney
local council continuously for thirty-five years, having
gained the support and confidence of his constituents --
many of them non-Jewish -- time and again. The first time he
was voted in, he won by a majority of just eight votes, but
nowadays he wins a landslide victory at every election.
Not to Depend on the Graces of Others
When we asked him what gave him the impetus to enter the
arena of municipal politics, which involves spending a lot
of time in a non-Jewish environment, he explained that, as a
young man involved in community affairs, he noticed that
both religious and non-religious Jews have many needs and,
since they lacked their own candidate on the local council,
they were forced to depend on the graces of other council
members. He began to realize that it is important to have a
religious representative on the council to explain the needs
of the Jewish community, and especially the specific needs
of the chareidi public.
Mr. Lobenstein has been living in Stamford Hill, which is in
Hackney, North London, for a very long time. This
neighborhood has a developed chareidi community with an
impressive history. It covers the whole gamut of religious
Jewry. At one time the Frankfurt element in the community
was predominant, but the descendants of the original
immigrants became merged with other chareidi groups, both
Lithuanian and Chassidic. Mr. Lobenstein is typical in this
regard, his eight children leading a yeshivish
Lithuanian lifestyle.
Stamford Hill has a wide range of Chassidic shuls and
educational institutions, kindergartens and cheders, Beis
Yaakov schools and other schools for girls and so on.
The needs of the community increased together with the
growth of the chareidi population. It was against this
background that Mr. Lobenstein decided that he would stand
as a candidate for the Hackney local council, one of sixteen
such municipal entities in greater London which has a total
population of close to nine million.
At the time, thirty-five years ago, he was already a well-
known chareidi activist and a member of the London Agudas
Yisroel leadership. Many people with whom he consulted were
not enthusiastic about his plans to stand as a candidate for
the local council. His parents, for example, wondered how an
Orthodox Jew could work amongst non-Jewish politicians, when
they themselves had fled Germany and its hostile non-Jewish
environment!
The Gedolim Decide
He decided in the affirmative after having presented the
question to the Ponevezher Rov zt"l, HaRav Y. Z.
Dunner shlita and Dayan Posen zt"l, all of
whom told him that he should go ahead with his attempts to
win a seat. And so he was voted in as a Conservative member
of the local council with the votes of both Jews and non-
Jews. As such he became the representative of both groups
alike, looking after the interests of all his voters. For
the past four years he has served as mayor of Hackney.
It should be pointed out that this is something very
unusual. According to English electoral practice, elections
for mayor take place once a year, and his term in office is
not usually more than one year, whereas Mr. Lobenstein has
been voted in four consecutive times. The last time this
happened was eighty years ago. It seems that his seniority
was a point in his favor, the voters having concluded that
as the most senior and experienced candidate, it was worth
giving him another chance to be in office.
Now, he tells us, after 35 consecutive years in public life,
he thinks that it is time to lessen his responsibilities and
to at least resign from his position as mayor, even though
his characteristic energy has not let up!
Due, perhaps, to the thought of lessening his
responsibilities, he suddenly changes the topic and turns to
a more "nostalgic" matter, explaining why he decided already
early on in his life to devote himself to public activities,
becoming one of the leaders of Zeirei Agudas Yisroel in
London.
"I was born in Germany, and was 12 years old when I came to
England with my family. I went to school here and afterwards
studied in Gateshead Yeshiva. It is true that I have been
involved in public activities from an early age. I did this
as a thanksgiving offering to Hashem for having kept me
alive, when all the other members of my extended family were
killed in the Holocaust Hy"d. I felt that the
Ribono Shel Olom had saved me, and wanted something
from me." In this "confession" he reveals the real impetus
behind his intensive public activities spanning more than
half a century.
A Story from HaRav Shach shlita
The fact that he was voted in by so many different voters,
including non-Jewish ones, meant that he had a
responsibility towards them, and in this context Mr.
Lobenstein relates an instructive story. During his many
visits to Eretz Yisroel, he would often go in to see
HaRav Shach shlita. On one of his visits HaRav Shach
told him, that, having been very close to HaRav Chaim Ozer
Grodzensky ztv"l, he noticed that many activists came
to see him, including those whose public positions required
them to be in contact with non-Jews. HaRav Chaim Ozer would
tell them that they should do their best to help out Jews as
much as they could, but also non-Jews, because this creates
a lot of kiddush Hashem!
He has put this principle into practice in his public
activities in London. A large part of his time is dedicated
to meeting members of the public during visiting hours. Jews
know his private address, and his house constantly serves as
a bureau of complaints or requests for members of the Jewish
community but, in addition, he has an open house twice a
month for his non-Jewish voters, and these also come in
great numbers. He is only one of 60 members on the council,
but most voters come to him because he has a lot of
experience and does his best to help.
In this context he told us that he has good relations with
the local Muslim community, mainly with the purpose of
preventing events in Eretz Yisroel from having any
effect on Jewish-Muslim relations in England. When the
current Intifadah broke out in Tishrei, he phoned their
leaders, expressing the hope that events in Israel would not
have any local repercussions. In response, they suggested
that a meeting be held between them, and one was arranged
for motzei Yom Kippur, one hour after the conclusion
of the fast. When he arrived at the meeting he was met by
almost forty of their leaders, who reassured him that events
in Israel had no connection with them, and they also
apologized in advance, that if any untoward event should
take place involving youngsters from their community, which
were perhaps unpreventable, they had nothing to do with
them.
Serving the Jewish Public
However, the main focus of his activities, both as mayor and
as a member of the local council, has been the Jewish
community. He has had lots of opportunities to help them
out, both individuals as well as the community as a whole.
He tells us that over the years he has managed to obtain,
officially and in accordance with all official regulations,
millions of pounds worth of assistance for institutions and
various different projects. This is in stark contrast to the
distant past. At the beginning of his political career, even
obtaining a license for building a sukkah was
problematic.
"At that time, refugees from various countries immigrated to
England and the non-Jews had the false impression that Jews
were wealthy. With this background, I had to explain that
these people came as penniless refugees and some of them
needed help from the social services, others needed a
building permit, and so on. The situation nowadays is
different altogether.
"Nowadays the Jewish community in Hackney is fully
recognized and is entitled to all services. Various
institutions have been built with the help of the council,
much to our satisfaction boruch Hashem. My method is
working to create a situation in which we have influence, at
the same time avoiding the impression that we are in a
position of power. I think that this is the reason that they
behave decently towards me, even though I was involved in
politics: until I was elected mayor, I was the leader of the
opposition on the council, the mayor in power being from the
Labor party. I was an active leader of the opposition, but I
always made it clear that I did not oppose the mayor
personally!
"Today the situation has become a little more difficult.
There is great poverty in the Borough of Hackney, and the
low-income population has grown accordingly. On the other
hand, perhaps as an indirect result of this, the council has
a big budget deficit, which has led to the dismissal of a
lot of council employees and many budgetary activities have
been cut back. All of this has made the council less
popular, but I myself try to help out wherever I can."
Agudas Yisroel
Joe Lobenstein is the deputy Chairman of the English Agudas
Yisroel. He says that the Aguda is involved in every
possible sphere. It has a well-organized and effective
office with almost twenty employees. The organization is
especially active in the housing area, for which purpose it
set up an independent company which today has 500 apartments
at its disposal which are rented out to large families at a
cheap rent. There is also a social services department which
receives requests for advice and help every day. The Aguda's
weekly Jewish Tribune, which has been on the scene
for thirty years, also serves groups not closely affiliated
with the Aguda.
Mr. Lobenstein has written for this paper since it was
founded and still writes a very popular weekly column,
characterized by brevity and succinctness. He invariably
manages to create debates amongst his readers. "Not
everybody agrees with what I have to say, but this makes it
all the more interesting," he notes jokingly. So far he has
received some seven thousand written responses to his
columns and he is, boruch Hashem, ready to go on for
a while yet!
The Democratic Structure of the Community's
Institutions
In the wider sphere of London Jewish life, there is a
special umbrella body for the chareidi community, which
perhaps does not exist in any other place: the Union of
Orthodox Hebrew Congregations in England, which incorporates
all the chareidi organizations. It is run according to
democratic and effective procedures. Mr. Lobenstein serves
in the honorable position of deputy rosh hakohol.
The Union's executive committee, which meets once a month,
includes almost all the streams of chareidi Jewry. The
widespread activities of the well-known Kedassia
kashrus organization take place within the Union's
framework.
The union is an independent body which is not answerable to
the British Chief Rabbinate or the Board of Deputies. It
derives its authority from elections held every three years.
Representatives from all the shuls are entitled to
vote and everything is run in a democratic manner, according
to a detailed and precise set of rules. The Union has a rov
and a beis din consisting of six rabbonim which meets
once a week. In addition, there is a rabbinical committee,
whose members are the forty or so rabbonim from each of the
shuls affiliated with the Union. Members of the
executive committee are chosen from this rabbinical
committee.
Representatives from the Union meet on an independent basis
with government officials about various matters. Recently,
for example, a Union delegation met with senior officials of
the Home Office in order to explain the community's staunch
opposition to the proposed extension of British Summer Time
by an additional two hours, because of the many problems
this would create for religious Jews with respect to times
of prayer, Shabbos observance and so on.
All in all, says Mr. Lobenstein, the Union has a great
influence on the whole of the Jewish community in
England.
For many years the Union had the privilege of being led by
HaRav Chanoch Padwa zt"l. When he was niftar,
a special effort was made to fill the vacuum very quickly
and on the same day his son, HaRav Ephraim, a well-known
talmid chochom, was appointed to replace his father,
and he is having much success in his new position.
"Boruch Hashem," concludes Mr. Lobenstein, "I played
a major part in his appointment."
