Litter on Port Meadow left two animals needing vet treatment over the weekend of the 8th to 9th of May, with injuries that could have been life-threatening. A horse cut open its hoof on broken glass and a cow suffered an intestinal blockage thought to be caused by eating litter.
This is not the first time that animals in Oxford have suffered injuries from litter. Last year, two cows, including a seven-month-old calf, died as the result of eating plastic bags, balloons, and other rubbish left behind on the meadow. Other grazing cows and horses sustained multiple injuries, including glass cuts. Oxford District Services (ODS), the Council-owned company responsible for litter management, has also had to rescue swans that became entangled in rubbish.
As the weather warms up and restrictions on outdoor gatherings ease, the City Council anticipates a bigger problem with littering in the city’s parks and green spaces. The Council offers a simple bit of advice: “Bag it, bin it or take it home” as part of its anti-littering campaign ‘Don’t Feed The Animals’.
The Council also urges people not to put their rubbish into overflowing bins, but to hold onto it until they find an emptier bin. Overflowing bins can attract scavenging animals, who then spread the litter around creating a new litter problem. Even one piece of litter can be fatal. The Oxford Mail reported that a dog recently died from eating a disposable facemask in an Oxfordshire park. Overflowing bins can be reported on a Council web page.
To combat the litter problem, the Council has increased bin capacity collection frequency, with staff out on Port Meadow as early as 6am. Volunteer groups such as OxClean Spring Clean are also addressing the problem, and will meet on May 29, June 5 and June at 12 for volunteer litter picking. Police and Council staff can also sanction littering, and are able to issue fines of up to £150.
Port Meadow Ranger Julian Cooper said: “It’s heartbreaking when we see animals suffering because of people’s carelessness. ODS has regular litter collections, but it only takes a moment for an animal to eat litter or step on glass or metal left behind. Ultimately it’s up to all of us to clean up after ourselves so we don’t see any more harm.”
“In the warm weather last summer we were collecting three tons of rubbish a day at Port Meadow – our teams can’t keep up with that rate of littering. Everyone knows they shouldn’t drop litter. However tempting it is to rush on to the next thing, just think about the harm you might cause by leaving rubbish behind. Bag it, bin it or take it home.”
Image credit: Photo by NeONBRAND on Unsplash. The image does not show a bin in Oxford
Anvee Bhutani has been elected as the President of the Oxford Student Union for the 2021-22 academic year. The voting had the highest ever turnout for a by-election, and has also beaten the overall turnout for several past annual leadership elections. 2506 people turned out to vote, a 146% increase from the last by-election in 2019, with the most voters coming from Keble College. The leadership contest also had the highest number of candidates ever in an SU President election, with 11 students running for the spot.
Bhutani is a current 2nd-year student at Magdalen College studying Human Sciences. In her manifesto she outlined the key areas she will focus on in her role as SU President: Access and Academics, Community Affairs, Welfare and Mental Health and Societies and Clubs. She also highlighted her experience across SU, college, and society roles.
In her manifesto, she states that she will “continue to lobby for lecture capture post-pandemic,” work with the student press to increase engagement, and “lobby for more funding towards existing mental health support programs for graduate students,” alongside a range of further policies including extending racial awareness and the accessibility of welfare support. Bhutani’s full manifesto can be viewed here.
Bhutani’s experience includes President of the Oxford India Society, Managing Director at The Oxford Blue, and she is the current Co-Chair at the Campaign for Racial Awareness and Equality (CRAE), which forms part of the wider SU. She has also worked as a shift leader at Turl Street Homeless Action, and in her manifesto suggests working with this group to support the local homeless population “via food and supply donations.”
I log onto a zoom call to be greeted by an array of colours: placards from protests cascade down the walls, various rainbow objects litter the room, and a vase of flowers stand in front of a trans flag with the words ‘We Will Not Be Erased’. I can tell this is the room of an activist.
Elliot Brooke is a second year History Student at St Hilda’s College, who spends his spare time campaigning for improvements in trans rights across the University through his roles as Transgender Representative for LGTBQ+ Society annd Co-Chair of LGBTQ+ Campaign. For someone who has spent more time at home than at university, he has accomplished a lot – he laughs as he tells me that he came back to Oxford last year after being away due to personal circumstances throughout Hilary, to suddenly be told that he would be doing another term from home due to a global pandemic. Yet, coming back to Oxford in Michaelmas Term of this year he was quick to launch straight into projects that had been brewing over lockdown.
Many people will remember his own trans flag being hung across the RadCam railings with two panels alongside displaying 242 names of trans victims of violence in 2020. It became a place for the trans community to come together to grieve, as well as demonstrate their love and sense of community. I inquired about Elliot’s inspiration for this memorial: “Anti-trans violence is such a huge problem still, especially beyond this country, and the victims who may otherwise be forgotten deserve to be remembered. I played around with a few different ideas on how to do it, but in the end the panels made most sense and ensured the names of those we lost were displayed clearly, which I feel is important. After settling on that, it was just a matter of persuading a group of mates to help duct tape everything together and drag it all down to the radcam at five in the morning”, he chuckles.
I ask him further about the decision to locate this memorial at the RadCam: “Radcliffe square gets a huge amount of foot traffic so i knew it would be a place where the memorial would get seen by a lot of people, and so raise a lot of awareness for TDOR and the wider issue of anti-trans violence. It was also an outdoor space large enough that if LGBTQ+ individuals wanted to come and spend some time mourning and reflecting, they could without worrying about Covid.”
He takes a deep breath before continuing, reflecting on the memorial as a statement as well: “Over the past couple of years, there have been a lot of instances within the university that have contributed to creating an alienating and unwelcoming environment for it’s trans, non-binary and gender non-conforming members. I think for a lot of people, there was something very empowering about seeing the trans flag hanging outside the radcam, a building so iconic and so strongly associated with oxford. It was about asserting our right to be here and be seen.”
This was one of his first projects that he did under LGBTQ+ Campaigns, a group he became involved with during his Second Year: “I’ve had a really mixed bag of experiences throughout the past couple of years around being trans at oxford,” he tells me, “loads of people have been absolutely fantastic about it, which was a really pleasant surprise, and I am so grateful to have found an amazing group of queer friends who are just fantastic. But there were also a few incidents and individuals who made things really difficult, which led to my mental health being really negatively impacted. Over the summer of 2020, I gave a speech about this at the London Trans Rights Protest in July, and the positive reaction and support I got from speaking out about my experiences was incredible, and encouraged me to look more into how I could personally get involved in work to try and improve the experience of Oxford’s LGBTQ+ members – which is when someone suggested joining campaign to me!”
Now he is Co-Chair of the LGBTQ+ Campaign alongside Tori Mangan. When inquiring about the workload, he admits it is a lot of work and that he feels “sometimes it’s easy to forget that students in volunteer roles are also still students who have a whole degree to do on top of the work we’re trying to accomplish within campaigns.” Yet, for him it’s an experience he wouldn’t miss: “it’s been a really incredible opportunity that I’m so grateful to have – I’ve been able to work with departments on developing their equality policies, attend national conferences, and work in smaller ways to try and improve the situation for LGBTQ+ students in the university, and that is a really rewarding position to be in.”
Due to his various roles, it is clear he is fast becoming an expert on the issues facing trans students within Oxford, so I ask him where he feels that trans activism needs to go in the future. He takes a moment before carefully continuing, “I think there is still a very serious issue surrounding the lack of adequate welfare provisions and safeguarding measures for transgender, non-binary and gender non-conforming students within the university. The 2018 trans report revealed just how dire the situation was regarding trans individuals in the university, and unfortunately my confidence that these statistics have improved over the past three years is low. Activism and welfare are, when it comes to trans issues especially, often inextricably linked together; our very existence is constantly politicised, and therefore activism becomes an incredibly important tool in pushing for our basic rights to safety, privacy and comfort to be met. We’ve still got quite a long way to go before we can say that goal has been met.”
When I ask him what is one thing he wishes people knew about campaigns, he smiles: “I wish people knew how keen we are to connect more with the wider student body. I know there’s a general feeling that the SU doesn’t really do a lot, and I can understand how sometimes it can feel very far removed – especially since the collegiate nature of Oxford means the SU can sometimes play a less significant role in our day to day life than it might at other universities. However, having worked with the SU for coming up on sixth months now, it’s been really enlightening to see how many resources they have available that are simply not known about, and how helpful they can be in resolving issues students are encountering. We really are happy to help in whatever way we can, and are always interested in hearing your issues and ideas, and supporting any projects you might want to carry out.”
As the interview comes to its conclusion, the final question I have is “what role can other students have in continuing to support in order to support the work that you do?” Elliot eagerly states “the absolute best way people can support the work we do is by continuing it themselves. From small acts, such as adding your pronouns to your email signature and asking others to do the same, and challenging people when you hear anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric to take the burden off your LGBTQ+ peers, to bigger things like setting up a Gender Expression Fund in your college and actively getting involved in queer activist efforts in Oxford. We’re currently looking to fill some campaign positions, so if you are interested in getting more involved, feel free to reach out to us!”
You can learn more about Elliot’s activism through his Instagram and contact LGBTQ+ Campaigns via their email [email protected] and Facebook.
It’s bizarre when Eleanor Neale replies to my first question. I’ve become so used to having her videos playing in the background, describing murders, kidnappings and missing persons’ cases. It’s incredibly odd to now hear her respond in real time. Still, this is a feeling common to many – with 1.6 million subscribers and nearly a quarter of a billion video views, Neale is one of the world’s most well-known true crime YouTubers.
Beyond views, Neale’s videos often have tangible impact. Her video on Jessie Blodgett, a nineteen-year-old singer and musician who was murdered in 2013, has been watched over 1.2 million times. The LOVE>hate Project, created by Jessie’s parents in 2016 to help victims of human trafficking and domestic violence, received an influx of donations after Neale referenced them in the video. Jessie’s father even reached out: “I remember her dad emailed me… he was just checking all the accounts. And he was like: ‘we had a huge influx of donations around last week, and I couldn’t figure out where on earth they were coming from’.” The LOVE>hate Project later featured Neale’s video on their website. Neale continues “I could tell how happy he was in this email. Sometimes I kind of forget the kind of impact that my videos have until it gets to something like that. My audience can raise hundreds, if not thousands, of pounds for particular causes. That really reminds me like why I do this.”
Such pressure – the knowledge that a victim’s friend or family member could be watching – must be intimidating. Sometimes, they may be shocked or horrified by what they see in the media. One episode of Netflix’s I Am A Killer explores the murder of Robert Mast. When family members were approached to participate in the show, Mast’s stepmother replied: “as a parent, a fellow human being, I beg you not to do this… PLEASE don’t do this!” Mast’s stepsister told TIME: “When we continue to give numbers to these shows, they keep making them. And real people living real lives keep getting re-traumatized every time.” Likewise, Lauren Bradford’s mother was murdered in 1991. In 2016, ITV aired The Secret, a drama series based on the “story” of the crime, despite resistance from Lauren and her family. Lauren wrote in the Guardian that “by calling it a story, they trivialise the reality of these events and dehumanise the impact that it has on those involved. Furthermore, careless oversights, such as the misspelling of my mum’s name in emails that I had to correct, go deeper than just a trivial mistake; this echoes a disrespect for the victims and disregard for accuracy. In telling these “stories”, they have to re-write truth to fit a narrative that gives the impression of an assumed complicity or even authorisation from the families, which is so often not the case… Truth is replaced with “good enough truth”; embellished and rewritten for entertainment”.
However, while TV documentaries have teams of researchers and PR officers who can navigate these difficult interactions, Neale is working with far fewer resources. She’s recently hired an editor to take up some of the workload while someone else makes her thumbnails (although she has the final approval, noting how some are “too movie poster for me”). While As much as Neale loves covering cases concerning serial killers, she’s had to limit these as they take her “about three weeks” to research. With a schedule which features multiple uploads each week, this is unsustainable. At the beginning of each video, Neale includes a disclaimer that she means no disrespect to the victims or their families and that all research has been obtained through reputable secondary sources. Regarding the disclaimer (which has now been replicated across the true crime YouTube community), she says “I did six videos without it. And there were so many people that commented ‘are you doing this for views?’… I don’t like that people are coming to my videos and thinking that of me when I started out just doing missing persons cases and the reason I was doing them was to get them out there”. Neale elaborates – “you do have to state your intentions. That’s the first time someone is hearing you and seeing you… They don’t know anything about you… You need to make it clear that you are just doing it to cover the case and give that victim justice in a way”. Can this be enough?
“It can be a little bit scary sometimes”. She pauses, then continues. “I’ve had so many cases where I’ve covered the case on YouTube, and then like one of the victim’s family members has emailed me: more often than not, they’re absolutely lovely. When I know that family members of these victims do see the videos, there is a huge pressure there – I’ve got to do the victim justice. I’ve got to tell their story accurately.”
One of Neale’s first videos covered the case of Alissa Turney. At the time, the seventeen-year-old’s disappearance was unsolved. Her sister, Sarah, used social media to campaign for justice. Sarah contacted Neale directly after seeing her video and explained that some of the evidence – which Neale had found through news reports – was wrong: “Her family have had this uphill battle with news outlets because they’ve always been printing things wrong about this case. And I said, ‘Look, I would love to redo this video with your input’. And I did; I took the video down. And I spoke with her sister and we completely redid the video”. In August 2020, Michael Turney – Sarah’s father and Alissa’s stepfather – was charged with Alissa’s murder. When announcing the grand jury indictment, the prosecutor addressed Sarah directly, praising her efforts. “Your perseverance and commitment to finding justice for your sister, Alissa, is a testament to the love of a sister,” she said. “Because of that love, Alissa’s light has never gone out.”
Neale tries to cover many cases relating to young women. “That is what young women who watch me respond best to, as scary as it is for them to hear all these horrific cases… I think back to when I was 16, 17, 18, and I used to walk home from my friend’s houses in the dark – they’d live two miles away from my house! I would never do that these days and I would hope that my little cousin and my friends’ little sisters wouldn’t do what we did”. In a sponsorship with sportswear brand Gymshark, Neale shared tips to stay safe while out running (such as removing information when sharing screenshots of routes on social media, location sharing, and running against traffic), while recognising that no level of precaution can guarantee protection. “That was literally my favourite sponsorship that I’ve ever done. It wasn’t as much about the brand, it was about what they stood for”. Neale tells me she wants to be a “friend” to viewers who is relatable and comforting. She seems more like this corner of the internet’s elder sister: ready with advice and concern for her fanbase, along with sympathy for those impacted by the cases she is covering.
Neale doesn’t often speak about the impact of researching – often gory, often intimately personal – crimes on a regular basis. “At this point, I’ve pretty much kind of been able to separate my work from my brain. And if I couldn’t have done that would have made me ill – if I couldn’t pull up that kind of shield, when I started researching, then it would really, really affect me”. She pauses. Her usually bubbly tone, referenced in innumerable YouTube comments in contrast to the grim subject matter of her videos, is sombre now. “I’ve gone through stages where I’ve been like an anxious mess… and then I can’t leave the house for a week…. I’ll be walking down the street when it’s kind of dark and all the cases that I’ve ever covered will be running through my brain”.
She’s stopped covering certain cases due to the impact on her own mental health; children’s cases remind her of her four-year-old nephew, who occasionally features in her videos. “These children lost their lives so traumatically”, she says, “I feel like it is important to tell their stories. But, at the same time, those were the ones that got me choked up every time… In every case of a young boy, I would relate it to my nephew. And every time I would just cry.” Speaking to BBC Sounds, Neale elaborated: “I get all the emotion out as I am researching [but] I remember I was researching the Jamie Bulger case which is one of the worst cases I have ever heard of in my life,” she recalls. “I remember I cried so much as I was researching that case.”
For viewers too, there’s a potentially negative impact when consuming excessive true crime content. Erin Parisi, a mental health counsellor who specialises in true crime coverage, told INSIDER: “For someone who has their own trauma, especially of a violent or sexually violent nature, it can be really triggering to listen to stories that are similar, or even that don’t seem similar on the surface. For some, it could be like picking a scab off of a wound over and over and over again… never giving it enough time to heal”. Amanda Vicary, an associate professor at Illinois Wesleyan University, echoed this sentiment in the Huffington Post: “Women may want to learn about crime because they fear being a victim themselves, but then with every podcast they listen to or book they read, they are just learning about another woman who was kidnapped or killed, which can then increase the fear even more”. Neale has received countless messages from young female fans (her typical demographic) who feel overwhelmed by bingeing her videos. For someone whose income relies on consistent viewers and regular channel growth, her response is surprising: “Every single time someone says that I say ‘please, please do if it’s affecting your mental state, take a step away. Don’t watch any true crime content’. Sometimes I wish I could take a break from it – as much as I love my job and as much as I feel like it benefits people. Sometimes I wish I could shut off true crime and have a happy month and then go back to it. So, I really encourage my viewers to do that to take a break every now and again. Otherwise, you’ll end up thinking the whole world is just doom and gloom all the time.”
While streaming services have led to an explosion in the amount of content available for viewers (Sky has now launched its own channel purely devoted to the genre), this isn’t a new phenomenon. Capote’s In Cold Blood is a classic of American literature, while the serials of Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens were greatly influenced by the British public obsessively tracking true crime cases in daily papers. True crime books have also been wildly popular for decades. A 2006 survey found it was the fastest growing literary genre; Mailer’s The Executioner’s Song even won a Pulitzer Prize. A 1993 survey conducted by Publishers Weekly found that true crime novels performed better when they focused on more gory content – with serial killers doing especially well. A direct link to the case can be viewed as even better, lending the text some form of authority. Helter Skelter, the best-selling true crime book of all time, was written by the lead Manson family prosecutor Vincent Bugliosi (alongside Curt Gentry). Similarly, Ann Rule’s The Stranger Beside Me focuses on the writer’s personal relationship with Ted Bundy. True crime YouTubers are limited by the platform’s guidelines regarding graphic content and often have no relationship to the cases they’re covering. What, then, is the allure? Neale believes there’s a level of intimacy unique to YouTube. “It is so much more relatable and aware. I’m literally just a northern girl sat in my bedroom”, leading to content feeling like a “conversation” rather than being primarily “produced and edited”. This level of access and relatability cannot be replicated by documentaries. Similarly, there’s a sense of community – which Neale describes as “respectful” above all else – within her subscriber base, with viewers able to theorise and change their minds based on new evidence in real time.
The freedom of YouTube also allows creators to focus on ‘smaller’ stories. While there is a grim level of awareness regarding cases which are likely to increase engagement – Neale confesses that “the videos in which there is a young, white female in the thumbnail do twice as well as any other case” – there is also the opportunity to highlight lesser known cases. She cites a recent video covering the kidnap and murder of Latisha Frazier – “oh my god, it was awful. She was killed by all of her friends. She was lured there and killed, and I couldn’t find any videos… And I was like… ‘right, okay, I’m going to tell this story’”. More generally, a focus on sensationalising cases means that “people’s everyday stories don’t get told – like the ones where someone is killed by their partner in their home. It’s not as juicy as something else. And that’s one of the sad things that I’ve realised while I’ve been doing this job is that if people like me and my peers don’t tell the ones that don’t get the documentaries or the Netflix series, then they don’t get told. And I like to say that in the start of my videos where I cover smaller cases.
“These ones are being told on my channel because no one else will tell them and I want to tell that story.”
Jeremy Corbyn addressed The Oxford Union this afternoon, speaking on a range of topics including the impact of COVID-19 on social equality, his time as Labour leader and his vision for the party, alongside addressing claims of antisemitism during his time in the party.
Mr Corybn was the leader of the Labour Party from 2015 to 2020 and has been an MP since 1983. Under his leadership, the party fought for the nationalisation of key industries including the national grid and broadband, more ambitious net-zero targets, and a second referendum. Mr Corbyn was also criticised for what the EHRC described as a culture within the party that “did not do enough to prevent anti-Semitism [sic] and, at worst, could be seen to accept it.” Mr Corbyn was suspended from the party over remarks made in response to the EHRC report, although he has since been reinstated as an independent MP.
Speaking to Cherwell regarding the Oriel College Governing Body’s decision to not remove the Cecil Rhodes statue, despite the recommendations of the Oriel College Commission, Corbyn argued that contextualisation should be the most significant priority. “I think [statues] are important as symbols. But what’s more important is the teaching of history, and how we have an understanding of colonialism. And Cecil Rhodes was racist, he subjugated and killed large numbers of people in what became Rhodesia and eventually Zimbabwe and Zambia, and made a great deal of money out of diamond mining and others in South Africa. And I don’t see a need to venerate his life at all.”
When asked about whether youth have influence in current politics by Cherwell, Corbyn nodded, stating that “The power’s in our own hands. See these hands? [gesturing towards his own]. That’s where the power lies, organise yourselves together. You don’t have to wait for somebody else. Just do it.”
In response to a question from Cherwell on the role of the University of Oxford in a more equal society in the future, Mr Corbyn stated that “I would like to see a fairer form of intake,” and “a greater opening up of Oxford as a whole.” He also addressed the role of fees, both for international and home students, as a deterrent in applying to University. He encouraged the adoption of the approach taken by the University of Glasgow, whereby they assessed the financial gains they had made from slavery.
The event began with a speech from Corbyn on “inequality in society today.” He began by addressing two previous appearances at the Union; one a debate on the “future of the Labour party,” where proposed amendments to the Labour constitution were debated, and one on socialism with Conservative MP John Redwood.
Corbyn went on to argue that “coronavirus has left a massive inequality in society” and the impact of Brexit on Britain. “Inequality in our own society is getting worse and worse, year on year.” He also argued for his own version of patriotism: “My patriotism is about supporting all of my fellow citizens.”
He then urged for further action on the climate crisis, including adopting a net-green by 2030 policy and the green industrial revolution that he proposed in his 2019 manifesto. He also criticised refugee policy under current Home Secretary Priti Patel, stating that “I am here to say that human beings are at risk, and human rights are at risk, by the way that we treat refugees.” Corbyn moved on to speak about racism in the US and the UK, encouraging “a real debate of what colonialism was and what colonialism did” alongside considering “who benefited in this country.”
He finished his speech by arguing that “my determination was that Labour would be transformed into a community-led activist organisation,” stating that he wants “the party to continue to move in that direction” and arguing that “If we’re going to move away [from that] … then let there be a proper debate about it.” He finished by stating that “I want to build a world that’s fit for the next generation,” and condemning antisemitism, islamophobia, and racism in all forms.
The speech was followed by a question and answer session with current Oxford Union president, Adam Roble, and audience questions. Roble first asked Mr Corbyn to reflect on his time as leader of the opposition, to which Mr Corbyn stated that “leading a party is a very frustrating job,” and that he wanted to change policies by democratic means within the party. He cited his biggest regrets during his time as leader as the 2017 loss of the general election, and his inability to bridge the Brexit divide during the 2019 election.
Roble then went on to ask about the accusations of antisemitism that plagued Mr Corbyn during his time as leader. Mr Corbyn argued for the importance of Jewish Labour, stating that they played a founding role in the party, and spoke on the Chakrabati inquiry into antisemitism in the party which he argued came to many of the same conclusions as the EHRC report.
When asked by Roble how he would respond to claims that he didn’t do enough to address antisemitism in the party in his time as leader, he said that he couldn’t speak for the beliefs of other people, but argued that he dedicated his career to fighting racism, stating that “I will die fighting racism in any form.” Mr Corbyn made similar comments in response to the EHRC report when it was initially released.
In audience questions at the end of the event, Mr Corbyn stated that he supports the empowerment of people that have suffered the consequences of colonialism, and also spoke on the Israel-Palestine conflict, which he spoke further on at a protest in Oxford on Sunday. He argued that of the conflict, “you have to recognise what the source of the problem is – the occupation.” He also suggested that many Israeli citizens would like to see the end of the Palestinian occupation. In response to a question from a teacher in the audience, he argued that necessary reforms include the adoption of free school meals for all in primary schools, and a loosening of the restraints of the secondary school curriculum.
Oxford has seen the reopening of indoor bars and restaurants in line with the relaxation of government restrictions. Groups of six are now allowed to mix indoors, following the government’s roadmap out of lockdown.
One Oxford student enjoying cocktails at Freud, a bar in Jericho, said: “I feel like I have never been away. It was nice to have normality back and I feel like we’re on our way back to normal life. I enjoyed being warm inside rather than cold outside. It really makes you appreciate what we once considered normal!”
A spokesperson for Freud, which had previously opened outdoors, said: “We are really excited to have reopened the doors of Freud and it’s been incredible to see so many of our customers returning after our six-month hiatus! We took the opportunity to refresh Freud, opening new spaces, and can’t wait to be back in full swing and see everyone again.”
Similarly, the Oxford Union bar has opened indoors. They are “really pleased to be able to open up our Members bar, which has a great atmosphere already! We’re serving a wide range of drinks not to mention our homemade lunch menu daily from 11:30 to 2:30. We’ve also opened up the Goodman Library as an extension of the bar, so have more indoor bar capacity than we ever had before lockdown – we hope to see you there!”
As well as indoor hospitality, indoor exercise classes have restarted. A spokesperson for Oxford City Council said “bringing indoor group exercise back is a really positive step for people’s wellbeing and for our leisure industry.”
“Our leisure centres are in the heart of our residential areas, providing great value for communities, and we’re looking forward to the buzz next week when group exercise is back on the timetable.”
Oriel College’s Governing Body has responded following the results of an independent commission which were revealed by The Guardian last night, choosing not to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes. The commission advised that the statue was removed alongside a plaque on King Edward Street which features a portrait of Rhodes. They also urged the College to publish a statement that definitively detailed the extent and nature of their association with Rhodes and his legacy.
Oriel College’s statement explained: “The Commission backed the College’s original wish (made in June 2020 and reaffirmed again by the College yesterday), to remove the statue, whilst acknowledging the complex challenges and costs presented by its removal in terms of heritage and planning consent. The Governing Body has carefully considered the regulatory and financial challenges, including the expected time frame for removal, which could run into years with no certainty of outcome, together with the total cost of removal.”
“In light of the considerable obstacles to removal, Oriel’s Governing Body has decided not to begin the legal process for relocation of the memorials. Instead, it is determined to focus its time and resources on delivering the report’s recommendations around the contextualisation of the College’s relationship with Rhodes, as well as improving educational equality, diversity and inclusion amongst its student cohort and academic community.”
Further regarding the statue, they continued: “the Commission’s report also acknowledged the considerable planning and heritage considerations involved in the removal of the statue which is situated on the College’s Grade II* listed High Street building. Removal of the statue would be subject to legal and planning processes involving the City Council, Historic England and the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government.”
“The Commission noted that any application for planning permission to remove the memorials is not only likely to face considerable costs, but also complex challenges in the planning process, particularly since the Government’s policy, in relation to historic statues and sites which have become contested, is to ‘retain and explain’ them.
“However, the Governing Body recognised the need for a lasting and visible contextualisation of the Rhodes’ legacy, memorials and historical association with the College.”
Rather than removing the statue, they have agreed to establish a task force to consider the recommendations for the contextualisation of the Rhodes statue within the commission’s report (along with other suggestions) and to oversee their implementation. They will also commission a virtual exhibition to provide “an arena for contextualisation and explanation of the Rhodes legacy and related issues of relevance to the College’s objectives”. Furthermore, they plan to contextualise the Rhodes legacy and memorials in both their physical and virtual formats.
Lord Mendoza, Provost of Oriel College said: “My sincere thanks go to the Chair, Carole Souter and the expert Commission members for delivering an extensive, rigorous and considered academic body of work. It has enabled the College to achieve a productive resolution to a complex series of issues, and most importantly, we can now set-out deliverable measures that can demonstrably improve the educational equality, diversity and inclusion of the College and its community.”
“It has been a careful, finely balanced debate and we are fully aware of the impact our decision is likely to have in the UK and further afield. We understand this nuanced conclusion will be disappointing to some, but we are now focused on the delivery of practical actions aimed at improving outreach and the day-to-day experience of BME students. We are looking forward to working with Oxford City Council on a range of options for contextualisation.”
The commission also recommended that the College fund fellowships in fields related to addressing Rhodes’ legacy, alongside lectures and new outreach initiatives addressing race and colonialism. The report called upon the College to encourage applications from BAME backgrounds. On these, the College responded that the Governing Body has agreed to “create the office of Tutor for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion who will be a Fellow and Trustee of the College, develop a strategic plan for improving educational equality, diversity and inclusion, ensuring it is embedded more formally in the College, fundraise for scholarships to support students from Southern Africa, enact a 2016 decision to have an annual lecture on a topic related to the Rhodes legacy, race, or colonialism, institute an annual student prize (e.g. for an essay, artwork or photography) on a topic related to Rhodes legacy, race, or colonialism, provide additional training for academic and non-academic staff in race awareness, [and] introduce further outreach initiatives targeted at BME student recruitment”.
Oriel College noted: “the funds equivalent to that remaining in the Rhodes legacy will be used to help resource these initiatives”. They continued that “Oriel College has already undertaken a number of initiatives aimed at improving equality and diversity, including a one-off College scholarship for a postgraduate student from Africa, and a yearly donation to the Target Oxbridge programme, which aims to increase the chances of students of Black African and Caribbean heritage, and students of mixed race, getting into the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge.”
“Oriel’s admissions for UK-domiciled BME undergraduates are slightly above the University average (21.5% compared with 21.4% in the three years between 2018 and 2020) and that for students with black African and Caribbean heritage, it is also slightly higher during the same period (3.9% compared with 3.2%).”
The commission’s decision was originally planned to be released in January but was delayed due to the pandemic, along with a “considerable volume of submissions” and their desire to “consider all submissions carefully”. According to Oriel College, the commission “received and reviewed well over a thousand written contributions from students, alumni, associates of the college and the general public. A majority of the submissions to the Commission backed the retention of the statue.
An independent commission established to discuss whether a controversial statue of the imperialist Cecil Rhodes should remain above the entrance to Oriel College has reached its conclusion. Their recommendation is that the statue, which has been a focal point for anti-racist activists, should be removed.
The commission’s decision was supposed to be released in January, but was delayed due to the pandemic and a “considerable volume of submissions”.
In a report seen by The Guardian, the commission advised that the College not only removes the statue, but a plaque featuring a portrait of Rhodes on King Edward Street. It also urged the College to publish a statement definitively detailing its association with Rhodes and his legacy.
Furthermore, the commission unanimously recommended that the College funds two new fellowships in fields related to addressing Rhodes’ legacy. It has been recommended that the college establishes new scholarships for students from southern Africa, and graduate students undertaking research in “relevant fields”. They have also recommended that the College holds an annual lecture addressing Rhodes’ legacy, and establishes new outreach initiatives addressing race and colonialism.
The report also called upon the governing body of Oriel College to encourage applications from students from BAME backgrounds, and to improve their offer and acceptance rates.
The commission’s recommendations are advisory. The final decision about whether the statue will be removed lies with the Oriel College governing body.
The commission follows a long campaign by activists to remove the statue, which has become symbolic of a greater reckoning with Britain’s imperial past. According to The Guardian, over 70 statues of colonialists, slave traders and similarly controversial figures have been removed since the murder of George Floyd in America by a white policeman sparked global Black Lives Matter protests.
Oriel College, Rhodes Must Fall Oxford, and The University of Oxford have been approached for comment.
Hundreds of protestors attended a pro-Palestine march through Oxford on Sunday, including ex-Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who addressed the crowd at Bonn Square towards the end of the demonstration. This was preceded by a smaller demonstration attended by dozens outside the Radcliffe Camera on Saturday. Protestors shouted “free, free Palestine” and “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” amongst other chants. The demonstration followed a week of conflict between the Israeli government and groups in Gaza, with at least 215 people killed in Gaza so far.
A leader at the march speaking in Cowley, where the demonstration began. Image Credit: Sasha Mills
Standing in front of the cenotaph, Mr Corbyn applauded the “young people taking initiative” in setting up the protest. He also addressed the recent destruction of a media building in Gaza housing the Associated Press and Al Jazeera as well as other companies and private flats. “It is utterly disgraceful. […] Having seen those buildings, and met people inside them, including the Gaza mental health campaign, I could just appreciate what they are going through.”
“I have a very big question for our Prime Minister and our government. What, exactly, is the nature of Britain’s military cooperation with Israel? […] Of the weaponry that we [Britain] have supplied to Israel in the past: is that being used to kill children in Gaza and the West Bank? Our first demand here today is to stop all arms supplies to Israel.”
A student hangs a top emblazoned with ‘Free Palestine’ from his window at Magdalen College, as protesters pass by. Image Credit: Sasha Mills
Mr Corbyn ended his speech by encouraging unity in the response to the Israel-Palestine conflict. “The message here from Oxford today is: stop the bombing, save the lives, recognise Palestine, and stand with the Palestinian people. We’re united in that. We’re united in that across all faiths […] and across a wide range of political opinion. This is a matter of a moment of unity, of all peoples, be their Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Hindu, or anything else, to say that ‘We stand with the Palestinian people.’”
Mr Corbyn prior to making his speech. Image Credit: Sasha Mills
Speaking to Cherwell after the protest, Mr Corbyn said “There have been protests in every city and indeed [Oxford] are holding theirs today. I was in London yesterday, so I was very happy to come this afternoon.” He went on to say that he thought the protest was “fantastic, respectful, very interesting, very interesting and very interesting speakers, very impressive. I’m very pleased to have been able to join.”
Mr Corbyn has previously received criticism and was suspended from the party in 2020 after the Equality and Human Rights Commission identified failures in the handling of antisemitism complaints. After its publication, he stated that he did not accept all of the report’s findings, although he caveated that “anyone claiming there is no anti-Semitism [sic] in the Labour Party is wrong.” The suspension was due not to the findings of the report, but Mr Corbyn’s comments. He has since been reinstated as an MP.
When questioned by Cherwell about the impact of his history in the Labour Party on perceptions of his appearance at the march, Mr Corbyn denied that the enquiry had left him with “baggage” concerning antisemitism. “I made it very clear in my speech that whatever one’s faith one could and should condemn the Israel government’s behaviour in Gaza and the West Bank,” he said.
Protesters reach the High Street. Image Credit: Sasha Mills
David Williams, a former Green Party Parliamentary candidate also spoke at the march. Williams described the Nuremberg Act, a series of antisemitic and racist laws passed in Nazi Germany, as “blue copy” for the Israeli Citizenship Act, stating to the audience that “It’s exactly the same.” The IHRA definition of antisemitism, adopted by The University of Oxford and Cherwell, states that “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” is an example of antisemitism. In further correspondence to The Oxford Blue, Williams criticised the IHRA statement of antisemitism. Help the World Oxford, a group involved in organising the demonstration, told The Oxford Blue that Williams had not been invited to speak.
Leah Mitchell, a Cherwell columnist, told The Oxford Blue that “the comparison is simply inaccurate. Israel’s citizenship act may be legitimately criticised as unfair and discriminatory along lines of ethnic identity, but it simply is not the same as, or equivalent to, the Nuremberg Laws.”
She went on to say that “It is also not a coincidence that it is always Nazi analogies for which people such as David Williams reach, rather than comparisons to any other oppressive force. These analogies are calculated to hurt Jews the most, by bringing to the surface our collective trauma and then flipping it on its head.”
A leader at the protest, on the Cenotaph. Image Credit: Sasha Mills
Other speakers included the assistant general secretary of Unison, the UK’s largest trade union. He spoke on the right of Palestinian children to dream “like the rest of us. Children who should dream of being a nurse, children who should dream of being a doctor. […] A child who should dream of being the person who solves COVID-19. […] Why shouldn’t that child be Palestinian?”
Alongside several other political groups, official representatives of the Green Party were present at the march. Speaking to Cherwell, Chris Jarvis, councillor for the St. Mary’s Ward said: “The Green Party has always been of the view that we need to solve world conflicts and that international peace is a huge part of our political program.”
“The situation in Palestine is that you have a clear injustice going on where the Israeli state is illegally occupying Palestinian land. We want to see and end to that conflict, and we want to see a Palestinian state. What we’ve seen over the last few weeks is the escalation of that conflict, and the escalation of occupation. So we’re really proud to be standing as the Green Party against the illegal occupation of Palestine.”
He went on to say that the Green Party “want to see an end to all arms sales to Israel, because it’s facilitating the brutalisation of the Palestinian people.”
The Palestinian flag flown in the rain at Saturday’s protest. Image Credit: Sasha Mills
Dozens of protesters attended a smaller demonstration on Saturday 15th March in Radcliffe Square. Protesters staged a ‘die in’, where they knelt in the rain for seven minutes and three seconds in recognition of the 73 years since the Nakba.
Translating into English as “the catastrophe”, the Nakba was the expulsion of up to 750,000 Palestinians from the state of Israel after its establishment in 1948. Today, over 5 million Palestinians, including the descendents of those expelled during the Nakba, live as refugees, predominantly in neighbouring countries such as Jordan and Lebanon. The right of return is a key demand of many campaigners.
Amongst the speakers at the Saturday demonstration was Darin, a Palestinian graduate student at St Edmund’s Hall who is originally from the West Bank. “A year ago, when I was accepted to Oxford, I applied for my student visa to come to England. With the restrictions of movement Israel imposes on Palestinians, I could not reach Jerusalem, fifteen minutes away from my house. I could not cross the checkpoint or the separation wall. Instead I took a longer, more dangerous route and put myself at risk in order to be able to be here. Many other scholars couldn’t make it. Why? Because they are Palestinian”, she said in her speech
A sign held at Saturday’s demonstration. Image Credit: Sasha Mills
Speaking to Cherwell after the demonstration, Darin spoke about the toll the escalating conflict had taken on her. “I have my family in the West Bank: my parents and my siblings. And I do have friends in Gaza. Every morning I stay up until 4:00 checking on them, making sure they are alright. Also, many other Palestinian influencers have been posting very heartbreaking stories on social media: mothers putting their kids in their beds so if they die, they die together. When you’re living abroad and see all these attacks against your people you want to be there all the time. But at the same time, you’re focusing on what you’re doing here. So we’re trying to give solidarity to the people in Palestine.”
Oxfordshire Green Party has been contacted for comment.
The first national lockdown in the UK began on 23rd March 2020, less than two weeks after many Jews had been celebrating the festival of Purim. Little did any of us know at the time that this would be the last holiday celebrated under normal circumstances for over a year. Throughout the remainder of 2020 and well into 2021, on important occasions and holidays we would be calling family and friends over Zoom, battling the combined chaos of lagging wifi and the natural dispensation of large groups of Jews all to talk at once, in an attempt to preserve some semblance of the normal calendar year.
Holidays are the punctuation of our lives; they come around every year with comforting regularity, providing an opportunity for rest, reflection, and celebration. Our experience of Jewish holidays since the pandemic arrived may not have been quite the same as usual, but nonetheless amid the grinding monotony of Covid-era life they have functioned as small pockets of joy. Holding on to joy during bleak times is something which Jews have more or less become experts at over the millennia, and so it felt important to uphold that tradition. With the indispensable (and quintessentially Jewish) aid of vast quantities of carbohydrates, I’d like to think we’ve done a pretty good job.
Leah- Purim
Hammantash
The pandemic for me marked the beginning of my starting to pay attention to Jewish holidays outside of Passover and Hanukkah, the basic staples of many lax Jews’ calendar. As the world started to fall apart, I instinctively reached to pull the threads tying myself to my ancestors and my community tighter. This was no doubt reinforced by the sudden death of my grandma immediately prior to the pandemic hitting the UK; before I knew of a single person who had contracted Covid, my experience of 2020 was clouded by profound loss. On some subconscious level, I could not countenance that loss also representing a loss of my history and culture; of all the stories and the struggles that my grandma carried within her slight frame and her big heart.
My grandma and my mother, in accordance with the proud tradition of Jewish women, have always expressed love through food. As children, when we visited her home in Michigan, we used to call her “Kitchen Grandma” – a highly literal descriptor of her propensity for hovering around with plates of food and snacks at the ready. Therefore, even though I had never made hamantaschen or challah before, the process felt instinctively right as a means of processing grief and reconnecting with my family roots, the cornerstone of my identity.
I was particularly delighted to learn that hamantaschen, the triangular filled cookies eaten by Ashkenazi Jews at Purim, are believed by many Jews to symbolise the ears of Haman: the villain of the Book of Esther who sought to commit genocide against the Persian Jews. Nothing better sums up the unofficial motto of Jewish holidays: “They tried to kill us, we survived, let’s eat”. It is a reminder of the eternal resilience of the Jewish people, so long as, like the heroine Esther, we maintain the courage to speak up for ourselves. Besides, who wouldn’t enjoy the dramatic flair of celebrating survival by eating the (symbolic) ears of one’s enemies?
Pleasingly, making both hamantaschen and challah involved working with dough, the most emotionally satisfying of ingredients; its soft squidge under the fingertips cannot fail to reassure and to remind us that everything will be alright. Living in a pandemic is weird. Celebrating Jewish holidays for the first time during a pandemic is weirder. But the dough worked its magic; everything turned out more or less alright.
Tamzin – Shavuot
Home-made cheesecake
Shavuot, the Festival of Weeks, was last week. The timing could not have been more apt, as it marks the end of the period of 49 days after Pesach, a traditionally solemn time for the Jewish people, as marriages and ceremonies tend to be forbidden as we prepare to receive the Torah. Like the 17th May date for many of us, it marked the conclusion of a pretty long period without legally permitted parties. It is a joyous occasion where people join together to celebrate once again – and I personally ate a lot of cheesecake in the process.
When I was younger, all I knew about Shavuot was that it in some capacity involved my mother’s very delicious cheesecake. Last year, for some bizarre reason, creating the perfect cheesecake seemed more important than ever… and now we are already preparing for next week’s iteration too. I participated in a Zoom where we tried to produce some cheesecakes for the festival online together in our separate kitchens, and although it was a rather dysfunctional gathering – it resulted in one of most delicious cheesecakes we had ever produced.
I actually went around delivering parts of the cheesecake to local family and friends on those daily state-permitted walks we all remember so well. It brought the family together through our screens – those delicious, rich, creamy layers shared together amidst discordant sounds of people telling one another to “unmute” or to “go easy on the crust”.
Cheesecake is meant to be very sweet, representative of the milk and honey of the Promised Land. I wondered why I hadn’t ever really celebrated Shavuot before (other than eating cheesecake) and I believe this is because of the lack of real ritual involved in Shavuot, especially in comparison to other festivals like Pesach. As Rabbi Ismar Shorsch describes in an article, Shavuot is “ritually bereft” with “no absorbing home ritual that might unite family and friends in preparation and observance.”
So why do I find it exciting? What are we remembering? The festival commemorates the anniversary of the Jewish people receiving the Torah – a crucial unifying event for the Jewish people. There is definitely something exciting in the depiction of a group of people, encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai, anticipating the Torah together. It is exciting that many Jews celebrate by staying up all night on Erev Shavuot to study the Torah, in Tikkun Leyl Shavuot. I can imagine that a slice of cheesecake the following day has much the same restorative effects as a hot chocolate the morning after pulling an all-nighter for an essay crisis. As we *hopefully* return to studying in person in groups at university, I am sure we will appreciate how much learning together, and celebrating together, makes a huge difference to our experience as individuals.
We join together to share in something sweet, to celebrate Shavuot together. The collaborative, unifying emphasis of this festival seemed more crucial to me in the context of the pandemic than ever before. We can celebrate and learn together after a pretty bleak period. It is the togetherness, the sense of a community beyond the screens, all sharing cheesecake that really excites me.
Naomi – Passover
Seder Leader Skog
During the pandemic I have remained in Oxford for health and academic reasons and thus have been here solidly since January. This has meant that I have been away from my home over Pesach for the first time in my life. When I was younger my family and I used to travel to America every year to celebrate Pesach with my extended American family. I have vague memories of mega-synagogues and the most dramatic hunt for the afikomen I have ever been involved in. From my recollection of this defining moment for my seven-year-old self, we were all in a very large building with many rooms and the afikomen was hidden somewhere. There was a group of many children who were competing and I distinctly remember it being treated as a high-stakes competition in which we were told to begin searching as if it were a race. I didn’t find the afikomen but received a $2 consolation prize.
Aside from this dramatic highlight, the majority of my Pesach experiences have been at home in Aberdeen with my family. It’s fairly standard; we follow the Haggadah and eat matzah ball soup. The family Haggadahs that we have are uniquely entertaining though as they are my grandma’s old ones from the 1950s and so are predictably dodgy by modern politically correct standards. During the period around Pesach my mum hoards boxes of matzah and hides them from my brother as he would eat all the boxes at once if he could. My family are very big matzah fans. One of the setbacks of living in Aberdeen is that we can’t access specialised kosher food like people who live in large Jewish communities can and so we shamefully make do with the ‘not kosher for passover’ matzah available at our local Sainsbury’s.
This Pesach was unique in two ways. Firstly, I had to host it for the first time and realised I was so used to following the ceremony as someone else leads that I had never actually paid attention to the order in which things occurred, prompting a panicked text to my mum a few days before the Seder. It was very fortunate that Oxford JSoc offered free Seder kits to those in Oxford, allowing me to not worry about getting food items together. The second way in which this Seder was different from others was that I was only with my girlfriend for it rather than a larger group. This ended up being very advantageous as it meant the free JSoc food was enough for both of us.
The Seder itself was very standard. We laid the table in the official way and followed the Haggadah successfully. Our Seder leader, Skog, was highly successful in his role and while Elijah did not choose to drink from our offering, I’m sure he appreciated that it was poured in an Oxford Union shot glass. For the first time in my memory, the matzah I had was actually ‘kosher for passover’ although disappointingly I could not taste the difference; it appears certification from the Chief Rabbinate of Jerusalem does not add flavour. However, while indistinguishable from its imposter counterpart, in taste it did prove to be a very successful afikomen for my girlfriend -as despite my extreme efforts to disguise its hiding place she found it in under a minute.
I’ll be honest, I’ve never actually considered the meaning of Pesach. In my mind it has always just been ‘that one where you eat matzah ball soup, ask the four questions, and hunt down the hidden matzah for money’. This has not been aided by my total lack of Hebrew knowledge. I can truly state that I have never understood a single word spoken at synagogue. To many Jews, Pesach serves as the story of our perpetual persecution and eventual liberation, amplified by the saying ‘next year in Jerusalem’. This obviously today holds connotations of the modern state of Israel and so it may sound like an odd thing to toast – surely we can just get on a plane and go to Jerusalem like so many tourists do? However, historically and today this has held a more figurative meaning. ‘Jerusalem’ has been a metaphor for a place where we can be safe in a world without our persecution whatever that may mean. It is a symbol of resilience; no matter what we endure we always carry on with the hope that next year we will reach this ‘Jerusalem’.
Pesach is fundamentally a celebration of our survival. We celebrate our liberation from slavery in Egypt by eating a meal where we do things like eat salty parsley to remind us of the shed tears of our people (I know, dramatic) while also reclining and drinking wine. The resounding message is clear: ‘in every generation there is a new Pharaoh’. In every generation we will have to somehow fight for our survival against those who wish us wiped off the face of the earth, but in every generation we will arise victorious. This is certainly true for the story of mine and many other Ashkenazi families: Pogroms, Holocaust, Refuseniks and undoubtedly more challenges ahead as violent fascism rises across the West with recent fascist rallies in Spain and Italy to name a fraction. But the Jews are still here. Despite all these attempts, 14 million of us are still here and will continue to fight for the survival of our people in the memory of those who have been taken. Every generation a new Pharaoh arises, and every generation we must show resilience and bring ourselves to liberation. Every generation must carry on with the hope of someday finding ‘Jerusalem’.
Guy – Friday night dinner
Guy’s homemade challah
For me, Jewish life has always been something inherently communal. Whether it be gathering with my extended family for Passover and Rosh Hashanah (the Jewish New Year), or experiencing Shabbat (the Jewish Sabbath) with friends on weekends away, the social aspect of Judaism has always been central to my experience of the religion.
One of my last memories of a normal Oxford was our JSoc Friday Night Dinner in 8th week. It all seemed a bit over the top at the time: being served food by committee members wearing gloves and a visor was something out of dystopian fiction, even as we sat ten to a table, tearing from the same loaf of challah bread. Within a week, such a gathering would be almost unthinkable, as the pandemic spread across the UK. Lockdown meant that my experience of Judaism changed massively. The big family gatherings for Passover and Rosh Hashanah were replaced with Zoom calls, whose novelty soon wore off. 100-person JSoc Friday Night Dinners were replaced by a small meal with just my household. Many of the practices and customs which were so integral to my culture and religion were no longer possible.
As things started to open up, we began to be able to find ways of celebrating in a Covid-safe way. A particular highlight of Michaelmas Term was the Jewish Society’s in-person Friday Night Dinners, all keeping to the rule of 6. They were a great chance to see old friends and meet new people, as well as to celebrate Shabbat together. As the tier system meant that new restrictions were put in place, we still found ways to celebrate – one particular highlight was a freezing Hanukkah celebration in my friend’s garden with doughnuts.
I’ve also really started baking more because of lockdown. I love making challah bread – almost like a really soft and pillowy brioche. Even at university, I’ve made big quantities of challah and handed it fresh out of the oven to friends, or made pitta bread and delivered them straight into people’s pidges. This has been a great way to connect with Jewish holidays, through procrastibaking and then eating the delicious end product. It’s been strange celebrating Jewish festivals in a pandemic, but I’d like to think that I’ve made the most of it.
Image credit: Aaron Beppu. License: CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
