The Press and Journal (Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire)
King dances at Jewish centre
The King danced with Anne Frank’s stepsister at a Jewish community centre in north London. Now 93, Eva Schloss survived concentration camps, spent decades promoting peace and yesterday danced with a King during Hanukkah.
She said: “He was sweet, he really took part, he seemed to enjoy it but it is unusual for him not to make a speech. But he was very relaxed and he enjoyed it, I was trying to get a dance with him.
“They are so easy to talk to. They are not standing on a higher level where you have to make an appointment. They are human beings and want to be part of the community.”
Charles toured the JW3 community centre on Finchley Road, speaking to school children packing presents and food for families around Camden, refugees baking ginger bread biscuits and survivors of the Holocaust.
In a speech in which she presented the King with eight candelabras, Dame Vivian Duffield said she founded JW3 to give Jews in London a place to gather to protect and celebrate their heritage.
Eva said: “Unfortunately, there is still antisemitism, people say Jewish people should go to Israel, this is England, but I hope we are getting over these.
“I hope he will help make things easier for everybody and fight racism. I think he is a very good King.”
As Charles visited the kitchen one of the cooks fell to her knees.
She said afterwards: “To be honest, I can’t explain the feeling. To see him live, I was like oh my god!”
JW3’s chief executive Raymond Simonson, who accompanied the King on his tour of the centre, said Charles turned up with a car boot full of rice and tinned tuna to go into the donation packets.
He said: “There are 200 households we support around the Camden area and they don’t have enough food at Christmas and now they have food from the King.
“Most people in the British Jewish community come from refugee stock and the fact of being accepted and meeting the monarch, it’s an endorsement of the community’s place in British society.
“When you see the King visiting and saying happy Hanukkah it says to people that the person in the highest seat accepts us.”