Page 26 - TORCH Magazine - Issue #19

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CUFI.ORG.UK
Remembering Sir David Amess
Friend of Israel
Sir David Amess MP tragically lost his life in October when he was murdered in a terror stabbing while meeting with
his constituents at a church in Leigh-on-Sea. Sir David Amess was a true friend of Israel and the Jewish people, an advocate of Holocaust education and an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime. We especially want to pay tribute to these areas of his work that are less likely to be covered by the media.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson described Sir David as “one of the kindest, nicest, most gentle people in politics.” And while he was known for his gentle character, he was not soft in his convictions.
Sir David was an active member of the All Party Parliamentary Group Against Antisemitism. Speaking against anti- Semitism in Parliament earlier this year, he said, “Although I myself am not a Jew but a Catholic... I would certainly have been proud to have been born a Jew.”
“I simply do not understand and have never understood antisemitism. The most important lesson from the Holocaust is that although we cannot police the world, it is simply not acceptable to stand by and do and say
nothing when genocide happens. For evil to prevail, all it needs is for good people to remain silent.”
Sir David did not remain silent. He also ensured the voices of the past would carry through to future generations.
Holoaust remembrance
Sir David Amess spent years campaigning for a statue of Raoul Wallenberg to be placed outside Marble Arch synagogue. Raoul Wallenberg
was a Swedish diplomat who helped transport Jews by issuing the Schutz-Pass (protective passport), and is estimated to have saved the lives of 100,000 Jews in Hungary.
He described it as “one of the proudest moments of my life” when
the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Israel’s President Ezer Weizman unveiled the statue in his constituency.
It was all part of his advocacy for Holocaust education, to ensure the voices of persecuted Jews would not
be silenced. Every year, the Jewish community in Southend commemorated those who lost their lives in the Holocaust by planting trees. Sir David was proudly “very much involved” in this