Arnie Davidson: Ester Adjuah

American singer and song-writer Arnie Davidson never met Ester but he heard about her some two years after her death. And it transpired that they had a mutual friend. Arnie has composed Ester Adjuah, which you can hear or download at http://www.arniedavidson.com/music-67.html

'Project Ester': the dedication

Shabbat 20th December sees the fulfilment of a dream to honour the memory of Ester Gluck, who died in 2006.

The Minyan Hadash at New London Synagogue has commissioned a new bimah table cover, Torah mantle, Torah cloth and Ark curtain—and there will be a new bimah table, modelled on the one in the main synagogue. Rabbi Jeremy Gordon will lead the dedication at the end of the Shabbat morning service.

Textile artist Lana Young and carpenter Robert Mullen have generously donated their time, skill and creativity to fashion these very beautiful ritual objects. They will be used by the Minyan Hadash on Shabbat and festivals, and also by the congregation as a whole whenever services take place in the synagogue hall.

Along with other synagogues on that Shabbat—the day before Hanukah—New London Synagogue is focussing on human rights in the Jewish tradition. We are pleased and proud to welcome Eiri Ohtani, coordinator of ASAP (Asylum Support Appeals Project), who will give a short pre-lunch talk on the rights of people seeking asylum in Britain, a cause very dear to Ester’s heart.

Angela Gluck, Ester’s mother, says:
“This is a most fitting tribute to my dear daughter. New London Synagogue is the first and only synagogue that Ester joined in her own right, as a young woman, and the Minyan Hadash meant a lot to her. I am deeply moved that the synagogue is honouring her memory and I wish to respond to this honour: please join me—and those involved in the project—for lunch after the dedication and talk.”

If you would like to stay for lunch, it is necessary to book through the synagogue office on 020 7328 1026 or office@newlondon.org.uk. Please do so by Friday 12th December. There is no charge for lunch but you may wish to make a contribution to the charity that has been set up in Ester’s memory: The Separated Child Foundation www.separatedchild.org. You can donate online at http://www.justgiving.com/seperatedchildfoundation or send a cheque payable to ‘The Separated Child Foundation’ to the synagogue office.

Baruch Ben-David: awesome

Baruch is a volunteer at the London Detainee Support Group (LDSG). This was part of his talk at the Yom Limmud Written All Over Our History, in memory of Ester, 17 December 2007.

When Ester came along, it was an extension of mishpochah*. Ester was a very special light. She was one of those lights that I don't think is ever going to go out in this world. It's been such a touching privilege, as someone who worked right by Ester for so long, to hear that physically, emotionally and mentally her light has gone out to so many parts of the world. This I find awesome. Some people live in this world much longer and they don't have such an effect on so many lives for the good. There is an old song, "If I can help someone along life's way, my living has not been in vain". Ester helped more... and more... and more.

* family

Sarah Hodgson: conceived and realised

On Friday 4 July, Sarah and friends ran a live music evening in Finsbury Park, north London. Sarah writes:

We raised an incredible £900! It's going towards the weekly social evening at the Refugee Council for unaccompanied children and teenagers recently arrived to the UK. The Social was set up six years ago by the wonderful Caroline Watson. It started with a handful of young people and has grown to 100s coming each week. There’s a whole host of fun– table football, ping pong, music, dancing, photography, drawing, summer trips. It’s a place to make friends and start a new life in the UK. Currently, the majority of children are from Afghanistan, Iraq and Eritrea. For many the Social, Caroline and the team are a lifeline without which integration into UK life would be very tough.

The idea for Social4Social was conceived and realised two years ago by Ester Gluck, a volunteer at the Social. Friday was dedicated to Ester by way of continuing her hard work and determination to alleviate young people’s suffering. I think she would have been proud of the turnout.

The Separated Child Foundation, set up in memory of Ester, is receiving £100 from the money raised. For more information on this organisation and its important work, see http://www.separatedchild.org/

Gillian Nissim: "Esterness"

We think of beautiful, warm, vivacious Ester so much. In fact, Ester is in my mind a lot. Ester has had such a positive impact on our lives – which we will always be thankful for. How could anyone forget all the nights we spent, the discussion and debates – and the laughter? I think of Ester’s warmth, wisdom, sense of fun and intelligence. She was so wonderful to be with. We knew Ester for only a relatively short time, but her face, her colourful being, her presence, her beautiful “Esterness” has left a wonderfully indelible mark.

Ester, Muju UpSTARTS and The Separated Child Foundation

The Muju UpSTARTS event (see the posting on 2 March, below) resulted in an 11-minute film, produced by Jamie Cohen and Max Diamond of J-doc. It's been posted - in two parts - at www.myspace.com/jdocfilm. (Scroll down a fair bit and, on the way, pause the music that plays automatically if you want to hear the sound on the film! The second part is directly under the first.)

Muju has also posted on its website the podcast of the short interview given on the day by Angela Gluck - when the interviewer couldn't find the Chair of The Separated Child Foundation and had to make do with her! Angela was asked about Ester, the Muju Crew and The Separated Child Foundation. The interview lasts just over five minutes and is unedited so you hear her authentically umming and aahing a bit! You can go directly to it at http://www.muju.org.uk/popdcast/2.mp3 or visit http://www.muju.org.uk/ enter the site, click 'rewind' and then the podcast.

'Jewish Way of Life' resource

"The Jewish Way of Life resource is dedicated to the memory of Ruth Winston Fox (1912 – 2007) and Ester Gluck (1982—2006) who in their lives and actions embodied the values of the Jewish Way of Life."
Through a partnership of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, ORT and The Pears Foundation, the 'Jewish Way of Life' CD-Rom has been created for pupils in British schools. It introduces Judaism to children and young people through films, music and a large number of varied activities. It was launched - in the presence of government ministers, Jewish communal leaders and representatives of other faiths - on 12 May 2008.

Linked to it is a website of information, advice and additional activities for teachers to use. Copies of the CD-Rom, which are free of charge, can be ordered through the website http://www.jwol.org.uk/

Stained glass window

Click on image to enlarge.

Friends have contributed to the creation of a beautiful stained glass window in memory of Ester. The windows at North Western (Alyth) Synagogue have been designed, constructed and installed by London-born Israeli artist Ardyn Halter to capture the spirit of the months of the Jewish year. The one dedicated to Ester is for the month of Tishri - the month in which she died - and is the first of the windows (that is, on the right).

There will be a simple dedication ceremony during the Shabbat morning service (which begins at 10.30) on Saturday 3 May 2008. If you would like more details, write to estermemories@hotmail.co.uk

'Project Ester' and a jewel in the crown

“Many of you knew Ester Gluck... Those of you who did not know her would have noticed her in shul—her long curly hair, her humungous platform shoes, her wicked smile and, of course, her beautiful voice which entranced us all when she leyned, davened, or simply joined in. Ester was an integral part of Minyan Hadash”—wrote Debbie Usiskin, coordinator of the Minyan Hadash at New London Synagogue and of 'Project Ester'.

‘Project Ester’ is a Minyan initiative—in Ester’s memory—to commission a Torah mantle and cover, an Ark curtain and a cloth for the ‘bimah’ table. Debbie Usiskin adds: “The design and development of these pieces will help to identify and consolidate our community.” Lana Young, an experienced textile artist—who knew Ester—accepted the commission and has already given generously of her time and ideas. Her early designs are very exciting. No prizes for guessing the colours!

Our task now is to raise the necessary funds… And Gina Sanders is first off the mark in organising a sale of hand-made jewellery (varying in style and price) and her original greetings cards made from her own beautiful photographic images. This sale will very appropriately take place on the Sunday evening before Purim - 16th March - 6.30-7.30 and 9.00-10.00. In between - at 7.30 - there will be a lecture by Rabbi Reuven Hammer entitled, "Was Esther written by a Jewish Jane Austen?"

So can you be a gem...

• by coming along and buying jewellery or cards on 16th March?
• by raising funds in your own way, perhaps with friends—such as through a sale or by a sponsored something-or-other?

The Magical Muju Crew: The MUJU UpstARTS Festival

A group of young Jewish and Muslim artists are working together to create a day of art and culture to promote tolerance and understanding between faiths and to raise money for The Separated Foundation, established in memory of Ester Gluck.

Visit the website http://www.muju.org.uk/

“It’s really intended to demonstrate that, contrary to what the media would have us believe, when you throw Muslims and Jews together, they can be creative and not destructive.”
Warren Minde, co-organiser of The MUJU UpstARTS Festival

This event is inspired by the memory of Ester Gluck who was a member of the Muju Crew at the Tricycle Theatre and worked with people seeking asylum. All proceeds will go to a charity called THE SEPARATED CHILD FOUNDATION that has been set up in her name.

The charity supports refugee children who experience the double trauma of separation not only from their homeland, culture and natural environment but also from the adults in their family who gave them care.

WHAT’S HAPPENING?
A cacophany of collaboration between exciting young Jewish and Muslim artists, including a new play by the Muju Crew. There'll be music, films, comedy, performance poetry, mural-painting and more!

WHERE?
At The Tricycle Theatre, 269 High Road, Kilburn, London NW6 7JR
http://www.tricycle.co.uk/ 020 7328 1000

WHEN?
On Sunday 2nd March 2008, 1.00-8.00 pm

Tunnel Vision

A documentary film has been made by Yoav Segal about the Tricycle Theatre Jewish-Muslim Youth Theatre Group, which calls itself 'The Muju Crew'. The film, which lasts just over 11 minutes, partly focuses on Muju's first production Tunnel Vision. It has been dedicated to Ester's memory and was shown at "Ester's Walks of Life", 9 September 2007. You can watch the film at
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=15888805022&oid=6619278667

You need to login to, or sign up for, Facebook. You also have the chance to download the right flash player. There is no charge. Full credits for the film appear at the end.

Batsheva Schilis: under her wing

I want to let you know how deeply Ester touched my life in the brief time I knew her. I've never met anyone as caring and as genuinely kind as her. She took me under her wing and took the time to look after me when I was so far away from home.

Salusbury WORLD: extraordinariness

Sarah Reynolds (Manager: Salusbury WORLD) writes:

Ester made an enormous contribution to this charity: she was so committed and had a relentless energy and enthusiasm as well as a fantastic relationship with the children. We were all so shocked and upset to hear of her death last year; even now it is hard to take it in.

Reading the blog and attending her funeral, her extraordinariness became even more apparent. She was a remarkable, generous and principled human being who achieved more in her short life than most of us do in decades.

We just wanted to add our voices to the many offering their sympathy but also our gratitude for the tremendous amount that Ester gave to us and the children we work with.

From the Salusbury WORLD annual report, 2007:
This year’s Annual Report is dedicated to the memory of Ester Gluck, an incredibly enthusiastic and vibrant volunteer who not only had a genuine love for children but also real interest in refugee issues. Aside from the varied support she gave us at the After School & Holiday Club and other Salusbury WORLD events, Ester also gave much of her time to the Refugee Council, as well as pioneering a theatre project bringing together Jewish and Muslim artists in Kilburn. She was a truly unique and selfless individual who will be sorely missed and never forgotten.

Lindsay: a wonderful vibe

I’ve missed Ester like crazy. She was someone you could connect with instantly, a deeply warm and beautiful person. We used to do yoga together and go to Bute Park in Cardiff, drinking fruit shakes, talking and planning about Ghana. When I finally went to Ghana, she was kind enough to meet me at the airport. A huge hearted soul, with a wonderful vibe, always patient. I am truly so sorry. I can’t believe she's gone.

Shirley Wilson: teacher/learner; learner/teacher

I was stressed having not taken an ‘away from it all holiday’, so found solace in countless visits to Homebase searching for feel-good plants. I overheard a voice in the crowd – Ester came to mind. It was Angela.

I waited in the car park. I didn’t want to alarm her, as she quickly got into her car, windows up. I had to knock on the window. She looked through the glass, a little alarmed, so I gestured ‘wind the window down.’

“It’s me, Shirley Wilson, Ester’s teacher” (as if I had been the only teacher she had ever had). “How is Ester?” I had last asked Robin that at a conference on Race and Equality at City Hall last year. Angela did not speak – for a long while. We were frozen in a moment in time. When Angela said, “You don’t know...?” I began to shudder.

My world stood still, as I began to remember Ester. Angela climbed out of the car and we hugged, as we remembered Ester.

I was traumatised – I chose not to cry, but went immediately to the website to discover what had become of Ester. I bawled all afternoon as I remembered Ester. Tears of joy I wept as I read the messages on the website, which showed that she had been true to herself.

Ester championed the cause.
Equality, Rights and Justice.
I remember Ester.
Pure Spirit.
Wise beyond her years.
Challenging me – questioning me, always wanting to know more.
“Miss Wilson ……….?”
“Miss Wilson, you know what you said about ………., well ……….”
And on and on and on.

I remember Ester
Because she made me the learner
As we reasoned, on life.

Who was this child?
And who was her mother?
(In fact, Ester challenged me all year.)
Class teacher and Humanities Co-ordinator for the school – History, Geography and RE.
Ester loved RE lessons – challenge, questions, discussions, views……….
As a 9/10 year old
Ester and I shared – teacher/learner; learner/teacher - the inhumanity
And inJustice
And inEquality
We shared the Respect
And Love
That is needed in the world.
I loved Ester Gluck – Pure Spirit.
I think on Ester and smile.
When I think of Ester, I remember Angela, her mother—the womb of that Pure Spirit, wise beyond her years.
I was privileged to know Ester.
Love you Ester.
(present tense)
You are ever present in my remembrance
... and you chose to wear the colour purple—the colour purple.
I had shared The Colour Purple with you.

God, Jah Rastafari, Conquering Lion Of Judah , Jehovah, Father, Yahweh, Brahman, Allah knows best.

Bronya Gorney: swirl of softness and strength

Bronya's address during "Ester's Walks of Life" on 9 September 2007

I first met Ester when she applied to volunteer abroad in Africa and, from the start, Ester stood out from the crowd.

Ester had this wonderfully open sincerity and genuine concern for the world around her that, even from afar, one could see underpinned her choices in life. Ester was authentic.

During the preparation for her first trip to Ghana, Ester really got to grips with the complex issues involved. She had an acute sensitivity within her. Like an old fashioned radio that can pick up cries from far distant lands so too could Ester perceive need in places she’d never been. Ester was finely tuned into the world around her.

As a fellow volunteer, I always appreciated how utterly reliable Ester was and how keen she was to help out. She was always able to hone in on what needed to be done and then quietly just get on and do it brilliantly!

Her warm heart and sense of fun made working with her a good laugh, too. It was wonderful to have a friend who you could have a blast with one minute and a serious discussion with the next. I think that the groups that went to Ghana with her were very lucky indeed.

There are two things that really struck me about Ester more than anything else and I’d like to share them with you.

The first was her unique mix of gentle kindness with a strength of character and self-assurance, that somehow never detracted from her sympathetic touch. An amazing swirl of softness and strength.

The second thing that really struck me about Ester I first noticed on her return from her trip to Ghana, where Ester had acted as the group coordinator. Ester sat in a meeting, hair braided, eyes shining, with this fresh beauty, determinedly arguing her cause. And I saw her as a real leader, fighting for those causes she believed in. I saw her as that rare precious being, a strong female leader, a tribal princess, a princess of Judah.

How lucky were we to have such a beautiful, compassionate young woman representing us as Jews to the rest of the world. For me, Ester will always be a radiant soldier, a Purple Princess.

Kwasi Joseph: tribute in Twi

Kwasi Joseph taught Twi to Adoaw Ester in person, on the phone and by letter. He has translated into English his own tribute to her in Twi.

TRIBUTE FROM JOSEPH,

FRIENDS AND FAMILIES AT GHANA

TRIBUTE IN LOCAL LANGUAGE (TWI)

Owuo, den nti na wo ye see? Wafa me dofo efr me nkyen. se nka etumi eka akyere owuuo se ofa medofo mere me. Nanso aka akyeri dodo. Onankopon na ema onoa na egye enti yen fa nnase mma no.

Oh! Adoaw, mante wo nne da kosi se wafi mu. Eye mme yaw pii se yen nkommobo no anka akyire. Nanso menim se senea ete biara ye behyiam bio na yea hye yen adamfofa no den. Eye woa adamfo Joseph a mefi Ghana ne ma abuafonyinaa.

DA YIE!!!!!!!

TRIBUTE IN ENGLISH

Death why do you have to do suuch a thing? By taken a loved one from me. I wish i could tell death to bring back the one i loved but it is too late. The lord gives and he has taken as Job said, May his name be praised.

Oh! Adoaw, I couldn't hear you till death has taken you away from us. Am very Sad and it painful that our conversation couldn't last. But i koow that we shall meet once again and continure our friendship. It your friend Joseph from Ghana and families wishing you.

FARWELL!!!!!!!

The Separated Child Foundation

Charity Commission for England and Wales registration number: 1120669
[The registration of the Foundation was announced during the “Ester’s Walks of Life” programme on 9 September 2007.]

The Separated Child Foundation has been established “in memory of Ester Gluck, a compassionate and creative young woman who was strongly committed to working for the benefit of refugees and people seeking asylum, and had a particularly deep concern for separated children and young people.” The Foundation seeks to extend and intensify her work.

By 'separated', The Separated Child Foundation refers to children and young people under the age of 21 who are refugees or seeking asylum and whose parents or guardians are not with them. Separated children experience the double trauma of separation not only from their homeland, culture and natural environment but also from the adults in their family who gave them care.

The Foundation has two objectives:

• to offer emotional, social, financial and physical support to separated children and young people—either directly or indirectly through their carers
• to engage in educational activities that raise awareness of the needs of separated children in particular, and of refugees and people seeking asylum in general—activities that encourage positive responses to those needs.

The Foundation will meet these objectives not only by generating its own projects but also by making grants to other bodies that are engaged in this field. The Trustees are considering a range of projects and ways of securing funds to initiate and implement them.

The Trustees are Mark Friend, Angela Gluck, Jonty Hurwitz, Michael Marx (Treasurer, 2007—) and Robin Richardson (Chair, 2007—). The Trust Secretary is Sarah Kleiman.

A sample of projects that the Trustees are considering:

ANNUAL GRANTS TO ‘THE ESTER CINEMA CLUB’
Ester Gluck raised funds for film and music equipment for use in the youth club run by the Refugee Council (at their national headquarters in south London); it has been named in her memory. It needs to renew its annual licence to show films and also needs blackout curtains so that films can be shown on light evenings.

A YOUTH CLUB IN NORTH LONDON
The youth club run by the Refugee Council in South London is the only one in the country for separated children. There is a need for a parallel club or other provision north of the Thames.

DAY TRIPS AND SHORT RESIDENTIAL HOLIDAYS

MATERIAL SUPPORT FOR NEW ARRIVALS AND THOSE AGED 16 LEAVING FOSTER CARE
This provision might include shoes or winter clothing, household items or educational materials.

SUPPORTED ACCOMMODATION FOR THOSE AGED 16-18
They are currently inappropriately housed in hostels or B&B where they may be physically and emotionally vulnerable.

‘MORE THAN A FRIEND’
This involves adults ‘adopting’ (in the style of an aunt, uncle or godparent) separated young people over the age of 16. A ‘more than a friend’ would offer friendship and invitations for meals and outings.

GIVING SEPARATED CHILDREN A VOICE
This entails recording the experiences of separated children based on their lives in their country of origin and in the UK. We hope that this will give separated children a stronger voice and that it will, over time, become a valuable record and educational tool. We will create a newsletter to enable separated children to communicate with each other.

*******

The website of The Separated Child Foundation is under construction and news of its completion will be posted here. Until then, please write to estermemories@hotmail.co.uk if you wish to:

• be kept informed of the Foundation’s activities
• make a donation to its work (this can be gift-aided for tax benefit)
• initiate a fund-raising event
• be involved in any of the Foundation’s activities

John Robinson: the force of her love

During the "Ester's Walks of Life" programme on 9 September 2007, John spoke about Ester before reading Patrick Kavanagh's poem In memory of my mother.

One of the last times I met Ester was on a beautiful hot summer's evening. We went to Golder's Green and spent several happy hours smoking Nirgila, drinking mint tea, talking, eyeing people up and generally putting the world to rights. I remember it as a gloriously happy evening, one in which we tasted the goodness of life together. I still return within myself to this memory periodically when I want to refresh my spirit and it seems to me that I am still warming myself at the fire that burned so brightly and beautifully within Ester, even from beyond the grave. I also knew Ester in the context of the painstaking and often difficult context of interfaith dialogue and reflecting on this several things stand out. Firstly, that amazing smile of hers which would light up her own features and had a way of spreading to the faces of others so that it seemed as if the whole room would light up. Secondly, her ability to dance all night, and I mean all night, to the greatest hits of Nina Simone, another occasion which will remain forever etched on my memory. Yet perhaps most of all there was the incredible warmth with which she could envelope people and issues so that it seemed that not even that which was most implacably frozen could stay in that state, but ultimately had to yield to the force of her love. The poem I am about to read was written by Patrick Kavanagh for his mother; I read it now for Ester:

Patrick Kavanagh: In memory of my mother

I do not think of you lying in the wet clay
Of a Monaghan graveyard; I see
You walking down a lane among the poplars
On your way to the station, or happily

Going to second Mass on a summer Sunday—
You meet me and you say:
'Don't forget to see about the cattle—'
Among your earthiest words the angels stray.

And I think of you walking along a headland
Of green oats in June,
So full of repose, so rich with life—
And I see us meeting at the end of a town

On a fair day by accident, after
The bargains are all made and we can walk
Together through the shops and stalls and markets
Free in the oriental streets of thought.

O you are not lying in the wet clay,
For it is harvest evening now and we
Are piling up the ricks against the moonlight
And you smile up at us—eternally.

LDSG annual report: a true and compassionate fighter

Caroline White, Chair of the London Detainee Support Group, ends the 2006/07 report by referring to:

"... the sudden and tragic death of a great favourite of staff, volunteers and detainees, Ester Gluck. Her family attended a memorial gathering we organized to celebrate her life and to remember Ester as we all knew her — a true and compassionate fighter for those whose lives are much less comfortable than our own."

Ester Gluck, 1982-2006
The sudden and untimely death in September 2006 of our colleague Ester Gluck was a great shock to all who knew her. Ester was heavily involved with LDSG for over two years as a volunteer and staff member.

She began to volunteer with LDSG in Autumn 2004, working one day per week in the office and visiting a detainee another day. As office volunteer, she covered the detainee freephone, and invariably dominated one end of our cramped and somewhat chaotic former offices on Holloway Road. From the start, she regularly had to be cajoled into finishing a telephone conversation with a detainee as we tried to close the office at the end of the day. She had an uncanny ear to be able to communicate with every client in exactly their own register, and visited many of our most lost and disorientated clients.

In her ten months as a staff member, Ester extended her formidable skills to supporting volunteers. She was as endlessly patient and supportive of all the volunteers she supervised, as she was furiously intolerant of hypocrisy wherever she encountered it.

Ester was an extraordinary human being. Her irresistible passion and commitment, and truly exceptional ability to communicate with even the most distressed and damaged clients, influenced all she worked with. The depth of feeling throughout the organisation was clear at the memorial event we organised, which was attended by members of Ester’s family, and from the many tributes from volunteers and clients. She is greatly missed.

Aisha Phoenix: The Purple Princess at Parly

During "Ester's Walks of Life", 9 September 2007, a film of Ester singing Ebony and Ivory was shown. Then Aisha introduced and read her poem Irresistible Smile, which refers to Ester singing Ebony and Ivory (see Aisha's post below, dated 20 April 2007).

The Purple Princess at Parly

I started at Parliament Hill Girls in Year 8 just before Ester joined. We were both placed in Ms Youlton's form group. Ester with her strong convictions, great sense of humour and passion for acting and singing, fitted in easily and was welcomed into the creative "in" crowd. Her talents meant the Purple Princess often performed at school events ranging from plays, musicals and choir evenings to orchestra concerts. I remember acting in the Jean Anouilh version of the play Antigone in summer 1995 alongside Ester *. I can hear her laughter during orchestra practice, oboe on her lap, as I sat with my squeaky violin and I also hear her voice standing out in choir practice. But most of all I see the twinkle in her eyes and her smile all around.

* Aisha has found a ticket, saying it was at 7 pm on Thursday 29 June 1995 in the New Hall. £1 adults, £0.50 children.

Natalie Marx: my hair-braided purple sister

During the 'Ester's Walks of Life' programme on 9 September 2007, Natalie spoke about Ester before introducing and reading the poem by Ama Ata Aidoo (see post below).

Estie, you made me smile ALL the time.
You laughed with me and made me laugh.
You cried with me and cried for me.
You gave me little gifts to tell me you were thinking of me.
You listened first and then you shared.
You gave advice and helped me make decisions.
You understood me, even when I didn’t understand myself.
You encouraged me and gave me strength.
You loved me and always made sure I knew.
You helped me figure out who I am and who I want to be.
You held my hand so I knew you were there.
You taught me what it means to be a friend and you taught me what it feels like to have a best friend.


As Ester and I had officially proclaimed our ‘sisterhood’ status in Ghana, we deemed it only natural that we should inherit our own surrogate Ghanaian mother. Now being sisters with remarkably good taste – particularly when it comes to selecting members of our family – we prided ourselves (and Angela, of course) on tracking down Ghana’s award winning author, playwright and women’s activist…Ama Ata Aidoo.

Through an extraordinary sequence of events, Angela had graced us with the contact details for Ama Ata Aidoo and prior to our arrival in Ghana Ester had in fact already begun reading a selection of Ama Ata’s short stories…and in no time had become a fan. She had caught the Ama Ata bug.

Ama Ata was born in 1942 in the Fante region of Ghana and grew up in a Fante royal household. Ama Ata’s works of fiction particularly deal with the tension between Western and African world views. Many of her protagonists are women who defy the stereotypical women’s role of their time. She is also an accomplished poet and has written several children’s books.

Aside from her literary career, Ama Ata was appointed the Minister of Education in Ghana around the time that Ester was born. She resigned after 18 months and has since spent a great deal of time teaching abroad as a visiting professor in the African Studies Department at Brown University in the United States.

So I think that Estie and I had selected one of, if not THE, most inspiring beautiful Ghanaian mothers…



Ester’s relationship with Ama Ata blossomed as they would sit for hours upon hours discussing and debating, amongst other things, the wonders of which of their nation’s roots had the prior claim to the original sounds of Hebrew.

The poem I am about to read to you was written just weeks ago by Ama Ata , especially for Ester. It is a poem that encapsulates my hair braided purple sister…

Ama Ata Aidoo: A Note from Ghana

Ama Ata Aidoo wrote this poem for "Ester's Walks of Life": it was introduced and read by Natalie Marx (see post above).

A NOTE FROM GHANA

Dear Ester,

You
Hair-braiding
Doek-wearing girl-Brit:
You burst upon us
With dancing eyes, and
The most wondrous spirit…
…Ever.

Clambering up and down
Ancient kombis, 207s, and
Sundry other rickety, rusty, and risible
Moving machines of
Doubtful even-these-roads’-worthiness,
beating market mothers at their game.

You stride through our
Mini jungles and maxi environmental challenges
With the ease of
Not just another native, but a never-left.

Or at the very least, like any returnee, with
Affections to restore,
Rights to claim,
Structures to repair.

Very Dear Ester,

We are greatly amazed by just how much
You remind us of the
Working conquering queens
We have known:

Ask London about Yaa Asantewa, and
Lisbon, of Nzingha.

But talking of markets,
What was it with you and me and
Makola:
Our vast, long-suffering
City centre choked full of chaos, commerce?
And… and…
Makolet?

Then there were those
Good-natured but endless
Questions,
Philosophically exciting,
Intellectually intriguing, on
Which of our nation’s ethnicities are
The true bearers of Hebraic matrilineal retentions?

Akan overlords who, in reality,
Can only rule if sanctioned by the female line, or
The Gas with their latter-day patriarchies and
Ancient subsumed theocracy?

Your royal highness,
The great debates you initiated on our shores
Are not about to end just yet.
And we are not even sorry.

Oh, see how you trail your queenly umbilicus from the womb
—needing not a second of
Princess-hood…

You Ester,
Are nobody’s candle in the wind.

A bird? Perhaps.
Some wildly joyous morning thriller
With the lightest wings of the longest span,
gloriously hued:
Ochre, silver, and glowing indigo,

Who swept through our universe, and
Brushed lightly past us as she flew…

Adjoa Ester,
It is true
You are not here.

But Child, you are hardly gone.


Ama Ata Aidoo
Accra, Ghana
August 21, 2007

Robin Richardson: Words for Ester

Spoken at "Ester's Walks of Life", 9 September 2007

Tributes, memories, messages and pledges from her friends

All the words here are direct quotations from reflections written over the last year, and published on The Purple Princess website. Most of the authors are present here this afternoon. Those who are not physically present are no doubt with us in spirit.

Hey, cheeky, cheerful, chirpy, quirky, quick, flirty, worky, shirty, shapely, shining, dining, divining one. I am missing looking forward to seeing you.

Deeply passionate, deeply spiritual, open and accepting … a ball of vibrant electric inspiring energy …shining and twinkling, smiling and happy, face glowing, wisdom flowing, words knowing … a flash of purple brilliance… wisdom, wit and a wonderful view of the world … a perfect role model of what humankind should be like … inspired by everyone and thus she was an inspiration… my greatest critical friend, the greatest I could ever hope for… I learnt so much about myself from the person you were and the things you showed me… You dazzled me, warmed me, pumped purple fire through me … You helped transform so many of our experiences… You have scattered your purple and golden glitter dust over all of us.

‘Est is best’ … ‘impressed by Est’… ‘my North, my South, my East, my West’… ‘Est, well dressed’.

You named us, you knew us, you helped us know ourselves.

And we will remember where you chose to shine your light.

Dislocation and wandering are great blessings; they are also heavy loads. Those who can walk lightly carrying such weight deserve the highest praise.

She connected to people who had been cast-off by society, the powerless, the ignored, and she would meet them heart-to-heart.

I’m not sure that anyone could ever really say no to her once she got going.

Can’t just wasn’t a word in her vocabulary.

Small, even in big boots, but she carried many people.

An extraordinary talent for listening. Her rants were legendary, but when speaking to someone who was weak or suffering, her patience was without limits. She had a way of listening that made people feel understood and forgiven and accepted entirely.

Any time she spoke to me I feel like I have seen all my scattered family back home and feel so happy.

In dialogue, she always knew how to hear the other, and how to make herself heard, in a language the other could absorb.

She knew how to stand in difficult places. She had the empathy, the gentleness, the intelligence, the kindness, and the bravery.

‘There are stars whose radiance is visible on earth though they have long been extinct. There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world even though they are no longer among the living. These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark. They light the way for mankind.’

Let us endorse her life by being more kind, more compassionate, more patient, more loving, more gentle, more playful, more proactive.

And we will remember: ‘When a stranger lives with you in your land, do not ill treat that stranger. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love that stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in Egypt.’

‘My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song.’

When ‘Perfect Harmony’ cut through the quiet room at your Batmitzvah your smile shone above rapturous applause. Without even closing my eyes I see that same smile.

And we will remember: ‘You are not free to complete the task but neither are you free to refrain from it.’

There is a voice that is missing now and we must struggle to hear it. For our own sakes, it is important that we continue to listen to Ester, to remember never to become complacent. In this way, the beauty of Ester’s singing and the strength and power of her voice can continue to act as an inspiration and a guide to us.

Bye Esty, I am less without you, and the world is so much poorer without you, so we will all have to love the world, and each other, that little bit more, to make up for it.

As the budding spring flowers crown Nature with Life, you remind us to “Choose Life”.
And so we will.

Rabbi Jeremy Gordon: selective memory

Rabbi Jeremy's eulogy at Ester's stone-setting ceremony on 9 September 2007

My memories of Ester don’t behave themselves.

In preparation for this address I went to Ester’s blog.
It’s an incredible collection of memories, poems, drawings, letters, sermons even. I know many of us gathered here today have posted on it.

I went to the blog with the intention of printing the whole thing up and dramatically unfurling it today, before us all.
I went to the blog, selected all and pressed print.
And 63 pages in, my printer gave up and became capable only of producing a stream of numbers,
6838723723
line after line and page after page of incomprehensible babble until I managed to get it to stop.

My memories of Ester don’t behave themselves and, for me, they have this strange tendency to collapse into a stream of babble, devoid of meaning, or at the very least meaningful only in a way beyond any human comprehension.

Perhaps the problem is the sheer impossibility of a life so short, being so full.
‘Ester, you changed my life,’ opens one blog posting.
There are tributes from many involved in the important work of the London Detainee Support Group applauding Ester’s incredible gifts and commitment as a visitor to asylum detainees and as a supporter of other visitors.
There are postings from detainees from Harmondsworth. Who’s visiting them now?
There is a posting about the Ester Film Club, set up to show films to unaccompanied refugee children. The equipment and funds for the Club were raised at an evening Ester organised and led.
There is a posting about Ester’s work in Ghana, for Tzedek.
There is announcement of a day of learning on refugees, in Ester’s memory.
There’s a mention that a seat at the Tricycle Theatre, where Ester performed with the Jewish & Muslim Youth Theatre Group, has been named in her memory.
An announcement that a Torah mantle and ark cover are to be commissioned in her honour for her prayer community, the Minyan Hadash at New London Synagogue.
Rabbis riff off various Biblical verses: You Shall Be Holy, for I God and Holy. You Shall Not Wrong The Stranger, For You Were Strangers in the land of Egypt. Act Justly And Love Mercy.
There are postings from Imams, from Christians, from people of all religions, and none.
There are postings from old friends, ‘I first met Ester when she was Angela’s bump.’
And postings from those who met Ester only once, and still she made an impact most would struggle to match in a lifelong friendship.
There are postings about her empathy, her generosity, her dancing, her powers of debate, her encouragement of so many.
There are postings about purple, about Barbie dolls and Picasso, Ivor the Engine, and immigration minister Tony McNulty, and Kylie Minogue and learning Twi, and leyning and …

And the printer gives up and spews out only a stream of numbers
6838723
Maybe that’s the problem, for my printer and I.
Maybe the problem is that Ester just crammed too much life into her 24 years to be held even on a blog.
But in honesty, I think there is a different problem.

Another problem that blows out my printer and my heart when I think of Ester.
The problem of the sheer horridness of it all.
There have been many ways, many days, this past year, when Ester’s memory has come to mind, motivated me and my work, but sometimes it all just brings me to a juddering halt.
And I am visitor to this grief.
There are so many more of you here who knew Ester far better than I, so many of you here for whom the terrible loss of Ester, that horrid night last year, is far, far more constant.
And these memories have the power to render everything meaningless
6838723723
Or if not meaningless then meaningful only in ways beyond human ken.

Angela, your extraordinary strength, today and every day this past year is beyond my ability to know.
Your commitment not to give up.
Your commitment to a day of learning on refugees, in memory of Ester.
Your commitment to your surrogate family of conversion candidates and wanderers at New London Synagogue and so many other places.
This commitment is almost unfathomable and a huge testament to everything that Ester stood for.
It’s very special to see so many of those who you, Angela, have touched this year, here to commemorate and mark this day with you.
I don’t know how you do it.
For to dwell too long on the memories of Ester threatens to overwhelm us all.
6838723723

My memories of Ester don’t behave themselves.
But then, I am not sure they should.
I don’t really believe in accurate memory.

In just a few days the Jews among us will mark a festival known best as Rosh Hashanah.
But the festival has other names. The Rabbis call this Festival – Yom Hazikaron, the day of memory.
And at the heart of our prayers on this day we sing of God’s memory
Ki zocher kol hanishkachot atah – For You Remember All that is Forgotten.
That’s God for you.
Atah zocher masei olam ufoked kol ytzurey kedem – You Remember Every Action of the World, Every Inclination from the most ancient of days.
What mortal could remember everything?

The great writer Jorge Louis Borges has a tale about a human who remembered everything, who forgot nothing.
Funes the Memorious who gained his most prodigious memory as a result of riding accident.
‘While, at one glance,’ Borges says, ‘we can perceive three glasses on a table, Funes, all the leaves and tendrils and fruit that make up a grape vine. He knew by heart the forms of the southern clouds at dawn on 30 April 1882 and could compare them in his memory with the mottled streaks on a book in Spanish binding he had seen only once, and with the outlines of the foam raised by an oar in the Rio Negro the night before [some long forgotten] uprising… It was very difficult for [Funes] to sleep’ Borges tells us ‘lying on his back on his cot in the shadows he could imagine every crevice and every moulding… In the teeming world of Funes there were only details, all most immediate in their presence.’
Funes is paralysed, paralysed by his accident, but also, surely, paralysed by his memory.
Borges has his most memorable invention die of congestion.
Too much memory, too much accuracy can drown
6838723723

Maybe this is the biggest danger of what we do here today.
Maybe we are in danger of drowning in too much accurate memory.
Too much accurate memory can paralyse us and stop us from living out the lessons of personal engagement, empathy and kindness, the lessons that are the true charges of Ester’s life.

I don’t really believe in accurate memory.
I’m not sure Jews are supposed to.
In that part of the section of the Rosh Hashanah service when we sing of God’s memory we recite a verse from Jeremiah.
And God said, ‘I [God] remember the kindness of your youth, the love of your days of courtship, how you [the children of Israel] followed me into the wilderness, to a land unsown.

It’s nonsense, of course.
Or at the very least it’s a desperately selective way of telling the story of the wandering of the Children of Israel in the wilderness.
The accurate version of events would recall a lot of complaining, whinging, idol building and rebellions.
But somehow in the five hundred years, or so, between the Exodus with its whinging and grumbling, and the time of Jeremiah, all the failings, all the moments of darkness have faded.
And we are left with beautiful memories, hesed neuriach – the kindness of your youth ahavat kalulotaiyich the love of your days of courtship.

This is my kind of memory.
Selective.
Losing particularly some of the pain and the darkness.
Losing the memories that are too much to hold.
Losing the memories that paralyse.
Remembering the moments of triumph, delight, love.
The memories that can motivate me today and into the future.
Ester’s joy, her tremendous successes, all the lives she touched, changed for the better.
The way Ester would look at me and make me want to do better, be better, a better citizen of the world, a better Jew, a better person.
I can live forward with these selective memories.

These are the memories to carve in stone.
These are the memories we should pledge ourselves to hold dear.
For today and for our future commemorations and celebrations of one extraordinary life.

And the other memories.
The memories that crash my printer and result in a stream of meaninglessness.
I hereby let them go.
God – zocher kol hanishcachot – you can have them.
I, instead, commit myself, for the year ahead, and whatever gift of life I am to be blessed with,
I commit myself to selective memory.
Provocative, inspiring, life-bettering memories indeed, but selective memories nonetheless.

And may these memories,
Ester Bracha bat Moreinu Harav Tzvi Hirsh v’Elkah,
Ester Adjuah Elizabeth Gluck,
May these memories always be a blessing!

Debbie Bogard: transcending

I knew Ester what now feels like many years ago, when we were both involved with the Synagogue youth group. I was a few years older than Ester and when you’re younger, age always seems to be more important, more relevant somehow. It was obvious that Ester was never going to be tied down to such a pointless convention. Not that she even had to do anything, she just happened to be transcending age simply through being herself, radiating wisdom and intelligence and beauty.

Many years later, I was delighted to bump into Ester when she was working in the Salusbury deli. I went there a lot that year and would sometimes see Ester and Angela. Despite those years in between, those meetings felt genuinely meaningful, connecting in the present with a strong sense of a shared past.

I was devastated to learn of Ester’s death and, in Rabbi Gordon’s words, feel impoverished at the loss. I was honoured to attend Ester’s stone setting yesterday and gratified to be able to learn more about Ester’s life and her exceptional achievements. I know that she will serve as an inspiration to me in how to live a good and righteous life.

Joe Landson: Daydream in Color

Every time I wonder if I'm really helping anyone, I daydream about the Nina Simone Brigades.

Like all shadowy social justice groups, they have a fearless and beautiful leader: a young English Jewess in combat boots.

In the gray dawn, they ambush the venal and pompous with rainbow paint guns, darning them to eternal coloration.

At yellow midday, they guide refugees to shelter, shedding noontime on their plight.

On orange afternoons, they comfort friends with timeless wisdom, fresh fruit from an ancient tree.

Come reddening dusk, they sing and dance in sad ecstasy.

By inky midnight, they have parachuted elsewhere, and only our pale purple prose recalls them.

Matthew Thompson: outrun and extend

Ester obviously had the gift for uniting diverse people, building real trust and friendship in situations where others dare not tread. This takes vision and courage and a willingness to sacrifice egos, yet never at the expense of integrity. Above all, such vital work requires a warmth and openness of heart, which, in turn, makes a person so loveable and at the same time so vulnerable. Ester’s reach and vision extended from and to the very depths of the human heart, where great blessing is sure to be found and where (contrary to appearances) it will always be beyond whatever depth troubles and doubts may reach.

Clare Carter: changed my life

Ester... you changed my life...

To be honest, compared to so many people I hardly knew you - but in the short time I knew you - you showed me so much...

I learnt so much about myself from the person you were and the things you showed me.

I wish I could be at your stone-setting to show you how much you did for me.

I think about you so very much...

Thank you for everything!

Your light will never fade away!!!

Love always
Clare
xxx

(Ester was my mentor at LDSG)

Matthew Thompson: light

Ester was a light to lighten the Gentiles. No earthly darkness or doubt can ever truly extinguish such light.

Stone Setting

The stone for Ester's grave will be set at 2:30 pm on Sunday 9th September 2007. Afterwards refreshments will be served nearby and then there will be a gathering of “Ester's Walks of Life" organised by her friends: memories and reflections, as well as pieces of music and film in which Ester features.

If you would like to attend, please write to
ESTERMEMORIES@HOTMAIL.CO.UK

As part of "Ester's Walks of Life", we would like to draw together the Ester sayings and phrases that you remember her by, that to you symbolise her or that just sum up her essence for you: perhaps a joke, a sign off or a witty cynicism. We will do our best to weave these through our celebration of Ester's life, bringing more parts of the special woman we loved to be with us, in all her various purple ways.

You can send them to
ESTERMEMORIES@HOTMAIL.CO.UK

Philip Cheung: Daughter of Zion

~~ Daughter of Zion ~~

Hark, Ester, white lily of the desert,
this is the voice of my heart—

As the cold wind and red dust whips across
the long path of your mystical journey,
You still walked on
without a pause!

As the damp fog and lonely mist danced together
to blur the vision of the world,
You still saw clearly
via the window of your soul!

As modern men and women swim aimlessly in
the lakes of pleasure and champagne,
You kept the mitzvah
with devotional faith!

As sages and scholars search diligently for
the Eternal Light of the Tanakh,
You delight in the Truth
of every Holy Word!

Hark, Ester, fragrant rose of Israel,
this is the voice of my heart—

As the Hokmah of Shekhina guides your thoughts,
I feel Her full force!

As the Holiness of Hakadosh adorns your words,
I hear them in awe!

As the Faithfulness of El-Berit keeps your deeds,
I see a true Daughter of Zion!

As the Harp of David instils your songs,
I hear you singing the Psalms!

Hark, Ester, magenta zinnia to your friends,
this is the voice of my heart—

As the zenith summer sun
brightens up the days,
Your smiles brighten up our lives!

As beautiful autumn leaves
paint the woods red and orange,
Your colourful character burnishes the Earth!

As the virgin winter snow
brings with it the Hannukah,
Your light bids goodbye to darkness, my old friend!

As the budding spring flowers
crown Nature with Life,
You remind us to “Choose Life!”
(And so we will!)

(A poem by “Purple Iron” in fond memory of the “Purple Princess”, Summer, 2007).

Finchley Reform Synagogue Teenagers: clearly

Ester was a wonderful teacher on our Amsterdam trip and we all really enjoyed getting to know her. She clearly was a very special person and we really regret that we won’t be going on any more trips with her.

How special she was and how much we will miss her!

A Tricycle seat

The Tricycle Theatre was an important part of Ester’s life. She loved drama in every form and having probably the best little theatre in London only a short walk from home was a great gift. From her very earliest years, she enjoyed shows and workshops for children and, later, performances for adult audiences. Much of her thinking about the world was shaped and coloured by watching and reflecting on plays related to Black, Irish and Jewish experiences.

As a Sixth Former, Ester joined the Tricycle Theatre youth drama workshop that performed its own production at the ICA (Institute for Contemporary Arts) in London.

She was a founding and stalwart member of the Tricycle Theatre Jewish and Muslim Youth Theatre—affectionately known as the ‘Muju’ group—established in September 2004. She played her part in its first creation, Tunnel Vision, which was performed twice at the Tricycle and also at other venues. In 2006, a decision was taken to create a DVD about the group and Tunnel Vision for educational distribution: Ester was filmed in workshops, rehearsal and a social event, and was interviewed about the process of play-making and her experience of the ‘Muju’ group. She died a few days later.

A seat at The Tricycle Theatre has been named:
In memory of Ester Gluck, 1982—2006

Rabbi Jeremy Gordon: carrying heavy loads lightly

Our identity is formed in wandering and in dislocation. Even before Egypt and the oft repeated Biblical instruction to do right by the stranger because ‘you were strangers in the land of Egypt,’ even before the centuries of exile and displacement, we were a dislocated people.

Dislocation imbues a creativity, a sharpness of vision that comes from living a life less-normal. In particular dislocation changes the way a person relates to values. A wanderer doesn’t set great store by bricks and mortar. Rather splendour can be gauged by measure of hospitality offered; any simple act of kindness will do.

Moreover the stranger, by their very nature, needles the societies they appear in. The wanderer is a walking provocation to the status quo. Our very existence presents a novel experience for the societies around is, something new needs to be countenanced. We, us wanderers, push our face—pink, or black, or shrouded in a veil, or wreathed in a turban—up against the window and ask questions about toleration, pluralism and possibility. These are deeply valuable questions; they offer a measure of societal decency. And they are questions that can only be asked in the presence of one who is different.

Dislocation and wandering are great blessings, they are also heavy loads. Those who can walk lightly carrying such weight deserve the highest praise. And Ester was such a person.

Eiri: truly special

Only the very tough and the determined can continue to visit those in the detention centres dumped near Heathrow Airport. And Ester was one of them. Everyone starts visiting with a good intention—some half-baked, others carved in their hearts. However many get defeated after a while, after one too many visit to the forbidding looking detention centre. Or another unannounced transfer. Or another removal. Or another assault. It is a soul-destroying journey to get there, a long ride on the tube, then a tiny local bus, then a miserable 10-minute walk by the motorway. The centre stands there, unmarked, despite what might be going on inside. There is no sign. The only sign that something is amiss is the strange gateway next to the building which is always closed and the security cameras everywhere. But you were strong, Ester, and kept going inside that building. Ester was a true exception to all the rules (including her boots and hair) and had the strongest of conviction that those in detention needed to be heard. And she did indeed hear the screams and prayers of detainees that even those of us who have been “professionally” trained to be a good listener couldn’t pick up. Her listening skill was special but I wonder if people understand what I mean by “special”. It was supernaturally good—does this make sense now? And, Ester, you could smell the dishonesty, pretensions and shallowness miles away, at a first glance, on the phone, on paper, face-to-face. I know you could just tell. And that’s why you were one of us, a bunch of opinionated agitators. Is everyone working in this asylum charity sector genuinely selfless? Does everyone have that depth of heart and humbleness Ester had? Not really. And that’s why we all loved you dearly. You were, after all, as Sabri the writer so aptly put it over our cheap curry, the conscience of LDSG. We felt that we could go on because you were there. I still find it difficult to believe that I won’t see you again. Or that I won’t hear you say like an innocent child, “Purple is my favourite colour” again. Sometimes I feel angry that the rest of the world seems to be unaware that this tremendous loss to humanity has occurred. People hear about it and say “oh how sad” but that’s not enough for me. But given that you were never troubled with things like what I normally call a false sense of self-grandeur, you would probably vehemently argue that you were not all that special. It didn’t go well with your sense of equality, did it? But you were truly special. And your absence seems particularly unfair. Jerome has always said that he had a perfect team, you, Sabri, Aoife and all the committed volunteers, and I had to agree that there was a perfect team. And it is very rare for Jerome or I to say that something is perfect, and you know that. Now we are trying to find a way to be perfect again and we miss you.

Rabbi Willy Wolff: heart, soul and might

One commandment in the Torah seems uncannily to have been almost written with Ester in mind. For she observed it bechol levavah, with all her great heart, oovechol nufshah, with all her rich soul, oovechol me’odah, and with all her considerable might. It is to be found in the 33rd and 34th verses of the 19th chapter of the Book of Vayikra, Leviticus. And it commands: “When a stranger lives with you in your land, do not ill treat that stranger. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born. Love that stranger as yourself, for you were strangers in Egypt. I am the Eternal Your God.” On which Rashi comments in three words: “Elloheycha Ve’Ellohav Anni—I am Your God and his God.”

Ester in her adult life gave the most concrete, human-contact form to the commandment to love the stranger. With that she blessed our needy society so abundantly. And so can we bless this society for every moment that we follow her example.

Syed: ‘My Guru’

'My Guru'

Ester was my teacher. My first visit to the detention centre was in her company. She treated me like a mother would train a toddler to walk. She told me where to get off the bus. But later I found out that if she got off one stop after, she would have to walk less and not have to cross roads. I wanted to tell her but alas now I cannot.

She was also teaching me the use of database. If I was good at something, she would say “Brilliant!" I was pushed to my primary school days. She was equally good at chiding on your mistakes.

She was very soft-spoken and sympathetic. She appealed to the core of your psyche. She was loved and adored by all the detainees.

One of the detainees called the office. He was a Muslim from one of the African countries and said, “She died in the month of Ramadhan. She will go to heaven straight. No questions about that.” No comments!

Rabbi Helen Freeman: a particular gift

“And a stranger shall you not wrong, neither shall you oppress them, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”

This commandment is particularly close to my heart because my father came here as a stranger at the age of 12, frightened and vulnerable as a Jewish refugee from Nazi Germany. Not only that, but this portion was my Bat Mitzvah and so I spent a great deal of time studying it.

Imagine my surprise then to team teach with a young woman called Ester Gluck, then still in her teens, who seemed to have taken in the importance of including the vulnerable, being aware of those on the periphery, since her earliest childhood.

For that, much praise must go to her mother Angela, who lives out this commandment in her everyday life, but also to Ester who had a particular gift and became a blessing in the lives of the refugees amongst whom she worked.

Zecher Tzadeket livrachah—May the memory of the righteous be for a blessing.

Social4Social and the Ester Film Club

Ester was a volunteer at the weekly social evening organised by the Refugee Council for unaccompanied children and young people.

She and Sarah Hodgson, another volunteer, decided to raise funds for equipment to play music and show films as an extension to the social evening.


During Refugee Week 2006, they organised a successful musical evening that they called ‘Social4Social’: it raised both awareness and funds.

The money was enough for the Refugee Council to buy equipment and a year’s licence to show films. The Ester Film Club, launched on 29 November 2006, is a valuable extension to the social and educational activities that the Refugee Council offers. Varied films have been shown on a regular basis since then.

But the light evenings mean that the Ester Film Club is now ‘dark’ because there are no blackout curtains. It will resume when the nights draw in...

Gary: 1000%

I am just writing a letter for my friend Ester. Just to say Ester will be deeply missed and allways in my heart and in my prayers. I just want Ester’s family and friends to know how great she was and how much she helped me when I was at the lowest point in my life. I didn’t want to live any more I wanted to die and I was very suicidal I had nothing to live for. But Ester helped me True the darkest times. Being so proffecional and having a Big heart she helped me see light at the end of the Tunnal. She gave me the will to live and told me about all the things in life I had worth living for like my family girlfriend and son. She stayed on the phone with me for over 1 and ½ hours untill she new I had the will to live and that it was safe to put the Phone down. From that day on my life and my atatude towards life is 1000%. I Just want to thank Ester I don’t Believe I would be still alive today if it wasn’t for my friend Ester. She is the Best. She has a heart of Gold and we need more people in this world like Ester with the love an dedication Ester had for her work clients and colleagues. Ester you will be deeply miss specially by me. Thanks for everything your great. RIP Ester. The world will never be the same again without you. Neather will I. We love you Girl.

Eileen: precious loan

Ester was a lovely, gentle, caring lady who will always be remembered by me, and I know that she will always be a presence for me as I continue in the word she so loved.

“Lord, Ester was Thine
And not our own.
You have done us no wrong.
We thank you for the precious loan
Afforded us so long.”

What do we tell the children? confusion, conflict and complexity

What do we tell the children? confusion, conflict and complexity
is dedicated:
In memory of Ester Gluck
who would know just what to say

In the acknowledgements, Angela writes:


"I pay tribute to my daughter, Ester Gluck. From an early age, she took a keen interest whenever I was “doing a writing” and increasingly offered perceptive comments and suggestions, based on a close attention to the text that was way beyond any daughterly duty. Characteristically, she brought her wisdom and wit, sensitivity and sharpness to her reading of the first draft of What do we tell the children? some two months before her tragic and untimely death in September 2006. Ester was my greatest ‘critical friend’—the greatest I could ever hope for."

Paul Anthony: an angel

I didn’t really know Ester as a person but we did speak a lot on the phone and she was just a really nice person to talk with, and to know that she’s not here with us anymore is very hard for me and a lot of other people.

Ester always have something nice to say and, in my heart, I know that she is in the arms of the good Lord and that’s how I want to remember her.

When I heard about what had happen, I didn’t know what to say or what to do but at the same time I really didn’t want to question God, really because he knows everything best.

To know that she was only 24 years old and have everything to live for. Her life has just started. She was just such a nice person in every way. Really I do appreciate every thing that this lovely person has done for me and a lot of other people.

I am sitting here writing this and I can’t even tell you how sad I am feeling but have to go on because this is for a very special person.

There has been a time in my life when I felt that I couldn’t go on but Ester was always there to talk to me and make me feel strong in myself again.

I really believe that she was my guidance because at times when I was at my lowest I would share things that I couldn’t share with anybody else. Talking to Ester made me feel so light.

She was like an angel that you can call on and she would always be there. I am so sorry that she is no longer here with us but she has been missed by a lot of people.

She has made a great impression on my life although we have only spoke over the phone and I do know she was very important to me.

Ester has really touch my life in many ways and I will never forget what she has done for me.

Max: rubbish dancer

Ester was a rubbish dancer when I saw her but an excellent support through her work. She understood that to best support the detainees meant supporting volunteers. And detainees and volunteers worked much better because of it. The time it took to do this meant that you knew it was more than a job for her and that motivated you in turn. She was genuine and this shone through everything else. Even her dancing.

Rabbi Elaina Rothman and Gerald Rothman: Jewish soul

Ester had a Jewish soul. It was impossible to know her and not to realise that. She was suffused with compassion, rachmannes, and a highly developed sense of the ethical—of what her Judaism and her God demanded of her. High on the list of those demands was understanding and assisting "the other" in our society, the underprivileged, the marginalised, those of a different faith and (in particular and very often the embodiment of many or all of those qualities) the refugee.

Micah told us, "Act justly and love mercy" (6: 8) and Ester took him at his word. In Devarim (the Book of Deuteronomy) we are told (10: 18 and 19) that God "shows no favour and takes no bribe, doing justice for the orphan and the widow and loving the stranger, to give him food and clothing. And you shall love the stranger (ger)…"

On that basis we are surely entitled to see in Ester's life a genuine reflection of imitatio dei. Zichrona livracha—may her memory be for a blessing.

Dimple: free-spirited, vibrant and with a mind of her own

I am so sorry that we have lost both professionally and personally the fantastic person that was Ester… As an LDSG volunteer, I found that Ester was there to support me through the tough times and share the happiness through times of success.

Somehow all those sad, stereotypical cards of sympathy don’t seem to do Ester justice and these balloons are how I remember her: free-spirited, vibrant and with a mind of her own!

Rabbi Dame Julia Neuberger, DBE: in abundance

“… for you know the heart of the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” How often that verse, or some parallel to it, is repeated in the biblical and rabbinic literature. That has an immediate read across to how we should treat asylum seekers and refugees in the UK in our time. We have the instruction—all we need to do is get on with it.

Our role as Jews is to mitigate desperation, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give encouragement, mentoring, help, advice, and—where we can—employment or at least daytime activity. It is not only about money. It is about time, energy, love and compassion—and, of course, fellow feeling.

And that is what Ester had in abundance. She understood. We can learn from her understanding, and from her work. Our responsibility is to take it forward.

Dr Jonathan Mirvis: a beacon

To be Jewish is to show sensitivity to the “ger”, to the foreigner. “And you shall love the foreigner”, we are taught. Identifying with the refugee, with the downtrodden, is a fundamental Jewish value.

Ester z”l* in choosing to identify with the plight of the refugee excelled in her appreciation of this important Jewish value. In the same way as the deeds of our forefathers are beacons for us, may her deeds be a beacon for others.

Yehi zichrah baruch. May her memory be a blessing.

[* Hebrew shorthand for ‘of blessed memory’]

Jeremy Gerber: inspiring example

I had the pleasure of getting to know Ester on several occasions over the past three years, first during my visits to Cardiff University’s J-soc (Jewish Society) in 2003—04, and later as a visiting rabbinical student at Minyan Chadash at New London Synagogue. I have spent many of the Jewish holidays with Minyan Chadash, and I have very, very fond memories of meals at the Glucks and singing together in services with Ester. Many of the leaders of the minyan are such wonderful people who have left deep and lasting impressions on me, and Ester is certainly one of the most memorable. I will always miss her energy, her passion for Judaism and for singing, and her willingness to help out and contribute whenever possible.

May we all take the opportunity to learn from Ester’s inspiring example, and seek to live our lives according to our stated values. I know that I will always remember Ester’s life and her work, especially when I celebrate the holidays and when I need to be motivated into action for one cause or another.

I will always be thankful to her for giving me the opportunity to learn these lessons and find such inspiration in our tradition. Her presence, her enthusiasm, and the way she lived her life with ideology and action will truly be missed.

Jessica: a normal day

It was a normal day in LSDG’s office, with the regular sound of the telephone only disturbed from time to time by the bipping of the fax machine. Ester received a call from one of our clients. He was so revolted against his situation that his anger was about to turn into violence. Most of us would have been overwhelmed by the magnitude of his rage, but not Ester. She started to talk to him about George Orwell’s 1984 and how to turn one’s revolt against an oppressive system into a powerful and ever-lasting testimony. Both of them engaged in a long and intense conversation about art as a means of expression, which sounded surrealistic given the circumstances and yet absolutely fascinating. She had this exceptional and inspiring capacity to understand people, just because she deeply cared.

Clare Carter: impact

I know you would have been so proud to see the impact your life has had on so many. I did not know you for long—but you changed my life and the way I thought about things! You are a very special person. May your light continue to shine… I miss you.

Megan Horvath: life force

Dear Darling Ester

I don’t think I ever make it clear enough how much of a comfort and support you were to me as a volunteer. For this I am so grateful. You were a life force and have touched all of us who had the pleasure to know you, however briefly.

Ryan Dolan: Happy Birthday, Barbie Girl

Ester told me once that she had always wanted a Barbie doll for her birthday. I did not understand as she did not seem like a Barbie girl. But, Angela being an enlightened and progressive mother did not think that these were suitable toys for daughter. You have to remember, that at the time they were not making Advocate Barbie - with Home Office battling functions and advanced recycling abilities. Of course that made Barbie more precious. It’s like that with kids, isn’t it? The more you tell them they can’t have something, the more precious it becomes. I have the same thing with my son and power rangers.

Friday night dinner came and we carried the conversation on with Angela and Alice-ter. I think Angela had forgotten this, she was adamant that this was not right. We gave her a ribbing about it over dinner, and if you will pardon the pun, we made quite a meal of the joke (Ha ha).

Anyway Ester’s birthday rolls around, and you know she did not like to do anything on her birthday. I guess she would never have told me when it was, if she thought she could get away with it. So I bought her lots of little presents. That way it looks like I have not gone over board and bought her anything too big. One of them was a Barbie doll. I know that we had given Angela a hard time over it recently, so I am thinking that maybe I should not give it to Ester while Angela is around. I was worried she would not see the funny side.

This time last year, we were sitting at dinner again and without any one having discussed it Angela produces her present for Ester, a Barbie doll. I produce my present for Ester, a Barbie doll. And Alice-ter? No, he did not get Barbie. Bless our Alice-ter got Esterbeth the Ken doll.

They were very happy days and they seem so long ago now.
Happy Birthday, Barbie Girl.

Ry**

Purple flowers

The ground has settled on Ester’s grave and the stone will be laid in the autumn. In the week of Ester’s birthday—and on her birthday in the Hebrew calendar—Rima and Angela planted a bed of flowers.

Natalie says, “Flowers within us sometimes grow. Sometimes they wither and die. We all have the seeds: it depends on how we look after them.”

If you're visiting Ester’s grave in the coming months—and the flowers seem to need watering—please give them a drink to help them stay fresh until Ester's stone is laid. There are taps, buckets and jugs in the grounds of the Hoop Lane cemetery. Ester’s grave is in Row 34 on the north-western side.

Debi Penhey: the princess and the shirt

For 24 years I have shared my birthday with Ester. What should I do this year on Thursday? We still share a birthday, but I can’t send her happy birthday wishes, nor can she send them to me.

I first met Ester when she was Angela’s bump – a few weeks before she was born, when Angela was my teacher in the conversion class at West London Synagogue. I was delighted when she was born on my 22nd birthday. Over the years we have exchanged greetings, jokes, messages, news and love.

I shall miss all of this. I shall also miss our long-standing joke of how she coveted a favourite shirt of mine. We shared a love of purple, and every time Ester saw me wearing my beautiful long purple and blue shirt, she asked if she could have it. I have always thought of her whenever I’ve worn it, and always will.

I’ll wear the shirt on our birthday, Ester, and think of you. Have a good day wherever you are.

Imam Dr Abduljalil Sajid: passion to serve

I met Ester at a Jewish Muslim Young theatre performance and at her speeches on Refugees. She was a lovely and gifted young lady, full of vigour and insight. Her passion to serve others was extraordinary.

Aisha Phoenix: Irresistible Smile

Irresistible Smile

I first heard "Ebony & Ivory" at your Bat Mitzvah.
You must have been 13 or 14 then.
I was so taken by your rendition
That I longed to hear the song again
Only to be disappointed, years later,
By an original that didn't sound like you.

At the moment you're walking slowly through my mind
With big shoes and baggy trousers trailing on the ground.
But what's pulling at me is your smile -
An irresistibly cheeky grin that takes over your face
And dares the world not to smile back.

I doubt it was a coincidence that you picked
"Ebony & Ivory" to sing back then,
Resonating, as it does, with your desire for peace and unity.
I can't imagine you seeking refuge in silence
If an injustice needed to be named.

Remember when you sat
Challenging Home Office movers and shakers
About UK race and equality policies?
Unperturbed, you spoke with that trademark confidence and eloquence
As your audience squirmed in their seats.

It was a very different audience in the nineties.
When "perfect harmony" cut through the quiet room
Your smile shone above rapturous applause.
Without even closing my eyes
I see that same smile.

Nancy Cranham: a rarity and a blessing

I have very vivid memories of Ester, the time we spent together on the heath, conversations (often rants against the injustice of the world) that we engaged in, and lots and lots of laughing.

She had a lot of guts. Every time someone at school was picked out by others to be taunted or humiliated for being different, Ester stood up for them. She always defended them, even whilst alone, even at the risk of facing abuse herself, and I admired her immensely and wished I had that much courage myself.

I remember that, like for many people, Ester's teenage years had their ups and downs, their dark periods. But what distinguished her from the rest was that at those points when others would have given in to what was bringing them down, Ester would suddenly appear incredibly strong, and it was these times that I have such clear memories of. She stood alone and sang to us all in assembly, with her powerful, wonderful voice.

She gave a moving and remarkable performance as Arthur Miller's Maggie that I will always remember.

When she was away for a longer period, we wrote letter after letter to each other, and she entertained me, encouraged me, and kept me healthily enraged at those injustices we'd sat raving about when together.

Ester was one of the strongest characters and strongest people I've ever known, she influenced me greatly at a time when knowing people like her was a rarity and a blessing, and could help shape the person you would become. She was an absolute star and I will always remember her with great love.

Bini Hirsh: wish

Dear Ester,

I wish I could tell you about the week away I just had with FOCUS.I wish you were there and then I wouldn't have to tell you. It would have been a two way thing – your heart would have been filled with joy by the achievements of the teenagers involved, and they would have thrived on your attentions and your wisdom. I wish it could have happened that way.

We took a group of teenagers who have been involved with us before and have found it helpful, and offered them the opportunity to use their new-found skills to help others. A couple of days talking about leadership skills and team work, then halfway through the week we presented each team of five young people and three volunteers with a video camera and a minibus and told them their challenge was to 'change the world' and keep a video diary while doing it!

Ester, you know the sort of situations many of these kids live in; at the beginning of the week they all just felt powerless. They knew they wanted things to change, but they didn't believe that anything they did would have an effect; they didn't think they had the power to implement those changes.

If only you could have seen the journey these kids went on this week. The teenagers on my team chose Gandhi's words as their inspiration and we drove around Gloucestershire with a banner taped to the side of our bus saying 'Be the change you want to see in the world.' They handed out fair trade chocolates and talked to local people about movements like fair trade, and about little things that individuals can do to change the world. They handed out colourful leaflets they had made with different ideas, and were so excited when one village stuck the leaflet up in the window of their tourist information office! The smallest guy on our team, a bullied little kid with a speech difficulty, said that if he had one wish that would change the world it would be to make the police more friendly, so they arranged to go to a police station and interview an officer to talk about how they could change the bad reputation young people have with police, and how to improve relationships between young people and the police. And it was only at the end of their two day challenge that they began to realise the greatest effect all their actions had had – these tough guys who a year ago you wouldn't have wanted to meet on a street corner at night had turned into ambassadors of change, showing everyone that young people really do care and do want to help to improve their worlds. They showed that young people can be approachable and can have intelligent conversations and can respect different opinions. I guess you had to be there, but you'll just have to take my word for it – it was inspiring.

But aside from all the world changing adventures, what really struck home was that these tough guys we had started working with a year or two ago are really just children who have had a horrible time. As their confidence grows enough to let them show holes in their armour, what we see underneath are scared children who desperately want love and security. They need you Ester.

You're not here. We're doing the best we can for them anyway. One of the volunteers, a guy called R, is fantastic with the boys – at bedtime he just acts like a Dad. He goes round reminding them all to brush their teeth and wash their faces, and if their faces are grubby he rummages around in his pockets for a tissue while they just wipe their faces on their sleeves then give him a cheeky grin like happy little kids. Then they get into their beds and he sits and reads Harry Potter to them until they fall asleep. You wouldn't believe the youngest is fourteen and the oldest nearly seventeen. When they were leaving yesterday they all swarmed round him with their little kid faces on again, wanting a hug or a hair-ruffling or just a last bit of that secure child feeling before they had to go back to the real world. And with love like that the teenagers turn themselves into brothers and sisters, looking after each other and feeding love back into their 'family'. I loved that when there were arguments or tears they could mostly resolve it amongst themselves – that they are growing independent of us now.

Your friend S, who you were so inspired by that time – he's having a really hard time at home. He's a strong and talented person, you saw that before all the rest of us, and he has the love of all his 'brothers and sisters', but his life at home is so tough these days that none of us know if he will get through it and we're all worried for him. He could have done with your support this week Ester.

I know you're not here, and I know it's pointless me writing all this but I just WISH you could see it and I wish you could be involved, and I wish you could also enjoy the hope and the optimism and the human kindness that these kids gave to me this last week. I hate wishing for the impossible Ester, I hate this.

All at BID (Bail for Immigration Detainees): spirit in our fight

We write to express our sadness at Ester’s death. It seems unbelievable that we won’t be getting any more emails, with details of detainees, from her. We have tragically lost a member of the cause and her spirit will be with us in our fight.

Helena Cullen (LDSG volunteer): dedication and commitment

I only met Ester once, during my training, but I remember very clearly her dedication and commitment to the work. She was also very kind and supportive when I spoke to her on the phone, in connection with my detainee.

Aisha Phoenix: touch

“Who are you crying for?”
She asked the salty eyes.
“Not for me, those tears, I hope,
For I cannot bathe in them.”
“It’s…” the eyes tried to explain.
“It’s not for you,
But for those you’ve left behind.
The ones you've yet to touch
And those you already have.
It’s for us.
The moments we shared,
The exchanges we’d like to have.
It’s an attempt to understand
Why you've touched so many and are gone
Why we’re still here...”

Sarah Weston: glue

Tzedek is a Jewish overseas development and educational charity, based in the UK, with the motto 'Jewish action for a just world'.

Ester was my co-ordinator on the Tzedek trip to Ghana in the summer of 2003. She was the glue that held our small group together and she fulfilled her role as co-ordinator with passion, talent and true leadership. Her love and knowledge of Ghana, and some of the close relationships she had with many of the Ghanaians working for the NGO's with which Tzedek was associated, enriched the time we spent in Ghana enormously.

It was Ester's fantastic leadership and her introduction to beautiful Ghana that inspired me to return there this summer and lead the Tzedek programme in Tamale. I thought about her often during the summer, particularly during difficult situations, often asking myself what would Ester have done in the same situation.

One particular memory I have of Ester is when she accompanied myself and another volunteer on some outreach work we were doing in several villages, giving HIV/AIDS education. Her feedback was very valuable to us and it was a real pleasure to experience occasions such as this, with someone who thought so deeply and so intelligently about development issues and about life in general.

I will always remember Ester as one of life’s truly exceptional people. She had such a warm and wonderful manner and it made all of our group feel immediately comfortable in her presence.

Carita (LDSG volunteer): warm and passionate

What an impact Ester made!

Ester and I spoke mainly over the phone. If I had a worry, she would listen. If I wanted to let off steam about some injustice faced by a client, she would often join in! And when I needed support, she would just know to offer it—giving me encouragement to get back to tackling bureaucracy and unscrupulous lawyers before my spirits sank too far… In person, she was just as warm and passionate.

This is why I am so glad we met and it is how I will always remember her.

DEDICATED TO ESTER

To enlarge flier, click and then click again to zoom.

The Tricycle Theatre Jewish and Muslim Youth Theatre Group (affectionately known as 'The Muju Group') - of which Ester was a founder member in September 2004 - abandoned the performance they were working on with her, as what they call "an act of mourning".

They have created a new production - called 'Evicted' - that they are dedicating to Ester's memory.

'Evicted' will be performed at The Tricycle Theatre (Kilburn) at 5.30 pm on Sunday 25 March. The performance lasts about an hour. Tickets are at £5.00 (£2.00 concessions) and can be obtained from the box office at 020 7328 1000.

Tessa (LDSG volunteer visitor): a candle for Ester

I happened to mention, when I was visiting with Liz, that Ester had sent me a very helpful and very kind e-mail in response to a query. And then Liz told me what happened. It is so sad that words fail me.

Although I had only visited a couple of times since Ester became my contact point at LDSG, I was very glad of her help and support. Her response to my query about bail applications was a long, thoughtful and caring e-mail. I had not seen her for a few months but I did bump into her at Colnbrook at the beginning of the summer. I was so impressed that she immediately remembered me and who I was visiting. She was truly dedicated to her work and she will be remembered by LDSG staff, visitors and detainees without exception.

I will light a candle for Ester.

Alice Bell: smiling

I first met Ester in babyhood, way before either of us could remember. We went to school together for about 10 years and grew up on the same street. In nearly every memory I have of Ester, she has the same huge, warm smile. I'll never forget her smile.

I've just published a knitting pattern (purple) in memory of Ester, and thought I should share it with others who loved her.

Photos of the ‘Ester’ knitting pattern that Alice created and the garment she knitted appear at
http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring%2007/PATTester.html or http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring07/index.html and click 'patterns' and then 'ester'. There Alice writes: “This design is named after a dear friend who died suddenly last summer.”

John Robinson: touched by her life

I was present at the 25th anniversary of the founding of the Irish CCJ* just before Christmas and was asked to speak without any prior notice. I found myself speaking about Ester in the context of the work we are trying to do. It is hard to put into words the effect one human life has on others, or the impact made when two lives touch, but I find myself thinking about Ester very frequently, still mourning her and still somehow being touched by her life. May she rest in peace.

* Council of Christians and Jews

David (LDSG volunteer): a little memory of Ester

Ester was totally committed to her work and to her clients. She was incredibly supportive to her volunteers, too, as I can attest. For one of my clients, a Ghanaian, she did tons of research and made innumerable phone calls. She was always very patient in explaining things over and over to new volunteers like me! I will miss her very much.

Gerald Rothman: a lamed-vavnik

The following appeared in the February edition of the New London Synagogue newsletter:

Written all over our history - A Yom Limmud for Ester Gluck z”l

The untimely death of New London member Ester Gluck last September understandably left all who knew her and her mother, Angela, in a state of shock. Very quickly, however, the desire arose amongst Angela’s and Ester’s many friends to “do something” to recognise and commemorate such a precious life. Ester’s life expressed itself largely through her love of Judaism, her support of those disadvantaged in society, especially refugees and asylum seekers, and her involvement with interfaith dialogue. It seemed, therefore, an obvious decision to hold a Yom Limmud (a study day) in Ester’s memory on Jewish responsibilities towards refugees. Angela and her many friends, particularly colleagues and students at the Florence Melton Adult Mini-School, threw themselves into the preparations for the day, which took place during Chanukah at the London Jewish Cultural Centre in Hampstead.

Over a hundred people, Jews and non-Jews, of several nationalities turned up to spend time both studying and listening to those whose experiences were so important to Ester. The day started with an introduction from representatives of the Refugee Council, who explained the nature of their work and introduced five young asylum seekers (from places such as Cameroon, Uganda and Kenya), who spoke in simple terms about their personal stories and the significance of their new lives in Britain.

The participants then broke into groups to study texts both modern and ancient, seeking to learn what Jewish history could teach us about our responsibilities to refugees.The combination of Torah texts dealing with our obligations to the “ger” (stranger or resident alien) and modern texts dealing with the Jewish experience of both being refugees during the Shoah and also witnessing refugees from places such as Vietnam and Sudan made a powerful impression on those present.

After a lunch break, the groups reconvened to study texts from Torah, Talmud and commentaries dealing with our responsibilities towards strangers, hospitality to travellers, the worth of human beings and open and closed societies, which formed a fitting backdrop to the final session of the day.

Following an introduction from a representative of the London Detainees’ Support Group (LDSG), who outlined the work undertaken by the organization – work in which Ester herself had been closely involved – the participants listened to two former detainees (now granted refuge in the Britain) talking of their experiences. One spoke so eloquently and movingly of his hardships and of how he had been helped by Ester, her compassion and her sympathy, that there were few completely dry eyes in the hall when he finished.

One of the few Jewish volunteers involved with the LDSG told the gathering of his experiences and related them to his Jewish identity in a way that could not fail to make an impact on his listeners, at which point the proceeding were closed with a prayer and the lighting of the Chanukiah. The hope had been expressed that the day’s study would leave the participants a little more knowledgeable and caring and, in some way, better Jews than when they had arrived. I believe that that hope was realised, and that the day was a fitting tribute to the love and respect felt for Ester and Angela. Anyone who is interested to learn more about Ester and why those who knew her considered her to be such a very special young lady is referred to the website set up by her friends: http://www.esterthepurpleprincess.blogspot.com/

For me, she will remain one of the lamed-vavniks. May her memory be for a blessing.

Gerald Rothman

**********

The Minyan Chadash has decided to honour the memory
of Ester by presenting a Torah Mantle, Ark Curtain and
Bimah cover for the new Ark and Bimah in the Hall.

It will be made in purple, Ester’s favourite colour, and
an appeal is being launched to cover the costs.

If you would like to contribute please use the reply
form enclosed with this Newsletter or simply send a
cheque (payable to NLS) to the office clearly marked
that the donation is for the Ester Gluck appeal.

Any surplus will be given to the foundation for child
refugees (likely to be called 'The Separated Child') that
friends of Ester's are establishing in her memory.

Miriam Marks: life and laughter

For some time I have been thinking of how I want to write this message. How it is that I could describe Ester and my memories of her. How it is that Ester should be remembered. Again and again my mind has sifted through memories: memories that seem all too short and too few. Eventually one moment with Ester came to me more times than any other. I believe it describes her the way she should be remembered. Here it is.

Ester is aged about six years and she is dancing around my parents’ garden. She is singing her favourite song: Kylie Minogue’s ‘Locomotion’. She knows ever word, can recall every line and has perfected an entire routine to complete her act. Her voice is full of life and laughter. She wants me to sing too and is teaching me every line so that I might join her. I am not a good student and I keep expecting Ester to tire of me and give up. Ester will not finish until we are both singing along to the following words.

Everybody's doin' a brand new dance now

(C'mon baby do the loco-motion)

I know you'll get to like it

If you give it a chance now

(C'mon baby do the loco-motion)

My little baby sister can do it with ease

It's easier than learning your a b c's

So come on, come on,

Do the loco-motion with me

You gotta swing your hips now

Come on baby, jump up, hmmm jump back

Oh well I think you got the knack

Now that you can do it

Let's make a chain now

(C'mon baby do the loco-motion)

Chug-a chug-a motion like a railway train now

(C'mon baby do the loco-motion)

Do it nice and easy now don't lose control

A little bit of rhythm and a lot of soul

So come on, come on,

Do the loco-motion with me

You gotta swing your hips now

Come on, come on,

Do the loco-motion with me

Yeah

Move around the floor in a loco-motion

(C'mon baby do the loco-motion)

Do it holding hands if you got the notion

(C'mon baby do the loco-motion)

There's never been a dance that's so easy to do

It even makes you happy

When you're feeling blue

So come on come on do the loco-motion with me

You gotta swing your hips now

Come on, come on,

Do the loco-motion with me

Yeah

Come on, come on,

Do the loco-motion with me

I sing along to the song; after not having heard it for all these years. It now has a slightly different meaning in my heart.

Ester you are missed terribly.

Your old friend,
Miriam

Sue Mancey: ‘Mensa Member’

Ester gave me so much joy, love and support and those days were some of the most truly uplifting of my spiritual life. I will neither forget them nor cease to cherish them. The joy and energy created were a jewel beyond price—like the good woman. I have always considered her beautiful in every way and filled with an infinite capacity to care for others and hold them close. She embodied for me the hope for Jewish life.

I was always drawn to Ester’s face with its animation and the wise eyes of my little ‘Mensa Member’. Her presence was always evident if she was in the same room, but never overpowering. She was always comfortable with others, age mattered not. I loved her sitting on my lap, facing me, at Loma and Steve’s wedding, holding my hair as she painted my face with my lipstick. She was telling me how I always looked better with make-up, it was hard to keep a straight face, looking into those happy eyes, sweet little hands at each side of my face, she was so huggable. Eating the burned Angel food was magic when I came to lunch, even if we had to force it from the dish.

When Mensa Member was a little older, I was taken to see the elderly hamster, who wet his bed as a matter of routine, Ester seemed to like him more for it. Her sweet goldfish swam harmoniously at her bedside, flashing gilded fins. I loved her company, her delightful stories, her eyes shining in the soft light of her bedside lamp, her firm warm hands.

She loved blue loo flushes on planes, my cats with their long names, holding hands, the world, her Jewishness and more than anything you, Angela, and all that you gave to her. After the excitement of building the succah, she would squeeze in beside us all and list the fruit that hung overhead. When she got up to go, she left a warm place on the seat and in your heart.

If she stayed with us or came away with me for the day, I always returned her stained or untidy. Sitting straight in her buggy on Brighton beach, she was so sweet. Later resting against me on the train she fell deeply asleep, but woke completely refilled with energy so very quickly and seemed so pleased with the day that she revived me too.

Standing beside Sylvia at Janice and Adam’s wedding, she felt moved to remark, “You’re wearing pearls. I never feel dressed without my pearls!” In truth, she was the pearl and she drew us all to her beauty. Thank you for sharing her with us. I will think of her forever with love.

Sivan: great resonance

I was so sorry and shocked to hear about Ester. Although Ester and I took our separate paths, I have truly fond memories of our friendship. Our shared experiences of growing up continue to have great resonance for me: going to Camden together, listening to The Beatles, sharing reading lists and, of course, discovering values such as animal rights. I remember Ester as fun, gutsy, talented, highly intelligent and determined. Despite not being in contact, I was always updated on Ester’s activities and very much admired her actions, from afar.

Janet Cokeliss: sorrow beyond words

I first met Ester when she was 9 years old and was impressed by her composure, her serenity. Our paths crossed only about 6 times between then and the last time I saw her, when she was 18, but each time I was struck by her sensitivity and compassion. She talked of feeling she didn’t help others enough — but this was because her heart was so large, she had so much to give. Her untimely passing is a loss to all who knew her and to the world.

Denise: sympathetic and committed

I am very saddened by the sudden death of Ester. She was such a sympathetic listener, so committed to helping detainees. This is a tragedy that will deeply affect all those who knew her and worked with her. I send my condolences to her family and will hold her in my prayers.

Andrew: True Friendship Never Dies

First of all I want to say how deeply sorry I am for your loss of your daughter Ester. I have known her for a couple of months but have always been there for me when I wanted to have a chat or felt down and out. We are all going to miss her very much; I am just sending you the following poem about friendship because that is what Ester was to me a very good friend.

I wrote this poem for my friend Ester, who always took the time to listen to me and help me through my problems when nobody else would.

True Friendship Never Dies
I feel I’ve lost a thousand years, just living day by day.
I’m hidden behind the pain and tears, my sorrow guides the way.
I cannot see where I have gone, or where my life shall go.
But leaving you, my friend, is the only way I know.
It will be painful, I will be weak but true friendship never dies.
So call upon the Greatest Power, when you feel you can’t survive.
He will heal your saddest hours, and keep our memories alive.
For in the eternal love of God, true friendship never dies.

In Loving Memory of a Good Friend,
Who will be sadly missed.

Naomi Soetendorp: Ester’s voice

During the period of Shiva for Ester, members of the Minyan Hadash gathered to talk about her, to remember. We kept returning to the subject of her voice. Ester had an exceptional voice and with her singing she had heightened the experience of davening at the Minyan immeasurably. We tried to find words to describe Ester’s voice. Some people felt it had a ‘viscous’ quality, others felt it was ‘illuminating’ or ‘enervating’. Ester’s singing was, we felt, all of these things and more.

Ester brought some of the beauty and anarchy of Jazz to leyning and davening. When you learn to leyn, you have to learn the rules. Ester knew the rules so well that she could rise above them; subvert them, reinvent them. Picasso said that,in order to break the rules, you had to know them first and Ester was, it could be argued, the Picasso of leyning. In breaking the rules this way and finding something yet more powerful and beautiful in the prayers and writings, Ester encouraged all of us who were privileged to hear her, to rethink our own prayers. Not to be complacent, to revisit the texts, and find within them something new. To seek deeper meanings in words and music with which we may have become comfortably familiar.

There is a fear that in time we will forget Ester’s voice. I believe, however, that in the continuing effort to describe Ester’s music and singing, she will be remembered. We listen for Ester in the Minyan, remembering how her voice would have encouraged us to raise our own. There is a voice that is missing now and we must struggle to hear it. For our own sakes, it is important that we continue to listen to Ester, to remember never to become complacent. In this way, the beauty of Ester’s singing and the strength and power of her voice can continue to act as an inspiration and a guide to us.

Louise Kachinski: Ivor the Engine and a passion so strong

Dear Estie

I have started this (what? email, message, thought process, I don’t know) to you so many times in my head these past few months. And still I can’t quite work out what it is I want to say.

When I first met you it was on the fourth floor of the Students Union building where we were building our annual succah - for some unknown reason I had volunteered to chair the Jsoc and you were the first fresher I met. My first impression? Well you were wearing an ankle length skirt and singing Jewish music – so my first thought – “seems really lovely but perhaps a bit too ‘Orthodox’ for me – I bet she wouldn’t be that much fun on a big night out.”

How wrong I was!

For the next three years I took refuge in your purple bedsit in the Jewish headquarters of Cardiff, shesh besh, Simon and Garfunkel and various forms of stir fry as we collaborated all our hyper value food into one giant wok. We used to listen to Ivor the Engine – and do (in my case very bad) Welsh accents in impersonation. One of the things I will never forget is just how well you could take on all other accents – whereas my Welsh got taken for Scottish, Irish and even Indian at times your impersonations of so many different countries brought joy and laughter to everyone who listened.

I have never had such spiritual Friday nights as those I shared with you during our Hillel House years – I always felt so proud when I invited my non-Jewish friends along to see such a spiritual side of Judaism. And it was because of you that I first started thinking about the importance of interfaith work. You were always so supportive of everything I did.

Ester, Estie, the purple princess – you were so passionate about all the things you believed in, a passion so strong you frightened many but engaged more. You used to have a signature saying on the bottom of your email “anyone who thinks they’re too small to make a difference should try getting in bed with a mosquito” – it was obvious how much you took your strength from that – it sums you up so well.

Though we didn’t see each as other as often since moving back to London I always checked up on your latest adventures and knew that you kept up with mine. I always thought we would continue to drift in and out of each other lives far far into the future.

I miss you.

Lou

Matthew Rosen Marsh: Wild Weed

I only met Ester once at the Minyan Hadash service at New London Synagogue in early September 06. I was struck by the power of her prayers and her beautiful singing voice. We talked at the lunch afterwards and I invited her down to Exeter to help lead an alternative service there. I remember how genuinely flattered she was by the invitation. She was also interested in that she had visited the synagogue as a student but had thought it was just a historic building and hadn't realised that there was an active congregation there. She suggested bringing some of her fellow ex Western Region Jsoc students who had visited the synagogue with her and we were both enthusiastic about the prospects for her visit on 20th October. I emailed her afterwards to confirm our plans and she replied. There was a lull for High Holy Days and then I rang her to firm up arrangements. There was no reply. I rang her repeatedly and was puzzled and disappointed by her lack of response. We held the alternative service with an attendance of over 40 people - many people remarked on how much they enjoyed it and the sense of "ruach" (spirit) that they felt.
It was only a couple of days later that I found out about her death and just could not believe that someone who had seemed to alive and vibrant could be dead.

Clive Lawton came to lead a service at Exeter a month later and I read the following poem out in memory of her. Clive, afterwards, told us of holding Ester as a baby. I did not know Ester well but I remember the conversation we had very clearly and will always associate this poem with her:

Wild Weed
I want to open my eyes
Slowly.
I used to dream a lot,
But dreamland swallowed me.
I wanted to console,
But desire betrayed me.
Childhood enchantment there,
A storm in my arms.
I know an alien fire
Kindled my nights.
Tomorrow,
I shall be so far away
Do not search for me.
Those who will learn
To forgive
Will pardon my love for you.
Time will calm everything.
The one who loved me
Shall return from the desert
To your fields.
And will understand
I lived amongst you
Like a wild weed.
There were evenings
With aching yearning,
There were troubled havoc days.
There was hidden pain
And magic moments.
I remember a glance,
The touch of hands upon my shoulders.
I shall remain a passing shadow
In your fields,
A hidden secret.
Farewell,
I lived amongst you
Like a wild weed.

© Rachel Shapiro, translated from Hebrew by Tamar Berliner

Dan Rabin: you are missed more and more

Ester

I have so many fond memories of you, Ester. We knew each other for two years. Firstly when Martin and I began to work at The Tricycle Theatre. We had no idea what we were going to do with the group. In a way that is how the Muju group has developed. We all meet every week, looking to each other for inspiration. That is part of the fun, the 'so what do we do now' element is always there. Firstly this was a bit scary for me and Martin. We'd never worked like this, with a group of mostly adults just wanting to get together and do some acting, and see where it went. Because of this we are reliant on each other for ideas. You came up with so many, everyone did, we tried to push everything to the limit and be as brave as we could with the material we were generating.

But who knows what is good taste and what is bad? Who knows what you can say and can’t? Who has the wisdom to say 'just try it any way and don’t be scared to fail'? Who makes the environment safe where everyone feels that they can create anything and not be embarrassed? Who makes sure no one is left out, and that ultimately we keep our feet on the ground and have a sense of humour? Who can spread love around the room and light it up with her smile? You did all these things, Ester, and so much more, and really as time goes on you are missed more and more. What an honour it was to know you and work in an intimate way with you.

The piece that we made as a group has so much of you in it, and your influence on it is clear to see. I'm finding more and more out about you now and it seems whatever you turned your hand to you excelled. This is true of the work we did together. You were a very good actor, great improviser and incredibly generous with ideas and truly supportive of everyone around you.

I am glad you walked into the Tricycle that September evening.

You are missed. x

Johanna Freudenberg: hurtling and enfolding

We were all devastated to hear the news of Ester’s death. Ester blossomed into a beautiful, intelligent young woman and it is particularly painful to lose her. As well as having walked through her purple room for all those years on the way to the garden, we met up at Salusbury World when she helped in The After School Club. Her humour, sensitivity and just plain energy were savoured by the children and illuminated the place. She would hurtle around the playground with the best of them but I will always hold the memories of her consoling someone sad. She would sit with the affected child on her knee, listening, murmuring and enfolding them within the cloud of her beautiful curling hair.

Yom Limmud for Ester Gluck

a study day on Jewish responsibilities towards refugees

Sunday 17th December 2006
11.30 am to 5.00 pm

London Jewish Cultural Centre
Ivy House, 94-96 North End Road
London NW11 7HU

The Florence Melton Adult Mini School has created this study day in memory of Ester Gluck, Angela’s daughter. Ester had many passions—and support for refugees and displaced people was one such passion. In supporting them, Ester worked particularly hard in several projects throughout her life. Ester would often say that the Jewish experience of exile and refuge was “written all over our history”—and that calls for a response from us. Ester made a difference to very many people’s lives and so we chose to study our responsibility as Jews to refugees.

This Yom Limmud is groundbreaking in drawing together the stories of people seeking asylum in Britain and the work of organisations that represent them, within the framework of a study of Jewish history and values.

• first-hand experiences of people seeking asylum in Britain
• presentations from the Refugee Council and the London Detainees’ Support Group
• Melton-style study of Jewish texts on the subject of refugees, with Melton faculty
• lighting the hanukiyah to close the day

Cost: £25, including lunch, refreshments and materials, in advance (concessions available).
Monies raised will go to the charity being established to continue Ester Gluck’s work.
Places are limited and must be reserved. To book please contact:

Judy Trotter
Melton Ivy House
94-96 North End Road
London
NW11 7HU
Tel 020 8457 5028
Email Melton@ljcc.org.uk

Peter Jenkins: Haiku at Hanukah

Now Ester’s Shamash
Lights our sad Hanukiah
With unfailing joy.

Martin Brody: strength and humility

To me Ester will always be remembered as bringing energy, spirit and comedy, in and out of the rehearsal room. Her strength and humility always drove our rehearsals when we were in need of new ideas - and the fact that she was such a naturally gifted actress. She always saw the comedic side in serious and dire situations but equally could play those serious moments with sensitivity and subtlety. She was a force and a vital member of our family in Kilburn. She will always be in our hearts.

The Refugee Council

Marietta Bielsky: ‘Mem’ for ‘Mother’

Ester was a very special woman whose radiant light and goodness shone on many. The world is a dimmer place with her gone. She was beautiful, bright, kind, caring and funny. She gave generously of herself and made a real difference in this world in her short but meaningful life. We miss her.




Seven years back when Ester was helping me learn Hebrew, we were talking about the special and complex relationships between mothers and daughters. I told her the letter ‘mem’ in Hebrew reminded me of a mother, bent over protecting her child. She liked that and brought me a beautiful wooden sculpture from Africa that evoked this sentiment beautifully. I think of her every time I look at it.

Liz Gerschel: life to the full

Ester's picture smiles at me as I write. She sits above my desk and, just a year to the day older than Adam, she is the daughter I don't have, a borrowed daughter whom I loved. To know that she is not here in body fills me every day with sadness for the loss of such a bubbling and vibrant life. When I think of Ester I think of a stunningly beautiful girl, intelligent and committed and principled, someone who lived life to the full, both the passions and pains, who experienced the extremes of joy and despair and who understood this in others, their grief and loss. It seemed to me that, having been through such troubled times physically and emotionally herself, she was able to give to others by using that knowledge of life, reaching deep into herself for the empathy, compassion and deep knowledge of suffering that made her so unusual a young woman.

Ester was courageous and generous and always demanded so much of herself. When I have talked of Ester with others who knew her, I think she was known in most of the synagogues of North London. I am not surprised that she made such an impact on so many lives, so many young people, so many who loved her singing, her leadership and her dynamism. But I think that just as Ester was unique, she was also very much her mother's daughter: I believe they shared many characteristics and that Angela had a huge and positive influence on her.

When I think of Ester, I think of the passions for purple and for poetry that we shared and I smile. When she worked on her A-level English, we got into Sylvia Plath - another spirit with a gift that was greater than her strength to bear it. And when Ester was successful, she found it hard to realise that this was because she was clever and thoughtful and perceptive and she wrote extremely well, whether it was academic essays, poems or accounts of her experiences. We talked about theatre and Black literature and clothes and politics and she was fun to be with and we laughed a lot. Although I didn't see her frequently enough, we remembered each other often. I miss her enormously.

Aoife O'Higgins: terribly missed

This piece by Aoife was originally read at the LDSG rememberance evening on Wednesday the 11 October two weeks after Ester died.

Dear Ester,

I remember you as if our lunch Tuesday two weeks ago was today. I can visualise you walking through the unit 3R door, and walking towards your desk, sinking into that big chair. I have so many memories of you at LDSG, few are worth telling, but all are worth keeping. I hope you will forgive me for sharing part of you with so many people.

I remember our first day at work together, on November 25th.

I remember when we went to the IAS immigration training in February, and we shocked people (including the trainer) by declaring that everyone should be let in the country because it would boost the economy. And I remember you telling me about meeting Ryan that day.

I remember every lunch we had together. How you would pile on salad, chick peas, butter beans, salsa, soya sauce, the Sri Lankan fruity thing topped off with Japanese seeds. You made the most fantastic mixes. I remember the last lunch you made us. You told us that you had been up since 6am cooking for us and we doubly appreciated it for that. And I remember how we would endlessly debate what the point was of washing Sainsbury’s fruits…

I remember how every time I came into the office with my multi-colour stripy dress, I would walk up to your desk; You would turn around and break into a huge smile and tell me how much you loved it. I used to tell you I had bought in Rome and worried that I looked like a cleaning lady in it. And all you could say was “but….it’s so beautiful”. It was a little ritual of ours…

I remember when you stood up in front of 200 or more people at the Refugee Council conference and confronted Tony McNulty (the immigration minister at the time) to tell him that his immigration policies made no sense from the start because he kept referring to immigrants and asylum seekers as “illegals”.

I remember when I arrived at work on my birthday back in March, it was just you and me in the office that Friday. You had bought me a beautiful plant with beautiful flowers, but hadn’t signed your name, only “happy birthday with lots love”. You let me believe for a whole morning that it was from a secret admirer.

I remember when one of our volunteers was crying on the phone to you because the client she had been visiting was suddenly removed, and you spent a whole afternoon on the phone consoling her.

I remember how excited you were when you told us about seeing the giant elephant and the girl in central London with Ryan and Louie. It was all you talked about for days.

I remember everything you taught me. I remember how you listened to clients, and how you said “darling” to everyone, even the most prolific offenders and other difficult and challenging clients in detention. And how you used to try and stop and correct yourself, but how much I loved it. I remember the way you called me “darling” and “love” and how gentle and affectionate it sounded.

I remember how fondly you spoke of your friends, Alistair, Natalie and your friend in A&E in Cornwall. I knew you cared so much about them because you talked about their lives with such passion. I learnt all about how much A&E was going to change in the future (and remember how people used refer to us as A&E: Aoife and Ester – was I accident, you emergency?). I remember how you talked of Alistair’s wedding and what a fantastic time you had had in Canada. We grew to be so fond of your friends even though we didn’t know them.

I remember when we went to the volunteer management training in April. You invited the trainer (who was in London only for the 2 training days) to come up to Kilburn for some live music and a few drinks. He turned up on the second day, late and haggard looking, clearly he had had a good time…is it true that he got up and sang in front of everyone, drunk at the end of the night…?

I remember your efforts to speak and write French, and how you could only speak it with a big grin. And you made so much effort to pronounce things well.

K in detention referred to you as the girl with the big shoes. You’re the only LDSG staff he remembers. J referred to you as Queen Ester. And you connected with all of them, regardless of age, background, nationality. And you made such fantastic impressions of all of them, without ever a hint of mockery in your voice.

You touched everyone you spoke to: clients, volunteers and other professionals. I am positive that every trainer and trainee you worked with remembers you.

You are terribly missed in the office. We miss you at lunch time. And I miss how you answered the phone. I miss you in your corner. I miss you, Ester.

Marc Silverman: especially special, uniquely unique

like so many of the people who have written so poignant, heart-touching and simply beautiful "devarim" (words, things, items...) about ester and shared them on the blog that has been set-up to mourn her loss and our loss of her and to commemorate, perpetuate her memory, and most importantly to learn from this memory and try to become better persons, human beings in the light of the 'portrait' ester painted of what t'is to be a loving and caring human being, i too loved her dearly and deeply, strongly experienced, felt and believed (and still experience, feel and believe) she was an especially special, a uniquely unique person who was already giving so-much to the world, so much towards humanizing it, making it a kinder, user-friendly, better place, and who would engage so ever-more in this always ever-to-be-completed task and project;

and upon learning of her death, i simply and truly refused to believe it; in a mantra-like way i kept saying to myself this news must, has to be mis-information; it can not be accurate, truthful and reliable;

this can't be, can't be, can't be - i just saw u ester in toronto, and heard you sing a song from Psalms in a melody/tune you yourself composed in such a mellifluous, sweet-so-unassuming, yet-so-penetrating out-of-the-depths-i-call-out-to-you-o'God manner; this can't be, can't be - you just read out loud your mother angela's so-very clever and erudite, innovative, smile and laughter generating mishnaic-talmudic-like marriage greetings of 'mazal tov' to the people congregated at the wedding ; this can't be, can't be - was it not close-to-just-yesterday that we held a really meaningful d and m conversation together, from which i derived so-much pleasure and contentment from the hopeful positive professional and personal perspectives on your future you shared w/me during and in it; and more....

but eventually, despite my determination to "construct" a real-world reality in which ester in her concrete, physical particularity is present, i realized that in the latter shape and form she was not and could no longer be w/us in this/our world;

in the e mail letters exchanged between ester and me from mid-may thru the end of the third week of june 2006, it seems to me that a very considerable number of the qualities/features that made and make ester such an especially special and uniquely unique person can be seen, read and actually 'heard' in many of the passages in these missives she wrote and sent me; these missives from her are the last visible self-testimony of her flesh and blood concrete physical real presence in the world that i have;

Hubert Hall (Harmondsworth Detention Centre): Woman of Honour

Oh woman of honour
Dry your tears
Have no fear
The grave has taken you away,
But your spirit will live on to eternity.

Your body has passed away leaving us in tears,
With the thought of your supremacy,
Our condolences reach out for your friends, and
Your family
What an ideology!
Our tears is like a running river,
We are at a cross road,
But you are on the other side of the river,
Heading to a place of happiness,
One day we will meet on that side of the water,
Keep smiling,
Woman of honour.

By: Hubert Hall
Harmondsworth

Manjit (Colnbrook Detention Centre): She did great for us

We all detainees had lost a good friend.
We all sad from received this news today.
I have no words to say more. Only "I can say she did great for us".
We never forgetting her, she lives with us always, ever and ever!
Once again I’m so sorry this happened!

Thanks,

Manjit,
Colnbrook

L. (Colnbrook Detention Centre): She loved to help

Dear friend,

I am very sorry to had some very bad news like this, Ester I had spoken to once, but I know that she is a great person, and she is a friend that have given her life in service to many people. Moreover, she was a friend of poor people, and she loved to help the people, and she believed that in life everybody gets better when everybody is doing well. And the love she had to help the poor, we were going to miss an important person. We will really miss her. Let God bless her, and may the God of peace be with her now and forever.

Best wishes to the family and the friends,

L,
Colnbrook

P. (Harmondsworth Detention Centre): when I was at my lowest.

To Ester

There has been a time in my life when I felt that I couldn’t go on but Ester was always here to talk to me and make me feel strong in myself again.

I really believe that she was my guidance because at times when I was at my lowest I would share things that I couldn’t share with anybody else, talking to Ester has made me feel so light.

She was like an angel who you can call on and she would always be there. I am so sorry that she is no longer here with us, but she has been missed by a lot of people and that’s what I really want her family to know.

I also want the family to know that she has made a great impression on my life although we have only spoke over the phone, and I do know that she was very important to me. Ester has really touch my heart in many ways and I will never forget what she has done for me.

P.
Harmondsworth

Ebou (now released from Harmondsworth Detention Centre): no easy way to freedom

I write with profound shock and sadness when I heard the news that Ms Ester Gluck has inevitably passed away in an accident. At first it’s like a dream and I thought it’s not true at all. She has been so helpful to all the detainees at various detention centres particularly myself. She has been so dedicated and professional in the execution and deliberation of her expected duties. I have never met her personally but from her way of conversation with me I knew that her appointment to that office suits her perfectly.

She is strong, caring, untiring and energetic woman in all her endeavors with the detainees. I have also share this feeling with the rest of the detainees in here and on behalf of all the detainees here I am sending my deepest condolence once more again to your office and most importantly to her family. She is not only a lost to your office and her family but also to all the detainees in various detention centres in the UK; particularly the desperate ones like me. She deserves everything possible to be remembered; single, and hailed as a hero of all merciful human race. She is the only one who use to make me feel like I am at home the way she talk to me, the way she took over my problem and continue with the paper work sending faxes to different portfolios within concerned offices of the locality. In our dialogue most of the time she will advice me calm down despite the burden of stress and confusion you are undergoing She said and I quote "there is no easy way to freedom just remain strong Ebou! Am doing everything possible to make sure that you get your liberty" Any time she spoke to me I feel like I have seen all my scattered family back home and feel so happy.

Her untimely tragic death has therefore left a stain on my happiness as a detainee and a human. I know if you have the means of bringing her back to life you will definitely do so but I will also give a helping hand to that task.

I know no matter how much I will try to express my deep sympathy to your office in how much I feel cannot bring her to life its natures decision and every living thing must one day answer to natures call without questions. Its very difficult for all of us to accept this but let us not forget to continue praying for her soul to perfectly rest in eternal peace. May the almighty shower her with all the merciful blessings to her loving soul? Even though she is gone, she is partly with us I personally will never forget about her, Isha and all the office staff in general.

May the almighty god blesses her and cancelled all her sins and turn all her sins into rewards for her success in heaven. May the almighty god also shower his blessings to her family and all of you long life, happiness and prosperity in your endeavors Amen!!

Faithfully yours,

Ebou, Harmondsworth

Joel Stern: diamond in the rough

I was saddened and shocked when I heard the news about Ester's untimely death. I am 7 out of 9 months into yet another GAP year and am currently in New Zealand. I managed to find the website you have set up in memory of our lovely Ester and what a great tribute it is.

I first met Ester on Shemesh summer camp in 1993 and our mutually loud and extrovert personalities immediately found each other. Ester came up to Newcastle for my Bar Mitzvah in 1995 and I remember her as being the only girl there, bossing around a large gaggle of testosterone-fuelled 13 year olds. What a great job she did! Unfortunately, my being in Newcastle led to an eventual loss of contact with Ester, simply by practicalities and distance. As I said, I am currently away and a few months ago I remembered Ester and thought to myself how great it would be to catch up with her when I got back to the UK, as I will be moving to London. I am distraught I will not have this chance.

Last night I had a dream about Ester. I dreamt I was standing in a field and out of nowhere, Ester came running up to me. I found I was unable to speak but also that I did not have the desire to. Ester ran straight up to me and wrapped her arms around me, holding me tight as only Ester could. Although we did not speak, we cried into each other’s shoulders - nothing else needed to be said.

Ester was a wonderful, beautiful person. A diamond in the rough and someone we all looked up to as a perfect role model of what humankind should be like. The world is a worse place without her.

Susannah Marks: unique

My most vivid memories of you Ester are from childhood. They are of yourself, Miriam and I in Portugal in the Summer. Even then I can remember you trying to keep the peace between myself and Miri, you took the role of mother and at that early age showing your greater maturity. Ester if there was one word I could use to describe you it’s UNIQUE. You always stood out whenever I saw you. Although I did not see nearly as much of you after childhood I have a very distinct memory of more recently when you and Angela came down to the country to stay with us. I remember I was going through a terrible teenage phase and was screaming at everyone. I looked up to see your face and I suddenly got this horrific feeling about what I was doing, which I will never forget. You always made an impression on me that is so real you can touch it, it’s an indescribable feeling just UNIQUE and something I will never ever forget.

Mark Friend: Laughing and Crying

I still can’t believe that you’ve left us Ester. It seems like only yesterday that we were having lunch in Will and Gloria’s garden, soaking in the last of the Autumn sun and talking about life. Annie and I hadn’t seen you for a little while and there was a lot to catch up on. For a couple of hours the conversation careered from the most personal things in our lives through to the latest funny episode. A lot had happened to all of us and as usual we talked very openly and frankly, after all what other way is there to talk. I’ve thought about you every day over the last few weeks and I usually come back to the three of us laughing and crying and failing to wind up your mum (despite trying hard).

I also think a lot about the great times we had at your place over the years since we got to know you in the late ‘90s. Hanging out with us during Angela’s classes, you and Angela singing together, welcoming me in at festivals, opening my eyes to the joys of a good philosophical arm wrestle. Last year, in your succah, when Annie was heavily pregnant, you spent the whole time entertaining Max and Abigail –which largely entailed them chasing you around the garden like a mad thing, hiding in the undergrowth and telling lots of stories. They loved you immediately, which doesn’t often happen with them, and couldn’t get enough. I like to think that you’re entertaining Sam now, running around with him, telling him stories, giving him a hug when he needs it.

Crystal Oldman: Three Special Memories

Dear Ester

This is so hard to write. I have three special memories to share, Ester.

We first met when you were 3 years old and Angela was my tutor. I had no children of my own at the time, but my profession included daily contact with children of your age and assessment of their development; so I knew that you were a very special child the moment I met you. So knowing, so intellectually advanced for your young years, so capable of being a part of the conversation amongst a roomful of adults even at that young age! A very special bond was evident in the loving and affectionate relationship with your mum too – a kind of mutual respect that does not normally emerge for a number of decades (and sometimes never) between a parent and child.

A couple of weeks ago I looked at photos of you at our wedding at age four. What a gorgeous picture you made, and really you should have been my bridesmaid – in every photo you were there standing firmly in front of the one adult bridesmaid (an adult) that I had, wrapped in her long skirts and holding her bouquet. After the wedding, the comments about the charming, enchanting and oh-so-obedient little bridesmaid I received were a delight!

Skip forward 14 years for my second memory. This is of the evenings spent in your flat when you were working in the Day Nursery and Alex & Ollie were being tutored for their B’Nei Mitzvah by your mum in the living room. Every Wednesday night you would come home to find that you had Janice & myself in your kitchen, but you never once complained that your teenage space had been invaded. After a long and exhausting day at work, you sat with us on the floor of the kitchen every week for months and sipped tea and chatted about your day and your plans for Africa. You always had time for us and it was like talking to a third friend who had just joined the party. Never mind that there was a 23 year age gap, your mature conversation, exchanging views on humanity and your accounts of your day at work were engaging and amusing and I always looked forward to those evening interludes with you.

I was delighted to have time with you again on Sunday mornings when you were 21 and the boys were again being tutored by Angela for their GSCE. We spent many a happy Sunday morning discussing the dubious potential value to any future career of taking statistics exams, the state of the world and the meaning of life and you never once complained when you woke up to find I was in your kitchen again when you emerged for a quiet Sunday morning. You said that you could never be a teacher and yet Alex & Ollie said that when you joined Angela for any of their sessions over the years they loved your teaching; you were a gifted teacher with an instant rapport with children of all ages and an innate ability to convey knowledge and enable understanding.

My third memory is of the wonderful Pesach and Rosh Hashanah celebrations spent in your home with you and Angela. Our family were welcomed into your home with open arms and I cannot imagine another High Holiday without your beautiful face, your lovely smile, your gorgeous voice, your amazingly accurate mimicking of Adam - and the heated discussions between you & Gary about the latest world news, which you loved to tease him as being singularly responsible for.

Ester, we love you. Gary, Alex, Ollie and I will never experience another Pesach or Rosh Hashanah celebration without remembering what we are missing. You have made each one of us a better person for knowing you and you will always be in our hearts.

Crystal X

P.S. Ester, this was not so hard after all. I only had to think of you and the words (and tears) flowed. CX

Natalie Marx: Ester and Ghana

When frequently asked 'Of all the places in Africa why did you chose to go to Ghana?' Ester and I always proclaimed that it was Ghana which chose us. Fate had somehow landed us together in a wonderland of smiles, warmth, fufu and heavenly music.

I observed that summer how my best friend - sister - formed a love affair with Ghana and all its beauty.

Ester, with all her own beauty, instantly found a deeply rooted connection to a people who at first glance appear so different to our/her own. She connected spiritually to a people whose faith in G-d was magnificent, despite challenges which faced them. Determined to connect physically, she would endeavour to pound fufu. We were taught by some girls at a Vocational Training Center to use a huge machete to chop down shrubs…Ester put me to shame as she hacked away, unwavering in the challenge. Enjoying every single moment. Effortlessly she was able to eradicate the barrier caused by the colour of her skin, empowering those she was in contact with and she would open her arms and heart to everyone she met.

I was humbled when I saw Ester and her capacity to love ...because to her it was entirely instinctive. The children in the orphanage were not afraid of Ester as they were of so many other strangers. Ester had endless amounts of ways to adore the children and they truly adored her. As did all those who met her … and when she returned to Ghana a year later, their love remained true as they did not hesitate to remember her name and welcomed her with open arms and love. As with everything in esters life – it was so important for her that this summer in Ghana was not simply an experience from which she would benefit. No – for Ester it was her aspiration to follow through the programme she had so modestly set up in Ghana. If not for the fact that she wanted to see good being done … but also to make sure no damage was going to be done! As well as mastering the language of Ghana – Twi – learning to speak, read and write in an attempt to truly ‘understand’ the people we were working with, she also mastered the art of volunteering. She was and will always remain for me my angel and role model. I am blessed that Ester was my best friend and may her memory continue to be a shining example for Tzedek of what a true volunteer should aspire to be.

Karena Smith: The Strength in You

Darling Ester
Two days old
Bright and shining
Love to hold.

Babysitting
Watch you sleep
Write an essay
Not a peep.

Growing bigger
We read books
Draw wild pictures
Practice funny looks.

Away awhile
A card or two
Purple sad storms
The strength in you!

All that is beauty
Wise and kind
Heart gift to others
Magical mind.

Study days
An email back
Witty message
With punch to pack

Recent evening
So good to share
My favourite thing?
That you were there

My name is Kas and I am very lucky to have known Ester since she was born. What a privilege to watch such a fine young woman grow and become this amazing magical person. Ester touched me and many others so deeply, I didn’t know how deeply. She held a passion for right, thought so much and cared about real things that matter. She connected and understood, more than a people person somehow people were in her person. We often played with words. I struggled with what and how to write for this blog, nothing seems to write right. Ester is special; my times with her were sheer delight and joy. I love Ester and always will.

Debbie Young: Teshuva, Tefilla and Tzedaka

Neilah sermon: Neilah is the closing service—the last of five services on Yom Kippur, the Day for Atonement.

In Memory of my Esty, 1982—2006

I must begin with an apology. I am aware that my sermons have not been on the happiest of themes, and I am afraid, this sermon will not be the one to break that mould, and a warning, this may be emotional. As I am sure you already have gathered, last Wednesday, at 10.30 am, my best friend and soul mate, Ester, zichronah livracha, died. It may seem a cliché, but it is absolutely true that a light has been lost from the world. You have graciously welcomed me into your midst for the last two chagim, and for Yom Kippur today, I hope you will feel able to forgive my indulgence at this time, and see what Ester had to teach us all. Every time I have tried to express how much she contributed to the world, and how to meet her was to love her, it seems I am just speaking as any would of the dead, but she was a truly remarkable young woman, who shone with wisdom, wit, and a wonderful view of the world, and who did more in her 24 years than many of us will ever achieve. I would like to dedicate this sermon to her, as I feel she really can be a model for us as we begin to prepare ourselves to re-enter the world out there. On Yom Kippur we talk about Teshuva, return, Tefilla, prayer, and Tzedaka, charity and justice. I would like to show how Ester was a wonderful model in these areas, and what she had to teach us.

Let me begin with Tefilla. Prayer. When Ester prayed, or led prayer, her voice led the way. She worshipped in song, and her whole being seemed involved in the act. She could bring a whole room with her, and one really felt her song could carry everyone’s words to heaven. But even though her voice was beautiful, one had to join in with her. The act was so joyous that you just had to be a part of it. I would like us all to consider our own tefilla, particularly after a day so full of it. How often do we allow ourselves to be carried along by the community, or the leader? How often do we say empty words in English? Or words we simply don’t understand in Hebrew? How often do we put off learning until tomorrow, forgetting that tomorrow may never come? If we empower ourselves to fully participate, and explore readings and learn tunes so that we can really be involved in the proceedings, the experience will be more joyous for each of us as individuals, and as a consequence, the prayer of the community will be fuller and richer and will naturally be something you want to be a part of. Unfortunately most of us need more help than Ester did to achieve kavannah, real feeling, in prayer, but we must not assume it is not there, we must perhaps just look for it and work for it that bit harder.

Tzedakah. This could be a 20-minute piece on its own! Ester was outraged by the daily injustices she saw around her, as I know we all are. But while Ester was outraged, she didn’t sit around complaining about it, she acted. She had to do something. She had to try to make a difference, and what a difference she made. Even as a four year old, after her parents had explained the situation to her that many Jews in the Soviet Union lived under, being bullied, picked on, and worst of all for Ester, having to sing songs quietly so that neighbours couldn’t hear, she responded by saying ‘ah, you mean they are living like in Pharoah’s place!’ It then became her mission to pester her parents not to buy her the latest toy, but to take a trip to Russia, which they finally did, smuggling in many essentials for the refuseniks, a number of which could be disguised as children’s toys. Even without really knowing it, she had begun to make a difference. Whilst at university, she spent two summers not on holiday with her friends on beaches, but in Ghana working with Tzedek, a Jewish charity which sends volunteers to third world countries to work in overseas development projects. Her first summer was spent researching potential projects with which Tzedek could work. She then returned the next summer, having learnt enough of the local language, to lead a team of volunteers into the projects she had investigated. She had been outraged by the imbalance between the West and Africa, and she had done something practical, and made a real difference on the ground.

Back in the UK she volunteered for a refugee absorption centre, as well as a drop in centre and helpline, before finally being appointed (and therefore paid) to be project co-ordinator for a refugee project this summer. She felt very strongly that as a Jew her history made it an absolute imperative that she do something, and that she make a difference for those who arrived as our ancestors did before us, as strangers in the strange land of England. She was outraged by the injustices she saw, and she acted. Every homeless person on the Kilburn High Road where she lived knew her, and had at one time or another received food from her. She would never waste a thing. When she left a lecture at Cardiff University to find a skip being filled up with out of date computers, she sat down and cried. She couldn’t stop them, and she could think of so many places that could use them. This senseless waste outraged her, and in her home everything that could be was recycled, and she never threw anything away.

She was also involved in interfaith dialogue, but sometimes had the feeling that talking just wasn’t enough, so she got herself involved in an interfaith theatre project, where she worked every week with Muslims and Jews to produce theatre and dialogue that was meaningful to all, and that showed they could work together to achieve something. And as if that didn’t keep her busy enough, she also volunteered with charities such as Focus, working with children with special needs.

In 24 years, she volunteered and put her energy into more things than many would manage in their full three score years and ten. Tzedakah was not an abstract concept to her, and while she rarely had much money to spare, she gave of her time as freely as she could. While she always managed to find time to see friends and be with the people that were important to her, making a difference to others just came naturally to Esty, and she never thought twice to do what she could. I do not know how much time and money each of you can and do give, but in the pursuit of justice incumbent upon us today and every day as Jews, I know that I personally could do more, and I am humbled by Ester and her generosity, and forced to reconsider how I will spend my time and money in 5767.

This last part, Teshuva, return, is the hardest part. Ester was wonderful, but she was not a saint. She was very good at giving, and at loving others. But she was not always so good at loving herself. As we make teshuva, and attempt to examine ourselves, we must also remember to make time for ourselves. We cannot give without receiving, and we must know our own strengths and beauties if we are to be able to continue giving as fully as we should. In making our repentance and return to God, we must remember the sins we commit against ourselves. This neglect will come back to bite us in the end, and we must be wary of it. None of us is perfect, but none of us is wholly bad either. As I said this morning, we have both good and bad, spiritual and material in us, and it is in finding the right balance between these opposites that Judaism teaches we will best contribute to the world which at this time seems to me to be even more broken than usual.

My friend is gone, but those who were touched by her are not. All those we have loved and lost in years past have left their marks on us, and as we remember them tonight, let us think of what we would like our legacy to be in this world. As Jacob P. Rudin writes in the Reform Machzor: "When we are dead, and people weep for us and grieve, let it be because we touched their lives with beauty and simplicity. Let it not be said that life was good to us, but, rather, that we were good to life"

This year let us not be paralysed by despair, or outrage, apathy, or self hatred, let us remember the good that those we have loved and lost did for us, and for our communities. Let us make their memories a blessing by continuing to work towards a world that will be better for those who will come to remember us, and hope that we may have achieved a fraction of what Ester Gluck did.

Venomar Amen.

Margaret Devereux: a remarkable child

Ester and Angela lived below us in Brondesbury Villas and my memories of Ester are of her as a small child and after we moved, teaching her piano until her mid-teens.

Ester was a remarkable child - those luminous, startlingly clear blue eyes, the directness of her gaze, her inquiring mind, her warmth and sense of humour, her desire to make you feel included, all fostered by a generosity of spirit with which she had been embued by Angela. She was such a lively stimulating child to have around, who seemed as at ease in adult company as with small children. She and Angela came to our daughter's baptism and I remember her sitting on Angela's knee asking questions about what was happening and Angela taking pains to explain it all to her and help her understand - it was a beautiful symbol of their relationship. And Ester was at pains to expand that sense of mutual understanding to a wider circle - she would bring us little cakes, invite us to see the shelter she and Angela had built at Sukkot, tell me about the youth camps she went on when she was older. We felt very privileged to be included at her BatMitvah celebrations and hear that wonderfully strong voice sing.

It was no surprise to hear of her committment to working with refugees - Ester was always going to be a force for good in the world and it is heartbreaking that the world is now deprived of her clarity of vision and her energy and love for others. Our heart goes out to Angela in such a great loss.

We thank God for her life.

Robert, Margaret, Jennifer and Caroline Devereux

Judith Ish-Horowicz: I owe you, Ester

Ester, it's so hard to look backwards and remember without you here prompting me with your memories. 'Do you remember when...?'

Maybe its because each memory is such a small fragment of the whole and I will never be able to encapsulate all the apects of your relationship with me and my family through the years.

When we first met about 15 years ago, it seemed the most natural thing for us to spend our Shabbats together. We have videos of our holidays together and you even provided Michal with the pet she had always wanted when your hamster, Jo-Eli came to stay. Why Jo-Eli? Because Joanna was with you when Elisheva, the hamster gave birth.

You were the filling that complimented the Tamar and Shoshi sandwich and another big sister for Joanna and Michal to emulate and to turn to for advice and love.

Not many people have the time, energy, sensitivity and awareness to individualise and personalise their relationships the way you did. You noticed if one of us was low or hurting. You showed us that we mattered.

We had so many laughs and tears together, you, your mum, Patrick, me and the girls. 'The girls' was allowed, as was the SET and all 5 of you named individually even if the wrong name was attached to each of you, but definitely, not 'the twins'. You moved in with us when your mum was away training and even went to school with Tamar and Shoshi for a week. Angela and I swapped daughters, mine worked for her and you worked with me, teaching at Apples and Honey Nursery before travelling to Israel in your gap year. The children loved you and it was obviously mutual.

I owe you, Ester. You never redeemed the driving lessons we gave to you for your birthday presents, but I'm not going to let you off so easily. Our lives changed when we met you and Angela. Wherever we go, whatever we do, your influence will be with us, it has helped to shape us. We shall still turn to each other and share esterisms. We shall still ask ourselves 'what would Ester say, what would she do?'

Your life was too short but it was full and rich and its impact will continue and continue. You will remain in my heart , young and vibrant, sensitive and beautiful, laughing, crying, arguing and reflectiing. The work you were so passionate about will continue because you will continue to inspire us with your vision and your humanity. You were, are and always will be for a blessing.

Debbie Young: Organic Holiness

Sukkot two years ago, I was invited with some friends to sit in a Sukkah in Kilburn. This Sukkah was the finest I had ever sat in, and in fact it was one of the first times I had sat in a Sukkah in someone’s home as opposed to one connected to a synagogue. Beautiful oriental lamps were hanging next to pictures painted anything from 5 hours ago to 15 years ago. Sukkot from years past remained with my hostess, as guests were welcomed in for the first time or the 10th. We were a gathering of Sephardim and Ashkenazim, Liberal, Orthodox, Masorti and Reform Jews, and trainee Rabbis from Orthodox and Progressive seminaries. This was the Sukkah of my friend Ester (z’l) and her mum Angela, and I will never forget it.

Preparing for Sukkot this year has been strange, because I know I will not sit with Ester in her Sukkah again. She tragically died shortly before Yom Kippur, and I have felt this loss acutely in all I have done since. But I have also erected my first proper Sukkah (not counting the joke of a ‘safari Sukkah’ we tried last year!) and as I decorated it, I felt a need to recreate what Ester and Angela were able to create — a safe, warm, cosy spot, where holiness was organic, and so was the food, all were welcomed, and there was a true sense of Am Echad, one people. I have felt a tremendous sense of impermanence and fragility ever since Ester’s death — there was no need for a Sukkah to tell me this. But as my husband and I scurried about last Thursday and Friday desperately trying to ready our Sukkah and home for ourselves and for our guests, the impermanence found a home in the Sukkah. As I hung fruit in net bags, and remembered how Ester and Angela had horded net bags all year round one year to keep them going for Sukkot in the future, I had a real sense of how encompassing the Jewish year and Jewish life can be. While I am overburdened trying to cope with High Holy Days, a huge number of assignments from college, my teaching commitments, and trying to grieve for my best friend, I also must cling onto why I am here at LBC — to help create sustainable, joyful, enriched and empowered Jewish lives, and to bring people together in celebration of God’s blessings, and for strength when dealing with the world’s cruelties. Although it was hard to find the time, creating a Sukkah in which my friends and family can sit, celebrate, eat, talk and sing is, right now, the best way I can think to celebrate both my Judaism, and all that Ester was able to bring to it.

Let’s use this festival, and all those to come this year, to bring people together, to talk, tell stories, and celebrate. Rather than only having full synagogue’s on Yom HaShoah and Yom Kippur, let’s try to have our Sukkot and Purim parties full, and let’s make time to ensure our Jewish calendars don’t get subsumed by all the other commitments we have — it’s important we have that time to just be with others, and not just our books, however difficult that may be with our work loads. In Ester’s honour, I want to endeavour to fill my Sukkah with peace and love to do it with a sense of openness, pluralism, justice and the sheer enjoyment of what Judaism and Ester have brought to my life.
May this be God’s will.
Venomar Amen.

Rachel Ouseley: holidays with Ester

I went on several holidays with Ester and Angela when Ester was young. I have happy memories of our holidays together.

We went to Spain; I recall Ester learning and practising the ‘Motzi’ (blessing before eating bread). I remember she would eat several little pieces, practising the blessing before each one, till she could say it fluently. We enjoyed popping the bubble-wrap with which the chairs were covered together. She was two at the time.

We went to Israel. We stayed in a hotel called Hotel Sonesta. On the way home in the Egged Bus, Ester would charm everyone on the bus; as she arrived at the bus stop, the driver would sing out ‘Hotel Sonesta l’Ester.’

We went to Moscow and Leningrad twice in the winter, visiting refuseniks in ‘Pharoah’s place’, when Ester was about four years old. On arrival in the bus, Ester sang ‘David Melech Yisrael.’ Unfortunately we had to ask her to stop, as people were not supposed to know we were Jewish. Some tourists did hear us – luckily they were doing the same as us. On return to Heathrow, they and Ester danced the Hora (Jewish circle dance) in the middle of the concourse. We spent almost the entire time visiting refuseniks; Ester made good friends with them and their children. She did get tired – I recall having to decide whether to give her or the big bag of goods I was carrying to the helpful Soviet citizen who offered to help, when Ester fell asleep as we were going up the stairs of the underground. I believe I gave him the goods and carried Ester. After a few days of traipsing everywhere, Ester said ‘when we have finished saving the Jews, can I play in the snow,’ which I thought was a really beautiful remark. Ester and I went to the Russian state circus, a break from visiting refuseniks. She wore an all-in-one snow suit. She was really patient as we struggled to take it off and then a little while later struggled to put it on again – all in the dark. We joined the long queue for ice-cream, narrowly missing the beginning of the show, having to grope our way in the dark to our seats. On the way into the country, she filled in her immigration form with care and charmed the immigration people with the careful way she had filled it in. Ester wore really chunky snow-boots though she did not find out till later quite how useful they had been when leaving the country!

Ester was always an interesting travelling companion, ready to go anywhere and do anything; she made friends easily and charmed everyone she met.

Pat Courtney: caoin

Lord, you are hard on mothers;
We suffer in their coming and their going.

This is a line taken from a poem written by Paraic Pearce, the leader of the Dublin Uprising in 1916. It was his effort to try and explain the pain of a mother in the senseless death of so many young men in that uprising. I say it is an effort, for Pearce and other men do not fully understand the pain of their ‘coming’ or the even greater pain of their ‘going’. We have an expression in the Gaelic language called a caoin. Perhaps the nearest translation in English is a wail of lament. In that cemetery on that Friday when beloved Ester was laid to rest, I heard that caoin. This was a mother’s cry and it struck deep. I can only imagine what caused that caoin. I cannot experience what caused that caoin.

I have memories of Ester. My wife, Marguerita, worked with Angela in a comprehensive school in north London. Ester and my son were about the same age. They were friends and both families became great friends. We were all present at her Bat Mitzvah. How powerful that voice was!

This beautiful purple princess, plucked from life, has given more to fellow human beings than most of us could do in a lifetime. I do not understand the mind of God. She has left all of us with her wit, laughter and a deepness of soul that only God can understand.
She is at peace. Angela suffers in her ‘going.’

"As for ourselves, save us by your hand, and come to my help for I am alone, and have no one but you, Lord. You have knowledge of all things………and free me from my fear." (Esther 4.17)

Ruth Sinclair: hearts of flesh

‘Esterthepurpleprincess.blogspot.com’

No, somehow that still reduces you to words. Not quite like it did a month ago, but even so, still. It’s getting more real, but it is still not the bright, vibrant, caring, compassionate, kind, lively, intelligent person who will never leave us, who will always be in our hearts. It minimises you, and especially at a time like this we do not want you minimised, reduced to essentials. It isn’t even the essential you. There was so much more to you than that. Oh, Ester … you leave us with broken hearts, shattered hearts, hearts that will never be the same again. We would never have been the same anyway, having known you; you never left anyone the same, but made an impact on each life you touched.

But God – Baruch HaShem – has promised to be particularly close to the broken-hearted, to bind up the broken-hearted. It’s part of His job description. So says David haMelech, so says Isaiah, but the prophet Ezekiel says that He will take out our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh. Then He is going to write His Law on our hearts … but it is so much easier to write on stone than on flesh! I can’t believe stone hurts like flesh hurts, either. And we are hurting. Badly. So badly. You? Are you free of pain now? Or do you feel our pain? In life you felt our pain. You noticed, when no-one else did. You cared. You came. You were there. You laid aside your own pain, your own cares, for everyone else. It didn’t matter who it was, it didn’t matter what the pain; you felt it, you ministered.

I do so hope you are out of pain now. You have gone ahead of us, so you know things we don’t. Do you? I hope so. You are in a place none of us has visited. Can you read our blogs? Still feel our hearts? Perhaps, perhaps not; it doesn’t detract from our love for you. That is still real, and we are still grateful, so grateful, for the privilege of having known you.

A few days after you left us Radio 4 carried an item about nose jobs. They described smashing the bone of the nose … not pretty. Thinking about how God takes out our hearts of stone, and replaces them with hearts of flesh … the principle is the same … First, of course, He has to smash that original stony heart, so cold, so hard, so unresponsive, so self-protective. Yours was not cold, not unresponsive, not self-protective. What happened to make you so empathetic – or was it hereditary? But for those of us with a different heritage, He has to smash the stone of our hearts if He wants to make anything useful of us. Is that why He snatched you from us, so unutterably brutally? He is not a brutal God; He is a loving God! How could He allow it? It makes no sense, it is so out of character!

We scream in agony as our hearts are smashed – but then, in His infinite mercy, He begins to patch them up again, so that they are able to go on beating – albeit to a slightly different tune. We still hurt, we hurt so much, even as He joins up the broken fragments, using flesh as the ‘glue,’ so it sounds different to a physician. But He doesn’t want any stone left, so as soon as the heart is beating OK and the blood circulating again, it seems that He may smash some more of the bits of stone. We see it in action on any building site ... but on a building site it is academic. When we ourselves are under the anvil we can’t stand it; at a time like this, the pain feels too great to bear.

That’s how we feel – so how about your mother, your amazing mother? You would be so proud of her now, she whose calling, like Deborah, is to be ‘a mother in Israel,’ and yet whose natural child has been so cruelly taken from her in an instant. She with whom you made such a brilliant team, she from whom you inherited your big heart, your compassionate nature, your caring for the one who is despised, rejected, oppressed, afflicted, the asylum seeker, the refugee, the outcast, she who taught you to notice and to nurture the underdog, to feed the hungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to take in the stranger, to clothe the naked, to visit the sick, to go to the prisoner. We hurt for her, too, immeasurably, although we know that her calling is bigger than that, that she has many, many more children than you, many, many more, throughout the world, who love her deeply as a mother, whose lives she has influenced and will continue to influence for good. As she taught you, you enlarged her; as she teaches others, your influence will flow through her and continue in her, so that, in and through her you will never be forgotten. She is not you, nor would we want her to be; she is herself. We love you both, individually, for who you both are, interlinked but independent, two very special women, unforgettable, always in our hearts.

This was supposed to be a reminiscence of you. It’s still a sea of pain, such pain – ‘Is there no balm in Gilead; is there no physician there? … Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!’

Angela Gluck: Not Whether But How

This is an article first published in 1992. It’s about education and refugees and antiracism and interfaith dialogue and a lot of things… but it’s also about Ester as a child.

April 1986
We stay with a friend for Pesah (Passover). On the wall hangs a striking poster, advertising an event in aid of Soviet Jews. It features a shadowy landscape, with a lone figure apparently being buffeted by the wind. My daughter Ester, then almost four, is absolutely captivated by it. As well as going to sleep each night and waking up each morning to look at it, as it were, she stares long and hard at it at any available moment during the day. About half-way through the week—presumably after struggling in vain to understand what it was about—she asks for an interpretation. Well, there is place far away where Jews like us have a very hard life. People call them horrible names and sometimes hit them. Children are afraid to say they are Jewish in case they get teased or bullied, or the teachers pick on them. There are hardly any synagogues or prayer books. It’s very difficult to get matzah (unleavened bread) for Pesah and the Jews have to hold their seders (Passover ritual meals) in secret, in case they get into trouble… “Oh,” she remarks, conclusively, “you mean it’s like Pharaoh’s place!” Out of the mouth of babes...

In the months that follow, ‘Pharaoh’s place’ becomes—and remains to this day—our code word for the predicament of Jews in the USSR and, indeed, for the condition of oppressed minorities in general. Her questioning about their situation becomes more persistent and her determination to alleviate it grows.

September 1986
Ester starts school, the only Jewish girl in her class. She has a conscientious and ‘stretching’ teacher who is full of flair and fun.

October 1986
We yield to Ester’s consistent pressure to visit refusenik families in the Soviet Union and complicated preparations begin: briefings with support groups; choosing Soviet Jewish families with young children; memorising their ‘details’; collecting money; buying Jewish materials and other necessities of life, as gifts; internalising procedures and precautions…

November 1986
Ester’s class learns about the Jewish festival of Hanukah and there is a small display of artefacts. It includes a tallit (prayer shawl), which—the teacher apparently points out—is worn only by Jewish men.

“Is that true?” I ask Ester.

Long pause.

“Do you know any Jewish women who wear a tallit?”

“Yes, I do—and you wear one.”

“Did you think of telling your teacher?”

“Yes, but I didn’t want to get you into trouble!”

An interesting and important statement about the authority and power of a strong and attractive teacher. A teacher affects eternity, I learned when I was at college, for she never knows where her influence stops…

December 1986
Ester is given the part of the Angel Gabriel in the school Nativity play. Is this a job for a Jewish girl? Rightly or wrongly, she participates and, ad nauseam, practises proclaiming, “Behold!” with outstretched arms in her loudest voice. The play is performed to critical acclaim and transfers to the ‘Old People’s Home’ for their Christmas party.

December 1986/January 1987
We spend an exhausting—but invigorating and satisfying—week visiting refusenik families, sharing what we can of Jewish life and learning, laughing and crying together. Ester plays with girls and boys of her age, and they manage to communicate—as children often do—without a common language. We conclude that we gained far more than we gave and we muse that Ester got more Jewish education that week than she could possibly be expected to get in a lifetime.

January 1987
Ester recounts her Soviet experience at news time in class and also writes about it in her news book.

March 1987
Ester pens a letter (in non-joined-up writing):

“Dear President Gorbachev,
Please let Simha come to my birthday party. All my other friends will be there and I am sad. She is a very nice girl and it is not fair. Please let her come, and her Mummy and Daddy and baby sister, too.

Love from Ester XXX.”

She draws him a picture of Simha and herself playing in the snow, with some incongruous flowers growing nearby and a big bright sun in the sky.

Ester is deeply disappointed that she does not get a reply and that Simha’s family remain in refusal, after 17 years.

April 1987
Ester is in floods of tears. Why didn’t anyone ever tell her before, she demands to know, why we killed Jesus and why we are such nasty people? He was a very nice man and he never hurt anyone in his whole life. It is Easter, of course, and it transpires that her very imaginative teacher, who is firmly committed to ‘active learning’, arranged class drama to enact the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ. She has presumably wanted the experience to have impact, to be taken to heart; and she has clearly been successful. But is Ester’s distress the effect she intended? I very much doubt it. Still, what to do? I am then a religious education adviser in another local education authority, which encourages all professionals to provide positive self-images of all learners and, at the very least, not present negative self-images. I know exactly what I would do if one of ‘our’ teachers wittingly or unwittingly alienated their pupils. But this is more complicated because I and my child—and my people—are involved. And because this is a Christian-Jewish issue in a Christian-Jewish context. The school is not neutral; society is not neutral; and my studies of the Gospel—while an undergraduate and later as a secondary teacher of religious education—show that the accounts of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ are not neutral, either. I also recall how many teachers feel about parents who are themselves teachers and reflect that I am trying to be an ‘ordinary’ parent at Ester’s school but I have to acknowledge the painful conflict between my professional and personal responses.

I remember a rabbi once saying that a Jewish home is a place where joys are celebrated and sorrows are mourned. I’m sure it’s true of many homes and Jewish homes are the same as other homes, perhaps just more so. We cuddle and talk for ages—and say that some of our best friends are Christian! Ester names them: Ken and Marguerita and Pat and Andrew and Peter and Julie…

“Do they think we killed Jesus and that we’re nasty?”

“No, they don’t think we’re nasty and they like us as much as we like them.” We recall the happy times we had with Christian friends and all the love they show us.

“But my teacher read from their book and it says we did kill Jesus. And we acted it in class!” She breaks down.

Momentarily I rue my understanding of Christian theology and Church history; momentarily I rue the interfaith dialogue to which I have committed my professional and personal life. I so wish I could say that Christians have cooked the books; I so wish I could say it’s a fairy tale. I don’t want my five-year-old to learn about Christianity like this; I don’t want to have this conversation with her now. Part of me admires the dedicated teacher and her stimulating approaches; part of me could kill her.

“Jesus was also a Jew. Yes, he was nice but there are some people who don’t like good people. Maybe they are jealous of them or maybe they are bad themselves and don’t want the good people to stop them being bad. They call them names like ‘goody-goody’ and sometimes they bully them. That’s what happened to Jesus. Most of his friends were Jewish and they liked him but some people hated him, too, and they tried to make him shut up. But they couldn’t and in the end they killed him. It’s the worst thing to kill someone—whether they’re good or bad.” Pathetic and cowardly over-simplification, perhaps even distortion. I wonder what the Evangelists would say—probably, “That’s not what we wrote!” Perhaps they, like Jewish parents in our society, were in a bind: I like to think so and that they wrote what they could.

“But did we kill Jesus?” she presses. There’s no point saying, “Don’t be silly: we weren’t even born then!” to a child who has come to identify with her people’s history—not to mention their destiny—and whose tradition encourages all its ‘children’ to do just that. That’s precisely why she’s asking, “Did we kill Jesus?”

There are so many levels of truth and it’s hard to cope with any one of them, let alone all of them together…
Historical: did the Jews, or did they not, kill Jesus?
Cultural (Jewish): are ‘we’ the Jews of Jesus’ time?
Cultural (Christian): are our Christian friends like the Evangelists? If they think we killed Jesus, how come they like us? If they don’t, are they really Christian?
Theological (Christian): is it necessary to believe that the Jews killed Jesus in order to believe in him as the Son of God?
Theological (Jewish): is God replacing us, or allowing us to be replaced, by Christianity? If not, why is there all this suffering?
Theological (Christian and Jewish): does God believe that the Jews killed Jesus and what does God want of us anyway?
Social (Christian and Jewish): what sense can we make of our tragic history? How can we live together and love each other, and be beautifully ourselves?
Moral (Christian): is there any connection between Christian teaching and the Jewish condition?
Moral (Jewish): what does it mean when we are referred to as a ‘minority par excellence’?—that we are excellent at being a minority?
Educational: is this the best way to approach the Easter story with an Infant class? Is it helping them to see what it’s really about?
Psychological (mine): Ester needs to feel good about Christians and Christianity; she also needs to feel good about herself. Is it too much to ask to have both?

“No, we didn’t kill Jesus. Some bossy people had Jesus killed but we got blamed for it. The people who wrote the story down were scared to say who really killed him. But you’re right to think that it’s not fair. It’s lucky that they wrote down lots of lovely, true things, as well.”

Lucky, too, that Ester doesn’t ask how you could tell which things are lovely and true and which are nasty and false. Our family lost a lot of innocence that day: Ester grew up—and the adults grew old—far too quickly. Overnight, she could easily become a school-refuser but is dragged, ‘kicking and screaming’… I take a deep breath and ask to speak to the teacher, not to complain formally, I decide, but to explain Ester’s distress—the way you would if someone had died, for example. In a way, someone has.

The teacher is visibly shocked. “I didn’t mean to upset anyone. The children enjoy acting a lot and their little play yesterday was very good. I think the Easter story is really important—much more important than Christmas—but no one ever does it properly. I said to the class, ‘It’s then as now.’ I mean there were problems then and there are problems now. I think that acting out the story helped them see that for themselves.” She produces the Good News Bible and shows me the passages she had marked to read to the class: I can hardly bear to look. “It’s much better for them to have the real thing, I think. I can’t help what’s written there but I’m terribly sorry if it made Ester unhappy. I’ve been teaching for eight years and I don’t think I’ve ever hurt a child’s feelings before.”

I feel the personal-professional conflict welling up again. “Then you’ve done very well,” I try to say kindly, “because I’ve been in education even longer and not a day has passed that I didn’t hurt someone!”

The classroom is, as always, inviting and engaging: the bulbs, planted in the autumn, are now in full bloom and the walls are clad with the work of the children’s hands and minds. There is also a stunning display of a caterpillar turning into a butterfly, evidently a collective production based on Eric Carle’s The Hungry Caterpillar. This much-loved book tells of a caterpillar that eats more and more every day of the week until it finally gets a tummy-ache, bursts and is transformed into a glorious butterfly. I know primary teachers who convey Easter themes through that book: the gradual growth, the pain of death, the bursting into life, the vibrant transformation. They say that’s what the Easter experience—for Christ and for Christians—is all about. And they can do it with a bowl of daffodils or day-old chicks, as well. I resist the temptation to tell her how to suck eggs, Easter or otherwise. I’m not her religious education adviser: I’m one of ‘her’ parents. But I leave her with the thought, I hope, that what really counts is not whether but how…

January 1989
Ester is punched in the stomach at lunchtime. A Kurdish girl has come to the school and knows not a word of English. Ester tries her best ‘Asalamu aleikum’ and it works! The girl replies, ‘Wa aleikum salam’, with a broad grin! They exchange these Islamic greetings several times a day, to all accounts. Then in the playground several boys tease the girl about her name. Aided and abetted by her best friend, Kalechi, Ester tells them not to. They don’t take very kindly to that suggestion. “You tell ‘em, Ester!” Kalechi urges. And she does: she tells them it’s not nice to pick on people and how would they like it if it happened to them? They protest that the Kurdish girl can’t understand them, anyway, so what difference does it make? It matters, they are told, because she can see what they’re doing and she can feel what they mean. “Yeah!” Kalechi joins in. (Ester and Kalechi later admit that, for emphasis, they made flapping motions with bent arms, which signalled ‘chicken’!) Then the boys sock it to Ester. The Kurdish girl leaves school that day and never returns.

The class teacher doesn’t seem to consider the matter worth mentioning at the parents’ consultation meeting, which happens to take place that evening—but it is raised all the same! They will look into it. Ester nurses her bruised belly, and she and Kalechi nurse their wounded pride. Nothing is said in assembly; nothing is said in class news time; nothing is said in private. There are no investigations, no challenges, no apologies. When approached, the headteacher is sorry to have been rather busy lately and not to have done anything about it but the girls acted wrongly: they should either have ignored the boys or told a teacher.

You can’t help wondering if the implementation of the school’s antiracist policy is solely dependent on the sensitivity and courage of two small children… On the other hand, if Ester (Jewish) and Kalechi (Black)—at the ripe old age of six-and-three-quarters—can see through their own pain to the pain of others, if they can break out of the cycle of misunderstanding, oppression and suffering, if they know what that costs and are willing to pay the price, there may yet be hope for us all.

April 1990
I take up post as a religious education inspector in London. For inspiration and delight, I lighten my notice board with pictures, clippings and extracts from a range of religious writings, including the following quotations from rabbinic sources:

“You are not free to complete the task but neither are you free to refrain from it.”

“If I am not for myself, who will be for me? But if I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

“From my teachers I have learned; from my colleagues even more; from my pupils most of all.”

December 1991
Ester reads the above and passes it for publication as an accurate historical record and a true reflection of her sentiments.

Belinda Hirsh: inspired and inspiring

Just over a year ago, I recruited Ester as a volunteer for a charity I'm involved with www.focus-charity.co.uk. We needed an extra volunteer for a short residential project and we needed someone who would be able to cope with the challenging young people we worked with, so obviously I thought of Ester, and obviously she immediately agreed to come along. And obviously she was an instant success.

One night on the project, she and I went outside for a break after the participants had all gone to bed. We snuck out past the dorms and went to swing on some swings in the middle of a field. We stopped to watch a hedgehog walk past - she was chuffed cos she had never seen a real hedgehog before and I was chuffed because now she had.

I nattered to Ester about the work we were doing on the project with these troubled teenagers and about how well they were doing - one young adult with learning disabilities had just learned to tie her own shoelaces, one really shy teenage girl had suddenly come out of herself and was getting deliciously assertive and cheeky, and a teenage boy who was a notorious violent bully had taken one of the learning disabled teenagers under his wing and was helping him out and looking after him. Then Ester talked and it was no longer about what we were teaching them. She told me she was so happy she'd come on this project because she was learning so much from these young people. One particularly spaced out boy had decided to come away with us to try to make a clean break from all the drugs he was taking; he found it tough for the first few days but soon enough he felt so much more awake and alive and he was really proud of himself. Ester was totally inspired by this boy's strength and willpower; she told me she wanted never again to think of something as too difficult to achieve or as too much hardwork. She wanted to be able to challenge herself to change and to be strong enough to succeed.

Ester was like that. For her it wasn't about helping people who were less than her. For her each one of those people were special and talented and had something important to teach her. These kids that our government with their ASBOs had labelled as thugs and criminals, Ester saw as an inspiration and full of wisdom to impart to her if she just sat patiently and let them speak. Ester did that, she drew people out.

She did it with me too.

I remember one of the times I was at Angela & Ester's house for Friday night. I don't like Friday night dinners, they make me feel awkward and uncomfortable and inadequate as a Jew and ignorant and like an outsider. But I liked the house in Kilburn and I liked the company so I could generally be convinced to stay for the evening in spite of my discomfort. During and after dinner while everyone was talking I felt like a small child listening and trying to understand everything that was being discussed. Then Ester drew me out. I don't remember exactly how she did it, she asked me for a story or something or for an opinion, and at first I couldn't believe that people as knowledgable and educated as Angela and Ester hadn't already heard that story, or that they would like it, but Ester drew me out and soon I was talking and telling the story and I felt like an adult and an equal at the table instead of some dumb kid or the ignorant outsider. They hadn't heard my story before and I had contributed and played a part and I knew it was Ester who had done that, but she didn't even know because to her she was just trying to learn something from me - she didn't even realise how that special open attitude left me and everyone else she did that to feeling empowered.

She was inspired by everyone and thus she was an inspiration.

Sarah Friedman: her light must be carried

runaway spirit glisten as the light fades
runaway angel so that we may dance again one day

a phone call
soul sister
'how are you
long time no speak'
'not very good'
she says
'ESTER...
she died'
lost focus
operator error
heart drop panic.
another young life
another young light
gone out
open flood gates of confusion
anger
love
helpless
euphoric
numb
but this young woman was an old soul
was she not
a wise soul
was she not
absolutely stunning!
why is it always the angelic ones
the mortals who transcend their mortality
that we are forced to part with
too soon
too early
and then all of a sudden
too late
we stand powerless to change what is unchangeable
but resilient in the face of grief
her light must be carried
i carry it
you carry it
she carrys it
he carrys it
we carry it
a ball of vibrant electric inspiring energy
pulsing through all of our hearts
as we remember with the fondest of love
and the deepest of respect
this most phenomenal creature

ESTER!
one step at a time.
x x x

Chloe Hurwitz: Ester under the table

Dear Ester, we are all feeling devastated by your early departure.

It is strange however, that whenever I close my eyes, all I can see is your face smiling warmly and enigmatically back at me. A sort of “Mona Lisa” smile - all knowing. You seem to be saying - don’t cry, don’t be sad, I’ve got a plan… all will be well.

Ester. Dear Ester. You are a shining light that will never fade in our hearts and minds eye. You are as clear as a crystal. As bright as a star.
Although you have gone, it feels like you have scattered your purple and golden glitter dust over all of us. Am I imaging this or is anyone else feeling this warmth radiating from Ester?

As I wrote to Angela:

She was an angel, and we all knew it. We just didn't realise she would be here for such a short time. Perhaps a ‘special appearance’ was all that was required from her on this earth? Just enough time to touch a million hearts, which she did so naturally and effortlessly.

*************

One possible way to be able to tolerate this loss, is to continue to be inspired by Ester and her “tour de force” which remains so omnipresent. In every action we do, we must try harder. If we all attained just an inch of Esters qualities, the world would already by a better place.

Ester’s death was a great sacrifice for humankind. We therefore, owe it to Ester to extend beyond our grief and to endorse her life by being more kind, more compassionate, more patient, more loving, more gentle, more playful, more proactive.

*************

Right now, my thoughts are very much with Angela. I know this Blog is for Ester but you must be mentioned. We know how precious Ester was to you. You were a wonderful mother. You nurtured Ester from birth to womanhood and beyond – with compassion, laughter and love. I have always marveled at how you had the capacity to bring up a beautiful modern, dynamic, deeply devoted daughter such as Ester, and still manage to give out the same level of love and affection to those around you. Ester was part of you and your formidable character, with her own special mix at the end. I know you must be very touched and proud to read all these reflections and memories about Ester and I hope they are of some comfort to you. However, we are all still very mindful that Ester was also simply your daughter, and as her mother, your pain must be unbearable. We hope to give you strength at this time to carry you though.

**********

Ester, of you, only happy memories. I share just one:

Most of the guests are close to being seated for a wonderfully warm Seder chez Angela and Ester. Ester is wearing a head to toe purple gown, and she emanates light as always. After a dip into Angela’s kitchen, I come back to the main room to hear muffled giggling I then realise that my little girl Skye is missing. More giggles but there is no one in the room? I then spot Esters feet, bottom and dress poking out from under the beautifully laid table. It’s a bit of a squeeze, but Ester and Skye are hiding under the table chatting. It was Esters idea, of course.

I remember being so touched by that moment. It seems a small reflection, but to me it says a lot about Esters way of connecting with people big or small. My daughter simply adored her.

***********

In the gentlest way you had monumental power. You were wise, yet you were young. You were beautiful, inside and out. You were grounded and so real. Not your average lost student, finding her way. Not Ester. She was not lost. She knew exactly what she had to do and she did it with incredible grace.

We will miss you and will continue to talk about you to our children and our children’s children.

Rest in peace dear Ester.

Love from Chloe.
Chloe Hurwitz.

Wasim: Ester, my true sista

Thank you Ester my true sista and obvious close friend at the Tricycle Theatre. Our friendship means a lot to me and especially since we chilled together and wiv da rest of the gang in the park and talked philosophy, poetry and the history of Judaism amongst having a fandabidozey time. You are an inspiration (which is wat you used to say to me).

I'm glad that you came down to my house leaving party and met my circle of friends and enjoying yourself was very, very wonderful to see.

Sunshiney smile, hopefilled eyes - now we know that even God loves to cry.

Best wishes to all, one love and peace xx xx xx

Mary O'Reardon: your child minder was Irish

Dear Ester,

If you could see this scrapbook you would be impressed by the creativity. My entry will be somewhere near the back because it has taken me some time to find the courage to express my own thoughts, with the limited creative powers that I have.

Your name has been at the top of my ‘to do’ list for a few weeks now and I would rather leave it there than try and put all of my thoughts into a final email. You deserve so much more, least of all because you gave so much more. For you; an email to a stranger was as important as a letter to a friend. Everyone was your friend (except the Home Office of course but you were well able for them!) If you were faced with the task of writing this email, I can imagine that you wouldn’t even see it as a task. You would just start and the words would flow. Maybe you spent longer chewing over words and playing with semantics but I don’t think so. I know that you had a natural talent, an ability to express your profound understanding of humanity and the human condition. As you wrote about the mundane, and the miserable, your clever mind and quick wit would guide us towards thoughts of Guinness filled Easter Eggs, tax credits on dangly earrings and the potential for a People’s Republic of Kilburn.

The first time I met you Ester, you told me that your child minder was Irish. I readily assumed that you therefore had a child. It seemed reasonable, because you were so self-assured and complete in who you were that you exuded a special sort of wisdom, and grace. A certain maternal intelligence. Now I realise that you very much mothered LDSG. You cleaned our grazes when we fell, you fed our weary minds with savoury words of hope and passion, you did our homework for us when we were confused, and you did it all in a way that helped us grow. I am taller today than I was before I met you Ester. You needed those ridiculous boots to give you a few inches, and like everything about you – they represented so much more. You would blush reading this so I’ll soften the tone with a comedic note. We had an LDSG evening for you. I sat through the whole night thinking that you had left behind a child and that Jerome had simply ‘forgotten to mention it.’ I was too shy to say anything until finally about three bottles of wine later I blurted it out to Aoife. She is still laughing at me. It takes me all that alcohol and a friendly face to say what I think….you would have been braver. You would never have been confused in the first place because you would have known….you would have asked…..and you would have listened.

Just like those boots will not ware thin, and by all means they will certainly never biodegrade….your memory and your legacy will not fade. Thank you Ester, for all the work that you have done, but more importantly for showing us how it should be done.

With much love,

Mary

Michal Bower Ish-Horowicz: Ester, a real dugma

[‘Dugma’ is Hebrew for ‘role model'. Michal was in Israel when she heard that Ester had died. She and some other friends held a ceremony of remembrance for Ester and Michal spoke these words.]

When I tried to think of a way to convey the Ester I knew to you in a few words, I realised it would be impossible. There is no way I can do justice to the extraordinary person she was, but I wanted to share some of the things that made her so special to me and to everyone who knew her.

The thing that always struck me most about Ester was that she was one of those rare people who actually live out their ideals, a real Dugma, even when it's hard, or depressing, or frustrating, because she believed that every person deserved to be loved, looked after, and respected, and that it was up to her to help make this happen.

She did so much to support people in her community; when my mother's friend needed, at short notice, someone to provide twenty-four hour care for her father while she was away, it was of course Ester who volunteered. Everything she did was about building personal relationships. When she went to work in an orphanage in Ghana she was an instant favourite among the children. They loved her because no one else had ever had the time to show them any affection, to build up loving friendships with them as Ester did. And I remember her coming back with her hair in Ghanain plaits, because she had embraced the culture she had lived in as well as the people she had met.

Ester always had an amazing ability to see the good in people and value them as individuals. She worked coordinating volunteers to help detained asylum seekers in detention centres in England, and it was a job that she could have done impersonally. But that wasn't Ester's style. One of the projects she started was collecting creative writing pieces from detainees of their experiences and publishing it as a newsletter, just another example of how she could empower and engage with the people she worked with. And I remember her telling me about one refugee who, knowing he would soon be deported, asked her to come back with him. He'd never met her, only spoken to her on the phone, but she had been one of the only people he had encountered who had treated him as an equal, who had been sympathetic to him, who had been happy to give him time, because she believed that, as a fellow human being, he deserved it.

And yet when I think of the Ester I knew all my life, the Ester I'm going to miss, it's not her good deeds that I think of. It's the girl who had the most embarrassingly loud and distinctive laugh, so that in a crowded room of people, I could always tell if she was there. It's the girl whose favourite colour was purple, and would wear it from head to toe, complete with trademark Doc Martens. It's the girl who sang everywhere so beautifully and yet never realised how talented she was. It's the girl who always managed to make a connection with the people she met because she really valued who you were and what you had to say. And knowing that she is gone is hard to believe because it seems so wrong.

The fact that Ester died so young, that she still had so much to give to the world is a tragedy, but in her short life she managed to achieve so much, to touch so many people, and I am so thankful I was one of them. She was living proof that one person really can make a difference, and I know that her memory will live on and continue to be an inspiration to me and all who knew her.

Jonty Hurwitz: 13 Generations

Ester

You may or may not be out there listening to me right now.
What I can know for sure is that part of your spirit will stay in this world for time.
Your energy is of the kind that ripples for 13 generations.
This in itself is a kind of reincarnation and so you can continue to tangibly live.

Hey cheeky, cheerful, chirpy, quirky, quick, flirty, worky, shirty, shapely, shining, dining, divining one... I am missing looking forward to seeing you.

@;-)

Jonty

Jerome Phelps (LDSG coordinator): sitting in a room, doing something important

Everyone who knew Ester seems to have a clear idea of her. Those who knew her include many people who only spoke to her once. She made a difference to many lives.

I know Ester as her manager and as her friend, from her work at London Detainee Support Group. She volunteered for us for a long time, offering support and friendship to people held in detention at Heathrow Airport. Later she supported large numbers of volunteers in their difficult and sometimes traumatic work visiting the detention centres. We met on Wednesday to share our memories, and how much we will miss her.

When someone we care about dies suddenly, we are confronted with the terrible fragility of life. And the person retrospectively seems so fragile. But the Ester I know was not fragile, she was no-one’s victim. I will remember her how strong she was. She was small, even in big boots, but she carried many people. She carried many of us, at various points. And she carried many hundreds of people in detention, who called us in moments of desperation and hopelessness. Some would say that they got through because of her help, although she would argue that they did it themselves.

Ester had an extraordinary talent for listening. It was all the more remarkable because she was I think a basically impatient person. Her rants were legendary, and she had a furious intolerance for hypocrisy amongst those in positions of power. But when she was speaking to someone who was weak or suffering, her patience was without limits. She had a way of listening that made people feel understood and forgiven and accepted entirely.

Although I suppose it must have been an effort for her to take so much on her shoulders, and tolerate so many injustices around her, she never seemed worn down. She had an absolute inner conviction that was impervious to the sad or terrible things she witnessed. The longer she worked with people in detention, the stronger she seemed. She had a joy in her work, perhaps from doing something that was fundamental to her on a deep level. And doing it so, so well.

When someone we care about dies suddenly, we try to make sense of it. But there is no way to reconcile losing Ester now, like this. It is intolerable that she is no longer out there in the world, doing the many wonderful things she did, with so many different people. It is intolerable, and it will go on being intolerable. But Ester means so much not because she died, but because she was alive. I feel privileged to have shared some of her precious time, doing work that was special to her. And that seems more special because of her. I have no sad or painful memories of Ester. Only laughter.
Jerome

Clare Blatchford: bright girl

For Ester


Bright girl -

Your light, undimmed, shines through the prism:

The adamantine crystal of your death.

Once whole, now we see you

Refractured into the rainbow colours that you lived by.

Not loss, but transformation

Since that rainbow now is ours to hold..

Your sweetness, your compassion; your beauty, youth and wisdom.

And we will remember where you chose to shine your light

And we will remember

Antonio (Colnbrook Detention Centre): a gap in all hearts.

*Ester Gluck was loving, generous, humorous and a very caring person.*
*Her passing will leave a gap in all hearts.*
*You will be greatly missed.*

*Rest in Peace*
*With Kindest Regards* *

Tom: there at all

If death was really there at all,
The souls would bow and take a fall
from grace or love or time itself,
So, happy am I to feel their weight,
And know they just passed through an uncharted gate
that takes only their shells, leaving memories to fate;
Whilst we, the patient, have only to wait,
safe in time's pocket,
never early, never late.

Tom

Mireia Vinas: a couple of words

A couple of words for Ester,
although I am speechless.
A couple of happy words,
although it's a sad event.
Nevertheless, I cannot, I do not want to,
even for a second, to remember Ester in a sad way;
On the contrary, she should be remembered and cherished
as someone who brought love to many people.
For you, Ester, a couple of words: REST in PEACE.

Francis (Tupac): Thank You, Ester

Ester,

God bless you.
And God always with you.
Rest in peace.
Oh my Ester, no more Ester.

No more visits to the park.
Now, I'm alone.
I'll miss you forever.
Thank you, Ester.

Francis

LDSG: 11 October 2006

Ester volunteered for the London Detainee Support Group from August 2004 and started to work for them in November 2005. Ester supported groups of volunteers who were sent to visit people who had been detained by the home office, as well as visiting clients herself.

On Wednesday 11-10-06 the LDSG held a gathering of memories of Ester. There was a mix of LDSG staff, volunteers and former clients. Many of the current clients being detained by the home office sent messages to be read to the group.

It was a touching evening and, as they are received, the messages will be posted here.

Natalie Marx: Our Purple Princess

Words by Natalie at Ester's funeral, quoting a poem by Hannah Szenes:

Estie. Sister. Beautiful. Wise. Loyal Estie. Our Purple Princess.

There are stars whose radiance is visible on earth though they have long been extinct.
There are people whose brilliance continues to light the world even though they are no longer among the living.
These lights are particularly bright when the night is dark.
They light the way for mankind.

I love you Estie.

Marketa J Zvelebil : The Light of a Star

This poem by Marketa is overlaid on one of her photographs. Click to enlarge.

GHPB: Valentine by Carol Anne Duffy

Here is another of Ester's favorite poems.

Valentine - Carol-Anne Duffy

Not a red rose or a satin heart.
I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.
Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.
I am trying to be truthful.
Not a cute card or a kissogram.
I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.
Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Chris Badman (Refugee Council): can't just wasn't a word

Our first contact with Ester was when she phoned up to find out about volunteering with us and she made an immediate impression. Ester was, passionate, informed, opinionated and engaging, traits we would all come to know, respect and love about her. Ester saw injustice in the way that asylum seekers and refugees were treated in the UK, and she was definitely going to do something about it.

She started volunteering with us in November 2004, placed initially in the day centre, which provides food, emergency help and social support to refugees and asylum seekers, many of whom are destitute and very vulnerable. Ester fitted in immediately, and it quickly seemed as if she had always been there. From her first day here, she was full of comments, questions and suggestions for how to improve things or do things differently.

She didn’t do the obvious and wasn’t really one for rules, if the system was wrong, you didn’t have to accept it, you had to explore ways around it, to subvert and bend it to suit your needs. Can’t just wasn’t a word in her vocabulary.

Ester made it clear that her real area of interest was unaccompanied asylum seeking children and she moved roles to work with a team of advisers and at the Tuesday evening social club. The social club was really where her heart was – she became a regular and very popular volunteer with an innate ability to relate to the children we work with and a mischievous sense of humour.

As her work commitments increased, her attendance became more unpredictable, she would turn up late, having travelled across London after a long day at work. She’d sometimes come into the building looking exhausted but as soon as she saw the children, she’d get the glint back in her eye and would be re-energised.

Like all of us, she was sometimes affected by the stories she heard from them, and we’d often debrief over a quick (or not so quick) drink after the social evening. Ester could sometimes show her vulnerable side during these drinks and could get quite emotional about the situations that were facing these children, who were far from home and separated from their families and loved ones. More often, though, Ester would support other volunteers and paid staff, and would always be one of the last people to leave.

Out of these discussions, Ester and another volunteer, Sarah, decided to organise a fundraising gig. Before we knew it, they had found a venue, musicians, someone to design and print publicity fliers (all for free) and had negotiated a percentage of the bar takings. This showed the number of people who would do anything for Ester, and her gift of the gab – I’m not sure that anyone could ever really say no to her once she got going.

Ester was a wonderful and committed humanitarian. She wanted to change the world for the better, and in 24 short years she did more to improve it than most people ever will. Her star shone briefly, but with a blinding brightness.

Ester, we’ll miss you and treasure our memories and our thoughts are with all your friends and family.

Joel Grishaver: Divine Tivo

rosh hashanah 5767

[Rosh HaShanah is the Jewish New Year.]

ester is dead
the earth is cold
grass is growing
God resets the Divine Tivo
there is a new fall schedule to record
new programs
new slots
new versions of the same nine stories
that play out
hour by hour
week by week
episode by episode
i am hours away from the fast
hours from asking "who shall live and who shall die"
hours from listing sins
and hoping to reboot my life
into a better schedule

in the same way i lie on my water-bed
and play back last week's programs on my Tivo
i sit here and play back images from my life
i highlight moments
and hope to finally click erase on others
i have a day of work ahead
programming my fall season
setting the series to record
and cleaning my hard drive

ester is dead
her smile when she sang recycles
the warmth of her hugs are still there
and i cry

God too
is making decisions
about what to record
what to ignore

The fall season is filled with new friends
new stories
new values
and new choices
i am the boss of my Tivo
i click on and off
i decide record and delete
set the number of shows to retain
would that my soul was that easy to program
would that i had a remote to pick and choose one button at a time
the actions and feels that will guide me
but television is always easier than life
cause there stories begin and end
and break for sponsors
while life oozes

the fast is coming
it will go slow
i have much to review this year
ester did that for me
making it a year filled with questions and work
and hope
all this will be guided by the memory of her smile when she sang
i will make my choices
still warmed by the memory of her hug
she having taught me
that choices matter
i will remember that
as i stand before life and death later today
and choose my programs.


shanah matok maror
Gris

: "Just as face answers face in a reflection in water,
so should one person's heart answer another" (Proverbs 27:19).

[One of the Hebrew greetings for the Jewish New Year means 'A good and sweet year'. The last line of Gris' poem means 'A sweet bitter year'.]

Louise Fox: wonderful young Jewish woman

I met Ester through Angela my teacher at Melton. Angela was not simply my teacher but she gave us her whole wonderful self each week. Last Rosh Hashana I was welcomed into Ester and Angela's home.

I met Ester twice. I can't say that I knew her and yet she left a lasting impression on me. I heard Ester doven, noticed how thoughtful she was to the people around her, how welcoming she made me feel, I listened as she talked about refugees and noticed her laughter and playfulness. I came away from their home and told a friend of mine that I had met the most wonderful young Jewish woman. Ester was memorable for the best of reasons.

Angela, I am so glad that I met your daughter.

I send you all of my love.


Louise x

Robin Richardson: a day to remember

A Day to Remember – headlines for Ester

Ester celebrated becoming Bat Mitzvah on the Saturday following her thirteenth birthday in the Hebrew calendar. One of the presents she received was a copy of the Guardian published on the day she was born, 26 April 1982. It was accompanied by a piece of light verse, A Day to Remember. Extracts are reproduced below, with apologies for the awful rhymes and scansion and, at one point, a really awful, awful pun.

(Around the time of her fifth birthday, Ester, Angela and I went to see Cats. The next day I wrote a bit of light verse for her, recalling the previous evening. My effort wasn’t exactly T.S.Eliot, to put it mildly, and I apologised. ‘Sorry, Ester, it’s awful doggerel.’ Without a pause she responded: ‘No, not awful doggerel, Robin. It’s awful catterel.’)

A Day to Remember

Well, Ester, there’s a newspaper here for you,
dated the 26th of April, 1982.

A day to remember, with heart and voice,
the day the prime minister said: ‘Rejoice!’ –
though the cause for joy she had in mind
wasn’t either good or kind.
SOUTH GEORGIA SEIZED, we read. The paper then says,
quoting a diplomat, one Costa Mendez,
sounding subdued and sane, not fierce or frantic,
that Britain is at war in the South Atlantic.

A day for rejoicing, we do here all agree,
but not for the reason Mrs, now Lady, T
proclaimed (for since when was the short fuse
of Her Majesty’s Government good news?),
but because the event which really blessed her,
and the whole world too, was you, Ester.
You were the event for which rejoicing was due
on the twenty-sixth of the fourth, nineteen eighty-two.

(We ought to register, by the way,
that also peace was front page news that day –
but unenthusiastically, almost mournful, moping:
ISRAEL RESIGNS ITSELF TO HOPING.)

Inside the paper we seek signs to see
if humankind saw cause for festivitee
that day – see if the human species knew
what really mattered on two six April, ’82.

And well, er, no, everything’s pretty dire –
there’s little here to enthuse or inspire.

Eg, BRITAIN SOON TO BE A THIRD WORLD NATION
unless it puts an end to progressive education –
this is the view and the voice on
page 3 of Mr, now Sir, Rhodes Boyson.
(On a later page, incidentally, this day,
there’s a job advert from the ILEA –
three posts vacant for a TV director,
who’ll make, no doubt, politically incorrecter
programmes, progressive and proud,
than nowadays, Ester, would be allowed.)

There’s a reason, though, to cheer our kin and kith
in a TV review by Nancy Banks Smith.
For her, it’s not the Falklands showing right from wrong
but the Eurovision contest for a Euro-song.
The Royaume Uni done well, more or less – plus ou moins,
but Finland, poor old Finland – nul points.
(They used to be musically gifted but now, we see,
Finns ain’t what they used to be.)
…
We turn to morality, here’s Jill Tweedie, er,
writing about discussions in the media.
She complains about ‘balanced’ presentations of views,
says you can’t have balance about all of the news.
She seems to be making, in those distant days,
a prophetic critique of The Moral Maze.
…
As for TV this evening, on the whole,
there’s nothing much on to gladden the soul.
We look for bounce and shout, and serenity too,
but BARRY MANILOW IN BRITAIN will scarcely do.
Nor will it help us to feel at all calmer
to watch the prime minister on Panorama.

But any way, any way, any way,
We do rejoice as we remember this day.

(All praise soars, now and for ever,
over words like any way, but, however.
Hopefulness, peace, serenity, light
grow amongst all the same, yet, despite.)

We sing and we bless, we do, we do.

So let’s hear it for the twenty sixth of April,
nineteen eighty-two.

For Ester with love from us all, on another day you are especially alive,6 May 1995.

Joanna Kramer: a heightened sense of purple

Ester, everything I see around me is recast in shades of purple.
Everything I recall of you is imbued with purple flourishes.

Your laughter – wide, generous, embracing
Sweet purple
Your tears – a summer of sadness we shared
Bitter purple

Your song –
Rich and resonating with purple timbre –
It coloured our years of friendship
And I am washed in its afterglow.

I can still see you and hear you, a flash of purple brilliance.
You dazzled me, warmed me, pumped purple fire through me.

You still do.
You always will.

Ester Bracha

Ester, you were, are, and will always be a blessing
In my memory
In my heart
In my life.

Joanna Kramer

GHPB: Funeral Blues by W. H. Auden

I once had a telephone convesation with Ester and she heard Four Weddings and a Funeral in the back ground. Just to show how much she loved the movie Ester recited the dialoge one line in front of actors. It was a strange thing to hear Ester say something just before it came out of the TV. Hear is the peom from the film that she loved so much.

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message he Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Belinda Hirsh: A picture of a butterfly in purple.

To Ester,

I am sad because I will miss you and because I wanted to show you all sorts of beautiful things here in cornwall, and take you to special places and let you share in the goodness here. I am sad because you have been there for me and now I have to learn to live without your lovely words, without your lovely voice, without the pleasure of an evening spent chatting with you.

Remember our conversation about God? About how when someone you love and who loves you dies, you can still feel the love there and you still know that that person loves you and has your back even though they are no longer here? And how that feeling of love, we felt that must be the person's soul still living, and that all the souls connect together to form a vast expanse of pure love and that must be what God is.

Now all that is left of you is your soul but that's ok because that's the important bit. That is the pure love with the background noise removed; no bitterness, no regret, no guilt, no shame, no jealousy, no self-doubt, no secrets, no hiding. Just love.

When I first found out how depressed you were, that time we talked on the phone and you were crying, I drew a picture of a butterfly in purple and I put it on my bedroom wall - a butterfly because that is your animal like a hedgehog is mine, and purple because that is your colour like orange is mine. I entitled it 'a unique purple butterfly far far away that I am thinking of' and next to it I wrote:

"love can fly and love can float,

love can swim and love can bounce from cloud to cloud to cloud to you.

it's all in purple and it's all for you,

it's all in purple and it's all for you."

It looks like a poem but it was a prayer, and I stood touching it on my wall and I prayed it over and over, hoping the love would reach you. Maybe it did, I don't know. Only last week, I wrote again. I drew another purple butterfly and I wrote, "it's still in purple and it's still for you. stay purple forever."

It doesn't matter whether you will stay purple forever but it matters that you stay you forever, in whatever form that takes. It may be as a soul or a spirit or something external, but it's just as ok if it is just in our memories and in what you have taught us. Maybe a soul is just a memory anyway, but it's a powerful one.

At the moment I am sad because I will have no more of you, but I am going to try to keep those butterflies up on my wall, I am going to try to keep you on my wall and I will touch them and pray my little prayer for you and maybe you will receive the love I am sending you.

Thank you for being my friend.
Thank you for all your love and support and for all your belief in me.

All my love,
Bini

David Mitchell: flatulence... Baruch Hashem...

I don't know how to write this - Ester you were always the one who played best with words!

Ester you started out as my student when I was your fieldworker back in Cardiff and within minutes you became my friend and my teacher and my student - and I became yours. We shared a deep love for Judaism, for music, nusach, niggunim, cooking, baking and port. You taught me that "there is no joy without wine" (Talmud, Pesachim 109a) but also so so much more!

Ester...

I always loved your voice and your naughty grin.

I always loved your humour and ability to sit there for endless hours making daft noises and smart comments.

I always loved that you did deep and meaningfuls.

You always had room in your soul for someone else's joys and burdens.

You always had a song for every occasion and a blessing for everything - every bodily function was a blessing and you excelled at both publicising them and celebrating them.

You always had a lot of love to give - I'll always remember your face after a good night out.

I always knew you well enough to know that you had secrets and demons.

I always knew you well enough to know that I only knew part of you.

I always knew you well enough that we could spend 6 weeks apart and then meet up and feel like we'd been there the whole time.

You always were the one to defy the rules - while others would get nervous, you'd get a mischievous determined grin on your face.

You always were the one to speak out against injustice and support the needy and the fallen.

You always were the one to turn up late, to flutter in and out and to make my life more purple.

I always will love you.

I always will miss you.

I always will sing and bless my bodily functions.

Always yours

Bitchell xx

Debbie Young: Sikhing and finding

What words can possibly ever be enough. We first met on summer camp aged 10 and 12, where she claims she was incredibly insensitive (tennis ball and jumper, nuff said!) though that's not a memory of mine! We really became friends 5 years ago when Reform Students reunited us, and we just clicked together. She used to say I drove her mad because she so loved to disagree with people, but we always seemed to see eye to eye. We often understood each other without having to even say it. It's rare for us to find those kind of connections, though I suspect Esty had them with many people. She was beautiful from every angle, inside and out, even first thing in the morning when she was impossible to wake up and her hair took over. I wish she had listened when we told her. But she wasn't having any of it. She always knew just what to say, or do. At my grandfathers shiva, she didn't ask what she could do to help, she just did it. She elected herself tea server, and ensured everyone had a cuppa despite the numbers. In dialogue, too, she always knew how to hear the other, and how to make herself heard, in a language the other could absorb. Her ways with words often left me smiling, from the insane sms's to the word plays, the cards covered on every corner in tiny purple writing, the nicknames and poetry. Angela offered severe violence if I didn't put this poem up on the blog, but I also offer it as a beautiful memento of a beautiful life, which has left a gaping hole. Ester wrote this after one of the intefaith events we attended together:

Sikhing and finding,
Paths Chris-chrossing,
As you and I slam
Through Sala'am slalams,
Ohming and ahhing,
Yinging and Yanging,
Till we meet aJain -
Dunno where or Zen;
Pray we B oK...
So, Bahai'i-Bahai'i,
And aJew aJew.

Bye Esty, I am less without you, and the world is so much poorer without you, so we will all have to love the world, and each other, that little bit more, to make up for it.
love you always. DD

GHPB: Warning (When I am an old woman I shall wear purple).

This is the poem that Jeremy referred to in The Eulogy. It was one Ester knew well.

Jenny Joseph, Warning

When I am an old woman I shall wear purple
With a red hat which doesn't go, and doesn't suit me.
And I shall spend my pension on brandy and summer gloves
And satin sandles, and say we've no money for butter.
I shall sit down on the pavement when I'm tired
And gobble up samples in shops and press alarm bells
And run my stick along the public railings
And make up for the sobriety of my youth.
I shall go out in my slippers in the rain
And pick flowers in other people's gardens
And learn to spit.

You can wear terrible shirts and grow more fat
And eat three pounds of sausages at a go
Or only bread and pickle for a week
And hoard pens and pencils and beermats and things in boxes.

But now we must have clothes that keep us dry
And pay our rent and not swear in the street
And set a good example for the children.
We must have friends to dinner and read the papers.

But maybe I ought to practice a little now?
So people who know me are not too shocked and surprised
When suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.

Aviva Dautch: "Each of us has a name"

Each of Us Has a Name
Aviva Dautch, eulogy in memory of Ester Gluck, 1 October 2006
L’HOL ISH YESH SHEM –EACH OF US HAS A NAME
by ZELDA (trans. Marcia Falk)

Each of us has a name
given by God
and given by our parents

Each of us has a name
given by our stature and our smile
and given by what we wear

Each of us has a name
given by the mountains
and given by our walls

Each of us has a name
given by the stars
and given by our neighbors

Each of us has a name
given by our sins
and given by our longing

Each of us has a name
given by our enemies
and given by our love

Each of us has a name
given by our celebrations
and given by our work

Each of us has a name
given by the seasons
and given by our blindness

Each of us has a name
given by the sea
and given by
our death.

Each of us has a name

Ester liked names. People named her and she named herself. She called other people names. Often wickedly funny and accurate names, sometimes complementary names, and sometimes…

Ester called Angela ‘Eima’. Angela called Ester, ‘Est’. In fact Angela stuck up phrases around the house: ‘Est is best’, ‘Impressed by Est’, and, a particular favourite, ‘Est well dressed.’

Each of us has a name… given by what we wear

Many of you on Friday will have heard Ester’s best friend Natalie call her ‘The Purple Princess’ and many of you today are wearing purple in her honour.

Each of us has a name given by God and given by our parents

Ester Bracha bat Moreinu Ha’Rav Tzvi Hersh v’Elka.

Ester Bracha.

Ester’s names say so much about her. Ester, the Persian Queen, whose book, Megillat Ester, is the one biblical story in which God’s name is not mentioned, in which God’s face is hidden. And ‘Ester’ literally means hidden. It may seem to us that God’s face is hidden also at this moment, for what has happened seems senseless.

Yet, Megillat Ester, infamous for God’s absence, is famous for human action. In a time when, because of jealousy, prejudice and fear, the death of the Jewish community was seemingly inevitable, lives were saved by the practical actions of Queen Ester. And that’s what our Ester was all about, practical action to change the fate of those attacked or disregarded by society. Practical action to make sense of the world.

Megillat Ester is not an easy story to read. God is absent, people are oppressed, the resolution is uncomfortable, and we are left with many questions. Megillat Ester is complex. But we acknowledge its complexity, wrestle with its meaning, and, year after year, celebrate the joy we can find within it.

Our Ester’s life was complex but it also contained much joy. And her full name was more than Ester, was ‘Ester Bracha’.

‘Bracha’ means blessing and knowing Ester was a blessing to so many of us in so many different ways. And it was the way Ester made Brachot, made ritual blessings, that showed me who she was. For when Ester led Birkat Ha’Mazon, Grace After Meals, it was not enough for her to make one general blessing for everybody, instead she named every person at the meal in order to bless them individually. The last time I saw Ester, on Rosh Hashana, even that was not enough for her. As well as their usual guests, Angela and Ester had invited home from Synagogue anyone who did not have anywhere else to go - many of us were strangers, so, to help us connect, Ester made us all name (and therefore bless) each other. Before she started bentsching she did something that I’m going to do now and that is to ask everyone present to turn to their neighbour and ask their name. And I’m going to ask you to do something more, which is, after giving your name, to tell each other very briefly, in a couple of sentences, about your relationship with Angela and Ester. Once you have introduced yourself to your neighbour on one side, turn around and do the same with your neighbour on the other.

[pause…]

Ester was all about knowing your name, creating relationships, making connections. She named us each individually, had a distinct relationship with every person. She knew us, and often helped us to know ourselves.

In my last conversation with Ester, on Saturday night, she described her new job and told me a story that I would like to share with all of you. One of the things her job involved was putting together and distributing a newsletter containing writing by detainees. One man she was working with sent her a description of his experiences and she had to tell him that she couldn’t use it – it was too factual and contained information about his interaction with the legal system that she wasn’t allowed to publish. So she talked to him about how to write creatively, in the hope he would produce something that she could print. He wrote a poem and sent it to her. He kept writing and sending her poems – poem, after poem, after poem came pouring out. It made her so happy because she had helped him use his experiences, she had helped him transform his memories, she had helped him to be creative.

Ester Bracha, you helped transform so many of our experiences. You named us, you knew us, you helped us know ourselves.

Ester Bracha, you were joyous, creative and giving. You were complicated. You were hidden. We each only knew you partially, but today we are going to share our knowledge because we want to know you a little better, and therefore, perhaps, know each other better.

Ester Bracha, you were loved by so many friends, lots of whom are here today. Several have asked, or have been asked, to share thoughts, readings, poetry and songs, so after the memorial prayers we are going to have a space for those people and others who would like to share memories of Ester and connect with each other.

Ester Bracha bat Moreinu Ha’Rav Tzvi Hersh v’Elka.

Zichronam li’vracha. May your memory be for a blessing.

Terri Dolan: beautiful Ester

Only a short time I knew you, but time is of no importance, what is of importance is the light left behind and yours glows ever bright Ester darling.
How privileged I am to have known you.
Love from Terri

Oh beautiful girl
Shining and twinkling
Smiling and happy
Face glowing
Wisdom flowing
Words knowing
The dark side hidden
Sharing your brilliance
Some night
When I look up at the moon
And reflect in its light
As it illuminates me, I will think of you

Caroline Orloff: full of love, Torah and song

I was not fortunate enough to have known Ester for long. But when I was first introduced to Angela - on my first Shabbat at New London, I was made to feel like I was part of the community. I felt even more welcomed when Angela introduced me to Ester. There was something about Ester that did not make one feel judged or critiqued. Being Jewish with Asian skin and features isn't an easy combination, but that was never an issue at New London, in fact, people were fascinated by it and Ester encouraged me to tell more people my story.

I remember the first time I heard Angela sing in the congregation, but that did not prepare me for Ester. As Rabbi Gordon said, Ester's layning really made you feel you were being heard by G-d, made you feel that she and you were the words you were uttering, singing, chanting.

Angela and Ester opened their doors to many and took me in more than once to celebrate the festivals. I stayed with them for Sukkot and had my first meal under a beautiful Sukkah. I was the first there so I could put away my things, and I remember entering a home that felt full of love and full of Torah, and most of all, full of song. Between Angela singing and humming in the kitchen and Ester 'performing' in her bedroom, bathroom, hallway, I felt I was privileged to have such sweet music to listen to. I also remember Ester's love of platform rubber shoes - which weren't just 'Good for Yom Kippur, but for everyday,' as Ester said.

I have missed New London since moving to Chicago. Don't get me wrong, I love the community and shul my family is part of, but what I miss are the familiar voices. I miss Chazzan Stephen's booming and commanding yet melodic voice - that made me not want to consider any other shul in London, I miss Angela and Ester's voices, I miss Ariella's voice, I miss Rabbi Gordon's voice, I miss Joe's voice, I just miss everyone.

During Rosh Hashana services last weekend, my first High Holyday service in the US, there was a young girl who daavened, and she was very very good. I thought how much I missed Ester's unique way and tune of daavening and how her voice commanded the attention from every corner of the room. One of Rabbi Hammer's friends who were visiting from the US and attended
the Minyan Chadash earlier this year, gave me a wide-eyed look just as Ester started to daaven and afterwards went up to her and asked where she had learnt the tune from as it wasn't US or European specific and Ester just smiled and said it was just the way she felt.

I wish I could have made the trip but due to my current immigration status here, I am unable to leave the US. Joe's trip is also a small representation of me as we both worked really quickly to find him a flight.

Angela, words cannot express the respect I feel for you for the person you helped Ester become, and also the sadness at such a great loss. You are an amazing woman and mother, and I am grateful that you and Ester welcomed me into your home. You will always be in my thoughts and prayers.

L'shana tovah tikatavu v'tikatemu
Tzom Kal
Caroline Orloff (formerly Yap)

Yoni Smith: There is a sweetness in the air

There is a sweetness in the air, can you feel it? a presence, a residue. Its still there, I see it as I close my eyes. It forms a rainbow of expression in my mind.

I smell flowers in my steps and the ground’s soft stones dance as I embrace them. It is gentle simplicity but deeply lost in translation.

There are two empty boats on a canvas and a black and white forest, and two frogs strain over a vine to see penguins kissing as the yellow sun rises heavily in a red sky over a reed ocean. And these are just the pictures in my zone.

Music spreads its wings over my understanding. Constantly and revolutionary. There is a well of possibility a little walk from here and I take my love on romantic walks and hear the bird song. She smiles at me often and I have the audacity to be embarrassed.

A woman that I loved has passed on her way to the rest of us, specks of dust. She was the dustiest dust I knew, at once so beautifully tiny and yet residing in the outer fringes of the most each of us can imagine or hope to achieve. Gorgeous. Inside her soul was whelming connectivity and love, organically becoming, ecstatic; that each of us graced by it felt wonder as if we had experienced it for the first time. Refreshing. A refreshing embrace of love.

In many ways she is no longer and it is because of these that I mourn. I cry tears without form and will weep purple tears that are wrapped with her soul. I imagine potentials where upon I will have the opportunity to evoke her energy inside myself. It is because of her residual energy that is at once so beautifully tiny, so hard to pinpoint and yet continually and refreshingly embracing each of us. It is because it is part of our everythings, inside all that we perceive. Embedded in our meanings, desires and intentions. It is because of our purple princess and all our personal possibilities, that in many ways she still is and will still be.

See now, there is a sweetness in the air, which once clothed her in dignity, is now an essential presence in the ether. Interwoven. The most beautiful tapestry of abstract.

Still moving.
Still touching.
Still loving.
And so I now look forward, to embracing and sharing in revelation, as we encounter her there.

These two passages have helped me…

Hineini oseh chadasha ata titzmach
Halo tedaooha
Af asim bamidbar derech bishimon naharot

See I do something new
Now it comes to light
Can you not see it?
I am showing you a path through the wasteland
and streams in a barren place.

Isaiah 3:14,19
Af-elohim yifdeh-nafshi miyad sheol ki yikcheyni selah:
Kalah sheyri oolvavi tzur-levavi vchelki elohim leolam:
Vyasav heafar al-haaretz cshehaya veharuach tashoov el-helohim asher natana:
Ani betzedek echeza fanecha asbuah bhakitz tmunatecha:

God will redeem my soul from the grasp of the grave. He will receive me.
My body and my mind shall fail but God remains the strength of my life and my everlasting destiny.
It is only the dust which returns to the dust as it was, the spirit returns to God who gave it.
I shall see your face in truth, as I awake from the sleep of death. I shall gaze upon your likeness and be content.
Memorial service

Joseph Landson: Ester's laining

How to describe Ester's laining of Torah?
A single voice with three halves:

• one half Ashkenazi;
• one half Sephardi;
• one half lost recordings of Nina Simone.

The most beautiful contradiction. I will miss it always.

Ryan Dolan : FULL RANT MODE

When I was asked to speak at the Shiva on Sunday morning I started off by saying that I couldn’t. I felt that I was not strong enough to stand in front of so many people who loved my Esterbeth and say what I was feeling.

I thought of reading the poem that Jeremy quoted but I knew that I would have to find my own words. I once wrote Ester a poem, a re-hashing of The Owl and The Pussycat.

The Hippy and the bureaucrat went to sea,
They sailed in a pending tray.
They had no fear, as a poem by Lear was certain to show them the way.

That’s all I could remember and my Esterbeth carried the poem with her. So from saying I couldn’t speak, I then said I wouldn’t speak. I wanted to use the words of that poem but those words are gone.

Then I thought of Nataloushka and how she stood at the funeral and spoke so bravely. Natalie you chased away the coward in me so that I had to speak. Like Ester I have seen you stand in one of the hardest places.

So instead let me tell you how we met. It was on a Wednesday in Powers. I was talking to a friend. Actually ranting at a friend and Ester being Ester was never one to let you rant alone. She sat down and said, “This doesn’t sound like your average pub conversation” and went into FULL RANT MODE with me. That was nine months ago and we have not spent much time apart since then.

Esterbeth first met my son on a Sunday mornings in the deli on Salusbury Road, coffee for Papa and apple juice for Louis. This became a highlight of our weekends. Louis loved her too. She was as childish as the pair of us and fitted right in. Ester even came chasing elephants around the city with us.

On our way to the deli one Sunday in a shop called Purple Heart we found a purple rubber duck for the bath, a perfect Esterbeth present. Never to be outdone, a week later through the post she sent me a rubber duck wearing a pair of shades. I still don’t know how hard she had to look for that.
We never had enough time together, and now there are no more words.

Catherine Grigg: She sat neath the lilac and played her oboe beautifully.

Goodness. 21 years of friendship makes it difficult to know where to start. I guess at the very beginning.. our childhood songs.
Not just the ones you sing at school, but the ones you sing at school then continued to sing for years to come;

• The one about the woman who sat neath the lilac and played her guitar
• The five hairy monsters in the playground
• Have you got the sunshine smile :-) (My gosh, Ester certainly had!!!)
• And then the one about the ooples and bonooonooos... (this starts off as "I like to eat, eat eat eat, I like to eat, apples and bananas..". Then you change the vowels each time so its.. "I like to ite, iples and bininis", "i like to oot, ooples and banoonoos...." so on and so forth...) Never failed to amuse us!!!

When Ester started volunteering at Salusbury Primary School she called me to say "Catherine! You'll never guess where I am!!" She said, "It's just the same but they've made everything so much smaller..".

Ester was the deepest purple. Not just as her favourite colour, she was deep purple.
Deeply passionate, deeply spiritual, open and accepting.

Her soul was open to everyone - connecting people on a deeper level than the everyday. In her prescence, one's own soul recognised that, even if the head didn't.
So, even if not having met up for a while.. we'd start talking, catching up... but before i'd know it, my soul was open too - free and at ease - talking about my deepest feelings and emotions... perhaps even ones i didn't know i had!

She saw people in their whole, their entirety, in their past present and future and because of this she would not cast judgement. Even if she knew that what you were doing in that time and space wasn't ideal... she would have faith in you, show support, encouragement and love.

Thank you darling Ester. You are my angel and my star. I will ALWAYS love you, for who you were, and who you are.

Rabbi Jeremy Gordon: The Eulogy

There is perhaps one person who would know what to say at a time like this. And that would have been Ester.
Ester wouldn’t have felt paralysed, numbed, dumbed by the horror of this untimely death, or maybe she would have been. But she would have carried on.
Ester knew how to stand in difficult places.
She knew how to reach people who were in pain.
She could find the right words in impossible situations.
She could balance humour and seriousness.
She had the empathy, the gentleness, intelligence, the kindness and the bravery this eulogy deserves.

Before and again after we Jews perform Taharah, before and after we prepare a body for burial we say a mochal, we ask for forgiveness for our clumsiness, for any distress caused. It seems appropriate to say a mochal now also. Not only is it horrendous to lose a child in the lifetime of the mother. Not only is there great pain in the suddenness and the manner of the loss. But this is also an extraordinary life I attempt to eulogise today.

And I feel, Ester, without you here, clumsy and not at all up to the task at hand.

Ester Brachah bat moreinu harav tzvi Hirsch v’Elka
Ani mevakesh mehilah meitech im lo eseh kevodech.

Angela, words seem so hollow right now. This is, you are right, the wrong way, the wrong way in so many many ways. I have no answers. None of us do. All I can do is offer a presence and a prayer.

But let me tell some stories about Ester.

At the age of eight, Ester felt strongly that something was wrong.
She noticed, at the age of eight, that two of her friends, Shoshi and Tamar weren’t being treated like two separate people. People would start a conversation with one, finish it with the other and not seem to notice, or care.
She was, Judith, their mother told me, the first person to insist on treating Tamar and Shoshi as individuals, not just as twins.
At the age of eight, Ester decided that they would be friends and she also decided that they would be known as SET, Shoshi, Ester, Tamar.
They became honorary sisters. Closest of friends.
Tamar told me that Ester was the only person who could tell her from Shoshi over the telephone.

Ester listened more closely, saw more deeply than most of us.

People who are outraged at the failings of the world are many.
People who are prepared to do something about it are fewer.
People who find the right way to help make this of world a more just place are fewer still.
And people who do all that with grace, gentleness and kindness of spirit are far too rare to lose.
Ester was one of those people.
She will be missed terribly.

Ester felt a strong empathy with refugees.
It was, she said, ‘written all over our history’.
She volunteered with the Refugee Council, running a Youth Club in Brixton.
She was a visitor at an Immigration Detention Centre, near Heathrow, she had recently been appointed full-time volunteer co-ordinator at the Centre.
She was outraged, she was prepared to do something, she made a difference and she did it with tremendous gentleness.


Ester felt a need to support those who lived in poverty, in the Developing World.
She went out to Ghana with Tzedek, an organisation who engage in ‘Jewish Social Action for a Just World.’
With Natalie she set up a volunteer programme, learnt Twi, and then went back the following summer to lead a group of volunteers.
She was outraged, she was prepared to do something, she made a difference and she did it with tremendous gentleness.

The list goes on.
Ester’s way was a way of action.
She used her life to live out the things she thought most important.
It says a great deal about her that the thing she did for an easy, fun time away from the other tensions in her life was take part in the Tricycle Jewish & Muslim Youth Theatre Group, where she could give rein to her remarkable talents as an actor.
Ester was a terrific mimic, she could ‘do’ anyone. But without hostility, gently.

The list goes on, of course it does, but the list doesn’t capture Ester’s way.
Ester’s way had more to do with something emotional, empathetic, intimate.
She was highly intelligent, according to Robin she could easily have had a career in academia, but her real passion was connecting with people.
And particularly people who had been cast-off by society, the powerless, the ignored.
And she would meet them heart-to-heart.

She spoke well, she spoke beautifully, but it wasn’t about a showy turn of phrase or a dazzling put down, rather she knew how to use language as a vehicle for showing kindness and caring.

She brought the same passion, and the same open-heartedness to her Jewish life.
I knew her best as a baalat koreh and shlichat tzibbur an incredibly gifted Torah Reader and Leader of Prayers at the Minyan Hadash of New London Synagogue.
It wasn’t just that she had a good voice.
It wasn’t just that her grasp of Hebrew and the technical requirements of the liturgy were excellent, though that is all true.
It was that, when she prayed, you could feel her soul at work in the room.
I’m reminded of stories told of the great Chassidic Rebbes, that during their prayers they would ascend high above and shake at heavens and demand, of God and of the congregation that we would all do a little better, work a little harder, to bring justice and decency to the world.
Being led in prayer by Ester was a little like that.

She had an innate, deep rooted connection to her Jewish identity.
Not so much the rituals, but the emotions, the intimate feelings.
Ima she would say to Angela, ani lo shomeret Shabbat, ani zocheret Shabbat.
It’s an impossible sentence to translate – Mum, I’m not one to follow the legal requirements of Sabbath, I’m one to hold the Sabbath in my heart.
From most people a sentence like that would be a bit of a kop-out, but Ester had the integrity to make it meaningful. She walked the walk with even more conviction that she talked any kind of talk.
Angela told me that one Shabbat Ester was running late to get everything ready and Angela tapped at her watch, gently prompting, ‘Ester, the Sabbath Queen is waiting.’
And Ester responded, ‘But Ima, she’s a gracious and benevolent Queen, she knows I need to finish this first.’

She had that ability to take a situation and draw the tension from it, turn it into a conversation about love and things that are important in life.

There are many people here wearing purple, it was Ester’s favourite colour.
Jenny Joseph’s poem begins ‘When I am an old woman I shall wear purple… ‘I shall go out in my slippers in the rain And pick the flowers in other people's gardens.’
That was Ester too, the fearless purple-wearer.
Joseph’s poem ends on a different note.
‘But maybe I ought to practice a little now?So people who know me are not too shocked and surprisedWhen suddenly I am old, and start to wear purple.’

‘When suddenly I am old’ will never happen, Ester will never turn old.
She’ll remain, in our hearts and minds forever as a bright burning soul, as a deeply committed social activist, a loving daughter and a dearly beloved friend.

The circle of people she touched spreads far and wide.
Today we all mourning Ester.
And there are mourners who have come from Virginia, from Ireland, from France, from Germany. We are all broken hearted.
And there are many hundreds of others whose lives were touched by Ester, far far more than those of you who are able to be here today.
There were, at one point yesterday, eight phones all on the go at Ester’s home, Angela’s home, all broken hearted, all bereft. All touched by Ester’s life.
Our thoughts today, Ryan, are also with you, at a time that must be so hard.
You are most close in my prayers.

Of course Ester had her darknesses too, secrets, half-secrets and open wounds.
And they weighted heavily on her, on Angela, on her friends.
But she bore those pains with tremendous dignity, never bowed, never cowed.
And so often she found ways to turn that pain into action, into dedicated attempts to make the world a better and fairer place.
And that takes an almost incomprehensible strength.
A strength we will all need in the weeks and months ahead.
A strength, Angela, we pledge ourselves to share with you.

So where now.
I want to offer a Rabbinic dictum on this most horrible of days.
There are two responses to the news that has come as such a shock to all of us, the news of a death in a situation such as this.
And I want to urge us all to respond in one way, and not the other.

One way to respond to news such as this is to begin to sort through the broken pieces of the lives that lie before us as if they could be fitted together like a jigsaw puzzle. We are tempted to speculate, pontificate, and ask the ‘why’ question. Of course on the back of the ‘why’ question come questions about responsibility guilt and blame. On the back of the ‘why’ question comes the ‘if only sentence.’ This is the first way we could respond.

The other possibility is to hold back from asking questions that have no answer, hold back from presuming knowledge of things known only to the unknowable and today, frankly, hidden God of this broken Universe.

We can’t help ourselves getting dragged down the first path, the path of investigation, blame and self-blame. We are conditioned that way, conditioned by a culture of TV dramas and 24 hour news-cycles. And even, let it be said, conditioned by parts of our own faith tradition.

But we must resist that sliding into a dead-end.
When faced with the loss of his child, Job spends speech after speech seeking answers, only, eventually, to come to the only possible conclusion – that the answers are beyond him.
As the answers today are beyond us all.
Hen kaloti ma ashiveka
Yadi samti lmo fi
I am tiny, what answers can I give to you.
I place my hand on my mouth.

We stand here, on the cusp of Yom HaDin – the day of judgement when we read the terrifying words from the prayerbook – who will live, who will die, who in peace and who in suffering.
But at the heart of that prayer is the admittance that we, humans, don’t know, can’t know.
Chasing after this kind of knowledge is a vain and hopeless chase.
To understand what happened these past days is not a human task.
And today we must accept what it is to be a human. Fragile and mortal.

To try and find answers where there are none is a kind of arrogance that has no place today.
Many of us will know the Rabbinic concept of lashon hara – dangerous talk, talk that suggests and blackens and wounds in ways we can’t begin to understand.
I want to suggest that there we should also consider a concept of machshavah hara – dangerous thought. When we feel the ‘why’ question come, we should let it go, not go chasing after it. Not today, not yet and maybe not ever.

There are problems also, with this desire to find out more, work out what and why and when and whom.
It blinds us from what we should really be doing. And we have so much to do.
Our real tasks today are two.
We are here to offer comfort to those who mourn and we offer that comfort to you, Angela, now and in the months and years ahead.
And we hope to share a little comfort amongst all of us here, all of us who are impoverished by Ester’s death.

And secondly we are here to take a lesson from Ester’s life, a lesson that we can live out in our own lives, for if we do that, Ester will live on always in our deeds and in our hearts.

Ester who made peace, shalom - salaam, ben adam lchavero – between one person and the next. Between different people, of different social worlds, of different faiths and creeds.
Ester who was a true rodef tzedek a pursuer of justice
Ester who loved the stranger, for we were all strangers once, in a strange land.
Ester who stood up for the almanah and the yitom – the unseen and the unheard sub-strata of contemporary British society.
Ester who loved and believed in the Biblical notion of kedoshim tihiyu ki kadosh ani – You shall be holy, for I, God am holy.
Ester who was zocheret Shabbat and sang with the voice of an angel and davenned with a force that could open the gates of heaven.

There are so many lessons we could take.
In twenty four years Ester lived a life of commitment and passion and leaves hundreds of lives changed – made better.
It is a legacy that would embarrass many of us who have lived far longer.
I’m embarrassed, embarrassed because of what I fritter away, embarrassed because of opportunities I let slip because I don’t care as much as Ester did.
This time, these days between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur break in my our comfort zone.
And this death, most terribly breaks in on our comfort zone.
The idea is that this encounter with the possibility of our mortality lifts us, inspires us, bullies us, even, into living a life more full. The sadness is that for most of us we would rather curl up in front of the television.
But we must do better, because Ester did better.
kedoshim tihiyu ki kadosh ani – You shall be holy, for I, God am holy.

First we must offer comfort.
Second we must find a lesson and live that lesson ensuring that Ester lives on in our deeds, not only in our hearts and minds.

Tonight we will, in Ester’s language, be zochrim and zochrot Shabbat Teshuvah.
We would usually translate the term to mean ‘remembering the Sabbath of Penitence,’ but the literal meaning of Shabbat Teshuvah is a Sabbath of Return. It is a Sabbath to commit ourselves to pay obligations we owe to our fellow human beings and the world we all live in.
It is also a Sabbath to consider the values by which we live our lives before we too return, back to the dust from which we are taken.
We get to pick which interpretation we chose.
We even get the choice of whether to take this call seriously.

We just don’t get to pick the time when our end will come.
For Ester that time has come, far too early, far too horribly, but she leaves us with lessons and memories and blessings aplenty.

Ester Bracha bat moreinu harav tzvi Hirsch v’Elka
Tehi zichronah lvaruch
May your memory always be a blessing.