A tree is rooted in the ground, connected to other trees, reaching for the sky, it is drawing its energy from the earth, from the sun and the air. It is alive and constantly changing and growing.
This is how I feel about
‘Music by Jack’s Lake’ Summer festival concerts.
Since I moved to Barnet in 2017, Jack’s Lake has become my temple. I come here with my dogs to enjoy its beauty. I am lucky to observe how it changes throughout the year. From bare frosty trees, to first fluffy buds, ankle high mud, to yellow irises and white lilies, giant trees fallen in the storm and herons nesting, and a breathtaking palate of shades of green. I come here on my own to share my prayers, hopes and grieves – it is in the nature that I find most inspiring, comforting and healing.
And now I run a music festival here, connecting the communities, creating and performing most imaginative programmes with incredible and inspiring first-class musicians and supporting charities.
Our first concert was in the summer of 2021, with two dear friends, lithium battery and sunshine. We had an audience of 200! Since I have invited Tessa Seymour – Royal Opera house orchestra, Charles Mutter – BBC concert orchestra, Michael Czanyi-Wills – who writes music for Hollywood films and is an internationally acclaimed pianist, Jean-Kristoff Bouton – An acclaimed Operatic baritone, singing internationally, Judith Kelemen – an amazing viola player from BBC concert orchestra, David Sztankov – immensely exciting young talented horn player, Zika Nicolic – a thrilling accordion player.
I feel grateful to so many people who help me make ‘Music by Jack’s Lake’ happen and without whom my lovely idea will not have come to fruition. My huge gratitude goes to John Hall, whose belief in these concerts and enthusiasm are really what is making this festival reach the sky. I am immensely grateful to Roger De La Mer and all who volunteer their time, put so much thought into making it better and to help it run smoothly.
This year ‘Music by Jack’s Lake’ is proudly presented by Monken Hadley Trust I am also immensely grateful to the sponsors and benefactors, who’s generosity allowed me to bring in the best musicians and create an opportunity for the public to donate their contributions towards two charities. Monken Hadley Common Trust and Marcia Elton music bursary.
Marcia Elton helped me enormously when I came to London, to study at the Royal College of Music. We became friends until her death in 2017 and it is in her name that I have created this bursary, to help a young talented singing student to have singing lessons and workshops at World Heart Beat Music Academy.
A wise man once said: ‘Don’t look at the seed every day to watch it grow, trust it and water it plenty, it will all happen at the right moment’ I feel that this is exactly what has been happening to ‘Music by Jack’s Lake’
I consider these concerts a miracle, something positive that came out of the pandemic. I also consider each concert a miracle, because we all pray for the weather to be with us. And I want to also thank our wonderful audiences. People bring folded chairs, picnics and sometimes brave few drops of rain or slightly cooler conditions. I always receive such generous and warm feedback. This is an extraordinary experience with the backdrop of the lake being a perfect setting, with the sky above, the sun setting and the trees around creating a natural amphitheatre shape. There is a beautiful relaxing and uplifting live music and lots of families smiling. The most common feedback I get is that time stops here and all the racing of life becomes somehow easier. To me this is all a living, breathing organism of the community and I am so thrilled to be facilitating it and being part of it.
Our next concert is called ‘The hope’ It will bring an exciting familiar and new tunes from Cabaret/ Klezmer/Romantic music for accordion, violin, piano and voice.
Can’t wait to see you there. Ilona
The devastating massacre scenes of October 7th reminded Jews and Israelis of the Holocaust.
The slaughter of innocent people in such a barbaric way, the glee with which the terrorists gloated about their evil actions – is the true genocide, Jewish ethnicity cleansing.
But it only served a reminder. Because October 7th for Israelis is very different. We don’t want to be reminded of the Holocaust. Israelis are not fearful jews, brought to their knees because they did not have a country and an army to shield them. Unlike unprotected Jews in diaspora, they have a country and they are fighting for it like lions and lionesses.
And here is the thing – to anyone who speaks of tolerance, against marginalisation, against violence, anyone who pretend to care about humanity, human, children and women rights – I want to say, do open your eyes and stop being shortsighted. This is much bigger than Israel/Gaza war! This is a different ideology, standing against the western values of civilization and Israel is fighting on your behalf.
And to the Jews who join in this betrayal, including the ones who attend the pro-Palestinian marches and the ones who are silent or call for ceasefire – What are you without Israel? If Hamas and extremists Islamic Jihadists were to come into power in your countries, where will you run to for protection? If the antisemitic mobs will knock at your door? Who do you think will protect you when you stand on your shaking knees – perhaps Hamas terrorists?
My gaze is turned towards Israel, a country where its people take care of each other, with their displaced citizens from the north and the south and hostages’ families. Where the army is fighting on two fronts – Gaza and Lebanon – while trying to keep order in the West Bank. Where even during the war, thousands of people go to rallies and demonstrations to protest in a democratic way against Netanyahu.
A country where parents need to find ways to explain to small children what a hostage is. Where children grow with PTSD spending their childhood in bomb shelters. Where Holocaust survivors bury their grandchildren and mothers bury their sons and daughters, who went to save our country, a country with endless funerals, where every day is a Remembrance Day. Where each person is playing their part in the horrific action movie that is shot daily. Because if they will stop, they will see the sun being erased from the sky and their hearts will start spilling through their eyes unconsolably.
When my heart breaks, I remember about love – I have a heart full of love. Israelis are united and that is love. We are all one, together. We don’t care if you like it or not – it is our incredible Jewish reality. Israel is where we belong! We protect our home, our heart, our love, the future of our children, the future of our happiness.
Israelis are not afraid, no one can break our spirit, shatter our soul, nor rape, murder, or burn our hope. Israelis are the Jews with fire in their bellies and courage in their hearts and iron swords in their hands.
We don’t have another homeland. Israel is our only hope – even if this hope grows from the ashes. Israel has the sun and knows how to dance in the ruins. I believe that now is the time for going towards the light, for searching for the truth. Israel knows how to follow the path of life, to life. #AmIsraelHai #Bringthemhomenow.
I am a musician, my entire life is filled with music and singing. But today I cannot listen to music or sing.
I wake up and scroll through social media. I see an old woman; she is 94 years old.
Her voice is low and it wobbles – I can hear the history of Holocaust in every intonation of her voice.
‘I have one thing to ask’, she says. ‘Why not me? Why my granddaughter?’ The pictures show a beautiful young woman smiling, then her body mutilated, bloody. Since the Holocaust Jews have been saying ‘Never again’. These two words are written on the walls of Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum in Jerusalem.
But ‘Never again is Now’
I weep. God weeps.
I get on with my day – school run, dog walk – nature helps.
My son says: ‘Mum, don’t wear the Star of David – you are painting yourself as a target’
I open the news – a Jewish men was killed in Los Angeles; Jewish woman was beaten up on the train in London; ‘Gas the Jews’ – shout protesters in Sidney; ‘Kill them all’ – Russia (Dagestan airport), Kosher restaurant vandalised in Houston. Is this 2023?
I weep. God weeps.
I get on with my day. I scroll though my social media accounts. Demonstrations full of hatred, antisemitic slogans (calling of annihilation of Israel – ‘from the river to the sea’), violence towards Jewish students on International University campuses, hateful verbal and physical abuse towards jews on the streets of London.
Deafening silence from most of my non-Jewish friends. How is it possible that so many people are still silent when cheerleaders for terrorists decide to celebrate the worse massacre and take it as a sign to open a global front targeting Jews on the streets, in universities, at work and at homes?
Israeli media filled with pictures and descriptions of Jewish women raped, beheaded babies, entire families burnt alive, men skinned alive, elderly shot at point blank. Endless funerals and mothers sobbing. Installations of Shabbat tables and beds ready for the hostages to return around the world in Jewish communities. Mighty cries to release the hostages.
I turn on Israeli news. I see an evidence of a tiny body, burnt beyond recognition. The caretaker says they found it in the oven. The post mortem shows that the mother died much later, which means they made her watch how her baby is burning alive in her own kitchen, in her own oven.
I can’t breathe. I start coughing, the grief, rage and disbelief wants to escape my body, but they are stuck in my throat. In my ears I hear stories of my great grandmother about Pogroms in Ukraine, in Russian. In my eyes I see pictures of the gas chambers in Auschwitz. Jews wearing yellow stars, being marched to their death just for being Jewish. I throw up. But what I see now is far worse than this. The world needs to see the raw footage of what was done to 1400 people – among them Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Buddhists all living peacefully in Israel. The world needs to see this 45 minute long footage of videos taken by the inhuman Hamas beasts during the attack on Israel; raping dead bodied of Jewish women, torturing children, burning elderly alive. The world needs to see the body of that burnt baby taken out of the oven. This is who pro-Palestinians living in the west march for? This is who they call militants and freedom fighters? Social media filled with enraged ill-informed deniers, brainwashed faces shouting on TikTok through self-made videos, expressing opinions while in the safety of their western civilization’s homes, where the biggest existential crisis is a dead battery.
I feel heavy, helpless. God weeps unconsolably.
They say CEASEFIRE after the worst assault on the Jewish people since the Holocaust.
Free the hostages – 240 civilians, is not on the news. Free Palestine – is on the news. ‘Free it from what? From who?’ I ask?
An Iraqi friend, who found political asylum in London tells me how they (Shia) have been terrorised in Iraq, with the same cruelty by Hamas, as was done now in Israel. She says; ‘ They would cut pregnant women open, stub their babies, burn their own Muslim brother alive. Everyone would live in terror’
A video of a Palestinian emerges begging to end Hamas occupation, to free its people from this agony, the Al-Jazeera correspondent doesn’t let him finish. The news totally ignores the fact that Palestinians are being used as pawns, as human shields in this Hamas/ Iran/Russia power, hatred driven game of annihilation of Israel. The news ignores the fact that Hamas fighters dress in civilian clothes, they know that Israelis will not shoot a civilian; that the health minister of Gaza is also Hamas and his reports of casualties are disproportionately exaggerated; the news ignores the fact that Palestinian’s own government speaks openly about his people being martyrs. No one demonstrates against war crimes committed towards Palestinian people by its own government – Hamas.
In Gaza there is chaos, destruction, death. A father holding a toy of his child buried in the rubbles in northern Gaza. Mothers sobbing holding injured children close in their arms. Endless funerals. My heart aches for the agony of these people and what they are feeling, while no other Arab country wants them or helps them. A thought crosses my mind that the world stopped talking about Ukraine, how lovely this must be for Mr. Putin!
Israel has been attacked and it has the right to defend itself, but every step Israel makes affects not just the future of Israel, but the present of Jews in diaspora.
I can’t weep. God still weeps.
I watch Israeli/ Palestinian woman marching for peace in Jerusalem. Circles of prayer and grief. Life is not black and white; it is complex, impossible to comprehend now and yet it is human.
How is it possible for the men and women from the southern communities of Israel, who for their entire life span advocated for peace and coexistence, and after watching their families slaughtered and burnt, and now are still are calling for peace with Palestinians.
How is it possible for Israeli Arabs, who are Muslims and live in Israel to heroically save Jewish lives and fight against other Muslims on October 7th.
How is it even comprehendible to belong to the 21st century and to feel that your home as a Jew anywhere in the world is no longer the safest place to be.
How is it possible to split your heart and feel grief for two nations? Vivian was a lifelong social activist, working for the advancement of women and peace in Israel. She was one of the founders of Women Wage Peace. During her free time, she volunteered to drive Palestinian patients and their families from the Gaza strip into Israeli hospitals for treatment. She was brutally murdered on the 7th of October.
How is it fair to have to protest against your own government with hundreds of Israelis, knowing how dangerous and immoral it is and finding out that the danger on the 7th of October was beyond anything you could ever imagine.
How is it possible to live with a government that you don’t trust in times of catastrophe, like a child of an abusive parent finding yourself dependant on someone who was in charge of your safety and let you down.
How complex it is to know that is the crucial act of survival to eliminate a monstrous terrorist organization, which strategically and systematically embeds itself amongst its citizens, knowing you have to save Israeli citizens from its cruelty, but not knowing how without immense violence and opening another circle of hatred. How to do this under such pressure from the entire world watching and condemning Israel.
How is it possible to look into my son’s eyes and not to feel guilty for the world that he is living in, helpless to change it, often feeling like a pawn in someone’s big and cruel game. I was hoping not to pass to him what I carry: The heavy weight of my Ukrainian/Russian Jewish ancestors, killed in pogroms. The weight of 6 million jews annihilated in the Holocaust. Antisemitism in St. Petersburg, where I was born. An uncle killed in a suicide bomb attack on a bus during the second Intifada in Israel. And now this….
I scroll, I wait, I watch, waiting for their return – #bringthemhome. Waiting for the dying to stop. Waiting for the humanity to prevail. Waiting for my non-Jewish friends to say something in condemnation of antisemitism. Waiting for when the world acknowledges the horrific atrocities done to innocent people in southern Israel. Waiting for when the world will start seeing the bigger picture of the suffering Palestinian people, beyond the dirty propaganda of the bloodthirsty rich leaders of Hamas/Islamic Jihad and every terrorist organization in pursuit after evil.
I weep. A little bit of me dies with every fallen Israeli soldier, every dead Palestinian baby. Each one had an entire world in them.
God weeps.
When will I feel like myself again? Maybe when the hostages are returned? Maybe when the silence of my friends will turn into a loud roar of support? Because to me the silence means no one cares about you as a Jew. It is as horrifying as the terror acts themselves.
Maybe when my people and I can feel safe just being Jewish…
I am bereaved, angry, but my heart is open and lost in endless questions with very scary answers or no answers at all.
I am a Jew and an Israeli and to me the answer here is very simple – I love Israel, I need Israel, I can live as a Jew outside Israel but not without it. Since 1896 Theodor Herzl witnessed brutal European antisemitism first hand, he became convinced that the Jewish people could never survive outside of a country. Israel is so precious to every Jew in the world. I witness it now, as I see El-Al planes full with people returning to Israel to help the fighting, to volunteer, to support their country in the darkest of times. I see an incredible unity of Jewish people around the world, marching for peace, collecting donations, sending packages, supplies to Israel, hosting families. There is an incredible solidarity, one I have only ever seen happen in Israel and to Jewish people. One that I have never seen anywhere in the world at times like this.
The evening arrives, I feel exhausted, I am determined to keep my spirit high and not to be defeated.
I remember that Hebrew word Shalom, which means so many things, among them – WHOLE. Maybe it is the whole of coexistence, the distant future of peace. There is a lot to do before this can happen. I listen to music; I am reminded that Jews have always lived IN BETWEEN and everything is always mixed – the sadness and the joy live together in each Jewish heart. I feel better, I sing, I am reminded that music brings everyone together, allows for all feelings and emotions to be expressed.
I feel a little better, my heart is filling with love, empathy, hope and determination.
I will not be silent, I will not tolerate antisemitism. I condemn hate speech, harassment, abuse towards Jewish people. It is criminal, totally unacceptable and must be persecuted.
I am a human, a woman, a mother, a daughter, a sister. I am Jewish, I am Israeli-British. I AM NOT A TARGET!
I am here to stay and the children of the children of the children, of the children, of the children of my children are here to stay.
The state of Israel is here to stay.
I pray…. God sighs
