Lord Sacks: My Lords, I am exceptionally grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for tabling this debate, and to the many speakers who have conveyed to the Jewish communities here and elsewhere that we are not alone—that we have friends. At this time, that is very important. I have just returned from a conference in Warsaw. It is a city that I do not know well, and I was shaken to discover that...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I am so grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Popat, for initiating this debate, and I want to explain why. The greatest danger any civilisation faces is when it suffers collective amnesia. We forget how small beginnings lead to truly terrible endings. A thousand years of Jewish history in Europe added certain words to the human vocabulary: forced conversion, inquisition, expulsion,...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I too am grateful to the most reverend Primate for initiating this debate on a subject that is vital to the future flourishing of our children and grandchildren. Perhaps I may be allowed to speak personally as a Jew. Something about our faith moves me greatly, and it goes to the heart of this debate. At the dawn of our people’s history, Moses assembled the Israelites on the brink...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, the Balfour Declaration in 1917 was a significant moment in history for three reasons. First, it was a momentous reversal of imperialism. It gave back to the Jewish people the home that had been seized by empire after empire: Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks and Romans, and the Christian and Muslim empires that fought one another for centuries for control of the Jewish land....
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I would like to add to the words of other noble Lords on what we might learn about the pursuit of peace in the Middle East from the life of a man who did more than most to that end, the late Prime Minister and President of Israel, Shimon Peres. He was one of a remarkable generation of Israel’s founding fathers who began as hawks and ended as doves and who showed no less courage in...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Grade, for introducing this debate, to which I wish to add one observation. Democracy is not achieved merely by giving everyone the vote. Freedom is not achieved merely by removing a tyrant. They require a sustained effort of education and a balanced supply of information. Without these, democracy can descend into mob rule and from there to a new...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for enabling us again to address this vital issue of religious freedom, and I salute the noble Baroness, Lady Berridge, for chairing the APPG on International Religious Freedom or Belief. I salute the courage of both of them in confronting perhaps the single greatest humanitarian issue of our time. I add my thanks to the right reverend...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Risby, for initiating this important debate. At the outset I declare an interest: I am a Jew. Israel is therefore for me the place where my people were born almost 4,000 years ago; the place to which Abraham and Sarah travelled; where Amos voiced his vision of social justice and Isaiah dreamt of a world at peace; where David composed thePsalms and...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I, too, am deeply grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Alton, for allowing us this opportunity to share our concerns about one of the most profoundly disturbing developments in our time. Seldom have I heard a more searing and devastating set of testimonies than I have heard today of the evils currently being committed in the name of the God of love and peace and compassion. Twenty-five...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, at this difficult and distressing time, which is surely a source of grief to all of us, will the Minister comment on what a Government not blind to humanitarian concerns but seeking to defend their citizens from missile attack do when missiles are stored in schools, rocket launchers are placed beside hospitals, ambulances are used to transport terrorists, entrances to tunnels are...
Lord Sacks: To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their assessment of the relationship between business and society.
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I am grateful for this opportunity to discuss the relationship between business and society. I welcome in particular the opportunity short debates such as this provide to step back from the specifics of policy to take a wider and longer view of the moral dimensions of economic policy. This is a very large subject indeed, and I will hazard just a few words about it in general and...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Singh, for initiating this important debate, for his wise and gentle contribution to the religious life of this country and for the part he has played as a founding member and vice-chair of The Interfaith Network for the UK, which this year celebrates its 25th anniversary. It has helped to ensure that religious groups that may elsewhere find themselves...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I, too, thank the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Chester for initiating this important and timely debate. I wish that I could follow my predecessor, the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, and rap my speech. Instead, forgive me if I say simply that the timeliness of this debate is that we have heard much talk in recent weeks about the phrase "one nation". I believe...
Lord Sacks: To ask Her Majesty's Government how they have recognised and supported the role and contribution of faith communities in Britain and the Commonwealth during Her Majesty the Queen's reign.
Lord Sacks: My Lords, it is a great privilege to have the opportunity to initiate this debate. Before I begin, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Bilimoria, on his debate last week, which also focused on the contribution of ethnic and religious communities in Britain. I know that many noble Lords here also participated in that debate and I am grateful for their presence in the Chamber today. Sometimes...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I must begin with an apology for the fact that I must infringe the convention of this House by not being here at the end of this debate. As darkness falls early in these winter months, the Jewish Sabbath enters very early and I must have ceased work in time to observe it. I hope that your Lordships will understand that, given the topic, I felt it important to be here in support of...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Mitchell, for initiating this important and necessary debate. I go back to words said by an expert on the subject 2,600 years ago. His name was Jeremiah and he became known as a prophet of gloom. Were he to return to life today, doubtless he would be an economist. He was the first person to analyse the situation many find themselves in today of being a...
Lord Sacks: My Lords, I welcome this debate because it allows us to focus on both words of the phrase "peace process". We who pray for peace understand by that word a state in which I recognise your right to exist and you recognise mine. That is what peace minimally means. How can we be speaking about peace when Hamas remains committed as a matter of principle to the elimination of the state of Israel;...
