West End Extra - Letters to the Editor: A humanitarian tribute to Rose Hacker

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West End Extra - LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Published: 29 February 2008

A humanitarian tribute to Rose Hacker

• THOSE of us who were fortunate to attend the recent moving and inspirational funeral service of Rose Hacker and heard the tributes from Rabbi Lionel Blue and others can be in no doubt as to how much she was loved and revered by the very many people who knew her.
Among the many who knew Rose and very much admired the wisdom and warm humanity of her columns are members of the congregation of Golders Green Unitarians in Hoop Lane.
We have therefore decided to pay a special tribute to her memory at our morning service on Sunday March 2 at 11am. People of all religions and none will be very warmly welcome.
Rose wasn’t a Unitarian or religious believer but, as a dedicated Jewish humanist, she gave valuable support to our charity lunches and other humanitarian and peace initiatives over many years and I have vivid memories of her visits to GGU.
Among these were her attendance at and her strong support for a moving peace concert for the School for Peace at the Israeli peace village of Neve Shalom-Wahat al-Salam (NSWaS) and a marvellous funeral tribute she delivered to John Jackson, a fellow member of the Progressive League, at GGU in her 102nd year.
Reciting a long poem by heart, she spoke eloquently, unfalteringly and with great passion and had us all spellbound. In fond memory of Rose we shall be handing over cheques for the School for Peace at NSWaS (in Hebrew and Arabic its name signifies Oasis of Peace) to the executive director of NSWaS, Benita Hide, and we shall also be presenting cheques for Amnesty International and Unicef.
We feel that this is the practical humanitarian tribute that would most have appealed to Rose herself as an ardent humanitarian and peace campaigner. We shall be lighting candles in her memory and reading her words from the West End Extra and elsewhere.
We look forward to welcoming all her friends, and in particular readers, who wish to come along to honour her memory and do something to support humanitarian causes close to Rose’s heart.
Rev Feargus O’Connor,
Hon Secretary of the World Congress of Faiths, Golders Green Unitarians,
Hoop Lane, NW11

Send your letters to: The Letters Editor, West End Extra, 40 Camden Road, London, NW1 9DR or email to letters@westendextra.co.uk. The deadline for letters is midday Wednesday. The editor regrets that anonymous letters cannot be published, although names and addresses can be withheld. Please include a full name, postal address and telephone number.
Letters may be edited for reasons of space.

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