British Ambassador to Israel,Matthew Gould is the first Jew to serve as Britain’s ambassador to Israel, but he is not the first ambassador to invest time and effort to understand the interests and viewpoints of Israel’s growing chareidi community. In fact, he considers it an essential ingredient of how successful he will be in his job.
Matthew Gould’s grandfather was one of ten children of an Orthodox Polish Jew who made his living selling fruit juice from his horse and wagon in Warsaw. One day his grandfather was walking home from yeshivah along a path near his home when he spotted what looked to be two Polish policemen beating up an elderly Jewish man.
As he drew closer he discovered to his horror that the man under attack was his own father. Summoning up all of the strength of youth he beat up his father’s attackers but as a result had to flee Poland to avoid prosecution or worse.
He spent the next few years in various European and South American countries plying his trade as an industrial knitting machine repairman before eventually settling in Birmingham England. The family history becomes a bit fuzzy here. Perhaps two or three of his nine other brothers and sisters eventually fled Warsaw before the Nazi occupation of World War II but the others were never heard from again.
Ambassador Gould related this aspect of his family history at a reception for select chareidi rabbanim politicians and media members held at the Tel Aviv home of Reb Itche Schapira son of former Knesset member Rabbi Avraham Yosef Schapira z”l.
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