Happy Rosh Hashanah (Jewish New Year) from Newcastle Liberal Democrats

l'shanah tovah tikateiv v'tichateimu

The Lord Mayor of Newcastle, Cllr David Down, wishes Happy Rosh Hashanah to all who will be celebrating it from Sunday onwards.

He will be attending the Newcastle Reform Synagogue in Gosforth on Monday.

This follows the unanimous approval on Wednesday of a Liberal Democrats-proposed motion to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-semitism, following a determined effort by protestors to disrupt the Council's proceedings. David had tried to calm the disruption by talking to the protestors, who had previously been allowed to address the Council for 5 minutes. When it was councillors turn - and they would have been limited to 3 minutes each - a protestor told David "we can see we got nowhere so we just wanted to stop it".

After the protestors had been cleared from the public gallery, the motion was proposed by Cllr Nick Cott and seconded by Cllr Nick Forbes in a display of council unity to make its position on racism and antisemitism clear.