News from Michael and Claire — December 2025
Over the last year, our lives have continued to be busy, indeed sometimes fraught, as we continue to live in troubling times. We are blessed to live in a relatively peaceful society, and though there are many fractures in the body politic, it remains more stable and less damaged than so many other places in our broken world.
Professionally, the big event was the publication of Claire’s book in July. ‘Petty tyranny and soulless discipline’? Patients, policy and practice in public mental hospitals in England, 1918–1930 has been carefully produced by UCL Press and is free to download from here. Claire continues her work as honorary archivist at the Royal College of Psychiatrists, work she loves, and has been researching the consequences of the new Mental Treatment Act back in 1930, as well as more recent mental health policies from our own century. She has volunteered to be one of the guides at the new heritage centre opening shortly at the historic Bevis Marks Synagogue (link), where we were married in 1983, and is currently reading up on aspects of their history.
Michael realized in April that his work on the Impact of Islam on Judaism had grown to 155,000 words. He submitted a proposal to an academic publisher, but they turned it down, and he is currently shortening the book and reworking the proposal to be something less academic, more a personal exploration of the field. He has also written a short opinion piece based on the short ‘listening project’ he conducted with a colleague into the current poor state of acute mental health services in England. That, plus teaching ancient Greek and rabbinic work, gives more than a full day’s work.
In July, we made a fascinating and unusual trip back to our old haunts in Cheshire, celebrating the relationship of a old friend with her new partner, a very young ninety year old. That, plus the bat-mitzvah of the older of her two pairs of twin granddaughters, staying in a farm cottage, catching up with old friends and some sightseeing, made a great week’s holiday for us.
We are delighted to announce the engagement of our youngest son Benjamin to Bella Forristal. They held a lovely party in her mother’s garden in Surrey in October, and we are very happy for them. Benjamin writes: ‘Bella – I’m so excited to get married to you!!! I just think you’re the most incredible person, you make my life better and you make me better.’ Bella writes: ‘absolutely delighted out of my damn mind to be engaged to Benjamin. I’m so grateful to have him in my life!’
Next May, Michael has been invited to give two talks at the synagogue in Χανια (Chania) in Crete. He is really excited about his first trip back to Greece since he was at school. We are planning to fly over to Bucharest afterwards and then return to London by train, via Budapest, Vienna and Frankfurt.
Samuel has recently returned from a six week trip around the world, visiting Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, Taiwan (where Claire’s brother Fabian lives), Japan and California (where Jacob and Holly live). Jacob continues his work on the safety of Artificial Intelligence (AI), and our weekly video call the other day found him a very sunny and hot San Diego at a conference. Benjamin has been promoted in his work for the AI Security Institute at the Department of Science, and now manages a large number of staff.
As I write, we have just returned from an amazing concert in Birmingham with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and choruses. ‘Aurora’ for chorus and orchestra had various sections celebrating the world’s major faiths and spreading the message of light in the darkness. The Christian section embellished a Christmas carol, Ave Maris Stella, and the Jewish piece was a lively Chanukah song with klezmer accompaniment. At this dark time of year, in a world with so many issues, the scintillating music written by our friend Roxanna Panufnik and librettist Jessica Duchen gave the audience a sense of hope and a longing for peace this Advent and Chanukah season.
Best wishes for 2026