Shlomo Abas (born 8 February 1948) is a popular Israeli children's author, editor and adapter of folk tales. His work includes original children's stories, as well as collections and adaptations of fables, legends, riddles and jokes. He has published 170 books.
Amnon (Ami) Rubinger (Hebrew: אמי רובינגר; July 15, 1953 – March 24, 2019) was an Israeli children's author, illustrator, and caricaturist known for his high-contrast digital art style. He was widely known for his "Toddler Series," which uses rhyming and participatory elements in books meant for young children. Rubinger was the son of David Rubinger, a world-renowned photojournalist and Israel Prize laureate.
Bharat Ramji Nathoo Pankhania (born October 1960) is a British physician, academic and politician who served as Mayor of Bath from 2025 to 2026.
Dr. Bharat Pankhania was born in Kenya to an Indian family from Gujarat. When Pankhania was 14, the family immigrated to Leicester, England. Bharat moved to Bath, Somerset in 1991, and to Combe Down in 2008.
Pankhania qualified from the Welsh Nation Schools of Medicine, Cardiff, Wales and trained as a General Practitioner in 1989. He trained in Public Health Medicine and specialised in infectious diseases and Communicable Disease Control and worked in the field in the UK. In 2020, and during the COVID-19 pandemic, he became known as a public-health commentator on public health issues including infection control and vaccination policy and also published academic scholarship in this regard. He joined the University of Exeter Medical School in 2017 and served as a senior clinical lecturer until 2026, leaving following the social media posts controversy regarding the 2026 Hatzola arson attack. In 2022, Pankhania was appointed Director of the Bath Royal Literary and scientific institution trustees.
Pankhania was elected as a Liberal Democrat councillor for Combe Down ward on Bath and North East Somerset Council in the 2019 local elections. He was re-elected in 2023, and served as Deputy Mayor before being elected as the 798th Mayor of Bath, Somerset on 7 June 2025 by the city's charter trustees. He was the first person of Indian heritage to hold the office. He served as Mayor of Bath from June 2025 to March 2026. His theme for the year was 'Education is Empowerment'.
In late March 2026, shortly after the arson attach of four ambulances operated by the Jewish volunteer emergency service Hatzola in Golders Green, London, Pankhania shared posts on his personal X account, describing the attack that is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime by the Metropolitan Police, as an 'Israeli false flag operation'. Other posts Pankhania later shared called the attack insurance fraud. Pankhania was subsequently suspended from the Bath and North East Somerset (Banes) council by the Liberal Democrat party and was set to take training in “equalities and social media conduct” following the retweets. Pankhania later resigned from both his party and the mayorship. He was the first Bath mayor to resign since 1937. Pankhania subsequently apologised for the posts and deleted them.
As of June 2026, he remains an independent councillor on the Bath and North East Somerset Council.
Pankhania is married to Alison and they share two children.
The Jewish Representative Council of Ireland (JRCI) is the main body representing the Jewish community in the Republic of Ireland (about 4,500 members in the late 1940s, and 2,193 individuals according to the 2022 Census). It was established in 1938 as an umbrella organisation that brings under one roof Jewish institutions and groups across the country and also serves as Ireland's affiliate to the World Jewish Congress.
The council speaks up for the Irish Jewish community when dealing with the Irish government, the media, other religious groups, and the general public. Its main areas of work include tackling antisemitism, helping people report hate crimes, keeping community life going, supporting Jewish education, and promoting good relations between different faiths.
As of 2026, the council is chaired by Maurice Cohen and is based at Herzog House in Dublin.
In recent years, the JRCI has become much more vocal about what it sees as a rising problem of antisemitism in Ireland. The organisation has presented many evidences to Irish parliamentary committees, including the Foreign Affairs Committee in 2025, and has made several public statements with regard to governmental policies and public events affecting the Jewish community in Ireland.
In mid-2025, the JRCI launched Ireland's first community-run system for reporting antisemitic incidents. In March 2026, the council put out its first report based on these submissions, documenting 143 incidents that took place in the country between July 2025 and January 2026. According to the report, the incidents were not “independently investigated or adjudicated”. The report also mentions the lack of an official government system for recording antisemitic incidents in Ireland and called for the development of a national plan to address the issue.