But he did not address Tony Blair’s intimation that, after the French vote, there might be no constitution to vote on.The rest of Mr Alexander’s contribution, however, displayed a combination of wishful thinking and old-fashioned blarney. At least the new name leaves even less doubt about what it stands for.The second came from a trio of Labour politicians led by the former foreign secretary, Robin Cook. They lavished praise on the European constitution – which they were careful to call, accurately, the constitutional treaty – stressed the social values that this document enshrines and warned of Britain’s isolation on Europe’s margins if the treaty were rejected.The third came from the new minister for Europe, Douglas Alexander, in the course of the Commons debate on foreign and defence policy aspects of the Queen’s Speech. There was much throat-clearing yesterday in long-term anticipation of the promised referendum on the European constitution.

Within a few hours, three conflicting signals emanated from Westminster about Europe: the first downright hostile, the second a warm embrace, the third distinctly lukewarm. In fact, it was new in name only: the No campaign is an amalgamation and reheating of two rather older campaigns: the Vote No group backed by business, and the leftist Centre for a Social Europe. Here, in his house, you could stand your corner, a friend among friends, and argue a radical case about Israel with people who may have disagreed with aspects of your views, but never claimed that this put you beyond the pale.With the death of Harry Levy, a chapter in the long narrative of Jewish diaspora existence is almost closed. Despite and even because of his German experiences, he was, in the words of the prophet Zechariah, “a prisoner of hope”.Musa Moris Farhi and Anthony Rudolf. In 1947, he became a Founder Member of the Hampstead Branch of the Council of Christians and Jews and served, over the years, in various capacities, ending up as Vice-President. In 1953 he was appointed OBE in the Queen’s Coronation Honours List.At home, the Levys held Sabbath afternoon “salons” in Childs Hill.

On a day you are not allowed to drive, nobody asked how you had got to the house if you lived a long way away Skullcaps for the men were not obligatory. This was a rare citadel of old-fashioned traditional Anglo-Jewry, a denomination now largely vanished, with many of the children of its devotees moving “right” to ultra-orthodoxy or “left” to the Masorti movement – the true theological centre of modern Judaism – founded by Louis Jacobs, or further left to Reform and Liberal Judaism, even secularism.And yet, even though the United Synagogue has itself moved to the right, the Rev Isaac Levy stayed with it, his title a permanent reminder of the days when you could be an English gentleman of the Mosaic persuasion. Equally importantly, he defended the petitions of those surviving Jews who, wishing never to go back to the countries where local anti-Semitism had contributed to the near complete success of Hitler’s “final solution”, sought to go to Palestine, there to re-establish a Jewish homeland.After his exhausting war service, he was appointed to Hampstead Synagogue in 1946. He was chaplain to Ajex, the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen, from 1945 onwards, becoming its Vice-President in 1995.

In 1965, in the aftermath of the battle that raged around Jacobs (who was not appointed Chief Rabbi on theological grounds involving the nature of divine revelation), Levy quit the ministry and Jews College, where he had been lecturing in homiletics.Always a passionate Zionist, he became National Director of the Jewish National Fund (1965-77). On the “left wing” of the centrist orthodox United Synagogue, he was personally and professionally close to the outstanding scholar of Anglo-Jewry, Rabbi Louis Jacobs. His account of his nightmarish sojourn in the camp, of his efforts – originally described in letters he wrote at the time, particularly to his wife, Tonie – to bring life to that place of death, makes this short book one of the important resources for any research on what later became known as the Holocaust.His labour there was Herculean. He helped in and officiated at the burial of the thousands who had died before liberation and thousands more who, suffering from starvation and disease, died immediately after.Witnessing how Bergen-Belsen’s inmates, despite the horrors they had suffered, had retained their desire for life and sought to regain their individuality, he assiduously beseeched assistance, day after day, from various British governmental and Jewish organisations so that those who had survived – and those who could be saved – would not only be restored to physical and mental health, but also brought back to a semblance of normal life. There this man of wise disposition, tolerant nature and gentle countenance observed how hatred of “the other” not only dehumanised the victims, but also their persecutors.In 1995, in response to many suggestions that, in his own words, his “testimony as an eye- witness was essential because, with the passing years, there would be a paucity of reliable witnesses to that painful chapter of Jewish history”, Levy published the second of his several books, Witness to Evil: Bergen-Belsen, 1945. He was briefly captured in the Western Desert by German forces.Then, as Major Levy, he was appointed Senior Jewish Chaplain to the British Army on the Rhine in 1944-45. In 1946, he was promoted to Senior Jewish Chaplain to HM Forces, a post he held until 1966.