It’s not often that a commoner gets to dance with a King, but this is exactly what happened when King Charles visited a Jewish Center in North London for a Hanukah celebration. Not only did he delight the staff and residents at the center, but he took Anne Frank’s stepsister for a spin around the improvised dance floor.
Eva Schloss, 93, who survived Nazi concentration camps and has spent decades promoting peace among humanity, later complimented the King: “He was sweet, he really took part…he was very relaxed and he enjoyed it, I was trying to get a dance with him.”
Videos show that she wasn’t the only one to twirl with King Charles, who looks more relaxed in his public appearances since he ascended the throne than he ever did as Prince of Wales. An old gentleman was equally delighted and broke out some snappy moves as he twirled around the monarch.
Charles toured the JW3 community center on Finchley Road speaking to schoolchildren packing presents and food baskets for families around Camden, refugees baking gingerbread biscuits and survivors of the Holocaust.
In a speech during which she presented the king with a menorah, Dame Vivien Duffield said she founded JW3 to give the Jewish community in London a place to gather to protect and celebrate their heritage.
Amid the cheer and joyfulness of the event—and the thrill that as we see in the video, the staff experienced–there were also somber thoughts as Schloss noted that, “Unfortunately, there is still antisemitism, people say Jewish people should go to Israel, this is England, but I hope we are getting over these prejudices.”
JW3’s chief executive, Raymond Simonson, who accompanied the king on his tour of the center, said the monarch arrived with a car trunk- full of provisions to go into the donation packages.
“There are 200 households we support around the Camden area and they don’t have enough food at Christmas and now they have food from the king as well as from our volunteers.
