‘They would be looking at their granddaughters today on the Honours List’: Cousins Tracy-Ann Oberman and Claudia Winkleman awarded MBEs

Numerous prominent members of the British Jewish community were recognised by the King this year in his Birthday Honours List, including actress Tracy-Ann Oberman and broadcaster Claudia Winkleman.

In an Instagram post on Sunday, Oberman, who starred in The Merchant of Venice 1936, shared how meaningful it was to receive an MBE alongside Winkleman – highlighting a special family connection.

“One of the lovely things about receiving an MBE alongside @claudiawinkle also getting an MBE ( congrats Claude) is that our Grandmas were sisters,” she wrote.

“Faye and Lilly both children of immigrants forging a life in the UK. Love that they would be looking at their granddaughters today on the Honours List. A testament to them.”

Strictly Come Dancing presenter Claudia Winkleman was awarded an MBE for her work in broadcasting. (Getty Images)Getty Images for Sky

Alongside her post, Oberman shared a family photo, showing her grandmother Faye and Winkleman’s grandmother Lilly standing next to each other.

"My grandmother and Claudia’s grandmother were the two youngest daughters in a very large family, and very close,” Oberman told the JC. “For their two granddaughters to be recognised feels really meaningful.”

Oberman, who grew up in a Jewish immigrant family in Stanmore, north London, has previously spoken about how much of an “icon” her grandmother Faye was, who took part in the Battle of Cable Street in 1936.

Speaking at the House of Lords in 2022, she recounted how the Jewish community stood up to Oswald Mosley’s antisemitic prejudice: “At the Battle of Cable Street, women, children, my grandmother, my great grandmother stood there on the front line with other working-class communities and said: ‘You shall not pass.’”

In The Merchant of Venice 1936, Oberman plays Shylock, who is re-imagined as a female, widowed, working-class refugee from Russia who fled the pogroms and settled in the East End. The character is based upon her own great-grandmother, Annie, who escaped to England from the Mogilev shtetl she grew up in after witnessing her father being brutally beaten in a pogrom.

Oberman said she was “honoured” to be awarded an MBE: “This recognition is deeply meaningful and I’m grateful to all who have supported this journey,” she said.

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Winkleman, the host of BBC One’s hit reality show The Traitors, was awarded an MBE alongside her Strictly Come Dancing co-host, Tess Daly. The pair have hosted the dancing competition as a duo since 2014. 

"I am ridiculously lucky and will celebrate with Tess by doing a paso doble," Winkleman said.

The acclaimed play is “driven by a commitment to Holocaust education and challenging antisemitism through storytelling,” she added.

Others who were honoured by the King include Manfred Goldberg, 95, a survivor of several concentration camps, who was awarded an MBE for his services to Holocaust remembrance and education.

The Community Security Trust’s (CST) head of policy Dave Rich also received an MBE for services in combatting antisemitism.

He said he was “deeply honoured and absolutely thrilled” to be recognised, and that it is “a privilege” to have worked for the CST for over 30 years.