Norwich Liberal Jewish Community

A
Community

From the Chair September 2017

It’s the time of year when we have taken stock. Unusually,

the weather had got considerably cooler and wetter and some

days have felt decidedly autumnal. But the High Holy Days

were warm and bright. I’m told that this isn’t unusual.

 

We had an excellent service with Elliott in August and

I felt his question and answer sermon about the current situation

in Israel, worked really well. It was lovely to have Leah back

with us on the first weekend 2nd September. We had an impressive

weekend. On Sunday the 3rd – simultaneously doing a fundraising

car boot sale and a clean up of the Old Meeting House.

 

We had a good annual joint Heritage Open Day with people from

the Norwich Hebrew Congregation, (NHC). Thank you to

Byron and Maureen for the excellent updating of the display boards,

which tell about the history of the Jewish communities in Norwich.

These are well worth a look and are stored at the NHC.

 

On Saturday September 16th, Emily led our Selichot and

we contemplated the auspicious time from Rosh Hashana

to Yom Kippur. As always, it was a thoughtful and contemplative

session helping us to get in the zone for the High Holy Days. We

considered forgiveness of ourselves and others.

 

We then moved onto the High Holy Days which will be followed by

our now traditional interfaith Sukkot. This is being held on October 7th

this year so we need to start collecting  fruit nets in which we hang

the produce. We already have a number of people of different faiths and

none who are joining us for the service.  See the events listing if you want to come along.

Also, Dee Robinson from New Routes Integration will be talking about her work with incomers

to Norwich.

 

Please do get in touch if you have any queries or are interested in attending services.

Annie

From the Chair August 2017

From the Chair – August 2017

It was a while since Elliott was with us in early July. And it was lovely to see him again. I found his sermon about the current situation in Israel, quite illuminating. It was also good to welcome people from the Peterborough community and Brian Sass from Northwood and Pinner. Since Brian was with us in May, he has been to Prague to talk to young people about the history of the Jewish community there. Our Torah scroll comes from a synagogue in Prague, whose community was almost entirely slaughtered in the Holocaust.  Brian has promised to write about his work in Prague for one of our future newsletters.

Some of us went to the Annual Martin Buber lecture recently. It was given by Alexandra Wright, the senior rabbi of the Liberal Jewish Synagogue (LJS) in St Johns Wood. I was particularly interested in her lecture as I grew up in the LJS in the 50s and 60s and also because the subject matter was musical. She looked at the words of JS Bach’s St John and St Matthew Passions. There were some surprisingly anti-Jewish sentiments but she helped us to put this in the context of the time in which Bach lived (1685 – 1750). This topic couldn’t have been more apt for a talk hosted by the Council of Christians and Jews.

We had another service led by Elliott in August. After last month’s service, I discussed with him the possibility of opening up his sermon into a question and answer session. I’m not sure if Elliott will do this but he was certainly considering it. It is very community oriented. Elliott leads us wonderfully musically even if we don’t know the tune!  On 3rd September we will be having a clean-up at the Old Meeting House in preparation for the High Holy Days.

As I write this, Stuart, my husband, has started to practise the Shofar in preparation for Rosh Hashana.

Annie Henriques

 

From the Rabbi May 2017

As our community grows and evolves — with more provision

for both young people and adults, through learning at all ages,

services and expanding membership — an aspect that the NLJC

can really also support is our pastoral and welfare side. That is,

when one member is ill, or grieving, dealing with a mental or

physical health concern for themselves or their family, we believe

our community should be there.

 

This is a deep Jewish value, often referred to as chesed,

or lovingkindness, the care we show each other when,

inevitably, life becomes difficult. And what about when one of

us is celebrating a simcha, a happy occasion? That’s also a

time when the community should reach out and celebrate together.

 

To that end, in the last year we have re-instituted the Norwich

Liberal Jewish Community Care Group, a team of five members

of the community and myself — all who, in different

ways, have personal or professional experience with pastoral

support.

 

Through this team we endeavour to recognise more of our

community members’ difficult times and joys, through sending ‘get well’

and congratulatory cards, making calls, and being a group to funnel the

Norwich Liberal Jewish Community’s personal news to best effect.

 

We keep the news in strictest confidence as needed and reach out as

best we can and grow the chesed in our community. Thank you to all, who

in your different, individual ways give so much to this community.

 

With all best wishes,

Rabbi Leah Jordan

From the Chair May 2017

What a weekend recently!  We set off to London to attend Clive Lewis’s wedding at the Houses of Parliament. I was very nervous but it all went well.

The ceremony was in the unbelievable12th century chapel in the depths of the building, an exquisite, beautiful piece of history.

What brought reality back into the story was the beautiful, simple service, led by the Speaker of the House’s Chaplain, the Reverend Rose Hudson-Wilkin. Originally from the West Indies, she reduced the ornate surroundings to an ordinary room. She was warm, personal and somehow with the simplicity of her words she made it all so ordinary and yet at the same time very special.

Both Stuart and I said afterwards that the Service reminded us of our services at the Old Meeting House where we have our monthly Shabbat services. It was very much about the people.

Those present experienced that feeling of simple community and the sense of sharing, something we are very used to at the NLJC.  And what a lovely, moving Bat Mitzvah service we had at the Old Meeting House in Norwich, with the family and our community.

Annie Henriques, Chair NLJC

 

 

 

Annie

 

 

 

From the Chair – March 2017

I have to say that March ‘17 was really quite a month in the history of our community. We had an amazing service weekend where we saw a huge range of activities. Rabbi Leah led a lovely intimate service on the Friday night where we welcomed a new member into our community.

On the Saturday morning at 10 o’clock the whole building was abuzz with activity. We had two cheder groups as in February and the numbers are growing. It’s getting quite squashed for Leah’s group in the library. The Adult Hebrew group is now into double figures. Next weekend we are starting a more advanced group to master our fluency of prayer book Hebrew, enhance our understanding and maybe take in a bit of the modern language as spoken in Israel.

Following on from this we had an excellent and very well attended service led by Joel, with drasha from Roddy. We are so blessed that we have two rabbis as well as Leah within our midst. Meanwhile, Leah saw some individual members of the community for pastoral discussion. There was so much achieved and something for everyone.

Just over a week later we held our AGM and I’m delighted to say that no one left Council. We also have two new members, who will bring our compliment to the full ten members. This is great news as it means there are more people to share in the responsibilities.

Move on to April 7th when we are holding our community meeting on the Friday evening. We will be kicking off with a short talk from Dee Robinson founder of New Routes Integration charity and then going on to a discussion about the direction the community is taking. We look for ideas from community members. Some Important items will be the charities we support, ways to fundraise and how we could plan better for Adult Education.

Then Saturday April 8th we look forward to another Bar Mitzvah. Simon Benscher, a friend  of the family, and chair of Liberal Judaism, is also coming along; we are looking forward to his visit and choral contribution. There will also be a special Kiddush.

I look forward to seeing everyone at some point over the weekend of 8th April.

Annie Henriques, Chair NLJC