The Liberal Jewish Synagogue

• Friday 5th February 6.45pm - Erev Shabbat Service & Chavurah supper. Guest speaker, Howard Falksohn, Archivist at the Wiener Library makes a return visit with a presentation on ‘Children of the Third Reich.  Please bring a non-meat or sweet dish to share.
• Shabbat 6th February 11.00am - Shabbat Morning Service & our first ever Communal Blessing and Naming of children. Guest speaker, Rabbi Ofek Meir from the Leo Baeck Education Center, Haifa.  If you would like to take part in the communal naming, please contact Lois Goodman on 020 7432 1283.
• Friday 12th February – 6.45pm - Erev Shabbat Service Led by Bernie Bulkin
• Shabbat 13th February – 11.00am - Shabbat Morning Service – Shabbat Shekalim, marking the work of the Friends of Progressive Judaism in Israel and Europe Guest speaker: Rabbi Harry Jacobi
• Friday 19th February 6.45pm - Erev Shabbat Service Led by Bob Kirk
• Shabbat 20th February – 11.00am - Shabbat Morning Service Rabbi David J. Goldberg
• Friday 26th February -6.45pm - Erev Shabbat ‘tent’ service Avivit Katzil and Rabbi Judith Levitt
• Shabbat 27th February – 11.00 am - Shabbat Morning Service Rabbi Rachel Benjamin
• Saturday 27th February at 6.45 pm - Erev Purim Reading of the Megillah followed by our annual Purimspiel: The Yekkes Factor or The LJS has got talent! All welcome
• Friday 5th March – 6.45pm - Erev Shabbat Service Chavurah supper with guest speaker, playwright Bernard Kops, hosted by the Library Committee
• Shabbat 6th March - 11.00am - Shabbat Morning Service Toby Lane Bar Mitzvah
• Friday 12th March -6.45pm - Erev Shabbat Service
• Shabbat 13th March – 11.00am - Shabbat Morning Service Rabbi Mark L. Solomon.
• Tuesday 30th March at 6.30 pm Communal Seder

Tuesday 12th January 2010 – The Jewish History Course, begins at 8.00 pm.  The LJS in conjunction with Spiro Ark – all welcome.

Study from the Comfort of your own Home: Sofa Surfing – Eat, Drink and Be Merry.  Text Study via ‘Skype’ from 8:00 pm - 8:45 pm hours with Jan Roseman:

Friday 5th February at 6:45 pm - Erev Shabbat Service and Chavurah with Wiener Library archivist, Howard Falksohn.  Presentation on ‘Children of the Third Reich’.

Communal Naming and Blessing for children and grandchildren, Shabbat 6th February, Guest speaker: Rabbi Ofek Meir from Leo Baeck Education Centre in Haifa.

Thursday 11th February – Meeting of the London Society of Jews and Christians

Shabbat 13th February – guest speaker Rabbi Harry Jacobi introduces Shabbat Shekalim.

Purimspiel – Saturday 27th February at 6.45 pm.

Wednesday 17th March – London Society of Jews and Christians ‘Caring for Creation’.

Sunday 21st March – KIT tea party.

Tuesday 30th March at 6.30 pm Communal Seder at The LJS.

The focus for this week’s Torah reading is the dramatic account of God’s revelation on Mount Sinai and the Ten Commandments – or Aseret Dib’rot – ‘The Ten Words’ as they termed in Hebrew.  Just prior to this comes Moses’ reconciliation with his wife Zipporah, his two sons, Gershom and Eliezer, and his father-in-law Jethro.

There is a moving encounter between the two men – little is said about his meeting with Zipporah and the boys.  Jethro, a Midianite priest with no ancestral ties to the Israelites, is deeply affected by the events that have taken place – the hardship of slavery, the plagues, the defeat of the Egyptians and the Exodus from Egypt.

But all is not well for Moses. He cannot cope with the disputes and arguments of the people and as he sits from morning to evening trying to deal with each case as it comes his way, Jethro notices that Moses is slowly burning himself out.  ‘What is this thing you are doing to the people?’ he asks.  ‘Why do you act alone, while all the people stand about you from morning to evening?’ (Exodus 18:14)

Jethro recommends a structure of judicial authority, allowing Moses to delegate to a hierarchy of leaders who will take on minor disputes, and leave him to deal with the difficult issues.  Of course, the arrangement does not prevent rebellion, challenge of leadership and authority, but it does mean that Moses can share in the leadership of the people.

That theme of judgement is crucial throughout the wilderness years.  It points not only to Moses’ own decisions of leadership and judgement, but to our own assertions of what is right and just in society.

This week, the New Israel Fund – a beneficiary of our own past High Holyday Appeal – faced an attack against it by a neo-Zionist organisation called Im Tirtzu claiming that 92% of negative references quoted in the Goldstone Report on the Gaza War, came from grantees of NIF funds, organisations such as Physicians for Human Rights, B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel among others.   Behind a poster showing NIF’s president, Professor Naomi Chazan with a horn coming out of her forehead, is a sinister campaign to suppress the right of debate and the crucial and necessary role of human rights organisations in Israel. 

But an article in Israel’s left-wing newspaper Ha-aretz (http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1147783.html) traces the leadership and financial support for Im Tirtzu to radical activists, including, among others, an American evangelist preacher who is reported to have said that Hitler carried out the will of God to return the Jews to Israel in accordance with the biblical promise.

At the centre of Liberal Judaism lies the prophetic tradition of ethics – not only our own personal morality of right conduct, but justice in society at large.  The freedom that exists in a democracy, that allows us to speak out against injustice, that compells us to uncover deception, to discover truth and to put right was is essentially wrong and unjust, must not be allowed to be challenged by those who want to suppress debate.  The campaign against NIF is an incitement to hatred, it is a perversion of truth and an effacement of freedom.  That must not be allowed to happen in a Jewish state that is built on the teachings and values of prophetic Judaism.

Shabbat Shalom,

Alexandra Wright