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Facebook BHPSDEDICATING THE FLAMES OF CHANUKKAH (5785-2024)
At Chanukkah, the Festival of ‘Dedication’, as we recall our ancestors’ struggle against tyranny by kindling light, we invite the gathering flames to inspire our own struggles against oppression and injustice.
This year, almost fifteen months since the horrors of October 7, 2023 and its aftermath, we dedicate our nightly kindling to all those whose lives have been devastated in Israel, Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, in the hope that the violence will soon cease, and that all those who have been bereaved, injured, and traumatised, will be enabled to rebuild their lives in Peace and Freedom.
- We dedicate the 1st flame of Chanukkah to the 251 people taken hostage and 1200 massacred by Hamas in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. We think in particular of the 38 children, 364 young people murdered at the Nova Music festival, the kibbutzniks slaughtered in twenty-one kibbutzim – including 90 members on Kibbutz Be’eri alone – and the 71 foreign nationals.
- We dedicate the 2nd flame of Chanukkah to the more than 35,000 Palestinian civilians killed in Gaza since October 7, 2023 during Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas.
- We dedicate the 3rd flame of Chanukkah to the almost 100 Israeli civilians killed since October 7, 2023, including fourteen hostages in Gaza, and thirty-three additional hostages thought to be dead.
- We dedicate the 4th flame of Chanukkah to the 1.6 million Palestinians displaced in Gaza, living in tents, without sufficient food, and under constant threat of bombardment.
- We dedicate the 5th flame of Chanukkah to the 135,000 people displaced in Israel, including 60,000 in the North.
- We dedicate the 6th flame of Chanukkah to the more than 500 Palestinians killed in the West Bank by settlers and the IDF soldiers since October 7, 2023.
- We dedicate the 7th flame of Chanukkah to the 3,960 Lebanese killed during Israel’s retaliatory war against Hezbollah during the autumn of 2024.
- We dedicate the 8th flame of Chanukkah to the 101 Israeli hostages who remain in captivity in Gaza.
Annual Brighton & Hove Interfaith Service
Annual Brighton & Hove Interfaith Service at the Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, November 2016’ by film-maker Sarah West and the Brighton and Hove Contact Group.
THE TREE OF LIFE
A Film by Sarah West Celebrating Hope, Community and the Earth which is our only Home.
Portrait of Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah
A short portrait film about Rabbi Elli Tikvah Sarah & the BHPS community made in 2015
At the beginning of 2015, an undergraduate called Sam Gavin asked me if he could make a film about me, focusing on my LGBTQ experience, as part of his film studies degree. Sam had grown up at Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, celebrating his bar mitzvah and graduating from the Kabbalat Torah class, and I had known him since he was a small child. I agreed, and we set a date for filming.
One spring morning a group of film students arrived at my home just outside Seaford, each one using the project to express their particular skills – as director, sound engineer, etc. Sam had the role of producer. In the afternoon, we travelled to Brighton and Hove to film at the synagogue, which was in the process of rebuilding at the time.
Sam sent me the film, entitled, Tikvah, when it was completed, and I congratulated him and his colleagues on doing a fantastic job.
I was reminded of the film a couple of months ago, when someone, who had seen it on YouTube tweeted about it, and so I watched it again. Tikvah makes a powerful statement about the LGBTQ experience and values that have infused my rabbinate, and just as important, about what a wonderful inclusive congregation Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue has become: a beacon of Liberal Judaism on the south coast.