Shabbat Shalom and welcome to the third streamed Shabbat morning service from the sanctuary at Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. This Shabbat is called Shabbat ha-Gadol – ‘The Great Sabbath’ – echoing, the reference to the ‘great’ day ahead proclaimed by the prophet Malachi, whose prophecy is read as the haftarah, the ‘concluding’ reading on […]
Shabbat Shalom everyone. Welcome to the second streamed service from the sanctuary of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. For those of you have the those of you have the Siddur booklet – or the PDF – I will be announcing pages, so please join in. But first, a few words. During the past week, individuals […]
So, the UK has left the EU. Let’s look at those acronyms for a moment. The ‘United Kingdom’ that encompasses England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland. Oh! what a complex morass of stories spanning centuries, underlie that conflict-ridden alliance. The ‘European Union’; formed in 1993, the EU was preceded by the European Economic Community that […]
When I travelled to Australia last March to speak at the 25th Jewish LGBT+ World Congress in Sydney,[1] I went on a special mini-bus day-trip to the Blue Mountains situated eighty miles north-west of the city. When we think of mountains, we often imagine massive ranges of rock. By contrast, the beautiful Blue Mountains are […]
Shabbat seems to be exactly the right time to take a break from Brexit and the forthcoming general election. So, today I would like to explore a different pressing contemporary issue. It also happens to be a very ancient issue, featuring centre-stage in the stories from Genesis that we are reading at the moment: Gender. […]
Today, we begin reading the Torah – again – and so, usher in an annual cycle that we return to year after year. How can we be beginning now? Surely, life renews itself in the spring, not in the autumn? The autumn is a season of dying – in glorious shades and hues. Nevertheless, for […]
What a summer it has been. The hottest July on record. Possibly, one of the wettest Augusts on record. And then, the hottest late August bank holiday on record. And while experiencing climate change in action and dealing with its impact – not least on the National Grid and the rail network – some of […]
Good morning. Eight days ago, the peace of the Sabbath at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh was shattered when an armed far-right extremist, screaming ‘death to the Jews’ went on the rampage, killing 11 people. The first incident of its kind since Jews first began to immigrate to the United States in the […]
On Tuesday evening, I participated in the pre-launch Assembly of Brighton and Hove Citizens UK. Over the past couple of years, Peter Brierley, the community organiser of Citizens UK, based in London, has made regular trips to Brighton forging contacts with local organisations, including local churches as well as our synagogue, with a view to […]
Dear President Trump, I’m writing to you in the hope that you will help to resolve a problem that until now has proved completely intractable: the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians over a piece of land that each people regards as their home. Why am I writing to you? After all, I’m a […]