“What’s a census?” my little brother asked. “Well it’s a survey…” I began. “Is it geography related?” he interrupted, his eyes narrowing. “Because lockdown is boring enough.” I’m a geography student at Edinburgh University, so I get very excited over census, but 2021 could cause…
There’s an apocryphal story of Yosef Kahaneman, rabbi of the Ponevezh Yeshiva in the 20th century, travelling through Rome in a cab. From the back seat, he calls to his driver to stop at the Arch of Titus. He gets out and, as he approaches the monument, starts shouting at its depiction of…
Family and life stories are so much more than simply a collection of dates. Births, marriages and deaths are of course the punctuation to our lives, but it’s the stories in between those events that make up the real lives; that create who we are. As the director of Words by Design, my job…
As a 21-year-old British Jewish girl, I am blessed to live in a society where I have the freedom to choose how I practice and embrace my faith. I am reform and modern in my lifestyle. Recently, a photo I posted of myself on my private Instagram page was put on a WhatsApp group chat and…
In our present situation, in which many quarantined families must resort to home-schooling, perhaps it's apt to ask, what is the ideal method of Jewish education? Historically, formal Jewish education was rudimentary and rigid, and often proved ineffective. This could be because…
For the first time on UK soil, the traditions of Judeo-Arabic music are going to be explored, studied, performed and enjoyed. Thanks to the Jewish Music Institute, the brains behind this initiative, SOAS University in London will…
“Music is the most beautiful language in the world,” proclaimed Weinberg’s gramophone shop in the 1920s. This formed the basis of one of their adverts in a Yiddish language newspaper once sold on the streets of Whitechapel. At the time, swinging dance bands were…
Last week we went to the funeral of a dear friend. The service was taken by our senior rabbi, with standing room only in the massive crematorium hall and an impressive turn out from our membership, staff and officers swelling the already huge numbers of family and other friends…
I hope readers will forgive me for subverting the words Ophelia speaks in her strangely lucid madness in Hamlet, for they are not all exhortations. But for me, "pray, love, remember" sums up this month’s season of shared remembrance and special anniversaries. As well as the…
