Shalom Chaverim,

Some of the conversation surrounding the Brexit vote (shock) in the UK, followed by the Presidential vote (further shock) in the United States, has been quite startling. There’s been a significant questioning of democracy, of stability, of our values with a not so subtle dose of uncertainty and anxiety about our collective future.

My own view is that we have not even come close to reaching catastrophic results in either country. However, this is as good a time as any to take stock and be aware that history can change dramatically, unexpectedly, and catch us all off guard.

We Jews know that reality more than any other people. Safe in Jerusalem in the 6th century BCE, suddenly there arose a Babylonian Empire to destroy the Temple and exile two thirds of our people.

A Jewish state, Judea, the last sovereign Jewish state until 1948, existed in strength and in peace until the expanding power of Rome in the west eroded Jewish independence, leading to the outbreak of the doomed Jewish revolt in 66CE and destruction of the Second Temple in 70CE.

Our entire history since those debacles, while living in galut (exile) or diaspora (dispersion), has been a story of “security and safe haven” one day, only to be eventually shocked into disarray.

Jews lived in Baghdad for centuries until they were caught up in its gradual decline and finally invasion by Mongol invaders in the 13th century.

The Jews of Spain, who lived in relative comfort for centuries, bouncing between Muslim and Christian overlords, found themselves cut off by the rise of fundamentalist Christianity, culminating in their expulsion from the entire Iberian peninsula, Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497. Jewish havens in Poland and Ukraine also came to a sudden end.

In our own lifetime, Jews who had lived in Germany since the 9th century and by the 20th century had reached positions of influence, creativity and even power, became the centre of Nazi extermination designs.Then came the virtual end of Russian Jewry.

And that is a major reason why we should remember the lessons of the coming festival of Chanukah. Before Antiochus Epiphanes IV began his religious persecution, his Seleucid predecessor, Antiochus III, followed up his victory over the Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt in 198 BCE by giving the Jews freedom of worship and relief from heavy taxation.

Antiochus IV continued this policy for the first seven years of his reign. But in a complete reversal, in 167 he initiated the first major pagan persecution of any Jewish community, forbade the study of Torah, prohibited circumcision and forcibly imposed emperor- worship on the Temple in Jerusalem.

What happened in so short a period of time? There are all kinds of explanations – unrest in Egypt following his incursions, leading to fear of another war there; souring of the economy; and most importantly, a growing intolerance towards the “differing practices” of the Jews

Hence, the first religious persecutions in history, the three-year Maccabean revolt and the subsequent cleansing of the Temple, leading to our holiday of Chanukah.

So, what does this all mean for us? To me, it means that there are no guarantees in history; that things can change rapidly; that we need to be ever alert and ready to check any emergence of anti-Semitism.

We must always be mindful that the countries we love so much and which have given us abundant freedom, hold no rock-solid guarantee that this will last forever.

What is forever is God, Torah and the people of Israel. We must never forget that reality. So light those Chanukah candles, cherish our current freedom, implant in our children the resolve to resist any onslaught on our people and faith. Let them know that our spiritual strength and vision will last for eternity.

My wishes to all of you for a festival of light and hope, of lots of oily food (latkes, sufganiyot) and the joy of freedom.

Chag Chanukah Sameach!

Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

9 November 1938 will forever remain indelibly etched into the consciousness of world Jewry. For on that day the “night of broken glass”, Kristallnacht, was launched throughout Germany and Austria. Synagogues were burned to the ground, thousands of Jews arrested, many more beaten in the streets and humiliated. But most of the world, witness to the destruction of Jewish life, did nothing to alleviate the violence.

“It is an internal affair of the German government” was the mantra of the day. With the world’s passiveness and inability to respond to the impending demise of German and Austrian Jewry, the tools were put in place for the first steps towards the Final Solution.

Belsize Square Synagogue will not forget that night. Our guest for Friday night’s service on 11 November will be Jonathan Arkush, President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. Jonathan has been a courageous and visionary leader, almost single-handedly taking on the anti-Semitic outrages of the Labour Party, unafraid to address attacks against our Jewish past and attachment
to Israel, and challenging Mr Jeremy Corbyn on his failure to understand the stain of anti-Semitism. We are honoured to have him join us and I look forward to welcoming him. Our thanks to Robert Sacks and Eric Moonman, our Board representatives, for arranging this.

The onslaught against Jewry has not gone away. It is just repackaged differently, centred round Zionism and Israel. The BDS boycott movement and UNESCO’s resolution on 13 October denying any Jewish link to Jerusalem, especially the Temple area, was frightening and hateful. I hope you will all protest to your neighbours and MPs that erasing Jewish history is just the latest example of the 3,500-year-old obsession with Jew hatred. It’s real.

Only six countries voted against it: Estonia, Germany, Holland, Lithuania, the UK and USA. We should express our gratitude to them for their sanity and resistance to base anti-Semitism in the United Nations. There were 33 in favour, including France, Russia, Slovenia, Spain and Sweden, and 17 abstentions. Many other countries not on the governing board, including the Czech Republic, solidly denounced the vote.

Two other points of interest: Irina Bokava, UNESCO’s director, disavowed the vote and called it a disgrace to the world’s nations and the UN. And a Jewish member of Mexico’s UNESCO delegation, on the point of resigning in protest at his government’s support for the resolution, stayed on to fight at the urging of Israel’s delegate. Oddly, Mexico renounced its earlier support but fired its courageous Jewish delegate.

There is so much else going on this month, notably the US Presidential election, where we pray the winner will help our troubled world. But we still have a full programme with Shabbat UK, Adult Discussion on philosophy and Bar Mitzvah services. Come to our services and activities and become part of the Belsize miracle! Wishes for a joyous month of learning, goodness, mitzvot, reading and friendship.

B’shalom
Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

Shalom and my wishes to all of you and your loved ones for shana tovah u’metukah, a good and sweet year (5777)

From the outset of my remarks, it is clear that the way we Jews welcome the new year is unique to the Jewish people and our Judaism, and to no other faith.

Normally, the passage of time is marked by raucous celebrating, imbibing, eating and dancing – a logical way to mark the coming of a new year and the blessing of life. However, in Jewish tradition our celebration is not with noisy drinking and dancing but by sitting with our families at the festive dinner table, dipping our challah into honey and thanking God for the renewed possibility of a good and sweet new year.

I can also understand why we wish our friends and loved ones a “good” year because, in Jewish terms, if we do not add goodness to our lives, the new year is just another day, a part of the cycle of nature. When we come to synagogue to pray, it is not to ask God for material needs but spiritual strength, new ideals, gratitude for what we have, a changing and healthier perspective on our lives and the world around us.

We study and hear the words of Torah reconnecting us to our past and to our people. We all know that the example of spiritual and religious resolve set by our Jewish ancestors at the start of our recorded history has stood the test of time.

They knew the power of words, that ideas are stronger than the sword. So Babylonia is in rubble, the remains of Assyria are in museums, Greece, Rome, Persia, the Holy Roman Empire, Islamic Empire, Communist bloc, Nazi Third Reich are all gone and we, the Jews, less than %.002 of the world’s population, are still here.

The theme of this year’s Holy Days is “The Importance of our Vision: Finding Meaning”. On Erev Rosh Hashanah we will introduce our journey into why ideals and dreams matter, by focusing on a talmudic text that tells us exactly what we should be praying for on Rosh Hashanah.

On the first day of Rosh Hashanah, the subject is “God: Why do our Beliefs Matter?” They certainly matter a great deal to the dregs of extremists and terrorists today, but what about us? Do we have any core beliefs? Why God? And what kind of God it is that I reject or accept?

On the second day of Rosh Hashanah we turn to our texts, the stories and history that give us vision.

On Kol Nidre: What is the mission of the Jewish people? Is it important to articulate what exactly we, the collective whole of the Jewish people, want for this world? What is the purpose of remaining Jewish? Plus a few words about how Belsize Square Synagogue fits into our people’s vision. Does our Synagogue need goals and a mission?

For Yom Kippur, what does all this search for meaning and vision mean to me as an individual? What do I live for? Should I be a part of something greater than myself?

At Yizkor, remembering: the importance of incorporating our memories of loved ones into our ideals and aims. Yizkor is all about remembering the past for the sake of our future.

At Neilah, before we say goodbye to our holiest time of the year, we will summarise and contemplate where we are headed as individuals and as a community.

We all begin our new year by dipping our challah into honey, which is perfectly kasher! Why is that an odd thing? Because normally something that is tamei (ritually impure) is forbidden, treif!

Milk products, eggs of kosher animals are just fine, but how can the product of a non-kosher creature – a bee – be considered kosher? (footnote: I love honey – good decision, Rabbis!) but why did they come up with a ruling that not only allows us to eat honey all year round but tells us we should eat it specifically at Rosh Hashanah? Why is it made the exception to the long list of prohibitions in Maimonides, Hilchot Ma’achalot Assurot 3:3?

According to the Rabbis, honey represents a food which turns “bad, non-kosher” into good – and kosher. That is the concrete form of what we express in our prayers: there is always a future for happiness. Good will emerge from past unhappiness, suffering and dissonance.

So what are our greatest hopes and dreams at this time of the year? The food – the honey – symbolises our quest for 5777 to see good emerge from our misfortunes, wars and crises; to see taharah (purity), the good, emerge from tumah (impurity) and our world move toward the fulfilment of our hopes and ideals.

See you all in our beautiful Sanctuary.

Ketivah v’chatimah tovah,
Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

Shalom Chaverim

This month begins our time for introspection, spiritual, moral and personal. Called heshbon hanefesh, or the soul’s account, it is considered in Jewish tradition to be the most intensive spiritual self-judgement of the entire year.

The theme of this year’s High Holyday sermons and services will be aims, goals and ideals. How does our faith that we are moving towards something l’eila u’l’eila (higher and higher), influence who we are?

We, the Jewish people with our Torah, left the world an array of gifts that had never before appeared to humanity: belief in One God (monotheism), belief in revelation (the still, quiet voice that addresses humanity), belief in messianism (the view that history moves toward a peaceful and idyllic future).

That last contribution is known as a linear view, the idea that history and humanity move toward a culmination. The pagan world had a “cyclical” view of history, meaning they believed in the cycle of nature, with nature making our lives spin round like wheels without end or resolution.

Then came the Torah, in which God begins Creation and moves matters forward to the family of nations, moral principles and law in a narrative, Exodus, which sees the beginning of a people’s history, a people destined to lead nations to unity and harmony.

We take seriously the words we recite from the prophet Zechariah at the end of every service in the Aleinu: Bayom hahu y’heyeh Adonai echad u’shmo echad, On that day God shall be one and His Name one.

As you see, I am in a frame of mind to look forward and I ask us all to do the same. It takes a lot of hard work but also encourages us to do real heshbon hanefesh, constantly examining our souls and destiny. Failure to do so decreases our spirit and diminishes our souls. I would love to hear your passions and thoughts on where our community should be going. Here are some of my ideas:

1) I want to keep investing in the highest goals of our tradition, and central to that aim is education. We will have four Sunday sessions from 12.30- 2.30pm teaching our members to read Hebrew. Our Sunday adult education class from 10.00am-12.30pm will look at modern philosophy and the Jewish responses over the last 200 years. This is one of the real highlights of my tenure at this synagogue.
There will also be a joint class with Revd Paul Nicholson of next-door St Peter’s Church in an intensive examination of our religious traditions and more Lunch ‘n’ Learn sessions after Shabbat services.

Our ongoing Monday night Introduction to Judaism, from 7.00-8.15pm, fills the Library with 14 candidates and their partners. But I would like to encourage any of you interested in a full survey of Judaism – its values, theology, holidays, life cycle, history, Bible and literature – to join an enthusiastic and bright class.

2) We need to continue to enliven our services and to think of new possibilities for participation of both young and old.

3) Music: Our ambitious plans continue with our concert on 25 September with my friend, the violin virtuoso Maxim Vengerov, along with my wife, Ella Leya, a recording star in her own right.

4)Youth: Under our new Youth chairman, Simon Cutner, plans are afoot to revitalise our youth groups.

5) Social Justice/Tikkun Olam: With the amazing Eve Hersov, our Community Care Co-Ordinator, spearheading our Bereavement and Compassion Committee, I am hoping to establish a Social Justice Committee to re-ignite a passion for social awareness and gemilut chasadim, acts of kindness to others – refugees, the poor and homeless. We need to improve our profile in this area and if someone is keen on this, tell me.

6) Travel: Our trip to Berlin in May was an extraordinary success. We hope to visit Israel next and want to see who is interested in joining us for a 2017 trip. This will not be your normal trip to Israel. We will meet rabbinical, political and archaeological personalities and the human rights right activist, Natan Sharansky.

This is the month of Elul, a time for selfevaluation, for communal evaluation and renewal of our vision for 5777, the new year which comes in next month. I look forward to seeing you in synagogue.

B’shalom always,
Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

It is that time of year again, time to take stock, to enjoy the quiet of the summer months, to recharge our energies for the coming year, and, hopefully, find a new perspective in renewed faith. We may have no control over the turbulence around us but we can look back over the past year at our Synagogue and see cause for pride and gratitude.

I have said many times that I feel so privileged to be the rabbi of this unusual and gifted community. I am blessed with remarkable students, the best of friends and a congregation that believes in the best of our Jewish ideals and spirit. May God continue to give us that strength. So, here are a few reflections on what we have accomplished together and where we are headed.

We began the Jewish year with powerful High Holy Day services and attendance. I spoke on aspects of fear, the choir was magnificent, the Cantor never sounded better, everyone took part. We had a Bar or Bat Mitzvah virtually every week, where our gifted children affirmed their Jewish identity.
We took 30 members to Berlin on a trip beyond all expectation. We learned so much and were impressed by the local activists we met at the Alexander Haus, thanks to our co-host, Thomas Harding. A big thank you to Claire Walford for arranging it all.

We had classes: our Sunday morning adult discussion class on modern western philosophy and Jewish responses from Hobbes to Moses Mendelssohn. We held our annual lecture with Rev Paul Nicholson on religious extremism in our respective faiths, and were joined by a leading
figure of the Shiite Muslim community.

Our Tikkun Leyl Shavuot was led by Alasdair Nisbet. Though small in number, we were mighty in the content of our educational endeavour. Maimonides was the glue and learning was all around us, as was the cheesecake. Our community second Seder attracted the largest attendance we have ever had. And we had a joyous Purim, a festive Succot.

Seven adults who have studied every week with me in the synagogue library were brought before the Bet Din and became part of the Jewish people. We also welcomed three children who followed their converted mothers. We had Hebrew “marathon reading” classes for the first time, to try to put those unfamiliar with Hebrew at ease with our services.

We are growing. Membership is up. Attendance is largely excellent. We are blessed with leadership, and this is a good moment to thank our outgoing Co-Chairs, Suzanne Goldstein and John Abramson, along with the Board and Executive, for their time and commitment.

Our office works hard and I personally am grateful that I work with such fine individuals as Jennifer Saul, Jagdish (bookkeeping), Adam Rynhold (my right arm), Gordon Larkin (our man who keeps us safe and organised!), and Lee Taylor, the very best Chief Executive, a man of incredible integrity and devotion to the community.

I also want to again note how blessed we are in our music, our professional choir, our youth choir director, Alyson Denza, our superb music director, Dr Ben Wolf, and, finally, my partner on the bimah, Cantor Paul Heller.

Our music programme has been revolutionised by Philip Keller and the the Music Committee. Concerts just get better and better. Our Israel Committee, led by Jeffrey Graham, arranged a memorable dinner, raising funds for our regular charities in Israel.

Our talented Education Director, Jeanie Horowitz, enhances our children’s knowledge of their Jewish heritage. Thank you, Jeanie, and thank you also, Eve Hersov, compassionate and caring, who visits our seniors and those who are ill and watches over mourners.

So, how can we do better next year? Well, we will certainly try! We will focus on ideals, aims and goals at the High Holy Days. We will organise another trip, most likely to Israel.

Our Monday night Introduction to Judaism course has 12 new students. We will continue our Sunday morning study of modern philosophy and Jewish thought. There will be more Hebrew reading opportunities. Stay tuned!

Welcome to Jackie Alexander, our new Chairman, and the Board of this great community, to all our committee chairs and, most of all, to our entire membership. You continue to astound with your energy, compassion, devotion to the community and passionate interest in seeing Jewish life thrive.
Have a wonderful summer and may God bless us with renewed faith and most of all, shalom.

B’shalom,
Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

Chaverim Yekarim – Dear Friends,

This is the month of Sivan, the month of June, when we celebrate Shavuot, our short two-day chag that has few rituals or customs attached to it, unlike its partner pilgrimage festivals (regalim) of Passover and Succot.

There’s a reason for that lacuna in ritual for Shavuot because the primary message of this festival is matan Torateinu, the commemoration of the giving of the Torah. Torah speaks for itself, it needs no formal ritual, for it is about our mental and intellectual connection to Torah and Judaism. That is why the most prominent ritual attached to Shavuot has been the custom of Tikkun Leyl Shavuot, the Kabbalistic tradition of studying Torah all night long, as our ancestors at Har Sinai stayed awake all night long before receiving the Ten Commandments.

By now you all know the importance of our educational component at Belsize Square Synagogue. We have hosted a variety of prominent speakers, including the former Chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary, Rabbi Dr Ismar Schorsch, and more recently the Provost and esteemed Dean of History at JTS, Professor Jack Wertheimer. We’ve had other scholars with us and we have a steady diet of classes in our weekly Monday night Introduction to Judaism course, covering everything from theology, festivals and life cycle to interfaith matters and history.

And we have our regular Sunday morning discussion group where we we have studied this year the great thinkers of Western civilisation and Jewish responses to those thinkers, and have become familiar and knowledgeable about Plato, Aristotle, Hume, Kant and Hegel. We have hosted a magnificently successful day of study, Limmud, and held joint classes with our neighbour, St Peter’s Church, on Bible, extremism and many other subjects.

Education is the heart and core of our congregation. Without knowledge we lose our vision, our wisdom, our drive to maintain the light of Israel. Talmud Torah (Torah study) is the hallmark of our religious faith and commitments. We know that without our Jewish education, knowledge and literacy, we would have disappeared long ago.

Here are some cornerstone citations to remember:

1. It says in Pirke Avot (Ethics of the Fathers): Am ha’aretz lo chasid (An ignorant Jew cannot be a pious person). Our rabbis knew 2,000 years ago that without knowledge of Torah, it is impossible to find the drive and purpose to observe the commandments, personal and inter-personal. You simply cannot be or act on something important to you without knowing why. Knowledge increases the sense of obligation.

Jews have learned through the centuries that there is no substitute for learning.

2. Talmud Torah k’neged kulam (The study of Torah has equal weight to all of them, i.e. the rest of the commandments). What was Rabbi Akiva trying to teach us? Without study of Torah you cannot understand why we Jews must do what we do. This says it all regarding the place of study in our tradition.

3. V’shinantem l’vanecha (And you shall teach it to your children – or chew it over with them.) All parents have this obligation, as we recite from the Shema morning and evening, for study leads to the parental ability to transmit our tradition to our children and grandchildren. The verse says we should teach them intensively, repeatedly. V’shinantem, which comes from the word for tooth (shin, like the Hebrew letter), means that we must first be students ourselves so that we know what we are telling our children.

4. Torah lishma (Torah for its own sake), which means that the purpose of our study is not to gain a diploma or secure good grades or even “prepare ourselves for a job”, but for its own sake, just to love the learning – no ulterior motives allowed. Now, would not this ethical value be helpful on our university campuses where so much of student and classroom life is about getting good grades rather than the substance of learning?

So my plea to you all is: Come to our classes and services. I always try to teach something new each week. Come to our Tikkun Leyl Shavuot after evening service on Saturday 11 June. Our subject this year is Maimonides, the great Rambam (Rabbi Moses ben Maimon, 1140-1205). Each of our sessions will be on a different aspect of his teachings. What do you know about Maimonides? Come and find out.

And join us on Sunday mornings. We’re wrapping up this year’s course but come next year, when we will be exploring the philosophies of Heschel, Fackenheim, Buber, Rosenzweig, Kaplan and many more prominent 20th century Jewish thinkers.

My wishes to all of you for a blessed and dairy-filled Shavuot.

Chag Shavuot Sameach,
Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

Shalom Chaverim,

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks’ book, Not in God’s Name, is a masterpiece, an essential, brilliant and necessary dissertation which combines the best of Jewish ethics, theology and vision in one book. It is no surprise that Rabbi Sacks received, and well deserved, the prestigious Templeton Prize 2016 for his exceptional contribution to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.

The theology presented in Rabbi Sacks’ book is the most perfect response to a world that has been plunged into interfaith conflict, due to the rise of religious and political extremism. And it is extremism, whether it be Islamic, Christian, Jewish or secular, which threatens to destroy us in its murderous agenda of bloodshed and intolerance.

Our very hope for coexistence and understanding of each other, especially in the area of interfaith dialogue, depends upon a new framework of religious vision that encompasses the “other”, and Rabbi Sacks has mastered the religious response to terror and extremism.

“Us” Versus “Them”

Both religious and secular extremism in the past and today divides the world into a dualism that splits the world into an “us” versus “them” mentality. The “good guys” take on an ideological position that soon warps the human soul by justifying a contrived and diabolical need to destroy the ”bad guys” and, as Rabbi Sacks demonstrates so lucidly in his book, allowing for the most violent and dastardly murderous activity.

This need to be rid of all ideological and religious competitors characterised the Jewish Dead Sea Sect (from the 2nd century BCE to the 1st Century CE) whose religious stance divided the world into the “children of Light and Darkness”.

The Christian crusaders separated the heathens who rejected Christianity from the pure faithful. Hitler and Stalin crushed the Jews and all their other ideological opponents as “evil ones” preventing the pure race or righteous ideology from victory. Today’s Islamic fanatics have made cruel war against anyone who defies Islamic sharia law and the establishment of Islamic dominance.

Embracing the Other

However, true monotheism, as we read in Sacks’ book, finds a way of encompassing us all in a family of nations. If we were only to read our Scriptural sources carefully, maintaining our unique religious callings while, at the same time, finding a theology that embraces the other due to an enlarged and appropriate understanding of monotheism – one God, one humanity – then the problems of terror, fanaticism and dualism would find no followers.

I am not an Orthodox rabbi but I have relied upon my brilliant teacher, Rabbi Sacks, for wisdom, Torah, insight and more. I, for one, marvel at the breadth and depth of Rabbi Sacks’ knowledge and insight and believe that everyone should read his brilliant book.

However, there is one caveat to his Not in God’s Name that needs to be addressed, and sooner rather than later.

While Rabbi Sacks has presented a coherent and necessary theological framework for

interfaith relations, in my view the time has come for a similar ideological and theological basis to improve “intra-faith” relations, i.e. the way Jews should look upon their fellow Jews. The intolerance that exists, the apartheid we have created in our own Jewish world, both in Israel and the Diaspora, are appalling and, unfortunately, getting worse.

There are constant spats regarding praying at the Western Wall, whether non-Orthodox rabbis should be granted the right to officiate at weddings, funerals or conversions, prohibitions on Orthodox rabbis from even stepping foot in Masorti, Reform or Liberal synagogues, let alone engage in classes, worship or dialogue with each other, in a dark side of Jewish life today that we too often ignore.

Unnecessary Division

In fact, we live with the absurdity that an Orthodox rabbi, even here in the UK, finds it easier to attend a church or mosque than to be present at a nonOrthodox synagogue or institution.

The time has come to rethink this preposterous and unnecessary division within our small Jewish world. The fighting and division weaken us at the very time when we need to stand united in the face of rising anti-Semitism, constant attacks against the state of Israel, and rampant assimilation and acculturation.

Not only are we, the Jewish people, weakened by such divisiveness. We appear as absurd, empty proponents of the kind of mutual respect for all that our world desperately needs at this time in history, unless we become determined to undo the walls we have erected to keep the other Jew out.

We must be one people, for the underlying principle of the Torah is the Oneness of God, and the correlation to that is the oneness of the people of Israel. The divisions among us lead to a disqualification of our ability to testify to the world regarding God’s unity and the unity of nations and religions. As the Midrash tells us: “The Divine Presence does not dwell among a people with a divided heart.” (Numbers Rabbah 15:14)

A Diverse People

This call for unity does not mean that we Jews need to be the same in our various approaches to Jewish life, law, ethics and tradition. We are a diverse people and that has always been a salient fact of Jewish history, whether it be Pharisees vs Sadducees, Rabbis Shammai vs Hillel, Ishmael vs Akiva, kabbalists (mystics) vs Maimonidean rational philosophers, or Mitnagdim (traditionalist opponents) vs Chasidim (thought illiterate revolutionaries when the movement arose in the 18th century).

These are all schisms which predate the differences that now exist in the Orthodox world (including Chasidim, Charedim, religious Zionists and antiZionists) and Masorti, Reform and Liberal Jews.

We Jews have never shared the same understanding of Jewish tradition and law. But as Rabbi Sacks so eloquently said at Jewish Book Week in February, we do, however, share the same fate despite our faith differences.

We are of a rabbinic tradition in which each daf or page of the Mishnah and Gemarah (together making up the Talmud) and Midrash (rabbinic literature expounding the Bible) reminds us that there are different voices on any subject. Eilu v’eilu divrei Elohim chayim – these views and those views are all part of a living God. To differ is divine.

We are continuously reminded by our sages that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed not because there was no study of Torah or because of laxity in the observance of Jewish law. The rabbis taught that the cause of our destruction was sinat chinam, causeless hatred. The rabbis said that the sin of sinat chinam was equal to the three major transgressions of murder, idolatry and harlotry. (Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Yevamot 62b)

Rabbi Sacks so eloquently called for an end to the political power of the Chief Rabbinate in Israel, stating that the existence of a highly politicised rabbinate in Israel has destroyed the moral and religious credibility of Judaism. The dislike for much of our beautiful Judaism among the masses of secular Israelis is an appalling legacy of their politicised rabbinate.

The fact is that with the onset of the Enlightenment, Haskalah, in the 18th century, Jews were divided as to the direction of Judaism, on the degree of acculturation, the meshing of the new values of modernity with the sacred values of our Jewish tradition.

There were Reformers, beginning with Moses Mendelssohn’s disciples, followers of Immanuel Kant, who called for the dismantling of the authority of Jewish Law.  The mid-19th century saw Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, whose neo-Orthodoxy called for integration into modern European society while freezing Jewish law as promulgated in the Shulhan Aruch, the definitive religious framework of Orthodoxy today.

A few decades earlier saw the birth of Wissenschaft Judentums, the “science of Judaism” the scholarly framework of what became the Conservative or Masorti movement, that called for a maintenance of the authority of Jewish law, accompanied by the understanding that Jewish law has always evolved and changed in accordance with circumstances at various stages in Jewish history.

Different responses to modernity, different outlooks on what constitutes Judaism and Jewish law. It has always been that way and we have to find a way of recognising the authenticity and the seriousness by which Jews of different paths approach their understanding of Judaism.

Healthy Whole

There has never been an “Orthodox” Judaism – that is, One Way, a “right” way of Judaism. We are a proud and diverse people, and each branch and stream contributes to the healthy whole of klal Yisrael, the community or congregation of Israel.

Getting stuck in the view that “we are the right way” and “you are the wrong way” will weaken us and dismantle our ability to teach our various approaches with passion. We must look with admiration on Orthodox Judaism’s maintenance of Jewish tradition, the ability to flow against the stream of assimilation, preserving our yeshivot and reverence for our sacred texts and halachah or way of doing things. But at the same time, we have to admire the creativity and advances made by Masorti, Reform and Liberal Jewish scholars and communities in their efforts to make Jewish life fit the patterns and mores of our contemporary society.

Jewish scholarship in Bible, rabbinics, history, literature and halachah has been enhanced by the contributions of my own teachers at the Jewish Theological Seminary, the heart of the Conservative, or Masorti, movement – luminaries such as Saul Lieberman, Louis Finkelstein, Ismar Schorsch, Mordechai Kaplan and Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Jewish Apartheid

The time has come for leadership to come from United Synagogue, led by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, who knows very well that the tear in the fabric of Jewish collectiveness and unity is damaging us and our future. We must prevent our own extremists from hijacking our wonderful Judaism, so that we may build together a unity that will enhance the state of Israel and Jews everywhere in the world, destroy the scourge of anti-Semitism that has found new life around the world, and struggle together to create a Judaism, with different shades, that will enhance the great name of God and the Torah.

We live apart, we seldom speak to each other in our different machanayim (camps). We do not pray with each other and we do not meet each other enough. What is this Jewish apartheid doing to the next generation, our children, when they see their parents divided, when the rabbis of one camp will not enter the domain of another synagogue community?

I have been told that it is impossible but, yes, I am willing to dream and to challenge the way things are, because they are simply wrong. I invite Rabbi Sacks to come and speak to my synagogue, Belsize Square Synagogue, where he is respected and admired, and where his knowledge and Torah will be as revered as in any Orthodox synagogue.

We are all the brothers of Joseph and we will merit the greatest part of our future when we stop fighting, when we end the barriers and truly become am echad, one people, with diverse paths to Jewish law and Jewish genius.

We are preparing for Passover, knowing that the path of freedom will require greater love, ahavat Yisrael, a respect for each other that we can then pass on to the rest of humanity, waiting for our own example of what it means to be a loving servant of God, with a love of all God’s Creation and life And the same is true for non-Orthodox Jews toward Orthodox Jews and Judaism. The intolerance goes both ways. Our intolerance of our fellow Jew knows no ideological borders today.

Please accept this invitation, Rabbi Sacks, for God’s sake, for our people’s future, for our children and for the full fruition of your brilliant plea for oneness

among all peoples. Let us follow the advice of Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, who taught us that only causeless love, ahavat Yisrael, may overcome the ruination of causeless hatred. It is no dream but a matter of our very Jewish future that we share together.

Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

This is a version of the article published in the Jewish Chronicle on 1 April.

Passover is coming soon, later than usual this year because of the extra month, a leap year in the Jewish calendar, so we are already well into the swing of spring, sunshine and the renewal of greenery all around us.

The overall theme of Passover is not only particular to the Jewish people, as we retell the story of our nation’s origins from slavery in Egypt to freedom on the road to Eretz Yisrael. It also has universal implications.

Freedom, both of the physical and spiritual kind, is a special gift. We know that the human soul cannot function for long without it. Unfortunately, even today, most people on this earth of ours do not enjoy full freedom.

We also know that even when democracy takes place at the ballot box, there is no guarantee that freedom will flourish. The will of the people can be a dangerous thing, as we know from 20th-century history, when the National Socialist Party – the Nazis – gained power in Germany under the guise of a fair democratic election. In Gaza, Hamas, a violent terrorist organisation, was “elected” by the people. And now we are experiencing the wildest election campaign I can ever remember in the United States, with all the features of mudslinging, baiting, occasional violence, promises that can never be fulfilled and plenty more.

Freedom can also lead to a breakdown in Jewish education and commitment. Physical freedom is not enough to sustain our faith and people. As a result of our love affair with being unburdened from the weight of commandments, study, tzedakah and all those other obligations that Jewish tradition imposes on us, we are liable to disintegrate quite quickly.

That is why Passover leads into Shavuot, why we carry out sefirat ha’Omer, counting the Omer for 49 days leading up to the holiday of Shavuot, which commemorates the giving of the Torah at Sinai, in order to remind us that freedom without the acceptance of responsibility cannot sustain itself. It is our ability to accept the notion that with freedom comes the mitzvah, the sense of obligation to others, that ensures our survival not only as Jews but as a viable society.

Making Visits Meaningful
We have yet another month at Belsize Square offering opportunities to make this Nisan/April, the month of Passover, a meaningful one for us all.

Firstly, Dr Jack Wertheimer, professor of history at the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, will be our scholar-in-residence and special guest. On Friday night, 1 April, after the evening service, there will be a Shabbat dinner when Professor Wertheimer will speak on Judaism in an Age of Recession. Next morning after Shabbat service and Kiddush, he will address the congregation on The Religious Lives of Ordinary Jews.

At the Sunday Morning Adult Discussion Group from 10.00am-12.30pm on 3 April, he will present Orthodoxies in Transition, followed by a discussion. In the evening there will be a reception at the home of Miriam and Richard Borchard for those who contributed to making this weekend possible, and an opportunity to hear a final talk in an intimate setting on Community in an Era of “Do-it-Yourself” Identity.

Do take advantage of this incredible opportunity to learn from one of the scholarly luminaries of our day.

Secondly, on Sunday 10 April and Tuesday 12 April we will be visited by Reverend Craig Brown, a Methodist bishop from Southern California, who is coming to London with a party of 30, including leading Christian clerical figures. Rev’d Brown, who is a dear friend of mine, will speak to our Sunday Morning Adult Discussion Group on 10 April. On 12 April the whole group will visit our synagogue to meet me with Reverend Paul Nicholson of St Peter’s (Church of England) and anyone who would like to join us. Another great opportunity!

And thirdly, Passover. It is time to clear the house of chametz and make the final preparations for Pesach, which begins Shabbat evening, 22 April. There is a wonderful mitzvah that is too often neglected, the mitzvah of Ma’ot Hittin, selling the chametz and making a wonderful contribution to the poor. This is a great way to make the message of Passover clear and relevant.

The freedom we have must be shared with those who have less than us, and we are collecting funds for Manna, an organisation that raises critical funds for Jewish poor in Israel, and with a special purpose of subsidising Holocaust survivors. Ten per cent of these now elderly survivors, mostly from the former Soviet Union, live in poverty conditions. Help them celebrate the yom tov!

A time for renewal, new hopes for freedom and a greater commitment to Judaism and to our shul. Come and learn and give to those in need.

I wish you and your loved ones a delicious and blessed Pesach.

Chag kasher v’sameach,
Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

Shalom Chaverim,

Adar, this March, is the month of Purim, that one-day festival in which we celebrate, eat, drink and refuse all signs of sadness. These characteristics of Purim persist despite the fact that the story, as told in the Book of Esther, is one of the most difficult chapters to comprehend in all of Jewish history.

And that is because the Book of Esther tells us of a Persian plot, probably in the 3rd or 4th century BCE, to annihilate the entire Jewish people. Behind all the celebrating is a dreadful story, one that we have experienced all too often.There have been two streams of assault against the Jewish people since Abraham appeared in the annals of history. We label them under the rubric of that longest and most virulent of ethnic and religious hatreds, “antisemitism”.

The first is told in the story of Esther: the attempt to destroy the Jews physically. It happened again after Rome defeated the Bar Kochba revolt in 135CE, then sporadic Islamic jihad from the 7th century on, 400 years of crusades from 1096, expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492 and Portugal in 1497, the 1648 Chmielnitski massacres in Ukraine and 19th-century pogroms in Tsarist Russia, leading finally to the Shoah. Jews were murdered because they were Jews.

And then there is the Book of Maccabees, the story of Chanukah and, in 168 BCE, the first attempt to destroy our Judaism, culminating in the first recorded instance of a revolt for religious freedom. With the physical attacks went book-burning (the Talmud in 14th-century Paris), destroying synagogues, desecrating Torah scrolls and eliminating Jewish education, notably in the Soviet Union.

The practice of difference

Why do we rejoice as we do, for both Purim and Chanukah, when behind them lies a story of such sadness and darkness? I think the answer lies in our cherished tradition of meeting sadness with life, with celebration, without forgetting the countless times we have had to hope, pray and, as now, fight for our right to exist in our own land, Eretz Yisrael, and our sovereignty in the modern State of Israel.

For the best, succinct, single-volume review of the scourge of anti-Semitism, I always recommend Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin’s Why the Jews? This fine book tackles the issue of this endemic and violent hatred. The common thread is the Jews’ desire to remain different. This arouses hatred and intolerance of the “different”, who reject the majority culture.

In antiquity, it was because the Jews had an invisible God, rejecting paganism. In medieval times it was because they refused to convert willingly to either Christianity or Islam. In the modern period, the refusal of the Jews yet again to obliterate themselves, as they integrated into a new liberal law-bound society, led to the coining of the word Antisemitismus by Wilhelm Marr in 1879.

Marr was promulgating his quasi-scientific racial theory that both put Jews at odds with Germans and forecast that Germans would lose out. It was this anti-Semitism that culminated in the Shoah. Today, hate-filled antisemitism, attached to the State of Israel and Zionism, still targets Jews.

Our Jewish response

Our Jewish response to all this madness? Life, study and celebration! Join us for our Purim festivities. Join us for this month’s joint course with St Peter’s Church on “Religious Extremism”.

And get ready everyone: Professor Jack Wertheimer, world-renowned Jewish historian and former provost of the Jewish Theological Seminary, author of over 16 books – and my mentor throughout my rabbinic career – is coming to visit us. He will speak briefly at Friday night service on 1 April and at length after Shabbat dinner that night on “Judaism in an Age of Religious Recession”.

After Kiddush following Shabbat morning service, he will speak on “The Religious Lives of Ordinary Jews”. On Sunday morning, 10-12.30, he will address our Adult Discussion Group on “Orthodoxies in Transition”.

There will be a special evening reception and talk on Monday 4 April for our generous patrons who have made this scholar-in-residence week possible.
I will see you all in synagogue for our continued first-class offerings. Wishing you all a month of learning, celebrating and rejoicing in our challenging and never dull Jewish life here.

B’shalom tamid,

Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

One of my greatest thrills is to bring my past into my present – my dear friends from my previous life to my new family at Belsize Square Synagogue. In January we hosted Mona Golabek, the gifted pianist, actress and star of the one-woman show now running at St James Theatre. The Pianist of Willesden Lane tells the story of Mona’s mother, Lisa Jura, who came to London from Vienna on a Kindertransport in 1939.

At 14 Lisa was a budding classical pianist, and it was music that gave comfort to herself and other youngsters in the hostel, known as the “Children of Willesden Lane” through Mona’s bestselling book of that name. Most, like Lisa, never saw their parents again. We met Mona in Los Angeles when my wife, Ella, appeared on Mona’s popular radio show, Romantic Hour.

Shortly we will host another long-time friend of mine, Professor Rabbi Hanan Alexander, Dean of Students at Haifa University and a leading academic authority on Jewish education. The latest of his three books has drawn the attention of the education world through its focus on combining Jewish and secular liberal education. The bifurcation, especially in Israel, between the Jewish and secular world has created two societies, two worlds afraid of and largely ignorant of each other.

On Erev Shabbat 5 February, Professor Alexander will talk about criticism of Israel as opposed to demonisation. On Shabbat morning, after our Kiddush, he will speak about his own field: How Jewish is Jewish Education? At our Adult Discussion Group the next morning, he will discuss his latest book, Re-imagining Liberal Education.

Hanan and I met as eager young rabbinic students at the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, now called the American Jewish University. At that time, students could study two years in Los Angeles, then transfer to the Jewish Theological Seminary (JTS) in New York. So that’s what these two guys from California did! Our memories and friendships with colleagues and mentors go back 40 years.

On the first Shabbat in April, we will welcome the eminent scholar and former Provost of JTS, Professor Jack Wertheimer, a leading historian of European and American Jewry. His 16 books and prolific articles for academic journals explore every aspect of Jewish life, such as schools and the rise and fall of movements. He will be with us, thanks to the support of our “angels” who have made this week possible, for our Shabbat morning Service and at our Sunday Morning Adult Discussion Group, as well as a special week-long programme for our patrons.

Jack and I met when I started at JTS and we have been close friends ever since. He mentored my doctoral studies, exams and dissertation, helped me edit my book and influenced virtually all my rabbinic studies. A wonderful teacher and brilliant scholar, and another incredible week ahead of us with an important person from my past!

From 1-5 May, I will be joined by a more recent friend, Thomas Harding, author, journalist and product of Belsize, son of our own Frank and Belinda Harding, as he leads a trip to Berlin. Thomas is a brilliant writer and speaker. You all know his first book, Hanns and Rudolf, about the capture of the Kommandant of Auschwitz. His second very personal book, Kadian Journal, chronicles his grief and reaction to his teenage son’s fatal cycling accident in 2012. With his third book, The House by the Lake, he returns to German history, tracing events of the last 120 years or so through their impact on the families who lived in a country house near Berlin, which once belonged to the Alexanders, his grandparents. Thomas is another friend whom I treasure.

And finally, on Sunday 25 September, the world-renowned violinist, Maxim Vengerov, will be joined by his accompanist and my wife for an unforgettable evening. Maxim and I go back some 20 years since we met in Chicago and we have become like close family. As an amateur violinist, I admire his virtuosity and warmth. He admires and loves my devotion to Jewish life and studies, and so we have this mutual admiration society.

Well, I’ve been in love with my Ella for over 22 years now and have never met anyone so brilliant and talented: composer and singer, with three CD records and film soundtracks – and now an author, with her book, The Orphan Sky, published last year. The novel, drawing on her youth in Soviet ruled Azerbaijan, received rave reviews.

The people I love from past and present will meet the people I love at Belsize Square Synagogue. Let’s rejoice and enjoy the wisdom, learning and music – together! See you in synagogue this month and beyond. May you all be blessed with a month of goodness, peace and joy.

Rabbi Stuart Altshuler