Shalom Chaverim,

This is a wonderful time of year to recharge our batteries and begin planning our Synagogue calendar for next year, 5776.

Let me share with you some of my ideas to ensure that our congregation remains at the forefront of leadership, especially in Jewish education and affirmation.

Our Shabbat calendar is already almost filled with Bnei Mitzvah. I am also booked for weddings and speaking engagements.

We will continue our weekly exploration of The Great Thinkers and Jewish Responses in the modern period: Hume, Kant, Hobbes, Rousseau Voltaire and Sartre, with their Jewish counterparts: Mendelssohn, Hirsch, Zunz, Graetz, Frankel, Rosenzweig, Buber, Kaplan and Heschel. Sunday mornings sessions are followed by guest speakers and special events.

Field trips are planned to the Cairo Genizah at Cambridge, the British Museum and British Library.

Also in the planning stage is a visit to Poland with Professor Antony Polonsky, our distinguished member who is the world’s leading expert in Jewish Eastern European History, specialising in Poland, and recently appointed head of the Warsaw Jewish Museum. Together we will lead a BSS group on a unique tour, which will include the Warsaw Ghetto and Majdanek camp on the outskirts of Lublin.

Let me also invite you all to Cantor Heller’s autumn leyning class. Learning to read from the Torah gives us the skills to take a greater part in our services.

Our music programme continues, with a surprise concert bringing us the very best in the classical music world. We have an outstanding Music Committee chairman in Philip Keller. Stay tuned!

I will be away in July and August visiting family in the US and attending a Bible conference in Germany. While in Los Angeles, I will meet Rabbi Professor Elliot Dorff, head of the Committee of Laws and Standards for the Conservative Movement international. With a PhD in philosophy from Columbia University, Professor Dorff teaches Judaism and Legal Ethics at UCLA Law School and is a prolific writer and good friend of your Rabbi. I hope to arrange a visit for this leading Jewish philosophy scholar to speak to us. It will certainly enhance our educational profile.

One of the things I have initiated for the benefit of our wider community is the Camden/Hampstead/Belsize Park Interfaith Matters, an inter-religious clergy association. From a handful in January, we have extended our reach to leaders in over 15 religious institutions: Jewish Orthodox (2) and non-Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim Shiite and Sunni. The group has enabled us to hold important religious dialogue on extremism and the need to combat anti- Semitism.

Through this body, I spoke at the Islamic Centre of England (in Maida Vale), where I called for dialogue with a Sunni mosque which had invited a well-known anti-Semite from Qatar to London. Dialogue can make people aware of the dangers and reduce the damage.

In May we hosted the outgoing Mayor of Camden’s Interfaith Dinner, with 25 religious lay leaders of all faiths. I took the occasion to introduce them to Judaism. Such interaction is invaluable, and I firmly believe BSS can play an important role. It is a little known fact that one of the major failings of Jewish life in Berlin was the absence of inter- religious dialogue. By remaining insular, with no meeting ground to cultivate friendship and mutual respect, any possibility of averting the destructive hatred against Jews that led to the Shoah was lost. We are hoping to put together a Limmud-type study day for all religious faiths, as a huge step towards fostering better relations.

So there’s lots to do. Just a note: Yom Kippur services will begin at 9.30am rather than 10.00am. Pseukei d’Zimra (early morning Psalms) will be abbreviated to make time for later parts of the service and a 45-minute discussion before Mincha on The Jewish Future. We’ll uplift our services even more spiritually and intellectually.

My very best to you and your loved ones for a joyous and fulfilling summer.

Rabbi Stuart Altshuler