Please note: this sermon is going to argue that Palestine Action should never have been proscribed, and that Jewish values mean we should tolerate activism whether or not we agree with it. If this is liable to offend or upset you to the point that you feel obliged to write to the rabbinic ethics committee…
Eagle-eyed stalkers may have noticed that I’ve been a bit quiet on the sermon front recently. So I should probably let you know – well, those of you who don’t have high-power telescopes trained on my house – what I’ve been doing. I’m on sabbatical! After three years’ work, rabbis (at least those whose employers…
Channukah is officially the most popular Jewish festival in the UK. According to research published last week by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, 89% of British Jews participated in at least one Channukah candle-lighting last year, compared to only 84% who went to a seder and 74% who marked Rosh Hashanah.
As a Channukah treat, and in tribute to the great Victoria Wood z”l, I present a rare historical glimpse of a late-night conversation between David Woolf Marks (the UK’s first Reform rabbi) and Lily Montagu (the founder of Liberal Judaism) as they discuss the prospect of merging…
In the late 1990s, there were only two Jews left in Afghanistan: just to prove that they were Jewish, their names were Yitzchak Levi and Zabulon Simentov. They both lived in the remains of the synagogue in Kabul. And, of course, they hated each other’s guts. When the Taliban had one of its regular purges…
Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber 