Let me take this opportunity to tell you about our exciting programme ahead.

At our Shabbat evening service on 11 January, we will have a very special guest speaker, Canon Andrew White, a highly esteemed Anglican Church leader. My thanks to Susan Storring for making the connection.

Canon White is a seminal figure and true friend of our people and State of Israel. As Vicar of St George’s Church in Baghdad, he led the local Christian community at the height of Iraq’s conflict with ISIS. The turmoil requiredhim to have 35 bodyguards.To those who have met him – virtually every leading world leader, political and religious – he is a larger-than-life figure. He left for Britain in 2014 because of the risk to his and his family’s lives.

Andrew White is a supporter of Israel, navigating the extraordinary hostility toour Jewish State. He will tell us the story of his connection with Judaism and Israel. Fluent in Hebrew, he has studied at an Orthodox Yeshivah and the Hebrew University, knows Talmud and sacred texts, keeps Shabbat, loves Israel and was even kashrut mashgiach (supervisor) for Cambridgeundergraduate Jewish Society.

He and his wife adopted five Iraqi children, two of them named Yossi and Jacob. He wrote his thesis on The Role of Israel in Christian Theology for his Cambridge doctorate and has written an incredible history of Christian anti-Semitism. His multiple sclerosis has not stopped him engaging with world leaders and promoting Judaism and its people. You must hear this extraordinary man!

The next morning, 12 January, Belsize Square Synagogue will join other congregations to increase awareness of mental health needs. We must always be sensitive to mental health issues and those suffering from them, including in our community.

For those who would like to (finally!) learn to read Hebrew and enjoy participating in our services, I am holding a Monday evening 4-week crash course, 7.00-8.15pm on 14, 21, 28 January & 11 February. If you plan to join my regular students let me know and I will prepare extra texts for you.
Stay tuned for our annual Interfaith Class with St Peter’s Church and Reverend Paul Nicholson, along with Imam Mehmed Stubbla. Last year’s class was a real treat. Further details to come but this series takes place in March-April, before Pesach.

On 1 March we usher in our 80th anniversary festivities with a special Shabbat service and dinner, joined by the children’s choir of the Pestalozzistrasse Synagogue from Berlin, along with their parents, and listen to their minister, Rabbi Jonah Sievers. The date coincides with Shabbat UK.

My final announcement is really exciting! Our trip this year (Wed 15 to Mon 20 May) will take us to Prague with its Jewish history from the Middle Ages till today. We will see the Jewish Quarter and Museum with the leading guide, my colleague Rabbi Ronald Hoffberg, and visit Kafka’s House and the 16th-century Jewish cemetery.

We will spend Shabbat in Prague and listen to concerts and talks from, among others, Dr Tomas Halik, Professor of Religion and Jewish Studies at Univerzity Karlovy, and Helga Weiss, survivor and preserver of the art created by the children of Terezin (Theresienstadt).

If you are interested, please contact Claire Walford by sending her an email to: claire.walford@yahoo.com. I do hope these opportunities inspire your enthusiasm and interest in exciting Jewish experiences I aim to provide.

In shalom

Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

Anti-Semitism surrounding Jeremy Corbyn in the UK, continued threats to Israel from Gaza’s border with increased hostility to the State of Israel,the wild antics of President Donald Trump which, like them or not, are changing our world each day, and the failure to see light in the Brexit negotiations.

All this has us living with great uncertainty about the future, and then the usual blights on civilisation – disease, hunger, poverty, oppression, homelessness. It all adds up to the world we live in today. Yet we return to the shul to restore the seeds of our strength, resolve and faith, which enable us to combat the challenges of despair and anguish.

There are personal struggles as well. Some of us have lived through financial uncertainty this past year, loss of job and security, failed relationships and marriages, illness or death. No one evesaid life would be easy and that is why we need a spiritual response to all thesethings that have weighed upon us during the past year. We all know that our Judaism and Jewish tradition are virtual treasure chests of wisdom and strength. Our people have been there before and have always risen to new heights of strength. We will be calling upon ourselves to do the same.

During these Yamim Noraim (Days of Awe) ahead of us, I will be speaking on my usual themes: God (on first day Rosh Hashanah), Israel (on second day), Judaism and Jewish identity (on Kol Nidrei), existential truths (on Yom Kippur), life and death (at Mazkir/Yizkor) through the prism of people. Not all the individuals I will be speaking about are well known. Some are, some are known only by a few. But I hope that their stories will inspire us to rise to new heights and understanding of ourselves.

At Selichot on 1 September our shiur at 9.00 pm, to which you are all invited prior to the service which starts at 10.00 pm, will explore how individuals, teachers, parents, relatives and friends have influenced our views of ourselves, our Jewish identities and life itself. So, think about which people through your years have inspired you the most and shaped your destiny, your thoughts, your lives, your faith.

A prayer for the Yamim Noraim:

May we hold lovingly in our thoughts and prayers this 5779, those who still suffer in this world from tyranny, who are subjugated to live in cruelty and injustice. Let us resolve to work every day towards the alleviation of suffering wherever we see it and experience it.

May we pursue the biblical prophets’ vision of peace that implores us to live harmoniously with each other, to respect the differences of opinions and beliefs that exist among us, to be forgiving of those whom we believe have hurt us. May we always cherish diversity, respect all forms of Jewish life, work continuously for the unity of the people of Israel and always seek to find the Divinity that resides in the human soul.

May we struggle against injustice against our people, in this country and in Israel, fighting hard for the dignity of our people and making it clear that we will never again tolerate the hatred and anti-semitism of previous generations or today’s willingness to destroy our only Jewish state. May our commitments to Israel, our Judaism and our fellow Jews increase this year.

May we disdain gossip and realise again and again how thoughtless rumours and words can destroy good people and distort truth.

May we act with greater purity of heart and mind this coming 5779, despising none and loving all.
May the Jewish people and this Belsize Square Congregation be beacons of light to the world, to our community and to the State of Israel.

May we all have the honour of fulfilling the words of the Torah and of our rabbis to pursue peace in all our actions, loving our neighbour as ourselves, cherishing the gift of life that God has given to us and never taking for granted our health, our will, our spirit or our love.
May God bring peace to us and to all humanity this new year, 5779.

Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

I was moved by the speakers at the Campaign Against Antisemitism demonstrations in March and April.

Some of the most moving words were delivered by a survivor of the Shoah, Agnes Grunwald-Spier. Born in Budapest in 1944, she survived and has been a witness in writing and speaking of the horrors of the Holocaust. She quoted Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the noted Christian theologian and scholar and one of the few church leaders to speak out against Nazi antisemitism in Germany during the 1930s. He was eventually arrested and sent to a concentration camp, where he was hanged in April 1945, a month before the end of war.

Bonhoeffer said: “Not to speak is to speak; not to act is to act.” In other words, silence and apathy, “the bystanders”, as Elie Wiesel labelled those who let the forces of evil overwhelm Germany and Europe, bear the greatest responsibility for the unfolding of the greatest murder of a people, the Jewish people, in the history of civilisation.

Not only do these words ring true in so many ways in the historical and political realms, they also resonate in our daily lives. Without the commitment of action, of standing by what we believe in, our ideals fade, our principles wither, our lives stand for little.

The lesson to us is not only to stand up and react to the virulent antisemitism spreading in many sections of the Labour Party but also to support those in the Labour Party who are working hard to protect the dignity of both party and country in combatting this grotesque antisemitism and hatred.
It is now May and this is the point when we, too, can make a stand. The secular date of Israel’s 70th anniversary is 14 May. Be proud of your Jewish state, even with its imperfections. It is ours and, had there been a Jewish state in 1938, six million Jews would probably not have been murdered before the eyes of a silent, apathetic world, the bystanders who let this catastrophe happen.

We are going to Warsaw and Vilnius from 10 to 15 May, when the celebration of Israel’s 70th anniversary will take place around the world. We are going to Poland and Lithuania at a most interesting time, when we read almost daily comments such as those from Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister, who said that “Jews were worse than animals.”

This is Poland, where my father’s maternal family resided for centuries. The Shelabovs of Pinsk, then in south Poland, all disappeared off the planet because of the silence of the world, immobilised by the sadism and violence of Nazi Germany reaching across the whole of Europe.
Their story is now mine. I can never be silent, I can never let what happened during World War Two ever happen again to our people or to any other people. But as our member and tour leader, Professor Antony Polonsky, an expert on Polish-Jewish history, told us at an advance meeting, East European antisemitism has moved Jewish guilt on from capitalist exploitation to Communist oppression.

Shavuot, the celebration of Matan Torateinu, the Giving of the Torah at Sinai, begins Saturday night 19 May. Stand up and be counted by coming to our annual Tikkun Leyl Shavuot which begins after our 6.45 pm service. Sitting on the sidelines of the adventure of Jewish learning, feeling that the evening belongs to “them” and not to “me”, is not the way to perpetuate Jewish life. Not to study is to study – but study nothing.

The theme of our sessions this year is War and Peace and we will look at different aspects of this topic in five sessions led by Antony Polonsky who will examine the role of Jews in the First World War, while Cantor Paul Heller will look at the Sim Shalom (Make Peace) prayer in the Amidah.

Jonathan Paris, academic researcher and specialist on regional political, security and development issues, will talk about Jewish ethics in international relations. He is our only outside speaker.
Susan Storring and Claire Walford will concentrate on heroines in battle, and I will wind up with Jewish law and ethics when it comes to making war and peace.

There will be plenty of cheesecake, coffee, tea and excellent company. Don’t stand on the sidelines. Engage in the journey of Jewish learning, one of the greatest journeys you will ever make. It will change your life.

My wishes to all of you for a Chag Shavuot Sameach and for lives that make a difference to the rest of the world.

Rabbi Stuart Altshuler

Looking back at my own experiences, the events that led to my deep appreciation for our religious tradition, law, narrative and faith that make up Judaism, I would say that despite my many trips to Israel and the incredible times I had travelling, studying, living there and marvelling at the rebirth of the Jewish people in the Land of Israel, nevertheless, the trips I made to the former Soviet Union were the most significant Jewish experiences in my life.

I went numerous times between 1984 and 1992, some visits more successful than others: visiting refuseniks, teaching Judaism, Hebrew and Jewish history to young and old, dissidents and students, and smuggling dissertations, books and photos, which have become part of the legacy of our people’s freedom movement for Soviet Jewry.

Between 1988 and 1992, almost 1½ million Jews found their way to freedom in Israel and outside it. As I said in the introduction to my book, From Exodus to Freedom, the liberation of Soviet Jewry will rank as one of the greatest miracles of our people’s history, second only to the founding of the modern state of Israel. Israel absorbed almost a million Jews, the equivalent of the United States absorbing the entire population of France into its borders, and within just four years!

My many visits to the USSR enabled me to understand what it is like to live in a nation of oppression, of suppression of basic human rights. They could not study, speak the language of their choice or learn about their religious faith without fear of arrest and imprisonment. The bravery of the Jews I met, from Sharansky to Begun to Edelstein to Astrakhan, is forever emblazoned in my heart and soul. They taught me what the struggle for freedom is all about, the strength that comes from a deeply rooted faith in right versus wrong, and the sacrifice necessary to protect the freedom of Jewish life today.

It is an amazing narrative we are about to tell once again to ourselves and to our children and grandchildren, how 3,300 years ago, a small slave people, powerless, without territory or army, left the mightiest empire in the world, Egypt, strengthened by hope and faith in an unseen God and unseen virtues, taught in our Torah.

We learn from the story of the Exodus from Egypt that the strength of our people which has enabled us to outlive every mighty empire since the beginning of time is based not on chariots, arms or armies, not on statues or monuments, power or wealth, but founded upon the humility of belief in the power of God, a God of redemption, history and vision who has taught the world that the sanctity of human life is non-negotiable, and that human beings are destined to be free, not slaves. This is the story of a God who has maintained this special relationship with the people of Israel, to be His eyes and ears to the rest of humanity until our world is redeemed for all.

And we tell the story of Passover around our dinner tables, focusing on the future, on our children. We parents and grandparents teach them that our memories will not be held in monuments but carried through the generations in words, values and hope. This is a faith greater than anything on earth, that binds the past and future, forever a witness to the human spirit and its connection to a God Who is the greatest Power on earth, the unseen force of life as we know it. Our task is to build a world of human freedom, based upon responsibility and the dignity of all.

When we open the Ark in readiness for the Torah reading, we sing, “Vayehi binsoa ha’aron vayomer Moshe, kumahAdonai, v’yafutzu oyvecha, v’yanusu m’sanecha mipanecha.” (Whenever the Ark set out, Moses said: Arise, O Lord, and may Your enemies be scattered and those who hate You flee before You.”)

I never understood what that verse from the book of Numbers (10:35) meant until I went to the Soviet Union. How can the Torah scroll “scatter our enemies, cause those who hate us to flee from us?” On all my trips to the USSR, I brought siddurim, tallitot, Bibles, sacred Jewish texts. And on almost every entry into the country I was grilled, at times for hours, asking me what I was bringing and told how “dangerous” these books and items were to the mighty Soviet Empire. I wondered how that was possible. How could an empire with nuclear weaponry be afraid of any book, especially a prayer book or chumash?

But then I understood the fear. Authoritarian regimes are paranoid about “ideas”, about values that challenge the supremacy of might and power. And then I knew the power of my Judaism, the power of the word, the spirit, of God, without armies and nuclear bombs. The fear was palpable, the fear that Jewish ideas might destroy the basis of oppression.

What has changed in 3,300 years? Virtually nothing. Our religious tradition stands as strong as ever today, our mission the same: to bring about a world based upon God’s might and not the ephemeral power of weapons and war. Some day, Elijah will come and the Jewish people will be free, and then all humanity will be free, under God. Next year in Jerusalem!

My wishes to all of you and your loved ones for a blessed, joyous and meaningful Passover 5778.

Rabbi Stuart Altshuler