Shofar December 2017/January 2018

December 2017 / January 2018

Shofar

‫שופר‬

the magazine of finchley progressive synagogue

Happy Chanukah!

From the Editorial Bench ‘Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man to fish and he’ll eat for a lifetime’ (or, A Practical Guide on How to Help ‘Street People’)

How my heart goes out to each person I see sitting on the pavement holding out a ‘Hungry and Homeless’ sign and pleading for just a few pence. I sometimes feel helpless at my inability to assist others and, at the same time, guilt for my own good fortune. Still, I hesitate to give out cash that might end up being spent on nonessentials or recreational drugs.

Perhaps you, like me, know there are better ways to help people but don’t have the time or skills or energy to help even one person off the streets. The work that we do at FPS as part of the Together in Barnet (TiB) Night Shelter goes some way towards helping people in distress, getting them back into work and housing. Along with our partner and referring charity, Homeless Action in Barnet (HAB), we are making a difference. But there are other ways to help, including: Directing anyone you see during the day on

sarah rosen-webb

the streets in Barnet to HAB at 36B Woodhouse Road, N12 0RG during their opening hours (9am-3pm Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Fridays; Thursdays 9am-2pm). The telephone number for HAB is 0208-446-8400. HAB provides: • Free Breakfast until 10.30am • A cheap meal (£1.50) served 12.00-1.30pm • A wash/shower (toiletries available) and laundry facilities • Free internet access • A clothes store offering good condition new and nearly new clothes and shoes • Someone to talk to who will listen and help you to get the help you need • Referral to Winter Shelters • Referral to Tenancy Support; Counselling, and more.

When you see people on the street anywhere else in London, you can ring Streetlink on 0300-500-0914. Visit www.streetlink.org.uk for more information.

If calling about a person of concern, be sure you can explain where they are. It is a good idea to carry a few self-referral cards for Streetlink so that you can offer one to a person in need.

(Cut off or photocopy below to make self-referral cards.)

streetlink can help you find a safe place to sleep.

Please ring them on 0300-500-0914 • Tell them where you are • And that you need some help

See p.12 for ‘Together in Barnet’ fundraiser on 22 January at the Comedy Store Shofar is always interested in hearing your news and including photos of FPS members, and their families, near and far.

We welcome your articles on any relevant topic. Please send these to shofar@fps.org

2

Cover: Happy Chanukah Menorah, with dreidel and gelt Source: canstockphoto.co.uk #2698280

Copy deadline is the 10th of each month. Please email all content to shofar@fps.org

From the Rabbi

student rabbi nathan godleman

the chain of tradition

It is a little strange and exciting to appear under the heading ‘From the Rabbi’. Having spent over four and a quarter years as ‘Student Rabbi’, it reminds me that the day of ordination is approaching, if all goes to plan. (Monday 2 July at the Liberal Jewish Synagogue!) During the ceremony, Semichah is conferred by a rabbi placing his or her hands on the ordinand, literally setting them aside for a specific purpose. Thus, one joins a chain of tradition going back through the Rabbis to Joshua himself who, in the Torah, is ordained by Moses. It is a startling thought, not made less so by the knowledge that the word samach was also used in connection with animals about to be sacrificed!

I found out a little more about the chain of tradition last week, when I was invited along with my colleague, Roberta, to the annual Liberal Judaism rabbinic Kallah, or gathering.

There, at a lovely old manor house in Oxfordshire owned by the Society of Friends, two dozen or so Liberal rabbis came together to study, discuss, pray and sing. One session re-examined Martin Buber’s great philosophical work, I and Thou.

Another charted the progress of the new siddur and tried out elements of its Shabbat morning service. The qualities of the rabbis shone through – intellectual rigour and creativity,

kindness and humour. Qualities that reflect and shape our movement. It was a privilege to be there. Of course, FPS was well represented, with Rabbis Danny Rich, Harry Jacobi and Rebecca Birk present for at least part of the time. The same applies back at the college, where four of the synagogue’s most recent rabbis teach, and where one of its members, namely Elliott Karstadt, having succeeded Hannah Kingston, continues to train for the rabbinate.

Multiple chains: of synagogue, movement, Rabbinic Conference and Leo Baeck College; of rabbis, student rabbis, lay leaders, members and friends. All interconnected. All engaged in learning and teaching. All responsible to and for one another. May it long continue, and may we all continue to value, support and add to our own Liberal Jewish tradition.

3

From the Vice Chair ‘I

t is estimated that 70% of a person’s lifesatisfaction depends on the quality of their relationships.’ Alain de Botton As we approach the Northern hemisphere’s shortest and darkest weeks and draw the curtains at 4pm so that it feels like 8pm, we nevertheless seem to unconsciously reject the seduction of spending winter in hibernation knowing that to project ourselves forward to Spring is to reject life and the opportunities to build on the quality of our relationships.

Whilst being indoors allows us to invest time and energy in electronic communication we are aware that virtual relationships are not the same as face-to-face ones. A 2012 survey revealed that the average eighteen-to-thirty year-old has 237 Facebook friends though when asked on how many of these relationships they could rely in a crisis the average answer was two.

Life is a cobweb of human relationships where physical presence provides chemical, relational, psychological and physiological effects that virtual relationships cannot. Our brains change in the presence of another person.

As well as setting our Chanukiot to burn brightly, there are many other shining beacons of human cobwebs that enrich our relationships: our Night Shelter each Tuesday for Barnet’s Homeless provides a meal and spirited conversation between people who might otherwise never have met; a community coming together in large numbers to grieve at David Pelham’s funeral and declare support for Ann and Ollie. The gathering of dozens of members undertaking Mitzvah Day activities brought internal pride and a strengthening of bonds of citizenship; and shortly, at Limmud (Hebrew = to learn) over Christmas in Birmingham, 3,000 Jews from across the religious spectrum, from both

4

paul silver-myer

these shores and from many others, will come together to learn and laugh, share and sing, socialise and be grateful for being amongst so many others.

Religion in general, and FPS for us in particular, has an immense contribution to make at every level: spiritual, personal and collective. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks suggests that it teaches us the importance of love and forgiveness, the two great dimensions of a lasting relationship. Collectively, religions create strong and supportive communities where you have friends on whom you can rely. Faith, he continues, is the redemption of solitude, its most humanizing gift. Further, religion creates community, community creates altruism and altruism turns us away from self and towards the common good. There is something about the tenor of relationships within a religious community that makes it the best tutorial in citizenship and good neighbourliness.

And on this note, Council’s most pressing work at the present encompasses looking at our internal human relationships to make sure that all are treated with understanding and justice.

We are being evermore obliged to note and implement national measures such as Health & Safety issues, safeguarding the vulnerable, and the role and liability of Trustees, to name but three.

We are doing this knowing that members join a synagogue for various reasons, but one common reason might be that part of their life-satisfaction comes from a cobweb of Jewish relationships which they find, and create at their, or rather our, synagogue.

Y’chi Hay-dad!

R

abbi Frank Hellner wrote in Shofar some years back that “There is hardly a wedding or Bar Mitzvah reception where guests have not been called upon to toast the hosts with a glass of wine.” He went on to consider why we as Jews need to learn and use the chant ‘Y’chi Hay-dad’, rather than the more familiar British one that begins ‘hip’. While it is unclear what the origins of the British tradition of chanting ‘Hip Hip Hooray’ are, there are several theories about this. Rabbi Hellner commented that the chant may be a corruption of H.E.P., an acronym for the phrase Hierosolyma Est Perdida (meaning ‘Jerusalem is lost’ or ‘Jerusalem is destroyed’), which is something the Crusaders reportedly used to chant on their way to the Holy Land to drive out the ‘infidels’. This so-called ‘acronym theory’ has been widely accepted for many years.

It now transpires, however, that there is

sarah rosen-webb

no historical documentation for this or for the claim that the Crusaders actually chanted it. It seems most likely that the ‘acronym theory’ developed after it was first reported in a British newspaper in August 1819. This was some weeks after the ‘Hep-Hep Riots’ in Bavaria and the wider German Federation. There is evidence that ‘Hep-hep’ (a traditional herding call by German shepherds) was used as the rallying cry for anti-Semitic attacks and these came to be known as the ‘Hep-Hep Riots’.

Whether or not this chant was used by the Crusaders, it was certainly used as an antiSemitic taunt in more recent times. Wouldn’t it be nice for us to adopt a Jewish chant, rather than continue to use one that seems to have had its origins in anti-Semitism?

I say ‘Y’chi Hay-dad!’, the Hebrew expression for ‘Cheers!’

emeritus rabbi frank heller

On Shabbat 6 January, our Emeritus Rabbi Dr Frank Hellner is celebrating his 2nd Barmitzvah!

Rabbi Frank will read from the Torah and recite the Haftarah just as he did for his Barmitzvah 70 years ago. Student Rabbi Nathan Godleman will be leading us in prayer that morning and Rabbi Frank is delighted to invite the congregation to be part of this auspicious occasion and share in the kiddush that follows.

It would be helpful if you could indicate to the office for catering purposes whether you will be attending.

5

Smedley’s Frozen Asparagus We were eight in Team 3: Paul Silver-Myer, Adrian Lister, Mauro Manela, Tony and Dee Hill, Bob Luder, Simone Lee and Jeremy Kahn, seated at a big round table in the corner of the hall at Southgate Progressive Synagogue attending the Liberal Judaism Inter-synagogue quiz on Sunday 12 November.

You will be surprised to learn that, even though Kosher Paradise does not stock them, our sagacious team knew that the herb used in Lincolnshire sausages was sage. And while we didn’t know that the first frozen vegetable sold in the UK was asparagus, we did know that Exeter was the most southernmost service station in the UK. Yes, we had our moments, but not enough of them unfortunately, as we were placed 4th out of seven teams (eight, if you count Birmingham who didn’t turn up – they might not have done so well on the motorway ‘High Road’ round of

simone lee

questions).

How could we have brought FPS’s name into greater glory? Well, if we’d been good at recognising pictures of opera houses around the world and pictures of characters in children’s TV and literature, we would have done significantly better. I can’t help but wonder if the clime of Finchley was a key factor, for it seems if you come from farther north you tend to do a lot better (i.e. Elstree).

But it was fun and you learn so much about your team members by what they know. Adrian used to like Punk Rock, Paul knew his way around a dart board and Jeremy knew that you ate pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving (how on earth did he know that?). The bridge rolls and Danish were fabulous. We’re already revising for next year. Adrian is already up to ‘abacus’ in his Encyclopedia Britannica.

silver week at barnet carers centre

Barnet Carers Centre celebrated Silver Week from 1-7 October, a week that acknowledges the value and wisdom of Elders. FPS member, Janet Barak, a carer for her ninety-two-yearold mother, entered the Carers’ UK Creative writing and Photography Competition. The theme, ‘This was Not in the Plan’, was adapted in her poem titled ‘A Different Game.’ Janet was 6

invited to read her work during Silver Week at the packed Brent Cross Shopping Centre. The poem touches on the changing and sometimes rocky relationship between a daughter caring for her aging mother, and ends with an affirmation: Although before, I never knew I’d someday care for you, I’m honoured and so happy too, To give you back your due.

Let’s say it’s now a different game, although the heart is still the same.

Beit Tefillah

services at fps

services – december-january december

Friday 1 December 6.30pm

Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday 2 December 11.00am

Shabbat B’Yachad

Friday 8 December 6.30pm

Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday 9 December 11.00am

Shabbat Service

Friday 15 December 6.30pm

Shabbat Resouled: Chanukah

Saturday 16 December 11.00am

Shabbat Service celebrating Bat Mitzvah of Rachel Balint-Kurti

Friday 22 December 6.30pm

Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday 23 December 11.00am

Shabbat Service

Friday 29 December 6.30pm

Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday 30 December 11.00am

Shabbat Service

january

Friday 5 January 6.30pm

Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday 6 January 11.00am

Shabbat Service celebrating the second Bar Mitzvah of Rabbi Dr Frank Hellner

Friday 12 January 6.30pm

Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday 13 January 11.00am

Shabbat Service

Friday 19 January 6.30pm

Shabbat Resouled

Saturday 20 January 11.00am

Shabbat Service

Friday 26 January 6.30pm

Kabbalat Shabbat Service

Saturday 27 January 11.00am

Shabbat Service

7

Beit Knesset

community events, all welcome!

bridge group

learn

Mondays @ 7.30pm, £4. There are even small prizes for winners! (Alas, no compensation prizes.) For details contact Gunter Lawson via the synagogue office on 020 8446 4063

Thursdays, 12.00-1.00pm. Fortnightly December 14 and January 11, 25 Rabbi Harry Jacobi leads an hour’s learning in the small hall which is followed by lunch hosted

by Nicola at Café Thursday for anyone who chooses to stay.

yoga

No Yoga during December.

Contact Richard on 020 8349 9602. pilates

Next term we will be using the large hall so plenty of space available for non-members.

Contact Tali on taliswort@btconnect.com rosh chodesh

cafe thursday

(Closed 28 December) Thursdays @ 1.00pm. £6 for a freshly-prepared 3-course lunch. For menus or more information contact Nicky Marzell via the synagogue office 020 8446 4063

Wednesday 20 December @ 8.00pm, FPS Library. Jennifer Gerber (dir. of Labour Friends of Israel) on challenges of Israel advocacy today Wednesday, 16 January @ 8.00pm, FPS Library.

‘Infidelity’ discussion led by Sheila Lassman.

Contact Wika Dorosz at vdorosz@gmail.com.

cafe ivriah

book club

Jonathan asks ‘Why Britain did it?’ Jonathan’s expertise and thesis on this subject sparks exciting new insight into this well-trodden path which generally seems incompletely understood.

The discussion will explore the motivation behind the declaration and that of the figures involved.

Please join us for a scrumptious breakfast. All are welcome.

Wednesday, 13 December & 10 January @ 8pm The Book Club welcomes you to their meetings, held in people’s homes @ 8.00pm on the second Wednesday of each month.

For more information: Sheila King Lassman sheila@waitrose.com or Edgar Jacobsberg e.jacobsberg@gmail.com hilda hart

November 11 Shabbat Service included readings

by Rabbi Harry Jacobi and by the birthday girl, Hilda Hart, who was celebrating 98 years of gathering wisdom, reaping charm, and harvesting memories. It was pure delight to witness Rabbi Harry blessing Hilda on the bimah, and to see her glowing face as she led the way to Kiddush. Shofar hopes to print a feature on Hilda in 2018.

8

Saturdays (Term time), 9.45-10.45am fps breakfast shiurim autumn 2017

Saturday 2 December @ 8.30am ‘The Early Palestine Mandate’ Speaker: Jonathan Ellis

Beit Midrash

learning at fps

Episodes from Jewish History with Lionel Lassman Forged in Adversity, or ‘Couldn’t you have chosen someone else?’

7 December 14 December 11 January 18 January 25 January

‘The Dreyfus Affair: A degraded victim, re-instatement and thereafter’ ‘A parody of justice in America and a sort of justice in Russia’ ‘L’Affaire Finaly’ ‘Jonathan Jay Pollard’ ‘Jewish lawyers and the Nuremberg trials’

All on Thursdays at 7.30 pm. £5 voluntary donation at the door including refreshments.

people mazal tov to

Renato Fantoni and Bill Edgar for their milestone birthdays in December and to Ruth Breibart, Rita Gilbert, Jane Rosenberg, and Sean McDonagh for theirs in January Linda & Leon Gevertz and Valerie & Howard Joseph celebrating their 45th wedding anniversaries in December and to James & Anna Levy celebrating their 20th in January our deepest condolences to

Sheila Levy, Ruth, Richard and Robert and their families on the death in November of Professor Jack Levy, long-standing member of FPS our best wishes to

Adam Lee, for a speedy recovery, and to his parents, Simone and Paul, from all at FPS.

50/50 club draws, october winners:

50/50 club draws, november winners:

1st 2nd 3rd

1st 2nd 3rd

Barbara Shulman £25 Emilia Lassman Watts £20 Mollie Helfman £15

Alan Hinson Kirsty Myer Jacob Kinchin-Smith

£25 £20 £15

9

Notice Board FPS CHANUKAH CELEBRATION Friday 15 December 6.30 pm This Photo by Unknown Author is

AN EVENING OF MUSIC, CANDLES & FOOD

Service led by Dean Staker and the Shabbat Resouled musicians followed by a Chavurah Supper

Please bring: v Your Chanukiah and candles to light during the evening v A non-meat dish to share We are delighted that we will be joined by our friends from the Council of Christians and Jews Chanukah lasts for 8 nights. Why not ask friends over to share candle lighting and send photos to the Editor of Shofar?

green - developing eco-synagogue meeting 9 december.

being

Four local cross-communal synagogues have been working for the past few months to create Eco-Synagogue, an initiative that will be formally launched on 30 January 2018. It provides a framework for participating communities to develop a coherent response to the most pressing problems of our time: the issues of climate change and other environmental concerns.

These are not only social and political issues, but also ones that resonate with our position as 21st century Liberal Jews.

During an open discussion, in the Café Ivriah slot on 11 November, fifteen FPS members gathered to explore some of the Eco-Synagogue areas of work and Michael Lassman introduced the Green Survey that, once completed, will 10

provide a ‘road-map’ for our environmental developments in the future.

With the support of Adrian Lister and CA. Cranston, an embryonic Green Team has been created at FPS that will develop over the coming weeks and months as the green workload increases. We aim to share this in the community.

Everyone is invited to find out more at a Green Team lunch after Shabbat morning service on 9 December, from 1.30. We will complete the survey and explore some of the work that will raise the profile of FPS as an actively green synagogue.

If you can come, please let the office know or tell me at michael@equalityedge.org.uk Bring lunch to share on the day. If you have children, there will be activities for them too.

Charity Reg No. 802559

We make sure Alan celebrates every festival

There’s something special about coming together to celebrate all festivals.

That’s why for someone like Alan, who lives with dementia every day of the year, we try and make every festival memorable. We need to raise £3,000 every single day just to care for people living with dementia.

Will you help make sure that no one has to face dementia alone this Chanukah and beyond?

To donate please call 020 8922 2600 or visit jewishcare.org/donate

#PeopleOfJewishCare

11

Living Alone

rochelle simmons

can you risk asking for help?

As we age, it’s natural to find our needs increasing.

Many people are too anxious to either ask for, or even accept, support from others. They battle on, feeling they must be self-sufficient. If you are wanting to accept a helping hand, remember that “No” is a valid response, relating to the request.

It is not a rejection of you.

So, what are the likely outcomes of asking for help? A request might be willingly met but there are those who hate the idea of being beholden. A simple “thank you” will do, perhaps with something like “I really appreciate your help” or “You are very kind”.

Be careful though. If you immediately go out to buy some chocolates it could be perceived as paying for the favour, which diminishes the kindly act. My neighbour forgot her key.

I climbed in through her window (I was more agile then), and she rushed out again to buy me a gift. I felt that my ‘heroic act’ was belittled.

How then to actually ask for help? Beware of being manipulative or attempting to lay a ‘guilt trip’. Take for example our imaginary ‘Angela,’ and the effect of her saying “would you help a friend in need?” This implies that to help is to be a friend, but not helping – not a friend. Or what if she said “I know I can rely on you”? This is unreasonable and shows little empathy for the discomfort it might cause. To ask sensitively, we (and ‘Angela’) must make it easy for the answer to be “No.” Don’t beat about the bush or tell an exaggerated ‘sob story’; it’s just best to state what you want and to accept the possibility of a “no” without annoyance. It takes courage – on both sides – to offer, and to receive, help.

If you need help or support, you are welcome to get my contact details from the FPS office. I might be able to give you the information you need, or tell you how to get it.

a word about rochelle simmons

with Stress (2002) teaches self-help techniques and has been translated into 6 languages. And although out of print, it is available as a Kindle free e-book. Ironically, although the title of her most popular Shofar article escapes her, Rochelle does recall that it ended with a loose translation from Marcel Proust’s Remembrance of Things Past: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”

Rochelle and Jacquie Fawcett are currently in the process of collating a directory of useful addresses and phone numbers, including those that have been in the series. Thank you, Rochelle, for sharing your expertise and wisdom with Shofar readers.

Rochelle has been writing the ‘Living Alone’ column for almost 3 years. Her post-graduate studies were in Public Health, Health Education, and Psychology. She lectured to teachers and health care professionals in the Adult Department of the former Hendon College. When Rochelle was Chair of the Community Health Council she compiled a directory of local counsellors and psychotherapists, which was launched by the late Rabbi Lionel Blue. Her book Coping 12

Notice Board christmas shelter

FPS is again participating in the Christmas Homeless Shelter running at Finchley Reform Synagogue from 22 to 27 December, for up to 20 homeless men and women. There have been problems with sign-up sheets, so the spread sheet is in the process of being rebuilt and will be relaunched. In the meantime, a little reminder: the confirmed dates and times of training sessions (which must be attended by everyone) have changed since last year. They are: Thursday 23 November at 8.00pm, Finchley Reform Synagogue (FRS), Fallowcourt Avenue N12 0PE and Sunday 3 December at 11.00am, 42 Church Crescent, Whetstone N20 0JP.

We intend to run further training for those who sign up too late to attend the above sessions.

Please let Maurice Balfe know which session you are attending at christmasshelterfrs@ gmail.com (You might like to tell me also if you experience problems, so I can chase!)

Sponsorship I have taken responsibility for Christmas Stockings and daily newspapers. If you would like to contribute small gifts for stockings, sponsor newspapers, fish dinners, or general sponsorship, contact me, Andrea Narcin, andrea_narcin@yahoo.co.uk or 07969471522.

Thank you so much! mitzvah day

Mitzvah Day saw a group of volunteers from FPS and friends clearing graves at Highgate cemetery.

Wielding loppers and secateurs we battled with the rampant ivy and vicious brambles to uncover long hidden gravestones and names. Thank you everyone!

Andrea Narcin

The Comedy Store, 1a Oxendon Street, SW1Y 4EE

http://thecomedystore.co.uk/london/show/stand-up-against-homelessness 13

B’nei Mitzvah alex raphael’s bar mitzvah, 18 november

want to thank all those who came to my Bar Mitzvah, especially Rabbi Rebecca who, as you know, is currently on sabbatical. It turned out to be an incredible day, full of emotions, excitement, joy, nerves and relief!

My parashah (Toldot) tells the story of Isaac and Rebecca’s sons, Esau and Jacob. Before they are born, the twins struggle inside Rebecca, causing her discomfort. So she asks God why this is happening to her. God replies that there are two peoples (two nations) inside her and the older nation (Esau) will serve the younger (Jacob). We see this when they are born. Jacob comes out gripping Esau’s ankle – it’s almost as though he’s already trying to catch up. Esau becomes a skilled hunter, whereas Jacob stays in the tent, developing his mind. The story ends with Jacob persuading Esau to give up his birth right for a bowl of lentil stew. I can’t say I would give anything for a bowl of lentil stew! It’s an interesting parashah as it invites discussion as to which of the twins is actually the bad one.

As Rabbi Rebecca said in her excellent sermon, even the terms good and bad should be avoided because they can negatively affect the way people are treated.

I’ve been coming to FPS since I was 6 and have made loads of friends at Ivriah. Particularly memorable have been trips to Victoria Park and the Sukkot Sleepover. For my tzedakah project

14

I arranged a non-uniform day at school and we raised more than £500. That money is going to Global Radio’s Make Some Noise charity, which supports smaller charities that don’t get the support they should.

Finally, I want thank my parents and my wider family for encouraging me and for always being there for me. It’s been an amazing journey.

Thank you to all those who have helped me on it. rachel balint-kurti’s bat mitzvah, 16 december

Hi, my name is Rachel and my Bat Mitzvah is on the 16 of December, I have been coming to FPS for a few years now and I also go on LJY-Netzer trips. My parashah is about Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dreams. I think the story shows us that we should think about our actions before we make a final decision.

It is exciting for me to read this piece because I’ve watched the musical many times with my family and it is one of the most famous Jewish stories.

For my tzedakah project I am raising money for Septic Shock UK. My grandpa died of septic shock and I want to help raise awareness of it.

It is important that we raise awareness of septic shock because it affects a lot of people.

I am looking forward to my Bat Mitzvah and I have really enjoyed the lessons. I hope you can all come.

Fun Page dreidel

The dreidel is a four-sided top which has four distinct letters in Hebrew on each side. The story goes that when Jewish people were under the rule of Antiochus, many hundreds of years ago, they weren’t allowed to study their religious books so they would pretend to play with the dreidel while sneakily studying at the same time.

= Nit (Nothing), play passes to next player. = Gants (all), the player takes all of the pot. = Half, the player takes half of the pot. = Put, the player puts all of his or her coins into the pot.

Play can go either for a set amount of time or until one player has won all of the coins.

How to play the Dreidel Game: The object of the game is to spin the dreidel and collect coins or candy depending upon what letter appears after each spin.

Each player starts with some gelt (or money, sweets or counters). Each player puts one gelt into the pot in the centre. The players take it in turns to spin the dreidel.

Because the dreidel is four-sided, one Hebrew letter will be face up.

Then you follow these instructions to decide what to do:

To make your own dreidel Simply copy the outline below but make it a little bigger. Then stick your copy onto cardboard, decorate it, then glue it together. Each side of your dreidel will need to have on it one of the following Hebrew letters: (Nun), (Gimel), (Hei), (Shin)

food bank needs food!

The FPS Food Bank box that helps the Finchley Food Bank to supply the local community has been pretty bare for the past few weeks. Can you help out and buy an extra product or two when you shop in the run-up to Christmas? Long-life staples such as tinned beans, tinned meat or fish, tinned vegetables, cereal, UHT milk and toiletries are always in demand.

The FPS Food Bank box is situated opposite the small hall in the corridor. Nothing would give us greater pleasure than having to regularly deliver it to the local centre. Thanks in advance!

Peggy & Alison

15

Contacts

fps website: www.fps.org

finchley progressive synagogue

Life President: Sheila King Lassman

54 Hutton Grove N12 8DR 020 8446 4063 www.fps.org facebook.com/finchleyprog Rabbi Rebecca Birk – rabbi@fps.org

Vice Presidents: Renzo Fantoni, Josie Kinchin, Laura Lassman, Lionel King Lassman, John Lewis, Paul Silver-Myer, Andrea Rappoport, Joan Shopper

Emeritus Rabbi: Dr Frank Hellner

contacts

Community Development Manager: Zoe Jacobs – zoe@fps.org

Board of Deputies Reps: Janet Tresman, Stanley Volk

Musicians in residence: Franklyn Gellnick, Dean Staker

Beit Midrash (Adult Education): Adrian Lister adulteducation@fps.org

Synagogue Manager: Pauline Gusack pauline@fps.org

Beit Tefillah (Rites & Practices): Valerie Joseph

Premises Manager: Howard Hamerton

Care in the Community: Jacquie Fawcett jacquie@fps.org

executive

Chair: Cathy Burnstone – chair@fps.org Vice-Chairs: Paul Silver-Myer vicechair@fps.org, Louise Gellman vicechairlg@fps.org Treasurer: Martin Silk – treasurer@fps.org Honorary Secretary: Josie Kinchin honsec@fps.org board members

Phillip Raphael, Samantha King, Maureen Lobatto, Louise Gellman, Katy Jackson

Café Thursday: Nicky Marzell

Website Editor: Philip Karstadt fpswebsite@fps.org Shofar Editor: CA. Cranston – shofar@fps.org Shofar Team: Sarah Rosen-Webb, Wika Dorosz FPS Office: administrator@fps.org The Finchley Progressive Synagogue is a company limited by guarantee (Company No 9365956) and a registered charity (Charity No 1167285) whose registered office is 54 Hutton Grove, Finchley, London N12 8DR

President: Alan Banes

ashley page

janet tresman

insurance brokers

mediator & collaborative family law solicitor

Commerce House 2a Litchfield Grove London N3 2TN

Altermans Solicitors 239 Regents Park Road, London N3 3LF

Tel. 020 8349 5100

16

Office phone: 0208 346 1777 Email: janet@altermans.co.uk