Dear Congregants and Friends As I sit down to write this my heart goes out to the families of those killed in the appalling shootings and knifings over the past two weeks, and I’m sure all our thoughts are with them. Families in Tel Aviv, in Orlando and in the UK, where an MP has been killed in an attack which strikes at the very heart of our democ-racy. It seems ever more important that we stand up to counter prejudice. At his request, several of us will be meeting with the MP for Norwich South, Clive Lewis, in early July to talk about problems of anti Semitism in the Labour Party and issues of general concern to us. I would be pleased to hear from you if you have any points you wish me to raise on your behalf. It hardly seems possible that it is two months ago I wrote my last piece for the newsletter. Things at NHC have been very busy and I can only give you a brief taster here of everything I’ve been doing!
One event, which stands out above all others for me, is the visit by the young lady representative of the Shaare Zedek Hospital in Jerusalem. See the NISS column to hear more of this. Our major NISS fundraising event for the year was the wonderful concert by She’Koyokh and we had a fantastic evening with a full house. Well done to all the organisers!
Peter and I, along with a few other members of the congregation as well as of the Liberal congregation, attended the launch of the East Anglian Friends of Israel, a Christian initiative pledging support to the state of Israel through the Shalom Declaration. Steven Jaffe of the Board of Deputies and Dan Golan, from the Israeli Embassy were both invited speakers. We were amazed at how much support we have from these local Christian groups.
Your committee has been busy on a number of new initiatives and the working group thinking about how to improve service attendance is continuing to develop new ideas on our behalf. Two new initia-tives I would like to mention at this stage are the possibility of setting up register of Yahrzeits of the family members of our congregants, with a view to marking the Yahrzeit at the appropriate time. We are enclosing/attaching a slip for you to let us know of the Yahrzeit dates of your loved ones, so please do return this to us if you would like them included in our register.
On another note we are hoping to have a sponsored Kiddush and/or bottle of whisky once a month. We already have the memorial Kiddush for Doug Shad this Shabbat (25th June), Peter and I are hosting a “Kiddush Deluxe” to mark several family events on 9th July, and Alex and Sandy are hosting a special Kiddush for Alex’s birthday on 23rd July. So that should get us started! Would you like to sponsor or contribute a Kiddush in honour of a special occasion or in memory of a loved one? Please let us know.
Security is an ongoing concern for us and as I have said before, should be the responsibility all of us, not only those on the security rota. The CST will be providing a four hour security training event locally sometime in July or August. Any member of the congregation is invited to attend, and of course we hope all members on the security rota will join us if they are available on the date once known. If you would be interested, please let me know.
I would like to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone who has donated or pledged money already to our buildings appeal. This is our opportunity to continue the tradition our ancestors had in building our beautiful shul, by ensuring a lasting Jewish legacy for our children and for the people of East Anglia. Your donations have ensured that we are well over the half way mark for our fundraising and Nick and I are continuing to work hard to secure the remainder of the funding. Any ideas, please let us know. I look forward to hearing from you on any of the top-ics mentioned above. As you see below, I am revert-ing to the email [email protected] since having had problems with the official email address.
Kind regards, Marian [email protected]