Sermon: Chukkat: Alyth at 80, why this is North Western Reform Synagogue

Written by Writings & Sermons by others — 15 June 2013

Welcome as we reach the age of 80 to Hampstead Reform Synagogue.  Those are the words which might have welcomed you to the service this morning if the original name for this congregation had stuck.  Alyth-North Western Reform Synagogue began on May 24rd 1933 by a happy co-incidence of nineteen men and women living in the Hampstead Garden Suburb and Temple Fortune areas looking for local Jewish life and the West London Synagogue of British Jews in Upper Berkeley Street seeking to find a suitable site in Hampstead for an extension of its activities into the Hampstead area, nearly a hundred years after that congregation had begun Reform Judaism in the UK.  The support of the West London Synagogue was critical in the early years of our Synagogue.

The obvious name for the new group was Hampstead Reform Congregation and there is letterhead in our Synagogue archive bearing that name.  They also played with another name based on the Hebrew name chosen for the group – Congregation Shaarei Zedek (Gates of Righteousness), now the name which is actually borne by the former Southgate Reform Synagogue.   The trouble with the Hampstead Reform name is that it did not really reflect the ambition of the first group of members to bring our way of being Jewish to the growing north western suburbs of London – not only to Hampstead.   So via a proposal of North West Synagogue which was rejected by October 1933 they settled on the name which we now officially bear – North Western Reform Synagogue.   It was not until we had built this building in 1936 that people started to call us Alyth.

That name – North Western Reform Synagogue- tells us two key things about this congregation as true of us in 1933 as they are in 2013 – which is that this Synagogue is founded and sustained on values and vision.  Now values and vision is a relatively unusual thing to say – normally we tend to say vision and values, the other way round.  But in our congregation is it has always been values first.

To check this out I did something unimaginable in 1933. I searched for the two phrases in Google where it turned out that there are today 2.7 million references to organisations which use the phrase “vision and values” on their website but only 304,000 which use the phrase “values and vision” – putting the values first.

Our name says it loud.  This was the first Synagogue in the UK to call itself a Reform Synagogue.  In 1933 there were five other Synagogues in the UK which practiced Reform Judaism.  The West London Synagogue of British Jews,  The Manchester Congregation of British Jews, the Bradford Synagogue of British and Foreign Jews, The St George’s Settlement Synagogue in East London and the Glasgow Progressive Synagogue.  Ours was the only one which called itself a Reform Synagogue.

And what did those Reform values mean?   First we were set up as a congregation where everyone would be equal.  Our first Rabbi was Solomon Starrels.  He was American and trained at the Hebrew Union College in Cincinatti having served congregations in New Orleans and Lincoln, Nebraska before coming to England to serve the West Central Liberal Synagogue in Euston.   He insisted from the start that the North Western Reform Synagogue would have “one membership fee for all, irrespective of income, with no favours for the rich, and with no seats reserved – not even for wardens.”    And so it is today.

This congregation would practice an inclusive Judaism – while other parts of the Jewish community still struggle even today with how and whether to allow the full participation of women. The first woman Council Member of the North Western Reform Synagogue was elected in September 1933 – and look at who she was, Mrs Carmel (Britain was more formal in those days!), the daughter of Rev A A Green, inspirational minister of the Hampstead Orthodox Synagogue in Dennington Park Road.  The second woman was elected to our Council a month later, a Mrs Nordon.  And today women are equal to men in every aspect of Synagogue life. By 1934 this Synagogue was already welcoming people who wished to convert to Judaism.  We welcome those who seek to join Judaism and reach out to welcome to this confident Judaism anyone whose life situation might make them assume that the Jewish community wants to live without them – those whose partners are not Jews, Jews living with learning disability or mental illness and we were for many years the home of the Jewish Gay and Lesbian Chavurah.

We have always worked hard to be a thinking guardian of Jewish tradition.  The very earliest Council meetings record how our founders ensured that our services included traditions which were no longer practiced in other radical Synagogues.  We restored the Kaddish to its Aramaic language, stood for the Amidah prayer, brought the lighting of Shabbat candles and Kiddush to the Friday night service – all taken for granted now but not within Reform Jewish practice of the time in 1933, at least in London.  Today our Synagogue studies our classical Jewish sources before we make decisions on Jewish practice and seeks to bring meaningful Jewish tradition into everything that we do.

North Western Reform Synagogue has always put a very high value on teaching, engaging and encouraging our children to be great Jews.  In the first year of the congregation’s life the membership numbers grew to nearly 200 – and there was right from the start a thriving religion school – by the end of 1933 teaching 60 children each week.   Rabbi Starrels knew that education was only the beginning – so within our first few years he had helped to found a Girl Guide and Scout group, a “Young People’s Society” for discussions and socials and got family services off the ground.  Now with 1000 children under 21 in the congregation we continually work to find the best ways in our time to ensure Jewish life grows from birth onwards, always recognising the changing scene of young peoples’ lives and renewing how we engage them.

Music has always moved this congregation.  The very first service which took place 80 years ago tomorrow in the home of founder members the Silberts in no. 2 Meadway included a choir from West London Synagogue.  Women’s voices were as much heard as men’s right from the start and a children’s choir was founded in our first year.  But as well as high musical standards from trained voices, in the words of a Council minute from January 1934 “congregational singing in general is to be fostered”.   Today this Synagogue is vibrant with the sound of multiple voices every Shabbat and throughout the week.  This morning’s combination of our accomplished four part choir of members of the Synagogue together with the sound of parents and children singing and making rhythm together in the Big Bang ensures that we always worship God with the sound of song.

We have tried to be active in helping with the situation of the world around us.  In 1933 the first German Jewish Refugees began to arrive from Germany and our Synagogue became an ever greater part of welcoming them and helping them to settle in Britain.  We worked with other local Synagogues of all denominations in this effort, including helping the local Schools to deal with the needs of the German children together.  Before the War hundreds of German refugees used this very hall as a place to learn English. Today Alyth hosts a drop in for today’s refugees from the Congo, Somalia and other places and works together with our local parish church to offer shelter to the homeless in the winter, just two examples of Alyth’s social action work.

North Western Reform Synagogue was right from the start a community social centre as well as a place of worship and learning.  We held teas and parties on the Jewish festivals in our first year just as tomorrow afternoon this building will be packed full of hundreds of Alyth members just enjoying being together.  We know that Jewish life spreads best through friendship.

What about vision?  This Synagogue has always been ambitious.  We had appointed our first Rabbi within a month of the very first meeting.  We did it by 10 members guaranteeing his salary with the confidence and resolve that they would work hard together to grow the congregation enough to fund it.  In 1933 Rabbi Starrels and members of the congregation went out knocking on doors finding members.  We built this building in 1936 whose core was this sanctuary holding 350 people when that was greater than the total membership of the Synagogue.  We called ourselves “North Western” showing our intention to spread Reform Judaism throughout this area to all of the developing suburbs even though our first members all lived within walking distance of the Synagogue.

Today ambitious vision continues. Soon we will be extending this building so that the thriving parallel services which take place every Shabbat have a proper home, so that we can say yes to new groups and activities among our members which want to meet here but cannot yet found space.   We will be building our clergy team bringing, God willing, the strengths of a Reform trained cantor to build our music with Viv in the future.  Alyth does not stand still while the world and Jewish community moves on – rather we are in the vanguard of whatever is needed today to make Judaism effective in our lives and the lives of those around us.

The journey of North Western Reform Synagogue has of course not been plain sailing all these eighty years.  Today’s Sedra Chukkat shows us that even for Moses, guided by God, the journey to the Promised Land was beset by obstacles. Moses had to deal with the shortage of water, losing his ability to lead, rebellious Israelites and warring tribes around.  As our B’nei Mitzvah today, James and Olivia, told us, what was remarkable was how Moses showed the strength of purpose to find his way around these obstacles and yet lead God’s people, the Israelites to the border of the Promised Land.

So too leaders of North Western Reform Synagogue, our Councils, our Rabbis, our members have had to deal with tough challenges to the congregation.  The struggles to raise enough funds to enable the vision of the congregation to be pursued, the devastation the Second World War brought to the Jews of Europe and to how to make a Synagogue work during such a difficult time, the arguments for the sake of heaven which have had to be transcended as the Shul develops.   But with values that are so worth pursuing and vision for the Jewish future and our utterly positive place in it we can know that North Western Reform Synagogue will leave its year of special strength now we turn eighty with the strength to make it at least to 120 – ud mea v esrim!