This year ‘Mental Health Awareness Shabbat’ falls on Parashat Va’eira where Moses tells the Jewish nation that their woes have ended and that redemption is at hand. This should have been a time of elation, but the Israelites were too overwhelmed by their own stresses to absorb this message. They had lost hope and couldRead More
At the beginning of the first lock down in 2020, my husband Gary and I decided to start watching the American medical drama ‘Grey’s Anatomy’. There were 16 series and I don’t think we quite realised what a commitment we were making. Gary gave up somewhere around season 8. Last week however he rejoined meRead More
When our eldest, Eliana, was 3 days old, we were sent home from the hospital, slightly terrified at this whole parenting business. I literally couldn’t even put the buggy up. Within an hour of our arrival home, the phone rang. It was Rabbi Abraham Levy, spiritual head of the Spanish and Portuguese community for 50Read More
I won’t pretend I have ever watched an episode of ‘I’m a celebrity get me out of here’. But it has been impossible to avoid discussions about it over the last fornight, and I’ve certainly been treated to selected clips and a wide range of opinions on the goings on in the jungle via socialRead More
Does your name tell a story? I love the stories of people’s names. The person you were named for, or the town a name comes from. Was your name changed to sound more English? Do you have nicknames or names you have chosen for yourselves? Our names tell stories, they contain an insight into ourRead More
A few years ago an incredible Jewish storyteller, Shonaleigh, who has dehydrated some 3 and a half thousand stories to hold them in her head, convinced me to join a small group on a 3 year storytelling course she was running. When I arrived at the first residential, I found myself sitting with a groupRead More
If you wander past my office, you may assume I’m an avid reader, and it may not surprise you that next to my bed at home is a very large pile of books. It is a pile some of you may also have; the pile that is ‘waiting to be read’. The pile grows farRead More
I was in the tube when I heard the Queen had died. We momentarily connected to the wifi and a message to our EHRS work what’s app group came through with the sad news. When we left the underground 15 minutes later a huge billboard in tribute to Her Majesty had already appeared opposite CentreRead More
Does anyone know what this is? It is one of the famous collars of Supreme Court Judge Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who died on the eve of Rosh Hashanah almost 2 years ago. I didn’t know a lot about RBG as she has come to be known until PJ Library, an amazing monthly gift ofRead More
It’s not just Isla standing at the beginning of a journey today. We all stand at the edge of an important transitional moment this Shabbat. The Torah has us between two mountains, between blessings and curses, but is preparing us for when we cross over the river Jordan. Crossing over, balancing life’s blessings and curses,Read More
Ekev Shema Yisrael began our reading this week. But funnily enough, it wasn’t the Shema that was read. Although the second paragraph of the Shema comes at the end of this week’s portion, reminding us that we must live with responsibility and justice in the land, or we will starve. For many years we haveRead More
I cry at the movies. I have favourite musicals that I will try to visit on a regular basis in order to have a good cry. The catharsis of having a really good sob shouldn’t be underestimated. The ancient world was replete with examples of the hiring of women whose job it was to wailRead More