“It was the morning of the Grenfell fire and the community asked us how we can help respond to this. Where are we needed, what can we do? We called our friends at Al Manar, asked where help was needed, to come, to organize, the huge influx of donations that were arriving. To help the mosque itself to organize and distribute immediate clothing, toiletries, supplies for families. And this Synagogue took a handful of volunteers to join many handfuls of volunteers to begin to support the victims of the fire.
“Over time and through the building of friendship, we learned about an amazing art therapy project that is going on supporting children from the Grenfell tower fire happening regularly at the mosque. We found a way for the Jewish community to bring some of its experience to support these families The Jewish community has this wonderful network of summer camps and youth movements with very experienced and enthusiastic youth leaders.
“So the coming together of young people from this Synagogue and across London, and the Mosque, we ran our first Grenfell kids day camp over the winter holidays last year, the second one will run this summer. 40 kids had for five days an opportunity to smile, to play, to have fun.
This Synagogue is very committed to being a force for good in the community but is under no illusions that this is a piece of work we can do alone. And we have found in Al Manar partners who have the same vision that we do.”
Nic Schlagman
“The government has made a commitment to bring about 20,000 (Syrian) refugees by the year 2020 to the UK. And as part of this commitment, one of the schemes the government is rolling out is a community sponsorship program, where communities can actually rally together, work together, in order to sponsor a family.
“To bring in a refugee family and support them in every aspect of life, when resettling in a new country.
“West London Synagogue would like to be a participant in this project, and in collaboration with Haidery Mosque, Streatham Baptist Church, South London Liberal Synagogue, and Liberal Judaism are working together to actually make this happen.”
Kajal, Volunteer
Kajal, Volunteer
As the meal progressed and neighbors of all faiths engaged in conversation, an invitation was extended for guests to participate in the wider program run at the Synagogue that night.
This included either an interfaith talk by the Council of Christians and Jews by guest speaker professor Michael Barnes or a conversation on the Royal Wedding with Rabbi Julia and Robert Lacey. A historian and biographer, Robert is best known for his work as the historical adviser to the award-winning drama, The Crown.
Pages: 1 2