The next LJ@120 Open House Shabbat will be a special online evening service hosted by BKY this Friday (17 June).

The evening will start at 18:15 for anyone who would like to join a bit early and chat with the service leader, who will be Rabbi Janet Burden, or with other members. The service, using BKY’s siddur on screen, will then begin at 18:30.

After the service, BKY will hold an online Kiddush featuring the community’s star baker’s challah of the week (usually taking a topical form – to be seen to be believed).

The Open House Shabbat initiative will see each Liberal Judaism congregation hold at least one Shabbat during the year, to celebrate our movement’s 120^th anniversary, for which they will open their doors – whether in-person, online or both – to the rest of the Liberal Jewish world and beyond.

More about BKY:

We are a community of people who recognise the true diversity of the Jewish experience and who welcome all new members and participants, especially those who are distanced or estranged from many facets of contemporary Jewish community life.

BKY welcomes:

• Jews committed to working out the implications of gender equality regardless of sex, sexual orientation and gender identity.
• Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, Trans, Intersex, Queer or otherwise identifying Jews.
• Jews who want to work out a creative and evolving relationship, as feminists, to Judaism and being Jewish.
• Jews who may not think of themselves as religious but who identify strongly as part of the Jewish people.
• Patrilineal Jews.
• Jews on their own who would feel more comfortable in a community which emphasises individual presence and participation.
• Families seeking a Jewish framework for their lives.
• The non-Jewish partners of Jews who wish to be supportive and to participate in the life of the Congregation.
• Those who are exploring Judaism as a spiritual path, who may or may not have been born Jewish.

Our community is involved with those aspects of contemporary Judaism which both respect and creatively engage with diversity. We encourage participation in, and contributions to, our services and our after-service and secular events.

Our founder rabbi, Sheila Shulman, stated: “If this congregation has any single purpose, it is to establish firmly that the centre is equally in each and every committed Jew: in each of us as much as it is anywhere.  As Franz Rosenzweig wrote, ‘We know that in being Jews we must not give anything up, not renounce anything but lead everything back to Judaism, from the periphery back to the centre; from the outside, in.’”

This and more can be found on our website at www.bky.org.uk.