Liberal Judaism’s series of Open House Shabbats continues this Saturday (12 November) at 11am with a Liberal service at Oxford Jewish Congregation.

This special Shabbat morning, to celebrate 120 years of Liberal Judaism, will be followed by kiddush for the whole Oxford community – including Orthodox and Masorti congregations, whose services finish at the same time.

The service is open to everyone. To attend in person or watch on Zoom, please email progressivegroup@ojc-online.org.

The Liberal community then adjourns for a ‘bring a dish’ lunch at the nearby home of one of its conveners. All guests are invited to attend – the community will arrange transport and you don’t even need to bring a dish.

The Open House Shabbat initiative will see each Liberal Judaism congregation hold at least one Shabbat during the year, 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 Oxford Jewish Congregation:

The Oxford Jewish Congregation is unusual.  The whole Jewish community in the city occupies a single building and is a single entity for all purposes.  Services for the various affiliations happen simultaneously in different spaces within the building.  We have regular Liberal, Orthodox (both Ashkenazi and Sephardi) and Masorti services.  There is a single cheder and we have no rabbi.  We also look after the students at the university – in particular, providing meals on Erev Shabbat.

Liberal services happen twice a month: on the second Saturday they are hybrid and on the fourth by Zoom only.  They are entirely lay-led and we have a panel of around a dozen who are confident to lead services, read Torah or deliver a D’var.  Our hybrid technology has just been installed, thanks in part to a generous grant from the NLPS Trust.

The community consists of some 250 families and there are 150 names on the Liberal mailing list.  Despite the importance of the university for the City generally, there is a good mix of ages and backgrounds in our community.

Now that the world has opened up again, we have resumed our full range of regular social and cultural activities and the building is buzzing once more.  We are proud to be an active eco-Synagogue.

Oxford is not a car-friendly city.  We would recommend that you come by train.  Our building is less than a mile away from the station.  If you do come by car, you are advised to use one of the Park and Rides; the final bus stop is half a mile from the building.  Parking close to the building is very limited and costs £15 for three hours.  To help us with planning and with security, we’d be grateful if you let us know in advance if you are planning to join us either in person or by Zoom.