We aim to provide services and activities which embody our values, strengthen our Liberal Jewish identity and cater for the wide diversity of our members’ faith, practice and support needs.
Our Services
Our Shabbat evening services, Shabbat morning services and Havdalah are a mixture of in-person and online via Zoom. For dates, times and venues, please see our calendar of services.
We welcome visitors to any services, but please get in touch to for access details. We use the Liberal Judaism service book, Siddur Lev Chadash. The text will be shared online for zoom services.
Statement on the Gaza Situation
We watch with horror the continuing terrible conflict in Gaza, and the increasing threat of a wider regional war, which would increase a hundred-fold the suffering on all sides. As we have done since October 7th last year, and before that, we continue to pray for peace. We support the statement of Our Jewish Values, endorsed by Progressive Judaism, and encourage everyone to sign it and promote its values:
- Judaism places supreme value on the pursuit of peace which requires compromise and painful decisions;
- Judaism believes we are all created in the image of God and that every life has value;
- Our religion and history are steeped in a belief in the importance of law, including the laws of war;
- This moment requires those of us in the UK not to speak in simple slogans, but to admit complexity;
- We must do all we can to support the work of those at the heart of this conflict, Arabs and Jews, Israelis and Palestinians, who are working to ensure a safe future for both peoples.
In our services, we pray for peace using the words of Rabbi Elli Tikva Sarah:
El Malei Rachamim, God Full of Compassion, who heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds, we ask You to show all Your children the way of love and compassion, so that hatred ceases to scar their lives.
Ein Ha-Chayyim, Source of Life, we call upon You to send Your abundant blessings into every home, Israeli and Palestinian, so that new hope may overcome old fears.
Adonai Tzadik, Righteous One, who exhorts us to pursue Justice, we fervently pray that a spirit of righteousness may prevail, so that both peoples find the courage to reach a just settlement of their differences.
Oseh Shalom, Maker of Peace, who teaches us to be seekers of peace, we entreat You now to spread Your tabernacle of shalom-salaam over all the inhabitants of Your land, and to support the peacemakers among both peoples in their efforts to walk the path of reconciliation, so that a just peace may reign supreme at last — bimheirah b’yameinu, speedily in our own day.
As Our Jewish Values says, “it is time – perhaps like no other time in a generation – to act and speak in accordance with these principles”. In this spirit, we encourage all our members to sign the statement and to do all they can to encourage our political and religious leaders to press, vigorously and urgently, for peace.
Sue Bard
Maurice Naftalin
Nick Silk
Co-chairs, Sukkat Shalom Edinburgh, August 2024
