Our Purpose and Values

Our aim

Our aim is to sustain our community and continue its development through the provision of services and activities which embody our values and Liberal Jewish identity and which embrace the wide diversity of our members’ faith, practice and support needs.

Our values

• We provide a modern and relevant interpretation of Jewish life and practice and we respect and embrace the diverse ways in which people express their Judaism and engage with it.
• We are warm and welcoming and offer a friendly hand to all those who want to share in Jewish companionship, worship and study.
• We particularly value difference and pride ourselves in embracing diversity in gender, race, age, sexual orientation and ability / disability. We are as welcoming to single people as we are to couples and families.
• We nurture and support those within our community who are vulnerable or in need of help and we endeavour to ensure that financial circumstances are never a barrier to full participation.
• We are committed to the pursuit of peace, social justice and care for the environment.
• We seek to play a positive role within wider society and the world at large.
• We welcome non-Jewish partners at our services and events and embrace them as part of our social network.

Where we stand on the Middle East

In agreeing these Purpose and Value statements, it is this one on Israel that has led to the most discussion and where people have expressed the most divergent views. Some members simply wish us to say that we support the State of Israel. Others urge that we include a statement in support of the rights for Palestinians and Arab Israelis as a first principle in our engagement with the Israeli State. Some of us would take issue with parts of the Liberal Judaism position on "Israel and Zionism" (2006), but others would be happy to endorse it, see here. Nevertheless we commit ourselves to building our community through mutual respect, regardless of our differences.