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Next Shabbat, let’s start talking about our mental health

Marcus Sperber is chair of Jewish Care

January 24, 2025 10:12
Copy Of Jami, mental health (Photo:Jami/Jewish Care)
Jami Mental Health Shabbat (Photo:Jami/Jewish Care)
2 min read

Next week, we will be marking Jami Mental Health Shabbat to raise awareness of mental illness and distress in the community and to share ideas on how to support ourselves and others.

More than 100 synagogues, schools, youth groups, university J-Socs and other organisations will be holding events to talk about mental health. Jami, part of Jewish Care, will be arranging its own challah bake, asking people to host a Shabbat meal to raise funds for mental health services in the community and organising an open-mic night at Head Room, its social enterprise café in Golders Green, supported by the Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation.

The charity will also be supplying its own Jami Mental Health Shabbat toolkit to engage everyone from schoolchildren to senior citizens – because mental illness and distress doesn’t just affect adults. It is hard to find someone in the community who hasn’t been impacted by mental health problems – and I know the effect this can have on individuals as well as their families.

This is why it’s so important to have Jewish Care and Jami to turn to, when we need them, for expert support, as well as genuine care, in a warm and welcoming Jewish environment. According to the latest report by NHS England, one in five children and young people in England, aged eight to 25 years old, had a probable mental disorder in 2023. In 2024, research from the Institute of Jewish Policy Research highlighted that more than half of under 25-year-olds in the Jewish community were living with mental illness, distress or trauma.