News
Shul and charity Shelter host first 'Homelessness Shabbat'
Homeless charity Shelter and Manchester Reform Synagogue will dedicate this Shabbat service to the issue
October 19, 2018 11:44
Homeless charity Shelter and Manchester Reform Synagogue will dedicate this Shabbat service to the issue
October 19, 2018 11:44Manchester Reform Synagogue is to hold a Shabbat service dedicated to the subject of homelessness.
Attendees, which include people who have been invited to talk about their experience of sleeping rough, as well as ordinary members of the shul, will take part in a 'Torah breakfast' where they will be examining scenes in the Torah concerning homelessness and looking at the Jewish response.
They will hear a sermon that draws upon homelessness and Kaddish will also be said for all those who have died on the streets in the last year.
Rabbi Robyn, one of the shul's two community leaders, told the JC that they were keen to be involved because as a city centre shul and “sees the issue of homelessness on our steps".
"I have come into synagogue and found people sleeping on the steps... homelessness in Manchester is on the rise," she said.
"We feel that we have an obligation to do as much as we can... Tomorrow is really about getting the community to commit to the pledge that Manchester's mayor Andy Burnham has called for - that every rough sleeper should be given a bed this winter."
The shul is partnering with homelessness charity Shelter.
"We are really proud of our relationship with Manchester’s Jewish community," Bryn Phillips, the community organiser for Shelter Manchester, told the JC. He added that the community worked with Shelter on the local Nightstop intiaitive, where an older person in the community provides a younger person with somewhere to sleep.
He said that he expected around “10 to 20 attendees who have had a lived experience of homelessness” to be present at the service.
Mr Phillips said: “I will actually be giving the sermon in shul. The parsha this week is Lech Lecha, in which Abraham and Sarah are driven from their home by famine.
"Although this isn’t the same as modern day homelessness, there are factors beyond our control which make people on the street,” he said.
Mr Phillips said he wanted to "galvanise civic society to come together to use our collective power to help the most vulnerable people in society.
"We’re calling out to the Jewish community for volunteers to help manage night shelters, to donate and volunteer their time to food banks and soup kitchens, and to wash clothes and sleeping bags.”
Rabbi Silverman, the shul's other community leader, said his own sermon would be about "the hospitality of Abraham and the hospitality of the Jewish people, reminding people of their duty."
He added: "My aim is to get together to set up a 'kibbutz co-operative' whereby homeless people that have access to housing can become a self-governing community. If we can draw on the experience of the Israeli kibbutz, it would make it a very much Jewish-inspired project.
"We want to get together various charities in Manchester to organise a conference. The mayor, Andy Burnham is impressed by the idea so hopefully it will work."
