Wednesdays 7.30-9pm

Throughout the years, in our adult education classes (‘Come Learn With Us’), we explore Torah and other aspects of Jewish life.

This is a full adult Jewish education course for community members at all levels of experience, aiming to cover all topics over the course of the year: Jewish history, time, texts, life cycle, thought and practice. Community members can dip in and out as the topics interest them — or stay for the whole course.

Those community members pursuing conversion or confirmation of Jewish status with Kehillah are asked to attend the whole course (unless they can arrange with Rabbi Leah to pursue similar learning in another way). Everyone is welcome.

Yom HaShoah 7th April:

We will be commemmorate Yom HaShoah, Holocaust Memorial Day, with a service and some learning.

Guest Speaker Lipika Pelham 21st April:

On 7th April as part of Adult Education we will be commemmorating Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Memorial Day) with a service & some learning//On 21st April, Lipika Pelham: writer and member of our community, will be sharing her expertise with us on the fascinating subject of gender and sex-passing in Jewish folklore and literature.

Gili Getz hosts ‘The Forbidden Conversation’ on Israel 28th April :

Gili Getz is an Israeli-American actor, photojournalist and activist. He served as a military photographer for the IDF and as a news editor for Ynet. His work in recent years has been focusing on American Jewish politics and he is published regularly in Jewish and Israeli press, and by Princeton University in the book “Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict over Israel” by Professor Dov Waxman.

Since graduating from the American Academy of Dramatic arts Gili has performed across the country in numerous theatrical productions and was the recipient of the Kirk Douglas scholarship. The

The Forbidden Conversation was created at LABA – Laboratory for Jewish culture – an award winning fellowship in New York where Jewish artists from different disciplines study Talmud (and other Jewish text) while developing new work. The play premiered at the Center For Jewish History in the spring of 2016 and has been performed in Jewish spaces across the country since. Gili will perform scenes from the play and talk about the difficulty around the Israel/Palestine conversation in the British Jewish community. Join a discussion about the challenging conversations we have with family, friends and our community concerning the future of Israel, the British Jewish community and ways to process fundamental differences and disagreements. All opinions are welcome.

Previous topics have included:

-Jewish history (Biblical and Medieval, the modern Jewish denomoniations, Zionism and Israel-Palestine, the Shoah/Holocaust).

-A three week course titled “Abominable Texts? – Homosexuality in Rabbinic Writings”, where we took a fresh look at key texts in the Talmud and later Rabbinic writings about male and female homosexuality and same-sex marriage.

-A 3-session Shabbat Song Sharing. This musical-educational-liturgical series covered the melodies we know and love to sing on Shabbat, as well as some lesser-known or new-to-us favourites.

-Sessions on “Trans-formations: The multiple genders of the Talmud”, about the space our texts create for trans, non-binary and queer people today.

Rabbi Leah teaches the majority of the sessions, and we hear other perspectives and connect to the broader London and British Jewish world (and perhaps internationally— one benefit of Zoom!), hopefully on topical and current issues as well.