Our vision issues

There are six of us living in a house, we share everything in public spaces and organise at least seven events a month – there are going to be issues! It is surprising there are not more. By meeting frequently (short weekly meetings and longer ones each month) we ensure that no issues gets out of hand and that everything is dealt with.

Aside from the day to day running of our house there is, however, an underlying issue behind everything that we are doing: we each have different answers to the question of why we are doing it.

The aims of MoHoLo can be either of the following options for each of the residents: to challenge British Jewish institutions and their definitions of who is a Jew or to supplement synagogue life; to forge a distinct approach to Judaism by bringing together ideas from different Jewish traditions or to provide a space for all Jews to feel comfortable in each of their own approaches to Jewish life; to create a stable, continuous institution in MoHoLo or to spend a few years inspiring other London Jews to run their own grass roots Jewish events like a ripple on effect; to provide a space for events for the local community or only for the Jewish community.

Often smaller disagreements can be seen to reflect on one of these underlying issues of our whole purpose. The tension between these different positions was not clear until February when we ran a “blue sky thinking” session, taking a step back from our logistical weekly and monthly meetings in a special and strictly non-tachles meeting. There each of us spelt out her/his idea of what the house is all about. We did this again a few months later after Brett and Lianna had joined the house. The more it was discussed the clearer any tensions became and the easier it has become to create a shared vision. Ultimately it is clear that the tensions are a healthy part of what we are doing, with each of us bringing something different to the MoHoLo project. Bringing these differences into the open by continuing to have these separate “visioning” meetings is really important, ensuring that we all understand where each other is coming from.

Recently, realising that only half the house residents are Moishe House London founders, we have begun thinking about how the vision of the founders can be preserved for future house members to take forward. This might involve bringing these underlying and creative tensions even further into the light.

Pesach Quiet

Its quiet here in Moishe House London.

After our frantic Pesach cleaning, and our fabulous Bircat Hachammah service, which my other housemates have blogged about, the house is very peaceful. This is compounded by today being Easter Sunday (Christians sometimes think they always coincide, they don't), which, despite Britain really not being much of a Christian country any more, means that everything is closed. Its a strange phenomenon-all the Jews emerge from a 3 day food and sleep fest (2 days yom tov + shabbat) all ready to reengage the world, and suddenly the world is sleepy and bloated from over eating, and, well, shabbat like. Still the sight of the closed supermarket is ameliorated by the fact the door is covered with 2 signs, one wishing customers a happy easter and the other a happy passover (with hebrew texts-noch!). Now one shouldn't get too excited about this; religion ought to be a subversive, anti materialist force, and we certainly don't want to be co-opted by multinational corporations. But the public recognition of Judaism, especially outside the major Jewish areas, which is so common in America, is still quite new to us Brits. As a Jew who think Judaism ought to be loud, proud, brash and above all out of the closet, this is a minor cause for celebration.

Chag Sameach!

January in London

January for me was dominated by the conflict in Israel-Palestine, and the war on Gaza. It was a very uncomfortable period, with lots of disagreement, and the pages of facebook became a verbal war zone. As a firm opponent of Israel's actions, I, laike many others, was frustrated with the behaviour of the organisations that claim to represent anglo-Jewry, the solidarity rally they held, seemed to me mistaken and totally unrepresentative. So it was great that Moishe House London was able to offer a different path, holding an event called Gaza-listening to each other, at which each participant was given 4 minutes to speak uninterrupted about how they felt, without having to adopt a particular position, or debate with each other. Moishe House was able to create an open space in what can often be a rather closed community, and this was a vital thing for us to do.