You know this season is a rabbi’s most intense – rather like January for accountants – and yet I absolutely love the Tishri festivals. It never stops being a privilege to lead them.

This year’s High Holy Days will be poignant for us all: my last with you. And yet perhaps their very theme of change will help us negotiate the transition ahead.

As we welcome Rosh Hashanah tonight, I am so grateful for the ability to change and to be changed. As Bertolt Brecht’s poem reminds us, “Everything changes. You can begin anew with your very last breath.” The promise of renewal that our New Year offers is so profoundly humane and enabling — an acknowledgement of us in all our human frailty. So the invitation to choose life resonates powerfully, as does our deepest hope, which we will repeat in prayer again and again: to be written in the Book of Life, Sefer Ha-Chayim.

Newness can be daunting but it is also profoundly reassuring. No matter how this past year has been, we get to reset, renew and restart our lives afresh. This can be both real and metaphorical.

May we go into the New Year at peace with each other (as much as is possible), and certainly at peace with ourselves. May we see blessings from the work of our hands and find kindness, grace and collaboration in our shared endeavours and hopes. May the New Year waiting for us be a good one and may we bring goodness to it.

As you consider the services ahead and the sermon and shiur themes, I wanted to give you a loose anticipation of what is to come.

Erev Rosh Hashanah: Anniversaries and Being in the Room
Rosh Hashanah Morning: Passing it On: the Ethics of Tradition and Change
Kol Nidrei: Alarms, Ticking Clocks and Taking Life for Granted
Yom Kippur Morning: We are honoured to welcome Co-Lead of MPJ, Rabbi Charley Baginsky, who will speak on Progressive Judaism and Moral Responsibility
Yom Kippur Shiur: Led by James Levy on Ritual, Soul and Community
Yizkor: Magical Thinking & Memory

Shanah Tovah,
Rebecca

There has been quite a lot of news this week. You will recall I have experienced settler violence. On a trip to Israel with fellow rabbis in March 2025, we were attacked and then rammed by a settler in a large truck as we were being shown the destroyed Palestinian village of Zanuta. We met Awdah Hathleen, one of the leaders of the community, who in 2025 was shot dead by Israeli settler Yinon Levi. Awdah’s brother Khalil is now leader of the Council of Umm Al-Khair, he works closely with many rabbis in Israel. There is good work happening.

There have been thoughtful, and principled responses to Ed Miliband’s statement yesterday from key bodies as well as words from Progressive and Masorti rabbis talking to journalists. I know emotions are high and fear is close at ha

nd – and many have expressed such worry. I pray that bad actors will not use any of this for deeper division. We want to know our government will be tough on all antisemitism. We will welcome the Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Matt Jukes, on Yom Kippur morning as he makes his solidarity clear.

These new policies do not target Israel as a whole; they target particular settlements. Two years ago, Rabbi Gilad Kariv MK begged British Rabbis and Jews to be upstanders, not bystanders, on this very issue. You can read his responses to the news this week below. Many Jews have called out Chillul HaShem, a violation of God’s name of the highest order, in the West Bank. It’s a terrible situation for Palestinians, Israelis and Jews everywhere.

Here are several responses in one place:

Board of Deputies

Masorti and Progressive Rabbis

Co-leads of Progressive Judaism

Yachad

Rabbi Gilad Kariv MK

Shanah Tovah,
Rebecca