About Grassroots

This is a GRASSROOTS PROJECT. If you want to get involved there’s bound to be something for you – helping with the meals, leading the service or sessions, welcoming people into the space, artwork, or even simply helping out on the day – please let us know and we’ll help you find a role you’ll enjoy!

The Basics:

We are a group of friends with many different Jewish backgrounds and perspectives. We want to be the kind of place where people say hello to people they don’t know. We want to try to create gatherings which are heartfelt, soul centered and intellectually inspiring. And we intend to bring a spirit of joy and exploration to our services. We want to be PARTICIPATORY AND FRIENDLY.

So if you want to be part of an avowedly inclusive community. If you ever sat in Shul and thought “there must be more to it than this”. If you want to be part of a huge, and potentially risky social experiment. If you know in your heart of hearts and the very depths of your soul that one of the best times you had in a minyan in London was with WJ, Carlebach Minyan or MoHoLo. Even just the once. Then please come and join us.

What happens at Grassroots:

1)       Grassroots Services:

Our services will be traditional (and perhaps not so traditional in parts) and halachic. There will be some seating separated by a mechitza and there will also be an area of seating where anyone can sit where you like. Women and men will be called up to the Torah in accordance with halacha. For more on leyning and to find out how to get involved see the blogpost.

We sing. A lot. The foundation of the atmosphere during our prayer is the leadership of our phenomenal chazzan Yossi Chajes (see ‘Founders’ below). Yossi shares the amud (prayer-stand) with several other high-quality grassrootsers who have offered their voices to us. The kriat hatorah (Torah reading) is done by volunteers – people like yourself.

Refreshing Divrei Torah (insights of Torah) punctuate the prayers, providing context and verbalising some of our tussles with the liturgy. Pulling no punches, our inclusive environment allows for unconventional positions to be expressed as part of the fabric of the service.

At the same time our space is free wheeling, open, and all are free to come and go. There are parallel chill out spaces, cushions, tents, and space for parents and babies.

2)      Grassroots Sessions:

We also like to explore, question and challenge. Our sessions use content from the literature surrounding the day as well as its to provide meaningful and engaging ways to relate to the festival outside of prayer. Torah learning, dance, meditation sessions, philosophical insights and social commentary, art… let your creative and intellectual juices bubble. If you’d like to run a session we can provide you with themes and teachings to work with and spin off… (email Alon at alon.freiberger@gmail.com)

3)      Grassroots Library:

No matter how good the service and sessions are, sometimes you just need a bit of peace and quiet away from the madding crowd. The grassroots library is a quiet haven filled with books you’ll actually want to read.

Our eclectic mix puts classics from the Jewish rabbinic canon such as mesechet rosh hashana (with its rich poetic and legal musings on the festival) side by side with graphic novels about Bertrand Russell’s quest for mathematical certainty; the philosophy of Levinas rubs shoulders with short stories from Dave Eggers, and of course some Where’s Wally for requisite light relief.

If you have quality books you are willing to loan to the library please email Alon (alon.freiberger@gmail.com)

4)      Grassroots Sustenance:

We break up the Rosh Hashana services into manageable pieces by having a kiddush between the morning prayers (following the Yakar model). Then after the morning’s hard work is done – feast time. Lunches are pot luck (the food is consistently phenomenal) which keeps the communal feel in place whilst giving us all some well earned time to take on what we’ve achieved over the morning and have a good laugh with your (new-found) friends.

Founders: The people behind this project.

The founders of Grassroots are a group of friends who live in London and decided to put on independent Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur services in North West London. Some of us are the people who bring you some of London’s best loved grassroots groups – The Carlebach Minyan, Wandering Jews, and MoHoLo. We are a group of social workers, journalists, teachers, barristers, psychiatrists, techy geeks, spare-time minyan makers, activists, parents, artists and others who are doing this in our spare time because we love the idea.

We are lucky to have a wonderful chazzan, teacher and thinker, Yossi Chajes, coming over from Israel to lead our services. He is a founding member of the Leader Minyan in Jerusalem. He toured as a musician and studied with the late Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach for many years. He is professor of Jewish history and thought at the University of Haifa, specializing in Kabbalah. For more on Yossi see his blogpost.

Below is more info on the founding groups of Grassroots. If you want Grassrootsesque stuff throughout the year then check them out!

The Carlebach Minyan

The Carlebach Minyan is  a Friday night gathering in the Belsize Park/ West Hampstead (and other) areas of London. We started in 2003 as a place where people could come round to someone’s house and sing the melodies written by Shlomo Carlebach for kabbalat shabbat on Friday nights. We started it because we were inspired by Carlebach shuls we visited in Tzfat and Jerusalem. We have Friday nights about once a month, or whenever we feel like it. We recently held a 5 day Shavuot retreat in Tuscany as well as Shabbat retreats in the countryside like the recent Down to Earth Collective in the Brecon Beacons, Wales. We hold teatime salons (days where people come and give talks and workshops about lots of different things, see the most recent line up here) and are starting a new chesed project and a community sukkah.

Jonathan Boyd  recently blogged about us:  ”I went along to the Carlebach minyan a few weeks ago, and participated in a kabbalat shabbat service that could proudly stand alongside the best of what Jerusalem or Tzfat has to offer.  There were 100 or so people present, packed into a small living room, overflowing out into the garden, singing so vibrantly and passionately that the room itself was literally reverberating with excitement.  This was grassroots, informal, non-ideological Judaism at its best and most vibrant.”

Wandering Jews

Wandering Jews  is a self organising collective that has been celebrating Jewish stuff in London since 2005. We meet twice a month in East and West London respectively to eat and pray and drink and be. We are hosted by a new person every time and aim to “never go to the same house twice”. We also hold firm to the ideal, “your house, your rules”. A little bit Fight Club, a little bit minyan, almost 100% good. We look forward to welcoming you soon. You and your veggie food, your vegan liquor and your beautiful neshamas.

www.wanderingjews.co.uk

Moishe House

Moishe House London, in Willesden Green, was founded in October 2007. As a Moishe House it is part of a worldwide network of houses that double up as centres of grassroots Jewish community. From our own home, we bring exciting, creative, non-denominational Jewish community to London. From Friday night dinners to film showings, impromptu concerts to study sessions, meditation to jam sessions to social action events – the possibilities are endless.

 Moishe House Facebook Group

The photo is Anna, Sam and Jonny at a Carlebach retreat in Suffolk.