Liberal Judaism

My Jewish friend L that I worked with on the DANDA commitee invited me to attend the Jewish Liberal Service at Cross Steet Church Last night. I was brought up in an orthdox shul (synagogue) and although I tried several times to be part of the Jewish scene by attending Jewish youth groups I never fitted in and spent most of the time in on my own both in shul and at discos. when I attended Sunday School and Evening classess known as Chader, I found it difficult to learn to read Hebrew and was treated like I was stupid and ostracised by my peers which made me very shy when I tried to mix with Jewish young people. I even went to Israel twice with a youth group, the second time on a kibbutz. and was socially excluded each time. I got on better with the Christian volunteers and had a Norwiegen boy friend called Ole.

I have only been to shul before because my Dad made me until I was 12 and to attend weddings and Barmitvahs. The last time after 36 years I went back to the shul my I was brought up in for my brother Rubin's 50th Birthday. I had fogiven everyone but this was quite traumatic as I had systematically been bulied for 8 years there. However I did not decide to rejoin the congregation as Im too set in my ways for traditional Judaism.

I looked at the Liberal shuls website and found as an anti-oppresive practitioner that thier values were similar to mine.
That:

"ethical injunctions to be of a higher order than ritual instructions, and
affirms the equality of each individual Jew, regardless of race, gender or
sexuality."

I obseved that disablity was not mentioned as part of thier equality remit, however I did not need to challenge them about this. as I was made very welcome. When I was offered a Sidur (prayer book), out of ingrained habits and the fact that I thought it would all be in Hebrew I refused one as I had come out of curiosity and had come to obseve rather than take part. The service was partly in Hebrew and partly in English and still had some simlarities to traditional services except women took part as well as men and a muscian very skillfully played the lyre. this is a sin in an othdox shul as musical instruments are not played on the sabbath.

I noticed that some of the congergation were not reading Hebrew script and had Hebrew tranlations in English script. One lady had her translation in large print and another had her's printed on green paper. I began to enjoy the service finding it very spiritual and wished that I had accepted a Sidur. I was asked afterward if the reason that I had refused a Sidur was because I needed the translations and if I came again they would provide me with one. it seems that L and her fiance B and I are not the only NDs in the village!

After years of indoctrination I felt very guilty (as writing on shabat is a taboo in Orthdox Judaism, especially in Shul) when I was asked to write down my contact details in the Church which had become a shul for the evening. I was made very welcome at the Kiddish (blessing over the Wine and Challa bread) afterwards. I have decided to increase my social network by embracing Liberal Judaism. My mum is very pleasamtly suprised and pleased as it as I could have decided to embrace Christianity or Islamism which would have realy upset her and is very curious about attending a liberal service.