A Day in the life of Kent

Some 80 people attended a community day for the Jewish communities of Kent. The informal event included stalls, talks, food tasting and a visit from Juliette Kaplan, a star of TV's "Last of the Summer Wine."

Participants to the Jewish Kent Community Day, held at the historic Chatham Memorial Synagogue, were invited to a kosher wine tasting, a music workshop, a shofar-blowing demonstration and a concert of Yiddish songs. David Herling, honorary secretary of the synagogue held a story-telling session and guest speaker Reverend Elkan Levy, of the Office of Small Communities, spoke about Shavuot.

Commenting on the second time that the community has organised such an event, Mr Herling said: "This day shows again that just 40 minutes from Central London we can concentrate on what we have in common and put aside religious differences."

Chatham Memorial chairman Jon Weiner said: "Seeing a mixture of people representing all strands of Judaism in Kent, all enjoying a varied social and cultural event, made me realise that Kent is a good place to be Jewish."

Ms Kaplan told CC: "My daughter lives in Rochester and volunteered me, so in retaliation I called my talk "The Jewish Mother in the Media." She added: "I thoroughly enjoyed the well-organised day."

The event was organised by Mr Weiner together with Hazel Bishop, chairman of the Kent Liberal Jewish Group and colleagues.

Reproduced by kind permission of the Jewish Chronicle

http://www.thejc.com

Jewish Kent - Website last updated 18 March 2014