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Every now and then, there is a scene that is so incongruous that a double take is needed to know its real. It is something unnatural in this world but might fly in the next: "The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, the leopard lie down with the kid... (Isaiah 11:6-9)!"

So check this out and if you need to, look again: Tsivka Pick's Shema in a Portuguese Church - the Roman Catholic Church in the Parish of Espinhel in Portugal!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?gl=AU&hl=en-GB&v=hWDn4jDUYso

Failing Los Destarrados making a you tube clip, try this and let your strumming hand run aaway with you and you have the funkiest Seder soundtrack!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Q5XRpN4_TY
Or if you just like the sound of words: http://www.losdesterrados.com/lyrics.html#5
Then do Los Desterrados an Afikoman present and buy the album!
Chag Pesach Sameach
AaG

I remain befuddled by the continuing international brouhaha triggered by Ha'aretz's (self-titled) "exposé" of IDF abuses during Operation Cast Lead.

Amos Harel's article, Yorim ve'bochim (Shooting and crying) – referring to the tradition of Israeli soldiers meeting to discuss their experiences of combat – should rather have been titled Shotfim ve'mekaplim (Washing and folding), as a significant part of the particular discussion featured in the article centred on whether or not soldiers had a duty to sweep and wash the floor, and fold away blankets, in a house commandeered from Hamasniks.

In an almost Pythonesque rebuke, Danny Zamir, the academy founder at the heart of the current debate, told participants "If you've spent a week in a home, clean up your filth."

The academic year is coming to an end and, after a remarkably varied six months, my highlights have been:

- Best Campaign: as part of Holocaust Memorial Day, Leeds University JSoc acquired more than 12,000 bottle tops to create a centrepiece for the university’s new Hillel House, to represent just one per cent of those who suffered. Support came from far and wide; large numbers from the Limmud conference and, bizarrely, contributions from Southampton and Tottenham Hotspur football clubs.

- Best comment: When asked to justify Oxford’s under-21 rugby team’s “Bring a Fit Jew” bar night, team captain Phil Boon claimed that he “didn’t see what the problem was” with his event. Mr Boon later conceded: “I can understand why it might have offended some people, but it would have been an awesome social.” Duh.

This week UJS held its inaugural student awards dinner in Middlesex New Synagogue, Harrow — the community of the late Alan Senitt, the former UJS chairman after whom an award was named. The awards recognised the hard work and dedication of Jewish students who have made an exceptional contribution to Jewish life on campus over the past academic year. The results were:

- UJIA Education Award: Adam Parker, a founding member of the Oxford Israeli Cultural Society.

- Developing JSoc of the Year award: Brighton and Sussex JSoc, which has continued to provide an exciting calendar of events for their students, despite the background of political troubles on their campus.

UJS-Hillel will open a new non-residential student centre in Leeds University in September 2009, in place of the existing Hillel House, due to a number of central and local government regulations in respect of shared properties. As well as a café serving kosher food, on the new premises there will be a chaplain’s office, where students can get confidential advice, and fully-equipped meeting rooms for student societies. In addition to the student centre, agreements have been made with both the University of Leeds and Leeds Metropolitan University to offer kosher accommodation within close proximity of the newly refurbished centre. Daniel Marcus, chief executive of UJS-Hillel, said: “The Leeds Hillel student centre will be a natural home for the Jewish societies in Leeds, and will provide a unique and cutting-edge space for social, cultural, educational and political programmes for all Leeds-based Jewish students.”

I thought I had heard everything until someone sent me a tape of part of a speech by Nadia Matar, co-founder of “The Women in Green.“ These Jewish settler ladies, as you will know, are committed to fighting by every means for the incorporation of the West Bank – Judea and Samaria – within the State of Israel and the disenfranchisement of any Arab crazy enough to stay there. Speaking in the highly-respectable, and rather beautiful, new Safra Synagogue on New York's East Side, Matar rambled on before an obviously delighted audience about her territorial/biblical philosophy until she reached her chilling climax: just as Churchill understood that, in order to bring peace to Europe, "he had to destroy the Nazi beast, today we must destroy all the terrorist organisations. We must kill all the terrorist leaders, starting with Mahmoud Abbas...” Mr Abbas just happens to be the elected leader of West Bank Palestinians and probably the only man who could bring his people to a peaceful settlement with Israel. But, for Ms Matar, it is not the concept of land for peace that drives her but all the pieces of the land for the fundamentalist Judaism she espouses. Just as shocking was the applause this earned her from her New York Jewish audience. I am glad the rabbi of the congregtion, when he heard what she had said, issued a statement “rejecting wholeheartedly the odious and repugnant remarks” of Ms Matar. While his synagoge hall had always been available to outside groups on a non-discriminatory basis, the nature of Ms Matar's remarks disqualified the sponsoring organisation from any further use of the space. The name of the sponsoriing group, by the way, is “Americans for a Safe Israel.”

I am exhausted. Kids up early and long day yesterday but so rewarding and I feel elated. Had the honour of sitting on Liberal Judaism's Rabbinic Board and welcoming 8 fantastic sincere Jews by Choice into our Synagogues. Yesterday, I was once more a Jew by Choice. The tube ride home was one of personal reflection and my response drew a few concerned faces from my fellow commuters, "Yes, yes, yes," being said not quite under my breathe. Proud to be a Jew, honoured to be a Liberal Rabbi, and blessed by being able to welcome such fantastic individuals to our Jewish Community.

If you are reading this and were interested in becoming Jewish, then see http://www.liberaljudaism.org/lifeevents_conversion.htm I look fwd to hearing from you!

AaG