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  • Quality care

    Leon A Smith
    Apr 5, 2013

    One of the sad and hard aspects of working in a care home environment is that people die. Because people are coming into care at the end of their lives, they are staying with us for a shorter period of time than was the case a generation ago. Death is not a way of life but certainly in the care home environment it is an inevitability.

    One of the strange side effects of people living longer and dying at a greater age is that in many cases people’s friends, relatives and indeed sometimes children pre-decease them – meaning that when the person dies well into their 90s there is sometimes nobody to remember and nobody to say kaddish. It is a truism to say that this is a heartbreaking thought – but it is a reality and an inevitable consequence of increased longevity. Sometimes people die and they have no surviving family and no surviving friends. They live to say 95 years and there is nobody left to remember. That fact epitomises the transience of life – 95 years of living, of happiness, sadness and then at the end nobody left to remember and nobody left to hang on to these memories.

    I am not attempting – albeit I have probably succeeded, in trying to depress you my reader(s). Suffice to say I am merely trying to make (some might say labour) the point that this is a new reality. This therefore gives enormous impetus to those of us running and working in care homes to ensure that we offer our residents the very highest quality of life in their latter years. That quality can be measured in terms of tangible "hands on" care, the physical environment, the quality of 1-2-1 staff and volunteer interaction with our residents, entertainments, activities, stimulation – even for the very frail and those living with severe dementia.

  • Elijah: A herald of a new society of equal promise

    Rabbi Aaron Gol...
    Apr 1, 2013

    Old message-bearer, Elijah,
    I have lost all the addresses,
    So now I write a letter to you.
    Surely you have not forgotten an old friendship,
    When, as a child, I would open the door to you.

    These evocative words of Kadya Molodowsky (qu. J. Wittenberg, ‘The Eternal Journey,’ p.165) and the institution of Elijah transcend the seven days of Pesach. We can still taste the dry crunch of matzah in our mouths, the smell of spilt Kiddush wine, the sound of mah nishtanah and chad gadya, the sight of age-old rituals being enacted, and the touch of loved ones, friends and family. Elijah’s cup is full to the brim awaiting visual illusion that whether it occurs or not holds promises untold for those who will believe.

    The promise of new life that may have come to fill the void left by presences departed; the promise of freshness, a new start augured by a clean kitchen that seems at once to bring a clear mind, a new resolve and a reassured trust. The promise of a Spring that this year is but glimpsed the yellow of daffodils struggling to free themselves from their brown casings; yet we now they will finally conquer with a burst of brightness that might just be reflected in the sky. As the door closes it is as if Elijah has visited us and blessed us, anointed us with the pure oil of possibility. This year can be a good one for us.

  • Montefiore Egypt and Pesach

    Rabbi Aaron Gol...
    Mar 28, 2013

    Not every Rabbi has an Emeritus Rabbi and mine is my Dad!!!! Dad's sermon for First day Pesach inspires me as they always have done.

    After a hiatus of over a decade, I have been drawn back to the hero of my PhD - Moses Montefiore. Invitations to lecture at Oxford University, Harrow Limmud and Ramsgate have made me wish I was retired and could devote myself to writing my long delayed biographies of Judith Montefiore and lehavdil, Rabbi Richard Feder. Longstanding members might remember that it was Kolin & its rabbi Feder that connected me to Montefiore and his travels. However a trip down to Ramsgate last month brought to mind a connection between Montefiore and Pesach and the Jewish people's curious relationship with the land of Egypt.

    Of course last night's celebration and the next 7 days diet will make us remember the core moment in Jewish history, the exodus from Egypt. We lived there, presumably peacefully, for generations; ever since our boy Joseph rose to become Prime Minister and brought his whole mishpacha down to enjoy the bounty of his adopted homeland. Until a new king arose and overnight, it seemed, our condition deteriorated rapidly and we became oppressed slaves a people persecuted by a xenophobic king. How often the scenario to gets repeated in our history....and, yes, in the stories of so many minority peoples.

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