The scope of Mitzvah Day both within and beyond the Jewish community is illustrated by the diversity of projects shortlisted for its annual awards.
Communities from Golders Green to Dublin are up for honours. Eccles Mosque and the Indian Jewish Association are among the nominees for outstanding interfaith project.
The shortlist for outstanding UK Mitzvah Day includes the West Midlands programme, supported by the local Jewish representative council and led by Sandra Lipkin.
This brought together Orthodox and Progressive shul members who organised hospitality, refreshments and live music at hospitals and a church. Participants also collected bicycles for donation to a refugee charity and women’s sanitary products for distribution at a foodbank.
Another of the five nominees is the Newcastle Jewish community, where the Orthodox and Reform shuls joined forces with church and police groups to fill and wrap more than 200 festive packages for homeless charity Changing Lives.
United Hebrew Congregation members also knitted squares for blankets, which were stitched together by 100-year-old Irene Gatoff and donated to a homeless centre.
The shortlist is completed by the Golders Green and Mill Hill US shuls and St Albans Masorti, whose ambitious programme incorporated 12 projects.
In the interfaith category, the Indian Jewish Association and Eccles Mosque (which brought communities in the Salford area together for a “tea and tour”) are joined by Glasgow’s Garnethill Hebrew Congregation, the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue Holland Park and Northwood United.
At the latter, some 50 members were involved in activities including creating gift packs for the needy, sending food and goodies to a foodbank and helping out at a lunch club for the homeless. The club is run by a Watford Pentecostal church, with which the shul has forged a close relationship.
Among those in contention for the “going greener” award are Kingston Liberal Synagogue and Dublin Progressives.
The South London congregation co-ordinated activities such as a litter pick in a local park and tidying a cemetery. The Irish shul hosted a swap shop for secondhand items to keep them out of landfill. Its younger members were engaged in making menorahs from recycled materials.
There is also a youth award, for which the nominees include Alyth in Golders Green and Clore Tikva Primary in Essex.
Mitzvah Day chief executive Georgina Bye said that looking through the nominations, “I can’t help but be both proud and impressed. They really do represent the very best of Mitzvah Day with such a diverse range of communities, regions and age groups.
“And those shortlisted are just a small sample of the incredible projects that took place all around the UK, and indeed the world, both new and long-standing.”
The awards will be presented at a London ceremony next month.
To read more about the finalists and vote for your favourites, visit thejc.com/mdawards
