If you want to understand the future of British Jewry, don’t just look at our schools or shuls. Look in addition at the informal experiences that shape a young person’s identity, even after the lessons of classrooms and pews recede.
For decades, British Jewry has quietly built an impressive series of informal educational milestones that have become almost rites of passage. At 16, around 1,000 teenagers embark on Israel Tour through an impressive range of youth movements. At 17, a similar number participate in powerful Holocaust education journeys to Poland through collaborations between the Jewish schools and organisations, including JRoots, Tribe and others. These experiences leave an indelible mark, creating memories, friendships and a deeper understanding of Jewish history, peoplehood and identity.
I believe that Off the Rails – a Shabbat of Unity is set to become the next great rite of passage for young British Jews.
Now in its fourth year, this Aish initiative welcomed more than 530 British Jewish school-leavers to Budapest last weekend. It meets young people exactly where they are. As multitudes of 18-year-olds spend the summer interrailing across Europe before beginning university, Aish simply invites them to pause for one unforgettable Shabbat together.
The concept is wonderfully uncomplicated. Students register before travelling and, wherever their European adventure has taken them, converge on Budapest for a weekend that is entirely voluntary, refreshingly light touch and free from pressure or expectation. There is no agenda beyond creating an uplifting, memorable Jewish experience together that they genuinely want to be part of.
What follows is extraordinary.
More than 500 young adults, representing a remarkable cross-section of British Jewry, from secular to modern Orthodox and everything in between, spend a Shabbat together. They meet new friends from different schools and backgrounds, share meals, sing, laugh, explore the city and discover that the Jewish world is far broader than the circles they have grown up in.
The high point comes on Friday night.
Inside the Kazinczy Synagogue, the largest gathering of young Jews there since before the Holocaust joins in a spontaneous rendition of Am Yisrael Chai. It is difficult to imagine a more poignant setting. Over the course of the weekend, participants visit the haunting Shoes on the Danube Bank memorial and encounter the story of a city that was once home to one of Europe’s great Jewish communities before more than 450,000 Hungarian Jews were deported to Auschwitz and murdered in just seven weeks during the summer of 1944.
Against that backdrop, hundreds of young British Jews, locking arms, singing and dancing with an outpouring of uncomplicated Jewish pride becomes far more than a moving moment. It is a powerful statement of Jewish continuity and resilience. In today’s world, no mean achievement.
Yet perhaps the weekend’s greatest significance lies in what happens afterwards.
Within weeks, these students will disperse to universities across Britain, many leaving home for the first time. Around the Shabbat tables in Budapest, they have already met Aish campus representatives and forged peer friendships naturally, without recruitment pitches or obligation. For many, those conversations become the beginning of a Jewish home away from home when they arrive on campus. At a time when Jewish students face unprecedented challenges, those relationships matter.
Communal life is rarely transformed by grand gestures. More often, it shifts through a succession of meaningful experiences that together shape identity and belonging.
Israel Tour. Poland. And now, perhaps, Budapest.
Each speaks to a different chapter of the Jewish story – our homeland, our history and now our shared future. Together, they help cultivate a generation that is more connected to its heritage, more connected to one another and better equipped to navigate the opportunities and challenges of Jewish life with confidence and pride.
Every generation creates the experiences that shape its identity. I believe that for this generation of British Jewish school-leavers, Off the Rails – a Shabbat of Unity is well on its way to becoming one of them.
Rabbi Naftali Schiff is founder and CEO of Jewish Futures, which encompasses Aish UK and several other organisations
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