By
Stephanie Brickman
A community planning expert has addressed a Glasgow meeting on the way forward for local Jewry.
Jerusalem-based Simon Caplan produced a 1995 report on the community's future and was also behind major Jewish planning initiatives in Herts, Brighton and Liverpool.
At Monday's Community Futures meeting, organised by Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, he stressed the importance of using modern communication methods to create a supportive structure.
"There is an assumption in communities that when somebody leaves, physically they're gone and that's it," Mr Caplan said afterwards. "But there is a Glasgow Jewish community and then there's a 'greater Glasgow Jewish community'.
"For example, there are very active people [from Glasgow] now living in Israel. There are people living in other major Jewish communities. In this age of technology, we shouldn't assume that the community in Glasgow, and the resources that it has to draw on, are only those that are physically located in Glasgow today."
A suggestion was made that the rep council could use a blog run by the Glasgow Jewish Educational Forum as a communications tool.
Although some anonymous postings on the blog have upset community leaders, Mr Caplan saw it as a genuine asset.
"I know it's very controversial and obviously it incites great passions, but it's a very interesting facet of life in Glasgow," he said. "I'm looking at this as an outsider with a belief in the power and importance of community.
"The main enemy almost everywhere in communal life is apathy. Here people may be interested in a way that's uncomfortable and it may be problematic in the way it's expressed. But it's not apathy."
The next Community Futures event will be in September.
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