Sunday last about 70 of us enjoyed a lovely meal and the attendant niceties in the presence of Their Worships The Mayor of Bury and his Consort. So far, so delightfully ordinary.
Then the mood changed at the dinner dance celebrating Sha'arei Shalom Reform Synagogue's 30th anniversary. It altered dramatically during a strikingly elegant speech by David Jacobs, Director of Synagogue Support at the Movement for Reform Judaism. His theme,unusual for a simcha, was the distinguished record of service by his family to the Reform Movement in the UK and then the Movement's achievements in a wider sphere.
Manchester-born Jacobs'own career in the Jewish 'civil service' continues a tradition started by his great-grandfather who served both local Orthodox and Reform synagogues in an era when their rabbis swapped pulpits and Orthodox clerics managed to refer to their Progressive counterparts without being offensive.
David's speech also recalled a refined if somewhat grandiose era when synagogue presiding wardens wore full-morning dress for Shabbat services and many a humbler male congregant sported a trilby if not a bowler hat.
David's great-grandpa possibly heard one of the first synagogue sermons to be delivered in English and this doubtless was followed by the era where total decorum at Reform services was at its strictest.
The recent debate in the JC's columns seemed not to take heed of the real reasons for such relative quiet during Reform services. One is historic, stemming from a time when cultured Jews wanted to be more 'English' than the English and quiet good manners - 'fine breeding' - were all. Others, like families sitting together and some prayers read in the vernacular and in unison simply follow.
I come from a nominally Orthodox background and as a kid Birmingham Hebrew Congregation, Singer's Hill, was my 'home' shool. But when I visited an Orthodox synagogue in South Manchester for a recent family celebration I enjoyed the novelty. I was also glad to be nudged just in time to peer over the mechitza to see my husband receive an aliya. Now that, readers may agree, was novel too.
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