Good Thursday morning!
In today’s edition of Your Daily Phil, we report on a new push for antisemitism legislation in Georgia following last week’s ne0-Nazi rallies outside synagogues in the state, and feature an op-ed from Beverley Shimansky and Jay Solomon. Also in this newsletter: Jennifer Groen, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Rabbanit Myriam Ackermann-Sommer. We’ll start with Azara’s new pluralistic yeshiva program in the United Kingdom.
For the next few weeks, Edinburgh, Scotland, will be home to a first-of-its-kind (in Great Britain) nondenominational yeshiva, bringing together dozens of Jews, mostly from the United Kingdom, as part of a new initiative by the organization Azara, one of its co-founders told eJewishPhilanthropy’s Judah Ari Gross.
Taking inspiration from Hadar and Pardes, along with a number of other learning institutions in the U.S. and Israel, Rabbi Leah Jordan, Jessica Spencer and Rabba Dr Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz created Azara in 2021, taking its name from the Hebrew word for courtyard, a reference to the space outside the Temple where “all the Jews could gather, regardless of gender or priestly status,” according to the organization’s website.
Until now, the group has focused primarily on one-off and limited events: evening learning sessions, weekend retreats and running the hevruta (study partner) program at Limmud UK. “But really what we’ve been trying to do, what we’ve been building towards is something like this, a sustained chance to do learning without having to go abroad for it,” Spencer told eJP.
The monthlong yeshiva program began last week, on June 21, and runs through July 23. It is being held at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity at New College, through a partnership with the institution.
“The aim of the program is to increase access to Torah learning in the UK and to deepen connections with the rich and nuanced Jewish tradition. For a month, participants will study Talmud as well as Halachah (Jewish law), modern Jewish thought, and other Jewish texts. Students of all levels, including complete beginners, study texts in the original Hebrew and Aramaic,” the organization said in a statement.
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