Inter-faith service - Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Hindu dignitaries come together for Hanukkah at Liberal Synagogue
10 Dec 2010:
JEWISH, Muslim, Christian, Sikh and Hindu dignitaries attended an inter-faith service this week to watch the lighting of the hannukiah.
The Jewish candelabra forms the centrepoint of the festival of Hanukkah, which ended this week.
Jam-filled doughnuts and latkes – a fried potato snack – were consumed, as is traditional during the eight-day festival. The religious leaders at the service in St John’s Wood Liberal Synagogue included Sheikh Seddiki Sidi Fawzi of the Regent’s Park mosque.
Senior rabbi Alexandra Wright told the audience, which included pupils from Queen’s Park Community School, that Hanukkah was “rooted in a particularly difficult time in the Middle East both politically and religiously. In fact you might say that the situation out of which the festival of Hanukkah arose is not so different from the times we are living in today.”
• Pictured at the synagogue in St John’s Wood (Picture above): from left, Sheikh Seddiki Sidi Fawzi (London Central Mosque and Islamic Cultural Centre), Rajinder Singh Bhasin (Central Gurdwara – Khalsa Jatha – London), Deacon Meliton Oakes (Chapel of the Annunciation Thyateira House), Father Richard Sloan (Hospital and Hospice of St John & St Elizabeth), Bob Kirk (Liberal Jewish Synagogue), and Bharti Tailor (Hindu Forum of Britain).