FAITH AWARENESS SUMMER VISITS: NEVE SHALOM LPJC SYNAGOGUE

The Faith Awareness series of summer visits to places of worship and other faith-related sites in Leicester continues this evening at Neve Shalom, the synagogue of Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation. As well being contracted to work 20 hours a week for Leicester Council of Faiths, I now do a day and a half a week with Faith Awareness, the inter-faith programme of Christians Aware.

Neve Shalom means "Oasis of Peace" (Isaiah 32:18). The Synagogue is named after a village near Jerusalem known as Neve Shalom / Wahat al Salam, where Jews, Christians and Muslims live and work together for the common good. The village is an inspiration to Jewish people, in Leicester and farther afield. The distinctive building, designed by celebrated Leicester architect Ernest Gimson, has an interesting history of its own. This is hinted at in an article by Olwen Hughes, published in the Leicester Mercury in January 2013 and reproduced in my blog.

I've made half a dozen visits to the LPJC Synagogue since my first time in July 2011, and have always enjoyed the hospitality of the community there. 

We're keeping up good numbers on these Monday evening visits. We've brought along a dozen people this evening (half of them newbies) and we're matched one-to-one by members of the LPJC.

The original theme for this series of visits was "food and festivals". Our hosts this evening have stuck to that theme. Dov Stekel gives a short talk about the theory of kosher food and its place in the life of the community. That's followed up by a practical demonstration, with a delightful spread of food and drink linked to different occasions in the Jewish calendar.

This is the fifth of six Faith Awareness visits planned for Monday evenings in May and June, the others being

• Jain Centre, Oxford Street (13 May)
• All Saints Church, Kerrysdale Avenue (20 May)
• BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Gipsy Lane (3 June)
• Islam Information Centre, Highfield Street (10 June)
• Guru Amar Das Gurdwara, Clarendon Park Road (24 June)

I may not be able to attend every visit personally, but I hope to arrange for a blog post on each of them. Watch this space!

BUILDING BY GIMSON IS NOW USED AS SYNAGOGUE

This article appears in today's Leicester Mercury (but not on its website). It's the regular Sketchbook piece by Olwen Hughes (whose illustration is shown below).

Building by Gimson is now used as synagogue

This eye-catching single-storey building on the southern side of Avenue Road in Clarendon Park, Leicester, is quite important.

It was designed by Ernest Gimson for the Goddard family as a meeting house of some sort in the early 1900s.

The Gimson family was a very important Leicester one, with Ernest's father, Josiah, being the owner of the Vulcan Iron Foundry in northern Highfields.

Ernest became an architect and, among other things, designed the very individual White House, in North Avenue, Clarendon Park.

The Goddards in Leicester were also architects and would have known the Gimsons well, but one of their claims to fame is that they were the inventors of a liquid silver polish still much in use today.

I remember having a pleasant walk around the area about 20 years ago when the building was unoccupied and for sale.

There was a solitary swing in the grounds and I was told it had been used as a private nursery school.

The open land to the rear was a playground.

In 1995, it was bought by Leicester Progressive Jewish Congregation for its synagogue and meeting place and it is now called Neve Shalom - oasis of peace.

Inside, as it was to begin with, the walls are all wooden panelled and at the rear is a much more modern window representing the tree of life. This is by the Leicestershire artist Ruth Schewiening.

The Progressive Jewish Congregation is of the view that men and women should participate in religious and other activities on an equal footing and holds parts of its religious services in both Hebrew and English.

A range of cultural, educational and social activities is organised at the centre and also operate from it.

CITY CENTRE'S FOUNTAIN AND LIONS STILL LOOK IMPRESSIVE

The "Sketchbook" column in today's Leicester Mercury has a very nice drawing by Olwen Hughes of the fountain in Town Hall Square. Since the fountain features every now and again in this blog (it's what I see when I look out the window of the Welcome Centre or of my downstairs office after all) I thought it appropriate to reproduce that piece here, faithful reader, so you can see her fine drawing and read her interesting historical summary.

I've also put this on here because the fountain is a very public mark of the significant and lasting contribution that the Jewish community has made to the city and people of Leicester. Alderman (later Sir) Israel Hart (1835-1911) is arguably the most prominent citizen of the modern Jewish community in Leicester. Sir Israel Hart was four time Mayor of Leicester (Leicester was declared a city in 1919, at which time the office of Mayor was elevated to that of Lord Mayor).

City centre's fountain and lions still look impressive 

I was on my way to Leicester market via Town Hall Square, and the elegant fountain, always attractive to small children, caught my eye.

It was an especially interesting subject to draw, for the rays of the setting sun made the lions look orange.

I always thought that this was because they were actually made of bronze, but I later found that they were not, but are of cast iron, painted to look as if they were bronze.

The Town Hall, and its square, of course, was the site of the cattle and horse market until the Aylestone Road cattle market was opened in 1872, and this incredibly valuable site became available.

The City Corporation had debated finding an alternative to the Guildhall for 25 years, because it had become so cramped, and the new Town Hall was opened in 1876.

The fountain was given to the city by Alderman Israel Hart in 1879, a major local benefactor, and four times mayor of Leicester, and cost him £2,000 at that time. He always had the best interests of the city at heart, and the gift was made on the condition that the Borough Corporation laid out the grounds left over from the construction of the Town Hall as a public open space, and did not sell them off.

We have all enjoyed the result of his vision and generosity.

The design is the same as the fountain in Oporto, in northern Portugal, and one has to assume that Israel Hart had been there, seen it, decided that it was a delight and that Leicester should have one too.

It was cast in Paris, for this is where the moulds for the statue must have been, and it was unveiled with great ceremony.

It certainly does have the feelgood factor, and is in a remarkably good state of preservation, given that the fountain received some careful maintenance work a few years ago.