Tonight in almost all Synagogues over the world we prepare for the coming days of awe. A service which reminds principally of the services of the High Holydays. In Belsize a very musical one. Rehearsing already with my Choirmaster and the Synagogue’s Musical Director Dr. Benjamin Wolf and organist Maestro Mike Cayton, both very instrumental…
Author: Paul Heller
The New Synagogue on Oranienburgerstrasse- A unique testimony to and symbol of German Judaism
The actual sanctuary as before it’s destruction in WWII and the place where we stood on during the celebration and memorial services , this how it looked like in all its splendor. What is left of it, is the courtyard we stood during the commemoration as pictured in my previous post and in this…
Louis Lewandowski Part I.
Louis Lewandowski (1821 – 1894) transformed Jewish worship into a musical experience. That is what we experienced today Sunday 11th of September, in the actual place the sanctuary stood, other big edifices have been destroyed this day, but nobody mentioned it on our commemoration, I later was reminded on a special report on One World…
A thought on the controversy of how to go to the beach
I was very surprised by the statement a mayor in France made in that topless women is more French than the muslim burkini attire. I just came back from my holidays and it is exactly this that I saw. I could not understand how muslim men and women go to beaches were others sunbath topless? And…
The Synagogue of St Poelten, Austria
At a half an hour by train west from Vienna is the capital of Lower Austria, the city of Sankt Poelten and its vicinities, Boehemkirchen, Neulengbach and Eichgraben where my paternal family comes from and great grandparents and siblings of my grandparents are buried. My great grandfather used to commute to Vienna to conduct his…
Liverpool a city that shines
We were invited to perform at a wedding in Liverpool, doing the singing at the marvelous Synagogue in Princess Road, there I was chanting a duo with my son Yohel, standing next to Rabbi Emeritus Rodney Mariner and participating together with two orthodox Rabbis one from Manchester and one from Liverpool. The couple, from both…
The white robe
You might wonder in a blog that focuses on attitudes and behaviour against Israel and Judaism, why I am not writing on the U.K. Labour party’s anti-Semitism scandal instead of the use of the white robe, but you will, at the end understand, besides, you can read all of UK politics in the media, or…
From Vienna to Straßburg
Two wonderful musical offerings this week, beginning with Matthias Bartolomey and Klemens Bitmann on Monday at the Austrian Embassy in London, celebrating 150 years Austrian Embassy at Belgrave Square a concert with a personal invitation from the Ambassador together with many personalities from all the spectrum of diplomacy in the UK and focused on their new…
Alex Knapp at 7o celebratory Concert with the Wallace Ensemble and The Belsize Square Synagogue Professional Choir
The Belsize Square Synagogue Professional Choir
My professional colleagues
Last week a giving music one. And the joy of hearing in action. The 11th of November in remembrance day. Directing a Requiem for the Fallen. The organist of Belsize Square Synagogue, Maestro Mike Cayton in his role as choirmaster in his St John’s Wood Church, a multifaceted musician of the highest class, not in…
The Temple Mount
It should not surprise anyone that the Muslim prophet had a spiritual revelation at the holy site where the Stone that is the Cornerstone of God’s presence in earth lays. The Jewish Temple was raised there and the Holy of Holies that contained within the stone tablets that Moses presented to the world with the ten…
Harakiri
By Marcos Peckel Original published in Spanish at: http://m.elpais.com.co/elpais/opinion/columna/marcos-peckel/harakiri The noble tradition of the Japanese to commit suicide after a failure to save the honor may already disappeared in reality but survives in the collective imagination: the person who gives his/her life to a knife which leaves once the job is done a large pool…
