We're growing!

We had a shabbat dinner last night. About 20 people came, including 5 primary-school age children, who get things lively! One piece of good news is that our official membership is up to 24 families and individuals, which probably corresponds to 50-60 people including children. This may not sound like much, but 5 years ago we had a membership of 12, indeed we haven't had a membership of 24 since the 1960s. Our events are open to all Jews in the area, regardless of whether they are official members or not, but we do appreciate it when people show their support by becoming members

Purim at the University

Yesterday we had our Megillah reading and Purim party. We had the Megillah reading at the University of Aberdeen (as we have for the past few years), using an old megillah (possibly dating back to the 15th century, although this is uncertain) from one of the University's special collections. Rabbi Rose from Edinburgh led the reading, and about 50 people attended, including 11 (pre-Bar Mitzvah) children. The children (all in costume) of course were the centre of attention as they shouted down an mention of Haman! Afterwards we had a party and food at the shul.

The university has a nice press release about this, see
http://www.abdn.ac.uk/mediareleases/release.php?id=1728
Our local newspaper (Press and Journal) also had a story about this.