Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz

Parashat Chukkat 2017 Rabbi Esther Hugenholtz My Shlichut (Mission) It sounds shockingly definite to utter these words and I say them with considerable melancholy but this will be my last sermon at Sinai. Goodbyes can’t be said without thank you’s and I’m at a loss at how to say thank you to a community that has come to mean so much to me. I remember setting foot in this building in 2011 as a 4 th Year Student Rabbi thinking ‘woah, 1970’s décor!’ Soon after, I discovered how warm and close-knit the community was and I loved you even more after being part of the ‘Oy Factor’. Before I knew it, I was the Assistant and (later) Associate Rabbi of Sinai Synagogue, in God’s own County. As I was mulling over in my head how I could do justice to thanking Sinai – both individually and collectively – and the wider Jewish community in Leeds, I thought that I do so by what doing what I love best: teaching Torah. A first pulpit is the mother of all first rabbinic experiences, a...

screenshot of 'The Big Questions' On Sunday the 27th of April, I was honoured to be a guest on the BBC's 'The Big Questions'. All I knew is that it would be my UK television debut and my television debut in rabbinic capacity... and addressing a controversial topic ('Is Islam a threat to the West?') to boot.  The discussion was spirited with a broad panel of disparate opinions ranging from Muslim activists to a member of a Sharia watchdog organisation. My role, as far as I was concerned, was to be a reasonable voice for Progressive religion.  I wanted to show that the majority of people of all faiths (and no faith) in the world desire peace and that moderate religion should fulfil a crucial role in building those roads to peace. If religion is a force for evil in the world, than surely it can be a force for good. I also set myself the goal of trying to speak on the importance of gender equality and gay rights in religious traditions, citing Progr...