Finding a safe haven with like minds

What is Shabbat Club? Well, the first rule of Shabbat Club is that you talk as much as possible about Shabbat Club to find the people who need it the most. 

Who are those people? They’re people like me. People who are culturally and tribally Jewish, but for a multitude of reasons have become disconnected or isolated from the broader Jewish community, whatever that is. These are people who consider themselves to be progressive in their politics and have resided, until now reasonably comfortably, on the left-hand side of the political spectrum.

These are people disgusted by the far-right, extremist government of Benjamin Netanyahu and distressed by the ongoing disenfranchisement and erasure of Palestinians, while also horrified at the barbarity of what took place on October 7. 

Those of us who fit into this camp often feel like we are not adequately represented by conservative Jewish organisations and voices, who are often speaking the loudest and from the largest platform. But mainstream leftist spaces have equally left us wounded.

Many of us have spent our lives finding comfort and camaraderie on the left. For years we’ve fought for self-determination for minority groups, for civil rights for all people, for the destruction of binary thinking and binaries around identity. Because these are values that we believe in and for which we want to fight. 

And yet, in this space we thought was our political home, we find ourselves swimming in a putrid sea of antisemitism, hatred and ostracism that we simply didn’t see coming. All the rules of engagement we were told to live by, we now see being broken by people we used to consider our friends or peers.