Our community is egalitarian and inclusive. Every Jewish adult (post-B’nei mitzvah age) can participate equally in services and we are welcoming of diverse gender identities and LGBTQ+ Jewish people. Our space is accessible to differently-abled and neurodiverse people.

 

Our values stretch beyond our inclusivity to include environmental awareness.

We are proud to have been awarded silver eco synagogue status.

Our Mission Statement

 

Our purpose, which guides us in all we do, is as follows:

St Albans Masorti Synagogue – SAMS – is a centre for Jewish life in St Albans and the surrounding area. As a Masorti community we are inspired by the Jewish traditions of our ancestors and are aware of our responsibility to our descendants.

Our aim is to grow and to provide more and better services for our members without losing the warmth and friendship that is so important to all of us.

  • We look for opportunities to connect to members and potential members; we aim to welcome them warmly and give them a sense of belonging to the community.

  • We come together to celebrate: to pray, play, support and care for one another and to take our part in the healing of the world.

  • We educate our members, from pre-school to adults, to deepen their knowledge of and commitment to Jewish life and community.

  • We depend on the participation and involvement of our members for our continued growth.

 

SAMS MemberShare

SAMS differs from almost every other community in that we do not have fixed fees. Instead, in 2023, we became the first established synagogue to abandon the concept of membership dues and instead chose to replace it with a voluntary contribution model that we call ‘MemberShare’.

By calling it ‘MemberShare’, we mean that the financial operation of our community is our ‘shared’ responsibility, and we recognise that fact – but we also acknowledge that it is our members who have a ‘share’ or stake in our community, and who should determine its future. As with any community, our members have a range of different incomes, financial situations, and different ways in which SAMS plays a role in their lives – but we see it as the responsibility and privilege of all of our members to ensure the community can continue to meet the needs of everyone in an equitable way.

 

SAMS EcoTeam

 

SAMS is proud to be a member of the Eco Synagogue initiative – a movement, based on the blueprint of EcoChurch, that encourages environmental awareness and change in religious organisations within the UK. The aim of Eco Synagogue is to help shuls assess and improve their behaviour in broad domains of activity: how we use any buildings or land we own or care for; how we eat and consume; how we use the opportunities of the liturgical year; how we teach and preach; and how we change the behaviours of our congregations. Masorti Judaism in the UK, under the leadership of Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, launched the Eco Synagogue movement in January 2018.

We currently hold the
silver Eco Synagogue award.

In February 2021, the Eco Synagogue project produced an updated more extensive audit, that details green goals which participating synagogues should aim to implement within their community. We shall take part in this and our results will drive our future activities. SAMS has already made many changes and most recently we have moved our utilities to a green energy company. 

We hope to arrange various educational activities and events, that will run alongside the Jewish calendar. 

If you have ideas as to how we might collectively reduce our environmental impact, please get in touch with the team, ecoteam@e-sams.org

 

LGBTQIA+ Inclusion

 

SAMS is proud to be a shul which is welcoming and inclusive of diverse gender-identites and sexual orientations, embracing LGBT+ Jewish people.

Our community performs same-sex Shutafut ceremonies, an egalitarian and gender-neutral alternative to the Kiddushin wedding ceremony, and we can legally register them under the auspices of West London Synagogue.

There is a single-stall accessible and gender-neutral toilet in the building, and we’re happy and able to accommodate diverse identities in religious services, including in offering aliyot in gender-neutral language when requested.

We take seriously the notion that it is a mitzvah, an obligation, to celebrate and appreciate the diversity of Creation, in the spirit of the blessing which we recite on seeing people whose appearance differs to our own: barukh attah Adonai, m’shanneh hab’riyyot. Blessed are You, God, who diversifies the Creation.