Chaplaincy news

A discussion about the Jewish faith

Due to the cancellation of Faith week earlier this month, the Chapel program for Senior School has been shifted and adapted – and I believe for the better. I’m delighted that we will have an opportunity to invite Hannah and her team from J-Lunch, our Jewish culture lunchtime group to Chapel to be interviewed. 

During Chapel on 3 August the students watched a video that described the five major faiths of the world: Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Buddhism and Hinduism. The girls then enjoyed testing their knowledge through a Kahoot! quiz afterwards. 

Continuing on from this exploration of different faiths and spiritualities, the J-Lunch team will join us for Chapel later this Term. J-Lunch is a Jewish culture group that runs every Wednesday at lunchtime, when restrictions allow. It started during Term 1 as an opportunity to ask questions about the Jewish community and learn about culture and faith. Considering Shelford is in the heart of Melbourne’s major Jewish area, I’m sure we all have many questions to ask. 

The original plan was to host the interview during Chapel in St Mary’s Oaktree. This would allow us to discuss the differences between a church and synagogue and then lead us into other discussion questions girls in the audience had about the Jewish faith. 

Despite restrictions, I currently plan on hosting this interview online instead. However, due to the lack of an audience I’d love some input of any questions your daughter/s may have about the Jewish faith or communities that surround our school.

I’ve created a link where questions can be anonymously asked and I’ll ask these to Hannah and her team when I interview them. Please follow this link or you can go to Slido and type in the code #971473 and include as many questions as you’d like. This will be open till 24 August.

Any further questions can be emailed to me at ccheeseman@shelford.vic.edu.au

Claire Cheeseman

School Chaplain