Rosh Hashanah message: Walt Secord
As Shadow Treasurer and the deputy chair of the NSW Parliamentary Friends of Israel, I extend my warmest wishes for a happy, healthy and sweet new year ahead to all members of the NSW Jewish community.
May your year ahead be filled with peace, happiness and good health.
As well as a celebration, Rosh Hashanah, the start of the New Year, is a time for NSW’s 40,000 strong Jewish community to pray, reflect on the past year, look outwards and recommit to building a better future for our society.
It is also time to honour and retain the memory and lessons of the Shoah as each year, we see a dwindling number of Holocaust Survivors who bore witness.
In addition, it is a time to pray for a lasting peace settlement in the Middle East in light of recent positive developments involving relations between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.
Rosh Hashanah has been celebrated in synagogues and homes across our wonderful State of New South Wales for more than 175 years, but this year’s celebrations will need to be marked in a very different manner.
They may include families connected online rather than in person, which can be so difficult for many. Religious services will include some conducted live via Facebook and zoom for the Progressive stream; pre-recorded and relayed by the Masorti movement and conducted in vastly reduced numbers in staggered services incorporating social distancing and other public health measures in Orthodox shules.
But I am sure Jewish families will still find ways to connect and celebrate in COVID-safe ways as you mark the High Holidays – in both the Diaspora and in the State of Israel – which is grappling with extraordinary COVID-19 numbers.
It is with great honour and pleasure that I say to you all: “L’Shana Tova u’Metukha” -may you have a good and sweet year!
