Your Thoughts on Seating in our Shul
Dear Community Members,
The Board of Management is currently reviewing seating arrangements in the shul, and in particular the general principle of permanent allocation of seats to members. The main reasons behind this review are as follows:
- There are not enough seats available to offer them routinely to new members or the teenage children of members. This seems unfair and is also unwelcoming to new members and teenagers. Muswell Hill Shul currently has 697 adult members but only 504 seats.
- “Ownership” of a seat implies a right to ask anyone else sitting there to vacate it.
- Most people can only store their belongings in shul if they are allocated a numbered seat. We want to enable everyone to store their belongings in the shul because it makes observance and participation in the services easier.
The principle of a fixed place to pray (or ‘makom kavuah’) is enshrined in the Halacha, but in practice, this is mostly achieved by people actually occupying a seat regularly (irrespective of any allocation).
So overall the Board believes there is a strong case for change.
Various solutions can be proposed for the future and the Board intends to work on these during the next few months. However before doing so we feel that it is important to understand the views of the community. Therefore we would be very grateful if members could take some time to respond to this e-mail and give us your views. In particular, as we develop solutions and options for the future what aspects are important to you as a member or as a family?
We look forward to hearing from you by email to the office (). All answers will be treated anonymously. We intend to keep the consultation open until the end of May and will provide a short update at the AGM.
The Executive