JEWISH OPEN MINDS
01. HOME
HOME scroll downWELCOME TO JEWISH OPEN MINDSJewish Open Minds was founded in the Summer of 2009. We have grown from small beginnings and now have a sizeable group of dedicated members who have found friendship, fun and joy in our activities which have similarly expanded over time. If you are interested to know more about us, please explore our website, but first please read our Ethics and Principles below.Jewish Open Minds Ethics and PrinciplesJewish Open Minds is a new kind of local Jewish Community. It is dedicated to open mindedness, to inclusivity, to community. Our purpose is to be a network for friendship, contact and support, for sharing culture, wisdom, for discussion, art, study, social activity, common interest groups and outings. – and, by the way - to have loads of fun and enjoy being Jewish! Open Mindedness means welcoming and respecting all shades of opinion, whether traditional or modern, but with an emphasis on being able and willing to consider points of view that are not your own, that may be modern, different or controversial - to be able to listen as well as talk! Inclusivity means welcoming all Jews - mainstream, lapsed, religious, agnostic, atheist, married out, or just fascinated by Judaism and Jewish, thought, study, culture, argument and friendship. Our current membership includes members of the Orthodox, Reform and Liberal as well as Agnostics and Atheists! We are a strictly secular organisation, joined by our origins, interests and culture, not our very different religious beliefs and practices. Community means we support others, that we listen to other peoples views, that we all pull broadly in the same direction as an organisation, that we share all the responsibilities, the joys and sorrows.Sharing responsibilities means that everyone who is a member is required to take on some responsibility. It may be that you choose to run a group, or take over running it from someone who has done it. We operate Rotational Responsibilities, which means every member at some time undertakes to take a turn at having some responsibility within the organisation. This is usually limited to a year before it changes.If you are interested or would like to become a member please contact us by phone or e-mail, (see contact page for details).Membership is FREE, but to become a member you have to sign up to the principles above.
01. HOME
02. PHILOSOPHY
03. EVENTS
04. ARTICLES
05. CONTACT
EVENT DATES
02. PHILOSOPHY
OUR PHILOSOPHYA brief talk given at the start of the second JOM meeting held on 13th September 2009A VISION FOR JOMJOM has set off on the first steps of a journey. It could be a long or short one, a small or large one, a circuitous and repetitive one or a challenging and inspiring one.We choose. My choice as the person who thought it up, would be for a long, challenging, inspiring one, which encompasses, not just Bournemouth, not just this country but via the internet, the world!!I appreciate it may not be yours and if the group sees it in a far more limited local light, so be it. I dont see world expansion happening in weeks or months, and it might, if it happens at all, take a good few years, but to me that exploration and interaction with open minded Jews across the world, represents an exciting prospect for the future. I have belonged to other specialist groups on the internet and had fascinating and challenging discussions with many who saw the world very differently to me.However that is for the future, for now, we are essentially small and local. I have given much thought to this over recent weeks and whilst I am keen to manage our growth, I feel we are being a little limited in our thinking for open minded people.What is it that typifies who we are and what we stand for. We have already signed up to one statement about JOM at the outset, which we modified and agreed to. I would like to add some ideas to this for everyones consideration.Having an Open Mind, also suggests being a Free Spirit, not being confined by dogma, willing to think about and try new things, new ideas, go to new places. It also suggests to me – because this is how I am, definitely NOT being P.C. As far as I am concerned today Jeff is our host, Janet our hostess. I can still distinguish between actors and actresses, a word you never hear any more. I can distinguish between a wooden piece of furniture you sit on and a female Chairwoman. I am to all intents and purposes broadly anti-p.c. JOM could easily become an adjunct to a religious view or a new religious group which may form locally. However personally I dont want that. I want independence from outside authority. I want us to be our own authorities.Being an authority brings responsibility and there are various views about the best way to run groups, the primarily accepted form being democracy. I have personally never cared much for democracy as it has always seemed to me to be a flawed system, much open to abuse as we know only too well. I have always thought benevolent autocracy had much to recommend it. However democracy has been described regardless of its flaws as the best we have.This year I came up with an alternative form of governance, based on a tried and tested system which has operated for hundreds of years. I have called it what it is – Rotational Responsibility. It is based essentially on the idea of the Jury system, where any citizen can be called to do Jury duty provided they fulfil a few basic requirements. In essence it places that responsibility on every citizen in the country, bar a small number for fail to qualify for whatever reasons. Having served on various committees and Councils, having started several other groups of one kind of another, you find two phenomena which dominate the running of them. Either those that like being in charge, take over and hog the responsibilities being very unwilling to give up power. Our local U3A was once such organisation for many years, where two people dominated it because they had made it their life. They contributed much but in the end both had to be forced out, because they just wouldnt give anyone else a chance, and in the end it weakened the organisation. Now they have departed it works even better. Or the opposite where no one wants to take responsibility, and those that start things, find they are eternally condemned to run them, because no one else will take on any responsibility. In both cases it creates big problems. RR, rotational responsibility does away with this, because those that belong accept they have to take a turn sometime in organising and being responsible. I agree that sometimes a little continuity helps, but I want to see this organisation run on the basis of RR, so that if you join you accept at some point you will have to take your turn to organise one of the groups or activities or something.Equally we dont want a committee, but we do want teams. Teams work at teamwork, committees merely discuss and argue and achieve little.I would welcome a discussion on what I have described, doubts, objections, new ideas, additions, widening, anything that you care to say. One final word. Jews are in my experience exceptionally good at talking but often equally bad at listening. I want JOM people to be brilliant at both, but especially at listening. So please when one talks, everyone else please listen until they have finished, however inspired you might feel by what they say.Laurie Phillips 13th September 2009
03. EVENTS
Discussion group
Literary Lovers
Briodge
Outings
Brunches
Play reading
Discussion group
Discussion Group
Discussion Groups take place once a month, usually on hte first Tuesday evening, on a rota basis at member's houses.They are always extremely popular, generally over subscribed so you need to book in advance, by telephone to secure your place. Subjects have ranged from Euthanasia to 'Can a person be born evil?', "Is everything wrong with human rights?", "is Israel turning into a decadent society?', 'Money' and 'Is religion the root of all evil?' to name but a few of the enjoyable and hotly debated issues discussed.See Event dates for details.
Literary Lovers
Literary Lovers
The Literary Lovers group began about a year ago and has slowly grown into a popular and regular monthly group. Unlike other book groups we don't all read the same book and review it. (We tried it and didn't like it!) We discuss books we are reading, do book reviews ourselves and recommend books to fellow members. We recently held a 'Desert Island Books" where we selected the 8 books we would take with us on a desert island. It was both illuminating and great fun!
Briodge
Bridge
Bridge began in 2010 as many of our members are bridge players.There is a new programme planned from Summer 2011 and details are awaited from the organiser. As soon as they are available they will be on the new website.
Outings
Outings
The first major outing occurred in September 2010 with a group visit the Swanage Railway. It was a brilliant day out and thoroughly enjoyed by all. Another outing occurred more recently with a theatre visit to 'That'll be the Day" at the Pavilion Theatre, which was equally successful. A lunch outing was organised at the Jetty restaurant in Mudeford which everyone also enjoyed. More outings are planned, with two theater visits in the coming months.
Brunches
Brunches
Sunday Brunches have proved popular since we started and everyone attending contributes a dish. These are often accompanied by fun things to do such as quiz's, which are always very enjoyable.
Play reading
PLAY READINGGary Opas started our new play reading group and it was an instant hit. The group read Habeas Corpus by Alan Bennett and had a hilarious evening. It has rapidly become so popular like many of our other groups, you have to book early to ensure your place! Join Gary if you have thespian tendencies!
04. ARTICLES
Articles.
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The Challenges and Opportunities of Open MindednessComments on my recent mail about the Middle East situation written by a non-Jew has caused a variety of responses from the JOM members. All of these interesting and helpful responses caused me to think again about the idea of Open Mindedness its advantages and disadvantages, how come it was so important to me, and why it is the primary idea behind JOM.In order to explore Open Mindedness, I want to introduce two other fundamental ideas. Firstly and no doubt equally controversially that all life is a story. If I called it a narrative it sounds more high brow and legitimate but I prefer the simplicity of story because that is in effect what it is.Some of you may have heard me say this before, but others certainly will not. Everything that happens to you is seen by you in a certain way. You record, memorise and report that experience often as fact, rather than opinion, and it becomes calcified and hardens as truth. It is from your perspective your truth. However it is in reality just a story, albeit your story of the events that have happened. People often react angrily to the phrase just a story, because they feel it demeans their view or position, but it means only it is just a story like every other story someone may have of the same events or happenings. Things happen all the time and we make up a story as we see it. This happens to the smallest as well as the largest of happenings. We may have a story about who was responsible for not clearing up the kitchen and it may differ between partners. We equally have a story about the Middle East situation. Both are based on the facts as we see them, but both are truly just our story.Thus life is one big story and we have a story about our own life too. We may see our life as happy or successful, or difficult, or hard but all of this is a story. It is our way of expressing the accumulation of our experience and is not necessarily true. For example we may have a story that as a child our sibling was preferred to us. As a result this early story may well become fixed and follows us through life. So other people always seemed preferred to us in life in general. It is not actually true, but it is based on a story we invented as a child to explain unhappiness and became in our own retelling in our mind a fact. Our families are full of such stories about all kinds of things and we create our stories as a way of connecting the events that occur to us.We similarly may have stories about life in general and these similarly get fixed and become unchangeable. The problem with this is self evident in that our stories – the facts as you see them - may be built on bad foundations. Thus trying to maintain an open mind and always being able to consider other views, no matter how different, or even abhorrent to us, seems to me a basic, if difficult requirement for maintaining our personal freedom and well being, as well as helping maintain relationships and understanding with others.What stops us doing this? Broadly fear. Fear of the unknown, fear of being wrong, fear of change, or having to change. Or recognising that perhaps we are wrong. Being Right is terribly important to all of us and we can often dig in and refuse to see another viewpoint because we are right. This can cause us unnecessary arguments and problems, particularly in our relationships.The second idea I want to explore is that of Enantiodromia – The Law of Opposites, originally discovered by the Greek sage Heraclitus. In essence it is that everything eventually becomes its opposite. Indeed we cannot live or communicate without opposites. You need No for Yes to exist. Good for Bad, Right for Wrong, Black for White and so on. And eventually – if you wait long enough – one will turn into the other!This brings us back to Open Mindedness. The opposite is self evidently Closed Mindedness. Now none of us are 100% one or the other. We all have our own views, prejudices, foibles. However let us consider them as opposites for the moment, their pros and cons.Closed Mindedness is risk free, it is unchanging, unresponsive and unchallenging, undemanding, p.c., traditional, going along with the established and establishment. It is defensive, rigid, fixed, solid, sound, safe and secure. Open Mindedness is risky, constantly changing, responsive, creative, challenging, demanding, makes waves, keeps you awake, fresh, and alive. It is flexible, flowing, going with the flow, moving with the times. It is nutritious, rejuvenating and life enhancing. It sometimes requires holding onto different positions at the same time and can undoubtedly cause anxiety at the risks you may have to take. It also requires admissions you may be wrong and having to apologise now and then for being so, when you finally see an alternative position which is actually more meaningful than the one you had previously held, as true, fact, or an unshakeable belief!I thought some personal history might be relevant on difficulties I have faced and how I have dealt with them, might be useful. Ill start a long time ago, back in the late 60s when the Apartheid issue was at the forefront of international news. I was never clear about this from the reports I read but I was fortunate at that time to be doing a lot of travelling on business and a couple of occasions visited South Africa. The first time I went there, I decided in order to find out I would visit Soweto, although it was a banned area. I had a black driver who was given to me by the company I was visiting. He rather reluctantly agreed to take me. We drove around and I was able to see the vast area of tin huts, constructed in a poor but orderly way. Although it was clearly a huge contrast to the lavish white suburbs it surprisingly was not as bad as I had imagined and certainly not nearly as bad as shanty towns and favellas I had seen in Peru, Brazil and the Philippines. I went into a restaurant and insisted my driver accompany me. He was refused admission and I was very angry with the white owner. It gave me a first hand view and feeling of the discrimination at close quarters. I used my visit for extensive discussion with a variety of local people, white and black where I could. As result I discovered a little publicised fact at that time outside South Africa. This was that their biggest difficulty was controlling the borders and thousands of black Africans from other countries poured into South Africa, because despite Apartheid, the living standards there were so much better for black people than elsewhere. Thus although Apartheid was entirely wrong and eventually was removed and disgraced, the fact remains that the influx into South Africa to the present day, still tells of better living standards for black people in South Africa than in most of the surrounding countries, whatever the limitations and difficulties of life there. The big picture often reveals there is more to these things than you read in the papers or hear about on TV. These days the internet helps more information become freely available, but little is as it first appears.In 1984 I became involved in an argument with Rabbi Jonathan Romain at Maidenhead Synagogue after one of his sermons about supporting Refuseniks in Russia. I doubted the enormous aid and effort that seemed to be required which he spoke about. The result was I said I would go and see for myself, which I did accompanying him and a friend from Maidenhead Julian Marks. I was alarmed and dubious about the briefing we had before we departed and the voluminous amount of goods we were expected to smuggle in! Indeed we had some hair raising, frightening and hilarious adventures along the way. We visited a large number of Refuseniks, I forget the exact number, but it was considerable. At the end of it all, I felt my doubts about many of those who had become refuseniks was largely justified, despite the fact many were indeed in great need. Once again all was not as it had been painted, and beneath the surface was another story.In 1999 I decided to take a six month sabbatical from being a Psychotherapist. This brought me both very positive and very negative outcomes, one of which was to have to look long and hard at my own views, beliefs and actions in regard to Psychotherapy. In the end I had to face the fact that I had perhaps been both arrogant and too open minded! I had believed all potential patients could benefit and be helped but one I had taken on when I should not have done, brought us a huge amount of grief and ultimately destroyed my practice. It was a long, painful and sobering lesson.The conclusion to all this is that sometimes you have to look beyond what you see and hear to find what lies behind the surface view and that sometimes you have to be clear where to draw safe boundaries.I have noticed that for some people within our group staying open minded about some of the many issues we face and discuss can be difficult, which is entirely understandable. It is difficult for us ALL! However I believe the benefits far outweigh the negatives and I would encourage you all to meet the challenges this brings with as open a mind as you possibly can. I certainly will not distribute material to any member who requests I dont, and I am intent upon maintaining the harmony and goodwill of the group. I know that maintaining an open mind when you are faced with views which appear to challenge your long held and cherished beliefs is hard. However it is also rewarding to really ask yourself whether those challenges have actually some validity and to question how you arrived at the story you have about the subject in question. I know also the price you can pay for not looking at your own beliefs and questioning them from time to time can be very costly indeed! All responses to this are of course welcomed as were the ones already previously received. Healthy debate and differences are inevitable in our group and provided we respond with care and understanding, we should be able to develop without rancour and with the valuable growth we all get from taking an open minded approach.Laurie Phillips 2.7.10
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WHAT IS OPEN MINDEDNESS?Our recent discussions suggested to me that perhaps we needed to explore more fully what it means to be open minded. Lets start with dictionary and thesaurus definitions.Having a mind receptive to new ideas, arguments, etc unprejudiced.Receptive to new and different ideas or the opinion of others. Ready to entertain new ideas, an open minded curiosity, an open minded impartiality. Unprejudiced, liberal, free, balanced, objective, enlightened, tolerant, impartial, receptive, even handed.So if we are open minded it seems to add up to we should listen without prejudice, in a curious, impartial, tolerant, receptive but objective manner to new and different ideas or opinions. So far so good. But the question then comes? Are we prepared for absolutely anything? Is it anything goes? Is this without limits of any kind? If someone advocates the benefits of violence or murder, or stands up for paedophiles, even advocates the benefits! would you be tolerant and want to listen? Or would you consider this is going beyond the bounds of open mindedness? Was De Sade and his philosophy OK with you? Was Hitlers or Stalins or Maos? Does the ends justify the means, regardless of the damage done?There is certainly a huge difference between open mindedness in theory and in practice. In other words you can think anything you like, but to practice what you think, is entirely another matter. You may or may not have come across a classic book, called The Dice man. In this book, the principal character involved, decides to live his life entirely by the whims of chance. Thus he experiments by writing down six options with various grades of risk attached and then pledges to follow whatever the dice tells him to do. At first of course the options are all relatively low risk, but as time goes on, they escalate. This is a philosophy of open mindedness carried to an extreme degree. Although at first sight this is perhaps a crazy and very extreme idea, the reality is every day things happen which are unexpected and you can argue there is always chance at play, even if you dont recognise it in the same way. The Dice Man is well worth reading!Can we have an organisation which is without any rules at all? Personally I dont think so, as it is so anarchic it is likely to implode.Many years ago Estelle and I belonged to an organisation called the Group Relations Training Association. They were in love with new ideas and open mindedness and loved experimenting with groups. One year at their annual conference, which we attended for many years, they experimented with the Big Group. In this there were no rules as such and about 150 of us all sat around in a huge hall. Anyone could speak and no one was in charge. The point of this story is that without any rules or boundaries, this group failed miserably. It started off with one member wanting to take a picture of the scene, to which others objected and a violent argument broke out. Then being a free and open minded gathering, a few people had brought in their small children. Objections were raised to this too and various arguments on that and the photo issue, were soon running out of hand in various parts of the hall. Meanwhile the children were running riot in the middle of the room and of course taking all the attention. Essentially if it proved anything it was that you cannot have open mindedness in a sizeable group without some simple rules which provide clear boundaries for the group to operate by. Thus perhaps having some simple boundaries first, allows us to be open minded and be willing to accept and discuss new ideas rather than having no boundaries at all, which ostensibly is the better option if we are to remain totally true to the principle, but in practice, soon leads to disagreement and unhappiness.JOM have some experience of this already. Are we still open minded if we accept any ideas in our discussions, but place limits on the use of our e-mail list by way of organisational boundaries? Do we have to have a balance between theory and practice to allow us to practice open mindedness without fracturing the organisation? Perhaps operating purely on an individual basis you can practice open mindedness in its most pure form a la the dice man, but as a group you need to have some simple boundaries, all of the group agree to follow, or you end up like the GRTA with dysfunction and chaos.Laurie Phillips August 2010
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HARMONY AND GOODWILL
05. CONTACT
TELEPHONE: 01425 276417
E-MAIL: info_jominds.com
EVENT DATES
EVENTS DATE TIME LOCATION DISCUSSION GROUP 7.30 p.m 2011August 9th PaulineSeptember 6th Janet and Jeffs (run by Lloyd) Why do some Jews become anti-semites?October 4th Laurie and Estelle Our relationship to MONEYNovember 1st Ruth Religion is the root of all evilDecember 6th Myra and Stan Expansion of Jewish Education2012January 3rd Janet & Jeff It shouldn't be allowedFebruary 7th Barbara and David Freedom is just another word for nothing left to loseMarch 6th Jan and GaryApril 3rd Nuala & Peter May 1st Helen & Barry June 5th Phyllis & Robert July 3rd Adrienne & Peter 2011 LITERARY LOVERS September 12th 7.30 p.m. Nuala and Peter Travel books November 21st 7.30 p.m. Jewish Authors2012NEW DAY Thursday January 19th New Ideas BRUNCHES 2011 September 18th 12.30 pm Laurie and Estelle October 23rd 12.30 pm David and Barbara November 20th 12.30 pm Peter and Nuala December 11th 12.30 pm Hilary and Johnathan2012 January 15th 12.30 pm Peter and Nuala February 12th 12.30 pm Myra and Stans March ??? April none because of Passover May No date yet Jan and Gary June No date yet Janet and JeffPLAY READING 2011 September 16th 7.30 pm Gary's November 9th 7.30 pm Myra and Stans2012 January 11th 7.30 pm Pauline'sOUTINGS2011That'll be the day Sept. 16th BournemouthOutingsLet's Misbehave December 17th SalisburyBRIDGE 2011 December 15th Ruth's
01. HOME
02. PHILOSOPHY
03. EVENTS
04. ARTICLES
05. CONTACT
EVENT DATES
