The Oxford Jewish Society is the main hub for Jewish life on campus, catering to Jewish students from all backgrounds and levels of faith to provide a home-away-from-home for as long as needed. Our society is open to all and our members are bound together by a common sense of community and heritage. Whether this is somebody’s first foray into their Jewish identity or whether they have been attending synagogue three times a day since they can remember, no one is more or less authentically Jewish here and all are welcome.

Our Entertainment Representatives work hard to put on a range of activities throughout the year. We’ve been known to belt our hearts out during karaoke at The Mad Hatter, trip over our feet during late-night ice hockey, and cause a city-wide popcorn shortage at our movie nights. We bake festive Hamantaschen in the winter months and challah all year round. Our philosophical group, “Dine and Discuss”, meet once a week to tackle issues such as the Jewish approaches towards organ donation, LGBTQ identity, climate change, and so much more. Our guest speakers from around the world provide expertise on secular and religious matters and the wide variety of students who attend these discussions and debates keep us well-supplied with an endless array of differing perspectives.

Some events cannot help but have a permanent fixture in our social calendar: our Toast the Term to get us into the swing of the first week of the new term, our Jewbillation club night in eighth week (think of it as the bar / bat mitzvah you always wanted), and no introductory article to JSOC would be complete without lavish praise of our Friday night dinners. It’s no secret that food forms the basis for our most popular events and, while we offer evening meals from Sunday to Thursday (with plenty of options for non-meat or gluten-free diets), Friday night is something special. We frequently welcome around a hundred people to the hall of the Oxford Jewish Centre with many staying late into the night for our post-meal social scene (featuring alcoholic and non-alcoholic refreshments).

Community forms the bedrock of Oxford Jewish Society but we take pride in maintaining bonds with other faith-based societies too – hence our regular interfaith picnics and dinners. In Trinity Term of 2022, we held an Abrahamic panel in collaboration with Islamic Society (followed by dinner, naturally) as well as interfaith football matches and pizza parties. We collaborated with the Jewish mental health charity JAMI for Mental Health Awareness Shabbat and last term saw JSOC carry out screenings for genetic disorders and breast cancer awareness events conducted by visiting GPs, Previous terms have seen food donation drives and charity fundraising efforts for May Week Alternative and Raise Oxford organised by our elected Social Action representative. No aspect of Oxford Jewish Society is insular and our celebrations go hand-in-hand with our social responsibilities to our neighbours, each other, and ourselves. Of course, nothing we do would be possible without the whole-hearted dedication of our chaplains, Rabbi Michael and Tracey Rosenfeld-Schueler. Outside of term-term, they frequently host shabbat meals for Jewish students and Pirkei AvOx discussion groups.

For those actively practising Judaism, the aforementioned Oxford Jewish Centre provides Egalitarian, Traditional, Progressive, and Orthodox services under the same roof (making it the only synagogue of its kind in Britain) as well as Ashkenazi and Sephardi services. We take great pride in keeping our doors open to any Jewish person in Oxford who decides they’d like to take part in our society, whether permanently or just for a single meal. We may be one of the smaller faith societies but our joy at welcoming new members and celebrating our diversity knows no bounds.

Ultimately, our society builds its foundations on far more than our trendy society merchandise (J-Socks!). Oxford Jewish Society is held together by the continued efforts of every one of our members, whether they pull the strings from the upper echelons of our executive committee or simply turn up and enjoy the atmosphere. There’s far more to Jewish life in Oxford than anyone could hope to fit into one article so I recommend anyone interested in what JSOC has to offer reach out to us, either by getting in touch with our Freshers’ Representatives Max Benster and Becky Collett or our Education Representative Alexander Demby. Alternatively, you can email us at oxford.jsoc@outlook.com or browse our Facebook page. From all of us at Oxford Jewish Society, we eagerly look forward to hearing from you and wish you a wonderful start to your university experience!