The last shacharit service of the academic year

Today was a bitter-sweet day. Today was the last shacharit service of the academic year and it was also the last shacharit with four of our students who will be ordained as rabbis this Sunday.

Our four students receivingסמיכה this Sunday are Cantor Gershon Silins, Zahavit Shalev, Daniela Touati and Igor Zinkov. The day was bitter-sweet as it is such a joyous occasion for these four students and for the College, but also sad that they will no longer be with the College family on a regular basis. To mark their imminent ordination, Rabbi Dr Deborah Kahn-Harris and Rabbi Dr Charles Middleburgh gave each student a beautiful handmade College tallit and kippah. The students were also presented with something new: each of them was given their own “tree of life” which shows the chain of tradition in terms of their ordaining rabbi and his/her ordaining rabbi etc – going back as far as records allow! This will become a new tradition at the College.