18th October 2017
Title: Mazel tov Brighton! Tradition through Movement
When: October 2017 – Summer 2018
Where: Hyman Fine House, 20 Burlington Street, Brighton BN2 1AU (and other city venues including The Keep archive)
What: A new project celebrating links between Judaism,
and the city of Brighton and Hove
The Brighton based organisation Strike a Light – Arts & Heritage has recently been awarded a grant by two Brighton based organisations Brighton and Hove Dementia Action Alliance and The Homity Trust towards a project called Mazel tov Brighton! Movement through Tradition. This exciting project celebrates links between Judaism, and Brighton and Hove lives with residents of the Jewish Care charity run venue Hyman Fine House based in Kemptown.
The project celebrates Judaism through active aging, finding physical as well as mental ways to address early onset dementia. We will do this through dance activities and physical workshops, whilst exploring Brighton’s Jewish history, with residents of Hyman Fine House into summer 2018. Many of these residents and volunteers were born in the city in the 1920s and 30’s and remember it well including shops, people, places and rituals.
Dance practitioners will encourage physical activity with residents and carers that celebrate traditional Jewish performance including Sephardic dance, the Hora, and Flamenco which has links with this heritage. We will revitalise residents, generate energy, uncover memories, and explore city heritage. This project ensures generational memories aren’t lost to dementia, preserving physical traditions and movement; celebrating Judaism’s rich tradition.
We believe participants will gain enormously through these physical activity sessions and performance, exploring dementia through various perspectives, having regular contact with activities that encourage understanding, promote lifelong learning and active aging. Enabling diverse groups to meet, increasing empathy through dementia awareness, whilst celebrating Brighton Judaism.
We will organise a series of dance and activity sessions from autumn 2017 onwards, encouraging residents to be active, at a time when older participants are traditionally inactive. We will encourage participation in the creation of this exercise with movement, dance, performance and classes which celebrate Jewish traditions and heritage.
Each dance themed session will be a taster creative activity, gauging resident interest in particular themes. Our participants with dementia especially find it hard to be mobile and exercise outside, so we will do all possible to encourage physicality through dance in a creative, empowering way that links with existing tradition.
Brighton in the middle part of the 20th century had a pulsating Jewish heart and it was not just in the synagogues. Waterloo Street had a kosher butcher shop and delicatessen, a lively centre of Jewish eating culture. It was Hove’s own Golders Green. Here, cheek by jowl, stood the kosher delicatessen and bakery Chait, the fishmonger Marks’ and the greengrocer run by Jack Caplin.
The times to be there were Friday mornings, as the community prepared for Shabbat, and Sunday as Brighton Jews queued for their hot salt-beef sandwiches and new green pickled cucumber. Sections of the community could be seen taking coffee on the terrace of the Norfolk Hotel (now the Mercure) distinguished by its sweeping Regency staircase and operated by the Feld family.
These memories are especially significant at the 250th anniversary of Judaism in Brighton (Israel Samuel first moving to the city in 1766). In partnership with the charity Jewish Care (of which Hyman Fine House celebrates its’ 20th anniversary in 2017) and Brighton Museum (Community Engagement Service), we aim to explore the museum’s image archive creating a series of reminiscence sessions with residents at the home.
Participants will work with a facilitator to create a memory book, supporting this with personal photos, drawings, memories and characters from their past, and use archival images to support development of these experiences, reminding residents of their lives, and creating a wider context for Judaism in Brighton and Hove. We notice that as our residents age, moving permanently into the care home, they have to significantly downsize, giving away belongings and losing artefacts and memories of earlier life.
This project is a key way to ensure that this generational collective memories isn’t lost, preserving images, memories, as well as helping to contextualise photographs available free for use within the Museum archive, celebrating this rich tradition and heritage.
We will bring in speakers for sessions on this topic to Hyman Fine House including the Jewish Historical Society, training volunteers to help with residents’ life research, and provide relevant outings to archives and exhibitions. We will collate these memories into a bespoke book which will be available to view publicly, as well forming personal archives of Jewish lives in Brighton.
We will also specifically work with young people from nearby educational institutions whose role will be to support frail older people to engage in the project whilst also learning about Jewish heritage in Brighton. These volunteers will support each of the activities above. Activities will be delivered on a regular basis over 12 months to ensure that participants benefit including residents from Hyman Fine House, other Jewish people living in Brighton, other older people living in the city, as well as school pupils and the wider community.
With over 40 Jewish residents, the majority with dementia, alongside conditions like blindness, residents often suffer from isolation and depression. Due to this high dependency, it’s challenging supporting residents with activities, staff being engaged with care rather than pastoral activities. To combat this, Hyman Fine House and Strike a Light work hard to involve residents in planning and decision-making in regular meetings through a residents and volunteers committee, find out what activities residents enjoy, exploring new ideas for activities to try.
All types of older people will enjoy reflecting upon Brighton in earlier years and specifically about what types of shops existed and the produce they sold. People interested in history and cultural diversity will enjoy the stories and how they are made available through print and online with the support of the museum service and heritage professionals. And young people will benefit from increasing their knowledge and understanding of Jewish identity and its historical context in Brighton over 250 years as well as enjoying the company of older Jewish people living at Hyman Fine House. Mazel tov!
Further information:
Strike a Light – Arts & Heritage is a community interest company based in Brighton. We work with groups of older people, inter-generational groups and schools to explore local memories and people’s life stories to create accessible projects, exhibitions and art to transform public and private spaces. Strike a Light aims to work with and for the wider community in Sussex.
To find out more about this project, or future activities
with Strike a Light – Arts & Heritage, contact Nicola Benge [log in to unmask] or
web: http://www.strikealight.org
ENDS
Notes to Editors
Strike a Light – Arts & Heritage CIC is a community interest company which celebrates and profiles the importance of local community and history, utilising people’s life stories and memories to transform public and private spaces. It aims to manage projects which improve cultural heritage, and promote local arts and social development.
The contact for this media release is Nicola Benge, Creative Director of Strike a Light, Tel: 07727 006538 Email: [log in to unmask]
Find out more about Mazel tov Brighton: https://strikealight.org/projects/mazel-tov-brighton/
This is a partnership project with the charity Jewish Care: https://www.jewishcare.org/
Information about Strike a Light: http://www.strikealight.org
This project is funded by Dementia Action Alliance Brighton and Hove: http://www.dementiaaction.org.uk/local_alliances/19767_brighton_and_hove_dementia_action_alliance
It is also supported by the Homity Trust: http://www.homity.co.uk/
Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/strikealightartsandheritage/
@StrikeaLight