November in Glasgow

My dear Friends

November in Glasgow will be gloomy, but only from the weather perspective. Although I have been here in Cambridge for thirty years, Scotland remains part of my inner landscape, especially as my mother, Dorothea, was born there.  All my formative years were in Glasgow, although I spent the first eleven years of my life in London, where I went to a Jewish primary school.

Glasgow changed me and shaped me. I discovered Christianity there, although it was not until twenty years later, in an English landscape, that it was to flower and I entered the Catholic church, as you know.

Glasgow has a real grit to it, and the friendliness is tangible. It has a rough reputation, with the gangs and the Gorbals (now thankfully gone) but in realty it as a sophisticated city, rich in art, music and culture, with many fine museums and, at least in 1972 when i left, 72 parks. I think its cloisters in the University rival some of the buildings in Cambridge and there is a sweeping boulevard up to the university, named University Avenue.

I didn't complete my degree there, although I got most of it, because I was a rebel in the sixties and was making a statement, but I don't regret the four years I spent there. I had some wonderful lecturers, particularly in German, and I am still in touch with one of them . Looking back, it was amazing that not only did they tolerate me but gave me references which were the gateway to my entering the University in Cambridge twenty years later.

More of the story next time!
Shalom from Gila

I belong to Glasgow

My dear Friends

Thirty years ago I would have been singing the following: I belong to Glasgow, dear old Glasgow town, there's nothing the matter with Glasgow, for it's going round and round!' Except of course it would have been in a Glasgow accent!

The reason for all this preamble is that I am going to Glasgow for a week in mid November, dreich and all as that will be weatherwise. I left Glasgow thirty years ago to come to Cambridge. I had all my formative years there, from an eleven year old child, through my wild (and it was wild) youth, out the other end, taking singing lessons and coming to Cambridge, where I have been ever since, give or take a yearning or two to go to Toronto or Jerusalem.

But Scotland, and especially Glasgow, forms part of my inner landscape. My mother was born there, my maternal grandfather founded the oldest Synagogue there and I went to school there. I love my life in Cambridge, I am able to feel really free here, but I will never forget those years when a close friend and I walked for fifteen years in the Highland landscape, with those amazing remote deer forests.

Did you know that Glasgow used to have trams? I am sure that I travelled on the last one through Sauchiehall Street when I was about twelve. I am really going to see my relatives, mainly cousins, to whom I am very close. One of them became a Christian before me and she prayed my way into the Church. The other one is the matriarch of a great tribe and many of those children I have never seen.

But I have good friends too -I have known Kelda, musician and artist for thirty five years and we have much in common. So lots to look forward to. More next time-have you ever been to Glasgow?

Shalom from Gila

On the mountain

My dear Friends
Today in the Church is the Feast of the Transfiguration, which has a special meaning for me and the work I am trying to do. It is reported in the Gospels that Jesus took some of the disciples up a high mountain, now commonly thought of as Mount Tabor, in the north of Galilee. Also on the mountain appeared Moses and Elijah,representing the law and the Prophets.. Suddenly the garments of Jesus shone with a brilliant light and he was transfigured before them, in a representation of His future glory. Suddenly a cloud enveloped them, and a voice came from the cloud:'This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to Him!' When the disciples looked round, they could see no-one but Jesus.


In 1989 I went to Israel, for the first time in twenty-one years, and three months after I became a Christian and was received into the Church.I was staying in a friend's flat in Jerusalem and was aware that it was this Feast. I prayed, and was shown that this Mystery of the Transfiguration was about Jewish-Christian reconciliation.My own Judaism and Christianity were like two perfect halves of an orange, which could be joined together in the perfect whole.


On one wall in the flat was an excerpt from a famous Robert Frost poem and the lines read:'Two paths converged in a wood.I have taken the path less travelled, and that has made all the difference.'


Today, 23 years later, I can say that the path has not been easy. but that it has been very rewarding, and that I wouldn't change it for any other.


Every blessing
Gila