What is Ayelet HaShachar?

Ayelet HaShachar was founded in 2011 by members of the youth movement Habonim Dror. We've since expanded to welcome in the wider Jewish community.

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We are a Jewish community that exists to create opportunities for Jewish engagement and connection. We cater to any Jewish person (defined as inclusively as possible) for whom our values and practice are meaningful. We exist to offer a place of inclusion, especially for people that do not feel represented by other institutions within the Jewish community. We welcome people of diverse backgrounds, genders, sexualities, abilities and cultural identities.

Our services and events are open to all. They are run in a welcoming, casual atmosphere, in concentric circles with familiar and gentle leadership styles. We use musical instruments and repetitive melodies from traditional and contemporary sources to connect to people and elevate.

We are first and foremost Jewish - for us, that means that everything we do is imbued with Jewish values and practice, and draws upon the vast library of Jewish history, thought, music, ideas and culture. We see ourselves as inheritors of the Jewish tradition of debate, grappling and interpretation. We are a place for God, for secularism and humanism, and for religion and spirituality. We are socially-minded, progressively-inclined and experimental. We are not beholden to the letter of Jewish law, but we are respectful and engage with it.

We are a conduit for social justice. As Jews, we see ourselves as obligated by our traditions and history to be responsible for others within and outside of our community. We do not shy away from hard questions and truths, but rather support one another in confronting them.