SCoJeC was excited to team up with the Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre and the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council to bring to the people of Glasgow a Bake to Remember workshop, to mark Holocaust Memorial Day.

We were delighted to welcome a range of people, Jewish and non-Jewish, some of whom had little previous contact with the Jewish Community, to meet, connect, and learn to braid dough, and bake fresh challot (just in time for Shabbat!), and to explore the beautiful Garnethill building and the purpose-built Holocaust Studies Centre.

Thursday’s drop-in workshop saw numerous people of different ages, genders, and background come together to bake bread, share stories, and reminisce about bygone Jewish Glasgow bakeries. Supported by Garnethill Hebrew Congregation and Interfaith Scotland, our Bake to Remember allowed people near and far, regardless backgrounds to come and find commonalities breaking bread together.

We were honoured to be joined by Church of Scotland Moderator, the Right Rev Sally Foster-Fulton and Equalities Officer Mirella Yandoli, and other participants included first time visitors to the centre, some new to Glasgow and the surrounding areas, as well as Garnethill Hebrew Congregation Chair Susan Siegel, SCoJeC Director Ephraim Borowski, and SCoJeC Community Engagement and Events Manager Demi Franks who described the evening as “uplifting” saying, “Baking brings people together, and now more than ever this was most needed and appreciated by the more than twenty people in attendance. It was great to see new people attending as well as some old familiar faces! The warmth in the building was palpable, comforting and extremely heartening.” She concluded, “It was such a beautiful opportunity to team up with Kerry and the Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre team. Bringing people to this amazing place, this wonderful centre, at such a poignant time of year, felt really important and special, especially in the current times we find ourselves in.”

As well as participants being able to enjoy personal tours of the building during the session, including the stunning Garnethill Shul (Scotland’s first purpose-built synagogue), the Scottish Jewish Heritage Centre were on a little mission themselves, looking for someone with exceptional plaiting skills to bake them two new ‘learning loaves’, to be preserved and used for educational purposes, which will very soon be specially sealed and varnished, and put to extremely good use at the archive centre!