Cycle rides & budding filmmakers: Community news roundup 13-18 May

This week’s community news roundup. Got a story to share? Email your news and photos to community@thejngroup.com

Help for Shoah centre

Representatives of a small committee of ladies known as the Circle of Eight travelled from their north London homes to the National Holocaust Centre and Museum in Nottinghamshire. The ladies presented the centre with a cheque for £3,770 from a fundraising event, during which Holocaust survivor Lady Zahava Kohn spoke to 250 people at Elstree & Borehamwood Synagogue.

Auschwitz exhibition

Hasmonean High School, in conjunction with Yad Vashem UK foundation, will host an exhibition of The Auschwitz Album. Brought over from New York to London, the album is the only surviving visual evidence of the process that led to the mass murder at Auschwitz-Birkenau. The exhibition is free and runs between next Tuesday and Thursday, 8pm to 10pm, and from 10am to 12pm on 25 May at the girls’ school in Page Street.

Norwood’s sensory garden opens

More than 40 people attended the opening of the Jonathan Jackson Sensory Garden at Norwood Ravenswood Village in Berkshire. A gift from the Lord Leonard and Lady Estelle Wolfson Foundation, the garden has a range of calming and stimulating areas and will allow people with learning disabilities to experience the outdoors and exercise in a safe environment. Norwood chief executive Elaine Kerr said: “These gardens are a tribute to Lady Wolfson’s vision and insight into understanding the significant therapeutic benefits a sensory garden can bring to the life of someone with a disability or sensory impairment.”

Overseas holiday

A group of learning disabled young men from Yad Voezer realised their ambition of going to Spain for a holiday. Staff member Tony Marcus worked with them for several months to make a detailed plan, covering all eventualities, flights, accommodation, kosher food and transport, as well as planning outings and activities. For its first overseas holiday, the group visited Marbella, the beaches of la Cala de Mijas, the emerald lake of El Chorro and Puerto Banus.

Young film-makers celebrated

UK Jewish Film celebrated the work of hundreds of young film-makers at the Hackney Picturehouse. The unique film award ceremony was the culmination of the intergenerational project Hackney Roots, which has reached more than 300 young people from Jewish schools in Barnet and Redbridge. Project manager Rachel Burns said: “We are delighted to have brought voices and stories from Jewish Hackney and the East End into the classrooms of north and east London to educate about the significance of this vibrant area of London in Anglo-Jewish heritage and identity.”

Singing for Salonika

Greek singer Savina Yannatou and her band Primavera en Salonico will be the final concert of the Lag B’Omer festival – a mystical festival that delves into the esoteric side of Jewish heritage – at the JW3 centre. The performance will consist of songs sung by Sephardic Jews in Thessaloniki, Greece, as well as others sung by Sephardic Jews from around the Mediterranean. Click here for more info

Sephardic scholar

Hilary Pomeroy will give a free pre-concert talk at 6pm, talking about the passionate love songs and tender lullabies taken from Spain and kept alive by Ladino-speaking Jews in Salonika. For more details about the concert, call 020 7433 8988.