Dayenu - Sydney’s Jewish GLBT group (Member of the WCGLBTJ)
Dayenu - Sydney’s Jewish GLBT group
The 2-week festival begins on Sunday 21st February with Fair Day, a lovely day out in Victoria Park where GLBT community groups and businesses raise awareness and show off their products and services. Dayenu plans to have a stall as we have done for a number of years now. We always manage to find a few Jews who are interested in joining up and a few people who are interested in converting to Judaism!
Saturday 27th Feb is the annual Mardi Gras Parade which is now in its 32nd year. The theme this year is gay and lesbian history so Mardi Gras have asked that the floats relate to this in some way. This will be Dayenu’s 10th anniversary since first taking part in 2000, which caused a bit of a controversy within the Australian Jewish community, with the predictable condemnation from the Orthodox side!
On the night before the parade (Fri 26th Feb), Dayenu will be holding its annual Mardi Gras Shabbat service and dinner in Woollahra, Sydney at Emanuel Synagogue. The service is free, but the dinner costs AU$30 per head. We’re planning a big celebration for our 10th anniversary with entertainment and a few anecdotes from Dayenu’s first parade back in 2000. Tickets will be on sale from January by phoning +61 2 9328 7833.
And the Mardi Gras festival ends on Saturday 6th March with the Mardi Gras Party. This is traditionally a huge event and for the first time is being held on a different night to the Mardi Gras parade itself.
There’s a helluva lot more happening within those two weeks, so for more info about Mardi Gras events, please see their website at http://www.mardigras.org.au. More information will be available from 9th December when Mardi Gras release their official guide to the festival. For more info on Dayenu events please contact us on info@dayenu.org.au.
If anyone if considering visiting Australia, then Sydney in Feb/Mar is a great time to come. Please get in touch :)
Thanks Roy
Based in Sydney Australia, Dayenu exists to meet the needs of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Jews as well as their friends, families, partners and supporters. We organise a number of social events throughout the year and provide a counselling service for people who are finding it difficult coming to terms with their sexuality.
Our most significant activities are our very visible contributions to the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. Each year we participate by having a stall at Fair Day, a float in the Mardi Gras Parade and a Kabbalat Shabbat Service and Communal Dinner on the Friday night beforehand. In addition to this, we have a GLBT Seder each Pesach, Shabbat dinners in members’ homes throughout the year and bowling nights, video nights, pub nights etc.
We welcome international visitors to our events and have big plans for Mardi Gras 2010 when we will be celebrating our 10th anniversary since our first appearance in the Mardi Gras parade in 2000. Please contact us if you’re planning to come to Sydney for Mardi Gras next February/March
Email: info@dayenu.org.au
Home page: www.dayenu.org.au
Yahoo! group: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/dayenu Facebook group: http://facebook.com/dayenu.sydney