Rahim was part of a group of Year 10 RE students from St John Bosco College, Battersea, who visited a synagogue recently, and saw preparations for Sukkot, the Feast of Tabernacles or Feast of Shelters, including the building of a sukkah, representing the huts farmers stayed in as they worked on the harvest.

Our trip to the synagogue in Wimbledon, last month, was very interesting. We started the session by discussing what we knew about Judaism. Questions were thrown open to both the Jewish students and ourselves which helped to get us thinking as soon as we got there.

We then got to make bread together which was a new experience for me since it was the first time I had ever baked anything. It tasted really good and we got to choose the kind of seeds that we could top our challah bread with.

We had arrived just before the festival of Sukkot and so it was great to see a sukkah being put together in the grounds of the synagogue; we even managed to hang some fruit and vegetables in the sukkah.

Joel, who led the session, was very good and guided us through the morning well. He even took us into the synagogue and explained the different features to us. Like everyone else we met, he was very friendly and welcoming.

We finished with a round of questions where everyone was able to ask questions about the faith of the other which was very enlightening, and then, the most important of all ... we shared our food with each other.

We are hoping that we can host the students from the Reform Synagogue at Wimbledon quite soon.

Rahim Bernardo, Year 10 SJBC