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Living
Faith is an opportunity for people living in Gloucestershire to
express how their belief affects their everyday life.
In
Gloucester alone, there are over 60 different nationalities, so
this is a county that embraces many different forms of worship from
Buddhism to Baha'i and Roman Catholic to Rastafarianism.
Michael
Webber is chairman of Cheltenham Synagogue, which was built in 1837,
but not used between 1897 until 1939.
He
says: "The basis of my faith is the continued existence of
the Jewish people.
Jews
do tend to congregate together, but not for the reasons other
people perhaps think they do. It doesn't mean we are consciously
shunning the people around us - it is that our faith and some
of our customs require us to be different and in same cases
to look different.
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| Michael
Webber |
"Persecuted
for hundreds, even thousands, of years they continue to survive
and make their contribution to the world in which we live.
"Our
religion is the basis of many faiths and, in whatever way we practise
it, it holds us together."
But
he says the fact that Jews have often lived in close communities
has led to misconceptions about them.
"I
don't think the Jews think they're better than anyone else - we
know we're different and there aren't many of us but some people
have a strange perception.
"We
don't feel superior, we feel different and we should be examples
to the world in many ways, but we try I think to achieve certain
standards.
"My
faith does affect my life in many ways - you remember you're Jewish
and one tries to present the best possible view of that faith to
the outside world.
"Jews
don't get together just because they want to be different or separate
themselves from the community.
"If
you were Orthodox you would have to live close together and within
walking distance of a synagogue because you could not ride to synagogue
so Jews do tend to congregate together, but not for the reasons
other people perhaps think they do.
"It
doesn't mean we are consciously shunning the people around us -
it is that our faith and some of our customs require us to be different
and in same cases to look different."
Michael
says his religion makes "an enormous difference" to how
he spends each day.
"If
I go to a restaurant I wouldn't eat anything that wasn't kosher
(complying with Jewish food laws).
"On
a Friday evening we go to the synagogue - we don't generally have
services on a Saturday morning because we're not a big enough community.
In
most things there's a great commonality between the Jewish and
the Christian faiths, and the Jewish faith and Islam.
It makes it all the more tragic that wars, the Holocaust and
suicide bombings can occur when really there is more that unites
us all than divides us.
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| Michael
Webber |
"Saturday
is our Sabbath and if we were strictly observant we wouldn't be
riding, we wouldn't be writing, we wouldn't be watching television,
we wouldn't be going to cricket or football or whatever other people
might be doing - but in modern times people do very much what they
want unless they are strictly Orthodox in which case they do what
the Bible and the rabbis of the past have told them to do.
"Our
faith is absolutely conditional on the fact that we believe in just
one God.
"In
most things there's a great commonality between the Jewish and the
Christian faiths, and the Jewish faith and Islam.
"It
makes it all the more tragic that wars, the Holocaust and suicide
bombings can occur when really there is more that unites us all
than divides us."
This
article contains user-generated content (i.e. external contribution)
expressing a personal opinion, not the views of BBC Gloucestershire.
Are
you passionate about your faith or belief? Do you have an interesting
story to tell? Email: dellessa.james@bbc.co.uk
and you could be part of Gloucestershire's Living Faith
series. Remember to put Living Faith in the subject line of your
email and include a daytime telephone number.
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In
the first of BBC Gloucestershire's Living Faith series Dellessa James
meets Michael Webber who is Jewish and lives in Cheltenham. 
Judaism
is around 3500 years old and began in the Middle East.
