We had such a lovely time at our Pride Friday Night Dinner! This was our first time hosting an event with and for the LGBTQ+ community and we collaborated with Sapphic Shabbat, who are a Jewish sapphic group, inclusive of non-binary and trans folk who identify as lesbian, bisexual, pansexual, wlw, transmasc, and transfemme.
We decided to host this event the evening before London Pride and opened it up to the LGBTQ+ community and their allies. Many members of the Sapphic Shabbat community are also vegan, so this collaboration felt especially aligned.
As a vegan charity, we of course love to eat the rainbow, and planning a rainbow-themed menu was a joyful task, especially with the abundance of seasonal vegetables available at this time of year! We even harvested some of the veg from our new veg garden.
Here’s what we served:
- Starters: Rainbow summer rolls
- Main course: Rainbow mixed vegetable and chickpea curry with rice and rainbow slaw
- Dessert: Homemade mixed berry and banana ice cream with salted caramel sauce and rainbow fruit salad.
We had a fantastic team of JVS and Sapphic Shabbat volunteers in the kitchen, at one point we even had a production line going, making 120 summer rolls in just one hour!
It was lovely to be able to gather in the garden before dinner, where one of our attendees led kiddush.
During the dinner we had fun conversation prompt cards created by Sapphic Shabbat, although the conversations seemed to flow freely anyway 🙂
Here is some lovely feedback of the evening from a few of our attendees:
‘’We absolutely loved attending the Sapphic Shabbat x Jewish Vegan Society Pride Shabbat! As a queer, interfaith lesbian couple and both avid vegans, it meant so much to be part of such a beautifully inclusive and environmentally conscious space that brought together so many aspects of our identities. The evening felt like a true celebration – of community, values, love, and shared purpose. It was incredible to be in a room full of warmth, connection, and joy, and to meet both familiar faces, new friends and even rekindle some very old friendships too. We’re getting married next week, and this felt like the perfect pre-celebration of queer Jewish love! Thank you so much to everyone who made this happen 💛🌈🌱✡️”
“It was so wonderful to be welcomed at JVS for a Pride Shabbat Dinner. It was great to connect with friends from Sapphic Shabbat and meet new people in atmosphere filled with queer Jewish joy!”
“Thank you Zoe and the staff at JVS for putting on a gorgeous queer Shabbat before London Pride this year. I attended JVS for the first time and really enjoyed gathering in the garden for kiddush before dinner. The whole evening felt like a safe space to be Jewish and queer & i thought that while the world is in turmoil, Im very grateful to be amongst queer Jewish people to celebrate our faith and our identities, whilst eating a delicious kosher vegan Shabbat dinner together – no better way to start Pride weekend!”
A huge thank you to Sapphic Shabbat and our team of incredible volunteers for helping make this event happen.
We hope this is just the beginning of many more events created with and for the LGBTQ+ community. If you have an idea for a future collaboration or event, we’d love to hear from you!
