Profile of our President

uring the war my parents rented a house in St Albans where I was born, the youngest of three. D When I was a toddler we returned to Hendon where my father ran a stationers and bookshop. Both my parents came from the West London Jewish community and met helping at Camperdown House in the East End. My family trees have been traced to arrivals in England from Holland in 1755 on my father’s side, including some of the more well known wealthy Jewish names. On my mother’s side relatives have also been traced back to arriving from Holland in 1690, and included a number of Orthodox Rabbis. Despite all this ancestry, my upbringing was almost entirely non-religious. My parents never went to shul but my father continued to be involved with the Bread, Meat & Coal charity and the Jewish Blind Society. My mother lit Chanukah candles and sang a shortened version of the traditional song, and also lit a yahrzeit light for her father. My sister and I were sent to Alyth Gardens religion school but after only two visits she refused to go again, so I had no further Jewish education until I went to Hendon County, where there was a separate Jewish assembly for the third of the pupils who were Jewish. Something must have hit the spot for me, despite the fact that many of the Jewish pupils were of the non-practising orthodox variety and not on my wave length. I started attending Shabbat morning services at Alyth Gardens and persuaded my parents to employ a tutor who taught me basic Hebrew. On leaving school I spent a year working at the Bernhard Baron Settlement in Whitechapel, a huge eye opener for me. There followed two years at Exeter University studying Social Administration where, in the six strong Jewish Society, I met Michael and the start of a new beginning. We married in 1967 at Winchmore Hill Reform Synagogue and moved out to St Albans, and we have been here ever since, moving twice within a mile radius. We joined Beds-Herts Synagogue, then based in St Albans, and the Jewish Young Marrieds, (now Jewish Womens’ Forum), and gradually got more involved, transferring to Hertsmere (TLSE) at the end of the seventies. During my time at TLSE I have served on Council, Membership Committee, edited Hakol and been a member of the singing group. I graduated from the Ba’alei Tefillah course in 2014 and can thus conduct services, and I am now involved with R&P, Lunch Club and Care & Welfare. In my other life I have worked as a Social Worker, retiring about 9 years ago. I keep busy with volunteering as a school governor and by presenting the NSPCC Speak Out Stay Safe workshops in primary schools. Tennis, badminton and walking also keep me out of mischief and last but not least my family, Ben, his wife and his two children who live in Shenley, and Cathy, her partner and their little one who live in St Albans. I have a lot to be thankful for and membership of a Liberal Synagogue has given me a sense identity and belonging for which I am grateful.