A most fitting way to remember my brother

ALEX BRUMMER CITY EDITOR, THE DAILY MAIL

The Art Scroll Siddur came into my life in 1994 when my mother died. As I relearned the morning davvening, with the help of Rabbi Lionel Rosenfeld at Western Marble Arch, the Art Scroll was a critical prop with its marking in bold of the liturgy to read aloud.

Soon I was a convert and persuaded my local community in Richmond to go all out and switch from the traditional blue Singers to the now familiar brown and gold Art Scroll.

After that it was all-out when my sons reached barmitzvah age. We were bombarded by family with present requests. I asked Jerusalem the Gold in Golders Green to order sets of leather-bound Art Scroll Machzor festival prayer books; it became the go-to present.

I too was a convert after decades with the blue Anglo-Jewish Routledge. It was farewell to antiquated English translation, stark text and lack of commentary. Art Scroll provided an intelligent guide through yom tov prayers.

As a regular shul goer, prayer books have come to punctuate my life. In the next week I will mark the first Yahrzheit of my brother Daniel (z’’l) who I have mentioned in this space before. The question has been how to commemorate? One rabbi suggested I might donate a new Sefer Torah to the community.

I put aside fears of it becoming a trophy to squabble over between disunited communities and made inquiries. I discovered that freshlywritten Sefer scrolls, post-Covid, were a bit like new cars. With cars, choice was limited and availability patchy because of the switch to EVs With Sefers, the pandemic took a toll on the world’s Soferim, Torah scribes who hand-write the 304,805 letters of the Five Books of Moses. Even if one could find one, it could be a year at least before the scroll was begun and the cost prohibitive without a second mortgage, An alternative was joining a memory plaque. I am not that keen on plastering synagogues with names and have always wondered what happens to such items when a synagogue closes. As has been the case with other family members, it has come down to books.

The green Sacks siddurim, which I had donated to the shul on my father’s death, did not need augmenting. Someone in the community was already committed to donating the new Mirvis edition when finished. I had already provided my community with the new illustrated United Synagogue Shiva books, and my previous donation of US Grace after Meals books had been displaced by the Koren Birkon introduced by Rabbi Sacks. A donation by the Te Foundation (family of the late Board of Deputies president Sol Te (z’’l) means all Richmond’s Routledge Machzors have been replaced by the ivory-bound Koren Sachs. So helped by Rabbi Chaim Gorker we hit on the idea of a new generation of Chumushim. At present the community is divided among the Cohen, favoured by one member, the familiar Herz edition and the widely used Art Scroll.

Koren has recently released ‘The Steinsaltz Edition’ replete with a new English translation, commentaries, distinctive Koren typeface and coloured illustrations. More than 30 years ago, when I was The Guardian correspondent in Washington, I was spellbound at seeing Rabbi