JUBILEE GUEST

Finchley Synagogue played hosts to many distinguished guests at their jubilee celebrations last week.

Opposition leader, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, was the guest-of-honour for the jubilee thanksgiving service and the reception which followed at the synagogue in Kinloss Gardens, Finchley.

In her speech at the reception, Mrs Thatcher, who is MP for Finchley and Friern Barnet, congratulated the synagogue on successfully completing its first 50 years, and paid tribute to the tenacity and courage of those who had fought to keep the synagogue alive during troubled times.

She also spoke of the importance of religious organisations sustaining “the moral sense of the people” and protecting the country from extreme governments.

She praised the synagogue for helping to protect “the individual spiritual freedoms which we all value.”

Also at the celebrations was the Deputy Mayor of Barnet, Councillor Terry Alexander, and presiding over the reception was the synagogue's senior warden, Mr Freddie Fisher.

He described the synagogue as a hive of activity involving all ages, and not just a house of prayer, but a house of assembly.

He paid particular tribute to Mr A. King-Hamilton, the father of Judge King-Hamilton, as “the architect of this pillar of Jewish life in the metropolis, and the most important single force in the creation of the synagogue.”

He also referred to a brochure specially published to mark the occasion of Finchley Synagogue's jubilee—Jubilee at Finchley—The Story of a Congregation, written by Hilary and Salmond Levin, members of the congregation.

It gives a detailed history of the synagogue from its origins in 1926 through to the present day.

The congregation at the thanksgiving service were addressed by Dayan Rabbi Dr. Meyer Lew.