To help meet the shortfall on its £5 million rebuilding project, Edgware's Beit Shvidler Primary School attracted 435 supporters to a fundraising dinner in London's West End on Monday night. They heard London mayor Boris Johnson thank the school's leadership for improving education in the capital and cite the recent protest in the grounds of St Paul's cathedral:

Pupils of Beit Shvidler Primary School (formerly Edgware Jewish Primary) saw their modern premises for the first time on Monday following a £5 million rebuilding project.

The renaming is in recognition of the generosity of Eugene Shvidler, a Russian oil billionaire who is a close associate of Roman Abramovich.

Governors' chair Eddy Breuer-Weil observed that "Beit Shvidler is a part of the J

Ken Livingstone was among the speakers at what is thought to be the largest fundraising event staged by the Stamford Hill community.

Seven-hundred guests at a central London dinner raised £500,000-plus for the Side by Side integrated nursery and special needs school.

An Edgware barmitzvah boy intends to prove that every penny counts in a bid to raise £10,000 for charity.

Pinchos Bentzion Sudak aims to collect one million pennies towards the development of a larger centre for Edgware Lubavitch.

He began by distributing handmade penny tubs to guests at his barmitzvah and has enlisted friends to help collecting the coins.

He further plans to have penny

Equalities Minister Lynne Featherstone joined Muswell Hill teenagers clearing litter from Cherry Tree Wood as part of a Mitzvah Day venture. The Hornsey and Wood Green MP said she "really enjoyed the good clear up, with some spring bulb planting to top it off. I am always excited to join the local synagogue for this wonderful day of community action.

Many communities took part in Remembrance Day services to pay their respects to fallen soldiers.

A service in Radlett, conducted by Rabbi Leo Dee of Radlett Synagogue, Rabbi Paul Freedman of Radlett and Bushey Reform and Reverend William Hogg of Christ Church, drew a crowd of 800 people, among them teenagers from Radlett United's Tribe Challenge course.

A former Elstree pub is to be converted into the area's first shtiebl, complementing an already extensive choice of minyanim.

Communal philanthropist Mendel Tajtelbaum is behind the £1.5 million project, which he believes will justify his belief that "Elstree will soon become the new Edgware".

He is known to the more Orthodox elements of the local community because of the sponsorship of the

Stanmore twins at North London Collegiate School in Edgware gained a combined seven A-star and A grades.

Gemma and Juliette Ginsberg - who will study at Nottingham and Oxford University respectively -were up before six on results day to discover how they had fared. "We both found exams really hard, so we weren't expecting this at all," Gemma confided.

"Our mum was so happy.

The literary efforts of Edgware Synagogue's Rabbi David Lister have helped the congregation to raise the funds for a defibrillator, allowing prompt treatment of cardiac arrests.

More than £500 was brought in from the the launch of Rabbi Lister's book, Intergalactic Judaism, at which he gave an audiovisual presentation on prayer and astrophysics, based on one of the book's chapters.

Three dozen young professionals made an East End pilgrimage on Sunday to learn more about the writers, community leaders and visionaries who enriched Jewish life in the area in the 19th and early 20th century.