Should I give charity only to Zionist causes in Israel?

Question: A very Orthodox man came to our door collecting for a school which helps special needs children in Israel. I asked if the institution were Zionist; he said no, so I would not give a donation. Was I right to stand by my political principles or should I have set them aside and given something?

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Being a blind ironman is like being Iron Man - but tougher

There may be no superheroes in real life, but you still can become an Iron Man. It is a title you can earn by competing in an Ironman event, a triathlon involving a two-and-a-half mile swim, a 112-mile mountain bike ride and rounded off by a 26-mile marathon.

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Elstree selects its man

Borehamwood and Elstree Synagogue, which has been without a senior rabbi for nearly two years, could be close to plugging the gap at the top after leaders named the man they want.

Rabbi Chaim Kanterovitz, the minister of Manchester’s Yeshurun Synagogue and previously of Kenton Synagogue, will visit the Hertfordshire congregation next month ahead of a members’ ballot on his appointment.

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US addressing the needs of the next Chief Rabbi

Once the Chief Rabbi had to live in London’s East End. For more than a century, holders of the office dwelt closer to the West End, in Hamilton Terrace, St John’s Wood.

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'Koran backs Jewish claims to Jerusalem,' Sheikh tells synagogue

A Muslim preacher argued that the Koran backs Jewish claims to Jerusalem at a Jerusalem Day celebration in London this week.

Rome-based Sheikh Abdul Hadi Palazzi told an audience at Edgware Synagogue that he found it “intolerable” that “no one questions the rights of Catholics to St Peter’s, or of Muslims to Mecca, but so many question the rights of Jews to Jerusalem”.

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Students tell Israel to stop Bedouin ‘eviction’

Jewish youth and students in Britain have protested to Israeli leaders over a proposed Knesset bill to relocate Bedouin families who live in the Negev desert.

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Progress for women at Federation synagogues

Women in the Federation of Synagogues have for the first time been elected to the management board of a congregation.

Yeshurun Synagogue in Edgware took the historic step on Tuesday, voting five women to its 12-person board.

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Sephardim vote in new rabbinic head with massive majority

Rabbi Joseph Dweck is to be the new senior rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Jews’ Congregation after winning a massive of vote of confidence from its membership.

They voted by 270 votes to four to endorse the executive’s choice of the 37-year-old rabbi, who has heads a Sephardi congregation in New York.

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Federation shul is pushing to get women on board

Edgware’s Yeshurun Synagogue is bidding to become the first Federation congregation to elect women to its board of management.

Yeshurun president Russell Grossman will propose the historic move at an extraordinary meeting next Wednesday.

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Hendon shul joins Federation

A newly established community in Hendon, Nishmas Yisroel, has joined the Federation of Synagogues.

Its rabbi, Dovid Tugendhaft, was previously minister of Ohr Yisroel, the Federation synagogue in Elstree.
Federation chief executive Eli Keinwald described Nishmas Yisroel as “the fastest growing minyan in north-west London.

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Community is ‘divided and can’t fund itself’

Jewish organisations need to attract a wider donor base, support innovation and encourage greater cross-communal collaboration, a new report recommends.

It also says that synagogue buildings could be used more widely for social and cultural purposes.

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