All too often elections to Anglo-Jewish organisations are a formality, with one group of leaders slipping unopposed into the seats vacated by their predecessors.

So it’s worth applauding the fact that there will be a contest to lead the community’s largest organisation, the United Synagogue, for its next triennial.

The post is particularly significant this time because the victor will have a big hand in recruiting the next Chief Rabbi – and the Chief Rabbi, for all the changes that have taken place in British Jewry over the last quarter of century, still remains its most influential office.

It is an open race between the two candidates, US vice-presidents Peter Zinkin and Stephen Pack.

From their manifestos – you can read a Q and A with them in last week’s JC – there is little to separate them.

This election is more about management than ideology and is likely to boil down to leadership style in the end.