Dayan Yisroel Lichtenstein, the head of the Beth Din of the Federation of Synagogues, is to retire within the next year, the organisation announced on Tuesday.

The Boston-born rabbi joined the Federation in 1988 when he was 32, having studied in America and at the Brisk and Mir yeshivot in Israel.

Paying tribute, Federation president Andrew Cohen said: “For the past 30 years, Dayan Lichtenstein has dedicated himself tirelessly to the strengthening of the kehillah [community] in London and further afield.

“The picture of Orthodox Anglo-Jewry today is very different to what it was in 1988 and this is due in no small part to the avodas hakodesh [sacred service] he has devoted himself to over the years.”

He would be “sorely missed in the Federation but we have no doubt that the positive changes he has effected will continue to benefit the kehillah for many years into the future”, Mr Cohen added.

An independent-minded figure willing to speak out when he felt the need, he has helped to maintain the Federation as a force within the Anglo-Orthodox world.

Dayan Lichtenstein said it had been “a privilege and an honour to serve Anglo-Jewry in my position of Rosh Beis Din of the Federation. I have enjoyed my tenure here immensely and am proud of the Federation’s achievements in which I have been involved.”