The United Synagogue is setting up a  drop-in centre for asylum seekers which will operate at the Hendon Synagogue Community Centre for two hours a month. It will work with similar centres in the area and will help up to 12 families with young children.

Support will include food, professional mentoring and a play area run by Tribe, the US youth division. The centre’s services will be co-ordinated centrally and run by volunteers from across the wider US community.

US Chesed will be collecting items such as warm winter clothes, shoes and toys that will be donated to users.

Rabbi Mordechai Ginsbury of Hendon US looked forward to welcoming the asylum seekers. "My own late maternal grandparents, Ernst and Lotte Frohwein came to this country as refugees from Nazi Germany in 1938 and had they not been granted sanctuary in the UK, I and many, many dozens of their other descendants would, in all probability, not be here to tell the tale."