It is difficult to think of a more crass intervention in the Board of Deputies elections than United Synagogue President Stephen Pack's warning that Laura Marks would be a "divisive" president, and the threat that, should she win, the US would then distance itself from the Board.

We have enough denominational division in our community without Mr Pack seeking to add new dimensions. The entire point of the Board is that, however insuperable the doctrinal differences may be between Orthodox, Reform and Liberal, we agree to work as one for communal representation. On Mr Pack's logic, Progressive synagogues should now start objecting to the candidacies of United Synagogue members as divisive. And, with that, the Board would simply collapse.

For Mr Pack to treat the presidency of the Board as the preserve of US members is not merely arrogant in the extreme, it is also inept since, far from damaging Ms Marks' chances of winning, it will lead some deputies to conclude that she should be supported simply to make it clear that the Board is one place in our community where such divisions have no place.