Educator and broadcaster Rabbi Debbie Young-Somers will join the ministerial team at Edgware and Hendon Reform Synagogue at the end of April as Rabbi Neil Kraft retires after 18 years with the congregation.

EHRS resulted from the merger of the Edgware and Hendon Reform shuls and has 3,500 members.

The appointment comes as its work with young families expands through the Nagila Kindergarten and the Tea & Tots programme, which attracts more than 100 under-fives and their parents on Sunday afternoons.

As community educator for Reform Judaism, Rabbi Young-Somers wrote the curriculum for conversion to Judaism, which will be incorporated into EHRS’s rapidly growing conversion class.

She is a regular contributor to Radio 2’s Pause for Thought and also broadcasts on BBC's Radio London and Three Counties Radio.

The rabbi said that having enjoyed “working with communities all over the UK to grow and enliven Reform Judaism", she was excited by the possibilities of "collaborating to engage and make Judaism come alive for members” at EHRS.

She joins rabbis Mark Goldsmith and Emily Reitsma-Jurman on the ministerial team. Rabbi Kraft will become one of the congregation's emeritus rabbis.

Rabbi Goldsmith expected the new recruit to bring fresh "insights and skills into our synagogue as we work to adapt to the changing landscape of Jewish life and Jewish upbringing in our area, with the fast rate of expansion of Jewish day schools.

"She will help EHRS to build our campus into a thriving centre for prayer, learning and community for the 2020s.”