Edgware and District Reform Synagogue has elected a female chairman for the first time in its 73-year history. For the next three years, Linda Kann will be at the helm of what is claimed as the largest Reform community outside North America, and indeed the largest synagogue of any denomination in the UK, with 2,000 member families.

Mrs Kann told the JC she was “proud to be the synagogue’s first woman chairman — yes chairman, not chairwoman, chairlady, chairperson, and most certainly not chair”. She recently retired from her Sternberg Centre job as administrator for the European region of the World Union for Progressive Judaism and Exodus 2000, the programme twinning Reform and Liberal congregations in Britain with Progressive congregations in the former Soviet Union. Her husband Ray is also active in EDRS. 

During her term of office, she will oversee the implementation of a five-year business plan as well as a revision of its administrative structure.