Rabbi Harvey Belovski of Golders Green Synagogue has joined the elite band of "Rabbi Drs" in Britain after being awarded a PhD by the University of London's Birkbeck College.

His thesis is on the thought of Rabbi Shemuel Bornstein, a Chasidic rebbe from Sochaczew in Poland, who died in 1926.

Rabbi Belovski began his doctoral research four years ago. Rabbi Bornstein, he said, offered "a fascinating synthesis of traditional thought and modern psychological insight.

"My research focuses on Rabbi Bornstein's passion for reconciling ostensibly conflicting sources from across the entire spectrum of Jewish literature and the belief in their ultimate unity that drives his methodology."