Leo Baeck College has branched out into adult education with a new evening syllabus.

Around 50 people have signed up to the college's Lehrhaus programme since it opened last autumn.

"We're really pleased by the numbers," said Leo Baeck principal Rabbi Deborah Kahn-Harris. "We didn't have anything like this before."

As well as a year-long course in biblical Hebrew, short courses in Jewish music, introduction to Midrash, and to the ethical philosopher, Baruch Spinoza, start next month.

Taught by the college's faculty at its Finchley headquarters, they are aimed at "knowledgeable lay people" who want to learn more.

Lehrhaus - meaning learning house - is the name of the institution founded by the German-Jewish philosopher Franz Rosenzweig in Berlin nearly a century ago.

The initiative has also included two stand-alone lectures at Liberal Judaism's central London headquarters.