While the paucity of United Synagogue rabbis at the Limmud has been a perennial talking-point, things seemed to be changing for the better over the past two years with more of them willing to dip their toes into the cross-communal event.

This year, however, the clock looks to have gone backwards.

Some local Orthodox rabbis did show their face, such as ex-US ministers Ariel Abel, now in Manchester, and Limmud regular Zvi Solomons, now of Reading. As did a goodly group of graduates and students from the Sephardi-inspired Montefiore rabbinic training scheme. You could also have heard Oxford chaplain Rabbi Daniel Braune Friedman and Rabbi Michael Pollak of the London School of Jewish Studies.

But from the United Synagogue, the largest synagogue body in the country? Not a single US rabbi was listed on the Limmud programme.

I am told that one US rabbi eventually did show up to run sessions. Take a bow Rabbi Michael Rosenfeld of Kingston Synagogue.