Even at a time of great financial concern, the Reform Movement attracted ten percent more guests than the previous year to its Annual Dinner last week. 240 people attended the event at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London’s Portland Place and £250,000 was pledged, representing a twenty five percent increase on last year.
Reform Movement head, Rabbi Dr Tony Bayfield used his speech at the Dinner to call for Jews to celebrate rather than discourage conversion. He said: “There are 2 billion Christians in the world, 1.2 billion Muslims and 14 million Jews. Yet we’ve been the only faith not to celebrate when someone chooses to join us. … Our rabbis declared an end to that madness. We are passionate about reaching out and counting people in.”
Guests were treated to an inspirational evening beginning with a champagne reception accompanied by music from a pianist; a fitting introduction to guest speaker, Ronald Harwood CBE - the Academy Award winning writer of the film, ‘The Pianist’.
Ronald Harwood spoke about his background in South Africa, and how he had drifted away from Judaism - as symbolised by changing his surname from Horwitz to Harwood. He went on to describe how, in recent years he has rediscovered the full meaning and depth of his Jewish identity through his involvement with the Reform Movement and with his community, West London Synagogue.
Ronald Harwood’s story epitomised the theme of the Dinner, ‘Touching your life’, and was echoed in the Movement’s new film which features other Jews whose Jewish identity only took on real depth of meaning through their engagement with the Reform Movement.
The evening was sponsored by Investec, represented on the night by Dr Allen Zimbler, who commented that the Movement was “clearly hugely successful at connecting with the unconnected”.
Despite the success of the Dinner, there remains widespread recognition that 2009 will be a real challenge for all charities, with several supporters of the Movement having been seriously effected by the banking crisis; and the Movement's 2009 budget has been adopted bearing in mind the need to be prudent.
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