Federation of Synagogues

Orthodox Jewish synagogal organisation in the United Kingdom with historical Zionist ties

Federation of Synagogues
Type	Synagogal organisation
Headquarters	65 Watford Way, Hendon, London NW4 3AQ, United Kingdom
Website	Official website

Federation of Synagogues is an Orthodox Jewish synagogal organisation in the United Kingdom, founded in 1887 by Samuel Montagu to unite immigrant Orthodox congregations in London's East End. It provides religious services, kosher supervision, burial facilities, and communal support to its member and affiliated synagogues, emphasising adherence to halacha in modern Britain. With 18 constituent members and 26 affiliates as of recent records, the Federation operates a Beth Din, KF Kosher division, and educational programmes, serving Central Orthodox communities primarily in London and surrounding areas. As the official Federation website states, its mission centres on strengthening Orthodox communal life through Torah-focused services.

Historically established to serve Eastern European immigrants excluded from the United Synagogue, the Federation offered affordable burials and modest worship spaces. It has evolved into a key provider of halachic authority and community resources, though its past leadership and donations reflect support for the Zionist entity.

The Federation's relation to Zionism shows early ambivalence, with founder Samuel Montagu's son Louis Montagu ousted in 1925 partly for anti-Zionist views, replaced by Zionist Morry Davis. Under Davis, the organisation donated to the Jewish National Fund and Hebrew University, and launched the Palestine Emergency Fund after the 1929 Hebron Massacre. Such actions aligned the Federation with support for the Zionist colony, critiqued in anti-Zionist frameworks protected under Miller vs University of Bristol (2024) as mechanisms entrenching settler colonial ties.

History

The Federation emerged in 1887 when Samuel Montagu united minor synagogues for East End immigrants rejecting the United Synagogue's practices. Montagu funded improvements and acquired burial land in Edmonton.

By 1911, membership exceeded the United Synagogue's in some metrics. After Montagu's death, his son Louis Montagu presided briefly but was removed in 1925 for non-observance and anti-Zionism. Morry Davis, a Zionist, took over, expanding influence through Shechita Board representation and anti-Nazi protests.

Post-1948, the Federation recovered from wartime destruction, forming its Beth Din in 1966 and expanding suburbs. Modern leadership under Shraga Fievel Zimmerman maintains strict Orthodoxy.

The Montagu presidency and the Chief Rabbinate dispute, 1911–1917

Geoffrey Alderman, in his centenary history of the Federation, records that on 28 February 1911 the Federation's Executive Committee elected Louis Montagu, the eldest son of the founder, Samuel Montagu, and heir to the Swaythling title, as its second President. Unlike his father, who had been 'Acting President', he took the title President from the outset. According to Alderman, the Executive Committee considered that the Federation's increasingly independent stance towards the United Synagogue called for a peer of the realm as President, and hoped that the Montagu family would continue to support the Federation financially; Montagu's younger brother Gerald became Treasurer. Alderman judges in retrospect that the choice was a mistake.

Alderman points to an earlier dispute as showing the Federation's insistence on orthodoxy and its impatience with its representation on communal bodies. In February 1905 the Federation severed its links with the Jewish Religious Education Board, after the Board took no action against one of its Vice-Presidents, Claude Montefiore, whom the Federation's report for 1905–06 accused of publicly attacking 'the genuineness of the Decalogue'. Its resolution stated that the Federation, 'being an orthodox body', could not contribute to a Jewish education board that had elected such a leader. With a gift of £1,000 from Samuel Montagu it set up a Trust to finance Talmud Torah teaching. The rift lasted six years, and in 1911 the Federation returned to the Board 'on its terms'.

The death of Chief Rabbi Hermann Adler in July 1911 raised the question of how far the Federation would take part in choosing his successor. Alderman records that in June 1910 the honorary officers of the two bodies had met at New Court to discuss avoiding friction over an eventual election; Samuel Montagu offered a formal merger on terms which Lord Rothschild rejected because Federation representatives would have formed a majority on the United Synagogue Council. The United Synagogue wished votes at the electoral conference to be apportioned by financial contributions to the Chief Rabbinate; the Federation argued for representation in proportion to membership, which its Secretary, Joseph Blank, put on 23 November 1911 at 6,500 members in 51 synagogues. The Federation was offered 28 votes, against 75 at the disposal of the United Synagogue's honorary officers and about 340 for the United Synagogue and its constituents. On 30 May 1912 Blank gave the Federation's definitive response, that the Board could not adhere to a scheme securing the election or dismissal of the Chief Rabbi to the United Synagogue, which he said represented only about one-sixteenth of the Jews of the United Kingdom. Joseph H. Hertz was elected Chief Rabbi on 16 February 1913 without Federation participation, and the Federation then declared that it would no longer contribute to the Chief Rabbi's Fund.

Alderman records several consequences. Rabbi Chaikin was permitted to rejoin the Beth Din of the United Synagogue as a full Dayan at a salary of £100 a year, an appointment the Federation's Board approved on 6 December 1911; Alderman describes this as one of the few formal links then existing between the two bodies. Chaikin served on the Beth Din for fifteen years and resigned in August 1926 to settle in Palestine. The Federation appointed its own Chief Minister, Dr Meir Tsevi Jung of Ungarisch Brod (Moravia), chosen by Louis Montagu under the terms of his father's trust deed and confirmed by the Board of Delegates on 6 March 1912. He was installed on 16 June 1912 at the Philpot Street Great Synagogue, the first time a Federation minister had been installed in one of its own affiliated synagogues. Jung founded the Va'ad Harabbonim (Council of Rabbis) of the Federation, with Rabbi Avraham Yitzhak Kook of the Machzike Hadath community as honorary president, and from January 1913 until July 1915 he also acted as religious mentor to the Spitalfields Great Synagogue, which provided a link between the Federation and the Machzike Hadath. His other initiatives, as listed by Alderman, included a Jewish Trade School opened in December 1912, which paid boys at least 7s 6d a week while teaching them a trade and religious subjects and which closed because the money needed to keep it going was not forthcoming (an appeal for £500 failed); a network of Sinai Associations and the Sinai League; a branch of Agudas Israel in the East End (July 1914); a Tomchei Torah Society for elderly scholars; and 'Sabbath Observance Halls'.

Alderman describes the Federation's relations with the Chief Rabbi's office as strained by disputes over kashrut: the sale of forbidden fat (chelev) in hindquarters meat, and doubts about matzot and mikvaot under the Beth Din's supervision. In December 1913 the United Synagogue refused an offer that Jung serve on its Beth Din as an additional Dayan with his salary still paid by the Federation. In March 1920 the Va'ad Harabbonim offered to supervise shechita; the United Synagogue replied on 28 April 1920 that any complaint against a butcher should go to the Board of Shechita, and Alderman writes that the Va'ad's status was never acknowledged. Jung died in June 1921; Alderman gives the date as 21 June on one page and 20 June on another. Alderman records that the Slaughter of Animals Act 1933, after pressure from the Federation and from the Adath Yisroel congregation, replaced the Chief Rabbi as sole licensing authority for shochetim with a Rabbinic Commission of ten rabbis: four nominated by the United Synagogue, two by the Federation, one by the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations and two by the President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. In October 1934 the Chief Rabbi prohibited the sale of unporged hindquarters meat, and in June 1935 Rabbi Yecheskiel Abramski of the Machzike Hadath became a Dayan of the Beth Din.

The end of the Montagu presidency, 1917–1925

The Joseph Cohen Antiques history cited above says that Louis Montagu was removed in 1925 for non-observance and anti-Zionism. Alderman's account is more detailed and places the end of the presidency in a dispute over the Secretary's administration. He records that criticism of Montagu's conduct on Zionist questions began in 1917 and that in April 1919 he was one of ten leading members of the League of British Jews who wrote to the Morning Post, in a letter Alderman describes as mischievously worded, about allegations that Russian Jews in Britain were agents of Bolshevism. Alderman treats the letter as a turning point in the deteriorating relationship between the Federation and its President, which nevertheless lasted six years or more, a fact he attributes to the esteem in which the Swaythling family was held by older members.

The Federation's finances changed in the same period. Alderman writes that by the early 1920s the Federation had outgrown its reliance on the Swaythling family's wealth, partly because synagogues were repaying capital advanced by the founder, which could be lent on, and mainly because of its Burial Society, whose contributions were the major source of its income. From 1 April 1920 the Society paid the Federation one penny a week for every subscriber, which brought £1,646 0s 1d in 1921 and made the Federation, in Alderman's words, 'entirely self-supporting'. On 21 May 1921 the Board of Delegates appointed a Finance Committee of East End synagogue representatives. Alderman writes that its members showed little deference to Montagu and were increasingly restive at the autocratic way in which Blank, the Federation's first Secretary, conducted the Federation's affairs, holding few meetings: in 1920 the Board of Delegates met only twice and the Executive Committee once. He records that the Jewish Year Book for 1904 listed Blank as Secretary of the Jewish Congregational Union, described there as 'initiated and founded under the auspices of the Federation of Synagogues'. Alderman identifies that body with the Jewish Religious Union founded in 1902 by Claude Montefiore, Lily Montagu and others, from which Liberal Judaism developed, and calls the statement astonishing in view of the Federation's opposition to Montefiore's theology.

When suspicions were raised about Blank's administration of the finances of the Federation and its Burial Society, Montagu defended him, and the criticism turned into a call for the honorary officers to go. Alderman cites the Yiddish newspaper Die Tsait for the formation, by January 1925, of a 'Vigilance Committee' seeking an end to the Swaythling administration. A Board of Delegates meeting on 13 May 1925, attended by 172 delegates, dismissed Blank but asked Montagu to continue for the time being. At a Board meeting on 25 November 1925 Montagu and Councillor Harry Kosky were re-elected, but their insistence that Blank receive a substantial pension was ignored; they resigned and stated that their decision was irrevocable. At that meeting a resolution moved by Councillor Morry Davis that any delegate who wished to address a Federation meeting in Yiddish be permitted to do so was carried, and Alderman records Montagu's reply that 'he could not understand Yiddish' and so could not be responsible for proceedings in a language he did not know. Alderman reads the controversy partly in terms of class antagonism and as a victory of the immigrant classes over the Anglo-Jewish gentry. Louis Montagu died on 11 June 1927, aged 57.

The Davis presidency, 1925–1939

Alderman describes Morry Davis (born 1894), a Labour member of Stepney Borough Council from 1920 and Mayor of Stepney in 1930, as a new type of East End Jewish leader. At the Board of Delegates in May 1925 he voiced the mood of no confidence in Montagu and obtained the most votes (53) in the election of a three-man sub-committee to find a new Secretary. In November 1925 he was elected a Treasurer of the Burial Society, a member of the Finance Committee and the Federation's representative to the Board of Shechita and the Board of Deputies; in January 1926 he was elected an honorary officer. Davis was elected President of the Federation and Treasurer of the Burial Society on 20 March 1928, by 79 votes to 51, at a meeting attended by over 200 delegates. Alderman notes that some members hoped to persuade Montagu to return, that approaches were made to other prominent figures without success, and that some feared the concentration of offices in one man. Julius Jung, Rabbi Jung's son, took office as joint Secretary of the Federation and its Burial Society in November 1925 and remained, later as Executive Director, until 1959.

Alderman reports that in 1926 Federation synagogues had on their books 12,565 families, representing over 50,000 people, and that by 1937 the number of families had risen to about 13,000 and the number of affiliated synagogues, 51 in 1912, to 68. He describes the Federation as the largest synagogal body in the United Kingdom between the wars, and gives the United Synagogue's male membership in 1930 as 8,310. Later he gives the number of affiliated synagogues as 69 at the General Council of 30 June 1938. A revision of the Federation's objects in 1934 included interest-free loans to affiliated synagogues for building or redecoration, support for Talmud Torahs and yeshivot, representation on the Board of Shechita, grants to Jewish and other charities, and 'the upbuilding of Eretz Yisroel'. A revised constitution created a General Council of synagogue presidents and elected members, which elected an Executive Committee of sixteen. Davis carried the changes in 1934, arguing correctly that the tax authorities required new rules before they would consider charitable status; the status was granted and a refund of over £900 obtained. Alderman comments that the constitution made possible, in theory, rule by an oligarchy or even by one person. The abolition of interest on loans to synagogues followed a motion by B. Simons of the Bethnal Green Synagogue, carried at the Board of Delegates on 28 February 1927.

Representation on the Board of Shechita was doubled from five to ten delegates after negotiation, and in July 1931 Davis became one of its Vice-Presidents. On 29 October 1928 the Federation withdrew from the Talmud Torah Trust, criticising its inspection of Talmud Torahs, and resumed grants in 1930 when the Trust was reconstituted with seven of the ten places on its executive allotted to the Federation. In August 1929 the Federation obtained representation on the management of the Etz Chaim Yeshiva, with a grant of £250. Alderman lists beneficiaries of Federation grants in these years, among them the London Jewish Hospital, the Home for Aged Jews, Jews' College and the British Fund for Polish Jewry (£10,000 in 1936), and records that on 24 April 1932, following a visit from Chief Rabbi Hertz, the first time a Chief Rabbi had addressed the Federation, a grant of £1,000 was made to the Bayswater Jewish Schools.

Alderman records that on 22 May 1933 the Board of Delegates sent the British government and the League of Nations a resolution condemning persecution of Jews in Germany; that between 1933 and 1935 the Federation contributed £17,000 to the Central British Fund for German Jewry; and that it took a leading part in forming the Jewish Representative Council for the Boycott of German Goods and Services, inaugurated in November 1933, which the Board of Deputies did not join. He also credits Julius Jung, as Chairman of the Board of Deputies' Aliens Committee, with helping bring many refugees from Nazism to Britain.

Congregations admitted to the Federation in the inter-war period, as listed by Alderman, included Central Hackney (July 1927); the Clapton Synagogue and the Stamford Hill Beth Hamedrash (12 August 1928); Walthamstow (October 1928); Fulham and Kensington (September 1929); Gladstone Park and Neasden and Leytonstone (April 1932); Willesden (December 1933); Bermondsey (March 1935); Forest Gate (July 1937); and Springfield, Upper Clapton (January 1938). In 1936 the Federation acquired a site of 106 acres at Rainham, Essex, for burial; it was consecrated on 20 February 1938. As Jews left the East End, Alderman records, smaller synagogues ran into financial difficulties and some fell behind on loan repayments; in April 1936 the General Council withdrew a rebate of one-eighth of Federation contributions from synagogues that did not repay on time. In December 1936 the General Council voted by 52 votes to 44 that any synagogue seeking admission or a loan must agree that at least one of its trustees be appointed by the General Council; Alderman describes the change as subtle but not retrospective, and the narrow majority as showing how contentious it was. At the General Council of 30 June 1938 amalgamation of smaller synagogues was discussed for the first time at such a meeting; of the founding congregations of 1887, only three remained among the 69 affiliated synagogues.

Post-war reconstruction and the constituent synagogues, 1945–1951

Alderman writes that the Federation's President, Aaron Wright, addressed the problem of Federation control over individual congregations, beginning a process of fundamental constitutional change, and that the appointment of Kopul Rosen as Principal Rabbi gave the opportunity. Wright proposed that the Federation buy the premises of West Hampstead Congregational Church, Finchley Road, for £12,500 as a synagogue for Rosen. Because the Federation provided the purchase money, all payments by the congregation's members were made to the Federation, which sanctioned all outgoings. It became the Federation's first 'Constituent' synagogue, as distinct from the legally independent affiliated synagogues. A General Council policy of October 1946 gave constituents Hebrew names, and this one became Shomrei Hadath. A new constitution, accepted at a special General Council on 1 June 1947, contained bye-laws on the government of constituents and their financial subordination to the Federation; supplementary laws of 24 May 1948 required each constituent to submit an annual budget and provided that the power to appoint its officials lay with the Federation. Alderman calls the 1947 constitution a watershed that moved the Federation towards the organisational model of the United Synagogue, and records Wright's acknowledgment of the United Synagogue's help in drafting it.

Founding constituent synagogues, as listed by Alderman

Congregation	Location	Details given
Shomrei Hadath	West Hampstead (Finchley Road)	Former Congregational church bought for £12,500; the first constituent.
Ohel Shem	Chamberlayne Road, Willesden	Consecrated 24 November 1946.
Edgware Beth Hamedrash, later Yeshurun	Stonegrove, Edgware	Admitted as a constituent in September 1946; the synagogue at Stonegrove, bought for £6,250, opened about four years later.
Maida Vale Beth Hamedrash	Elgin Avenue	Lease bought for £4,800; named Emet V'Shalom in June 1948.

Wright and Dr Bernard Homa resigned in July 1947, within weeks of being re-elected, after the General Council rejected most of the officers they had nominated; Jack Goldberg was elected the Federation's fifth President in early 1948. Kopul Rosen resigned on 8 February 1949, after devoting increasing time to Carmel College and to work for Israel. Alderman adds that the General Council's rejection of Wright's advice reflected anxiety about the direction and pace of change and the burdens it placed on Federation finances. From 6 February 1947 the Burial Society paid the Federation £500 a month to cover a deficit of £6,500; Alderman writes that the dispute within the Federation concerned less the device than its use to finance new ventures of which many disapproved.

Alderman's central theme for the later 1940s is the position of the East End. He describes three groupings: members who had moved to the suburbs but kept East End membership for the lower subscriptions, suburban members who wanted Federation synagogues in their areas, and a shrinking group who wanted a strong Federation presence in the East End. Amalgamations of small East End synagogues, begun before 1939, were pursued through an Amalgamation Committee; in December 1947 the Executive resolved that small synagogues with no rabbi or chazan should be barred from enrolling new members in the Burial Society. A Memorandum by the Federation's Secretary, presented to the General Council on 10 March 1949, envisaged spending many thousands of pounds 'with the object of revitalising East End Jewry', and a Planning Committee was set up. Alderman records that by the end of 1949 Stepney Borough Council and the London County Council had told the Federation that no more than a dozen synagogues were needed in the whole East End. A proposal to treble burial contributions was approved by the Executive by 9 votes to 7 in November 1949, and in January 1950 the Executive also approved a Pension Fund for rabbis and chazanim of affiliated synagogues and a plan to amalgamate the East End synagogues into seventeen communities. The burial proposal led to an uproar at the General Council on 9 March 1950; on 18 April a motion calling for the resignation of the joint Treasurer, Jack Slutsky, passed by 67 votes to 46; Goldberg resigned; a confidence motion on 25 April failed by 50 votes to 42; and on 28 August 1950 an increase in the weekly burial contribution from 4d to 8d, for educational purposes, was carried without a vote against. Goldberg died on 16 June 1951 and Morris Lederman was elected President that month.

The Lederman presidency, 1951–1965

Morris Lederman, born at Mezeritz in 1908, was elected President of the Federation in June 1951 and, in Alderman's account, held the office almost without a break until his retirement in 1989. Alderman describes him as a former shochet who had been elected to the General Council in 1941, became one of the Federation's representatives at the Board of Deputies in 1946 and a Treasurer of the Burial Society in 1948, and who practically acted as President after Goldberg's resignation in 1950. Alderman credits Lederman with re-orienting the Federation without alienating the East End. On taking the chair of the Executive in 1950 Lederman met East End leaders twice, and the Amalgamation Committee, resented as an instrument of central direction, was absorbed into a Planning Committee chaired by an East End representative, Joseph Cymerman of the Cannon Street Road synagogue; a memorandum it presented on 3 April 1951 accepted that a single large East End synagogue would have constituent status, and Alderman notes that no further organised East End opposition to suburban constituents is recorded afterwards.

The Federation's finances were constrained in these years. By the end of 1950 it had agreed in principle to advances of £28,000; in 1951–52 its expenditure rose by 26 per cent and its income by 9 per cent, leaving a bank overdraft of about £11,000. Alderman writes that the emphasis therefore shifted to affiliating existing congregations, among them Greenford and District (August 1950), Loughton and District (June 1952) and Finchley Central (September 1954). Grants to affiliated synagogues for building or improvement were generally conditional on the property being assigned to Federation trustees. Alderman describes the later 1950s overdraft: it reached £25,000 by November 1957, when the General Council approved by 72 votes to 58 a request that male members contribute 6d a week to the Federation's purposes, a decision made amid controversy and not mandatory; by the end of 1958 the overdraft had been reduced by about £18,000.

Administrative and rabbinic arrangements changed as well. In July 1952 Julius Jung became Executive Director and a Secretary was appointed; Jung retired in February 1959, and Michael Goldman, appointed Clerk, became Secretary. Rabbi Morris Swift, a former Dayan of the London Beth Din, was appointed Principal Rabbi in 1956 and stayed barely a year. Alderman writes that the Va'ad Harabbonim, which had eleven rabbis when Lederman became President, continued to be subsidised by the Federation and that the United Synagogue was determined to preserve the authority of the Chief Rabbi and the London Beth Din. In October 1955 the General Council agreed to raise Burial Society contributions to one shilling a week, sixpence of it for educational purposes.

Alderman describes the Federation's part in establishing day schools with the Zionist Federation. In 1956 the Executive agreed to advance £2,000 to Hillel House School at the Ohel Shem synagogue, Willesden, for a purpose-built building that would remain the Federation's property, with the Zionist Federation contributing about £1,500 a year and being represented on the governing body. The Clapton Jewish Day School, next to the Clapton Synagogue, opened on 1 October 1956; the Zionist Federation had agreed to give £10,000 towards the building and to undertake that the curriculum would be acceptable from an orthodox point of view. At the Executive on 30 August 1956 Rabbi M. Frydman voiced concern about the Zionist Federation's motives; Lederman argued that co-operation, with the local rabbi and the Principal Rabbi in complete charge of religious matters, was preferable to the Zionist Federation opening schools alone; and Swift declined to proclaim a ban on Zionist participation in day schools, stating that the school's religious character would be the Federation's responsibility.

Separate Beth Din and break with the Chief Rabbinate, 1964–1987

Alderman suggests that some in the United Synagogue doubted that the Federation would ever dare to establish its own Beth Din or authorise its own kashrut, and that if that was the private view of Isaac Wolfson and his colleagues they had made a 'grave miscalculation'. He records that the Federation did not take part in the resumed Chief Rabbinate Conference (20 February 1966) and 'has never recognised the authority' of the Chief Rabbis since Israel Brodie (Immanuel Jakobovits, Jonathan Sacks and Ephraim Mirvis). On 14 April 1966 the General Council, with three dissentients, approved a Beth Din of the Federation of Synagogues. Four Dayanim (Rabbis Krausz, Fisher, Rudnick and S. Gukovitzki) were appointed at once, with Rev. I. M. Braier as Clerk, and began issuing marriage licences and handling other matters within an Orthodox Beth Din's competence. The Federation agreed to give the Marriage Authorisation Office of the Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue a record of marriages authorised by its Beth Din, but only after authorisation had been granted. Alderman writes that, in establishing its own Beth Din, the Federation 'had at last become a kehilla – a self-governing community – in its own right'.

The same General Council meeting severed connections between the Federation and the London Board for Jewish Religious Education. Alderman records that Morris Lederman had accused the Board of disadvantaging Federation classes through 'regionalisation' schemes and had told the General Council in April 1966 that the Board had resisted recognising centres attached to new Federation synagogues; the Council voted to set up an independent London Talmud Torah Council, which began work on 1 June 1966 with 18 centres and an initial roll of over 900 pupils. The Federation had withdrawn from the Kashrus Commission in 1964; in 1966 its Beth Din began issuing its own kashrut licences, and a new Principal Rabbi, now styled Rav Rashi, was appointed: Rabbi Dr E. W. Kirzner, who had been Rav of the Stamford Hill Beth Hamedrash from 1926 to 1940.

In January 1967 Kirzner and Immanuel Jakobovits, then Chief Rabbi-elect, reached a 'document of understanding' dated 25 January, which Lederman reported to the Executive on 7 March 1967. Under it the Chief Rabbi of the United Synagogue was recognised as 'spokesman and authority' of the Ashkenazi communities, while undertaking to consult the Federation's Rav Rashi on policy decisions and public statements affecting the Federation; the two rabbis undertook to recognise each other's rulings, supported a unified Beth Din and joint administration of shechita and kashrut, and looked forward to Federation representation on the Chief Rabbinate Council. Jakobovits told the Jewish Chronicle (17 February 1967) that it was 'a purely rabbinical understanding' not binding on others; Alderman, citing Michael Persoff's study of Jakobovits, records that it was not supported by the United Synagogue's ecclesiastical or lay leaders and began to unravel within months. Towards the end of 1968, with the Federation poised to set up an independent shechita authority, Law 16 of the Board of Shechita was amended to make the Federation's Rav Rashi an Ecclesiastical Authority of the Board. Kirzner's appointment ended by mutual consent in November 1968, reportedly on grounds of ill-health, and Dayan Fisher became Acting and later full Rav Rashi.

Alderman describes a further dispute in 1970–71 over Clause 43 of the constitution of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which non-Orthodox members wished to amend to confer consultative status on the religious leaders of congregations outside the jurisdiction of the Chief Rabbi or the Haham. The Federation, the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations and parts of the United Synagogue opposed this, and Lederman and Abraham Olivestone joined an 'ad hoc Orthodox committee' formed in August 1970. The clause was amended on 24 October 1971. On 15 November 1971 the Federation's Beth Din issued a Psak Din that the amended clause was contrary to halacha and advised the Federation to withdraw from the Board of Deputies, which it did. On 29 April 1973, relying on the Board's Annual Report for 1971–72 and a legal opinion, the Beth Din rescinded the ruling so that the Federation could return to the Board and seek a further amendment, which Alderman says has never taken place.

Alderman records that the United Synagogue announced in 1970 that only caterers licensed by the Kashrus Commission could operate in its halls; that in July 1972 a proposed system of joint licensing was abandoned because of opposition from the Chief Rabbi's Beth Din; and that hopes of a merger of the two Batei Din were abandoned by 1977, when Rabbi Zalman Alony, then a Dayan in Dublin, was appointed Rosh Beth Din and Rabbi Dr S. Herman Dayan-Registrar; Rabbis Yisroel Gukovitzki and Gershon Lopian joined the Beth Din in the early 1980s. After the London Board of Shechita declined to allow products made under Federation authority to be sold through its licensees, the Executive approved negotiations in November 1982 on separate shechita facilities, and on 20 May 1984 the Federation and the Shechita Board of Luton established a Joint Shechita Authority. At the beginning of 1987 the United Synagogue, the Spanish and Portuguese congregation and the Federation announced that the London Board of Shechita and the Joint Shechita Authority would be replaced by a London Shechita Authority supervised by a panel of seven rabbis, two of them Federation nominees; Alderman describes this as parity of status between the two Batei Din.

East End contraction, headquarters and finances, 1967–1987

Alderman records that the East End congregations declined by closure and amalgamation. In 1968 the Commercial Road Great Synagogue merged with the East London Amalgamated Synagogue, Nelson Street, to form the East London Central Synagogue, a constituent; the Fieldgate Street Great Synagogue absorbed the Alie Street community in 1969 and the Ezras Chaim Synagogue in 1973. He gives the membership of the East London Central in 1970 as about 1,600, of whom only 600 lived within reasonable distance of the building. Other East End synagogues closed or were sold, among them Jubilee Street (leased to the Association for Jewish Youth), Canning Town, Alie Street, Vine Court and Princelet Street; the Bethnal Green Synagogue closed in 1984; and in 1981 the remaining members of the Montagu Road Beth Hamedrash were transferred to West Hackney and the capital assets of the Montagu Road site, about £100,000, were applied to charitable purposes in Britain and Israel. In 1987, Alderman writes, four Federation synagogues remained in the East End: two constituents (East London Central and Great Garden Street) and two affiliates (the Congregation of Jacob and the Fieldgate Street Great). Following a General Council decision in 1967, compensation from the compulsory purchase of the redundant Dzikower Synagogue and Mikvah in Dunk Street was used towards an Ilford Federation Mikvah in Cranbrook Road, opened on 15 September 1970. The Zionist Federation moved the Clapton Jewish Day School out of its building next to the Clapton Synagogue, and the Hillel House School closed in 1981.

In 1971 the Federation decided to sell its premises in Leman Street for £131,500 net, and used about £90,000 to build offices next to the Great Garden Street Synagogue in Greatorex Street, which opened in 1974 and were named Morris Lederman House on 14 January 1979. Alderman records that the overdraft stood at £308,647 in 1973, that Burial Society contributions were raised by 5p a week in August 1973 and by 10p in November 1974, and that in March 1975, on the advice of the Federation's bankers, interest on loans to synagogues began to be passed on to them, which was widely seen as a retreat from the practice of charging none. He puts the Federation's membership in 1975 at about 10,000 (6,000 in constituent and 4,000 in affiliated congregations), and the average age of Burial Society members at around 65; he writes that membership appeared to be falling at about four times the rate of British Jewry as a whole, and in the decade 1965–74 from 16,000 to 10,000. The Honorary Officers set up a Sub-Committee on Organisation and Structure in March 1975, with Lieutenant-Colonel Michael Sack as Secretary; its final report, adopted by the Executive on 15 December 1976, noted weak financial control over constituent synagogues' budgets and concluded that most members could not afford contributions large enough to finance improvements. Alderman writes that one effect was difficulty in paying Dayanim and ministers competitively: Dayan David Kaplin left the Federation's Beth Din for that of the United Synagogue in 1976, two years after joining, and Dayan Fisher retired as Rav Rashi in 1980 without being replaced. The twice-yearly journal Hamaor was overhauled in 1980, and a first conference of lay and spiritual leaders was held at Morris Lederman House on 13 January 1980. In 1987 Alderman gave the Federation's kashrut authority, the London Kashrus Board, as supervising twelve restaurants and shops, ten caterers, three hotels and three food manufacturers.

Lederman's retirement and the financial irregularities, 1989–1996

Alderman writes that Morris Lederman announced his retirement in the spring of 1989, in his 82nd year, and that the retirement 'had been forced upon him'. He records that in 1988 Lederman brought Dayan Yisroel Yaacov Lichtenstein, an American-born rabbi, to London as Rosh Beth Din, and that Rabbi Dr Berel Berkovits joined him as a Dayan two years later; that in the 1980s the Federation still claimed a membership of around 10,000, though in 1992 the actual figure was nearer 7,000; and that Lederman received substantial payments of expenses and a pension of £15,000 a year in 1990 and 1991 from Burial Society funds, payments that ceased in 1993.

According to Alderman, when members of the Executive received the audited accounts for 1987 and 1988 they found that the auditors had prefaced them with qualifications 'amounting to a charge of gross mismanagement – and worse – against Lederman and some of his former associates'. He states that sums totalling around £1.6 million, derived partly from the London Talmud Torah Council, partly from the sale of five redundant affiliated synagogues (Alie Street, Canning Town, Vine Court, Ezras Chaim and the Cavell Street site), and partly from moneys earmarked for the Israel Charity Project (which had been funded, without authorisation, from the Burial Society), had been diverted to accounts in the Channel Islands and Israel. In his account these moneys belonged to the Federation, but in some cases had been deposited under the names of Lederman and members of his immediate family.

Lederman's successor as President, Arnold Cohen (1936–2016), appointed the solicitor Harold Ragol-Levy (died 2007) to head an investigation. Alderman records that, in return for Lederman's co-operation in locating the Federation's money, Lederman and his family reached agreements to repay it in instalments with interest and to transfer property to the Federation, and that some money was repaid but the full amount owing was never recovered. The Ragol-Levy report of November 1992 concluded: 'We are not satisfied that the acts of Mr. M. Lederman were always in the best interests of the Federation of Synagogues or had the proper authority of his fellow Honorary Officers. Nor are we satisfied that he always fully informed his fellow Honorary Officers, the members of the Executive or the Council of his actions or kept adequate records as he should.' It found that Lederman had transferred funds out of the control of the elected Honorary Officers by appointing family members as sole signatories on certain Ancillary Fund bank accounts and arranging for them to transfer funds properly belonging to the Ancillary Funds to off-shore companies over which neither he nor the Federation had formal control.

The Cohen and Finlay presidencies, 1989–2014

Arnold Cohen, a Federation Treasurer since 1985, head of an accountancy firm and an alumnus of Gateshead Yeshiva, became President in 1989 and held the office until June 2001; Alderman writes that his tenure might well have ended in a merger with the United Synagogue, which was the subject of private, unofficial discussion from time to time but never happened. On 15 June 1989 Cohen reported to the Council that Gerald Kushner had been appointed Head of Administration in succession to Michael Goldman, who continued as Clerk to the Federation's Beth Din, and drew attention to the poor physical state of Head Office. The timeline below, citing the Federation's website, dates a headquarters relocation to 1989; Alderman records that a site at 65 Watford Way, Hendon, was purchased and the offices opened in May 1992, with the Burial Society, Beth Din and kashrus division moving in, and that Morris Lederman House was put on the market, its sale concluding in 1997.

Alderman records that the London Talmud Torah Council and the Burial Society were transferred wholly to the Federation's administration, and that for some years the Federation was kept solvent only by selling property and by interest on deposits at the House of Rothschild. The deficit stood at £275,000 in 1992 and, Cohen told the Council on 18 May 1993, £355,000. Burial fees were raised, and since more than half the Burial Society's members were over 70 and hoped-for extra income of £95,000 a year was unlikely to be realised, a one-off levy of £52 per member (excluding senior citizens) was imposed and staff salaries were frozen. The kashrus division, under Rabbi (later Dayan) Moshe Elzas, became a significant source of income: its revenue rose from £24,000 in the last eight months of 1995 to £55,000 in the first eight months of 1996. From 1994 the reconstituted London Shechita Board began annual payments, initially £10,000, for services rendered by the Federation's Dayanim. In 1997 the Executive agreed to sell three of the Federation's fourteen constituent synagogues (Neasden, Woolwich and South Hackney); of fourteen affiliated congregations, roughly half could not muster a minyan on the Sabbath and were gradually forced to close. In March 1996 Cohen reported that the underlying deficit had fallen to about £60,000 and later that year that capital reserves were about £1 million; money recovered from the Lederman family was earmarked for new synagogues, one of which opened at Croydon; facilities at the Rainham cemetery were upgraded; and in 1997–98 the Federation made a grant of £1,000 to the South London Mikvah, appointed a student chaplain for universities in south-east England and agreed to sponsor the Jewish chaplaincy at the University of Manchester for three years at £15,000 a year.

Alderman writes that Cohen's team sought to re-establish the Federation's status within British Jewry by confronting the United Synagogue. After talks on merging the two Batei Din failed, Cohen told the General Council on 7 December 1993 that the United Synagogue's honorary officers 'were not really interested in a merger; they were only interested in swallowing the Federation up'. The Beth Din was marketed as a court of last resort for Orthodox Jews worldwide and in 1998 began to hear cases brought by non-Jewish litigants. Alderman credits Dayanim Berkovits and Lichtenstein with a pivotal part in the amendment, in what became the Family Law Act 1996, empowering a civil court to require a divorcing Jewish couple to declare that they had taken the steps needed to dissolve their religious marriage. In 1994 Cohen announced that Head Office would no longer be represented on the Board of Deputies, though constituent and affiliated congregations remained free to seek representation. In 1989 the Federation had declined to take part in the process of choosing Jonathan Sacks as Chief Rabbi, and Alan Finlay later announced that it would play no part in the election of Sacks's successor, Ephraim Mirvis.

Alderman records that Cohen retired in June 2001 with his Vice-Presidents, Jonathan Winegarten and Jeffrey Gitlin, leaving three unsolved problems: the 1947 constitution, under which the General Council was the supreme governing body while its members bore the ultimate legal liability; the representation of women; and the provision of a cemetery in north-west London. Alan Finlay, a solicitor and Treasurer under Cohen, was President from 2001. Alderman gives the end of his presidency as 2014 in one place and, in another, says that Andrew Cohen, a chartered accountant, succeeded him in December 2013. On women's representation, Alderman records that an Association of Ladies' Guilds was established in 1969; that in July 1977 Dayan Fisher ruled that women should not vote for synagogue officers or boards or serve as General Council delegates; that later the Beth Din refused to allow a constituent synagogue to elect a woman as its delegate to the Board of Deputies; and that in December 2008 Dayan Lichtenstein issued a Psak Din under which women in constituent and affiliated congregations could be elected to boards of management and appointed to the Council, the Board of Deputies question being left to individual congregations. Mrs Barbara Cohen became the first female chairperson of a Federation synagogue (the affiliated Loughton congregation). A new constitution approved by the Charity Commission was adopted in 2013–14, after a working party chaired by Rabbi Jeffrey Cohen: the Council became an advisory body to the trustees (the President, two Vice-Presidents, two Treasurers and two Treasurers of the Burial Society), who must be male, while each constituent and affiliated synagogue may appoint female delegates, who become full Council members. Farmland near Northwood Hills station, Harrow, bought in 1998 for a cemetery never obtained planning permission; in September 2014 Andrew Cohen announced the purchase, for £1.6 million, of land designated for burial in Edgware.

Rainham and the Federation's recent finances

Alderman records that in 1936, under Morry Davis, the Federation bought waterlogged land at Rainham, Essex, for burial at an advantageous price; the purchase was controversial because of the distance from most members and the cost of drainage. In 2008 Havering Aggregates, a local mineral extraction company, bought from the Federation a ten-year lease giving it the right to extract gravel from land not in use for burial. Alderman estimates that sums totalling at least £1.4 million would accrue to the Federation in extraction royalties between 2008 and 2018 inclusive, and that these, with significant supervision fees on kosher restaurants and food manufacturers, 'transformed the Federation's balance sheet'. At the time of writing in January 2015 the Federation comprised nine affiliated and fourteen constituent congregations, including the Beis Hamedrash Nishmas Yisroel in central Hendon and Ohr Yerushalayim in Salford, its first constituent outside Greater London; Ilford and Finchley Central had moved into new premises. Alderman puts the Burial Society's membership at almost 2,900 subscribers, representing perhaps 9,000 people, and total membership at probably more than 12,000. A Strategy Review ordered by Finlay reported in January 2013 that the Federation sought to 'empower today's independent, Orthodox communities'.

Presidents of the Federation

Presidents of the Federation, as recorded by Alderman and elsewhere on this page

President	Term	Notes
Samuel Montagu	Founder; to 1911	Alderman says he held the title 'Acting President'.
Louis Montagu	Elected 28 February 1911; resigned 25 November 1925	The second President.
Morry Davis	Elected 20 March 1928; to 1944 according to the Joseph Cohen Antiques history	Elected by 79 votes to 51.
Aaron Wright	President in 1946–47; resigned July 1947	Re-elected after the 1947 constitution came into force, then resigned within weeks.
Jack Goldberg	Elected early 1948; resigned 18 April 1950; died 16 June 1951	The fifth President.
Morris Lederman	Elected June 1951; announced his retirement in spring 1989	Effectively acting President from 1950.
Arnold Cohen	1989 to June 2001	A Federation Treasurer since 1985.
Alan Finlay	From 2001; Alderman gives the end of his presidency as 2014 and, elsewhere, December 2013	A solicitor and former Treasurer.
Andrew Cohen	From December 2013	A chartered accountant; succeeded Finlay.

Membership and finances: figures reported

Federation membership and finances, as given by Alderman

Date	Figure	Context
November 1911	6,500 members in 51 synagogues	Joseph Blank's figure in the Chief Rabbinate correspondence.
1912–13	5,134 Burial Society subscribers in 55 synagogues; weekly subscriptions £1,922, funerals £1,854	Burial Society finances.
1920	9,484 Burial Society members	An increase of 72 per cent on the 1914 figure.
1926	12,565 families, over 50,000 people	On the books of Federation synagogues.
1937	About 13,000 families; 68 affiliated synagogues	Alderman later gives 69 affiliated synagogues at 30 June 1938.
1947	About 15,000 members (Aaron Wright, April 1947), against 20,000 male seatholders of the United Synagogue; about 11,500 Burial Society members	Alderman's calculation for the Burial Society.
1951–52	Expenditure up 26 per cent, income up 9 per cent; overdraft about £11,000
November 1957	Overdraft £25,000; reduced by about £18,000 by the end of 1958
1965–74	Membership fell from 16,000 to 10,000	Alderman's estimate.
1973	Overdraft £308,647
1975	About 10,000 members (6,000 in constituent and 4,000 in affiliated congregations)	Average age of Burial Society members around 65.
1992	Actual membership nearer 7,000	Alderman says about 10,000 was still claimed in the 1980s.
1992	Deficit £275,000	Rising to £355,000 by 18 May 1993.
March 1996	Underlying deficit about £60,000; capital reserves about £1 million later that year
2008–2018	At least £1.4 million expected in gravel extraction royalties at Rainham	Lease to Havering Aggregates from 2008.
January 2015	Burial Society almost 2,900 subscribers (perhaps 9,000 people); total membership probably over 12,000	Alderman's estimate.

Timeline

• 1887: Founded by Samuel Montagu.
• 1890: Burial Society established.
• 1905: Federation severs links with the Jewish Religious Education Board; it returns in 1911.
• 1911: Samuel Montagu dies; Louis Montagu presides.
• 28 February 1911: Louis Montagu elected the Federation's second President.
• 1912: Dr Meir Tsevi Jung confirmed as Chief Minister (6 March) and installed (16 June).
• 1925: Louis Montagu ousted; Morry Davis elected.
• 25 November 1925: Louis Montagu resigns after the dispute over the Secretary's pension.
• 20 March 1928: Morry Davis elected President.
• 1928–1944: Davis presidency; donations to Zionist causes.
• 1934: Revised objects and a General Council constitution adopted.
• 20 February 1938: Rainham cemetery consecrated.
• 1 June 1947: New constitution establishes constituent synagogues.
• June 1951: Morris Lederman elected President.
• 1966: Beth Din formed.
• 14 April 1966: General Council approves the Beth Din of the Federation of Synagogues.
• 1 June 1966: London Talmud Torah Council begins work.
• 15 November 1971: Beth Din issues a Psak Din on the amended Clause 43 of the Board of Deputies' constitution; the Federation withdraws from the Board; the ruling is rescinded on 29 April 1973 to permit its return.
• 20 May 1984: Joint Shechita Authority established with the Shechita Board of Luton.
• 1987: London Shechita Authority announced.
• 1989: Headquarters relocation.
• Spring 1989: Morris Lederman announces his retirement; Arnold Cohen becomes President.
• May 1992: Offices at 65 Watford Way, Hendon, open.
• November 1992: Ragol-Levy report on the Federation's finances.
• June 2001: Arnold Cohen retires; Alan Finlay becomes President.
• 2008: Lease of Rainham land to Havering Aggregates.
• December 2013: Andrew Cohen succeeds Alan Finlay as President.
• 2020s: 18 members, 26 affiliates.

Activities

The Federation offers kehillah services, KF Kosher certification, Beis Din rulings, burial at Edmonton and Rainham cemeteries, and shiurim. It supports eruvim and communal welfare.

Historically, the Federation's activities have included the administration of its Beth Din, established on 14 April 1966, which issued marriage licences and began issuing its own kashrut licences that year, and of its Burial Society, whose contributions have been a principal source of its income since the 1920s. Alderman records that in 1936 the Federation acquired a site of 106 acres at Rainham, Essex, for burial, consecrated on 20 February 1938, and that in September 2014 it announced the purchase of land for burial in Edgware for £1.6 million. A London Talmud Torah Council was established on 1 June 1966 to run the Federation's Talmud Torahs and Hebrew classes. In 1987 Alderman gave the Federation's Kashrus Board as supervising twelve restaurants and shops, ten caterers, three hotels and three food manufacturers, and recorded the announcement at the beginning of that year of a London Shechita Authority on which the Federation nominated two of seven rabbis.

Relation to Zionism

Early leadership divided: Louis Montagu anti-Zionist; successor Morry Davis Zionist vice-president of Jewish National Fund. Donations supported Zionist institutions and Palestine relief, linking diaspora Orthodoxy to the Zionist regime. No evidence of institutional anti-Zionism; support for the settler colony persists through historical precedents.

Disputes over Zionism, 1911–1919

Alderman distinguishes between the organisation and its officers. He records that Louis Montagu was an anti-Zionist, as were his brother Edwin Montagu and many Anglo-Jewish leaders of their generation, and that before 1914 the dispute between Zionists and anti-Zionists seemed to the Federation a minor irritant. Montagu supported the manifesto against Zionism, signed by D. L. Alexander as President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and by Claude Montefiore as President of the Anglo-Jewish Association, published as a letter in The Times on 24 May 1917. On 25 June 1917 some members of the Federation's Board of Delegates called on the Federation to issue a public disapproval of the letter, and a further attempt to distance the Federation from its President's views followed in September. At the Executive Committee on 20 November 1917 Montagu ruled that 'the Federation as such was precluded from a discussion on political questions' and offered to resign; the offer was not taken up. Alderman writes that Montagu admitted he had acted in a purely private capacity in supporting the manifesto.

Montagu then took part in the discussions that led to the formation of the League of British Jews, whose stated objects were to uphold the status of British subjects professing the Jewish religion, to resist the allegation that Jews constitute a separate political nationality, and to facilitate the settlement in Palestine of Jews who wished to make it their home; at its first general meeting on 14 March 1918 Lionel de Rothschild was elected President and Montagu Vice-President. At a special meeting of the Board of Delegates at 17 Leman Street on 14 January 1918, attended by 100 delegates, a vote of no confidence in the President, moved by V. Shapiro of the Philpot Street Great Synagogue, received 26 votes, with 44 against and 30 abstentions. In 1919 the constitution of the Board of Deputies was altered, and the Federation became entitled to six delegates in addition to those elected by individual affiliated synagogues; some twenty Federation synagogues were represented at the Board in 1919.

Grants, resolutions and representation, 1926–1943

Alderman records that in January 1926 Morry Davis and his supporters carried through the Burial Society a motion to donate a total of £150 to the Keren Hayesod and the Keren Kayemet, and that similar resolutions were approved by the Board of Delegates in February, with grants of increasing size made regularly afterwards to the Keren Hayesod and the Keren Kayemet (Jewish National Fund). He calls the Federation the first significant non-Zionist organisation in Anglo-Jewry to contribute to these funds. Alderman describes the Federation under Davis as identifying itself 'totally' with the Zionist effort: the Jewish National Fund received very substantial grants and a loan of £10,000 in 1933, and money went to the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, the Balfour Forest and Kfar David. After the killing of Jews at Hebron in 1929 the Federation set up a Palestine Emergency Fund; on 12 September 1929 it sent resolutions criticising British administration in Palestine to the Prime Minister, Ramsay MacDonald; and on 9 January 1936 the General Council resolved, at Davis's prompting, to deplore the establishment in Palestine of a Legislative Council which, Alderman writes, would have relegated the Jews of Palestine 'to the status of a Minority'. In 1943 the Federation urged the election to the Board of Deputies of members who would support the re-establishment of a Jewish state. The Federation's objects as revised in 1934 included furthering 'the upbuilding of Eretz Yisroel'. Alderman also notes that the Sinai Associations founded by Rabbi Jung before 1921 had, in practice, a strong Zionist inclination.

Education and Israel-related activity, 1948–1989

Alderman records that in May 1948 the Federation gave £2,000 to the State of Israel. In 1956 the Zionist Federation agreed to help fund the Hillel House School in Willesden and the Clapton Jewish Day School, with the Federation retaining the buildings and responsibility for the schools' religious character, and in the Federation's Executive the arrangement drew objections as well as support. At the time of the Six-Day War in 1967, Federation members pledged £65,000 in response to Israel's emergency appeal; an 'Aid for Israel' fund distributed over £50,000 to charities in Israel between 1967 and 1981; and the Federation was represented in the World Zionist Organisation. In 1981 the General Council decided that Kol Nidre Appeal collections in Federation synagogues would no longer go to the Joint Israel Appeal, over which the Federation had little say, but would be earmarked for specific projects, the first being the Laniado Hospital at Kiryat Zanz, Netanya.

Alderman describes the 'ill-fated "Israel Project"', in which, in partnership with the Jewish Agency, the Federation envisaged building a kirya in Israel with a hotel for members and a retirement villa. By 1971 about £60,000 had been raised for it by a levy on members; the scheme was dropped on grounds of cost, and instead the Armon Hotel in Netanya was bought in 1971 for £120,000 for retired members and holiday use. Lederman told the General Council in August 1973 that there had been 'some error of judgment in the planning of the Israel Project'; by 1979 the hotel was profitable but only because of permanent residents, of whom one was a Federation member, and in 1984 it was decided to sell it.

Associated individuals

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Associated Individuals

Name	Role	Brief Biography
Samuel Montagu	Founder	Liberal MP; philanthropist uniting immigrant synagogues; supported modest Orthodox worship.
Louis Montagu	President (1911–1925)	Son of founder; non-observant and anti-Zionist; ousted by board.
Morry Davis	President (1928–1944)	Zionist Labour politician; vice-president Jewish National Fund; expanded Federation influence.
Morris Lederman	Post-war President	Oversaw suburban recovery and growth.
Arnold Cohen	Moderniser President	Boosted prosperity and Beth Din prestige.
Shraga Fievel Zimmerman	Current Av Beis Din	Gateshead-educated; leads halachic authority.

Members

The Federation lists eighteen members and twenty six affiliates an increase since June 2025 from 17 and 23.

Anshei Shlomo | Beis Gavriel | Clapton Synagogue | Croydon Synagogue | East London Central Synagogue | Eitz Hachaim | Finchley Central Synagogue | Hendon Beis Hamedrash | Ilford Federation Synagogue | Kehillas Netzach Yisroel | Machzike Hadath Synagogue | Netzach Yisrael | Nishmas Yisroel | Ohr Yerushalayim | Ohr Yisrael | Shomrei Hadath | Sinai | Yeshurun Edgware

Affiliated Communities

Aish | Chabad of Bricket Wood | Chabad of Brighton | Chabad of Elstree and Borehamwood | Chabad of Golders Green | Chabad of Hampstead Garden Suburb | Chabad of Islington | Chabad of Radlett | Chabad of West Hampstead | Chazak | Congregation of Jacob | Edgware Sephardi Beis Hamedrash (ESBH) | Finchley Road (Sassover) | Hashkama Minyan at EAYC | JLE | Kesher Kehillah | Kesser Torah | Leytonstone and Wanstead Synagogue | Loughton Synagogue | Nefesh Hatorah | Seed Shul | Springfield Synagogue | Stamford Hill Beth Hamedrash | Tiferet Eyal | Torah Action Life | Torat Moshe

List of member and affiliated congregations

The Federation states that it 'comprises 18 constituent and 27 affiliated kehillos'; its affiliates include organisations and minyanim as well as synagogues. The table lists 44 active congregations: 18 constituents and 23 affiliates on the Federation's current list, two Manchester congregations that JCR-UK records as Federation constituents, and Dvash in Finchley, which is not on the current list.

Federation of Synagogues congregations (44)

Congregation	Town	Charity no.	Chabad-Lubavitch	Status
Aish Community Synagogue	London (Hendon)	–		affiliate
Anshei Shlomo	London (Hendon)	–		constituent
Beis Gavriel Lubavitch	London (Hendon)	CC 1129679	yes	constituent
Beis Hamedrash Nishmas Yisroel	London (Hendon)	CC 1136805		constituent
Chabad Brighton	Brighton & Hove	CC 1192044	yes	affiliate
Chabad Lubavitch of Radlett	Radlett	–	yes	affiliate
Chabad Lubavitch of West Hampstead	London (West Hampstead)	CC 1201417	yes	affiliate
Chabad of Borehamwood and Elstree	Borehamwood	–	yes	affiliate
Chabad of Bricket Wood & Surrounding Villages	Bricket Wood	CC 1198884	yes	affiliate
Chabad of Golders Green	London (Golders Green)	–	yes	affiliate
Chabad of Hampstead Garden Suburb	London (Hampstead Garden Suburb)	CC 1193647	yes	affiliate
Chabad-Lubavitch of Islington	London (Islington)	CC 1164760	yes	affiliate
Chazak	London (Hendon)	–		affiliate
Clapton Federation Synagogue	London (Upper Clapton)	–		constituent
Congregation of Jacob Synagogue	London (Whitechapel)	CC 1208500		affiliate
Croydon & District Synagogue	Croydon	–		constituent
Darchei Avot	London (Hendon)	–		affiliate
Dvash	London (Finchley)	CC 1185002		affiliate (not on current Federation list)
East London Central Synagogue	London (Stepney)	–		constituent
Edgware Sephardi Beis Hamedrash (ESBH)	Edgware	CC 1197604		affiliate
Eitz Hachaim	Edgware	–		constituent
Finchley Central Synagogue	London (Finchley)	–		constituent
Hashkama Minyan at EAYC	Edgware	–		affiliate
Hendon Beis Hamedrash	London (Hendon)	–		constituent
Ilford Federation Synagogue	Ilford	–		constituent
JLE	London (Golders Green)	–		affiliate
Kehilas Kol Yaakov	Greater Manchester	–		constituent (JCR-UK; not on current Federation list)
Kehillas Netzach Yisroel	Edgware	CC 1120294		constituent
Kesher Kehillah	London (Golders Green)	–		affiliate
Kesser Torah	Edgware	–		affiliate
Leytonstone and Wanstead Synagogue	London (Leytonstone)	CC 1185624		affiliate
Loughton Synagogue	Loughton	CC 1188590		affiliate
Machzike Hadath Synagogue	London (Golders Green)	CC 289999		constituent
Netzach Israel Synagogue	London (Golders Green)	–		constituent
Ohel Torah Congregation	Salford	CC 1136772		constituent (JCR-UK; not on current Federation list)
Ohr Yerushalayim	Salford	CC 1078745		constituent
Ohr Yisrael Synagogue	Borehamwood	–		constituent
Shomrai Hadath Synagogue	London (West Hampstead)	–		constituent
Sinai Synagogue	London (Golders Green)	–		constituent
Springfield Synagogue	London (Upper Clapton)	CC 1207000		affiliate
Tiferet Eyal Synagogue	London (Hendon)	CC 1116736		affiliate
Torah Action Life	London (Golders Green)	CC 1145908		affiliate
Torat Moshe	London (Golders Green)	–		affiliate
Yeshurun Synagogue	Edgware	–		constituent

See also

United Synagogue Jewish National Fund Kehillas Netzach Yisroel

External links

Official website