Kenneth Edward Collins

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Dr Kenneth Collins. Source
The SCOJEC office bearers, circa 2012. L to R: Kenneth Collins, Ephraim Borowski, John Cosgrove, Stephen Kliner, Daniel Clapham, Philip Mason Source
Kenneth Collins being awarded an honorary MD degree at Glasgow University in 2024. Fellow SJAC director Sam Leighton also graduated wit a PhD. Source
Kenneth Collins with Stephen Kliner at the Tel Aviv book launch of ‘The Jewish Experience in Scotland’, 2017.Source
Kenneth Collins (second right) with Eileen Yeo, Fiona Frank and Billy Kay, at the release of Fiona's book 'Candles, Conversions, and Class: Five Generations of a Jewish Family', 2019. Source
Kenneth Collins lecturing on ‘Poles and Jews in Wartime Edinburgh', 2016. Source
Kenneth Collins (far right), Harvey Kaplan, Sir Tom Devine, and Dr Neville Lamdan at the 200 Years of Scottish Jewry Book Launch and Scottish Jewry Family Tree introduction, held in Garnethill Synagogue, 2018. Source

Kenneth Collins is a settler colonist in occupied Palestine from Glasgow. He has been a key member of the Scottish Zionist movement for decades.

Activities

Kenneth Collins at the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre Book Launch, 2018. Source
Kenneth Collins (second right) and Harvey Kaplan, Sir Tom Devine, Dr Neville Lamdan at the 200 Years of Scottish Jewry Book Launch and Scottish Jewry Family Tree introduction, held in Garnethill Synagogue, 2018. Source
Kenneth Collins on the Giffnock Synagogue team quiz with Ephraim Borowski, Daniel Clapham, and Ellis Simpson, 1996. Source
Kenneth Collins at the induction of Rabbi Moishe Rubin at Giffnock Synagogue, with Rabbi Yitzchok Rubin, Rubin’s wife Hadassa and their five children, and Hadassa’s father, Rabbi Beryl Cohen, 1999. Source
Kenneth Collins (centre right) at the Donald Dewar Holocaust Memorial Event, with Jim Murphy MP, Diana Wolfson, Provost Alan Steele, Ken Mackintosh MSP, Dr John Reid and John Young MSP, 2000. Source
Kenneth Collins (far right) with the Israeli ex ambassador, Zvi Heifetz (second right), on a tour of Garnethill Synagogue, alongside Harvey Kaplan and Aharon Soudry, 2007. Source: The Jewish Chronicle, 30 March 2007, page 32.
Kenneth Collins (left) at the Glasgow solidarity for Israel evening at Giffnock Synagogue, with Kenneth Macintosh and Zvi Ravner, 2006. [Source: The Jewish Chronicle, 11 August 2006, page 16]
Kenneth Collins at the 125th anniversary symposium of the Garnethill Synagogue, with [Nicholas Evans], Lord Provost [Liz Cameron], [Harvey Kaplan] and [Gerald Levin], 2004. [Source: The Jewish Chronicle, 22 October, 2004, page 24]
Kenneth Collins and Rabbi Moshe Rubin, at the Rabbi’s induction as minister of Giffnock and Newlands Synagogue, 1999. [Source: The Jewish Chronicle, 5 November 1999, 2002]
Kenneth Collins and his wife Irene (left) welcoming the Chief Rabbi Cyril Harris and his wife, Ann, upon the Rabbi’s talk in Glasgow on ‘Life in the New South Africa’ for Jewish people, 1997. [Source: The Jewish Chronicle, 27 June 1997, page 18]
Kenneth Collins (centre rights) admiring a Benno Schotz sculpture, with Harvey Livingston, Dianne Wolfson, Myrna Sneader, and Rabbi Phillip Greenberg, 1995. [Source: The Jewish Chronicle, 3 November 1995, page 18]
Kenneth’s son, David Collins (left) receiving the Herzl award for his ‘outstanding work for religious Zionism’ as part of the Zionist organisation Mizrachi. Presented by the Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, with Israeli Ambassador Zvi Heifetz (centre), 2005. [Source: The Jewish Chronicle, 7 October 2005, page 13]
Kenneth Collins’ feature in the Jewish Chronicle after being elected president of Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, where his major priority would be to aid in the development of the Glasgow “Renewal and Jewish Continuity” initiative- designed to enhance Jewish community and awareness in Glasgow, 1995. [Source: The Jewish Chronicle, 26 May 1995, page 19]


Activity

Kenneth Collins has held a plethora of roles across Glasgow’s Jewish community, alongside being a former GP and author 4 of books. His roles have included: President of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council, Chairman of Scottish Council of Jewish Communities, Chairman of the Scottish Jewish Archives Centre, and Chairman of Giffnock and Newlands Synagogue.

Collins was the chairman of the Hillel Committee in Glasgow during the early 70s- the largest Jewish student organisation in the world.[1] Hillel is fervently Zionist, as its previous motto “Wherever we stand, we stand with Israel” may suggest, and forbids any interaction with any organisation involved with the BDS movement.[2]

Collins was the chairman of the Jewish Education Board in Glasgow in the early 90s. In 1991, he expressed dismay at the reduced financial support from the Zionist Federation Educational Trust for Glasgow’s Calderwood Lodge Jewish Day School. The head teacher at the time was Dianna Wolfson, who said the school’s aim had never been to make pupils religious, only to let the children experience meaningful living Judaism.[3]

Collins was the chairman of the Bnei Akiva parents’ association in Glasgow in the early 90s. Bnei Akiva is the largest religious Zionist youth movement in the world- a wing of the Mizrachi movement. One of its core tenets is the emigration to Israel as a central commandment of Judaism, and it has a history of celebrating and encouraging enrolment into the IDF. Commenting as chairman in 1990, he was concerned by the absence of a Jewish secondary school amongst declining rates of religiously observant households, and wanted to strengthen the Jewish identity of youngsters and to open up a world of contacts for them “so that they will feel part of a wider Jewish community which embraces Israel”.[4]

In 2002, he was made trustee of The Chief Rabbinate Trust- the body which oversees the office of the Chief Rabbi; at the time Jonathan Sacks.[5] Kenneth’s daughter Eve married the Chief Rabbi’s son Joshua in 1997, making Kenneth his father-in-law.[6]

As president in 2006, Collins oversaw the opening by the Lubavitch Rabbi's Chaim Jacobs of Kosher restaurant 'L'Chaim's', in the Giffnock Synagogue complex, wishing 'the project every success'.[7]

Collins becomes a settler colonist

The sense that there is a dwindling of Jewish life in Britain is acute, especially among those emigrating from communities far away from London. Dr Kenneth and Irene Collins from Glasgow finally made the decision to move after Kenneth retired from the NHS after over three decades as a GP. “We were always Zionist inclined and all our four children went to Bnei Akiva,” he says. Now two of those children live in London and the other two have already made aliyah. “We still feel that our Scottish and Jewish identities go together,” says the former president of the community’s representative council, “but most of the people our age have no more children living in Glasgow. We just want to spend more time with our children and grandchildren.”[8]

Books

  • Kenneth Edward Collins JEWISH MEDICAL STUDENTS AND GRADUATES IN SCQTLAND * 1739-1945 Thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, Department of Economic History, University of Glasgow, Faculty of Social Sciences, Degree of Ph.D March 1987.
  • Scotland's Jews: A Guide to the History and Community of the Jews in Scotland (1999)
  • Second City Jewry: Jews of Glasgow in the Age of Expansion 1790-1919 (1990)
  • Go and Learn: The International Story of Jews and Medicine in Scotland (1988)
  • Glasgow Jewry : a guide to the history and community of the Jews in Glasgow (1993)
  • Jewish Glasgow : an illustrated history (2013)
  • The Jewish Experience in Scotland: from Immigration to Integration (2016)
Jewish Glasgow- An Illustrated History, Kenneth Collins, 2013. Source
The Jewish Experience in Scotland- from Immigration to Integration, Kenneth Collins, 2016. Source
Jewish Glasgow- An Illustrated History, Kenneth Collins, 2013. [Scotland’s Jews, Kenneth Collins, 2008. https://archive.is/wip/Pe4he Source]

Notes

  1. ↑ ‘Shock move to sell Hillel House’, The Jewish Chronicle, 3 December 1976, page 8.
  2. ↑ Hillel International Hillel Israel Guidelines, Hillel International, 2025
  3. ↑ 'Regional in Brief', The Jewish Chronicle, 19 July 1991, page 9.
  4. ↑ 'Culture', The Jewish Chronicle, 16 November 1990, page 22-23.
  5. ↑ ’Chief's new trustees’, The Jewish Chronicle, 6 December 2002
  6. ↑ ’Social and Personal’, The Jewish Chronicle, 10 January 1997, page 29
  7. ↑ Lindy Markson, 'New kosher facility to open in Glasgow', Jewish Chronicle, 10 February 2006.
  8. ↑ 'This year in Jerusalem', Jewish Chronicle, 17 July 2009.
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