Patrick Comerford
St Albans is a cathedral city with a long history. But it is also a modern cosmopolitan city, set in beautiful countryside yet within ready easy reach of London and of both Gatwick and Luton airports.
St Albans is a religious city too: as well as the cathedral or abbey, it has 37 churches, two mosques and two synagogues, and a long tradition of co-operation between all the congregations and of inter-faith events. Recent census data in the UK shows Hertfordshire has the biggest level of Jewish population growth outside of Salford.
During my visits to St Albans in recent weeks, I wanted to learn about Jewish life in St Albans and about the city’s two synagogues – one United (or Orthodox) and the other Masorti (or Conservative).
The United or Orthodox synagogue, St Albans Synagogue, which I discussed two weeks ago, is the oldest extant Jewish congregation in Hertfordshire and the first and only purpose-built synagogue still in use in Hertfordshire.
St Albans Masorti Synagogue or Conservative synagogue started in 1990 with three families and 18 members. They were seeking different values to those of their current community, with more community activities and engagement. They realised their Jewish values were best met within the Masorti movement and drew on support from Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg of the New North London Synagogue, established in 1974, and Edgware Masorti Synagogue, as well as Chazan Jaclyn Chernett, a founder of Masorti Judaism UK.
On the community’s website, Rabbi Reuven Hammer explains: ‘Masorti is traditional Judaism for modern Jews. We believe in our tradition as an evolving and living thing … Imagine a traditional service combined with more modern and egalitarian social values, where men and women both take on leadership roles, and you won’t be far off.’
There are Masorti communities in London (St John’s Wood, Finchley, Edgware, Hatch End and Stoke Newington), Hertfordshire (St Albans and Elstree and Borehamwood), Essex, Oxford, Leeds and Liverpool.
The community in St Albans has grown rapidly and the congregation was incorporated as St Albans Masorti Synagogue in 2007. But for the first 20 years or so, it was a nomadic community that met in a variety of venues, including people’s houses.
It moved into its own building in 2012, and there it continues to celebrate Shabbat, High Holy Days and other festivals throughout the year and to run many social and educational events.
The congregation (Sams) is a constituent synagogue of Masorti Judaism, formerly the Assembly of Masorti Synagogues. Membership has continued to grow and is now approaching 500 people. It is the only Masorti community outside the M25, and so attracts people from large distances.
The community has been served by four rabbis since 2000: Rabbi Paul Glantz (2000-2003), Rabbi Jeremy Gordon (2004-2008), Rabbi Raphael (Rafi) Kaiserblueth (2010-2016), who was the congregation’s first full-time rabbi, and Rabbi Adam Zagoria-Moffet, who was appointed in 2017.
Rabbi Zagoria-Moffet is originally from Phoenix, Arizona. Like Rabbi Jeremy Gordon, he was ordained at the Jewish Theological Seminary, New York, where he received an MA in Jewish Thought. He co-edited the first Hebrew/English egalitarian Sefaradi siddur and runs the independent publisher Izzun Books. He regularly teaches on the adult education classes in St Albans Cathedral, and in return regularly welcomes visitors from the abbey.
The Jewish Chronicle reported last year (16 March 2023) that when the Masorti congregation in St Albans joined the small number of synagogues offering congregants the opportunity to pay what they want for membership, its leaders were ‘pleasantly surprised’ by the response.
It is a sad reflection of the heightened levels of antisemitism in Britain that I was asked not to use any of the photographs I had taken of the outside of the building, and the two photographs illustrating this posting are from the congregation’s Facebook page.
St Albans once had a third Jewish community. The Bedfordshire-Hertfordshire Liberal Synagogue first opened in St Albans in 1967, meeting mainly in St. Albans and Bedford.
Since 1982, it has been The Bedfordshire Progressive Synagogue, based in Luton and Bedford, serving members throughout Bedfordshire as well as Buckinghamshire and North Hertfordshire.
The majority of the services are now held in Luton. In recent years, the Bedford Jewish Congregation has seen a renaissance with regular monthly services in Bedford under the auspices of the Rodef Shalom Synagogue. However, some special events, such as Chanukah and Succoth, still take place in members’ homes.
It is a constituent community of Liberal Judaism, formerly the Union of Liberal and Progressive Synagogues (ULPS).
Shabbat Shalom
