NNLS rabbi to take up role at Westminster Synagogue

Rabbi Zahavit Shalev, one of the senior leadership team at New North London Synagogue, is moving to become interim rabbi at Westminster Synagogue, whose spiritual leader for the past seven years, Rabbi Benji Stanley, is leaving to study in Israel.

Her departure comes as the flagship Masorti congregation searches for a successor to its senior rabbi, Jonathan Wittenberg, who is due to retire at the end of the year.

Rabbi Benji Stanley of Westminster Synagogue[Missing Credit]

Westminster will bid farewell to Rabbi Stanley – who is planning to study at yeshivah in Jerusalem for at least a year before returning to set up a Progressive educational centre in London – at a service to celebrate his time at the community on the last Shabbat of June.

Its president Lord Leigh and chair Dudi Appleton said: “Over the years, so many of us have been moved by Benji’s wisdom, compassion, and leadership – his words have brought comfort in difficult times and joy in our celebrations.

“While we feel the sadness of his upcoming departure, this Shabbat will be a chance to come together in deep gratitude for all he has given to our community: a vibrant and engaged congregation, grounded in tradition and full of promise.”

Rabbi Stanley said he was  “both deeply sad and excited” to be moving on. “Now in my eighth year here, although I would love to stay longer, the time has come for my next stage, and our community is strong and ready for its next stage. Later this year I will start at least a year of full-time intensive Jewish learning, and professional up-skilling.”

He said he loved Westminster Synagogue and was “extraordinarily proud of what we have achieved over the last seven years.” The congregation had grown “as a community that loves Torah, and does loving kindness (chesed) and thrives on active membership,” he said.

"This last year supporting our community in such pain has been challenging, but truthfully, it’s a challenge I have enjoyed, ensuring this synagogue continues to grow as a place where members with such a range of views can come together loving Judaism and their Jewishness, learning and services, and valuing each other. The strength of our team has made this work manageable, collaborative and joyful.

"This multiplicity of leaders will enable us to go from strength to strength. The community is in a better place, just as it has gone from strength to strength, decade to decade, over the last 68 years.”

Rabbi Shalev, who will join Rabbi Kamila Kopřivová at Westminster, became Rabbi Wittenberg’s assistant at NNLS in 2012 and obtained her semichah at Leo Baeck College in 2019. She directs the conversion programme at NNLS.

While she was sad to be leaving NNLS, she told congregants, she was “excited” to take up the post at Westminster. “Even as I loved serving NNLS, I harboured the hope that I might get to know other parts of the Jewish world. This terrific opportunity arose and I seized it,” she said.

NNLS chairs Vicky Fox and Bruce Rigal said: “Throughout her time with us, Rabbi Zahavit has led the way with her passion for engaging families in Jewish life and learning; she has been instrumental in the success of our conversion programme, and has served the community with wisdom, warmth and strength.”

NNLS scholar-in-residence Rabbi Chaim Weiner, who works part-time at the community, will double his hours from September to help the rabbinic team.

Meanwhile, Lord Leigh told the JC this week that Westminster would remain independent and had no plans to join the newly formed Progressive Judaism.