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Reform Members in Queen's Birthday Honours

Monday, 21 June 2010

A playwright from West London Synagogue and a Jewish educator from Wimbledon and District Synagogue have been recognised in the Queen's Birthday Honours.

Ronald Harwood has been knighted for services to drama, becoming 'Sir Ronald'. The West London Synagogue member who won an Academy Award for 'The Pianist' in 2003 commented: "I was truly surprised and greatly delighted to learn that I was to receive this honour.  I arrived in England in 1951, at the age of 17, from South Africa where I was born in the hope of making my way in the great world. So it has been a long, fruitful and immensely enjoyable journey, crowned by this splendid reward for which I am deeply grateful."

Rabbi Mark Winer of West London Synagogue added: "Ronnie is a loyal, regular attender at Shabbat services. A lifelong Reform Jew, he celebrated his Bar Mitzvah in the Reform synagogue in Cape Town... Ronnie is deeply spiritual and strongly identified as a Jew.  His Van der Zyl memorial lecture of a couple of years ago at West London Synagogue expressed his powerful sense of Jewish identity which he puts together with his South African origins and his British residency and citizenship since his late teens.

Many hours we have talked together about his Jewish identity and his profound moral sensitivity.  He has focussed so many of his screenplays and plays on Holocaust related subjects.  The "Pianist" - for which he won the Academy Award - Taking Sides, and Collaboration are only a few recent of his many works dealing with Holocaust-related subjects... I cherish the Harwoods as wonderful friends, as well as loyal members of our West London Synagogue community."

Judith Ish-Horowicz from Streatham in South London was appointed MBE. In addition to being headteacher of Wimbledon and District Synagogue's Religion School, Judith founded the community's nursery school - now called Apples and Honey - sixteen years ago and has been its headteacher since then.

Judith who is also a regular Limmud speaker commented: "I was stunned when I found out that members of Wimbledon and District Synagogue had nominated me for an MBE and am delighted to receive the honor, particularly because it comes from within the community and shows the importance of Jewish learning to our Synagogue's members. The MBE has been awarded for "Services to Early Years Education" and one of the most special moments was receiving a congratulatory letter from the Permanent Secretary at the Department of Education."

"I think religious education can play an enormous part in moulding a child if it is delivered with integrity and commitment and the children see the values enshrined in it modeled in their daily lives. I love the relationships that develop with the families and it is a real privilege to watch the children grow into confident, responsible and committed young Jews who see themselves as having a role in Tikkun Olam. I am very lucky that, as Headteacher of Apples and Honey Nursery, I am there at the start of children's Jewish education and then, as Headteacher of Wimbledon and District Synagogue's Religion School, I can encourage and support them as they continue on their Jewish journey."