Reform Movement strides forward despite economic gloom
Thursday, 23 October 2008
Even at a time of great financial concern, the Reform Movement attracted ten percent more guests than the previous year to its Annual Dinner last week. 240 people attended the event at the Royal Institute of British Architects in London’s Portland Place and £250,000 was pledged, representing a twenty five percent increase on last year.
Reform Movement head, Rabbi Dr Tony Bayfield used his speech at the Dinner to call for Jews to celebrate rather than discourage conversion. He said: “There are 2 billion Christians in the world, 1.2 billion Muslims and 14 million Jews. Yet we’ve been the only faith not to celebrate when someone chooses to join us. … Our rabbis declared an end to that madness. We are passionate about reaching out and counting people in.”
Guests were treated to an inspirational evening beginning with a champagne reception accompanied by music from a pianist; a fitting introduction to guest speaker, Ronald Harwood CBE - the Academy Award winning writer of the film, ‘The Pianist’.
Ronald Harwood spoke about his background in South Africa, and how he had drifted away from Judaism - as symbolised by changing his surname from Horwitz to Harwood. He went on to describe how, in recent years he has rediscovered the full meaning and depth of his Jewish identity through his involvement with the Reform Movement and with his community, West London Synagogue.
Ronald Harwood’s story epitomised the theme of the Dinner, ‘Touching your life’, and was echoed in the Movement’s new film which features other Jews whose Jewish identity only took on real depth of meaning through their engagement with the Reform Movement.
The evening was sponsored by Investec, represented on the night by Dr Allen Zimbler, who commented that the Movement was “clearly hugely successful at connecting with the unconnected”.
Despite the success of the Dinner, there remains widespread recognition that 2009 will be a real challenge for all charities, with several supporters of the Movement having been seriously effected by the banking crisis; and the Movement's 2009 budget has been adopted bearing in mind the need to be prudent.
For further details, please contact: Andrea Newman, Public Relations, The Movement for Reform Judaism.
Notes for Editors
Ronald Harwood CBE
Born in South Africa in 1934, Ronald Harwood moved to London in 1951 to pursue a career in the theatre. After attending the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts, he joined the Shakespeare Company of Sir Donald Wolfit, one of the last 'actor-managers' of Great Britain. From 1953 to 1958, Harwood became the personal dresser of Sir Donald. He would later draw from this experience in his play 'The Dresser' and write a biography 'Sir Donald Wolfit CBE: His life and work in the Unfashionable Theatre'.
In 1960, he started a new career as a writer and would prove to be quite prolific, penning plays, novels and non-fiction books. He also worked often as a screenwriter but he seldom wrote original material directly for the screen, rather acting as an adapter sometimes of his own work.
One of the recurring themes in Harwood's work is his fascination for the stage, its artists and artisans as displayed in the aforementioned 'The Dresser', his plays 'After the Lions' (about Sarah Bernard) ,'Another time' (about a gifted piano player), 'Quartet' (about aging opera singers) and his non-fiction book 'All the world's a stage', a general history of theatre. Harwood also has a strong interest in the WWII period, as highlighted by the films 'Operation daybreak', 'The Statement', 'The Pianist', and his play turned to film 'Taking sides'. Based on true stories, the two last films feature once again musicians as their main characters.
Made Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1974 and Commander of the British Empire in 1999, Harwood was president of the international PEN Club from 1993 to 1997 after presiding the British section during the four previous years.
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