Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey joined the Shabbat service at Kingston Liberal Synagogue for the commemoration of its three Czech Torah scrolls.

Celebrating the Czech Torah scrolls at Kingston Liberal Synagogue brought the whole community together on Saturday 18 November 2023.

At a commemorative Shabbat service, Sir Ed Davey, MP for Kingston and Surbiton; Cllr Richard Williams, Mayor of Elmbridge; Cllr Diane White, Mayor of the Royal Borough of Kingston; Temporary Assistant Chief Constable (T/ACC) Alison Barlow, took part and celebrated with the community and children at a special kiddush.

Rabbi Rene Pfertzel read from the historic Tabor scroll, as he told the story of Jacob and Esau, who gave rise to "two separate peoples." He described this line as "one of the most fateful verses in Torah."

KLS is proud of its three Czech scrolls, on long-standing loan from the Memorial Scrolls Trust, and the annual service remembers the communities from which the scrolls originate. Those Czechia communities, of Tabor, Rychnov and Blatna, all perished in the Holocaust.

Said Rabbi Pfertzel: "The three Torah scrolls were once used by communities in Bohemia and Moravia, two regions where Jews had been living for almost a thousand years … The entirety of the Czech Jewish community was annihilated by the Nazis."

Members of KLS have visited Tabor, where they joined with the local school and the organisers of Hadasa, a Tabor society which had published a book about the former Jewish community and now runs events to remember them.

Sir Ed Davey, leader of the Liberal Democrats, spoke movingly about the importance of remembering the lost communities and his own experience of visiting Auschwitz.

"The last few weeks have been so shocking and awful … I want to thank Liberal Judaism for giving voice to humanity," he said.

He also spoke about the previous week's debate in Parliament.

"Last week debating in Parliament … I attended a film put together by the IDF from camera footage on 7 October. I never want to see anything like that ever again. It was the most shocking thing I have ever seen … We have to remember them all the time in our thoughts," he added.

He advocated "principles of humanity, trying to think of everybody and how we can find a way forward to the peace we want. The security we want."

Talking of the wider community, he reflected that we have to find the right words to guide the Middle East conflict to bring peace.

"Always against anti-Semitism, racism, Islamophobia, we should do everything we can to rid the world of that hatred," he ended.