STANMORE & CANONS PARK SYNAGOGUE - Stanmore and ...

OBITUARY
Seymour Saideman
Sidney Frosh z”l
Sidney and Ruth Frosh
Sidney Frosh was born in Stepney on
22 August 1923 and died in the Royal
London Hospital in Whitechapel on 12
August 2012, aged 88. He was
passionate about Anglo-Jewry and
devoted his life to the service of the
community, focusing on its religious,
educational and welfare organisations.
He joined the Stanmore & Canons Park
Synagogue in 1955, became Chairman of
the Building Fund Committee 3 years later
and in 1959 was elected to the Board of
Management. From 1961 to 1965 he
served as the Synagogue’s Financial
Representative.
This launched Sidney into his love affair
with the United Synagogue, first as the
Stanmore representative on the US District
Synagogue Council, then as Treasurer and
later Chairman of the District Synagogue
Council and ultimately in 1973 he was
elected as an Honorary Officer of the
United Synagogue, serving as Treasurer
Bequests & Trusts. In 1977 he was elected
Treasurer of the United Synagogue,
became its Vice President in 1984 and
elected President of the United Synagogue
in 1987, which position he held for 5 years.
Sidney firmly believed that the United
Synagogue’s mission was to take care of
Anglo-Jewry and ensure its wellbeing and
growth. Where in his opinion there was
a gap in the provision of any community
service or a need to improve standards of
delivery, he enlisted the United Synagogue
to do the work, maintaining that the US
had the responsibility to provide services
from cradle-to-grave. Not only was the US
to provide religious services, it was to
become involved in Jewish education,
university chaplaincy, supervision of
kosher food and youth and welfare
services. Whilst there was no selfaggrandisement
in his expansion of the
United Synagogue, nevertheless it
gradually became clear that there were
insufficient resources to match the
demands on the organisation. This led
Sidney to take a courageous step in
October 1991, and call in outside help, by
asking Stanley (now Lord) Kalms to lead a
group to review the United Synagogue.
A year later, the Kalms’s report “A Time
for Change” pulled no punches. It said
that while the expansion intentions were
honourable, the commitments outstripped
the financial capacity of the United
Synagogue to meet them, and that it was in
a state of “acute financial decline”. Sidney
accepted the report’s findings and whilst it
did not call for his resignation, he took the
honourable course and stood down. His
legacy is that lessons were learnt and the
report he commissioned has guided the
revitalisation of the United Synagogue
over the past 20 years.
Sidney Frosh was the son of an East End
tailor, and like most of the boys of the era,
was a pupil at the Jews’ Free School, then
in Bell Lane and an active member of the
Jewish Lads Brigade, where he witnessed
the dayanim of the London Beth Din lead
Shabbat services in full Brigade uniform.
He was enormously gratified in later life to
have had a child and three grandchildren
attend JFS, of which he was in due course
to become a Governor and a Trustee.
But it was in his teenage years that he first
gave a hint of his future communal life, by
volunteering at the London Jewish
Hospital during the Blitz, going straight
from work, often sleeping overnight on
one of the hospital beds. During one
attack, the force and proximity of the
explosion threw him from his make-shift
bed to another side of the room. When
called up, he joined the Royal Corps of
Signals, and saw active service in France.
On his return from France, Sidney became
a leader of a local youth club, heralding a
life of total commitment to young Jewish
people. It was at this time that he married
his forces sweetheart Ruth Glicksman with
whom he shared 48 very happy years,
most of which were spent in Stanmore.
Ruth was his constant support and took
pride in his achievements. After the war he
ran and developed several successful
furniture businesses and served as a JP, but
always found the time to carry on with his
voluntary work.
In the early 1950s Sidney was invited to
join the Boys Welfare Committee of the
Jewish Board of Guardians, the
forerunner of today’s Jewish Care. This
committee took responsibility for orphans,
delinquents and youth at risk. In due
course, this led him to become active in
Norwood and he was responsible for the
transfer of troubled and challenged
youngsters from the Board of Guardians
to Norwood. This was the start of a major
influence he had on modernising
Norwood at that time, encouraging the
closure of the orphanage and advocating
for child care services to be provided in
local communities rather than an
institution in South London. He was also
instrumental in establishing joint meetings
of the Norwood and Ravenswood
trustees which eventually led to the merger
of these two charities. In the 1970s Sidney
was Chair of the Education Committee of
the European Council of Jewish
Communities.
After 15 years of active service with
Norwood, during which he chaired the
Norwood Welfare Committee and was at
one time as Joint Treasurer, he became
involved in the development of Jewish
day schools through the London Board
of Jewish Religious Education and later
the United Synagogue. He encouraged the
relocation of the Stepney Jewish Primary
School to Ilford and the Bayswater Jewish
Primary School to Kenton, where it
became the Michael Sobell Sinai School.
In the 1990s, he continued to play an
active role in support of the creation of
the Wolfson Hillel Primary School in
Southgate, the Moriah Primary School in
Pinner and the King Solomon High
School in Redbridge.
Following Sidney’s appointment as an
45