You don't often speak of "whirlwind visits" and "Australia" in the same breath. But Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis hardly had time to be aware of jet-lag before he was back on the plane home after spending just a day down under on Tuesday.

He had indeed come for a special occasion: to induct his son Danny as senior rabbi of the Mizrachi religious Zionist movement in Melbourne.

Rabbi Mirvis junior is a former youth director of Finchley United Synagogue and served in the Torah ethics for warfare unit of the IDF rabbinate.

Coincidentally, his father noted, in his weekly electronic dvar Torah last week, that from the haftarah was derived the phrase "a chip off the old block".

Apparently, only once has a British Chief Rabbi inducted his son into office - when Nathan Adler installed his son Hermann more than a century ago.