United Synagogue president Simon Hochhauser has bemoaned the large number of "no shows" at a US-organised memorial tribute to Lady Jakobovits.

Athough almost 1,000 people turned out for the event at St John's Wood Synagogue last month, 400 people booked tickets but did not attend.

At Monday's US council meeting, Edgware representative Silvia Hartman said: "The evening was well done but I was absolutely and totally distressed at the amount of people that were not there.

"The community was not properly informed. It was a throwaway line in our own shul and we're a huge community."

Dr Hochhauser responded that he was equally "distressed" over the matter. "An enormous amount of publicity was put out before. There is only so much you can do. But the family were happy and it was a great evening."

Delegates were also told that the US will launch a new magazine and website as part of its communications strategy. Dr Hochhauser acknowledged that issues such as the JFS admissions case had brought bad publicity for the US and that more needed to be done to set out what it stands for.

The magazine and website, both titled You and Us, will be launched at Rosh Hashanah and include interviews and information about kashrut and events.

Approved changes to the US by-laws included allowing members to opt out of the rule preventing people from serving on shul boards for longer than six years. "The by-laws were difficult to understand," said vice-president Peter Zinkin.

He also promised the first review of the burial society rules for 30 years. There was no relation between the rules and the way burials were now organised "and we want to sort that out".