Members of the Redbridge-based South West Essex and Settlement Reform Synagogue have voted to allow non-Jews to become associate members.

Associate members cannot serve on the shul’s religious committees or vote on constitutional changes but otherwise enjoy full membership benefits.

These include burial rights with the Joint Jewish Burial Society for the woodland or lawn sections of its Cheshunt cemetery.

Although the shul’s Rabbi Jordan Helfman expected the move to attract up to 20 associate members in the short term, he stressed that it was “not a budget decision but a values decision”.

It reflected his desire to keep families including a non-Jewish partner involved in religious and communal activities.

“We don’t want non-Jewish partners to feel alienated and we want our community to be inclusive, not exclusive,” he told the JC.

It was “a way of saying that these individuals are valued members of the congregational family.

“Since ancient times, Judaism has recognised the importance of the ger toshav — those that travel along and camp with the Jewish people.”

Rabbi Helfman — who joined South West Essex last year after serving Toronto’s Holy Blossom Temple — added that it was “often the non-Jewish spouse who drives the student to synagogue, bakes food for the bring-and-share meals and is the driving force in keeping the family attached to synagogue life”.

In recent decades, Redbridge Jewry has dwindled from its 1970s’ heyday, when it boasted a population of around 30,000, as people migrated to communities in North-West London and the Hertfordshire suburbs.

But Rabbi Helfman expressed confidence in the future of his 930-member congregation.

“Our former rabbi, [the late] Dow Marmur said that people ‘live as Jewish as they want to be’, deciding their neighbourhoods partly based on how much of a Jewish life they want to live.”

He believed around 100 South West Essex members were married to “not yet Jews and non-Jews. Many of our members and potential members who have non-Jewish spouses are spread far afield and it is going to be part of our work to find them and let them know they are welcome here.”

One person delighted by the shul’s move is Matt Hartley, a non-Jew, whose wife Claire and family are “long time” members.

“I am not religious but my wife’s faith is really important to her and so means a lot to us as a family,” he explained. “We have had our three children blessed at the synagogue and we really enjoy taking part in family activities.

“I feel very strongly that associate membership will allow non-Jewish part-ners like me to feel a sense of inclusivity, which is key to building a strong and healthy community for us all to enjoy for many years to come.”

South West Essex joins a growing band of Reform and Liberal shuls accepting non-Jews as associate members.

And its move was welcomed by the neighbouring East London and Essex Liberal Synagogue, whose Rabbi Richard Jacobi said: “Like us, they will benefit from the approach of embracing couples where one partner is not Jewish.

“It enables people to have a place in the Jewish community and sustain their relationship with the person they love, rather than having to choose one or the other. And rabbis will feel much more comfortable talking with people about the simple idea that those who live life together can be laid to rest together in the fullness of time.”