Gordon Brown has praised the Jewish community as “strong, compassionate, and devoted to service” in a New Year video for the Masorti community.

In conversation with the movement’s Senior Rabbi, Jonathan Wittenberg, the former Prime Minister said that Rosh Hashanah was “a time of hope and it’s a time when we think again about what we can do to make for a better world”.

He said he had benefited greatly down the years from advice from Jewish leaders, including the late Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks.

“Rabbi Sacks used to say to me that a society is only strong when it cares for the weak; it’s only rich when it cares for the poor; it’s only invulnerable when it cares for the vulnerable. And I’ve never forgotten these words.

“We can’t live in comfort when there are so many people who are uncomfortable; we can’t be at ease when there’s so many millions of people ill at ease; we can’t be contented when there’s so much discontent.

“What the Jewish community has done in helping people in need, the whole of the country has got to do to help each other get through this crisis,”

Asked by Rabbi Wittenberg about the importance of faith in bridging differences and creating a better world, Mr Brown responded: “I feel from the history I’ve read, and from my own experience in life, that all the great causes of the world and all the social progress that I have seen has come from people with the strongest of moral principles and ethical foundations.

“It was faith groups, churches and synagogues - people of all religions, and people with great ethical principles - that led the way to try to awaken the world to the need for action.

“What gives me hope is that there are so many people with faith - and so many people who want to see changes in the world and who want to make a better place.”