Dayan Daniel Kada is to leave the S & P Sephardi Community's flagship synagogue, Lauderdale Road in Maida Vale, after less than two years to become rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue at Holland Park.
In an email sent to members by Alan Mendoza, parnas presidente of the S & P, Dayan Kada and his wife Rebbetzin Tamar, said, "After eight wonderful years at the S&P Sephardi Community, we have shared with you both happy and sad times.
"We consider ourselves very fortunate to have had the privilege to serve this illustrious community and we, together with our three children, have fallen in love with the minhag and people of the S&P community."
Although they felt that it "was the right decision for our family to move on to new projects, the people of the S&P community and the relationships we have built will always be dear to us and we very much hope we will be able to maintain them."
Before Lauderdale Road, they served the Wembley Sephardi Synagogue.
Holland Park, founded in the 1920s mainly by Jews from Salonika and Istanbul, is an affiliate of the S & P. Its current minister, Rabbi Avraham Lavi, is retiring and going on aliyah.
Dayan Kada, who will be leaving Lauderdale Road at the end of the year, was the first graduate of an innovative programme to train rabbis as dayanim in the UK set up the Montefiore Endowment and the Israel-based Eretz Hemdah Institute for Advanced Jewish Studies. He was appointed to the Sephardi Beth Din.
Dr Mendoza said that at Lauderdale Road, "their efforts have played a significant role in the reawakening of the community from the enforced hibernation of Covid.
"In both synagogues, they have contributed enormously to the kahal [community] and supported members through the most difficult period of the pandemic. We know that they have built strong relationships with many of you, and they have brought some new initiatives to the community that have been greatly enjoyed. We hope these will continue after their formal departure."
Gerry Temple, a longstanding member of Lauderdale Road, said, "They will be a great loss but we hope they will maintain connections with Lauderdale and strengthen the relationship between Holland Park and the rest of the S & P."
