One of the Reform movement’s largest congregations, Edgware and Hendon, has finally come around to supporting “inherited status” — where the children of a non-Jewish mother and Jewish father can be recognised as Jewish without undergoing conversion.

The movement approved a policy seven years ago whereby its Beth Din could accept the children of non-Jewish mothers without a conversion procedure if they were being raised as Jews.

But a number of synagogues did not introduce it, instead adhering to the previous policy of recognising only the child of a Jewish mother as Jewish.

Among those shuls were both Edgware and Hendon, which merged in 2017.

The move to recognition of inherited status was advocated by EHRS’s rabbis, Mark Goldsmith and Debbie Young-Somers. And after a series of discussions and study sessions over the past year, the synagogue’s council endorsed it this summer.

“It is truly a delight to help a young person claim their Jewish status where they have always lived as a Jew,” Rabbi Goldsmith observed. “To call it conversion can be insulting to the commitment their parents and they have made to their Jewish upbringing.

“Inherited status enables who they truly are to be recognised and celebrated.”

Rabbi Young-Somers added that “as an inclusive and egalitarian synagogue within our inclusive and egalitarian movement, it makes complete sense that men and women are treated equally with respect to Jewish status”.

Around one in five children at EHRS have one Jewish parent and the synagogue noted that “a high proportion” of EHRS children at Jewish day schools may have a Jewish father and a non-Jewish mother.

In a briefing paper, the synagogue said it wanted to “ensure that such children have the option of a route to Jewish status which is not considered to be conversion as that is not the emotional reality for those children”.