Formally opening two major educational campuses during a northern visit, Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks said that schools were “our best investment in the Jewish future”.

Lord Sacks made the comment at the King David School in Manchester last Thursday after highlighting Anglo-Jewry’s declining population from a post-war 450,000 to 270,000 today.

He reminded the 500 guests that Manchester KD had been under threat of closure because of falling numbers when he took office in 1991. Since then, pupil numbers had quadrupled to 800.

Visiting the Liverpool King David’s £25 million site on Sunday, Lord Sacks praised the “extensive regeneration” of facilities for Merseyside Jewry, pinpointing the drive of King David governors’ chair Max Steinberg in a project “central to maintaining our Jewish identity”. The campus incorporates nursery, primary and secondary sections and community centre provision.

He also dedicated the Tilly Rosenblatt Beit Knesset — serving as a shul and informal Jewish education area — in memory of a former KD head girl who died of cancer in 2010.

Also in Liverpool, Lord Sacks officiated at the induction ceremonies of Rabbi Mordechai Wollenberg at Childwall Hebrew Congregation and Rabbi Dan Lieberman at Allerton shul.

In Manchester, he attended five synagogues over Shabbat and addressed 200 people at a Cheadle Yeshurun event.