Wolf Morein

Wolf Morein was born and educated in Gateshead before moving to London to train for the ministry at Jews College. There he won a scholarship to University College London, from which he graduated with first class honours in Semitics.

In 1931 he was elected Minister and Second Reader at North London Synagogue in Lofting Road, Barnsbury. There he applied himself energetically to a range of external activities, becoming President of the Jewish Traders' Mutual Aid Society, a manager of the London County Council/South Islington schools group, and visiting minister to both Pentonville Prison and the London Hospital.

He was living with his wife, Gertrude Kutchinsky, at 18 Aberdeen Park, Highbury when the Second World War started in 1939. It was perhaps typical of the man that when the war was gaining in intensity in 1941, he applied for a war chaplaincy. This would be no easy ride: chaplains often worked in gruelling conditions near the front line. But for Wolf, it was not to be. Before he could see service abroad, he was admitted to hospital for an operation and did not survive.

The Senior Jewish Chaplain wrote that he had shown great drive and self-sacrifice in the short time that he had served: ‘As an ambassador of the Jewish community in the Army, he displayed firmness and restraint, tact and dignity, steadfastness to Judaism and loyalty to humanity.'