This little booklet, partly reproduced below, was published in London in 1943 by the Bachad Fellowship, then operating out of Woburn House in central London.
Bachad (B’nei Akiva) was a religious Zionist youth movement in pre-war Germany called Brit Chalutzim Datiim which shortened its name “to its initial letters Bachad. Its members prepared themselves for Aliyah (emigration to the Land of Israel, then Palestine). A group of them came over to England among the refugees who were permitted to enter this country in the years immediately before the war. They were accommodated in a castle in Wales (Gwrych Castle) and set up Hachsharah (agricultural training) centres in Bromsgrove and other places, as well as an educational center in Manchester to which members came from the Hachsharah centres for periods of three or six months for intensive Jewish studies. Later on, a farm was bought at Thaxted in Essex which became not only a model Hachsharah centre but very quickly a successful agricultural venture which at one time won first prize for having the best milk yielding cow in Essex.
The author, Rabbi Dr. Israel Weinstock, came to England from Vienna in 1938. Having received nine Semichos (rabbinical diplomas) before the age of 19 in Poland, he had then obtained a Doctorate in Oriental Languages and Philosophy at the University in Vienna and subsequently taught until 1938 at the Principal Jewish High School of Vienna. From 1938 he lived in Hampstead Garden Suburb.
In 1941, Rabbi Weinstock was appointed temporary Minister at Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue, as the Minister, Rabbi Bornstein, was serving as a chaplain in His Majesty’s Forces in the Middle East.
As Temporary Minister, Rabbi Weinstock encouraged a greater religious observance in the community. He was also an educationalist. In 1943 Rabbi Bornstein died, at the age of 35, serving in the Middle East.
Meanwhile Rabbi Weinstock had continued to act as Temporary Minister. However, in December 1945 he gave notice of his wish to be relieved of his post. He went to live in Israel in 1949 where he became the Director of the Education Department of the Keren Kayemet (Jewish National Fund). He died in Jerusalem in 1981.
Jewish Miscellanies 