Boreham Wood is a town in southern Hertfordshire, England, twelve miles from Charing Cross in London. It was historically part of Elstree, and from the 1920s was a center of the British film industry.
Boreham Wood Synagogue was established in 1955, and by 1960 this small community was ready to open its synagogue, in Croxdale Road, Boreham Wood. It really was small – 92 seatholders, according to the United Synagogue. The first Rabbi, Malcolm Henry Malits had left before the consecration, and the building was opened by Dayan Myer Szulim Lew of the London Beth Din (Rabbinical Court). Dayan Lew is in the photograph of members of the London Beth Din taken in 1962 which is in the National Portrait Gallery. Boreham Wood did not have a new Rabbi until Rabbi Avraham Yitzchak Unterman was appointed in 1964.
The last page of the Order of Service has the names of the officers of the Synagogue at that time. These included the President, Dr. Philip Sattin, who was a general practitioner in Boreham Wood and later became a medical film maker. His father, Barnet Sattin is mentioned on the first page. One of the Wardens was Rabbi Nathan Vengroff, who had semicha (his rabbinical degree) from Gateshead Yeshiva and had left the rabbinate to become a solicitor.
Jewish Miscellanies 