ORTHODOX APPROACH

Your coverage of the recent JLC report on the future for Jewish communities in England failed to mention its strange statistical anomaly. By excluding the 20 per cent of Anglo-Jewry (50 per cent of under-5s) who are strictly Orthodox, the most obvious strategies for the future were not addressed.

The answer is to find out what the most successful organisations are doing and copy them. The strictly Orthodox have lots of children; teach them all to read and write Hebrew by age five; make sure they pray daily; eat kosher and observe Shabbat and all Jewish festivals. If other sections of Anglo-Jewry follow suit, our future is undoubtedly one of rapid expansion and increasing success. Dr Yaakov Wise Prestwich