Rabbi (later Dayan) Lew was born in Poland in 1907 and arrived in the UK in 1926 with his father. After serving as minister of the Stoke Newington Synagogue in Shacklewell Lane, he joined Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue in 1946. Apart from his rabbinic studies, Rabbi Lew gained a doctorate from the University of London, the subject of his thesis being ‘The Sixteenth Century Jews of Poland’. He became Rabbi Dr Lew in 1949 and four years later was appointed to the Beth Din. By 1969, he had become a full time Dayan & although he was obliged to resign as Minister of HGSS, he remained very close to the community. He died in 1987.