Leo Baeck College remembers Rabbi Hugo Gabriel Gryn who died on 18th of August 1996.

Leo Baeck College remembers Rabbi Hugo Gabriel Gryn who died on 18th of August 1996.

Rabbi Gryn moved to the United Kingdom in 1946 and later trained as a rabbi in America after which he spent several years in Bombay and New York before finally moving to London in 1964, where he served in one of the largest congregations in Europe, the West London Synagogue, initially as assistant rabbi and later as senior rabbi, for 32 years. Gryn became a regular radio broadcaster and appeared for many years on BBC Radio 4’s Thought for the Day and The Moral Maze.
In 1989, Gryn returned to Berehovo together with his daughter Naomi to make a film about his childhood. After his death, Naomi Gryn edited his autobiography, also called Chasing Shadows, which deals movingly with his experiences as a Holocaust survivor.
He died on 18 August 1996 and is buried at Hoop Lane Cemetery in Golders Green, London. The grave lies in a relatively prominent location, just north-east of the main entrance.
He was described as “probably the most beloved rabbi in Great Britain” by Rabbi Albert Friedlander, who was also the author of the entry about Gryn in the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography.