300 free tickets to Kristallnacht service at Westminster Abbey

Westminster Abbey will host a special service commemorating the 75th Anniversary of Kristallnacht on Sunday, featuring choirs and rabbis from two London synagogues and an eyewitness to the events.

Rabbi Dame Julia Neuberger of West London Synagogue and Rabbi Stuart Altshuler of Belsize Square Synagogue will be among those hearing testimony from those who survived the wreckage.

In what organisers describe as a “groundbreaking event,” John Izbicki will be speaking at the service. His father’s shop was one of the thousands of Jewish businesses and properties smashed up by Nazi thugs on the night of 9-10 November 1938.

More than 1,000 synagogues were set on fire and destroyed, and Jews were chased and beaten in the streets, in what was to become the precursor to the Holocaust.

Belsize choirs, including the youth choir under the direction of Benjamin Wolf, and Cantor Paul Heller will be joining the choir of West London Synagogue for some of the most poignant Jewish prayer music.

The Belsize Shoah Candelabrum will be lit in the Abbey by Rabbi Stuart Altshuler of Belsize Square Synagogue and others, while Rabbi Dame Julia Neuberger of West London Synagogue will give the address.

There are 300 tickets for the service available, which can be booked online at

https://kristallnacht.eventbrite.co.uk/