OPINION: It’s hard to overestimate Jeffrey Pinnick’s impact on Holocaust remembrance
He believed deeply that remembrance is not only about the past - it must be about the future, writes Neil Martin
There are some people whose names may never appear in headlines, yet without them, whole parts of our communal life would quietly unravel. Jeffrey Pinnick was one of those people – a man of integrity, humility, and steadfast purpose, who gave so much of himself to others and asked for nothing in return.
Jeffrey’s leadership was never loud or self-promoting. He worked behind the scenes, where real change so often begins. Whether through his many years of service to Yom HaShoah UK, as Treasurer of the Board of Deputies, Chairs of Yad Vashem UK, All Aboard Charity Shops and Friends of Boys Town Jerusalem, or the rebuilding of Mill Hill Synagogue and so much more, Jeffrey’s presence could be felt in every detail: precise, thoughtful, and quietly transformative.
I first met Jeffrey 22 years ago, as a young JLGB bugler when I accompanied Yad Vashem UK and AJEX to mark the 60th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Poland. Jeffrey, alongside Jacques Weisser and the late Sir Ben Helfgott, took me under their wing and later entrusted me with the chairmanship of Yom HaShoah UK when Jeffrey ‘insisted’ that the baton be passed to me. In truth, I inherited what he had patiently and painstakingly built over decades – not just an event, but an ethos.
Jeffrey created the Forum for Yom HaShoah UK with a mission to ensure remembrance wasn’t simply observed once a year but woven into the moral fabric of British Jewish life – and at that time, it wasn’t. He believed deeply that remembrance is not only about the past – it must be about the future.
For me personally, his example was both grounding and inspiring – a reminder that leadership isn’t about recognition but about responsibility, and that we owed it to the six million murdered, and the survivors and refugees who rebuilt their lives in Britain, to ensure the flame of remembrance was carried from generation to generation.
Even in retirement, Jeffrey’s “inner chairman” never truly rested. His thoughtful notes, gentle corrections, and mischievous P.S. lines in emails always carried the same core message: care deeply, prepare thoroughly, and never forget the humanity behind the task.
It was Jeffrey’s idea to hold a stadium event in 2015 for the 70th anniversary of Yom HaShoah, excitedly taking me to see Allianz Park and saying, “I’ll get the funds, but it needs your vision!” Like the old film adage, “Build it and they will come,” the community turned up in its thousands – and I’m not embarrassed to say that we both shed a tear together that day at what we had accomplished.
Jeffrey lived to see, as he called it, his “four-score-years” milestone become a reality this May as we commemorated the 80th anniversary of Yom HaShoah prominently and importantly outside Parliament. Afterwards, he wrote to me: “Any doubts held particularly over these last 20 years as to what Yom HaShoah would look like and its future be at 80 can now, in my humble opinion, be totally dispelled!”
I was so proud to receive his hechser of approval – and to help him fulfil his enduring dream.
Jeffrey’s passing leaves a quiet void, yet his legacy endures in every Guardian of the Memory who lights a candle on Yom HaShoah, in the over 200 Legacy of the Holocaust boards placed in communities across the UK, and in the continued life of the many organisations he helped to shape.
He was, in every sense, an unsung hero. And it is now for all of us who were privileged to know him, work alongside him, and learn from him to sing his praises – not with grand gestures, but with the same quiet dedication and determination he showed us all, that it’s not how loudly one speaks, but how deeply one is felt.
Pic: Meron Persey Photography
All of us at Yom HaShoah UK wish a long and healthy life and deepest condolences to his beloved wife Pamela, his children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and all who loved him.
May his memory be for a blessing, and may we honour it through the continued work he so deeply believed in.
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