Dozens of members of all ages at the Edgware and District Reform Synagogue are getting involved in Mitzvah Day this weekend.

The synagogue is sharing the good deeds day, held this Sunday, with its twinned community of Emanu-El in Odessa, in Ukraine.

In Edgware, the Nagila nursery school will be going to Sydmar Lodge Care Home on Friday to entertain residents. 

The younger Religion School classes will be making Chanukah cards and Chanukiyot, while the older children will entertain residents in a local care home, wrap toys for the children of Barnados and write letters to serving Jewish soldiers. 

The Year 7 seniors will be painting a mural and cleaning toys at a family centre.

There will be international Skype calls between Edgware and Odessa, and an interfaith activity with Hartsbourne School, collecting food for the homeless.  The Youth Club will also participate in a number of day-long activities.

Volunteers can join Friends of Canons Park to clear overgrown flower beds in the King George V Memorial garden, as well as planting 1,500 trees and bushes at the Joint Jewish Burial Society’s new Woodland Cemetery at Cheshunt.

In Ukraine, Emanu-El members of every age will help clean up their local park, and help Jewish members of their community from donating medical supplies to cleaning apartments on “Mitsva Den”. 

Joanna Sigalov, from the synagogue, said: “We’re the largest reform synagogue in Europe as far as I know and we have a very large community but it is times like this, when you’re doing things for others, that the community really comes together.

“It is beyond prayer – it is action and we are bringing in every age group to show that they all have a valued role in giving to different charities.

“For us, it is a chance to give back to the communities other than our own.”