Our
Rabbi, David Soetendorp, was born in Amsterdam in July
1945, just after the end of the Second World War and
lived there for three years, before moving to Israel. At
the age of 8 he returned to Holland. In 1965 he came to
study in England, prior to entering Leo Baeck College in
1966. He married Ruth in 1971,and received Rabbinic
Semicha in 1972. This was shortly after moving to
Bournemouth to become the Rabbi of Bournemouth Reform
Synagogue. Rabbi Soetendorp continued in this post until
he retired in 2005. David and Ruth have two adult
children Naomi & Joel who were born in 1972 and 1974.
In
1995, he embarked on a long held ambition to study
psychotherapy and through a series of part-time
postgraduate programmes, qualified in 2004 from the
Westminster Pastoral Foundation. This enabled him to
begin to develop a private therapeutic practice, where
his specialism is counseling survivors of stroke or
brain injury. He has published and presented conference
papers on 'second generation ' issues, as well as on
aspects of psychodynamic counseling.
In
January 2007 Rabbi Soetendorp was appointed as the Rabbi
of Hatch End Masorti Synagogue.
