The members of the Brixton Synagogue will not only sympathise with the parents and relatives of this very promising young officer, but will keenly feel the loss caused by his death. He was one of the few who did not wait to be "discovered" or approached about joining the synagogue. On taking up his post and residence in the neighbourhood he at once identified himself with the Brixton Synagogue, of which he was a regular attendant on Sabbaths. He was also a member of the Religion Classes Committee, to which post he was only recently re-elected in his absence. In expectation of his safe return, his seat in the synagogue was kept vacant, and his name still appears in the list of members just published, where he is described as being on active service. It is a most sorrowful task for me to transfer his name from this list to the roll of those who ill never return (he is the third in connection with this synagogue to have lost his life in the war) but his name and memory will long be honoured by his fellow congregants. The keen sense of duty which he displayed by his life has only been intensified by his death.

In the course of his sermon in the Bristol Synagogue last Sabbath, the Rev H Goodman made the following reference to the late Sec-Lieut Benjamin James Polack: - "The festive joy of one of the families of a congregation has been clouded by grief. Tenderly do we commend the soul of our brother, who was fallen on the field of battle in the service of King and Country, to the keeping of Him in whose presence is fulness of joy. May the sacrifice of his youth and strength and promising career on the altar of civic duty find its full reward in the realms of eternal life. May something of the courage which inspired him to leave home and kin at the call of his country's need enter the hearts of his stricken parents to strengthen and sustain them under their burden of sorrow. He is missed among us to-day for the seat which he regularly occupied in this House on the Festivals is empty, never alas! again to be filled by him. Our sympathy goes out to the bereaved relatives with the earnest prayer that they may be vouchsafed the blessed knowledge that not in vain has he poured forth his life, that he died that England may live, that his blood mingling with the blood of his fellows may be the seed from which shall blossom forth the goodly plant of his triumph of England's cause and the furthering of the ideals of freedom and righteousness - and so may their "bread of affliction" be changed into the bread of consolation and victory. For us all, too, may the sad thoughts which his untimely death has intruded into our Festival rejoicing have this beneficent aftermath, that his example be an inspiration and stimulus to see in duty life's noblest opportunity, and in the sinking of self in the service of great causes - life's grandest purpose.

Sir - we hear today with the deepest regret, of the death in action in Mesopotamia on the 9th of April, of one of the most valued members of our staff Lieut. B. J. Polack, B.A. Catab. He was most highly honoured and, I may truly say, loved by both the members of our staff and by the boys who came in contact with his influence and teaching.

He most simply and truly lived in his every day life the great foundation principles of religion - the love to God and our neighbour. He gave the best years of his young and vigorous life to loving those principles, and now he has given the noble sacrifice of his death in fighting for the cause of liberty and justice and the brotherhood of men. And surely this sacrifice shall not be in vain. We ask his parents, relatives and friends to accept from us all, who knew him, boys and masters, our heartfelt sympathy and we desire to express our undying honour and affection for himself.