I have been asked to cover in five minutes the mood of the Board of Management some five and a half decades ago, when it was decided to shift our Synagogue from Princes Street to Greys Avenue

This short synopsis has in fact largely turned into a verbal self-portrait of Bob Narev’s mood, concluding with an even briefer response to the topic actually assigned to me.

In a sentence, my mood was a mixture of sadness and optimism, which I will expand a little later to include that of the other members of the Board.

In recent times, I have found that I am generally one of the oldest persons present at a gathering and for the purposes of this reminiscence I have been informed by today’s Mistress of Ceremonies that I am the sole surviving Board member of the momentous events surrounding the shift to Greys Avenue.

In endeavouring to recapture my mood in the mid-1960s, I recalled that I had my Barmitzvah in Princes Street in 1948, shortly after the end of the polio epidemic, which broke out within days of my arrival in New Zealand and which prevented me from learning a Haftorah. Added to this was the fact that I was undoubtedly one of the few young men, if not the only one in living memory to read his part of the Sedra in short pants and being presented by way of reward with a fountain-pen by then President Charles Nathan.

So began my continuous and now 75-year membership of Auckland Hebrew Congregation. There followed my wedding to Freda 64 years ago and the celebration with an Aliyah on the birth of each of our 3 children, although the youngest was barely a year old when the shift to Greys Avenue occurred.

Hence a real degree of sadness at the thought of parting from Princes Street and 80 years of Congregation history on that site, a feeling shared by Freda in remembering her teaching Hebrew school in the Goldstein Hall, that eponymous designation of the hall disappearing into rapid oblivion after the shift. Such was also the case with my first and only bespoke hat made for me by Percy Shieff, uncle of our MC today, which fine hat was left on the shelf when it was replaced by the ubiquitous kippot, that became de rigueur in Greys Avenue.

However, I must now confess an element of self-interest, which to some extent converted my sadness at leaving Princes Street to a degree of optimism and thus may have been at least a factor contributing to my support of the shift.

For several years before 1968, I had quietly lamented the fact that I did not have an allocated seat in Princes Street and, being unwilling to attend overflow services down below, I often found myself at the head of the queue to enter the synagogue on festivals to ensure that I could occupy the seat of anyone I knew to be absent on a given occasion.

As the Greys Avenue project proceeded to completion, I used my position on the Board to obtain involvement in seat allocations, which took place on the floor of fellow Board member and future President Natie Ross’ lounge. There we juggled with hundreds of congregants’ name cards to ensure that those who were known to be broyges would not be sitting next to each other. The bonus in this for me was that I obtained, of course by sheer coincidence and pure chance, the seat which I coveted and which, after 55 years of intermittent occupancy, is now to be surrendered.

I now come, albeit belatedly, to what I recall of the mood of the Board as a whole as the proposed Greys Avenue project evolved. To the best of my recollection, it was also a mixture parallel to mine, of sadness and optimism, the latter based on the knowledge that there was no real long-term future for us in Princes Street, given that we were precluded from adding to the building because of the then projected, but subsequently abandoned widening of Bowen Avenue, combined with the likelihood of large costs in dealing with the sandstone content of the existing structure.

I must just add to this a significant factor contributing to the final decision to proceed, namely the effective chairmanship and powers of persuasion of long-time President Lawrence Nathan.

In retrospect, I feel confident that the shift from Princes Street to Greys Avenue developed into a mood-lightened success and I express the hope that a member of the current Board will, in years to come, convey a like view about the coming shift to Remuera Road.

I now conclude with a very pleasant task allotted to me. I have been reminded that our Board at the time formed a Building Committee of some 45 congregants to assist with the Greys Avenue project. The number involved is too large to mention the individuals by name and in any event most are sadly no longer with us, but happily there is one with us today, both in spirit and in body, despite her centenarian status and I have much pleasure in expressing to her, over half a century after the events of the time, our sincere thanks for her efforts on our behalf, in the form of a flowery tribute to Sybil Cornell.