By Joe Seager

A landmark birthday kiddush for Birmingham Progressive Synagogue (BPS) President Frank Maxwell was held… a year after it was meant to happen.

Plans to celebrate Frank’s 85th birthday last year were side-lined by Covid-19, with restrictions preventing services being held in shul.

So, instead, a celebration took place this month with members and friends turning up in good numbers to extend warm birthday wishes and show full regard for Frank’s long-held commitments to BPS.

Frank remains President after eight years in office and has become a much-valued pillar of strength for the community. When it was safe to re-open the shul for live services again, Frank put his stamp on measures to make that possible.

A member since 1977, Frank regards his involvement with BPS affairs as one of the most rewarding parts of his life. Taking a stronger interest when his wife, Carole, died in 2002 helped fill the big void her passing caused, he said.

Frank Maxwell and Rabbi Dr Margaret Jacobi at the special Birmingham Progressive service

Beyond the doors of BPS, Frank makes his mark serving the needs of the wider Jewish community. He is chairman of the Midlands fund-raising wing of World Jewish Relief, a significant member of the Representative Council of Birmingham and Midlands Jewry and helped to organise warm welcomes for Israeli war veterans on their visits to Birmingham.

It is also impossible to overlook the active part Frank still plays in strategic roles for Fracino, the award-winning and globally successful coffee machine company he founded in 1953 after building a prototype machine in his garden shed.

Rabbi Dr Margaret Jacobi, who led the service, said: “Frank is far-sighted, determined and generous in all that he does for our community and sets the same examples serving other interests. At the age of 86, he has the energy of a young man.

“As we pray on this Shabbat for the future of our planet, so we pray that Frank will be part of our future for many years to come and that, in the words of Psalm 92, he will continue to be fruitful in old age and ever be fresh and green.”

In the toast he proposed at the kiddush, Pete Noons said Frank had long been a central mainstay of the BPS and could always be relied upon to deal with any task that came to light.

Pete added: “In every sense, Frank, you are a real mensch, and pretty much the Father of our synagogue.”

Pictures by Charles Davis