Rabbi Mendy Korer takes a quick selfie break on 21km run across the Arctic

A “RUNNING Rabbi” from Islington has raised over £2,000 for his Synagogue’s annual passover holiday celebration dinner by completing a half-marathon in the Arctic Circle.

Rabbi Mendy Korer, an Islington resident of 15 years, completed the gruelling 21km jog through northern Finland’s arctic mountains last week.

He opened the borough’s only synagogue, Chabad Islington, with his wife in 2011. Rabbi Korer said that Islington’s Jewish community was “active and fast-growing” and loved “meaningful community time”.

Rabbi Korer said: “The run was the most incredible experience, just being in the vastness of nature of the Artic Circle – I ran past frozen lakes, endless planes of snow and up Kätkätunturi Mountain.

“This year, I was raising funds for our annual Passover Seder, which is a big celebration of Jewish values and our community in Islington.

“We have a nice communal dinner with traditional Jewish food and hear from lots of different speakers in around 20 different languages, and read some traditional texts.

“The Seder will be for around 200 people, and we want to ensure that all members of our community, whether visitors or residents, can come together to celebrate this Jewish holiday. So that’s why I decided to fundraise to help with the costs and make it accessible to everyone.

“I completed the run solo for the most part. I’ve done lots of fundraising runs before, like a 106km cross-London ultramarathon, and I tend to prefer running solo to the mass participation events.”
According to Rabbi Korer, the combination of the snow, uphill terrain and a slight reduction in physical “sharpness” meant he finished the run in around three hours.

He added: “The £2,000 is incredible and will go a long way to helping us run this community holiday – people have been incredibly supportive.”

Passover is an annual major Jewish holiday that will take place between April 1 and April 9 this year.

Anybody wanting to take part in a fundraising run for Chabad Islington should get in touch and would receive one-to-one running training from this multi-disciplinary “running Rabbi”.