POWER 100 WHO’S MADE IT?
We’re almost there. Part three of our guide to the community’s power players sees our panel’s list from 30 to 11 —and the reasons behind their decisions
BENJAMIN PERL
30THE UNOFFICIAL leader of the movement to support Orthodox faith schools, Perl has overseen a revamp in the way the community’s education is organised and financed, paying for 20 schools along the way. Among the Israeli-born businessman’s many projects, he is responsible for Sacks Morasha Jewish Primary School, Finchley, the Beis Yaakov Primary School, Colindale, and Yavneh College in Borehamwood — the jewel in his crown. Not bad for someone who made his money selling picture frames, after abandoning his first role as a rabbi.
CHAYA SPITZ
29WHILE MEN may rule the roost in the rabbinate and yeshivot, Charedi women are increasingly making their mark in other areas of community life. No more so than the women who run the Interlink Foundation, an advisory and training service which helps some 100 charities. Its director Chaya Sptiz presides over an operation which has set high standards of professionalism in the strictly Orthodox voluntary sector. Her gentle manner and participation in wider communal forums make her one of Stamford Hill’s most effective advocates. Dedicated to her community’s way of life, she is willing to address the challenges faced by its expanding population.
JONATHAN BOYD
28STARTING LIFE in academia, Jonathan Boyd took over the helm as executive director of the Jewish Policy Research institute in early 2010. Since then he has played a key role in writing and overseeing the publication of major statistical reports which reveal the current state of the community. He has revitalised the JPR and provides the statistics which are the core planning material for the community, especially its care organisations and schools. He is maried to Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand.
RABBI RAFI ZARUM
27AS DEAN of the London School of Jewish Studies, Rabbi Zarum oversees the centre’s worldclass teacher-training programmes, ensuring the community’s education sector continues to thrive. His influence stretches beyond his day job. He is an in-demand speaker at education conferences around the world, and is credited with making Jewish learning accessible, thanks to his Torah L’Am crash course and JamPacked Bible study guide. A prolific tweeter, he posts under the name SuperSedra.
MATTHEW GOULD
26THE HIGHLY regarded Gould is the first Jew to be British ambassador to Israel. Before being appointed, he had difficult postings in Manila, Islamabad and Tehran — as the number two at the embassy in Iran, he made a point of attending synagogue, and before arriving in Tel Aviv he met British Jewish and Muslim communities to explain his approach to his role in Israel. At his prompting, the UKIsrael Tech Hub was created with a dedicated tech envoy, Saul Klein — the first position of its kind in government. His unstinting efforts promoting trade and hi-tech collaboration between the two countries was recognised by the Queen with a CMG in this year’s Birthday Honours.
LORD MENDELSOHN
25A FORMER Labour Friends of Israel chair, Jon Mendelsohn co-founded LLM Communications, was an adviser to Tony Blair, and Gordon Brown’s chief fundraiser. In that role he was embroiled in the scandal over the party’s donations — but was never found to have been involved in any wrongdoing. Ennobled last year by Ed Miliband, he is regarded as a key Jewish go-to figure in the party. He is a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust and chair of the Stern Advisory Group. As chairman of Finchley Unit- ed Synagogue he has overseen Kinloss’ growth into a powerhouse of British shul life. Alongside his wife, Facebook executive Nicola, Lord Mendelsohn is part of one of Anglo-Jewry’s leading power couples.
KAREN POLLOCK
24AS CHIEF executive of the Holocaust Educational Trust, Karen Pollock runs a charity dedicated to informing people about the Shoah. Few communal activists are better connected at Westminster and everyone — from the Prime Minster down — will take her calls. She is heavily involved in David Cameron’s commission to find ways to educate future generations about the Holocaust. Her background is key to her role. Having been prominent in the National Union of Students, she become director of the Parliamentary Committee Against Antisemitism and is a member of the Jewish Human Rights Coalition UK. She has represented the UK and the Jewish community at international conferences, including the United Nations Conferences against Racism, and is a founding trustee of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust.
LEO NOE
23THE PROPERTY magnate is one of Britain’s wealthiest people, with a personal fortune estimated at more than half a billion pounds. His joint British-Israeli ventures include ownership of some of Israel’s biggest shopping malls and property assets valued at around £8 billion. It is his huge philanthropic work in the community that leads to his position on this list. He is a leading voice in Jewish education, and is patron of education and welfare groups. Noe has developed a particular interest in special needs and has also spearheaded initiatives in Israel to encourage young Charedi men to enter the work world.
JONATHAN MILLER
22AS HEADTEACHER of JFS, Jonathan Miller leads the largest Jewish school in Europe.
12 He joined in 1984 as a chemistry teacher, before rising to take the top job in 2008. Since then, he has guided the education of over 4,000 children who have passed through the school, their academic results regularly pushing JFS to the top of the league tables.
BILL BENJAMIN
21A LEADING light in the next generation of communal leaders, Californian-born Benjamin has wasted no time in coming to prominence. In the 13 or so years he has been in the UK, he has served as co-chair of Masorti Judaism — from 2008-12 — and as a member of the Jewish Leadership Council’s Jewish schools commission. He is also trustee of the Jewish Community Secondary School in north London. But his most important position is chairman of the UJIA, having succeeded Mick Davis in 2013. Married with three children, his day job is senior partner of Area Management, a global asset management firm.
JONATHAN FREEDLAND
20AWARD-WINNING JOURNALIST, broadcaster and opinionformer, Freedland is known for his incisive views and interest in the US along with the politics of Britain and the Middle East. He writes a weekly column for the Guardian and a monthly piece for the JC. He was named Columnist of the Year in the What the Papers Say awards for 2002 and was awarded the David Watt Prize for Journalism in 2008. He has also written seven books under his own name. Bring Home the Revolution won a Somerset Maugham Award and caused some controversy for arguing that Britain was in dire need of a constitutional and cultural overhaul. In 2005, he published Jacob’s Gift, a memoir which told the stories
of three generations of his own family, as well as exploring wider questions of identity. He has also published five best-selling novels as Sam Bourne.
The Righteous Men became a number one bestseller in the UK, selling over 500,000 copies.
YOTAM OTTOLENGHI
19ISRAELI-BORN OTTOLENGHI has helped change the way the British eat, with his London restaurants, Nopi and Ottolenghi, and his three bestselling books, introducing modern Israeli/Jewish cookery to the UK. He carried out his IDF service in army intelligence and then after military service went to Tel Aviv University, completing a master’s degree in comparative literature. During his studies he worked on the newsdesk of Haaretz. In 1997 he moved to the UK, with plans to study for a PhD, but instead enrolled at Le Cordon Bleu cookery school in London for six months. He has lived here ever since, and received British citizenship in 2012. He has a young son with his partner, Karl Allen.
DANIEL TAUB
18THE VERSATILE Finchley-born Israeli envoy is as comfortable debating on television as he is giving a Bible shiur to an Anglican church. An Oxford and Harvardeducated lawyer, just two years after making aliyah he found himself at the top table of Middle East peace negotiations, representing Israel at the 1991 Madrid Conference. In 1993 and 1994, he took part in the landmark Oslo talks with Yasir Arafat’s PLO and was also involved in the aborted attempts to reach a peace deal with Syria in 2000. He once quipped: “This probably makes me the world expert in failed negotiations” — unusually self-deprecating for an Israeli diplomat perhaps, but then Taub was born in Britain and understands the community better than any previous ambassador.
PROFESSOR DAVID LATCHMAN
17WHAT IS striking about David Latchman is his versatility. He is a scientist, one of the country’s leading geneticists. He is a noted administrator, master of Birkbeck College in London. And he is a businessman, having co-founded a research company which was sold for millions. But it is in his role as chairman of the Maurice Wohl Charitable Foundation that he is best known in the community. Set up by the professor’s late uncle, the philanthropist Maurice Wohl, the foundation has donated millions to Jewish causes, including health, welfare and education. It was a major contributor to Jewish Care’s £44 million Maurice and Vivienne Wohl campus in Golders Green and the recently opened Wohl Ilford Jewish Primary School (IJPS) building in Redbridge.
STEVEN LEWIS
16AS CHAIRMAN of Jewish Care, the largest communal welfare organisation, Steven Lewis sparked debate this year when he asserted that the majority of British Jews do not donate enough time or money to their charities. A self-described traditional Jew, the Hampstead Garden Suburb Synagogue member has long been involved in communal activities. As a teenager, he spent Sunday mornings teaching Hebrew classes to 10- and 11-year-olds in Stanmore, where he grew up. From 1990 to 1994, he chaired Young Jewish Care. Now, while running a successful property company, the 51-year-old takes clients and colleagues on tours around Jewish Care campuses and encourages all he meets to attend charity fundraisers or donate. A passionate Tottenham Hotspur supporter, who met his wife Alicia at a JC dance, Lewis lives in Highgate, has four children and encourages them all to volunteer.
DAVID CAMERON
15BRITISH JEWRY has few better friends than the Prime Minister. He has repeatedly expressed his support for Israel and shown his determination to protect Jewish practices in this country. His Holocaust Commission has been tasked with planning for the future of Shoah education in this country. He made a successful visit to Israel in March during which he spoke at the Knesset and announced tens of millions of pounds of technology deals. During the Gaza conflict this summer Mr Cameron resolutely stood by Israel, refusing to bow to pressure from his coalition partners and opposition leaders to criticise the military action taken against Hamas. His praise for Anglo-Jewry’s contribution to British life was pressed home at a last year’s Chanucah reception in Downing Street which was described by some attendees as a love-in between the community and the Prime Minister.
DAYAN CHANOCH EHRENTREU
14THE FORMER head of the London Beth Din may have retired from the post six years ago but he remains the rabbi many other Orthodox rabbis look up to. Now in his 80s, he continues to exert influence, running his own steibl and acting as head of the itinerant European Beth Din. While he kept a tight leash on Chief Rabbi Sacks’s modernism during his tenure at the Beth Din, his go-ahead for the north-west London eruv in the teeth of strictly Orthodox opposition in 2003 was ground- breaking. His power may now be on the wane with a new chief rabbi, but his signature to a declaration against Limmud in the wake of Chief Rabbi Mirvis’s decision to attend it nevertheless dissuaded a number of other Orthodox rabbis from going, too.
LORD FINKELSTEIN
13THE ASSOCIATE editor of The Times and regular columnist for the JC, Daniel Finkelstein is not only one of the most prominent Jewish journalists in the country, and a serial winner of columnist of the year awards, he has also maintained an influential position at the heart of the Conservative Party. He served as the director of the Conservative Research Department under John Major in the 1990s, and was made a life peer by David Cameron last year. He is a friend and trusted adviser to the Tory leadership, and is particularly close to George Osborne, who spoke at his 50th birthday party. He is also chairman of the most influential think tank in the country, Policy Exchange.
RABBI LAURA JANNERKLAUSNER
12RABBI LAURA JannerKlausner has made it her business to get Reform Judaism’s voice heard. As the senior rabbi to the movement, she is a regular radio panellist who tweets on key issues affecting British Jews. A dual Israeli-British citizen, she lived in Israel for 15 years. Wanting to widen her horizons with the study of other faiths, she read divinity at Cambridge. Outside tutorials, she threw herself into Jewish activities; commuting once a week to do youth work at Radlett and Bushey Reform Synagogue. The great-niece of the late Chief Rabbi Israel Brodie, she enrolled at Leo Baeck College in 2004, and in her final year she began working as a student rabbi at North Western Reform Synagogue where she remained until 2011 before taking up her position as senior rabbi. Married with three children, she lives in London, but has not ruled out making aliyah in the future.
GERALD RONSON
11IN THE last Power 100, Ronson was placed at number two and cited as the community’s top philanthropist. Eight years on, he has slipped down the list — mainly because several other, newer names have emerged — but remains a hugely influential figure. In recent times, he has overseen the opening of the Jewish Community Secondary School, for which he secured funding, become an executive member of the Jewish Leadership Council and continued to guide the Community Security Trust —one of the jewels in Anglo-Jewry’s crown — as its chairman and chief funder. His Heron Property Group — rebuilt after he was jailed in 1990 for his part in the Guinness shares scandal — constructed the Heron Tower, which, when it opened in 2009, was London’s tallest building. He is known for his devotion both to family — he and Gail, his wife of 45 years, have four children — and for his devotion to hard work, although at the age of 75, he could be forgiven for easing off on the 80-hour weeks. He says: “I’ve never been shy to ask for money. I think the best askers are the best givers.” Panellists have sought to identify those who have done most to shape the UK community. The test for inclusion is not whether they are famous or a mensch but their impact on the community and its identity.
The top 10