Refugee charity approved for membership of Board of Deputies

Hias+Jcore, the charity which supports and advocates for refugees, has been accepted as a member of the Board of Deputies three years after a similar application was rejected.

The organisation was formed two years ago out out of the partnership between the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society in the USA and the Jewish Council for Racial Equality.

In 2021, Jcore failed to gain the necessary two-thirds majority for admittance to the Board. Its then executive director blamed “false” claims circulating about it including that it had not opposed antisemitism.

But on Sunday, Hias-Jcore was successful in its bid to join at the Board’s plenary in Manchester, as was Jnetics, the charity which encourages awareness of and testing for genetic diseases.

Rabbi David Mason, the executive director of Hias+Jcore, said, “We are delighted that Hias+Jcore has joined the Board of Depuuties with overwhelming support.

“We are a Jewish organisation looking to work with others towards a fairer and more cohesive world for refugees and asylum seekers and of the ways we want to deliver that is through engaging the Jewish community with awareness and education. Joining the Board makes that more possible and further enables us to play our part in the wider Jewish community.”

Board president Phil Rosenberg noted that the acceptance of the new member organisations as well as the recently announced rapprochement with the Campaign Against Antisemitism showed that the Board was living up to the officers’ ambition to “make the community more united, inclusive and outward-looking”.

Sunday’s meeting, addressed by Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, was the first to be arranged outside London that was not part of a Board regional weekend.

Rosenberg, who has pledged £100,000 for work in the regions, said, “I am delighted that we are fulfilling our commitment to the regions by being a truly national organisation, offering genuine support in cash and kind. We are not the Board of Deputies of London Jews. We are the Board of Deputies of British Jews, as our dynamic programme, including this weekend in Manchester, is showing”.