UJIA drops unpaid leave plan for staff

The UJIA has shelved plans to ask staff to take two weeks’ unpaid leave this year in order to cut the charity’s costs.

Staff had been warned of the move at the end of last year.

For an employee on a salary of £25,000, it would have meant the loss of nearly £1,000, equivalent to a four per cent pay cut.

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The 40-somethings who lead the UJIA

Few Anglo-Jewish leaders have risen to the top as rapidly as Bill Benjamin, the Californian-born chairman-designate of the UJIA who will succeed Mick Davis next month. An executive in an international property investment company, he had been on a couple of UJIA missions but by his own admission “wasn’t heavily active” in it when he was approached to run it a year ago.

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UJIA quiz fans tackle a varied question time

Cryptic clues about tube stations and a “where’s the rabbi” round were among the posers taken on by contestants at the Y-UJIA quiz and cocktail night.

Eleven tables of young professionals put themselves to the test, answering questions such as whether Boost chocolate bars are kosher (formerly, but not now) and the year the Beatles formed.

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David Cameron will be UJIA’s guest

Prime Minister David Cameron is to be the special guest of honour at next week’s United Joint Israel Appeal annual dinner, taking place in central London.

It will be his first face-to-face encounter with a large section of the Jewish community since his appearance at August’s Guildhall event to mark the 40th anniversary of the murdered Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics.

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Galilee school centre name honours Lord Janner

A new education centre in the north of Israel is to be named after the former Labour MP and ex-president of the Board of Deputies, Lord Janner.

Israel's ambassador to the UK, Daniel Taub, and members of the UJIA recommended the veteran Labour peer, now 84, for the honour in recognition of his work promoting understanding between people of different faiths.

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What is Mick Davis going to do?

It seems that I opened a can of worms last week when I drew attention in the Jerusalem Post to the fact that the UJIA had appointed a bitter critic of Israel, Joe Millis, as its PR and communications manager.

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UJIA man is focus of Israel row

Joseph Millis, the UJIA’s new public relations and communications manager, has defended his Zionist credentials after calls for his dismissal by an Israeli columnist who accused him of a being an “extremist critic of Israel”.

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