Mitzvah Day now has a rabbi on the staff with the appointment of Jeff Berger as interfaith adviser.

Rabbi Berger will work with the Mitzvah Day team to further the charity’s efforts to bring faith groups together through social action.

Originally from New York, he was the founding minister of the Rambam Sephardi Synagogue in Borehamwood, which he left last year to focus on his interfaith work. He is a regular speaker at interfaith conferences.

“Mitzvah Day is the largest single day of faith-based volunteering in the country and its popularity is expanding around the world,” he observed. “My hope is to continue building on its enormously successful achievements and to help more communities of all faiths experience the remarkably inspiring result of working together for a common good.”

Mitzvah Day founder and chair Laura Marks said the charity would benefit from Rabbi Berger’s “wealth of experience and contacts in the interfaith world. Around 85 per cent of Mitzvah Day’s projects include non-Jewish charities or people.”