A woman's charitable drive to bank time

“I collect with people who have severe learning difficulties and the few hours that I’m there are very fulfilling.

'People don't think they have the time to donate'

“Of course, you have to lead by doing; but that’s not why I collect, I find it very satisfying.”

She has always been hailed as an example of people “who do”.

As well as holding down a part-time job at the JVN, she volunteers as an advisor to the Children’s Aid Committee; is a trustee of the faith-based Regeneration Network; is co-chair of the Faiths Forum for London as a representative of the London Jewish Forum; is co-chair of United Synagogue Women — and more recently was appointed the first female vice-president of the United Synagogue, of which she is also a trustee.

She manages all that with five hours sleep and always having her Blackberry in sight.

But she wishes more people in the community would volunteer as trustees, participate in fun-runs or deliver shopping baskets to the elderly. Lewis says people in their twenties are the most active of the JVN’s 4,000 adult volunteers. “We also get large sways of teenagers from schools,” she adds, before pointing out that a lot of volunteer work is “episodic”.

“I don’t think people do enough,” she says. “We don’t live in a commitment society; we live in a very instant-gratification world.

“People don’t think they have ‘the time’ to donate, but most volunteers I know are already busy people.

“Part of it is down to times being harder; there are fewer ladies who lunch — they used to be the major stalwarts of volunteer work, but we still get more women volunteers than men.”

As a signatory of the Women in Jewish Leadership campaign to bring more women into high-ranking roles, Lewis believes that “women still don’t put themselves up to be trustees as much as men because they just want to get on with on-the-ground volunteering.

“Maybe men like the status, but they mainly call-in saying they would like to be a trustee.”

US Women was launched on the back of female volunteers dedicated to raising their voices in Orthodox Judaism. In her three-fold role at the United Synagogue, Lewis has long been an advocate for change.

She campaigned for the position of synagogue chair and trustee being made available to women — although she needed to be pushed into standing for the latter — and believes there is more to be done.

“The US recognised that it needed to change. It was silly being able to have a woman as vice-chair and acting chair, but having no allowance to be a chair.

“We were losing the potential of good people, of good women. A lot of young educated women want more from the shul community.

“We are the US, a halachic organisation, so there are things we can’t do.

“But we want women to feel more included in programmes going on. We can be creative to make women feel more included, like putting mechitzas down the middle of the shul, and not around it; we can look at the architecture of the shul, so women don’t feel like they’re in a cage; we don’t use rebbetzins as much as we could.

“You don’t always have to make changes, but you have to acknowledge them.

“Partnership minyanim are a difficult one. It’s hard to support it as the norm right now, but we might be looking back in five years and see more of them.”

In her role as vice-president of the US, Lewis, who is confident that there will be a woman president of the US one day, is involved in the “strategic review” of the religious institution. That means, “making synagogues a place people want to go; increasing our membership; making ourselves relevant to young families; and providing services to kids.

“We live in a free market synagogue economy — it’s the centre of Jewish life. We have to stay vibrant. Development is thinking about how you can improve and evolve.”

The mother-of-two, who read sociology at Reading University and graduated with a masters at Southbank in 1977, says since growing up in Kingsbury she has “always been passionate about the US,” having been appointed as its first female director.

After living in Israel for a year, the football, squash and table-tennis enthusiast ran the AJ6 youth club using her earlier experience as the AJY sports and activity organiser, where she was paid £3,000 a year and met her husband, Howard.

But few know that the Pinner US member once also ran a business, the Fun Junction indoor play area which was used as a set for popular TV programme Fun House, hosted by Pat Sharpe.

Now Lewis, a grandmother-of-six, has admitted that she has started to think about “winding down” ahead of her 59th birthday in December.

“Or as my husband says, more volunteering and less money,” she laughs.