Communities Minister Baroness Williams will speak at the formal launch of a Jewish-Muslim women’s group next month.
The Tory peer is set to welcome the launch of government-backed initiative Nisa-Nashim, an interfaith body aiming to strengthen relations between the two communities.
Speaking ahead of the event, Baroness Williams said: “Throughout history women have been powerful drivers of positive social change.
"I hope that Nisa-Nashim will help equip women from Britain’s diverse faith communities with the skills they need to follow on in that fine tradition.”
The event, at a Muslim school in London, is expected to attract members of both communities.
In May, the group received £30,000 worth of funding from the Department for Communities and Local Government with additional financial backing from the Board of Deputies.
The money will allow the group to further its aim of bringing women from both communities together, focusing on leadership skills and supporting communities across the country through social action programmes.
The group is co-chaired by Mitzvah Day founder Laura Marks and Julie Siddiqi, the founder of Sadaqa Day, its Muslim social action counterpart.
Ms Marks, who was made an OBE for her interfaith work this year, has previously told the JC that women have an advantage when it comes to fostering relations across the religious divide.
"We tend to be more collaborative, we tend to be less competitive, we tend to be more practical - traditionally that's just what women are like, particularly Jewish and Muslim women,” she said.
Nisa-Nashim – which translates as “women” in Arabic and Hebrew - was set up after former minister Baroness Warsi hosted an interfaith International Women’s Day event at the Foreign office last year.
At the time, Baroness Warsi, who resigned over the government’s support of Israel during the Gaza war, said women in both communities shared common ground.
She said: “When men in the Jewish and Muslim communities get together, they talk about two things — circumcision and shechita.
“Women would like to talk about leadership so that, in years to come, we could stand back and say we have genuine relationships.”
