Board of Deputy leaders have defended private meetings with Labour figures after being challenged at the organisation’s monthly session in London on Sunday.

Brian Mark, deputy for Jewish Student Chaplaincy Scotland, accused the Board's president Marie van der Zyl and senior vice-president Sheila Gewolb of undermining the work of Labour MPs and the Jewish Labour Movement by taking part in “secret meetings”.

Mrs van der Zyl held a meeting - revealed by the JC - with the general secretary of the Labour Party Jennie Formby and Dr Gewolb met Welsh Assembly Member Jenny Rathbone, who had been suspended by the party after questioning the security concerns of Cardiff Jews.

Mr Mark thundered, “It is a disgrace, it is an outrage. What it means is that the deputies here are merely wallpaper. We are here to applaud and be fed whatever we’re told.”

If Board officers wanted meetings with the Labour Party, they should have the courtesy to tell deputies beforehand, he argued.

But Mrs van der Zyl said it was wrong to use the term “secret”. “Private meetings happen with politicians all of the time," she said. "There is nothing new in that because we have to advocate for the Jewish community.”

Dr Gewolb explained that the meeting at the Board’s office with Ms Rathbone, who had apologised to the Welsh Jewish community, had been held at the request of Cardiff’s Orthodox rabbi.

But she added the Board was “very unhappy” at Ms Rathbone’s subsequent readmission to the Welsh Labour Assembly group. The Board would now be meeting the Assembly’s First Minister Mark Drakeford next month,  she said, which would “not be private. It will be very publicised.”

In a written question, Tal Ofer, deputy for Chigwell and Hainault Synagogue, asked Mrs van der Zyl whether she agreed that “confidential meetings” were sometimes necessary and whether “cowardly” anonymous critics had an agenda to undermine the Board.

In response, she said the Board listened to legitimate criticism but anonymous sources did “not fall into this category. If they have something to say they should say it to me rather than snipe from under cover.”

Earlier in the meeting, Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis congratulated the Board on its leadership and stressed the need for Jewish unity across the globe.

“It is simply inexcusable and irresponsible if we have unnecessary rifts and tension within at a time when we are being threatened from without,” he said.

Appealing for people to conduct disagreements in a civilised way and respect each other’s views, he said, “Yiddishkeit without menschlichkeit is not Yiddishkeit.” (Judaism without humanity is not Judaism).

When he came to office, he recalled, he had made it known that “no one would ever hear from my lips any public condemnation of any non-Orthodox Jewish group.”

He urged deputies to support plans for the National Holocaust Memorial Centre with a “very strong voice” before these go before Westminister Council.

The Board was also addressed by the Albanian Ambassador Qirjako Qirko, whose “unprecedented visit”, Mrs van der Zyl said, could be “a future role model” for co-operation between Jews, Muslims and other faiths.