A former Reform youth leader who once learned Arabic in Damascus has become London Citizens’ first designated Jewish community worker.

Charlotte Fischer, 25, from south-east London, has a twin role: she is promoting the grassroots activist organisation within the Reform, Liberal and Masorti movements, which are sponsoring her post.

She will also be London Citizen’s Barnet worker, fostering alliances between faith communities and other groups.

An Oxford graduate, Ms Fischer — the daughter of Wimbledon Synagogue’s Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild — has spent two years in South Africa, where she became the director of the South African Centre for Equality and Diversity (Sacred), a Progressive Jewish social action group.

She had been impressed by Citizens UK campaigns and jumped at the chance to join it. Although the organisation has come under fire from some in the Jewish community for associating with mosques which have hosted radical Islamists, she stresses that the Israel/Palestine conflict is not on its agenda.

“We deal with what synagogues and mosques can do in their area to change problems members from both communities are facing,” she said.