“I am particularly delighted that, for the first-time in our history, we have an equal number of women and men on the executive. The achievement of a gender-balanced executive is an important step on the road to equality. However, there is much more to do; I look forward to working with our Deputies to continue to make the community more inclusive in the years ahead,” Rosenberg said.
The results represent an early success in fulfilling the ambitions of Board’s gender equality plan, released in September, which pledged to raise the number of female deputies in the organisation to better reflect the diversity of the Jewish community.
A Board spokesperson said that female candidates had been encouraged to stand for its divisions and executive. Three of the four divisional elections had been contested and multiple men had stood.
The equality plan was produced in consultation with women deputies after May’s elections, drawing from the results of internal surveys of women in the organisation as well as the recommendations of the Jewish Leadership Council’s 2012 Commission on Women in Jewish Leadership.
The announcement of the plan came shortly after two women – former Labour MP Dame Louise Ellman and Liberal Judaism Chair Karen Newman – were selected to be independent chairs of the Board’s plenary sessions, a role which was previously held by the president.
The new programme includes provisions to change the workplace culture and encourage more women to step forward for BoD divisional and executive elections to ensure balanced representation.
The previous president, Marie van der Zyl, was only the second woman to take up the role.
