Mirvis: too many young people live in a 'bubble'

He added: "We need to be more conscious about what is happening in our world and more committed to providing help, in addition to the wonderful things we are doing for our community and for Israel. We shouldn't be selfishly inclined and only think, 'how is this good for us'? The key element of our Jewish approach to life should be, what benefit we can be to our world?"

This is a unique initiative

He continued: "The message I want to get out there is: as a British Jewish community, we should be doing better beyond our community."

Rabbi Mirvis said it would be difficult for many of the estimated 30,000 pupils in Jewish schools in the UK to imagine life in India, where compulsory education stops at 14.

His new initiative, the Ben Azzai Programme, was inspired by a visit to India last year.

The Chief Rabbi said that he and his wife, Valerie, who saw poverty and hardship in their native South Africa, were taken aback by the disturbing levels of hardship in India's slums.

But he said he was proud to see Jewish aid charities working in India's poorest areas.

Rabbi Mirvis said that Jewish young people should see the slums for themselves, and claimed that there was "an absolute lack of awareness" in the community. He added that this awareness could only be understood by "being there."

He added: "They are not going to get it from a film like Slum Dog Millionaire, where you kind of think you know it all.

"Nothing can prepare you for the reality of being there. The depth of the poverty is unbelievable."

The project, which launched this week, will take 15 university students from across the community to India every year.

Once they have applied and been selected, students will travel to India in late December.

The Chief Rabbi hopes participants will be inspired to start their own relief projects.

He said: "For us it is not the eight days of the trip which are important, it is what happens after.

"Once it is over they will become our ambassadors in the UK who will return home energised and empowered to do something based on what they have

witnessed.

"We want them to talk about their experiences on campus and synagogues and then to come up with joint and separate initiatives to help people outside the community.

"It could be a new organisation, a project. Maybe they will individually go back for a longer period of time. We want to be flexible and leave it up to them. But they will make a difference."

A spokesman for the Chief Rabbi's office said they were particularly excited about the project as it was the first of its kind accessible to Orthodox students.

The spokesman said: "Previously, because of the limitations of organising for Shabbat and travelling to a country like India, Orthodox students would not have gone on a trip like this.

"But because it is being carried out under an Orthodox framework, all the limitations like food and travel will be taken care of under our supervision."

The project has been funded by the Pears Foundation and will run in partnership with OLAM, an Israeli social action group, and JDC Entwine, Tzedek and Gabriel Project Mumbai.

Jude Williams, chief executive of social action charity Tzedek, said the organisation had been taking young Jews to the developing world for more than 20 years.

But Mrs Williams said the Chief Rabbi's initiative was unique: "This new programme's role is to provide a Jewish lens to understand what is happening and what our Jewish responsibility is when faced with real suffering and poverty of people who are not Jewish."

Asked about the Chief Rabbi's comments, Robyn Ashworth-Steen, a rabbinical student who founded social justice group Tzelem UK, said: "The Jewish teenage community reflects the larger Jewish community.

"Some will not be engaged with issues outside Anglo-Jewry and Israel, but many are and feel passionately about issues concerning refugees, environmental issues and much more."