New team at Board of Deputies face fresh challenges

"It's an upset," one old-timer declared after Sunday's election results. Not that Laura Marks was elected, but that she had captured the top vice-presidential slot barely four months after becoming a deputy. Her election clearly signals a widespread desire for a breath of fresh air.

She benefited both from concerted Progressive canvassing, and from the Board's own campaign to encourage more female and younger deputies. Had neither of the two women candidates for vice-president been elected, the organisation would have faced a PR disaster.

But her main asset was her proven cross-communal credentials as the founder of Mitzvah Day, an innovation which has not only unified different sections of the Jewish community but also reached out to other faiths. She would seem an ideal choice to raise the profile of an important, but often understated, part of the Board's work - building interfaith alliances.

The prevailing mood on the floor of the Board was that it now has its strongest vice-presidential team in years. In Alex Brummer, it has one of the country's top journalists who will bring sound judgment and high-level contacts. Jonathan Arkush has been an energetic chairman of the defence division, carrying the fight to anti-Zionists.