When Kisharon Trustee Victoria Hart walks into a meeting of the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BoD) later this month, she knows her father, David, who passed away in 2010, would have been delighted.
“Of everything I’ve done in my life, this would have made him happiest,” says Victoria, 49.
Victoria has been appointed Kisharon’s representative on the BoD following its decision in July last year to admit five new organisations – Kisharon, Gift, the Small Communities Network, the Jewish Police Association and Langdon.
Standing alongside more than 300 other deputies from communal organisations and synagogues at the BoD, which is regarded as the voice of the British Jewish Community, will be “an immense privilege”, Victoria says.
Victoria had an observant Jewish upbringing, and her first job was at the Jewish charity, Ravenswood, now Norwood, supporting adults with learning disabilities.
After studying for an undergraduate degree at Leeds University, Victoria then went on to study for a Masters in Social Work in London, laying the groundwork for a career that has been nothing short of meteoric. From working with older adults in Tower Hamlets and moving into mental health services in Islington, came an appointment as a CQC inspector in its mental health, learning disability and substance misuse team covering London. Next came a move to an NHS forensic service at the Bethlem Royal Hospital in Beckenham, a major centre for psychiatric research.
Currently, Victoria is Regional Engagement Lead for London at Social Work England, the social workers’ regulatory body.
Along the way, she was one of the founders of the NHS Jewish Staff Network, lectured on anti-semitism to university students and social workers, assisted the TUC with its anti-semitism training and contributed a chapter on Jewishness and challenging anti-semitism in The Anti-Racist Social Worker, regarded as the textbook on combatting racism in health and social care.
A turning point for Victoria came during Covid. She said: “The whole Covid experience made me reflect on what I was doing to contribute to the community. My CQC experience was not common and thought there was maybe an organisation I could help in some way. When I saw Kisharon was looking for Trustees, I applied.”
Her appointment as Kisharon’s representative to the BoD was the icing on the cake. None of her jobs since she has qualified have been in the Jewish community and Victoria admits freely that her Judaism is not what it was.
Victoria pledges: “I know this community and the wider sensitivities. Although I’ve not been active in it, it was everything to me.
“I will bring to the table my experience in social care and put Kisharon at the heart of the British Jewish community. I want to represent special needs education and people with learning disabilities and give Kisharon visibility and to make connections which can be helpful.”
Not only that but she has in mind a two-way conversation, with regular feedback from the BoD to Kisharon staff and those it supports, even in easy read. “People need to know what I am doing,” she says.
It is this reconnection with the Jewish community and in a role of such prominence that would have made David proud. “I have affirmed my roots and my father would have loved that. I have come full circle,” she says.
