The NJA is delighted to welcome Baroness Deech DBE KC in her new role as Honorary President of the NJA.
Baroness Deech brings with her a wealth of experience, knowledge, and unrivalled passion for Jewish communal affairs – which will prove invaluable as the NJA continues to grow as a representative voice of British Jewry.
Baroness Deech is an academic, bioethicist, former Governor of the BBC, and studied Law at St Anne’s College, Oxford, where from 1991-2004 she was Principal of the college. She has a graduate degree in Jewish Studies from Brandeis University.
Baroness Deech has held many other positions during her life; chair of the UK Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, chair of the Bar Standards Board, Bencher of the Inner Temple and a four-year term as a Governor of the BBC from 2002. In the same year, she was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in recognition of her work at the HFEA.
In 2005 it was announced by the House of Lords Appointments Commission that Baroness Deech would be created a life peer, sitting as a Crossbencher. In 2001, she was placed at no.26 in Channel 4’s ‘The God List’, which ranked “the fifty people of faith in Britain who exercise the most power and influence over our lives”. In 2002 she was Jewish Care Woman of Distinction and in 2022 was given the Churchill Award by the Technion University.
Baroness Deech was a Rhodes Trustee and a founding Trustee of The Mandela Rhodes Foundation in 2003. She is on the Board of UN Watch and the Advisory Council of the Union of Jewish Students.
Gary Mond, chairman and founder of the National Jewish Assembly, said, “Baroness Deech is without question one of the most widely respected members of the House of Lords. Her achievements in both the legal and political arenas over many decades are second to none. It is a great honour for the NJA to be able to have Baroness Deech as our Honorary President and her involvement will provide a major boost to all of our work in the months and years ahead.”
The NJA is confident that Baroness Deech’s leadership and guidance will help take the NJA to new heights in 2023 and beyond.