Jewish students celebrate achievements at annual UJS awards

Innovative and hard-working Jewish students across the country have received praise from their peers at the annual Union of Jewish Students Awards in London.

Among those tackling topical issues were two Leeds students including Louise Aron, who created the first peer-led mental health support initiative at a university, and Sara Felberg, who set up a donation point at Leeds Hillel to collect sanitary products to donate to charities fighting period poverty.

An award for interfaith outreach was a jointly won by Greta Grossman and Isabelle Tarsh from Durham, Sally Patterson from Bristol and Lauren Keiles from Leeds.

Students from Warwick and Imperial College were acknowledged for their Israel engagement work while City University’s Ayelet Besso-Cowen, a trainee nurse, was recognised for “outstanding leadership by a young woman”.

Fighting the corner for Jewish LGBT+ community was Dominic Casoria at Lancaster and Emma Jacobs from Leeds, whose motion at UJS conference mandated the union to have a float at the upcoming London Pride parade

The Alan Senitt Outstanding contribution to Campus Life Award was scooped by Daniel Voignac of Imperial Israel Society while Jewish Society (Jsoc) of the Year went to Sheffield J-Soc.

A UJS spokesman said: “We received almost 100 nominations, and we were proud to see our campus leaders come together for this special evening to acknowledge the amazing work they have done.”