UJIA raises nearly £2 million at annual dinner

Nearly 500 guests filled the ballroom at a central London venue on Wednesday 16 September as the UK’s leading Israel charity UJIA brought together its next generation of trailblazers.

Attendees included Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Christian Cantor, Israel’s Chargé d’Affaires to the UK, new UJS President Raphi Leon and Michael Wegier, chief executive of the Board of Deputies.

The event featured guest speaker, author of Start-Up Nation and Call Me Back podcaster Dan Senor in conversation with UJIA trustee and former UJS president Edward Isaacs, who called Senor’s podcast “essential listening for anyone trying to best understand Israeli relations, the ongoing conflict and Israeli diaspora relations.”

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The wide-ranging conversation included the upcoming Israeli elections and the ability of ‘Call Me Back’ to give people around the world what Senor called “access to the conversations happening inside Israel” in order for them to “hear directly from Israelis about the challenges and the dilemmas they are confronting.”

Senor added that his “biggest wake-up call” was when he got word that the Saudi Ambassador to the UK wanted to meet whilst in London.

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“Halfway through the meeting”, he recalled, “I said, Mr. Ambassador, I’m flattered you’re such a religious devotee of ‘Call Me Back’. It’s not exactly what I had on my bingo card. And he said, ‘You’ve got to understand from our perspective as a diplomat for a country in the Middle East and our country in the Middle East, we don’t really get exposed to the conversation happening inside Israel. We get the English translations of the official statements from Prime Minister’s Office, the IDF Chief of Staff’s office, we get one-dimensional interpretations from British and U.S. journalists, like you know the BBC. Let’s just say those aren’t the most balanced perspectives.”

Following laughter from the audience, Senor added that the Ambassador praised the podcast for allowing him to hear “the conversation from real Israelis in English” and realising that “they don’t always agree.”

Taking to the stage were Trailblazers Amit Fahima, a farmer and agricultural leader from Israel’s northern border region; Libi Fileman, UJIA’s Birthright Growth manager; Yoni Nemko, Bnei Akiva and Tribe young leader, and selected in 2026 as one of UJIA’s Gap Year Scholars; Yaron Waksman, co-founder and chief executive of HaGal Sheli, an Israeli non-profit using surfing as a tool for education, therapy and resilience; and Rebecca Freeman, director of programme and youth at FZY.

Fahima said: “I spend my days in the fields, not offices. That is the part most people do not picture when they think about Israel’s future. But in Israel today, those fields are not simply farmland, they are our front line.”

He described their vital importance as to “whether border communities can come back, if families can return to their homes, if families can return to their homes. Every field we restore, every harvest we protect, every farmer we help stand back up becomes part of the region’s ability to survive. One person becomes a team. One field becomes a region. The support for UJIA in this room becomes the reason we can rebuild.”

Describing the power of youth movements, FZY’s Rebecca Freeman said: “We create safe Jewish spaces that are proud and I’m grateful to lead the team building this. A 14-year-old joins a weekly group. By 17, they’re taking the opportunity to lead one, and by 19, they’re the ones running camp, running Israel tour, responsible for hundreds of younger kids, I know it works because I was a beneficiary of this infrastructure, all supported by UJIA. The whole point is, is that nobody stays just a participant. Anyone can become a trailblazer, building for someone else. This isn’t just an added bonus; it’s the entire model. If we miss a year of investing in this pipeline, we will have fewer future leaders come out the other end. What UJIA’s trailblazers are building is the next generation who’ll be standing here doing this after me as a proud, committed Zionist Jew.”

Addressing guests, dinner chair and UJIA trustee Hilda Worth said: “We are living in difficult times; difficult times to be Jewish, and difficult times to be a Zionist. We must continue to stand firm in our unwavering support for the people of Israel. That means continuing UJIA’s critical work on the ground, supporting those in the border communities in the south and in the north who have borne the brunt of the horrific events of 7 October and their aftermath.”

Nodding to the Trailblazers in the room, she added: “At the very same time, we must continue to build and to strengthen the connection our young people in our community have to Israel and the Jewish community. These past three years have reminded us just how deeply we need that bond, not as a distant idea, but as an irreplaceable part of who we are.”

Worth described the young leaders as standing “in a direct line from the early pioneers, those who drained the swamps, planted fields, built kibbutzim, taught children, defended borders, and imagined a future long before it existed. Their spirit of grit, community, and unwavering belief is alive again. This is Zionism 2.0, and we should be loud and proud about it.”