Why the President of the Board of Deputies should receive a salary

For 266 years the Board of Deputies of British Jews has been led by people who could afford it. That is not a criticism of any of them. It is simply the condition of entry. For the first time in its history the Board is asking whether the president should be paid. For me, the answer is yes.

That has nothing to do with the present incumbent. It is about who should have a realistic chance of leading British Jewry.

The Board was founded in 1760, when seven deputies of London’s Sephardi community assembled to congratulate George III on his accession. Their successors met so rarely that the Board had no constitution for another seventy-five years, and its presidency has been voluntary ever since. That tradition is venerable. It is not sacrosanct.

An unpaid presidency has always restricted the field to those with private wealth, the freedom of retirement, or a profession flexible enough to absorb an immense public commitment.

Sir Moses Montefiore exemplified the first. His work with his brother-in-law Nathan Mayer Rothschild helped him build a fortune and retire from business at forty; he then presided over the Board for some four decades with extraordinary energy. It was magnificent. It was also a model available to almost no one.

Retirement is the second path, and retired presidents have brought real wisdom. This is not an argument against older candidates. Deputies should be free to elect the best person, whether 38 or 78. But economics should not confine them to one age group. The institutions the Board deals with are increasingly led by people in their thirties, forties and fifties; some ministers are younger than that. Sometimes the right representative will be retired; sometimes not. Payment preserves the choice.

The third route is the flexible profession. Twenty or thirty years ago, barristers routinely combined public office with practice; Henry Grunwald KC, president from 2003 to 2009, did so with distinction. In earlier generations, a sitting MP might combine Parliament with the presidency. But juggling the Bar with public office has become rare in Parliament, and I would suggest it is harder still in communal leadership. Nor was it ever open to the wider workforce. An accountant, teacher, doctor or retailer cannot keep vanishing for meetings with ministers while preserving a salary and a career. A system that says the president may be anyone, provided they are retired, a person of means or a silk, is not an open system. It is a closed one with good manners.

Since 7 October 2023, and the largest upsurge in antisemitic incidents in living memory, the Board’s work has been transformed. When I worked at the Board twenty years ago, a few issues a year required an urgent meeting at the highest level. Today scarcely a week passes without one. Montefiore never had to fire off a lightning response on Instagram, X or Facebook, or face a grilling on the Today programme, all before breakfast. What was once exceptional is now the Board’s normal operating environment.

Home Office figures for 2024–25 show Jews almost nine times more likely than any other faith group to suffer a religious hate crime. The Community Security Trust logged 3,700 antisemitic incidents in 2025, its second-highest annual total. A president must respond to crises within hours, travel the country, face the media, work government and opposition, and answer to more than 300 elected deputies. That is not a ceremonial hobby. It is a demanding national leadership role.
Professionalising the presidency would not diminish the Board’s voluntary character. Deputies would remain elected volunteers; honorary officers and committees would continue their work. Paying one person to carry the burden full-time acknowledges the scale of the mandate.

There must be safeguards. The salary should be set by an independent remuneration committee, not the president. The job description, hours, expenses and outside interests should be published. The president must remain accountable to deputies, not become an employee of senior staff. The three-year mandate should stay, capped at two terms. This is not a job for life.

Nor is the principle novel. When I worked at the Bar Council, the chair was paid at a rate benchmarked to a High Court judge, so that leading the profession did not mean being out of pocket. Nobody thought that made the chair a hireling; many went on to the bench and the Lords. Service was rewarded afterwards, not self-funded during.

Paying the president will not guarantee better leadership. It will produce a wider, fairer and more talented field. The real cost of the current arrangement is invisible: the candidates who never stand.

For 266 years British Jews have expected one individual to represent them at the highest level while earning nothing for it. Tradition explains that arrangement. It no longer justifies it. The question before the deputies is not whether to break with tradition, but whether a community facing exceptional danger can afford to keep its highest office reserved for those who can afford it.

Rabbi Alex Goldberg is a former Director of the Board of Deputies of British Jews and is not a candidate for the presidency.