Meet the team

EXECUTIVE TEAM

Tal Arrowsmith(Executive Director)

Tal is a highly experienced charity executive, having worked with a variety of philanthropies, youth movements and grassroot activist groups. Outside of work, she enjoys adventurous training, having led expeditions across the Americas and Europe.

OFFICE STAFF

Lauren Singer (Admin Executive)

TRUSTEES

Judge Laurence Brass (Chair)

Laurence is a retired Judge and currently chair of the NHS Disciplinary Panel. He's a former Councillor and Parliamentary Candidate in five General Elections and is now a policy advisor to the Liberal Democrats on Middle-Eastern affairs. Laurence previously held the position of Vice-President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, and is now a Patron of Faith Matters and a trustee of JCORE (Jewish Council for Racial Equality).

Sir Andrew Burns KCMG 

Sir Andrew Burns chairs Oasis of Peace-UK, the British Friends of Neve Shalom – Wahat al Salam, the Palestinian and Jewish peace village in Israel.

He was British Ambassador to Israel from 1992-1995, British Consul-General in Hong Kong and Macau from 1997-2000 and British High Commissioner to Canada from 2000-2003. From 2010 to 2015 he was the United Kingdom Envoy for Post-Holocaust Issues and remains a strategic adviser to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA).

He chaired the Anglo-Israel Association between 2004 and 2011, the Council of Royal Holloway, University of London from 2004-2011, and Hestercombe Gardens Trust from 2004 to 2020. The International Governor of the BBC in 2005-2006, he has been Chair of the Bar Standards Board, the regulator of barristers in England and Wales; the national Committee of University Chairs; and the International Polar Foundation-UK. He was a Governor of the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. He is on the International Board of the Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism at Tel Aviv University. 

A career diplomat since 1965, Sir Andrew saw early service in India (as the High Commission’s Hindi speaker), Romania and the United States (as Head of British Information Services). At the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London he was Head of South Asian Department, Head of News Department and spokesman for three successive Foreign Secretaries, before becoming Assistant Under Secretary of State for Asia from 1990-1992 and Deputy Under Secretary of State overseeing relations outside Europe together with trade and investment from 1995 to 1997.

Tony Hyams (Hon Treasurer)

Tony is a retired director of an Investment Bank within the Barclays Bank Group plc. He has many years experience as a non-executive director of private and public companies and has acted as a business mentor and as a trustee of an environmental charity in Liverpool.

Anthony Warshaw (Hon Secretary)

Anthony worked as a publisher and editor for Oxford University Press, the Israel Prime Minister's Office, Israel Foreign Office, The Hebrew University Hadassah Medical School, J M Dent and the British Library. He was also a Clerk to the Governors at The Henrietta Barnett School and a Board Member at the Muswell Hill Synagogue and the Society for Jewish Study.

Ghanem Nuseibeh

Jenny Nemko

Jenny has been associated with NSWaS since the 1980’s when she first reported on their educational projects for BBC Radio. Jenny is the Founder of Effective Communications - a company specialising in intra and inter-cultural face-to-face communication skills training to the business and the academic communities. She is the co-author of ‘Supersubs Religious Education’ and the author of ‘Who Am I?  Who Are You?’ a book that explores cultural diversity in terms of assumptions, beliefs and prejudices. Jenny holds a BA and MA from University College London in Biblical Hebrew and Islamic and Jewish mysticism.

Sarah Burns

Sarah has accompanied her husband on his diplomatic postings, including to Israel, in the early 1990s. There she learned Hebrew, promoted Bedouin crafts, worked closely with Tabeetha School in Jaffa, and entertained officially and extensively on behalf of the British Government. Now a bookbinder, and recently retired national Chairman of the Society of Bookbinders, she has been a Justice of the Peace in both adult and family courts, a journalist and personal financial planner and ran her own property management business.

Dr. Jack Omer-Jackaman

Dr Jack Omer-Jackaman is a writer and a former Executive Director of Oasis of Peace U.K. He served for four years as Executive Director of the British Friends of Neve Shalom. He holds degrees in American Studies (BA, University of Kent), International Relations (MA, King’s College London), and History (PhD, King’s College London) and is the author of Caught Somewhere Between Zion and Galut: Zionism, Israel and Anglo-Jewry’s Identity, 1948-1982 (Vallentine Mitchell, 2019).

Liz Silman

Liz Silman worked as a journalist in both London and the Home Counties and in Hong Kong.  For several years she was a news reporter with the Press Association.  In Hong Kong she also worked for the Institute for International Research developing business conferences. She has also travelled extensively and in her mid-30’s journeyed overland by truck from London to Kenya.  Her late father, Julius, was an active supporter of the Village in its earlier days and his family have maintained that connection.

David Altars

​Until his retirement last year, David was a practising barrister of Lincoln’s Inn, specialising in property law and Town and Country Planning law. From 1992 until 2018, he was a Recorder of the Crown Court of England and Wales, largely sitting with a jury on criminal cases. He is also a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators. Apart from his academic degrees in law, David has an MA in History from Birkbeck College and is currently studying for a PhD in Irish History.

​David has been involved with Neve Shalom Wahat al Salam the Oasis of Peace UK for many years, first as a member of its Legal Group and then, almost continuously since 2010 (save for a break of a few years) as its chair. Each year, he has been responsible, together with the Charity’s staff, for arranging the extremely successful annual Philip Rueff Memorial Lectures, which have been given by a number of eminent people including Robert Rinder, Baroness Brenda Hale, Professor Philippe Sands KC, Baroness Julia Neuberger, Simon Schama and Bishop Rose Hudson-Wilkin.

​He lives in London with his wife, who is a on the Board of Trustees of the West London Synagogue.

Justin Cohen MBE

Justin Cohen is the news editor and co-publisher of the Jewish News, which was named Free Weekly Newspaper of the Year by the
Society of Editors. Having joined the paper on work experience putting Maccabi football scores into the website, he has interviewed five prime ministers, three Archbishops of Canterbury and two Chief Rabbi and conducted the only Jewish media interview with Jeremy Corbyn. He also leads on the paper’s special projects including the recent Duchess of Cambridge Holocaust survivors photography project and the successful campaign to get a Royal Mail stamp honouring Sir Nicholas Winton. He conceived the world’s first interfaith media collaboration bringing together Jewish News, Church Times and British Muslim TV and was awarded an MBE for services for the Jewish community and Holocaust remembrance in 2024. He is the co-founder of the Asian-Jewish a Business Network.

Rabbi David Mason

Rabbi David Mason is the Executive Director of HIAS+JCORE. He previously served as rabbi of Muswell Hill Synagogue for over 14 years, and at Kingston Synagogue in South West London prior to that. Born in Edinburgh, he studied at George Watsons College before receiving a BSc and MSc in Econometrics from the London School of Economics. He attended yeshivot in Israel for 7 years before joining the Rabbinate. David also has a Masters in Conflict Resolution in Divided Society from King’s College London. He has built up expertise in inter faith work and social cohesion work as well as in strategic leadership, and was a Trustee at the Council of Christians and Jews and EcoJudaism. Rabbi Masonhas developed thinking that connects Jewish ideas and scholarship to social responsibility.

PATRONS