The United Synagogue

Our President & Trustees

The Trustees of the United Synagogue are elected to take on overall responsibility for what is a large and complex charity. They serve for a three-year term. The current team assumed office in July 2011.

Russell Kett - Vice President

Russell Kett is a Vice President of the United Synagogue, having been elected in July 2011. He lives in Canons Park, Edgware and has been a member of Belmont Synagogue since 1984, and previously of Pinner. He is a past Warden of Belmont and was a member of its Board of Management for many years, introducing the shul to strategic planning even before the Kalms report was produced.

Russell is a former governor of JFS School and served as chairman of governors from 2003 to 2009. He is an advisory board member of the Jewish Volunteering Network and a trustee of the British Friends of Reuth, which raises funds for the Reuth rehabilitation hospital in Tel Aviv. A keen singer, Russell is a member and past chairman of the Shabbaton Choir, and also sings with the Belmont shul choir (under the baton of the United Synagogue’s moonlighting Chief Executive, Jeremy Jacobs).

After hotel school and having worked for a leading international hotel company, he became a hotel consultant in 1977, spending 10 and 7 years respectively with the specialist hotel consultancy divisions of accountants Stoy Hayward (now BDO) and Deloitte, before joining his current firm, HVS, in 1995 where he is managing director of the London office and serves on the firm’s global board.

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