Marie Sarah van der Zyl OBE (née Kaye; born November 1965) is an English lawyer who was president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews from 2018 to 2024.
[14] She took office as President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews on 1 June 2018, succeeding Jonathan Arkush, who did not seek re-election.
"[20] A month later, as candidates came forward to contest the vacancy for Labour Party leader, she said that antisemitism "became a matter of great anxiety for the UK's Jews" during Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.
[21] During her Board of Deputies presidency she met Pope Francis to improve Jewish-Catholic relations[22] and worked with Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, who spoke at a historic landmark event in Bevis Marks Synagogue in 2023.
[26] In February 2023 she attended the opening in Abu Dhabi of the Abrahamic Family House which includes the purpose-built Moses Ben Maimon Synagogue, a church and a mosque.
[28] She worked with historian and author Simon Sebag Montefiore to organise a reception, hosted by Prince Charles at Buckingham Palace in December 2019, to celebrate Britain's Jewish community.
[32] In June 2020, sparked by responses to the murder of George Floyd, she commissioned a report from journalist Stephen Bush on racial inclusivity in the Jewish community.
Paying tribute to Bush for his work and to those who provided testimony to the commission, van der Zyl said: "This is the first occasion that we know of that any Jewish community, anywhere, has published such a comprehensive audit of itself, backed by its national representative body.
[39] However, in December 2022, Jewish News reported that she had said to attendees at the Limmud Festival that it was "very important to try and restore relationships with the BBC; they do a lot of good work.
[44] In February 2024, she said she was not satisfied with the BBC's response to the Board of Deputies' allegations that Asif Munaf, a contestant on The Apprentice TV show, had made "vile antisemitic comments" on social media.