From one of our Mentors Julia Haart’s extraordinary life is at the center of “My Un-Orthodox Life”, the most recent Netflix show, which explores family life beyond the ultra-Orthodox Jewish world. It is so-called as Netflix found considerable success with the show “Unorthodox”, a dramatisation loosely based on the biography of the same name by Deborah Feldman. These women do…

** This article originally appeared in the Jewish Chronicle, 15th January 2021** By Simon Rocker. Linda Turner, co-founder of Mavar, the charity which supports Charedi community members looking to explore new avenues in life has stepped down after seven years as director. Her successor is Amos Schonfield, founding director of Our Second Home, a youth organisation for refugees and asylum-seekers…

An education mentor’s blog December 2019 In order to maintain confidentiality, all personal names have been changed. First steps I met my first mentee “Josh” in March 2014.   He immediately challenged my expectations of the composite Stamford Hill stereotype in almost every way. He had been secular for several years yet was still living and working in Stamford Hill. He…

This winter, Mavar announced the formation of Mavar North, an expansion of all our programmes into the northern part of the UK. Until now, we've only be able to offer a limited level of support to callers beyond London, but we know from experience that face-to-face support is essential, so we're delighted to finally have a team 'on the ground'. …

I’ve been a member of Mavar’s board since soon after its inception. Back then, we were just a small group of volunteers (we’re still mostly volunteers, but there are many more of us!) and we were thinking carefully about the organisation’s mission, and its scope. The first, and most simple question we asked ourselves was: “Who are we trying to help?”. For…