Alan Senitt Trust set up at House of Lords

Political activist was slain in Washington preventing a rape.

By JONNY PAUL JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
A memorial trust in the name of Alan Senitt, the British political activist and charity worker who was murdered in the Washington, DC area in July - he was escorting a female friend home and was murdered while attempting to save her from attackers - has been launched at the House of Lords in London. The Alan Senitt Memorial Trust has been established by his family to make a difference by providing educational scholarships in his name. The trust will be a testimony to Senitt's life, achievements and aspirations and will continue his work. Some 150 people attended the Thursday launch - colleagues, friends and family, including Sarah Brown, wife of the Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown, British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Lords Janner, Mitchell and Hogg and Labor MP Louise Ellman. The chief rabbi talked of the importance of the trust in ensuring future Jewish leadership. He reflected on personal memories of Senitt, including the fact that Senitt had introduced him at the pro-Israel rally in London's Trafalgar Square in 2001. Janner reflected on Senitt's time with him in the office leading the Coexistence Trust and described how Senitt had sent him a birthday present from the US which did not arrive until after Senitt had died. Mitchell talked about the work of the trust and read a letter from Prince Hassan of Jordan accepting patronage of the trust. He also read from a letter from the Howard Friedman, president of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), who wrote "Alan's talents and dreams were endless and his humor and smile warmed all of our hearts." The initial work of the trust will focus on raising funds to provide for two educational projects: providing scholarships for those following a similar path as Senitt's and providing for the Jewish leaders of the future by funding full scholarships for at least five 18-year-olds to study at the Institute for Youth Leaders from Abroad in Jerusalem, the same program from which Senitt graduated. Senitt was a leader in the making, a former chairman for the Union of Jewish Students. He worked with Janner, a Labor Party member of the House of Lords, as director of the Coexistence Trust charity. He also worked for the All-Party British-Israel Parliamentary Group and the British Israel Communications and Research Center (BICOM). In June, he went to work with former governor of Virginia Mark Warner's political action committee Forward Together.