The Team
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Dr Bea Lewkowicz
Executive Director/Interviewer
Bea is an an orał historian, filmmaker, and photographer. Her work focuses on identity, displacement, trauma and loss, through the lens of her interviews with Jewish refugees, who had to leave their homes and start a new life elsewhere.
She is the co-founder and director of Sephardi Voices UK and the Association for Jewish Refugees’ AJR Refugee Voices Testimony Archive, two unique “people’s” oral history archives. Her extensive personal archive includes interviews with Sephardi Jews from Salonika. She has directed and curated many testimony-based films and exhibitions, most recently 80 Objects/80 Lives http://holocausttestimony.org.uk/80-object. Books include: The Jewish Community of Salonika (2006), This Is The Story Of My Life (2020) and Emigre Voices (2022). She is a member of the Research Centre for German & Austrian Exile Studies, School of Advanced Study, University of London and is on the editorial board of Jewish Renaissance. For more information visit: http://bealewkowiczarchive.com
Frank Battersby
Cameraman
Frank has been working as a freelance Cameraman and Director/Cameraman for 25 years. He has worked across all disciplines but the majority of his work has been in factual, educational and corporate film making. He lives in North London with his partner and two sons.
Simon Waxman
Digitisation
Simon has been a videographer and editor for many years, working on a wide variety of projects, including documentaries.
Leila Issacharoff
Research & Administration
With my father’s family originating from Samarkand, Uzbekistan, and my mother’s roots tracing back to Damascus and Beirut in the Middle East, it felt like a natural progression for me to get involved with SVUK, a charity that remembers and celebrates community and heritage. Currently, I am completing a BA Hons degree in Social Anthropology and International Development at the University of Sussex, further deepening my connection with diverse cultures.
Interviewers
Sharon Rapaport
Interviewer
Sharon is an Israeli oral historian and documentary filmmaker, specialising in documenting life stories and community histories. She was involved with Sephardi Voices UK from its inception to 2016, when she returned to Israel. She now works for Yad Vashem, documenting life history testimonies from Holocaust survivors.
Daisy Aboudi
Interviewer
Daisy joined Sephardi Voices UK in 2017 after meeting Dr Bea Lewkowicz at the Sephardi Voices Jewish Museum exhibition.
"As the first generation of my family to be born in the UK, I have always felt slightly disconnected from the wider Jewish community, largely due to my Middle Eastern background. I am proud that Sephardi Voices UK is playing a key role in changing this, ensuring that Sephardi and Mizrahi experiences are heard and included alongside those of our Ashkenazi fellows."
Trustees
Alec Nacamuli
Chairman
Alec Nacamuli was born in Alexandria and left after the Suez Crisis in 1956. He was an executive with a major IT services company. He is a council member of the Association of Jews from Egypt and Nebi Daniel International Association, which strives to protect the Jewish heritage in Egypt. He writes articles and gives lectures on the Jews from Arab countries, and is a volunteer guide on Ancient Egypt at the British Museum.
Elie Chilton
Trustee
Elie was born in Alexandria and left Egypt in 1958 following the Suez Crisis. He is an entrepreneur who has started a number of industrial businesses in Scotland and latterly created a consultancy business focusing on financial and business strategies for small to medium size companies. He is a non-executive finance director with a biotechnology company and on the board of the Jewish Literary Trust, publishers of the Jewish Quarterly magazine.
Sandra Dangoor
Trustee
Following a long career as a stockbroker in the City of London, Sandra has now turned her attention to charitable projects, across a broad spectrum of interests, from Sephardi and Jewish activities, to financial and mental health, as well as many more! She enjoys playing bridge, the arts, sports and traveling.
Elizabeth Marcus
Trustee
Dr Elizabeth Marcus is a Lecturer in French and Francophone studies at Newcastle University. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2017. Before joining Newcastle as a Lecturer, she worked at the University of Leeds, at Stanford University and at MIT. Her work bridges French history, Middle Eastern studies, global history, comparative literature, and postcolonial studies. She is completing her first book, which examines the afterlife of the French empire in Lebanon, a country marked in its language and administration by its experience during Ottoman and French rule.
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Elly Livingstone
Trustee
Elly was born in Glasgow and grew up in Manchester. His mother's family originate from Baghdad, where they lived for many generations until the departure of the Jewish community from Iraq during the 1950s and 1960s. Following completion of academic studies at the Universities of Birmingham and Cambridge, Elly pursued a career in the fields of Management Consulting, Corporate Finance Advisory, and Global Private Equity Investing. He is based in London, where he lives with his family.
Vered Aaron
Trustee
Vered was born in Jerusalem and has a BA from the Hebrew University. She moved to London in 1985. In 1987 she founded Young Hadassah, UK. She is involved in many charities: CBF, UJIA, KKL, CECI UK, Sheba Medical Centre, and chairs Friends of Israel Cancer Association in the UK. She is married with three children.
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Edwin Shuker
Trustee
Edwin Shuker is a London based international businessman with a wide range of educational, communal and charitable involvements. He is currently Vice President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews.