Ari Leaman
| Ari Leaman | |
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| Occupation | Charity chief executive |
| Known for | Founder and chief executive of Acheinu Limited (working name The Boys Clubhouse) |
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Ari Leaman MBE (also Aryeh Leaman) is the founder and chief executive of Acheinu Limited, which trades as The Boys Clubhouse, a Hendon-based charity supporting Jewish teenage boys and young men in crisis. He is not listed as a trustee of the charity on the Charity Commission register. In the 2024 New Year Honours he was appointed MBE for services to young people and to the community in Hendon.[1][2][3]
A 2014 Jewish Chronicle profile described him as a father of four. Barnet Council papers (2017) name him as Aryeh (Ari) Leaman, Head of Service and project manager, working with local therapists, psychologists, Barnet Youth and the Youth Offending Team.[4][5]
The Boys Clubhouse
A predecessor, the North West Clubhouse, opened in 2001 and closed in February 2009 after its main anonymous funder ran into difficulty. Leaman and backers restarted the work that year as Acheinu Limited / The Boys Clubhouse; the company was incorporated on 3 April 2009 and registered as a charity on 1 October 2009. A 2011 JC report said the building had been donated by the Kramer Charitable Trust. An Instagram comment on the charity’s MBE post later attributed the original clubhouse to Dov Rabinowitz, with Leaman taking it “to new heights”.[6][3][7]
Leaman has described the charity as a last resort for boys aged about 14–25 who have left school, been excluded, are homeless, or have addiction, mental-health or family problems. In 2021 Jewish News quoted him saying the charity had received almost 200 referrals in a year, housed 52 young men and given long-term support to about 100. In 2024 he told the JC that demand had surged over six years and that a small printing business on site taught enterprise skills.[8][2]
He is not one of the three trustees recorded for Acheinu Limited (chair Maurice Moshe Frankel; David Wilner; Mathew Daniel Sher).[3]
Israel and the Cave Club
From at least 2011 Leaman told the JC that the charity sought placements in the UK and in Israel, “such as the army, yeshivah or working on kibbutz”. Jewish News (2021) referred to a Clubhouse in Israel called The Cave.[6][8]
In January 2024 Middle East Eye reported that a Jerusalem project called the Cave Club, described as a satellite of the Boys Clubhouse, offered guidance for British nationals joining the IDF or Border Police as lone soldiers, including Garin Machal-style preparation, and that some users appeared to have been signposted from Hendon. The charity’s own earlier published comments about army, yeshiva and kibbutz placements are consistent with an Israel pathway; MEE’s characterisation of the Cave Club as an army-recruitment hub is the charity’s critics’ framing, not a Commission finding.[9]
January 2024 Levi Simon event
On 17 January 2024 the charity advertised a lunch with Levi Simon, a British man who had served with the IDF in Gaza, as a “special star guest”. Protesters gathered at 240 Hendon Way. Leaman told the JC that Simon had been invited to speak to four excluded schoolboys “to inspire the boys to do well in life, it had nothing to do with the army” and that the talk was “about overcoming adversity and not doing drugs”. He said the lunch went ahead at a different address. Witnesses described hooded men targeting the unmarked office; CST and police guarded the building.[10]
Middle East Eye reported the same day that the Charity Commission had contacted the trustees and was “investigating” the event. The Commission’s public register for Acheinu Limited (1131948) did not carry a regulatory-alert banner as of 26 September 2026, and the charity has not been named in the published tranches of the £22 million cashed-cheques class inquiry. Contacting trustees after a complaint is not the same as opening a statutory inquiry; no published inquiry report confined to this event was identified.[11][3]
Honours
Leaman was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire in the 2024 New Year Honours for services to young people and to the community in Hendon.[1][2]
See also
Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Louisa Walters, Ari Leaman awarded MBE for services to young people and the community Jewish News, 3 January 2024.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Hendon clubhouse’s proud mission to put wayward boys on the right path in life Jewish Chronicle, 16 February 2024.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 Charity Commission, ACHEINU LIMITED - 1131948, accessed 26 September 2026.
- ↑ A haven for troubled teens Jewish Chronicle, 12 June 2014.
- ↑ London Borough of Barnet, Chipping Barnet Area Committee papers, 17 July 2017.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Jessica Elgot, Clubhouse has crisis boys back on track Jewish Chronicle, 14 April 2011.
- ↑ The Boys Clubhouse, Instagram post on Leaman’s MBE, January 2024.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 How a Hendon-based charity helps save young Jewish men in crisis Jewish News, 25 June 2021.
- ↑ London Jewish youth club helps 'teenagers in crisis' join Israeli army Middle East Eye, 24 January 2024.
- ↑ Jewish Charity mobbed by hooded men after hosting controversial IDF soldier Levi Simon Jewish Chronicle, 17 January 2024.
- ↑ UK regulator investigating charity over event with British-Israeli soldier Middle East Eye, 17 January 2024.