1/ I’m feeling a profound mix of emotions. I’m still buzzing from the phenomenally inspiring #RoshHashanah services we had at the @NWESynagogue. But I am trying to take in the mood among some of my congregants and want to genuinely reach out to you.
2/ I did not believe that I would hear my own community members talking about leaving the country they love out of fear from #LabourAntisemitism. I did not think I would hear people tell me they were considering their options if @jeremycorbyn becomes Prime Minister.
3/ But I did. And these were not misinformed, uneducated reactionaries. These were intelligent, successful professionals who have significant ties both personally and professionally to the UK. But they are genuinely going to leave if @UKLabour under #Corbyn gain power.
4/ This is England in 2018. The country I grew up in. The country I support and love, which has now become a place many Jews no longer feel welcome thanks to Mr. Corbyn and his supporters.
5/ @UKLabour have now invited a vile ‘activist’ called Ewa Jasiewic to speak at a conference this month. She’s one of @jeremycorbyn’s friends. She not only called for the assassination of Israeli politicians, she defaced one of the last remaining walls of the Warsaw ghetto.
6/ This is what she did. The Hebrew reads “Free all the ghettos” which means she has compared Gaza and the Palestinian Territories today with Nazi occupied Poland in the Second Wold War. This is quite simply vile.
7/ Firstly, It is a lie of the greatest order. While I don’t doubt that Palestinians are suffering, the fault lies squarely with successive Palestinian leaders who have chosen violence and terrorism over dialogue and peace.
8/ Secondly, by equating the situation in Gaza and the Palestinian Territories to the Warsaw ghetto to defiles the memories of those who perished there from starvation and disease at the hands of the Nazis. How dare she lay a finger on that wall?
9/ And how dare the leader of Her Majesty’s opposition call her a friend. How dare he. This is why my congregants are looking to leave. This is real. And it will only get worse, and here’s why.
10/ If Mr. Corbyn is elected as Prime Minister we will see more and more of his ‘friends’. There wil be and increase in anti Semitic sentiment in the guise of being ‘against Israel’ (whatever that means).
11/ I predict that a Corbyn government will somehow engineer it so that we will be asked to prove whether we are good Jews by supporting Corbyn and denouncing Zionism, it bad Jews this being a threat to Corbyn’s agenda.
12/ If however, Corbyn fails at becoming Prime Minister, we will be blamed for that too. The old ‘Jews control the media/banks/government/world’ tropes will be rolled out to explain why the sacred cow of socialism wasn’t elected. Either way the Jews are stuffed.
13/ So I’m not remotely surprised that my congregants feel this way. I just hope that the rest of the world takes note. We’re not exaggerating our fears. We’re not being paranoid. We just know, because tragically - in living memory - we’ve had experience of where this leads.
1/ This is an out and out lie. I was sent an email by @JennieGenSec Jennie Formby following the letter I signed regarding the IHRA definition of antisemitism, along with 67 other Rabbis.
2/ They promised that “The NEC working group will be in contact to discuss this consultation further.” This was on 19th July 2018 and I still haven’t heard back. I don’t expect to.
3/ They think that having adopted the IHRA definition with caveats, they don’t need to bother. They are wrong. #LabourAntisemitism is more than just an issue with their definition of anti-Semitism.
1/ The most chilling thing I’ve heard in relation to #LabourAntiSemitism is from the child of a survivor who told me that her father said that he remembers the same climate of hatred in the 1930s and said, “This is the moment that we should have gotten out the last time.”
2/ I am sure there will be people who lambast me for comparing 21st century Britain to pre-war Europe, so bring it on. But just remember, Jews living across Europe in the 1930s also never thought anything terrible could happen.
3/ Our community has a better understanding of history than @jeremycorbyn ever will. It is he and his followers who need to learn. This is serious.