Is Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of Britain’s Labour party, an anti-Semite and consequently a passionate opponent of the Jewish State of Israel and the Jews who support it? Or is he committed to the cause of the Palestinians and, therefore, opposed to Israel, not the Jewish people as such?

Corbyn, who may be Britain’s next prime minister, insists that he doesn’t hate Jews and that his opposition to Israel is only politically motivated. Yet he has refused to apologize for several of his statements that suggest otherwise. His political opponents, however, and also senior members of his own party, have exposed his anti-Semitism.

His stance seems to have poisoned the atmosphere in the British Labour Party. For example, at a recently held party conference, Luciana Berger, a Jewish Labour Member of Parliament, who had sharply criticized her leader for his anti-Jewish statements, had to have police protection there.

Some of the evidence against Corbyn comes from his assertion that Jews who support Israel (“Zionists”), even though they and their forebears may have lived in Britain for generations, don’t understand history and don’t appreciate English irony.

To many ears this sounds like saying Jews aren’t really part of British society. As Theresa May, Britain’s current prime minister, put it when addressing a Jewish audience recently, “nothing excuses anti-Semitism — not comedy, not satire — not even irony.”

Corbyn’s refusal to modify his anti-Jewish stance has also a strong element of expediency. There’re about three million Muslims in Britain, some 10 times more than there’re Jews. To celebrate the Palestinians at the expense of Jews will get him Muslim votes in the next general election.

But there’s more to it, much more, than vote catching. Lord Sacks, the former Orthodox Chief Rabbi of Britain, reminds us that anti-Semitism mutates like a virus.

He put Corbyn’s assertion about Jews in its larger context: “One of the enduring facts of history is that most anti-Semites do not think of themselves as anti-Semites. ‘We don’t hate Jews,’ they said in the Middle Ages, ‘just their religion.’ ‘We don’t hate Jews,’ they said in the 19th century, ‘just their race.’ ‘We don’t hate Jews,’ they say now, ‘just their nation state.’”

The anti-Semitism of Jeremy Corbyn reflects the mood in today’s Europe where hatred of Jews has become a staple ingredient in pronouncements and policies both on the right and the left of the political spectrum. As a result, anti-Semitism in the guise of anti-Zionism has prompted some Jews whose families have lived in Europe for centuries to consider emigration.

In the early days of the ascendance of Hitler in Germany many Jews argued that his stance was only a passing phenomenon. Jews today are determined not to be lulled into similar false hopes. They know that, though Jews are its perennial victims, anti-Semitism is a contagious disease rampant among non-Jews. Though Jews must always seek ways to protect themselves, only non-Jews are in a position to contain the scourge.

Isolated anti-Semitic incidents occur also in Canada, but in recent decades this country has been a beacon of sanity, fairness and justice. Neither immigration of Muslims nor legitimate criticism of Israeli policies have been allowed to become tools of the hatred of Jews.

The turmoil caused by the antics of Jeremy Corbyn is an apt warning against the havoc caused by a combination of political expediency and traditional anti-Semitism.

There’s ample evidence, not only from the distant past but, alas, also from last century’s history, of the devastating effect of the hatred of Jews. It behooves us all not to allow it to recur in our time anywhere in the world.

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