The growing numbers of far-right, white supremacist and neo-Nazi extremists in the UK must be delighted at this state of affairs: Jews, the Tory leadership, much of the mainstream media are combining to do their work for them. With friends like Cleverly, Gove and the deeply confused former Labour MP John Mann who sees no irony in being appointed ‘Antisemitism Tsar’ by Boris Johnson, we Jews don’t need enemies.

Given powerful living memory of the collective trauma of the Holocaust and the decades and centuries of persecution that preceded it, it’s not surprising that invoking current existential danger might turn our thoughts instinctively towards a safer haven. But is it mature, considered, wise leadership to both generate and promote the notion that Jews in the UK are on the brink of being subjected to a Yellow Star regime? To do this uncritically? Yet this is what Romain, Pollard and many other senior communal figures, on Twitter and elsewhere, are either doing or implying they agree with. When the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Marie van der Zyl told us in August 2018, that ‘Corbyn has declared war on the Jews’, what else are we expected to think?

Reasons for feeling secure

The recently published co-authored book Bad News for Labour: Antisemitism, the Party and Public Belief, to which I contributed a chapter, has revealed the stark contrast between public perceptions of the scale of the problem of antisemitism in Labour and the evidence-based reality. A national Survation poll showed that on average people believed that a third of Labour Party members had been reported for antisemitism, when the actual figure was far less than 1 per cent. The book clearly states that ‘the issue of antisemitism in the Labour Party should not be minimised’, but that there was no ‘army of antisemites’ (Sunday Times headline 7 April 2019) and that the party is not ‘riddled’ with antisemitism.

Mistakes have been made in tackling the problem, but these are largely to do with institutional dysfunction. They are not evidence of institutional racism. Rabbis and sensible leaders do not have to be supporters of the Labour Party to understand that in the worsening climate of racism both here and abroad, it’s vital that a party that has been in the forefront of fighting racism for decades should be given positive encouragement to renew its role. As the book’s academic authors conclude: ‘the constant attacks for other purposes on its leader and the traducing of the membership as a whole is in the end counterproductive. It weakens the forces on which all minorities including Jewish people will depend for their security in the conflicts that lie ahead’ (188). It may be a tough struggle stemming the tide of moral panic and collective hysteria among many Jews in the UK, but in standing one’s ground, rather than feeding feelings of insecurity, working together across communities and not being seduced by the notion of Jews as ‘a people that dwells alone’, it can be done.