This article is more than 2 years old

This article is more than 2 years old

More than 60 British rabbis have written a joint letter saying Labour has “chosen to ignore the Jewish community,” as the party’s ruling body prepares for a meeting on its antisemitism code of conduct.

Some of the UK’s most senior rabbis, in a letter to the Guardian, said Labour was acting in an “insulting and arrogant way” by choosing – in its new code – to amend an international definition of antisemitism.

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Signatories include Rabbi Harvey Belovski, vice-chair of the United Synagogue’s rabbinical council, and Rabbis Laura Janner-Klausner, Danny Rich and Jonathan Wittenberg, leaders of the Reform, Liberal and Masorti movements.

“Antisemitism within sections of the Labour party has become so severe and widespread that we must speak out with one Jewish voice,” the letter said.



“The Labour party’s leadership has chosen to ignore those who understand antisemitism the best, the Jewish community. By claiming to know what’s good for our community, the Labour party’s leadership have chosen to act in the most insulting and arrogant way.”

The letter said it was “not the Labour party’s place to rewrite a definition of antisemitism” saying that the full definition set out by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) had been accepted by the Crown Prosecution Service, the Scottish parliament, the Welsh assembly and 124 local authorities.



Signatories also include Rabbi Avraham Pinter, a leading Hasidic rabbi, from Stamford Hill, north London. It is unprecedented for ultra orthodox rabbis to co-sign a letter with female, progressive rabbis.

The letter was co-ordinated by the Jewish Labour Movement, which said the 68 rabbis represented more than 30,000 UK Jewish households.

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As part of its new code of conduct, Labour has agreed to adopt the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, but does not include all the examples set out by the body. The party’s full NEC is to meet on Tuesday to agree its new code of conduct.



Labour has argued that those examples that have been removed were already covered in the wider new code of conduct. The examples which have been removed from the IHRA definition include accusing Jewish citizens of being more loyal to Israel than their own nations, claiming that the existence of the state of Israel is a racist endeavour and comparing Israeli actions to those of the Nazis.

Labour strongly denied that it was attempting to redefine antisemitism. “This Code of Conduct is not a new definition of antisemitism and does not seek to re-define antisemitism,” a Labour party spokeswoman said.

“The Code adopts the IHRA definition and contextualises and adds to the working examples to produce practical guidelines that a political party can apply in disciplinary cases. They are the most detailed and comprehensive guidelines on antisemitism adopted by any political party in this country.”

“There will continue to be discussion and dialogue with Jewish communal organisations, rabbis and synagogues about the Code of Conduct and fighting antisemitism.”

Labour MPs voted overwhelmingly on Monday night at a private meeting of backbenchers to unilaterally accept the definition.

The motion, proposed by two Jewish MPs, Luciana Berger and Alex Sobel, calls on the parliamentary Labour party to adopt the definition and say that MPs believe that the national executive committee (NEC) should follow suit.

“The motion passed at tonight’s meeting of the parliamentary Labour party sends a strong signal that we adopt the IHRA definition in full, including all the specific examples it includes, and that any attempt to tinker, water down, or otherwise amend it must be resisted,” Berger said.



Before the meeting, the Labour MP Richard Burden, chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Palestine, had written to colleagues urging them to accept the Labour code of conduct.

Burden said antisemitism was pernicious racism but there were problems with the wording of some examples in the IHRA definition which he said had a “chequered history and are a great deal more contentious than the movers of Monday’s motion allow”.

He added: “A number of them can be and are used to suppress debate over Israel and Palestine.

The Labour MP Chuka Umunna has also written a strongly worded letter to colleagues, the Guardian understands. Umunna said he took exceptions to claims by the party’s general secretary, Jennie Formby, that the exclusion of the IHRA examples took into account criticism that had been made of the wording by the home affairs select committee.

Umunna, who was a member of that committee, said the committee’s “overall handling of the issue of antisemitism, including not only our report but the engagement with the Jewish community”, was “widely praised.” He added: “Whereas the committee properly consulted Jewish community groups, the party has not.”

Umunna said he believed that the Jewish community had “clearly been subject to differential treatment by our party these last few years which is discriminatory”.