Yesterday, a comrade has resigned from the Labour party after reciting what he experienced at Labour Party conference. The day before I read through the most gruesome thread outlining the views of a member of the so called ‘Jewish Voice for Labour’ (JVL). Over a day later and JVL have stayed silent. They didn’t use their LabourList piece to address this Holocaust denial.

The screenshots do not do that twitter thread justice so I want to spell it out.

This member of JVL said:

“He is a proud associate member of JVL”.

In another post he writes:

“Stupid Zionist c*nts — all of you — UK media ZioC*nts, Israeli ZioC*nts. Confirmed by talking with my many Jewish (non-Zio) friends — yes folks, I have beloved, intelligent Jewish friends — despite my frequent question the hollowcause posts — you know, 4 million died at Auschwitz, then two million, then the IRC said it was thousands, yet six million never dropped. I don’t say these things out of hate. Anything I post like this had hours of research behind it…”

And then:

[Picture of the chimney at Auschwitz] “I had heard of this for a while, but here’s a picture. The ‘chimney’ for the ovens at Auschwitz is a free standing structures. They were build by the Russians post WW2 to fit the ovens fraud. If there really were humans burnt in ovens exhausted by the ‘chimney’ then that would still be readily detectable residues of human in the ‘smoke’ of that ‘chimney’ — no? The next step is to confirm the inside wall of the ‘chimney’ has the same appearance as the external wall — I’d bet anyone a grand it is!”

He added in another post:

“The Jews — are like the Ferengi — but horribly real”

And in another he proclaimed:

“Jewmarica. Didn’t like the term — tones of antisemitism — but time to call a spade a spade”.

And this member of JVL is not the first with such worrying views.

Well Jewish Voice for Labour, with friends like these, who the hell needs enemies?

-

There’s a divide in the Labour Party — and it is not, and should not be factional.

It is between those who fight antisemitism, in all of its forms, especially in conspiratorial thinking — and those who ignore it, who tolerate it, perhaps even embrace it for their factional ends.

Sadly, Jewish Voice for Labour fall into the latter category.

Yesterday’s LabourList piece by JVL Co-Chairs Jenny Manson and Leah Levane would have been funny — perhaps even a parody — were the subject matter of racism not so serious.

They wrote that “JVL was not founded to “tackle allegations of antisemitism in the Labour Party”.

This isn’t true. By their own words.

In March of this year Jenny Manson told an audience: “…We started the organisation for two purposes, one was to work with other Jewish organisations on behalf of Palestinian rights and the other was to tackle allegations of antisemitism within the Labour Party”.

In their column yesterday, Levane and Manson deny that “JVL have given platforms to people expelled from Labour for making racist remarks”.

Yet, that’s not the case either. Tony Greenstein appeared at JVL’s fringe at Labour Party Conference this year. He was expelled last year for his nonsense rantings and just weeks ago referred to an Asian Labour Councillor in Barnet an “uncle tom” and a Barnet Young Labour member a “lying lesbian”.

We have never denied that antisemitism exists in the Labour Party and it must be opposed or Labour will lose its moral purpose. Jeremy Corbyn himself has made it perfectly clear that Labour’s problem with antisemitism is not a smear and people who say this do not say so in his name.

It was never intended but Labour, in its current drunken state has unleashed the largest wave of political antisemitic rhetoric in public life since Mosley’s blackshirts. That doesn’t mean it manifests itself in the same way and whilst social media has made a positive contribution to the world, in the case of antisemitism it has significantly worsened it. We don’t have marches down Golders Green Road from fascists, we haven’t got Jewish shops targeted daily on Shenley Road in Borehamwood and the Jews of Bury are not facing institutionalised targeted discrimination in the workplace by being associated with the historical far right antisemite.

But many Jewish people are frightened by the Labour Party at the moment. They are frightened because the party that their families perhaps helped build in the early 20th century has turned on them by unleashing a rhetoric that turns ordinary people into people using lazy racist language about Jews. We see Jews facing constant harassment on social media. We see Jewish politicians having hate mail sent to their offices. We see a Leader who is at absolute best is confused by the issue and at worst complicit himself whilst thousands of others make excuses for it or at worst become convinced that its all true in the name of political purity — regardless of whether they call themselves anti-racists. The most dangerous manifestation of racism is when good people are blinded and become complicit — often without even realising it.

The spreading of myths around Jewish power, whether that be manifested in the individual (see recent attacks on Jon Lansman as the most recent weird example of this), collective or through the national prism of Israel, the complete misrepresentation of the majority of British Jews views on the State of Israel and Zionism. The bastardisation of our history. The comparisons made between the national liberation movement of the Jewish people to the very movement that attempted to annihilate us from the face of the earth. Many of these themes are too common in the Labour Party today and as far as I can see, JVL have not called out any of it. And more than that — they have stirred the pot. They have made antisemitism Kosher within Labour by giving members a choice. The choice of an imaginary Jewish community made up of Leah Levane’s and Jenny Manson’s (and expelled Tony Greenstein’s) where antisemitism doesn’t really exist — and the real Jewish community, which manifests itself inside of the Labour Party as the Jewish Labour Movement.

Now some people reading will now shout “WHAT, you just said that they are not real Jews.

No. That is not what I am saying. I am not the Chief Rabbi, nor a Rabbinical authority and frankly nor do I care whether individually they are Jews — if someone says they are Jewish then that is good enough for me. The issue with JVL, is that they are a collective of a tiny minority of British Jews who hold a tiny minority view — they are in no way representative of the hundreds of thousands of British Jews who have supported the Labour Party and who choose to take an active part in what we call the ‘Jewish community’. And by this I mean the approximately 60% who choose to send their children to a Jewish Day School, the even higher margin who in their older years choose to rely on Jewish social service organisations like Jewish Care, the people who choose to be buried in a Jewish cemetery in the traditions of our faith, the people who are involved in both the cultural and/or religious aspects of synagogue life, the people who sent their children to youth movements, the people who take part in community democracy and elect deputies to represent their institutions on the Board of Deputies of British Jews. And yes — at least ninety odd percent of Jewish people who state that Israel is central to their Jewish identity — which broadly is interpreted as Israel needing to exist — not any support for any particular colour of government over there.

Jewish Voice for Labour fall outside of what most people would call the Jewish community because they choose to reject most of the aspects of it — and not just the Israel aspects. So what exactly is the point of Jewish Voice for Labour other than to give non-Jewish members of our party a completely false view of the overwhelming majority of British Jews? To give Labour members, a majority of whom like the rest of the population do not live close to major concentrations of Jewish communities, a grotesque choice of choosing the kind of Jews you like rather than the Jewish community that actually exists.

Some CLPs are voting to affiliate to JVL because they wish to delude themselves over what the Jewish community in Britain looks like. They want to live in fantasy land and this is making matters so seriously worse with the wider Jewish community, it exacerbates the problem of Labour engaging with the Jewish community. Too many in our party have allowed themselves to be taken over by this sickness where the good people become complicit and try to write the issue out of our collective memory as a movement.

It provides people with a get out of jail free card — a kind of…’of course I cannot be antisemitic or be part of a movement that has an antisemitism problem. I have all of these Jewish friends…in JVL ‘

As part of this, JVL want to give the impression that they are the successors to the Bund movement of eastern Europe. The Bund believed in the concept of the Jewish community and Jewish peoplehood — the kehillah. The Bund fought for that community’s rights and stood as proud Jews who had a belief in the Jewish diaspora, and when it came to fighting antisemites on European soil the Bund and Zionists stood side by side as it didn’t matter because they both loved the Jewish People and felt connected to it. JVL do not believe in the Jewish community or Jewish peoplehood and the legacy of the Bund is diminished by them abusing this proud Jewish political tradition that was burnt dead in the ashes of Auschwitz.

Judging from the age of most senior JVL’ers, they quite clearly had a disagreement with the wider Jewish community long before I was even born. I am very sorry that they were bullied at Cheder (Sunday school) or fell out with the community because the community used to be more closed minded on matters of Israel and Palestine. I really am sorry. But the Jewish community has moved on and so should they. They should not be using the Labour Party as a vehicle to play out their revenge against the Jewish community which makes the fracturing of the relationship between Labour and our community considerably worse. They are willing to embrace racists and holocaust deniers in pursuit of their revenge against the Jewish community from stuff that perhaps happened decades ago.

— — — —

Two and a half years ago I helped lead what we called a ‘walkabout’ with the then Labour Candidate for Mayor of London Sadiq Khan in Golders Green. This was important and iconic in the heartland of British Jewry. This was right at the beginning of the Labour Party’s current issues with antisemitism which has severely worsened since then. The issue was understandably having an effect on Jewish votes in this part of London where in some wards up to 1 in 3 are Jewish. Sadiq decided that he wanted to come to Barnet and make a simple but important point — he understood our concerns and would not run away from them, in fact he would literally stand with us.

The Jewish Labour Movement, which I am proud to help lead, decided that we would continue what we have always done. We would try to build the two way bridge between the gloriously diverse Jewish community and the Labour Party, the party that our forebears helped build. So, we invited Sadiq to join us on Golders Green Road, brandishing Vote Sadiq Khan placards in both Hebrew and English. We spoke to dozens of voters, both Jewish and not in Golders Green. We introduced Sadiq to owners of Kosher butchers, fishmongers, bakeries — he even received a tour of the world famous Kosher Kingdom by the manager — at the busiest time of the year, just before Passover.

SADIQ KHAN FOR LONDON IN HEBREW

Equally we arranged for Sadiq to join a Passover seder at Alyth Synagogue just a few months later. This has turned into a yearly ritual for him. JLM played our role in giving many in our community the confidence to vote for Sadiq (Righteous man in Arabic) — and we will do it again in 2020 for this Tzadik (Righteous man in Hebrew).

In Manchester last year, the North West branch of JLM campaigned tirelessly for Andy Burnham and played a similar role, following the now time old tradition of taking candidates to a bagel bakery.

On Mitzvah Day every year we work with the Jewish community and the Labour Party to create meaningful experiences shaped around Jewish values where we connect Labour Party members and representatives with the Jewish community by playing out our shared values. In 2016 we worked with SikhsforLabour in preparing food for the needy in Croydon with Steve Reed MP, last year we helped Help Refugees in Calais as well as volunteering in the garden at Jewish disability charity Norwood’s day centre in West Hendon with local Labour Councillors in Barnet and Brent and this year we are repeating out visit to Calais and running a mass drop off for the homeless in London with social enterprise Linkey.

We arrange events around the Jewish calender, such as the now annual Chanukah reception at Labour Party HQ — which last year had Jeremy Corbyn address it.

We have done this with countless MPs, Mayoral Candidates, Advisors and Councillors over the years — and we still do to this day. This is our USP. It is the same USP that Sikhs for Labour, Labour Party Irish Society or the Labour Muslim Network have.

Our job is to build confidence in our community for Labour and do advocate for our community inside of the Labour Party.

Regrettably at the moment we are having to do a little too much advocating for our community inside of the party.

Our 2500 members hold a variety of strong views and we have members who identify as supporters of Progress, Labour First, Open Labour and Momentum (and no faction) — we as an institution are strictly non-factional. When it comes to internal elections in the party, we only take an official institutional position outside of leadership elections if we believe that a candidate is directly hostile to our members and us as Jews. In leadership elections and parliamentary selections where we hold nomination rights we ask our members who to nominate via a ballot.

This is why in the recent NEC election we took the extraordinary step of asking Labour members not to vote for Pete Willsman following his outburst about the 68 British Rabbis, many who either have been or are members of the Labour Party. We issued no such line on the remaining ‘JC8’. And we take no position on these issues precisely because of our representative nature.

JLM members are not only diverse in their opinions within the Labour Party, they are of course also diverse in their opinions of the Jewish community and Zionism. We have members who like the Board of Deputies and people who do not, we have members from Liberal synagogues, including the senior rabbi of Liberal Judaism (and now Labour Councillor) Danny Rich ranging to supporters in the Charedi ultra orthodox Jewish communities and everything in between (including supporters of Jewdas). On Zionism our members are united by a broad belief in Zionism as the national liberation movement of the Jewish people but when it comes to the State of Israel itself and specifically policies within it we hold a huge array of views.

We have members who would vote for a centrist party or Labour in Israel and we have members who would vote for the more left-wing Meretz. We have members who are actively involved in UK pressure groups against the occupation, most notably Yachad and more recently radical anti-settlement campaigners Na’amod — who feel that the UK Jewish community should be a lot more vocal against the occupation. Of course we also have members further to the right in the same way the Labour Party does.

Despite the lies that float around about JLM which are spread maliciously by the hard left and the antisemites, we rarely if ever take a view on specific actions within the State of Israel. Why should we? We are a diaspora Jewish group that believes in Zionism in its broadest term, we are not apologists or spokespeople for the Government of the State of Israel. We believe in a two state solution and we are against the occupation. On bodies in which we are affiliated in Israel we use these three basic beliefs to determine how we vote in institutions. As members of the UK Zionist Federation, the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) and the Board of Deputies of British Jews we vote against any proposal that does not meet our three basic views on Israel; Zionism, Two State Solution and anti-occupation.

In the WZO we have always voted against any resources being used to advance the settlement enterprise and have worked with our colleagues in Meretz, the Israeli Labour Party, Arzenu (US Reform Judaism) and others to vote down such proposals. Without our voice and others in this arena it is likely that such proposals would pass.

We also strongly believe that empowering Israelis and Palestinians is the way to achieve a long lasting peace — that is why we work with civil society organisations to help bring that about. We are against boycotts as we believe they are a blunt tool that in the case of Israel could too easily be used as a tool to attack Jews globally — and to an extent this is already happening.

You never hear JVL talk about peace in the middle east. They seem to have an aversion to talking about a two state solution. When Jon Lansman’s views on Israel are not pure enough for them, then whose will be? Besides if they really want a different Israel what are they doing to prepare for next year’s election there? (JLM will be doing everything possible to help the Israeli left)

We, like the vast majority of British Jews are proudly Zionist. That does not mean that the vast majority of British Jews support Benjamin Netanyahu — far from it — but it does mean that we feel an affinity to the Jewish state through family ties, through culture, through history and through belief in the idea of Jewish peoplehood and there is nothing inconsistent at all with holding these beliefs whilst simultaneously believing in national self-determination for the Palestinian people.

We at JLM don’t always get it right and we would be arrogant to assume we do, but as Jeremy Corbyn has himself learnt, leading a broad church can be tricky and the Jewish Labour Movement is also a very broad synagogue.

Minority groups cannot claim to be representative whilst simultaneous being part of or backing slates in the Labour Party. What infuriates me more of JVL is the tacit endorsement of racists.

Other than making other Labour members who don’t know any better — and the antisemites themselves — feel good, what other purpose does JVL serve?

If a minority group with Jewish and Labour in its title is unable to hold any kind of relationship with the broad Jewish community then what is the point of having a ‘Jewish Voice for Labour’.