A 63 year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of malicious communications offence after calling Progressive Judaism’s Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber a “kapo boy” on social media.
Rupert Nathan made a series of insulting comments on a close friend’s Facebook post in which he also described Rabbi Kanter-Webber as a “creep”, and “fake Rabbi”.
The Brighton and Hove Progressive synagogue rabbi reported Nathan’s comments to the police and his professional body the Chartered Institute of Securities and Investment [CISI].
Nathan was arrested in August. While the CISI decided not to take any action, police have put his case to the Crown Prosecution Service to assess whether he should be charged with ‘malicious communications’.
The father of two claimed he was locked up for 12 hours after he was arrested.
He told the Daily Mail: “In the police station I was treated like a proper criminal. I was fingerprinted, DNA tested, photographed and then kept in a cold cell completely alone for 10 hours. It was humiliating.”
Nathan was released on bail on Monday November 11.
“Kapo” is a word used for Jews in German concentration camps who cooperated with the Nazis in overseeing other prisoners in return for preferential treatment.
The term has been described as the “worst insult a Jew can give another Jew” by some commentators.
Kanter-Webber at first declined to comment on the incident, but then posted to X: “I am hereby reaching out with the hand of compassion to ask if you feel you need a pastoral conversation?”
