Let me begin by recalling that, as a young reporter, I covered a session of the Board of Deputies of British Jews. There I witnessed its then president, Lord Janner shouting loudly and possibly banging his shoe, Kruschev-style to get errant deputies to fall in line over some issue galvanising the community at the time.
I mention this because it highlights how, in the intervening 50 or so years, the Board and its leadership has changed. In most ways, for the better. Realistically, it had no choice but to change. Politicians of Janner’s ilk have died out and a generation sensitised to every micro-aggression would not tolerate a president screaming and banging his shoe.
But having read in Jewish News the opinion piece from the admirable and conciliatory current Board president, Phil Rosenberg, I have to say that in the current firestorm raging over the renegade deputies and their letter in the FT that has been greedily seized on to allege anti-Israel sentiment among mainstream UK Jews, we require some of the pugnacity and mettle that Janner displayed all those years ago.
It is required now because the Anglo-Jewish community faces perhaps its greatest threat since the Nazis were poised to invade. We’ve seen a terrifying surge in anti-Jewish racism; we face a tsunami of misinformation and disinformation on Israel – assisted by a biased, perhaps actively complicit, media; Israel-haters march on our streets unimpeded; Jew-haters march alongside them in the guise of “anti-Zionists”; august institutions take names of Jewish donors off their walls.
What we face now is a very different threat but it may ultimately end in a similar way if we don’t stop it. And Anglo-Jewry’s supposed bulwark is the Board of Deputies.
In his piece, Mr Rosenberg reminded us that the Board is “a democratic organisation” and “a broad tent.” Its 300 representatives, he noted, come “from all denominations of Judaism” and span “a wide range of political opinion.”
I understand that. But he then says that deputies “regularly speak out in public… and often take positions at odds with the policy of the Board itself.”
Irrespective of democracy and broad tents, they should be removed. And very publicly, to make a statement that these deputies do not speak for British Jews
Perhaps he could clarify. If they speak out as Joe Shmo from A N Other Organisation, that is completely fine. But if they speak out in public as if they represent the Board while taking a position that is explicitly opposed to the official policy of the Board and if they then contact a newspaper and purport to represent the Board, then that is not at all fine.
Mr Rosenberg then says he is “simply unable to agree with the viewpoint aired in the FT letter” which as we know lays blame on the Israeli Government rather than on the terrorists trying to erase the Jewish state.
He then says he is “confident that the vast majority of deputies and the Jewish community as a whole” agree with him. And he’s right, but Mr Rosenberg cannot unring this bell.
These deluded deputies, who have been indoctrinated in a fictitious Palestinian narrative, have made it seem that “British Jews” blame Israel when British Jews do not blame Israel. They may harbour some misgivings, but they lay the blame where the blame should be laid: on Hamas and its funders and backers.
If an employee wrote a letter to a newspaper claiming to be representing their employer/organisation and made assertions that they did not have the authority or mandate to express, that would be fraudulent. They would probably be sacked.
The 36 deputies who signed this letter did not have the authority or mandate to express views diametrically opposed to those of mainstream UK Jews. They have traduced and wilfully misrepresented our community. They have made Anglo-Jewry appear to betray Israel. They have made Jews complicit in Jew-hate. They do not deserve a place on the board.
Irrespective of democracy and broad tents, they should be removed. And very publicly, to make a statement that these deputies do not speak for British Jews – a statement that the BBC and the rest of the media who loved this story of Jew-on-Jew discord will be forced to report.
