A scared Board of Deputies piles on the pressure
JVL Introduction
Rabbi Kanter-Webber outlines clearly the many problems with the (dramatic over) reaction by the Board of Deputies of British Jews to the letter sent last week to the Financial Times signed by 36 of their members. It seems to this web poster that they are terrified of opposition and are determined to further cement their own view that to be a loyal Jew, you must not only support Israel (as an idea) but also the actual ongoing genocide that is currently being perpetrated on the people and places of Gaza.
The excessive levels of retaliation also give those not so closely involved a stark picture of the huge pressure that is placed on even these, frankly, moderately critical Jews to toe the lie – and perhaps, more importantly, to stop anyone else coming forward in their support.
They are not able to address the points made in the letter (other than to say “what about Hamas? It is all their fault) and so are resorting to processes, another aspect of this sorry affair that this article eviscerates.
We thank Vashti for their permission to post this article.
LL
This article was originally published by Vashti on Wed 16 Apr 2025. Read the original here.
In the name of faux ‘unity’, the Board is punishing progressives
It’s Phil’s way or the highway.
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The Board of Deputies has been abusing its power for years, claiming to represent the entire Jewish community in the UK and sabotaging the political career of a decent man who happened to stand up for Palestinian rights. I hope the brave few who have been targeted by vindictive officials are supported by many more, and that divergent opinions are allowed to be heard in this very dysfunctional organisation.
oych.
Can a rabbi be even more incorrect?
Perhaps the 36 should have all written in their personal capacity rather than misrepresenting and misleading, intentionally or not, themselves to the media and readers as representing the Jewish community which, in the majority, they don’t.
Those 36 ‼️(a couple of them even said Kaddish for TERRORISTS)‼️
DO NOT speak for 99% of clear thinking ,Jews in the UK and NEVER will.
Nor does this person who wrote this nothing article 🤡
There must be repercussions for pretending to speak for us…‼️‼️‼️
This comment and the ones from @jeremyBrown and @NigelTobias show how thin skinned the Zionist majority is and how frightened they are of challenge and debate. We can only assume that YD thinks that only Jews who support the murderous actions of the Israeli state are clear thinking. It is not 99% who support Israel’s actions split, according to surveys is around two thirds, one third and the critical third is growing daily.
The 36 dissidents (plus those who are too worried about the abuse they would receive and support the letter but haven’t signed it) have not pretended to speak for those who have a high tolerance for committing war crimes, they have only ever claimed to speak for themselves. They appear to hop[e that by speaking out they will.encourage others to do the same.
YO and his like-minded commenters would do well to reflect on why support for Israel, both among Jews and non-Jews, is plummeting. Some because they believe that Israel has taken a disastrous wrong turn but also the growing number who see the current atrocities as the inevitable result of an attempt to build a Jewish supremacist state at the expense of the Palestinian population between the river and the sea.
This follows the way that the right-wing establishment minority hierarchy of the Labour Party undermined and crookedly excluded the socialist majority.
It seemed to work for the hierarchy but it left the Labour Party hollowed-out, detached from its natural support and fundamentally weakened. It also destroyed any semblance of democracy within the party and in our country.
In the one conversation I engaged in with GKW on social media, I came to realise the nonsense he spouts is not in the interest of the Jewish people.
The cracks in the UK Jewish community and indeed in Israel are growing wider….
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/communal-row-continues-as-25-rabbis-publish-new-letter-against-war-in-gaza-qhb5arw6
Phil Rosenberg was a Camden councillor before he was president of the decidedly undemocratic BoD. He already had a post on the Board but kept very quiet about this potential vested interest. As a councillor he was ruthless in attacking anyone remotely critical of Israel, bombarding even a local vicar with almost hourly faxes trying to stop a local church being used for discussion, constantly putting stories into the media about Corbyn and Palestine-supporting members, when Holocaust survivors such as Stephen Kapos and two others were trying to make their sane voices heard…
I recall Rosenberg also telling a local community centre that they could say goodbye to all council funding if they allowed an ‘antisemitic’ meeting about ending Israeli apartheid to take place. He forgot to mention to the poor centre staff that the meeting was actually being held by a Jewish group. They were surprised and reassured to meet some of us.
I wrote a letter to our local paper about Rosenberg, you can probably read it in the Camden New Journal back issues! Nothing he does would surprise me, but I AM surprised – just a little – that even members of the Board should choose such a very divisive figure for their figurehead at this particular moment. Still, he’s a hard worker, I’ll say that for him.. for further details of his numerous jobs, see my old letter — I am looking for a link, but meanwhile here’s another one I wrote, about the same man’s egregious behaviour in 2018: https://www.camdennewjournal.co.uk/article/the-family-of-del-singh-are-distressed-and-the-award-bearing-his-name-should-be-returned-by-the-jewish-labour-movement
PS I’ve now read the link supplied by Deborah above. Relieved to see that my old feminist editor Elli Sarah is speaking out now. It was a shocking thing when she and other progressive rabbis like Jonathan Romain signed that terrible letter saying that Corbyn was an existential threat…