Board of Deputies becomes ever more sectarian

Quelle surprise!
And later they will claim that they represent the e-n-t-i-r-e Jewish community.
How low can they go?
During the Holocaust, the BoD undermined the initiative taken by Rabbi Solomon Schoenfeld to save thousands and thousands of Jews from Austria, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary by allowing them to come to the UK and the British Empire, for fear that this may result in a surge of Antisemitism. Now the political leanings of the very same institution are pushing them towards shortsighted isolationist policies which may indeed leave the e-n-t-i-r-e Jewish community to deal with the fallout, and I hope to be proved wrong.

Cyril’s reference to the Board of Deputies is important and I have researched this disgraceful episode. Rabbi Schonfield was Chair of the Chief Rabbi’s Rescue Committee for European Jewry. He was support by Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz who was a Zionist but first and foremost a human being whose thought were first with the Jews of Europe.

That cannot be said for Selig Brodestsky, who became President of the BOD in 1941. Brodetsky set about sabotaging the efforts of Hertz. Why?

Brodetsky justified his behaviour in a letter to the Jewish Chronicle of 5 February 1943 on the grounds that ‘the intervention of an unauthorized individual however well intentioned, in a situation of this sort naturally brings confusion and may have some damaging effects.’

While thousands of Jews were burning each day, Brodetsky and the Board were concerned with what they perceived as challenges to their power and prestige.

The Zionists, having gained control of the Board were not prepared to put up with any challenge, not even from the Chief Rabbi. The willingness of Rabbis Hertz and Schonfeld to stand up to the Board and the Zionists in 1943 contrasts with the behaviour of their counterparts today. Brodetsky could not permit
‘any internal challenge from within British Jewry to the claim of the Board and its committees to have the exclusive right of audience with the British government.’ (Marcus Retter, JC 5.2.93).

Brodestsky’s election as President marked the takeover of the Board by the Zionists. Previously the Board had done its best to gain the admittance of Jewish refugees, notably the Kindertransport which the Zionists had vehemently opposed.

Cyril is therefore wrong when he says that Brodetsky and the Board’s Secretary, Bakstansky, were motivated by ‘fear that this may result in a surge of Antisemitism’. This was absolutely not the reason but it was Herbert Morrison’s reasons for refusing the admission of Jewish refugees when public opinion was running 80% in favour of admitting them.

Incidentally Herbert Morrison, an ardent Zionist, set his face against the admission of Jewish refugees. 2,000 Jewish children and elderly people in France, who could have come to Britain if Morrison had agreed, were instead deported to Auschwitz. The same was true of over 400 Jews in Luxembourg.

Herbert Morrison, Peter Mandelson’s grandfather, should be remembered as a genuine antisemite if not a war criminal

Does anyone know what were the “allegations” referred to?