No moral leadership as Chief Rabbi praises Israel’s actions in Gaza

We are pleased to publish this opinion piece by JVL member, Diana Neslen.  The UK Chief Rabbi spoke at Diana’s synagogue on 6th January. I found his four minute speech absolutely shocking.  It was filmed and you can watch it within one of Jonathan Cook’s tweets here. 

We can only wonder if the Chief Rabbi has even watched any of the mainstream media’s coverage of what is happening in Gaza. He acknowledges that “tragically” there have been innocent civilian deaths.  And he talks of reasons to be proud of being Jewish, all the while clearly conflating the actions of the State of Israel with Jews in the UK.  He says “..we can be proud of our values. Which other Army in the world puts its own soldiers at risk in the effort to minimise casualties amongst innocent civilians?”  He had already said:  “the Jewish people is showing incredible strength at this trying time – none more so than our heroic soldiers” (my emphasis). 

Today (11th January 2024) South Africa presented its case to the International Court of Justice.  It is chilling to listen to these words from the most senior representative of British Jewry; we note that South Africa seems to have learned the lessons of its own terrible history of suffering much better than the Chief Rabbi has learned from the centuries long suffering of Jewish people.

LL

No Moral leadership from the Chief Rabbi

The Chief Rabbi came to Ilford on Saturday 6^th January to talk at a Malava Malka.  The Melava Malka is the celebratory meal at the end of the Sabbath when the Sabbath Queen is escorted out with food, music, and joy.  So for the sum of £17.50 the celebrants can eat and hear the words of ‘the sage’ and leave replete and able to face the rigours of the week ahead.

Although I am a member of the synagogue in question, I give the notices other than those about bereavement a miss.  My inbox is too full and my social interests are very different.  So it was that I missed what should have been an important notification namely the attendance of the ‘inspirational Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis KBE’. The topic of his talk was ‘Jewish life after October 7^th.

The outer East London Borough of Redbridge is extremely diverse with a plurality of people identifying as of Asian heritage.  There used to be a large Jewish population in the area but most have moved away and even the Jewish senior school has many if not a plurality of non-Jewish children.

Since October 7^th and the catastrophic response by the Israeli government to the horrific attack by Hamas and other actors on Israeli settlements and the taking of hostages, there has been a ferment of activity in the area.  Muslim communities have been overwhelmed with grief and horror.  Most believed in the rule of law, a rules-based order and the Geneva conventions.  Yet here they see what eminent scholars call a genocide unfolding in front of our eyes and the Western world and its media give it fulsome support and cover.  Instead of standing up for humanity our leaders and their tame media take every opportunity to demonise those who stand for peace.  Young children in my borough have had to grow up very quickly and learn terrible lessons about the world and what it is prepared to do to children who share their religion and the colour of their skin.  They have produced the most amazing poems, pictures, speeches, some truly heartbreaking.

I was a child of the war.  Far away from Europe I learnt that my ethnicity made me a target.  It fashioned my activism all my life.  I see the same thing happening to young Muslim children in Redbridge.  Their lives have been irretrievably changed.

What has impressed me so much has been the magnanimity of the community, warm, welcoming, and so pleased that there are Jews who support this cause. I tell them Jews need to be there.  We have the experience of trauma, and our history tells us we should be on the barricades whenever terror strikes.  They share the values I hold, which, sadly is something I cannot say about the local Jewish community up in arms about Palestinian flags flying in local streets.  They call them ‘Hamas flags’, which rather shows their limited knowledge.

Into this maelstrom strode the Chief Rabbi, a man born in apartheid South Africa, who seems to have learnt nothing about racism.  After all he has marched with pride on Jerusalem Day where chants of ‘Death to the Arabs’ are de rigeur.  His objective seems to be to shore up support for Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza.  What he said was absolutely chilling.  In the clip which I have seen and which is being picked up by others, such as Jonathan Cook (above)  the Chief Rabbi talks about what is right is what we (sic) subscribe to.  “We can validate our feelings that what Israel is doing is the most outstanding thing that a decent as possible country can do for its people”.  This sentence generated copious applause.  He then went on to say that the war needs to be over in a successful way, and if not we are in trouble.  This is a man who called our peace marches ‘hate’ marches.  Clearly, he knows something about hate.

What can this man be seeing?  Does he not see human suffering? Can he not hear the cries of pain from children bereft of parents, parents bereft of children?  Does he not hear the cries of children operated on without anaesthetic that this outstanding country refuses to allow in?  Can he not see people desperately scrabbling at ruins to find a living soul, people searching for food, for water? What would he say if this was happening to Jews?  Or is it only Jewish suffering that tears at his heartstrings?  And if he is so immune to exixtential pain, where is his moral compass?

When one considers the savagery of Israel’s destructive onslaught on Gaza, the wanton killing of whole families, the targeting of hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and all the infrastructure, not to mention the human capital, doctors, ambulance workers, media workers, whole families destroyed. The list is endless and gives many of us sleepless nights, it seems beyond belief that a man of the cloth can allow such bloodthirsty words to pass his lips.  The Jewish prophets knew that they had to tell their people truths they found hard to swallow. Maybe it is time he took lessons from some of the Muslim preachers who have appeared on platforms with me.  I have listened to many Imams exhorting their people not to sink into easy antisemitism and to hold Israel and the Zionist ideology to account not the Jewish people.  Would that we had leaders of this calibre in our communities. The Chief Rabbi has much to learn about human suffering, about racism and above all how to become a mensch.s

Diana Neslen, 10.01.24