‘Enough is Enough’ isn’t Enough

Today I attended the ‘Enough is Enough’ rally in Manchester’s Cathedral Gardens. It was incredibly impressive to see so many communal organisations come together in unity to make a stand. The entire community should be extremely proud of North West Friends of Israel, the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council for all their hard work in putting this unfortunate but extremely necessary event together.

However, hearing so many Labour MPs apparently standing in solidarity with our community, whilst still remaining members of the Labour Party and telling the community not to lose its faith in it, left a very bitter taste.

All of the Labour MPs spoke about the evils of antisemitism and rooting it out in very general terms but very few explicitly expressed contempt towards, or blame on, Jeremy Corbyn and those who surround him. Even fewer said what they will be doing to end his malign influence over their once proud party.

Corbyn and his friends did not invent antisemitism, but they have been the catalyst for its reinvigoration over the last three years. The fringe hard left, who terrify Jewish students on campus, picket Jewish shops and pretend that antisemitism is a lie, is now not the fringe; it runs Her Majesty’s Opposition Party and sits on its front bench.

This group of extremists is not going to apologise and it is not going to change - particularly its leader who, after 40+ years of activism and friendship with those who support hatred and destruction, will never have a sudden and magical epiphany and do a U-turn. His personal intervention in trying to dilute the IHRA definition at the Labour NEC should have been the last straw to clearly demonstrate this to any remaining doubters.

It is time for the good people of the Labour Party to get off the fence. They’ve heard the message loud and clear from across our community and can no longer keep saying they abhor antisemitism whilst still campaigning to put Corbyn in government. They either have to support him and his views, or take decisive action against them, either by publicly doing whatever they can to remove him from office, or by defecting en masse to a new centre-left party, thus rendering him and his cronies an insignificant minority.

Nice words from people who want our votes are no longer enough. It’s time for actions and courage on their part; otherwise we’ll all be back in Cathedral Gardens in six months, regretting the fact that we wasted today politely applauding platitudes from them that meant absolutely nothing.  

Benjamin Black

Didsbury, Manchester

Too much attention is being paid to Mr Corbyn and not enough to the people who advise and support him, and marshal his troops.

What do we know about the leaders of Unite and Momentum, or John McDonnell who talks about Labour as if it is a sweet old children’s tea party with just a few naughty children who misbehave? Our focus on Mr Corbyn is like misdirection in magic. What we think we see happening about antisemitism, and what is actually going on, may be different - and more dangerous.

Lewis Herlitz

Leigh on Sea, Essex

Unwitting scares

Your correspondent is unwittingly adding to the present antisemitism scare (Tories refuse to back EU’s Hungary vote, JC, September 14) by suggesting that the EU report is calling for Hungary to be sanctioned for “pandering to antisemitism”.

I visit Hungary often to see relatives and am fully aware of the antisemitic undertones on Mr Orban and his government. However, the EU motion is censoring them for the crackdown on NGOs and universities, silencing independent media and replacing critical judges.

Thomas Komoly

Wilmslow, Cheshire

Lessons from the past

Further to Robert Hutton’s article on Britain’s wartime Jew haters (JC, September 14), antisemitic MP Sir Waldron Smithers launched an attack in Parliament on Simon Marks and Israel Sieff, respectively Chairman and Vice Chairman of M&S.  Both were involved in the War effort in the 1940s, Sieff on the Government’s Political and Economic Planning body, PEP, and Marks as a Director of BOAC.  Smithers was made to offer an unqualified apology in the House. Any current MP’s and their acolytes want to take note?

Barry Hyman

Bushey Heath

Shiva mores

Now that we are in the season of forgiveness, I am reminded of a shiva I attended using the United Synagogue prayer book, with the service led by a lay person.

One of the prayers includes the words “ forgive him his transgressions”. This came out as “forgive him his transactions”.

I thought one did not criticise a deceased’s business dealings, particularly at his shiva!

Howard Napper

Stanmore, Middx

Memories of war

Yom Kippur 1973, in Kibbutz Mahanayim near the Jordan Bridge and the Golan Heights, will always loom large (A High Holy Day to Remember, RH magazine, September 7).

It was (ironically) a Shabbat and I was at home at 2 pm when the booms began. Aircraft sonic booms, I thought, but after more than three I went outside and saw people running in all directions, volunteers asking me where the air raid shelters were.

As the booms continued I ran to the baby house where one of our children was. All but one had been taken underground. I grabbed the last infant and dashed into our shelter. It was the unheralded start of the Yom Kippur war: shells raining down from Syrian forces invading the Golan. There was damage to a few buildings, but thank God no one was injured-a miracle in itself.#

David Lawrence

London NW11

May’s error

By claiming in her speech at the recent UJIA dinner that Jewish people are to Israel what British people are to Britain, and by talking of the relationship she wishes to build between “our two countries”, Prime Minister Theresa May implies that British Jews are not fully British, essentially depicting us as a group of foreigners. She should apologise unreservedly.

David Chesler

Edgware