Corbyn’s good deeds

Your coverage of antisemitism in the Labour Party contributes to a self-sustaining news cycle in which a toxic social-media discourse and intemperate discussion around the Middle East conflict in some local Labour Parties is transmuted into an “existential crisis” for British Jews. 

This becomes the basis for a rabbinic encyclical enjoining congregants to vote to prevent a Corbyn-led government, which “would pose a danger to Jewish life as we know it” (JC, November 1). The latter in turn provides a news story, which is amplified by the Jewish and national media. 

The fire is further stoked by denunciations of Corbyn personally, described in your editorial of August 2 as individually responsible for the rise in antisemitic incidents recorded by the CST and as “the most dangerous racist in British politics” and on  November 1 as “Britain’s most prominent antisemite” and potentially its “first ideologically antisemitic prime minister”. 

Historians might well challenge the latter claim, given the entrenched antisemitism within the British establishment and upper echelons of the Tory party, the dubious motivation for Balfour’s espousal of Zionism and the open dislike of Jews expressed by a number of prime ministers, including Churchill and Macmillan. 
More importantly, the charge needs evaluating against a background of Corbyn’s unsolicited support for causes of interest to the Jewish community as expressed as a back-bench MP in more than 50 Early Day Motions in the House of Commons between 1990 and 2015. 

These include: repeated support for Holocaust Memorial Day, particularly commending the work of the Holocaust Educational Trust; condemnation of Holocaust denial and neo-Nazi activity including a planned march in Golders Green; concern about the rise in antisemitism in the UK and Europe, commending the work of the CST; calling for antisemitic publications to be banned; congratulating Jewish News for investigating the use of Facebook to promote antisemitism and for its campaign for formal recognition of Sir Ludwig Guttmann by the Olympic authorities; congratulating Jo Wagerman and Eldred Tabachnik for their work for the Board of Deputies and Simon Wiesenthal on being awarded a knighthood; concern about a lack of resources to maintain Bradford Reform synagogue; calling on the BBC to reverse the decision to axe its weekly Jewish Citizen Manchester programme; condemning persecution of Jews in Iran and Yemen; condemning attacks on Jewish institutions including deadly terrorist attacks on synagogues in North Africa and Istanbul; deploring Iran’s support for terrorist organisations aimed at derailing the Middle East peace process, notably Hamas, Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad; and paying tribute to Yitzhak Rabin on the 15th anniversary of his assassination, supporting his objective of peace with the Palestinians and a two-state solution. This is indeed a strange form of ideological antisemitism.

Antisemitic attitudes unfortunately persist within the British population, and are more prevalent among Tory than Labour voters, as shown by the research of the Campaign Against Antisemitism. 
While no form of racism can be tolerated within British politics and all parties must have clear mechanisms for dealing with it, the JC’s hyperbolic rhetoric has the effect of spreading fear among Jews and resentment in the non-Jewish population. 

It is time to dial down this dangerous campaign, which may well provoke the rise of populist nationalism thus putting the future of all minority communities at risk, and instead work with other communities to decrease all forms of racism.

Dr Anthony Isaacs
London

Going beyond fair criticism?

The Jewish Chronicle’s attack, in its leader column of November 1, on Jeremy Corbyn and on Labour’s moderate MPs risks undermining its own authority by overstepping the bounds of measured and fair criticism. 

Corbyn’s support of terrorists, his lack of patriotism and his failure to root out antisemitism within the Labour Party all highlight his unsuitability as a political leader. 

So does his ideological and obsessive anti-Zionism and anti-colonialism/imperialism (at least when the imperialists are Western liberal democracies).

But raising the spectre of his becoming Britain’s first “ideologically antisemitic prime minister” goes well beyond the evidence reported in the JC and elsewhere of Corbyn’s extremist, insensitive or impulsive comments and acts. 

They have certainly tainted his career but do not compare with the outrageous statements of many earlier prime ministers. 

Sir Alec Douglas-Home, for example, accused the MP Gerald Kaufman (of all people) of loyalty to Israel over Britain; and, a century earlier, Robert Peel claimed that the Jew “is excluded because he will not amalgamate with us in any of his usages or habits… In the history of the Jews… we find enough to account for the prejudice which exists against them.”

Perhaps your argument is that these prime ministers were not “ideological” antisemites. 

But Corbyn has actively supported several local Jewish organisations and events without fanfare as a constituency MP and pre-dating his term as Labour leader. 

We do not accept that he is wedded to an ideology of antisemitism of the Nazi or any other variety. 

For that reason and others, to claim as you do that all those moderate Labour MPs who have remained within his Labour party “have now been exposed as careerists” is facile and will alienate gratuitously many good, decent people who are supportive of the Jewish community. 

So, while we oppose Jeremy Corbyn and what he stands for, let’s not get things out of proportion. 

John Bowers and Clive Wolman
Oxford and London

Rabbi Romain out of order

I was shocked and disappointed to read of Rabbi Jonathan Romain’s advice to his congregation to “put aside all other considerations” and vote for whichever party is most likely to defeat Labour (JC, November 1). 

Presumably the other considerations Rabbi Romain wants put aside include the flagrantly racist records of some other party leaders — Boris Johnson’s “water melon smiles” and “letter box burkas”, and Nigel Farage’s “perfect right to be concerned if a group of Romanian people suddenly moved next door”. 

As a Jew, I find it hard to see how this could be in accord with “Jewish values”. 

The extreme right and its willingness to foment racial conflict in order to garner votes is an existential threat to all of us, irrespective of our diverse religions and origins. 

On the other hand, Labour, for all its faults, campaigns for equality and against privilege. 

One wonders how Rabbi Romain can square his advice with his generally thoughtful and progressive views.

Keith Lichman 
London N16