Lord Hermer: ‘My world view was fuelled by my Jewish values’

“What I got from RSY-Netzer was the sense of Jewish values and, in particular, the concept of tikkun, not just tikkun olam – the obligation to repair the world,” he explained.

“There are two other aspects – tikkun atzmi, repair of oneself, and tikkun ha’am – repair of the Jewish people.”

Jewish life was “absolutely integral to my being,” he said. He was the leader of the movement’s Israel tour that was attended by the now MPJ co-lead Rabbi Josh Levy. He later spent a gap year in Israel and became active in both UJS and the European Union of Jewish Students.

He said his desire as a teenager to do something about apartheid “was absolutely informed and fuelled by my Jewish values, by my sense of a world in which you have an obligation informed by tikkun”. 

Jewish values had gone on to guide his choice of career as a human rights lawyer, he believed.

As another Jewish influence, he mentioned Martin Buber, not only for the theologian’s philosophy of the “I and Thou” relationships – deep, reciprocal and present –  but also for his Chasidic tales.

A member now of Alyth Synagogue, he described himself as “chiloni” – secular – and “an atheist”, but then suggested that term was “arrogant’’ and modified it to “agnostic”.

Although his father, a Conservative councillor, had had different politics “he didn’t have different values. It’s really important to stress that. I sit in Parliament and I have Conservative friends on the other benches, many of whose values I think are values that we cherish”, he said, adding after a short pause – “Not all.”

Against the forces of division in society, he said the response should be “to double-down on our belief in pluralism, to remind ourselves that the way we treat everybody… is at the core of it, is about respecting the dignity of other human beings…

“We should be extolling the importance of progressiveness. I don’t mean that in a party political sense at all. I mean belief in the dignity of human beings. Tikkun olam –  in the sense that we would understand it – I don’t think it has ever been more important to be out there talking about it.”