An Israeli organisation is coming to the UK with the aim of facilitating communication within the Jewish community, which they claim has lost its “civility and dignity”.
The Tisch Centre for Jewish Dialogue is planning to hold a symposium in London in February to provide a “neutral location” for “respectful” dialogue about the key issues that divide Jews; most prominently the topic of Israel.
Executive Vice President Rachel Lithgow told the JC that “Israel was becoming this viciously divisive, undermining, angry topic.
“There’s so much vitriol around the subject and people are so impassioned about it,” she said. One of the main reasons for establishing the Tisch Centre was “because of this divide”, she added.
“We’re an Israeli institution, we care about Israel — obviously. We know that there are members of your community that care a lot about Israel. There are probably lots of misconceptions about Israel on both sides; we can show you how other communities have dealt with these issues.”
Established by Andrew and Ann Tisch — part of the wealthy American Tisch family — the Tisch Centre is based at the Museum of the Jewish People, Beit Hatfutsot in Tel Aviv, which is partnered with and receives funding from the government of Israel and the Jewish Agency for Israel.
When asked if this was compatible with their desire to provide an unbiased space, Executive Vice President Rachel Lithgow said the only requirement for participation was the belief that Israel had the right to exist, and that the centre itself had “no agenda”.
However, she said, the centre had agreed with Jewish groups attending a symposium in New York last November that an “argument should be made for the relevance of a Jewish state in the 21st century; a new definition of Zionism”, something which something which was noted as “edited and shopped around to publications under the auspices of the Tisch Center for Jewish Dialogue.”
Ms Lithgow claims that the paper was not published, and that another paper questioning the current Israeli government was also produced as an outcome of the symposium as well.
One of the hopes for the Tisch Centre’s UK gathering is to establish a “code of conduct” for Jews communicating with one another, to avoid abusive language.
“The whole founding principle of the Jewish faith is disagreement,” Ms Lithgow said. She added, however, that of all the British Jews she had spoken to, there “wasn’t one… who had not been in some ways disgracefully abused by members [of] the community.
"It is very easy to be terrible to one another now.”
They have already spoken to various Jewish groups and figures in the community, including the Board of Deputies, JW3, Jewish Leadership Council and Jewish Students’ Union.
