“Whether it’s in our universities, in our schools, whether it’s marches and the appalling things that are said and written on banners, and the places where people think it is appropriate to go to intimidate people simply because of their faith, institutions such as broadcasters, it will no longer be tolerated,” he went on.
The action plan will include advice about online antisemitism, Reed confirmed.
Online algorithms, he continued, are “leaving us a few clicks away from images and scenes and words that would not have been out of place under the Third Reich”.
Reed also said that he had lit a candle at home in memory of the Sydney victims on Sunday.
“What happened wasn’t just an attack on the Jewish community; it was an attack on all of us because it seeks to assault freedom itself and the kind of society that we want to live in,” the minister went on, adding that the UK should not be “tolerant of intolerance”.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper also addressed the gathering, recognising the “weight of what happened” in Sydney.
“Once again, Jews were killed for being Jews in the 21st century,” Cooper said.
And she praised groups including the Community Security Trust, Jewish Women’s Aid and World Jewish Relief.
Ella Rose-Jacobs, Yvette Cooper, Rabbi Charley Baginsky, Steve Reed and Rebecca Filer at the JLM Chanukah party[Missing Credit]
Rabbi Charley Baginsky, co-lead of Progressive Judaism, attended the event and lit the Chanukiah, telling those in the room that Jewish history means that "memory lives close to the surface”.
“It’s why antisemitism is never experienced as just another form of prejudice, it carries echoes that run deep and long,” she said.
“Security for Jewish communities matters. Physical protection, policing, and funding for it all matter. But Jewish security cannot rest only on walls, gates, or guards.
“Security also depends on something harder and demanding. It depends on political leadership that names antisemitism without hesitation or qualification.”
Barnet Labour councillor and JLM national chair Ella Rose-Jacobs said she had invited Baginsky after the rabbi was booed off stage at a central London event for the hostages earlier in the year.
Reed and Cooper with the transliterated lyrics of Ma'oz Tzur[Missing Credit]
Meanwhile, across London, also on Monday evening, hundreds of people gathered in Westminster for a vigil and Chanukiah lighting in memory of the Sydney terror attack victims.
Organised by the Campaign Against Antisemitism and Chabad Lubavitch in Parliament Square, the march was addressed by Health Minister Ashley Dalton, who was booed by the crowd, who had reportedly been expecting Reed.
At one point, when Dalton said, "I understand" in response to the anger of the hecklers, they cried "No you don't".
Chabad’s Rabbi Sudak, in asking the audience to listen to the minister, appealed to them to be "ambassadors of light".
