Community leadership
As a Jewish person who has always been involved with Jewish life in this country and a lifelong supporter of Israel, I am so deeply distressed by the lack of Jewish leadership in the last three years.
At no other time can I remember such a crisis for Anglo Jewry. This situation has only been made worse by the divisions within our so-called “leadership organisations “. History has shown us that when Jews are divided it signals a weakness in the community. The divisions appear to focus on what is happening in Israel.
Surely the community needs leadership that speaks with one voice for Jewish life in this country?
That is what is so sorely lacking and without which the Jewish community the divisions will simply deepen.
Isabel Oberman
N2
New cabinet
Wes Streeting's tenure as Defence Secretary is only days old, yet he has already found time to pass judgement on Israel's military conduct.
This is the same Mr Streeting of whom General the Lord Dannatt, GCB, CBE, MC, DL, the former head of the British Army, remarked that he "knows pretty much the square root of nothing about defence." Undeterred by this modest qualification, the new Secretary of State has concluded that Israel has fallen short of standards he himself is only now being briefed on.
His verdict is not shared by General Sir John McColl, former Deputy Supreme Allied Commander Europe at Nato; Colonel Richard Kemp, who commanded British forces in Afghanistan; General Martin Dempsey, former Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff; or the High-Level Military Group of senior officers from Britain, Germany, America, Australia, Spain and France – all of whom concluded that Israel took extraordinary measures to limit civilian harm.
Perhaps Mr Streeting would tell us on what expertise, exactly, his own judgement rests.
Shimon Cohen
London N2
Rufus Isaacs, Malcolm Rifkind, and Ed’s brother, David Milliband, all Jewish, held office as Foreign Secretary previously, and each without being famously pictured chewing something that clearly wasn’t a bagel. Surprising therefore that one of Ed Miliband’s first claims was his Jewish parentage.
One would certainly not expect this to influence his attitudes on Middle East relations, but one would equally hope that he does not find it necessary to assert such impartiality by going the “other way”.
Barrington Black
NW3
Church of England
Amongst the British institutions which are destroying themselves through hatred (Antizionist hatred is destroying Britain’s institutions, JC, July 24) Sir Michael Ellis might have included the Church of England. It has long abandoned its role as the Established Church of representing religious and spiritual values in the life of the nation. Having for example closed its churches its contribution during the covid pandemic was some services broadcast from the Archbishop of Canterbury's kitchen table. There is a long history of National Days of Prayer during times of war and crisis. There should have been National Days of Prayer, with services including spiritually uplifting sermons broadcast from empty cathedrals.
By voting to "hear" (albeit rather than "receive") Kairos II the Church of England has now legitimised the pernicious racial libel and ultimate insult against the Jewish People of genocide. In an era of proclaimed interfaith relationships and with a Supreme Governor who sees his role as the Defender of Faiths, it has also abandoned what should in a multi-faith society be the sensitivity of an Established Church to those of other faiths. In the three years since October 7 it has had nothing to say, still less do, about antisemitism. In the recent Synod debate not a single bishop spoke against "hearing" Kairos II. With his Jewish heritage Bishop of Blackburn Philip North may have a better understanding of Jewish concerns than his colleagues. His analysis should have been not an article in the Jewish Chronicle (JC, July 24) but a contribution to the Synod debate. He wrote that " ...the recently debated Kairos motion ... felt to me to be so ill-judged that I did not feel able even to vote ...". That is not remotely good enough. Even one cogent voice might have swayed the debate.
In 1943 Archbishop of Canterbury William Temple, the joint founder with Chief Rabbi Joseph Hertz of the Council of Christians and Jews, protested in the House of Lords against the government's procrastination towards the emerging horror of the Nazi extermination process. Whilst accepting that what anyone could do was small, he said: "We at this moment have upon us a tremendous responsibility. We stand at the bar of history, of humanity and of God." With today a global epidemic of hatred of that same Jewish People, Britain and the world stand now in a similar place. Despite delusional claims to the contrary by a government which has done little to confront antisemitism and much to encourage it, antisemitism has now become embedded as a feature of life in Britain. Far from recognising its duty to confront it, the Established Church, led by a new Archbishop of Canterbury who has already taken an uninformed and unbalanced position on Israel and the Palestinians, is endorsing and contributing to it. Not one of its bishops has summoned the moral courage of Archbishop Temple to stand at the bar of history, of humanity and of God.
Dr Jonathan M Lewis, FRHistS,
Pinner
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