Holocaust lessons
For many years I have argued that Holocaust education and national commemoration events, while preserving the memory of the victims, have done nothing to explain or stem modern antisemitism. I am pleased to see that the JC has agreed (When Holocaust classes inspire antisemitism, May 29). The result of the current approach, as you point out, is the use of Nazi imagery and the charge of genocide in Gaza by those who want to hurt Jews and deflect their own guilt, because that is all they know about us. The defects of Holocaust education, as also outlined by UCL research, may soon be embedded in concrete – literally – in the planned Holocaust Memorial and “Learning Centre” planned for Westminster by the government: Jews as victims, all over in the 1940s; the Shoah not unique but listed along with other genocides; no mention of Israel.
Governments have insisted that the Holocaust events they fund, and the new Memorial, may not be limited to the Shoah and antisemitism, but have to include other genocides, thereby relativising it and risking opening it one day to events in Gaza, as nearly occurred at the last Holocaust Memorial Day. The Westminster Memorial has abandoned its rationale and evolved into a vanity project and a way for governments to absolve themselves from their anti-Israel policies. Before it is too late, national Jewish organisations, Jewish scholars and the informed members of the community should urge the government to use the £200m Memorial cost to reform education to include Jewish life and history; they should abandon the Westminster plan and set up a new Jewish Museum in a spacious location featuring 1,000 years of Jewish settlement in this country, with its tragedies and triumphs, including the story of Zionism. Otherwise the quest for Jewish peace and understanding in the UK will be set back for generations.
Baroness Deech KC(Hon)
House of Lords
Several articles in last week’s issue strongly argue that teaching non-Jewish schoolchildren only about the Holocaust does not provide enough context to stem the rise of antisemitism in their schools. This is so true. They need to understand what it means to be a Jewish person living in the UK today and hear about our experiences and way of life, and the contribution we make to British society. The best way to do this is to make personal visits to their schools and give the children the opportunity to engage with a real Jewish person.
I know there are hundreds of Jewish volunteers giving their valuable time to show children around their shuls and make school visits. But since the attacks on October 7, 2023 and the ensuing war in Gaza, many schools are not going into synagogues. They are, however, happy to have visitors go into their schools. The demand for my services has shot up – I am now in schools all over England most days of the week during term time. I want to applaud everyone who is doing this work to help children understand that there are living, breathing Jews in the UK today who are just like everyone else, proud to be British and Jewish.
Dr Sheila Gewolb DL
Rutland
Nova pride
Last week I visited the Nova Exhibition in London. This brilliantly immersive event is devastating, yet listening to the individuals who have travelled with the exhibition to share their testimonies and evidence, was profoundly inspiring too.
I purchased a “Nova cap” and this week I wore it as I walked up the Edgware Road, a stretch of road that is the very heart of London’s Arab community and deeply Israel-sceptic.
To walk past all those shisha and shawarma bars, while proudly wearing a cap stating “We Will Dance Again” was empowering and uplifting.
Jonathan Baz
Northwood
British Museum
The British Museum is supposed to safeguard our cultural heritage. An important part of that heritage is freedom of speech.
If thugs threaten to disrupt a lecture, the correct response would be to alert police, and have them crack down on any misbehaviour. If Camden is short on police as a result of board chairman George Osborne’s brutal austerity measures, perhaps he would like to contribute to a private security force.
Rhoda Koenig
London SW2
Polanski on Piker
Zack Polanski has rejected the government’s decision to ban left wing antizionist, Hasan Piker, from entering the UK, claiming that the decision was about the Labour government “doing everything possible to silence criticism of the Israeli government”. This represents an entirely false conflation of criticism with demonisation. Piker has stated that he would “vote for Hamas over Israel every single time” and that the terror group is “a thousand times better than the fascist settler colonial apartheid state”. He has said that his favourite flag is the one belonging to Hezbollah and that he has no issue with “Hezbollah as a form of militancy trying to incur penalties on the genocidal state of Israel”. He has also said that the Houthis’ activities are a form of “resistance”, claimed that it “doesn’t matter” if Hamas raped women on October 7, justified the 9/11 attacks and used terms like “inbred” to describe strictly Orthodox settlers. If Polanski is arguing that these antisemitic positions are “legitimate criticism”, he merely shows how utterly unsuited he is to leading a British political party.
Dr Jeremy Havardi
Director, B’nai B’rith UK Bureau of International Affairs
Zionists defined
What sort of a cross party consultant is Gary Spedding (letters May 29)? Well, he was barred from entering Israel in 2014 and 2019 and seems not to know the definition of what it means to be a Zionist. Jew or non Jew, it’s someone who supports the right of Jews to self-determination in their historic homeland. On that alone, an antizionist is always antisemitic.
If I may, I consider that there are four types of Jewish Zionists. The first is strictly Orthodox, probably doesn’t accept the contemporary Israeli state, but prays for a return to Zion and Jerusalem at least three times every day. Undoubtedly that’s a Zionist. The second is modern Orthodox, prays as aforementioned and accepts the modern state. The third is not religious but accepts the state and fits the above definition. The fourth is not emotionally attached to Israel, but could be a circumstantial Zionist by default in the event that no other country accepted Jews. So if my theory is reasonable, all Jews are Zionists one way or another and anyone against them is and will always be an antisemite.
Do you understand now, Gary?
David Lederman
London NW11
Flotilla fallout
What was missing from Chief Rabbi Mirvis’s justified revulsion at Ben Gvir’s mocking of the Gaza flotilla activists, was any condemnation of the fleet itself. Carrying nominal aid and 430 misguided and ill-intentioned supporters of Hamas, the flotilla aimed to disrupt Israel’s lawful blockade of Gaza and interfere with its defensive war-measures.
This omission created a distorted picture of this highly challenging event and added to the overflowing reservoir of hatred of Israel and Jews worldwide. There is something deeply disturbing when Jews highlight Jewish misbehaviour without providing a full context. The false accusations of rape directed at prison officers of Sdeh Teyman by the now-disgraced Military Advocate General of the IDF and some leftist journalists – have deeply scarred Israel internally and worldwide. Such incidents should serve as a grave warning and a call to greater self-scrutiny.
Eda Spinka
London NW4
First MP
The first professing Jew to take his seat and vote in the House of Commons was Sir David Salomons, elected for Greenwich in 1851.
Professor Geoffrey Alderman
University of Buckingham
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