3 min read
We should not be surprised that, as the political classes gird their loins in readiness for the May parliamentary election, questions should be raised about specific Jewish dimensions to this forthcoming contest. But this year and that month will also see another set of elections, for the honorary officers of the Board of Deputies, and in particular for the Board's presidency.
Realistically, the occupier of 10 Downing Street after the May parliamentary election will be either David Cameron or Ed Miliband. But as far as the presidency of the Deputies is concerned, several communal worthies are likely to offer themselves as candidates. While it is entirely possible, under the single-transferable-vote system that will be used for this contest, that, once second and third preferences are counted, victory will go to the least able contender rather than to the best (which explains Vivian Wineman's 2009 victory), the clear front-runners this time round are likely to be Jonathan Arkush and Laura Marks.
Ms Marks represents the Movement for Reform Judaism and, while this non-Orthodox affiliation clearly did not prevent her being swept into office as senior vice-president in 2012, it may blot her copybook this time round. So, in order to improve her chances, she has, without leaving the Reform Movement, also joined the United Synagogue. To those of you who have seen fit to highlight the blatant cynicism behind this attempt to ride two religious horses at once I might point out that Her Majesty the Queen manages to be an Anglican in England and a Presbyterian in Scotland, and that she has recently been pleased to confer an OBE upon Ms Marks, who can thus claim the royal imprimatur for her communal endeavours.
Jonathan Arkush is a very different political animal. An authority on last wills and testaments, he is well known as a particularly sharp thorn in the side of multi-zillionaire Mick Davis, who has made no secret of his ambition to use the Jewish Leadership Council (of which he is the effective head) to reshape Anglo-Jewry's representative structure. Arkush's public spat with Davis two years ago (in which he incurred Davis's wrath for merely pointing out the obvious - the JLC's lack of accountability) shows us that he has courage, and is not afraid to ask subversive questions. Which are, after all, the only questions worth asking.
Now it transpires that Arkush has raised another awkward question. In a recent email exchange with Jeremy Newmark, the former chief executive of the JLC and a long-time member of the Labour party. Arkush has inquired why Newmark belongs to a party whose leader (Ed Miliband) publicly criticised Israel's military operations in Gaza, has publicly supported Palestinian statehood, and whose future cabinet might well include the Birmingham MP Shabana Mahmoud, who last year boasted on YouTube that she had taken part in a "lie down" protest outside a Sainsbury's store that stocked Israeli goods, causing the store's temporary closure.
Arkush might also have pointed out (but no doubt did not do so, not wishing to appear overly unhelpful) that, in 2012, the present Shadow Justice Secretary, The Right Honourable Sadiq Khan MP, who is spoken of as Lord Chancellor in a Miliband government, contributed to a pamphlet published by Labour Friends of Palestine an essay that accused Israel of violating the rights of Palestinian children.
"I appreciate," Arkush explained to Newmark, "the sentiment that we need to be on the inside. However, you cannot have nearly enough influence to counter this, however hard you try.
"Meanwhile, we have a PM and government who get it on Israel. Whether or not you are a Conservative supporter, isn't the communal interest best served by them getting re-elected?"
Of course we can argue with Arkush as to whether David Cameron really "gets it" on Israel. And we must agree with Arkush's detractors that enemies of the Jewish people and of Jewish interests are to be found in all political parties. But only a fool would deny that Arkush has raised a very legitimate issue: Ed Miliband may be Jewish, but is it really in the interests of British Jewry that he should occupy the office of Prime Minister next May?
Claiming "a strong alignment between Labour values and Jewish values," Newmark has insisted that the Labour leader's "core support for Israel is not in doubt."
Nobody who has read the magisterial condemnation of Miliband by long-time Labour supporter Maureen Lipman, published last October, could possibly agree that either of these assertions is any longer sustainable.
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