If the UK Labor Party Is Serious about Fighting Anti-Semitism, It Must Expel the Jews Who Encourage It

Dec. 17 2020

Since the end of Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as its leader, the British Labor party has sought to take a firm stand against the anti-Semitism that had overtaken its ranks in recent years. To succeed in this effort, argues David Hirsh, the party must cease to tolerate Jewish Voice for Labor, a pro-Corbyn and anti-Israel group that has persistently used its members’ identity as Jews to provide cover for anti-Semites. Hirsh writes:

Anti-Zionist Jews are not the useful idiots of left-wing anti-Semitism, they are among its pioneers. They . . . taught Jeremy Corbyn that Zionism was racism and they taught the University and College Union that Israelis should be excluded from UK campuses and journals. They arm contemporary anti-Semitism with little particles of fact and with plausible arguments, dressed up as legitimate Jewish opinion.

Anti-Semitism is frightening because it is irrational. Some Jews are tempted to believe that they live in a world where anti-Semitism is a rational response to the bad behavior of Jews. It is tempting because then Jews could make things better by being good. Sometimes taking on anti-Semitic logic saves Jews from the fear of living in an [irrational] world. Jewish anti-Zionism is one way of dealing the stress of living in an anti-Semitic world. It is understandable as such, but it makes things worse, not better.

Viewed in this frame, the organization Jewish Voice for Labor serves to kosherize Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitic politics and to smear any who say they have experienced anti-Semitism in the party. That is its function; that is why it exists. It is there to pretend that Labor Jews are split on the question of anti-Semitism.

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Read more at Jewish Chronicle

More about: anti-Semitsm, Jeremy Corbyn, Labor Party (UK), United Kingdom

How Jewish Democracy Endures

March 30 2023

After several weeks of passionate political conflict in Israel over judical reform, the tensions seem to be defused, or at least dialed down, for the time being. In light of this, and in anticipation of the Passover holiday soon upon us, Eric Cohen considers the way forward for both the Jewish state and the Jewish people. (Video, 8 minutes. A text is available at the link below.)

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Read more at Tikvah

More about: Israeli Judicial Reform, Israeli politics, Passover