Sunday, 1 December 2019

The Chief Rabbi and Labour


Two weeks before the elections in Britain, the country’s Chief Rabbi, came out with a statement that was tantamount to an endorsement of Boris Johnson. He should not have done that.

I share the Chief Rabbi’s discomfort and frustration by a Labour party that does not handle Antisemitism in its midst and by Corbyn, the leader of that party, who enables this.  More than that, I despise Corbyn for his scandalous dereliction of duty, as the Leader of H.M. Opposition, to oppose the Tory government on the most important issue that this country has had since 1945: Brexit. But I do not share the Rabbi’s view that anxiety as to “What will become of Jews and Judaism in Britain if the Labour Party forms the next government?“ is justified.

Speaking out against Corbyn, without at the same time speaking out against Johnson and his Conservative party’s miserable track record on racism, islamophobia and xenophobia, was wrong.

As a moral and theological authority, the Chief Rabbi should have left such a blatantly political interference to the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the body representing Britain’s Jews.

3 comments:

  1. There is no Islamophobia in the Labour Party. There is only Antisrmitism there and that to a considerable degree.
    The Rabbi was right to speak out against their Antisemitism and nothing else.

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  2. In Germany there is a party called AFD. It is home to a considerable number of vociferous antisemites. Yet there is a very small number of Jews who advocate voting for this party. It is almost inexplicable.
    The writer of this BLOG, a Jew, is very much of their ilk. He actually recommends voting for the Labour Party in its present guise. The current Labour Party is permeated by unconditional Jew-hatred. Virtually all Jews have been driven out of it. Antisemitism is proclaimed noisily at its congresses. By all accounts there is no oppostion to it whatsoever.
    What drives the Jewish AFD-adherents and this blogger to give such seemingly absurd recommendations?
    There seems to be only one answer: Self-hatred, perhaps even a yearning for self-destruction.
    Their recommendations – founded in the realm of psychopathology rather than in politics – serve as a warning more than anything else.

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  3. It seems to me that this comment would be more appropriate for the previous BLOG entry ("UK elections - who to vote for"), even if our much esteemed blogger takes the Labour Party as the party of his choice only if the SD party does not stand a chance of winning the seat.

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