‘Keep calm and don’t get shouty on hate’
BRITAIN’S JEWISH community and its institutions are well placed to overcome the current surge in antiZionist activity and Jew hatred on the political left, a leading expert on antisemitism believes.
Dave Rich says Anglo-Jewry is robust enough to combat the hostility in politics and left-wing activism.
But he does express fears about the increase in street-based activism.
“The instability and uncertainty in politics in general and which we see on the left, as well as the growth in simplistic thinking and scapegoating and conspiracy theories, and the role social media plays in facilitating that, poses pretty huge challenges,” he says.
“But there are lots of people switched on to these problems. The community as a whole is generally in a good place.
“The community is growing in terms of its institutions and its Dave Rich: “Labour’s antisemitism is a small part of a bigger picture” activities. There doesn’t seem to be a sense of a lack of faith in the future. There’s a robustness. That’s a good sign.
“I always want to be an optimist, even when there doesn’t seem to be an obvious happy ending.”
A potentially very unhappy ending looms for the Labour Party. The state of its current relationship with British Jewry is assessed by Dr Rich in his book, published last week,
His study charts the history of anti-Zionism and antisemitism in leftwing organisations, including the National Union of Students and Stop the War Coalition, during the past half century. Large sections of the 45-year-old’s work cover the events leading to the election a year ago this week of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. Dr Rich, who works as deputy communications director at the Community Security Trust, ponders the potential lasting impact of 12 months of scandals. “The antisemitism is a small part of a much bigger picture,” he says. “If the membership still mainly supports Corbyn, after the last year, then what is going to change their minds? Maybe a general election, if they lose heavily? Maybe not. I wouldn’t expect Jeremy Corbyn to resign if they lost a general election. “Will the Labour Party of five years from now be the same party Jews have been in for years and years? Or will it actually be kind of a parliamentary version of the Stop the War Coalition, where most Jewish people just wouldn’t feel welcome?”
Mr Corbyn’s office requested a copy of the book, and Dr Rich knows senior figures in the hard-left Momentum group have also read his work.
He suggests the one thing campaigners on all sides may agree on is “that the complete collapse of the relationship between the party and the community is not a good thing”.
He adds: “Corbyn lost the confidence of his MPs and went straight out to speak to a demo on the streets. Look at the symbolism of that. Look through history: when politics is conducted on the streets rather than in Parliament, it ends up in more extreme, dangerous and worrying places.”
As a teenager growing up in Manchester — he is a Manchester United fan — Dr Rich says he was politicised during his time in the Habonim youth movement.
Around the time of his barmitzvah he took part in a demonstration by the Soviet Jewry campaign, and by the early 1990s was protesting against the far-right outside the German embassy in London — an event which featured on the front page of the
A “direct line” can be drawn from the experiences of that era and to today, he explains.
While completing his doctorate, Dr Rich was supervised by Professor David Feldman, director at the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism.
The professor was the vice-chair of Baroness Chakrabarti’s inquiry into antisemitism in Labour.
His appointment was the probe’s first controversy: he was criticised for being a signatory of the Independent Jewish Voices group, which had previously dismissed concerns about Jew-hate in the party as “base- less and disingenuous”.
Prof Feldman distanced himself from IJV’s comments, but critics argued his role as Ms Chakrabarti’s deputy jeopardised the inquiry’s credibility. Given his relationship with the professor, how did Dr Rich assess the situation?
“Some of the personal attacks on him were unfair and were over the top. He became a bit of a scapegoat for some of the frustrations of the community.
“People can disagree with things he’s written and said, and it’s not for me to speak on his behalf and he wouldn’t want me to, but I think some of the criticism went too far. We don’t necessarily agree on everything but I think that’s a positive in the relationship.”
Dr Rich, of Muswell Hill, north London, says the attacks on Prof Feldman were indicative of a wider difficulty within the Jewish community over reasoned debate on antisemitism.
“It definitely gets quite shouty and a lot of nuance gets lost. There are a lot of assumptions made about people’s motivations when they disagree with each other, rather than just reflecting that people can disagree for honourable and honest reasons,” he says.
“It quite often very quickly becomes a competition to work out who’s an antisemite and point the finger at people.
“It can all be a bit unproductive and frustrating.”
He suggests moving away from a “them and us mentality” which can be “damaging”, and urges the community instead to capitalise on opportunities for dialogue.
Will the Labour party in five years’ time be the same party Jews have been in for years?