Facts matter

in line, so that they can have the freedom and emotional balance to take charge of their identity, one which is not just their sexuality. The rabbi is saving lives, not promoting sex. Name and address supplied

Sadly, one of the casualties in the public dispute concerning same gender marriages, has been the true meaning of the Hebrew word ahavah (love).

Indisputably, the word ahavah, as used throughout the Torah, has no connection with sexual activity. Its simple connotation is respect, concern and admiration.

Three classic examples are: You should love God; the stranger; and your neighbour as yourself. With each one of the commands the word ahavah is used .

Hence the suggestion that the word ahavah has a sexual connotation, in regard to the relationship between David and Jonathan, is incorrect and abhorrent.

I am baffled at the suggestion that one can learn a positive lesson about ahavah from two people of the same gender who are living together.

Rabbi Lionel Broder,

London NW4

We read with much concern Melanie Phillips’s article in last week’s JC for two reasons: it stirs up negative and ill-founded feelings about asylum seekers and Muslims and it maligns JCORE.

Facts do matter and so does language, and they should not be treated as disposable commodities. “Refugee” does not equal “terrorist”. Not one of the recent terrorist attacks has been perpetrated by an asylum seeker. In fact, according to a new study from the European University Institute, “the main terrorist threat to Western countries does not come from recently arrived refugees, but from home-grown extremists.”

Ms Phillips criticises JCORE for equating today’s refugee experience with the Holocaust. But this criticism is based on things we never said. At no time have we expressed the view that the experiences of today’s refugees are the same as those fleeing from Nazi persecution.

What we did say, in a letter to the then Prime Minister David Cameron in 2015, was that many of us in the Jewish community were appalled by the UK’s response to the situation in Calais, and that our experience as refugees was not so distant that we’d forgotten what it was like to be demonised for seeking safety.

With regard to her views on Muslims, if we expect people to understand the existence of antisemitism then we can hardly deny the lived experience and the facts of what is happening to Muslims today. Following the London Bridge attacks, anti-Muslim hate crimes have immediately increased fivefold as reported by national police chiefs.

As the Board of Deputies reminded us in their manifesto written for the recent General Election: “The UK’s Jewish population is largely an immigrant community, having arrived in the UK as either economic migrants or refugees fleeing persecution. As such, the Jewish community takes a particular interest in the plight of immigrants and asylum seekers, and shares a discomfort in loose, pejorative language that stigmatises new arrivals in this country.”

These are words all of us would do well to heed.

Dr Edie Friedman, Executive Director, Adam Rose, Chair, The Jewish Council for Racial Equality

London NW11