Thank you to our readers, but most of all thank you to a wonderful team
IF YOU had told me when I arrived at the JC office in Furnival Street on the morning of 3 November 2008 that it would be, as it were, 13 years before I left, I would have thought you quite mad. But when I stepped down as editor last week it was somehow 13 years later.
Before I started I spoke with some of my predecessors. Geoffrey Paul, who offered sage advice to the novice, was clear: the sensible lifespan for a JC editor was seven years. After that, he said, everything repeats.
And if truth be told, much as I loved the job from the start, after six or seven years in situ, I could see that Geoffrey’s wisdom was as true in this regard as in everything else. But then something unprecedented happened.
For the first time in our country’s history, one of our mainstream parties elected as leader a man considered by many to be antisemitic — a politician with a career-long history of adopting causes embraced by Jew haters.
To most of the public — and even to most political observers — Jeremy Corbyn was an obscure figure when he emerged as the likely next Labour leader in the summer of 2015. But he was well known to JC readers. Alive to antisemitism wherever it lies, we had followed his career for years.
Corbyn’s election changed everything.
It is rare for something to be both professionally and personally vital, but the story of Labour under Corbyn was just that. Objectively, the collapse of Labour into a sewer of Jew hate was a story that any Jewish newspaper worthy of the name ought to own. It was, professionally, as important as it gets — the chance that our next prime minister could be an antisemite was era-defining. But it was far more than a professional mission. As a British Jew, it was also personal. It was my fight as much as it was that of every other member of the community.
We are not supposed to indulge in pride. But I cannot help but feel pride that the JC was one of the leading players in the fight against Jeremy Corbyn and that we knew from the start what was happening. I remember as if it was yesterday a YouGov poll of Labour members emerging in The Times in the summer of 2015, revealing the shock finding that Corbyn was on course to win. I was on holiday in a cottage in Devon. But I knew the JC had to react. I sat down and wrote a leader to go on the front page. It consisted of seven questions for Corbyn to answer, each of which was based on a story about him we had covered over the years, but which few of the political correspondents reporting the Labour election were even aware of.
It did not change the outcome of the leadership election, but it did change the atmosphere: Corbyn’s attitude to Jews became an issue that never went away.
The stories I could tell about that time! His then head of press was
Geoffrey Paul offered sage advice to the novice
We had a mole inside Corbyn’s campaign team
admirably, if naively, keen not to alienate the Jewish community. She came to the JC’s office and met me, our then political editor Marcus Dysch, and Rosa Doherty. The meeting was surreal but ended with her offering to have a piece written by Corbyn addressed to the community. Weeks went by as she kept promising it was imminent.
I knew otherwise. What neither she nor anyone else realised was that we had a mole in his campaign team — an old contact of mine, a left winger who had turned up to help but who was sickened by casual antisemitic remarks he heard from some other volunteers. He started sending us inside stories which must have driven the campaign team mad. And he told me how when the idea of a piece for the JC had been raised, Corbyn had simply said: “No.”
Our subsequent coverage of the Corbyn years played a significant part in keeping him from office. Our then political editor Lee Harpin garnered scoop after scoop, and some of them were deeply wounding — such as the NEC recording he obtained in which Corbynite Pete Willsman attacked “rabbis” and Jewish “Trump fanatics” for “making up” allegations of antisemitism.
The paper was fortunate to have the wonderful Stephen Grabiner as chairman. Our stance of unambiguous hostility to Corbyn’s Labour was not popular in all parts of the community, but Stephen gave me total support and fended off much of the communal hostility himself. I will always be grateful to him.
That hostility increased after the 2017 election, when Labour won 40 per cent of the votes. To me, that meant we needed to step up our efforts to alert people to the threat Corbyn posed. But to others, it meant he was here to stay and we needed to reach an accommodation. I received a lunch invitation from a communal “macher”. When I arrived, he had two others with him — also well-known community figures. “You have done well journalistically in exposing Corbyn and Labour,” my host said. “I imagine you have been reflecting on it,” he went on. “And I am sure you have come to the same conclusion as we have. It seemed like the right thing to do — we all thought so — but with hindsight, it was a mistake. All we have done is make an enemy of Labour and Corbyn, and now they are even more popular and we have an even bigger problem.” They told me I had to stop the JC’s work against Corbyn for the good of my fellow Jews.
Let’s just say I ignored them, and when I had the idea in July 2018 for a joint front page with the Jewish News and Jewish Telegraph, both their editors immediately said yes and were superb in working together for what we all knew really was important.
But if you ask me what story I am most proud of having run, it has nothing to do with politics. In 2016 we exposed the appalling practice of stillborn babies being buried in unmarked graves — a practice which lasted through to the 1980s in one burial society — so parents had been unable to grieve properly for their child. Working with the United Synagogue and other burial societies we helped hundreds of parents find the grave in which their baby had been buried. To have been able to help those parents is the real privilege of my time as editor.
What won’t I miss? Police protection, which I needed until a few years ago. I would say also the social media abuse — but I am sure that will continue.
What I will miss is obvious: the people I have worked with. The JC’s small team is sophisticated and professional and more than a match for any national. Not a week has gone by when I have not marvelled at how we have produced a paper of the quality we have done.
On that note, and invidious as it may be to single anyone out, I want to say how grateful I am especially to Keren David and Orlando Radice. I was diagnosed a few years ago with leukemia and although it is under control, I have had some moments. Keren and Orlando have been rocks, and I will forever be in their debt.
Last year, the paper’s future was in doubt. The messages of support we received were humbling. Today, we have new owners who have not only saved the paper but have invested huge sums in building for the future. I thank them for all they have done, and all they will do.
After 13 years, it is time to hand over, and I wish Jake Wallis Simons every success. The paper could not be in better hands.
Finally, thank you to all our readers. The JC is unlike any other paper because for so many readers it is part of being a British Jew. That means they — you — rightly take everything we do personally. Even when you have berated me, I know you have done so because you cared. So thank you.