Labour’s Knives Are Out for the Chief Rabbi
Posted November 26, 2019
on:The Corbynists were very angry with the former Chief Rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, when he spoke out against Labour antisemitism. They were angry with the 68 rabbis who signed a letter in the Guardian back in July 2018, in favour of Labour accepting the full IHRA definition of antisemitism. Pete Willsman of the Labour NEC called them Trump fanatics. They are angry with John Le Carré, Joanna Lumley and twenty or so other public figures who wrote to the Guardian after the General Election was called, to say they would not vote Labour because of the party’s problem with antisemitism. As for Rachel Riley, Tracy Ann Oberman, Ian Austin, Luciana Berger, Margaret Hodge, John Mann, Louise Ellman, the Corbynists’ comments about these persons are beyond acrimonious.
They are not nice about me either, or about any activist, Jewish or otherwise, who expresses concern about Labour Antisemitism.
The edition of the Times for tomorrow, 26 November, carries the headline ‘Corbyn not fit for high office says Ephraim Mirvis’ and Chief Rabbi Mirvis’s article was the top news item on all television news channels late this evening.
A spokesperson for Labour has repudiated the Chief Rabbi’s claims, just as they did regarding the participants in a Panorama programme about Labour antisemitism, directed by John Ware.
On the Labour forums which I look at, there is not a word of sympathy for the Chief Rabbi; nor is there even toleration. He is called a ‘Tory Jew motherfuck’ and other names, equally disapproving.
Below are some reactions from Labour forums this evening, but there will be many more tomorrow. The strange thing is the way the people featured in these screen shots insist that they have never seen an iota of antisemitism in the Labour Party.
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I should add that some of these pages are from forums in the days following Rabbi Mirvis’s article in The Times and he continues to be a topic of interest among Corbynists.
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