Is this anti-semitism?

it's a bit cynical is all and if someone else was saying it i'd suspect delusional

No-one got the Chief Rabbi to do anything, he did it all on his ownsome.

and maybe the reason he's worried about corbyn being elected is precisely for the reasons he gave!

it seems bizarre that they'd get the chief rabbi to make a statement just to counteract a small polling bump and b) that they'd think using a chief rabbi would help very much with the general uk electorate

from an outsider's perspective, AS has been the most consistently effective attack line against Labour/Corbyn (to the extent that it's basically all most non-UK ppl I know have heard about Corbyn if they've heard anything) so it doesn't seem that weird to me that Tories and their supporters would work to signal boost it as much as possible during an election. (tbc I'm not saying they're not earnestly concerned about it.)

Pretty sure it's not that effective electorally tbh.

We're kind of straight back in the realms of arguing about this particular rabbi, or who is or isn't using him to do some kind of electoral thing, or whether its electorally effective or not and not about what WE think Labour should actually do

Speed up expulsions is the main one. In the past kicking the can down the road was a way of punishing/not-punishing antisemites.

did the all party inquiry into antisemitism in UK politics not find that it was more widespread within the conservatives? am I misremembering? I genuinely can’t remember and can’t find the thing while on my phone

Anything substantive in the race & faith manifesto on this score?

Yeah, that’s gross.

Labour have introduced new processes to educate, suspend or expel people accused of antisemitism under the current IHRA definition. That’s what the Jewish community asked Jeremy Corbyn and Labour officials to do, and in theory that’s exactly what he has done. In practice, due process takes longer than many people paying attention to the issue would like.

did the all party inquiry into antisemitism in UK politics not find that it was more widespread within the conservatives?

Quite possibly, but lets be realistic here and focus on where change is possible

A Jewish colleague recently pointed out to me that the Greens - a party many people will vote for if they don’t support Labour because of AS - refused to adopt the IHRA definition and have had zero scrutiny about this apart from in the JC.

there are many measures suggested by michael segalov that I don’t think they’ve implemented tho and they have been quite backwards in coming forwards in visibly engaging with mainstream jewish organisations (I think this is a function of relations having become quite strained w/various less than congenial back-and-forths between the party and eg the board of deputies this year)

What do you think is the implication? That the Greens are seen as so marginal that people don't bother criticizing them on those grounds or that issues with the IHRA are only a marginal part of the case against the Corbyn-led Labour or some third option? xp

there are many measures suggested by Michael segalov
t
ony blair electric chair (||||||||),

Thanks for the Segalov piece, was unaware of this and apologies for missing it the first time you posted it, will read that later this evening

to me corbyn is an antisemite as trump is a bigot

Lol gtfo w this mordy

I'm Jewish, I've also been following this pretty closely from overseas, and Corbyn's not an anti-semite. He's just against Zionism. I like Omar a lot, but she's used anti-semitic tropes much more clearly than Corbyn ever has (and she subsequently convincingly apologized, to my mind)

My colleague said she couldn’t vote Green either because they haven’t adopted IHRA guidance. IHRA parameters are fine by me, and I’m glad Labour adopted them (I believe) before the last election.

here's how UK Jews treated previous Labour leader Ed Milliband, who I'm sure must also be a giant anti-semite: https://www.spectator.co.uk/2015/04/how-ed-miliband-lost-the-jewish-vote/

If Corbyn ever said anything like Donald Trump only wanting short guys in yarmulkes counting his money, I must have missed it

interesting article but not sure it proves what you think - only that labour problems with the jewish community predate corbyn which is what you'd expect since one of the big problems with corbyn-led labour isn't corbyn himself

But for many, what was to follow was worse: the Labour leadership’s four-month silence as anti-Semitic attacks doubled at home. ‘Only when things got really bad did they feel they had to say something,’ says one community activist. ‘It felt like it took a very long time.’ This was the hardest thing for British Jews to bear, and it made many of them confused and angry.

Instead of attempting to heal the rift, however, Miliband went on to widen it, whipping his MPs last October in support of a motion backing unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state — proposed by a Labour backbencher who the month before had compared the Israeli army to Isis.

tho critically:

This week, a poll for the Jewish -Chronicle found that 69 per cent of Jews intend to vote Tory next month, with Labour trailing on only 22 per cent. is still much better than 93% against Labour! a lot was made of trump doing slightly better with blacks + hispanics with far less movement.

the main manifesto had these key pledges on race and faith:

On religious discrimination, we will:
• Strengthen protection for religious communities and amend the law to include attacks on places of worship (including synagogues, temples, mosques and churches) as a specific aggravated offence.

• Review current levels of funding for and access to the Places of Worship Protective Security Funding Scheme, maintain funding in real terms for the Community Security Trust, and consult on giving it statutory protection to ensure that religious communities have the support they need.

assume the second of these will look to address eg the fact jewish schools have seen a cut to security funding because the home office refuses to provide support under the current government

as an aside, the existence of a "national chief rabbi" is such an alien and inappropriate idea to me as an American Jew. Like, chief of what? According to who?

Note that article was from the Spectator, home to genuine fascists like Taki.

86 to 93 is a less dramatic shift tbf xps

xxp: I keep picturing him with a war bonnet on.

Not sure that math is right... 78 to 93 right?

86 percent was the stat Suzy gave upthread of Jewish voters who actually did not vote labour in 2015

- reforms of the disciplinary process because it takes forever (although I am told there is a legal reason why it takes that long?)
- faster action on cases like Chris Williamson - he should have been booted long before he was
- education for party members and activists. I believe the JLM (Jewish Labour Movement) have a training programme but it’s not compulsory. Momentum independently have done some very good videos on this.
- less tolerance of fringe groups like the JVL (Jewish Voice for Labour), I accept that they’re Corbyn & McDonnell’s mates but their views are fringe and they are not adding to the conversation positively.

These are some fairly basic steps, some of which are already being done. The issue is that because of the right of the party’s hatred of Corbyn, it became a factional issue years ago - there was an infamous tweet from the chair of a CLP saying that “the antisemitism stuff is really cutting through”. There are some people acting in bad faith and that has to be acknowledged.

What is this 93% figure anyway?

Oh ok I was going off the number quoted in that article sym posted

87% is what I saw quoted today, not exactly a cause for celebration however!

The 93 was from the JC article link I bumped the thread with

Not sure how much this is worth as it's pretty common to extrapolate from sample sets of this size but the surveys the Jewish Chronicle base their reports on are carried out by telephone (thus to older generations?) to a few hundred people.

interesting article but not sure it proves what you think - only that labour problems with the jewish community predate corbyn which is what you'd expect since one of the big problems with corbyn-led labour isn't corbyn himself

ya JVL should get punted asap

93% not voting Labour?

yes

Don't know the final percentages for Miliband tbh also as has been pointed out already, I think, the Jewish community in the UK hasn't been very left wing for a long time.

yeah it's frustrating to me that both Ed Milliband and Michael Howard faced anti-semitic attacks and nobody in the UK seemed to give a shit

how many times were the words "anti-semitism" on the front of the daily mail pre-Corbyn and post-Corbyn

The Labour Party now being accused of being anti-Hindu by some Representative Of The Entire UK Hindu Community btw.

No apology to the Jewish community from Jeremy Corbyn, as he is repeatedly challenged over claims of anti-Semitism within the Labour Party

[Tap to expand] https://t.co/ewcGeo7yOY pic.twitter.com/L1z52YZ9eu

— BBC Politics (@BBCPolitics) November 26, 2019

fuck the bbc

running an interview as a gotcha, too damn right he didn't play their game

he could have apologised for any abuse anyone has suffered from labour members but that feeds the narrative as well, he did exactly the right thing

Mordy I hope you watch that and clock the game that's being played here

Now he'll lose the Jewish vote!

mordy, what do you think of the column Corbyn wrote in 2018? https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/03/jeremy-corbyn-antisemitism-labour-party