And now, the graffiti. Time to change the route?

For those who don’t know: last week someone sprayed a slogan on a wall in Holland Road, 500 meters from our shul. The same slogan appeared on the seafront, probably work of the same hand:

“Jewish lies matter”.

It is antisemitic. “Jewish lies” are an evergreen. None other than Martin Luther devoted a book about the “Jewish lies”. Chillingly, Luther concluded his polemic book with a plan of actions, that four centuries later was implemented (and quoted) by the Nazis. Burndown synagogues, burn Jewish book, force the Jewish population to physical labour… and so on.

In contemporary times, the motif of lies spread by “Jewish controlled press” or “Zionist-owned media” is obsessively referred to by politicians, when they perceive a decline of their popularity. We have seen it happening recently among the supporters of the previous leader of the Labour Party. And Corbyn’s devotees are the authors of last week’s hate crime. The police are treating it, as a hate crime. Because it is precisely that.

To search for the criminals, we have to look at the Far Left.

Not once, but twice, in our town, Corbyn supporters, have made public on social media their intention “to march on the synagogue in Hove”. Because, so they say, in our synagogue “the Zionists” hang around and conspire against Afro British Labour party candidates. This is what they write publicly on Facebook and Twitter. God knows what do they write in more reserved channels of communication, such as Telegram or Whatsapp.

The slogan “Jewish lies matter” is an attempt to divide the Jewish community and the Afro British community, at a time when they are organising around the slogan “Black lives matter”. With the slogan “Jewish lies matter” those antisemites are saying to the Afro British community: “Look, Jews are more privileged than you. Jews are the enemy. Jews lie, and their lies are believed, while your lives do not matter to those in power. You, the Black community, descendants of slaves, still suffer, while the Jews are profiting”.

Shall we remember that Labour leader who gained notoriety by spreading similar racist propaganda in the UK? The lady who maintains that “the Jews” were the main beneficiaries, if not the initiators, of the slave trade? It is a motif of antisemitic propaganda, unfortunately, common in the USA. She tried “to import” it in the UK. She’s from South Thanet, and has followers here in Sussex.

By all means, there is no reason to panic. I speak as a parent who twice a day, during the school run, passes by that spot in Holland Road. The police are taking the matter very seriously. The writings have been cancelled. We have received support from all the political parties. This is -still- a wonderful, multicultural city.

Compare it with Milan; when I lived there, once I counted sixteen swastikas of various dimension scrabbled on multiple places near to the central Synagogue. Perhaps the vandals were football hooligans, who did not even were aware of the existence of a synagogue in the neighbourhood. But the writings remained.

Brighton in 2020 is not, let me repeat it again, is not, like Continental Europe in the 90s. Nonetheless, in this town, there is a small group of visceral antisemites; and until now they have escaped the consequences of their actions. Is it too much to guess that they probably enjoy some form of protection? Certainly, their intentions are underestimated, and so is the danger they pose. In our city, of all the places of worship, only shuls are threatened. It’s time to end this hateful discrimination.

But let us not leave any stone unturned. I want to ask: how do we -Reform and Progressive Jews- want to deal with the most threatening form of antisemitism, Left-wing’s? In my opinion, until now, we failed.

Many Reform and Progressive Rabbis stood against Labour antisemitism, that’s true. But there have also been voices in favour or a less uncompromising approach, meetings with Jeremy Corbyn at the presence of some expert in “conflicts resolution”, denialism of the danger that antisemitism from the Far Left poses to the British Jewish community.

It comes sometimes with an academic flavour. For example: “Even if you see all forms of anti-Zionism as antisemitic […] you need to recognise that they might stem from different political commitments. […] For many of us Jews today, structural forms of antisemitism are an increasingly distant memory. […] Minorities inhabit different structural positions. To fight the antisemitism of some European Muslims or some African-Americans without taking account of these disparities is not just tone-deaf to power, it is also ineffective” [source here].

According to this author when I pass next to that graffiti, I should explain to my son that there are “different political commitments”. And that we Jews “inhabit different structural positions”. I thought I could say to my son: these people hate us, we must learn to defend ourselves.

I am not picking up on specific individuals. Unfortunately, there are many similar pieces of so-called analysis by Reform and Progressive Jews. Their main aim seems to be not to defend our community. Rather, their main concern is to differentiate between antiZionism and antisemitism. And this inevitably brings to underestimate the dangers from the Far Left.

The large majority of Reform and Progressive Jews thinks and feels otherwise. They (we) know that these distinctions are often a pointless exercise, or worse: a defence of the indefensible. But it’s hard to deny that in our ranks there is a cultural problem. People who belong to Reform and Progressive synagogues waste time and resources to “educate” non-Jewish audiences on the differences between antisemitism and antiZionism. They make a big deal about a “culture of victimhood” of which we Jews are allegedly victims, and why? Because we do not see the important difference between those who want to murder Jews here and those who want to murder Jews in Israel (and “Zionists” here).

Two years ago some Jewish youth leaders took part to the Kaddish for Gaza demonstration. Some of them (not the majority!) have been trained and educated in our movements. Is it surprising? It is not. People for which “opposing the Occupation of Palestine” is a sort of religious imperative, always underestimate the extent, the depth, and the danger of antisemitism in their own Leftist ranks. They have not been taught to recognise antisemitism among the supporters of the Palestinian cause.

We have been lectured on the duty “to involve in the Jewish conversations” the antiZionists and the non-Zionists. Some of us (not me!) carefully displayed, close to the flag of Israel, the flag of the Palestinian entity; whose leader, the “moderate” Abu Mazen, maintains that the Holocaust was caused by Jews’ behaviour. Did we achieve anything? Is peace any closer in the Middle East? It’s not.

Meanwhile, here, the “No to Occupation” has become “No to the Jewish State”; then “Zionism is racism”. And now: “Jewish lies matter”. How quickly had been.

I wish that this last episode will work as an alarm bell. I feel that in our world, in the Reform and Progressive Jewish world, we have underestimated antisemitism from the Left. Too many of us have been searching for allies for their political battles about Palestine, social justice, about racism, global warming… They should have seen that there were enemies there; not allies.

I feel safe in Brighton. I know I can walk around with my kippah and my tzitzit in full sight, with very limited chances that anything bad will occur to me personally. But I also want my fellow Reform and Progressive Jews to realise where the enemy is, and how dangerous such an enemy has become.

We should teach our children that that graffiti is antisemitic. We should not feel compelled to lecture on “different structural positions”. Everybody knows that this is coded way to remind that the Palestinians live in a worse situation than us (which by the way it is not necessarily true, and it does not apply to all the Palestinians).

I really hope that the city where we live, and the part of the Jewish world we inhabit, will learn the lesson. Let’s hope it happens speedily and in our days.

Brighton & Hove Reform Synagogue. 21 November 2020.