Taken from social media: a letter from David Rosenberg.
So what does Keir Starmer think about Jews, the Jewish community, antisemitism etc? Especially given his sharp and brutal action in relation to Rebecca Long-Bailey over a tweet that Starmer claimed had supported the author of an “antisemitic conspiracy theory” (it wasn’t).
This contrasted starkly with his uncritical promotion of Rachel Reeves to a Shadow Cabinet position just weeks after she had given fulsome praise to Nancy Astor as a pioneering woman MP (ignoring her ferocious antisemitism and expressions of support for Hitler and the Nazis which had been widely commented on last autumn and led to her statue recently being “edited” by activists)
Some of you may remember that the day after Keir Starmer was elected Labour Party leader, and in response to a letter he had immediately sent to the Board of Deputies, apologising, and expressing his desire to speak with the “Jewish community”, I wrote Starmer a long letter with 9 specific questions.
Fight against racism and anti-Semitism
I wrote it as a Jewish member of the Labour Party and office holder in my CLP ,and laid on quite thick my professional and political involvements in the fight against racism in general and antisemitism in particular from the mid-1970s to the present day (including being part of a team since 2016 that takes trade unionists and anti-racist activists to Auschwitz to learn about antisemitism past and present and its links to other racism).
In my letter I asked Keir nine specific questions backed up with contextual info.
I asked who he meant by the “Jewish community” as he mentioned plans to meet only with the Board of Deps, Jewish Leadership council, CST and Jewish Labour Movement. I asked how the estimated 50% of secular Jews were represented by the BoD, pointing out that most Jewish LP members are secular Jews. I queried whether it worried him that those bodies he had named, claim to challenge antisemitism in a non-party political manner, but had been so muted in expressing any criticism of very right wing regimes in Europe that the Tories’ had close and supportive associations with.
I pointed out that the JLM represented only those LP Jews who signed up to an explicitly Zionist constitution, while a large proportion of Jewish Labour Party members defined themselves as non-Zionist or anti-Zionist; I asked what plans he had to engage with these members, and specifically asked if he would be meeting with Jewish Voice for Labour, which has over 1,000 members around the country. I questioned him about the pledges he and other Labour leadership contenders had signed up to from a third party (BoD) external to the LP that many considered hostile to the LP, and what would happen if those pledges conflicted with member-led policy decided by Labour conference.
I asked how he could justify involving the BoD in internal party disciplinary matters. I mentioned the proposals that many LP members had developed that were presented at the Race and Faith Manifesto launch in November 2019 and asked if he would honour that manifesto.
Finally I discussed responses to allegations of anti-Semitism, drawing a distinction between clear-cut cases on the one hand and those that arose from commentary on Israel/Palestine questions, where distinction between strong but fair comment and bigotry were not at all obvious. I commended Shami Chakrabarti’s view that education should be the first resort and heavy-handed discipline a last resort. I asked him whether he agreed with her about this? Nine specific questions.
Automated response from leader’s office
I immediately got the automated response promising a reply sometime…
Two and a half months later, I lost patience and re-sent the letter. This time I got a quick reply from one of Keir’s office staff. I wasn’t impressed. It said:
“Thank you for recently writing to Keir and can I apologise for the delay…Antisemitism has absolutely no place in the Labour Party and I am sure that you heard Keir’s apology to the Jewish community for the pain it has caused and his commitment to root out this poison by its roots. Rebuilding shattered trust will understandably take time but Keir is committed, and has already begun, this vital engagement and outreach. Success will be measured by the return of those members who left the party due to antisemitism…I am sure that Keir will continue to engage with communities, listen to their concerns and take the action necessary to regain trust and support.
Thank you once again for contacting Keir on this extremely important matter”
I wrote back:
“Having waited 2.5 months for a response I can only say, that as an active and committed Jewish member of the Labour Party, I feel extremely disappointed, angry, insulted and patronised to receive what is effectively a very brief, one-size-fits-all, “form letter” that could have been sent to any Jewish person with any kind of inquiry about the Party’s stance on antisemitism and the Jewish community.
It treats me, and other Jewish members as if, by virtue of our ethnicity, we all have exactly the same concerns, views and outlooks. This kind of generalised stereotyping of members of a particular community by the Leader’s Office is, frankly, very worrying.
To be absolutely clear, in my letter I was not asking vague questions of a general nature. I asked nine specific questions, 2.5 Months ago. Your reply does not actually address a single one of them.
I am interested in replies to questions…
“I have reiterated the questions below with the brief context from my original letter in the document I have attached. I am interested in replies to all of them of course but especially to Questions 4, 5, 8 and 9. I do not think it is unreasonable for a hardworking, office-holding, Jewish Labour Party member to expect specific answers to these at least.”
I got a further reply: “Thanks for your reply and please accept my apologies that you are unhappy with the response. At this time I hope you can appreciate how busy the office is and how strained resources are, Keir is currently received over 2,000 personal emails a day and it is very difficult to provide extensive responses to every enquiry – this is by no means a reflection on the extremely serious points you raise but a reflection of the situation we are currently facing. Please accept my apologies once again.”
I guess that’s it for now. Is there anyone who thinks this is in any way an adequate response to my queries?
June 30, 2020
