Not a proper Jew, the wrong sort of Jew, self-hating Jew.
I was called that for the first time when I was 19 years old at university,
where I made a speech in defence of a pro-Palestinian motion.
And it was in the Jewish telegraph and they front-paged it this self-hating Jew,
she must hate herself when she looks in the mirror I was 19 years old.
I've had people phone me up and say we're going to put you in a wheelchair,
we know where you are we're outside your door.
Probably the worst incident was when I was with my sister at a meeting,
about antisemitism with all Jews on the panel,
and people were shouting at us Kapos! Kapos!
"You're called traitor Jews Kapos"
Kapo was a Jewish inmate of a concentration camp,
who collaborated with the authorities we're talking people who collaborated
in annihilation of their own people so it's a pretty bad thing to be called,
and it's Jews calling other Jews not nice.
As a Jew on the left and who is intensely anti-racist and intensely aware
of what antisemitism is and how dangerous it is,
to be called an anti-semite oneself is about as low as it gets.
It's a bit like being accused of pedophilia or something I cannot really think
of anything worse and it undermines the fight against real antisemitism.
this is one of the most frightening things for me.
People have been weaponising accusations of antisemitism for political ends,
the fact that that is going on seriously undermines and endangers our chances,
of dealing with genuine antisemitism which is a real threat in our society.
One of the biggest problems we face is the treatment of our community,
as if it was just one monolithic block this is the typical trope of all forms of racism,
the Jewish community is not one undifferentiated thing its opinions vary
just like every other section of the community.
And we find it deeply disturbing that the whole community is treated as one.
A lot of us are anti-Zionist and people need to realise that going back generations,
Zionism was not the creed followed by all Jews far from it.
Marek Edelman leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943 said;
'That jews should always be with the oppressed and never with the oppressor.'
I mean for a section of the population whose history much that's magical
and wonderful but so much that is to do with persecution.
The fact that people with that history should identify
with the oppressed in every setting seems self-evident to us.
And that's where our support for justice for Palestinians comes in,
we are identifying with the oppressed and for anybody to suggest,
that it is the Israeli state which represents the oppressed in that conflict,
is pretty short-sighted and misguided.
"Stop all arms trade with Israel now!"
Jeremy Corbyn was the reason that more than 300,000 new people,
flocked into the Labour party at the end of 2015 and soon after.
To have somebody leading that party who was in solidarity with the oppressed
against the oppressor consistently throughout his 30-plus years
as a member of parliament was just such a breath of fresh air.
Somebody who clearly wanted to transform society who really wanted to tackle privilege
and inequality in society it was a hopeful time for all of us,
and it was the project that we thought worth fighting for.
And it needed defending because all those people who have a vested interest
in putting a negative to everything positive that Jeremy said and did,
they were mobilising against him and what he represented.
One of the most ludicrous allegations against Jeremy Corbyn was that he
exhibited antisemitism in chairing a meeting in 2010 in Portcullis House,
where the main speaker was a Holocaust survivor,
from the Netherlands called Hajo Meyer.
I was at that meeting and what Hajo did was to put on a screen,
comparisons between the treatments of Palestinians in the occupied territories
and the treatment of Jews in areas occupied by the Nazis.
And there were uncanny and very unnerving similarities between the way
these two communities were treated by the occupying powers in each case.
"I saw in Auschwitz that if a dominant group wants to dehumanise others,
so as the Nazis wanted to dehumanise me.
These dominant groups must first be dehumanised in in a way themselves
by diminishing the empathy due to to propaganda and and indoctrination.
In order to be able to be as cruel as somewhere okay,
but the same hold holds nowadays for Israel."
The most shocking thing to me is the portrayal of that meeting,
as somehow despicable because we saw a Holocaust survivor
comparing his experiences with what he could see happening to Palestinians.
What was horrifying about that meeting was that there were a bunch,
of really intolerant bigoted aggressive bullying pro-Israel campaigners
in that room who shouted Hajo down it went on for a long time,
and lots of us in the audience was sort of saying to Jeremy
can you please call the authorities to get these people out they are harassing
and intimidating an 80-plus year old Holocaust survivor.
The meeting was pretty well destroyed by them to be honest,
eventually the authorities did have to be called.
It was by the way a Holocaust memorial event which was commemorating,
other forms of oppression as well so there were speakers from,
Traveller communities for example who we hardly got to hear,
because Hajo Meyer was interrupted so often by these vociferous hecklers.
It was intimidating it really was to be there I remember it vividly.
"Any criticism on the policies of Israel is hampered and made impossible,
by the terrible trick and and crime of Israeli propaganda that any criticism
on the politics of Israel comes out is induced by antisemitic feelings."
It's really important that we don't forget to talk about freedom of speech.
We are being no platformed, we are being cancelled,
we are being denied the freedom to express legitimate points of view.
People who claim to care about civil liberties, human rights,
freedom of speech, freedom of expression, freedom of the press and so on.
All those people should be up in arms about what's been happening to Jeremy Corbyn
and his associates in the Labour party so far they're silent.
There are so many people who have just ceased to care about truth and facts,
this is very hard to counter when the mainstream media themselves
do not show respect for actual truth and actual facts in some cases.
The media has totally sidelined and ignored left-wing Jews.
Not only left-wing Jews eminent Jewish scholars who have written extensively,
on the subject of antisemitism in the Labour party and demonstrated,
that the definition that is being pushed to define what is anti-semitic,
is untrustworthy, faulty, actually dangerous because it conflates being Jewish
with being a supporter of Israel being Jewish with being a Zionist.
One of the most important Jewish academics who has spoken on this,
and been ignored is actually the American academic Kenneth Stern,
who wrote the original document upon which the IHRA definition is based.
And he has said on a number of occasions in writing,
in letters to congress in the states I abhor the way this definition that I drafted
to assist data collection is being used to suppress free speech.
"That was not the purpose that it was designed for."
I abhor the way it is being deployed in universities to prevent people,
who have a certain view about Palestine and Israel from expressing it.
"There should be no question that Israel and Palestine as contentious as that is
should be an ideal subject for getting students to think about,
how do you deal with the competing narratives and competing histories,
how do you look at identity how do you look at the equities and so forth.
Rather than just feed them into something said about Israel that's anti-zionist,
that's antisemitism that ends the matter,
it should be the beginning of the questions not the end of it."
Antony Lerman former director of the institute for Jewish Policy Research
has written extensively on this subject do you ever hear of these people
being called to be interviewed on any mainstream organisation?
Never and all the work that they've done is completely ignored.
"As a college professor I'm also concerned about Jews that are anti-zionist,
and they're left out in the cold here and in fact made targets,
we have websites that go and hunt them and put dossiers on there
I think this will only encourage that type of activity"
You can have an organisation like the Campaign Against antisemitism,
which was one of the instigators of the Equalities and Human Rights Commission
report into Labour party's handling of complaints about antisemitism.
Quoted over and over again as if it were a leading authority,
whereas in fact it was created in 2014 during the Gaza conflict.
And these people are quoted over again type 'Campaign Against antisemitism'
into Google and you will get innumerable media references.
Type in Antony Lerman or Kenneth Stern and you'll get a few learned dissertations
here and there and virtually nothing in mainstream media.
We look back at the history of oppression and pogroms that my grandparents
had to flee came to this country settling into a host community,
where you know that you are not treated as equal or you're treated,
as weird and odd and you have a funny accent.
Just to become part of that and to join in the resistance against Fascist movements,
Cable Street, trade unionism, so many Jews were active
in the trade union movement still are.
So many jews were active going back to South Africa again who supported the ANC.
Looking at the civil rights movement in America,
where so many Jews were on the front line.
So that is our tradition that's why we've adopted that slogan about
'being with the oppressed and never with the oppressor'
Because there are great Jewish traditions that we should be hanging on to,
not this lining up with the establishments helping to destroy a movement,
for justice and peace and decency we know what side we are on,
we're with the people who want justice and peace and decency.
Though there has to be some hope and I think if you look at the situation of
young Jews in this country but particularly in the United States,
there's a great movement called 'If Not Now' those young people are looking a scants
at the establishment figures who continue to support injustice and to remain silent
in the face of it and we're not going to stand for that any longer.
in this country too.
Whether it's Jewish people or Muslim people or people of no faith,
people in the Labour party, people outside the Labour party,
are going to start to stand up for what is right.
And to get themselves organised to mobilise to organise to act,
because my god we've got a Covid crisis to fight, we've got the planet to save,
we've got freedom of expression to fight for,
and we've got Palestinian rights to fight for so let's get on with it.
So I've talked about how incredibly difficult it is to get dissenting,
independent Jewish voices heard in this country.
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