I think the response is mainly fair, and I agree with most of the points that it makes. For example, it is indeed odd that the document doesn't have any named authors, and that though it says the writers talked to lots of groups and individuals, it doesn't say who they are. There doesn't seem to have been much engagement with Jewish groups who are critical of Israel and Zionism, who might have been thought of as natural points of contact for Quakers. The Quaker Socialists mention Jewish Voice for Liberation, and I'm disappointed that there is no mention of my own group, Na'amod. The reading list, and the list of groups to learn from, is also somewhat partial. The discussion on definitions of antisemitism, which mainly focuses on the IHRA definition and the rival Jerusalem definition, is both partial and muddled.
But that's not my main criticism. There's a small section at the back that is labelled "How this guide came about", which says it started life as a advice to ecumenical accompaniers who spend time in Israel-Palestine. This really shows - it's too much about when it's OK and not OK to criticise Israel and Zionism, and how that might land with different kinds of Jewish people. Although there is some kind and thoughtful material about how to talk to and listen to Jews about their experiences and feelings, it's not grounded in a proper understanding of contemporary antisemitism.
There's a view among some progressive people that antisemitism is not really a big deal these days. Sure, it was nasty in the Middle Ages, and the Holocaust was really bad, but these days Jews don't face much racism - they're white, after all, and often privileged too. So how can they really be victims of racism? An addition to this is that responding to antisemitism somehow claims precedence, that there is a hierarchy of forms of racism where Jew-hatred is (wrongly) put at the top. And this is supplemented by a thread about how accusations of antisemitism are used to deflect criticism of Israel and Zionism - something that very much does happen, but surely shouldn't be the first thing to speak about when one speaks about hatred towards Jews. Though it often is.
What I felt was missing from the pamphlet is how absolutely fundamental antisemitism is to far right politics and ideas. This isn't always immediately apparent. The mobs that gather outside migrant hotels don't chant slogans about Jews. But if you look at how they talk about migrants to each others, and to their target audiences, theories about powerful Jews are never far from the surface - the so-called "Great Replacement" is allegedly a conspiracy by Jews to bring migrants in to replace "indigenous" white people. Almost any far right commentary on what's really happening in the world, from Covid to 9-11 to the financial crisis, quickly becomes a conversation about Jews. Curiously, the far right, and antisemites, are represented among the ranks of both pro-Zionists (like Tommy Robinson, and Victor Orban) and anti-Zionists (like Nick Fuentes, and British neo-Nazis including Nick Griffin and the Patriotic Alternative group).
I won't explain here why antisemitism is so important to the far right ideologically and intellectually. That deserves a separate, longer piece. But it's a big thing, and by omitting it the pamphlet makes it look like antisemitism mainly belongs to history and to conversations about Israel.
One more thing. For a pamphlet aimed at people in the UK it was rather thin on the special contribution that England has made to Jew-hatred - the first country to expel Jews, the place where the blood libel (the idea that Jews kill Christian children so as to obtain and use their blood) originated, the introduction of the first immigration controls to bar the entrance of Jews fleeing pogroms in the Russian empire.
So I'm grateful that the Quakers have had a go at addressing the subject, and I do appreciate some of the good parts of the report. I just wish it had been better.
3 comments:
As someone whose parents came here as immigrants in 1939 (my father was Jewish and faced discrimination and antisemitism I’ve never felt the British understood really what antisemitism is/was. Briefly from the Labour Party to now and how Israel uses it in their arguments. A very broad generalisation I admit
Thanks Jezza and Susan. Can i add a contribution to the discussion in a letter I wrote to the writers of the Challenging Anti-semitism piece:
Dear Quake Editors, Oliver Robertson (whose e-address I could not find) and BYM in general,
I was pleased and interested to see your recently published guide - and then dismayed. Clearly anti-semitism is an important and contentious topic, and differentiating what is that and what is legitimate disagreement with Israeli politics over the last 2 1/2 years is essential. Sometimes confusion is just that, but it can also be used as a political tool - and I think this is likely what has happened in this case. (Sometimes the action is more direct, like UK Lawyers for Israel threatening to take charitable Institutions to court if they make any public reference to the impact of genocide, as happened to my Institution in the area of child and mental health).
In line with all our impressive history of speaking truth to power, Quakers last year came outs admirably and called what was happening in Gaza ‘genocide’. This new document in contrast, is unclear and unhelpful. Can I offer you three examples?:
The IHRA v the Jerusalem Declaration on anti-semitism.
Your doc describes how “some have explained that the Jerusalem Declaration is used mainly by politically left-wing groups and that many Jews will immediately suspect a document which promotes it….(and add) we’re here informing readers about them rather than endorsing any particular definition –
but in fact the Jerusalem Declaration was developed by a group of scholars in Holcaust history, Jewish studies and Middle East studies and has over 370 signatories in that field ‘to strengthen the fight against anti-semitism by clarifying what it is, and how it is manifested (and ) to protect a space for an open debate about the vexed question of the future of Israel/Palestine’. Your explanation invites readers to distrust a highly regarded document, dismissed only by an undocumented “some”.
The Jewish Lobby:
In fact the IHRA and the Jerusalem both state the ‘myth’ or the ‘grossly exaggerated…fantasy’ of a Lobby is anti-semitic. I am not sure how phantasmagorical the idea of the Lobby needs to be, but certainly (as you state) there are many powerful well-funded and presumably inter-connected lobbies, run over 70 or more years and documented by Ilan Pappe among others, funding and pushing politicians in the UK and the US (and presumably elsewhere) to support pro-Israeli positions in the defence and intelligence industry and in the media. And we are finding out more as the Epstein scandal continues to unravel. That is fact, not anti-semitism. Your guidance is obfuscating.
The need for a Jewish homeland:
‘having a nation in their ancestral homeland deeply matters to many Jews, a place where they can feel safe from the antisemitism and persecution felt and experienced in the rest of the world’ is fair enough, but you ignore what the Jerusalem Document points out, the native Palestinians: they say ‘it is not anti-semitic to support arrangements that accord full equality to all inhabitants “between the river and the sea” … in whatever form’.
Your doc does not mention them, nor the historical context and history of the violence.
I do hope that you will welcome feedback and agree the need for more threshing before hopefully putting out a revised version - and one that is authored and acknowledges your sources.
Thanks for all that you are doing,
I'm allowing this comment on my blog post even though I think that the bit about the "Jewish Lobby" is most certainly not what I would have written - and even though it writes about "anti-semitism" rather than "antisemitism".
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