Not In Our Name

JVL introduction

A letter initiated by Independent Jewish Voices which we urge Jewish readers to support

Not In Our Name

IJV, 26 July 2018

This week, the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News and Jewish Telegraph are publishing the same front page, headed “United we stand” on what they describe as the community’s anger over “Labour’s anti-Semitism row” and its “refusal to adopt the full International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism”.

The heading suggests that these papers speak for the whole community. We, the undersigned members of the UK Jewish community, take strong exception to the statement and disassociate ourselves from it. Whatever our views on the Labour Party and its handling of the antisemitism allegations, we consider that the demand to “implement IHRA in full or be seen by all decent people as an institutionally racist and anti-Semitic party” and the prediction of “the existential threat to Jewish life in this country that would be posed by a Jeremy Corbyn-led government” go beyond the boundaries of acceptable political discourse. Worse, they could help to create a climate of fear among many in the Jewish community and by conflating real antisemitism with what they call “political anti-Semitism targeting Israel”, jeopardise prospects for a just and peaceful solution in the Middle East.

We call on other concerned Jews to join us in holding these newspapers to account by adding their signatures below.

Sign the letter here