When Margaret Hodge talked about her Dad saying "have a suitcase packed", she said something that near every Jew would relate to. I remember one Jewish acquaintance explaining why Jews favoured the professions, arts and businesses like diamond dealing - you could put your wealth in your pocket, pick up that suitcase and move.
This feeling of threat isn't new - my wife's family were given an ultimatum in 1492: leave, convert or die. They left Spain, taking with them what they could carry. And this pattern is repeated again and again as places decide Jews are a problem or Jews are to blame or Jews are too rich.
The Tweet at the top here is a stark example of what's happening now in Britain. Because people close to the leader of the Labour Party have got away with (so far) open antisemitism we see people now able to talk about "nasty Jewish people" and "final solutions". Is anyone surprised that, faced with the prospect of these sort of attitudes being close to power, some Jewish people are opting not to take the risk and packing that suitcase?
This is Britain for heaven's sake, we're supposed to be better than this.
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1 comment:
There is a difference between being anti-Semitic and being critical of the state of Israel - that is the issue currently taxing the Labour Party.
In Britain, continued harvesting the Muslim vote is vital to the Labour Party nationally and locally - in order to maintain this flow of auto-votes, the Labour Party cannot be seen to support the state of Israel, indeed criticising it is a positive electoral stance. If it is considered to be in any way supportive, then those votes will start to leave.
It's nothing to do with racism or anti-Semitism, it's simple electoral arithmetic. There are 30 times more Muslim voters in Britain than Jewish ones - who can you risk alienating? Mr Corbyn and his colleagues know this too.
Go figure, as our American friends would say.
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