Jewish identity and history is a profoundly important aspect of my life. But Iâm not a communalist. I think the idea of a unitary interest for ethnic groups is dangerous, and I think official community leaderships, especially in faith groups, are basically reactionary.
An anti-communalist, secularist, anti-clerical critique of the role in Jewish life, and in social and political life in general, of people like the Chief Rabbi has been developed by Jewish radicals over many years, finding perhaps its most exuberant expression in the work of people like Benjamin Feigenbaum. Equivalent critiques have been developed by radicals from other ethnocultural communities for their own contexts.
It should be noted, however, as an aside, that sections of the left have somewhat hampered their ability to assert this critique in the case of the Jewish community by the fact they have rejected its applicability to other communities pretty recently.
A large section of the far left spent much of the mid-2000s engaged in an opportunist, communalist orientation to Muslim communities, promoting and allying with religious conservatives and running election campaigns on an explicitly communalist basis (the âRespectâ lash-up with George Galloway).
But, back to the Chief Rabbi. Hereâs the problem: however historically reactionary the role of the conservative clerical leadership has been, we canât wish out of existence that he is speaking to a real issue.
There is a real and very serious issue in the Labour Party and on the wider left with antisemitism, the Labour leadership has frequently flailed around and dithered in its response, and a great many Jews do feel, at best, deeply uneasy about voting for Labour given all of this.
If we, by which I mean the socialist left, broadly defined, want to persuade Jews to move beyond a communalist consciousness, if we want to develop a working-class anti-racism, we have to understand and have answers on these issues.
Thatâs why responses to the Chief Rabbiâs statement that simply scoff at it, or dismiss it as hyperbole or overreaction, or, worse, antisemitic responses that talk about the Chief Rabbi being puppeteered by Israel, will compound and entrench the problem.
Responses that have insisted that Mirvisâs support for Israel is the key âcontextâ for understanding his intervention also have this effect. The issue isnât that Mirvisâs wider reactionary politics might not be informing his intervention here â Iâm sure they are; thatâs just how consciousness and ideology works, isnât it? â itâs that what this tells non-Jews is that the primary âcontextâ within which they should consider Jewish concerns about antisemitism is what the position of the Jews in question is on Israel.
And given that most Jews support or have some affinity with Israel, however diffuse, what this implies is: most Jews are fair game.
Another especially obscene response to Jewish people expressing the view that they canât vote for Labour because of antisemitism Iâve seen frequently is one which basically runs: âBecause of your selfish, and probably manufactured, concerns about antisemitism, youâre going to be complicit in perpetuating policies that kill people; and if youâre prepared to do that... maybe people were right to hate you in the first place?â Itâs rarely expressed that starkly, and Iâm hyperbolising somewhat, but people who follow these debates will recognise the form.
âJust get over itâ is never going to work as a response to a member of a community that faces systemic oppression â or, in the case of Jews, has a deeply embedded inherited cultural memory of experiences of systemic oppression and attempted genocide.
The only way out of this mess is for the left to seriously confront and understand the roots and contemporary construction of the antisemitism in our own midst, which requires first an acknowledgement that it exists, and for us to respond patiently, via reasoned debate, which involves listening to people and engaging with their arguments, even when you sharply disagree.
You donât have to concur every time a Jewish person says something is antisemitic, but if you want to persuade that person of socialist ideas, you do need to, as a minimum, a) know what youâre talking about, b) understand the problem, and c) be able to engage in a mode of exchange that doesnât reproduce and reaffirm the problem.
Everyone should start by reading Steve Cohenâs book âThatâs Funny, You Donât Look Antisemiticâ, and weâll take things from there.
â˘Daniel Randall is a Jewish socialist and Labour Party supporter. The above is adapted from a thread he wrote on Twitter in response to Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvisâs statement urging people not to vote for Labour.
