Amidst angry divisions, British Jews debate how best to support Israel

An event on Tuesday designed to help British Jews dialogue over how to best support Israel “at times descended into a bad-tempered shouting match between right and left wingers”, and “ended with both sides apparently as far apart as ever”, reported Jewish News.

“Ceasefire” was hosted at London’s JW3, and sponsored by United Jewish Israel Appeal (UJIA), with the event intended “to broker dialogue between two opposing sides of the community”.

According to the report, “the audience was fairly evenly divided between right-wing activists — one woman draped in an Israeli flag — and others who had either taken part in, or were supporters of, the now notorious ‘Kaddish for Gaza’ on Parliament Square several weeks ago”.

A panel was asked to address two main questions: “How to respond to people in the community who were ‘uncomfortable’ at the direction taken by the Israeli Government, and what should be said to members of the community who were ‘profoundly disturbed’ at those who expressed their opposition to the direction of the Israeli Government.”

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Jewish News described the audience-led debate as “split clearly along generational lines as well as right and left — older people tending to back right-wing points of view, younger people siding with those on the left or those disaffected with the organised Jewish community.”

UJIA chair Louise Jacobs said “Ceasefire” was the “first of a number of dialogue events, some public, some lower-key, in which UJIA wanted to bring together different strands of the community to discover how best to support Israel”, with more events planned for the autumn.