Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights

by Anne Karpf

You can be as Torah-ignorant as me (well, you can try) but still know that the period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur is considered a special time. During the Ten Days of Repentance Jews are called to account and asked to pause for introspection, to resolve to change. It seemed a good time to launch a new Jewish group.

What, another Jewish group? Like, with all the charities, the singles groups, the campaigning groups, we didnít have enough?

This new group, the Jewish Forum for Justice and Human Rights, is one of which I am, exceptionally, a founder member (thought that isnít, you understand, what makes it distinctive). Exceptionally because journalists, for the most part, are observers rather than joiners – we like to let our words do our marching for us, and tend to think that badges and banners canít accomodate the complexity of the world. So, since the collective we doesnít come naturally to me, what has swayed me this time?

Partly it was the food ñ and thatís not an entirely flippant answer. A group of us have been meeting up for over a year to discuss our shared unease over what we felt was a shrinking public space in which to express dissenting Jewish opinions. At times the debate threatened to get edged out by the delicious dishes (and the cakes ñ oy, the cakes!) that each person brought. As socially congenial as theyíve been, our meetings have also made us realise how unrepresented we each of us had felt in the Jewish world.

Weíre a motley band, and certainly donít speak with a unanimous voice. We include Zionists and non-Zionists (a term I use advisedly) and many shadings in between. We range from the (relatively) observant to the frankly unobservant. Our political views are variegated too. Weíve deliberately called ourselves a forum: it isnít intended to be a partisan or campaigning body, so much as a space for the airing of opinion. Weíre also not single issue, even if some of what weíre reacting against is a consequence of the second intifida.

Up until then, something exciting seemed to be happening in Anglo-Jewry. Over a period of ten or 15 years, British Jews had begun to abandon their historical reticence (donít make a fuss, be British) and sense of marginality in British society. There was a palpable energy in the renewed engagement with Jewish history, music, culture, heritage, and religion that seemed to signal a coming-of-age of British Jewry.

Much of this has been undermined by the retrenchment following the al-Aqsa intifida. Within a short period of time, we were being told that British Jewsí principal duty was to demonstrate solidarity with Israel – anything else and youíre giving succour to the enemy. Anxiety about anti-Semitism also mounted alarmingly. People retreated behind polarised, defensive positions and ideologies.

Many Jews, whatever their political persuasion, reject the idea that we should try and attain what has eluded us throughout our history ñ consensus. Orthodox Jewry is one thing ñ but insisting on orthodoxy in all matters social and political quite another, especially for a people as famously quarrelsome as Jews. It happened again last week when the Chief Rabbi, Dr Jonathan Sacks, took issue with ìour tendency at critical moments to split apart and for every Jew to say ëI know bestíî, and went on to assert the primacy of the board of Deputies, urging Jews not to criticise it.

The Chief Rabbi, of course, doesnít speak for all Jews, even practising ones. And there are many Jews ñ affiliated and non-affiliated ñ who would take umbrage at the idea that a single institution like the Board of Deputies speaks for them, represents their interests, and should be beyond criticism. Some of these people have never been active in the Jewish community, because they feel that their concerns and preoccupations havenít been sufficiently addressed in the Jewish world, particularly in a climate where conformity and unity are valued more highly than justice and human rights, key features of Jewish law and tradition.

Itís always dodgy claiming special rights over morality. If you find talk of ëChristian values like forgivenessí annoying (as I do), you can hardly claim a Jewish monopoly over human rights. And of course the baggier and more abstract the concept, eg justice, the more than you invite disagreement (ie your idea of justice or mine?). Then there are those who react to any discussion of human rights with a disquisition about Jewsí human rights. This ignores the fact that the struggle for human rights – other peoplesí, and not just our own – has always been a central aspect of Jewish history and ethics, and not just a bolt-on, another reason why itís so dispiriting to see it relegated to a luxury that, in these vexed times, we canít afford.

The Forum was launched yesterday, the third anniversary of the passing of the Human Rights Act, with a keynote speech by Sir Nigel Rodley who, hitherto hasnít spoken publicly as a Jew or within the Jewish world, but who is internationally known for his work on human rights following his eight years as UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, investigating and documenting alleged cases of torture around the world.

The Forumís very existence challenges the idea that thereís one way to be a proper Jew. I hope that, in its gatherings and publications, discussing racism and anti-Semitism, the Middle East, immigration and asylum-seekers, it will turn out to be vigorous, analytic, and independent. For, as Groucho might have said, I wouldnít want to be a member of any group whose members didnít regularly disagree. Happy New Year.