Anne Frank Trust sorry for hiring activist who called for ‘death to Zionist scum’

The Anne Frank Trust (AFT) has apologised for hiring an activist to lead a youth workshop who called for the death of “Zionist scum”.

In a statement issued on Tuesday, the anti-prejudice charity said it got it wrong when appointing poet Nasima Begum to facilitate an hour-long storytelling workshop for young AFT ambassadors and is now investigating how that happened.

Begum has made a series of inflammatory comments in past years, particularly around 2011-12, concerning Israel and Israel’s supporters, including her wishing “death to you Zionist scum”.

She accused Israel of committing “genocide” against Palestinians, appeared to justify Hamas rocket fire, reportedly claimed that Zionists have “a hold on mainstream media”, and likened Israeli actions against Palestinian to those of the Nazis against Jews during the Holocaust.

The UK-based charity works with young people to combat prejudice, including antisemitism, racism, and homophobia, but on Tuesday was forced to apologise for hiring Begum to teach the group of 23 teenagers last week.

“It has been brought to our attention that a freelance arts practitioner we engaged for one of our educational workshops last week has, in the past, made social media postings that are not consistent with our values,” it said.

“We apologise sincerely for any offence this has caused. We have launched an investigation into the practitioner’s appointment and have removed all coverage of the workshop from our social media. Once the investigation is concluded, we will publish a summary of the findings on our website.”

It is understood that the charity does have a due diligence process in place before hiring external facilitators, and that the results of the investigation will be publicised by the end of this week.

Online, it has been criticised by antisemitism activists, who took aim both at the charity and its chief executive, who is a Quaker. The spat led to an intervention in support of the AFT by the Holocaust Day Memorial Trust (HMDT).

While acknowledging that Begum’s appointment had been a mistake, a spokesperson for HMDT said: “We condemn the targeting of Tim Robertson, their CEO, on the basis of his religion. Such attacks are racist and unacceptable.”

They added that Robertson “has worked with The Anne Frank Trust UK for many years ensuring it empowers young people to combat racism including, specifically, antisemitism”.

• Correction 27/7/22 – An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated that the Nasima Begum hired by the Anne Frank Trust was a former media officer at the Muslim Council of Britain.