Letters to the Editor: ‘Berger picks wrong fight’
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Berger picks wrong fight
Constituents in Finchley and Golders Green considering voting for Liberal Democrat candidate Luciana Berger (pictured, left)would do well to consider that in Mike Freer (pictured, right), the sitting Conservative MP, the Jewish community has a true and faithful friend.
The nature of our electoral system and lack of significant support for the Lib Dems in the general population in the constituency means that if significant numbers of voters switch from Conservative to Lib Dem to support Ms Berger, the most likely outcome will be to elect a Labour MP and, thus, enhance the chances of Jeremy Corbyn becoming the next prime minister.
One has to ask why Ms Berger is choosing to stand in Finchley
and Golders Green, when by doing so she increases the chances of precisely the overall election result she professes to least want.
Why is she not standing in a Labour marginal?
Brian Gedalla, Finchley
No reason to take on mike
I’m a Jewish voter in Finchley and Golders Green who will not be voting Liberal Democrat.
I’d have a lot more respect for the party and their candidate, Luciana Berger, had she chosen an area where there was not a large Jewish population and certainly not one where there is a highly-effective Conservative MP such as Mike Freer who has shown himself to be both a friend of British Jewry and Israel.
Sarah Adler, NW7
Stats are not fair on farage
It is unbelievable that 32% of Anglo-Jewry consider Nigel Farage an antisemite. Have any of these 32% met the man? Have any of them ever heard him utter anti-Jewish sentiments? The answer is no! I’m a member of the Brexit Party and have never heard the man utter any such thing.
Martin Cohen, By email
Labour vote means one thing
So, Tony Blair is still voting Labour “despite Jeremy Corbyn”. What utter nonsense. A vote for Labour signifies only one aspiration; Corbyn for prime minister.
Shimon Cohen, By email
Criticism of brave Berger is just cynical nonsense
As a Barnet councillor who recently left the Conservative Party, I’m proud to support Luciana Berger’s campaign to represent Finchley and Golders Green for the Lib Dems.
Luciana courageously quit her safe Labour seat and put her career on the line so she could fully commit to the fight against antisemitism and Boris Johnson’s hard Brexit. She is also part of the local community, as a native of north London who chose Golders Green as her London base when representing her Liverpool constituents in Parliament.
The suggestion by some Conservatives that she has been parachuted into the area is cynical nonsense. Polls show Luciana has every chance of winning. Labour’s support has collapsed and, in May at the European elections, the Lib Dems swept the board.
Electing Luciana will not help bring Corbyn to power. Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson has categorically and consistently ruled out ever letting Corbyn into Downing Street. She cites antisemitism within the Labour Party as the key reason. Luciana has earned our trust and our support.
Councillor Gabriel Rozenberg, Leader of the Liberal Democrats Group, London Borough of Barnet
Third generation need support
I read with interest your article about the survey by the AJR into how best to support the second generation – including more bespoke activities and trips.
As the grandson of an Auschwitz survivor, I’d very much like to see more support for the Third Generation, who will soon be the main transmitters of Holocaust memory as we
approach 100 years since the rise of Nazism.
It is a well known phenomenon that many survivors often refused to talk about their experiences, in an understandable attempt to try to break free of their former lives.
The strain that this holds on families does not simply wither away, so more proactive communal support to encourage the Third Generation to grapple with their relationship with the Shoah would be greatly appreciated.
James Martin, NW2
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