Momentum chief Jon Lansman to appear at Limmud

The man who twice powered Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour leadership is to appear at this year’s Limmud Conference in a panel debate about the party’s relationship with the Jewish community.

Jon Lansman, chair of Momentum, will line up alongside Rhea Wolfson, who sits on Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC), and Labour First secretary Luke Akehurst, the director of We Believe in Israel, who unsuccessfully stood for the NEC.

Others appearing at the event include Lord Maurice Glasman, Jewish Labour Movement chair Jeremy Newmark, and JLM vice-chair Sarah Sackman, a parliamentary candidate who last year stood for Finchley and Golders Green. Labour MP Luciana Berger will speak separately.

Lansman, who is Jewish, grew up in an Orthodox household and lived on a kibbutz in Israel when he was young. He identified with the left-wing of the party, and was described as the late Tony Benn’s “chief fixer” in the early 1980s.

After co-founding Momentum, an influential grassroots group supportive of Corbyn, Lansman denounced comments about Hitler from former London mayor Ken Livingstone, suggesting that “it’s time he left politics”.

Commenting on his appearance at the education conference later this month, a Limmud spokeswoman said: “This year has been a turbulent year for politics, and the Labour Party is no exception… We look forward to engaging with the highest level of Jewish Labour politics, and continuing the conversations many of us have started around the Shabbat dinner table.”