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On antisemitism and the Green Party
Rabbi Jonathan Wittenberg, one of the leading climate campaigners in the UK Jewish community, reacts to yesterday's events at Green Party conference
I don’t write about antisemitism often.
I focus on the ethics, wisdom, discipline, depth and beauty of Judaism, our place of refuge, resilience, inspiration, guidance and motivation. I work on the care for humanity and creation which we have in common with so many people of all faiths and none, especially on matters connected with environment.
But in the last days, conversation after conversation has gone like this. I paraphrase, slightly.
- An Israeli guest: “Rabbi, I have never felt like this anywhere, ever. Antisemitism. It’s not just the specific instances. It’s there, subcutaneous, in the atmosphere. You don’t know when it’ll break out…”
- A parent, as we share fears about the future into which our children and grandchildren are born: “I worry about if and where they’ll be safe as Jews.”
- A writer: “I can’t talk at all to so many former friends and colleagues.”
- A founder of an NGO: “Hounded by hatred from the organisation I helped create and loved.”
- A therapist: “The branch I belong to, funded by so many Jewish organisations, has become unliveable.”
I’ll never forget the moment I saw the huge headline in an environment magazine I once subscribed to: “X Days Since Genocide.” I counted carefully. The date on which genocide purportedly began was 7 October.
Now the Green Party, betraying their own mission, has voted that Zionism is racism, amid chants that “Zionists are not welcome here.” It has rejected as unnecessary safeguards for Jews attending Zionist synagogues, which, as Jonathan Freedland pointed out in Saturday’s Guardian, includes virtually any and every synagogue. It has also opted for a one-state solution: one wonders if it plans to take similar positions on the right to exist of other countries apart from Israel? Those who passed those motions will no doubt continue to claim, incredibly, that they did so in the cause of anti-racism.
Afterwards Zack Polanski and all five Green MPs said in a statement: “We know there is no conflict between supporting the rights of Palestinians and the rights of Jewish people.” It’s a credible position, supported by huge numbers of Jews and Israelis, including myself. But it is precisely the position that The Green Party has utterly betrayed.
All this took place on the very Hebrew dates of Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah, on which, three years ago, Hamas murdered 1195 Israelis, wounded thousands more and took 250 as hostages to Gaza.
Instead, the party could have looked, as Pope Francis did in his outstanding encyclical Laudato Si, to the Hebrew Bible for inspiration about love and reverence for creation, or even considered the remarkable liturgy of Shemini Atzeret itself with its beautiful prayers for rainfall and blessings for the earth. They could have looked, too, to the remarkable work of organisations like EcoPeace Middle East and the Aravah Institute, which bring Israelis, Palestinians – including Gazans – and internationals together for the sake of a shared future. Thank goodness there are such spaces, where, together with Jewish and other international and interfaith environmental organisation, we can find a green home – now that the Green Party has let us and its own agenda down. Maybe, too, there will be ways in which we can work with members of that party who voted against the motion. I always hope there are ways to come back together.
In the face of all this, as Jews, we take strength in Torah. Yesterday we completed the annual cycle of readings with the words ‘Chazak, chazak, venitchazek: Be strong, be strong, let us be strong together.’ Our strength lies in the beauty, wisdom, depth and resilience of Jewish teaching, practice and community. We go, virtually without a pause, from ending the Torah on the last letter lamed to beginning again with the letter bet, spelling the word lev, heart. This is our heart; here we must take heart together, as we begin once more the wonderful chapters about the beauty of the world and our God-given responsibility to care for it with reverence and humility.
Jonathan Wittenberg is Senior Rabbi for Masorti Judaism
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