OPINION: The Board must change its ways of working to remain relevant
The BoD gets some things spectacularly right but its lack of response to Liz truss' recent comments show it can also gets things spectacularly wrong, writes Joe Millis
For most of its more than 260-year existence, the Board of Deputies served as a voice for a mainly homogenous British Jewish community. And while British Jewry is no longer as homogeneous, long may the Board continue to serve… But change is needed.
For most of this time, British Jews were, by and large, middle-of-the-road, United Synagogue types, who read the one Jewish newspaper (not this one), drove to shul on Shabbat and kept kosher at home. Yes, there were rows, but these were fairly low-key (except perhaps the broigus over Rabbi Louis Jacobs) and were kept within the community. Sha… shtill… was the order of the day.
But in the past two decades or so there has been a change – some would say for the better, others will disagree, but I’m not here to judge. Change happens.
The Board still has a role, and when it gets things right, it does so spectacularly.
For example the response in Hebrew to the arrival on this sceptred isle of anti-Arab, anti-LGBT, anti-Progressive Jews, anti-everyone-not-like-him Betzalel Smotrich was magnificent. Telling him to sling his hook in the clearest possible terms was a work of art – even if it did ruffle a few feathers both here and in Israel.
The Board’s interfaith work is also exemplary as is its standing up for the Uighurs, refugees and asylum seekers, and work with the Eco Synagogue movement.
The same goes for the commission on racial inclusivity in British Jewry. A serious look into the way we look at the non-Ashkenazim in British Jewry was way overdue.
All this, and others, is down to the hard work of current president, Marie van der Zyl, and her team of HOs both this term and the previous one.
But when the Board gets it wrong it does so equally spectacularly.
This month’s abysmal failure by the Board leadership to call out the use of Antisemitic stereotypes and the weaponisation of Jews by Tory party leadership candidate Liz Truss is a case in point.
This was compounded by its silence on Brandon Lewis’ attempt to rope in the Jews to support his government’s attempt to get out of the mess it itself created over the Northern Ireland protocol.
If it feels so limited by the constraints of wanting access to the Conservatives, how on earth can it claim to have zero tolerance of antisemitism and to call it out where it sees it, without fear or favour? It can’t, despite protestations to the contrary.
And on Israel, which needs a trigger warning every time it is mentioned at the Board and leads only to massive and ugly rows between right and left (guilty as charged, M’lud), then there are loads of like-minded regional or professional Friends Of… groups. And anyway, isn’t the embassy and the ambassador supposed to look after relations between the two countries?
And herein lies the main problem.
In the 21st century, and where British Jews are, you cannot have a single organisation which claims to be the “Voice of British Jews” that “Stands for EveryBoDy” unless it lives up to its description of being democratic.
In fact, its membership – 300 or so synagogues and organisations – doesn’t even represent the majority of affiliated and involved British Jews. There are at least 400 synagogues at last count and well over 1,000 organisations – large and small.
So what to do?
Unfortunately, attempts at internal reform have crashed against a brick wall of vested interests and personal animosities.
A bit of democracy and accountability would be a start.
The Board is democratically elected – or close enough, since most organisations choose their deputy without election and many Synagogue representatives are there through inertia or muggin’s turn.
But where there is a democratic deficit is the relationship between the Honorary Officers and the deputies themselves.
Policy is made by the HOs, largely without consulting deputies, and certainly without debates and votes.
I’m not saying that every time the Board wants to make a statement on something, it has to have a phone ballot of deputies. But what is needed is debates and votes for a policy framework, whether it be on the unquestioning support for the Holocaust memorial in Victoria Tower Gardens or backing for every Israeli government line.
And these policies need to be suggested by the HOs, because getting deputies’ motions to the floor is a long, arduous and complicated process.
At the moment, at least, we are told that policy is determined by the HOs, in consultation with professional staff and unnamed stakeholders who appear to have more power than elected deputies.
Another idea would be to have term limits – say three or four three-year terms. As it stands, there are some deputies who have been there forever and they seem to think that is virtuous. It isn’t. It breeds stale thinking, a sense of entitlement and clogs up the system for younger people, making the Board less attractive for them.
I once asked at a meeting for a show of hands of how many under 40s were present. About six put their hands up.
This could be helped by deputies standing down at retirement age or if they have finished their time as HOs.
Speaking of younger people, leave our wonderful UJS to deal with various nastiness on campus. They know what they are doing and don’t need “grown-ups” wading in. Some times – most times in fact – it’s a hindrance not a help.
In short, deputies need now to put their heads together to make the organisation more democratic and, dare I say it, relevant for 21st-century British Jews.
- Joe Millis is a deputy for Bromley Reform Synagogue
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