Why I helped create a Cable Street commemoration event for Jews
Given that those organising a rally to mark 90 years since the Battle were so keen to block 'Zionists', I felt it was vital that Jews reclaim what was being appropriated from them
Back in June I read the Unite leaflet promoting the 90th anniversary of Cable St commemoration. I was shocked to see no mention of Jews or antisemitism in their account.
Oswald Mosley’s blackshirts came to the Jewish East End to march with the express purpose spreading hatred and fear of Jews.
How could a labour movement event purporting to be an act of solidarity fail to mention Jews – the people who were at the heart of the story, the key target of fascist hate?
The Battle of Cable Street saw tens of thousand of East End Jews stand shoulder to shoulder with Irish dockers, communists, socialists and neighbours as the official labour movement looked the other way.
How could British Jewry’s proudest moments of courage and unity against fascism simply be airbrushed from its own commemoration?
To put Jews back into our history I set up a coalition of Jewish and non Jewish friends and activists to help – an archivist, a designer, a talent agent and PR man. We called ourselves Cable St Jews. I invited Jewish activists from Stop the Hate and the non Jewish solidarity group, Our Fight, to help
We asked the Jewish community to send in pictures of relatives who had fought at Cable St against the antisemitism of their day. By September we had portrait pictures of 55 heroic veterans.
We printed placards and reached out to the demo organisers to let them know we would be attending and our peaceful comradely intentions.
They responded with hostility and vituperative antisemitism. They issued a press release accusing our coalition of being far right, divisive provocateurs, and even fascist. They said we were just ‘Zionists’ and not Jewish at all.
Our Jewish identity was once more erased and worthless as far as the official organisers of a commemoration of an event with Jews at its centre were concerned. All because we wanted to put the Jewish heart of the story back on the agenda.
On social media, unhinged leftist groups began to make threats that if we showed up to the march we would not be safe.
Yet we had 15 – 20 Cable St descendants and relatives of the veterans attending. We had a duty to protect them from a second assault on the 90th anniversary. The sickening parallel with 1936 could not have been more apparent. Jews were still not welcome in the East End. The official labour movement was now enabling antisemitism in the name of ‘antizionism’ and ‘anti-fascism’. Black was white and up was down. The very people entrusted to remember and honour the Cable St veterans were unleashing fear and hatred towards them.
The lesson to the Jewish community is clear. The left were once our allies. No longer. Only Jews who pass a modern day Nuremberg law are ‘kosher’.
Anyone who believes in the right of Israel to exist or defend its existence will not be tolerated. In the name of anti-fascism and antizionism, a new form of exclusionary antisemitism is taking shape.