Risk assessment
Few things put the safety of Jews at risk, in this country and around the world, as much as false claims of antisemitism against individuals and organisations, as a ploy to suppress political dissent. A case in point is the letter from Ol Rappaport (11 April), in which he seeks to defame the group Youth Demand as antisemitic for resisting the entirely-contrived use of the Public Order Act on the grounds of ‘preventing harassment of Jews on their way to the nearby West End synagogue’ on the same day as the Palestinian demonstration on 18 January.
Three points need to be made. First, the nearest synagogue to Broadcasting House (Central Synagogue and not (New) West End) is 300 yards from the planned starting point, and not on the route of the march.
Second, services on Shabbat (Saturday) are held at 9:15am and 7pm, not at any time that coincides with the demonstrations.
Third, and most importantly, to my knowledge there has never been any ‘harassment of Jews’ at Palestinian demonstrations – that is, unless for someone who considers any criticism of Israel to be harassment. Indeed, there are hundreds of Jewish demonstrators who take part at every demonstration and they are always made welcome by other demonstrators.
These are the kind of discredited talking points which we expect to see in the right-wing gutter press. It is deeply disturbing to see them repeated by Quakers, and given a platform in the pages of the Friend.
Antony Rawlinson
Shared demand
Ol Rappaport’s letter, which states that Youth Demand and those who support them are antisemitic, is in ignorance of the facts. There was never any question of the members of Youth Demand or the Palestine Solidarity Campaign harassing British Jews on their way to the synagogue on 18 January.
Firstly, the proposed route of the march went nowhere near the synagogue. Secondly, the route of the march had been approved by the Met Police two months before and agreed. The late decision by the Met Police to ban the march used the excuse that it would have caused disruption at the synagogue could only have been a way to stop peaceful protest. The Met Police acknowledged themselves that there has not been a single incident of any threat to a synagogue attached to any of the marches. Indeed Jewish people have been joining the marches in their thousands.
There is nothing remotely antisemitic on the Youth Demand website. Their demand is that the UK enacts a trade embargo on Israel, which I and many others share.
Rae Street
Accusation refuted
Quaker faith & practice 10.01 says that ‘Our life is love, and peace, and tenderness; and bearing one with another, and forgiving one another, and not laying accusations one against another; but praying one for another, and helping one another up with a tender hand’.
Any letter that ends ‘And enabling Youth Demand’s actions is enabling racism’ is not just non-Quaker, it is actually anti-Quaker, being both not ‘bearing one with another’, but also being highly accusatory and ‘laying accusations one against another’. Or, in this case, one against many others.
I think that many Quakers will want to refute the accusation that they are ‘racism enablers’, at least I hope they will – I feel sure our Local Meeting will.
Peter Lowe
Discomforting reading
Ol Rappaport’s letter on Youth Demand and the Quaker response to the police raid on Westminster Friends Meeting House accuses Youth Demand of being an antisemitic organisation. It seems that he approves of the police’s efforts to implement the Public Order Act. This Act, among others, is a legacy of the previous Conservative government in its repressive clampdown on nonviolent direct action, and, more broadly, dissent. The Labour government, shamefully in my view, has shown no inclination to rescind the legislation.
I note and welcome Ol’s support of a just resolution for all living in Israel/Palestine and for appropriate nonviolent direct action. However, if anything enables racism and antisemitism, it is not Palestine solidarity demonstrations, it is western – especially American, British, and German – treatment of Israel’s horrific, racist, destruction of lives, property, society, culture and the environment throughout the area it controls in proud impunity. If any other country committed atrocities on this scale, whether Iran, Russia, China, North Korea or anyone else, our media and our government would be doing everything to oppose such terror.
Of course, many things enable that western complicity with a regime that takes bombers and bulldozers to human rights, so that, as with Trump’s ethics of destruction, nothing stands out anymore.
But one thing that ‘enables’ all this is to call out as antisemitic the discomfort felt by members of a Synagogue who might come across Palestinians marching, while an entirely different order of ‘discomfort’ is being ignored in Gaza, the West Bank and beyond.
Jonathan Dale
Opportunity lost?
What an opportunity by Mal Woolford was lost on the occasion of the police raid on Westminster Meeting House, when he said: ‘The only resistance I could put up was to make a cup of tea and drink it in front of them, without offering them any.’
Surely to have offered the police tea and engage them in conversation would have been a peaceable and positive way to respond, to create a means of communication and potential understanding.
Rosemary Wells
On lockdown
With reference to the police raid on Westminster Meeting House, why were the doors locked? Is it right to lock Meeting house doors while a hirer is in the building?
David L Saunders
Offering help
In response to Diana Lampen’s letter (11 April), Friend, I hear your trepidation. Thank you for hearing our pain and for expressing your struggle. This is my offer of help.
To learn about the trans experience, seek out trans voices and receive them with an open, curious, and empathetic mind. There are many publicly-available, published works by trans people that can help you understand.
I recommend these books: Trans Britain: Our long journey from the shadows, edited by Christine Burns; None of the Above: Reflections on life beyond the binary, by Travis Alabanza; Before We Were Trans, by Kit Heyam; and What’s The T?, by Juno Dawson.
I also recommend these YouTube videos: ‘The Clues That I Was Transgender’, by Charlotte McDonnell (https://tinyurl.com/Charlotte-McDonnell); and ‘How I Knew I Was Trans’, by Jammidodger (https://tinyurl.com/transjammiedodger).
Also see The Guardian article published in July 2016 titled ‘Transgender stories: “People think we wake up and decide to be trans”’ (https://tinyurl.com/lyonstrans).
Stonewall, Gendered Intelligence, Just Like Us, Mermaids, and Amnesty are organisations that work to widen understanding of trans identities and awareness.
One might respond ‘I want a discussion face-to-face with a trans person like yourself. Please explain your transness to me.’
To that I say: My experience is very personal. Explaining would be extremely emotionally intense for me. I appreciate you want to understand my personal experience, but that is not reason enough for me to give my time, energy, and vulnerabilities. I am not a teacher. I want to help you understand, but I can’t make you understand.
In this modern age, there are easily accessible resources to learn about the experience of others without depending on the emotional labour of the people around you.
In order to understand, desire to learn must be greater than fear of the unfamiliar.
Juno Lee
Comments
I am very thankful for the refutations of Ol Rappaport’s accusation that Youth Demand is anti-semitic. This is certainly not my experience of the group.
Together with a Friend from Brighton Meeting (I worship at Lewes Meeting), I attended the Youth Demand meeting held in Brighton on 31st March, less than a week after the Westminster raid. There were six young people there. More had been expected, but were possibly deterred by what happened in London. The aim of the meeting was simply to inform people of what they were about and to invite people to join them.
They talked about their values: how much it matters to end the genocides, in Gaza and due to the climate crisis. I was struck by their naming of the climate crisis as genocide – as of course it is. Up to 4 billion may die – and we in the privileged West will be the last to feel the impact.
And the horror of growing up in a world with no future. My generation had the threat of nuclear war hanging over, but also the vibrance and hope of the ‘50s and ‘60s. And we saw the threat of nuclear war apparently end in the early ‘90s. If only we had been serious about the climate crisis then…
They have no such experience. Many of them have not even experienced successful large-scale protests.
I was also struck by their vulnerability: they openly talked of how they felt: scared, angry, but determined. And of love – how being in community, where they trust each other, gives them the way through the fear.
And they feel defiant: they experience the police as trying to intimidate them with the Westminster action and are flatly saying that this will not work. They have had hundreds of new enquiries since the action last month.
They see themselves as having no other choice but to take action: they see no plans in place to stop what is happening in Gaza and in the wider world. They see the current situation as simply empowering the rich.
I do not know the details of the actions that they were planning and have undertaken this month, but it strikes me that stopping traffic (apart from ambulances, etc.) for fifteen minutes in order to get the message across is a disruption worth bearing.
When the meeting ended, I discovered that most of them did not know about the sand beyond the stony beach in Brighton that is only exposed at very low tides. That evening was one such low tide, so we went down the beach, and watched the sun set over the sea. May their generation experience many more moments of such beauty.
We attended another Youth Demand meeting this month, and will continue our involvement with the group.
By katemackrell on 2025 04 24
One doesn’t need to be consciously racist to act in a racist manner. While Youth Demand seeks justice for Palestine they ignore the consequences of their choice of action, whether it is to tens of thousands of Londoners commuting, or to a group of Jewish worshippers.
In the Nineties I served on a working group that sought to respond to the Epistle of Black, white, Asian and mixed-heritage Friends. That it has taken so long for British Quakers to commit to becoming an actively antiracist community stands as mute evidence of how little insight some Quakers have into the implications and consequences of their actions.
I doubt if Antony Rawlinson (Risk assessment) has sat in worship while stones break his Meeting House windows, nor does he greet a security guard each week as he attends Meeting. His comments show a disregard to the realities to the lived experience of British Jew, and apparently shows little inclination to do so.
Peter Lowe (Accusation refuted) reminds me why marking your own homework is not a recognized academic assessment strategy.
Rae Street (Shared demand) misquotes me, I actually wrote ‘enabling Youth Demand’s actions is enabling racism’ and I repeat my opening sentence ‘One doesn’t need to be consciously racist to act in a racist manner.’ She ignores the fact that the gathering point for the march is en route to the synagogue for many and the Metropolitan Police amended the route in the light of representation from Jewish community groups, not the sinister motive she inferred.
Joanathan Dale (Discomforting reading) projects opinions and motives onto me for which he has no evidence, only my criticism of Youth Demand from which he infers a bewildering array, unburdened by any evidence.
YiF
By Ol Rappaport on 2025 04 24
Accusations of antisemitism are used to close down criticism of Israel and therefore not always helpful.
I looked at the Youth Demand website. Their two demands are 1. Stop all trade with Israel; impose a total trade embargo. 2. Make the rich pay damages to countries harmed by the climate crisis.
I’m wary of the combination of these two “demands” which on the surface are unconnected. The only link I can see is one based on antisemitic tropes.
By RebeccaVaughan on 2025 04 25
As Juno rightly says, the trans experience is a personal one.
We all (I mean all of us humans) live with an element incongruence with our sexed bodies. I sometimes look at women who move through the world with ease and wonder how they do it. This doesn’t bother me as I just plough on, being myself. As some people say, we have a sex and we have a personality, it is the combination of the two that can (not always) cause our discomfort/ feeling of incongruence.
Young people now have the added challenge of hyper capitalism and the internet.
Some interesting trans voices, that break the mould:
https://debbiehayton.com/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPdhIjWgKFg Kristina Harrison addresses a meeting
https://segm.org/first_large_study_of_detransitioners
https://www.reddit.com/r/detrans/
By RebeccaVaughan on 2025 04 25
Please login to add a comment
