“Do you oppose anti-Jewish hate? Yes/no”, asked the Board of Deputies on X last week. “If yes, join us on Sunday 10 May opposite Downing Street.”

The Movement for Progressive Judaism (MPJ), of which I’m a rabbi, said yes to the rally. That decision was very, very wrong. It’s left me feeling embarrassed and ashamed of being an MPJ member.

The fact is, anyone who opposes anti-Jewish hate should have stayed away from this particular event. It was infested with representatives of the far right – a knowing decision on the part of its organisers, the Jewish Leadership Council and the Board of Deputies (BoD), rather than an accidental blunder. Likewise, it was in full knowledge of the far-right infestation that MPJ chose to take part. And it was in spite of challenge that they insisted on taking part: for the whole of last week, the rabbis’ and cantors’ mailing list was buzzing with colleagues raising the issue to no avail.

The rally’s publicity carried the approval of many major communal organisations including the Union of Jewish Students, the UJIA, the United Synagogue and the Sephardi community.

All of these groups take a firm stance opposing antisemitism. But their willingness to have their logos featured alongside the logos of hateful far-right bigots exemplifies that this professed opposition to racism is partial at best.

A lack of standards

The “National Jewish Assembly” (NJA), one of the rally’s official sponsors, is actually a man called Gary Mond, who, after being drummed out of the BoD for some particularly abhorrent Islamophobia, rebranded himself as the NJA. A judge recently found that Mond has made “prejudiced … inaccurate and objectionable” remarks such as claiming that “an increase in the number of Muslim MPs … would adversely affect Britain’s ability to protect its essential security interest”. The judge condemned him for “present[ing] Islam as a threat to the whole of civilisation”. In his spare time, Mond chairs the Reform Party Jewish Alliance, whose launch and intentions have already been protested by the Jewish community.

It seems strange that the BoD is so willing to partner with someone whom they recently forced out in a racism scandal. When people are expelled from, say, the Labour Party for antisemitism, the BoD expects that no other party will ever touch them again. Apparently different standards apply when the bigotry is directed at non-Jews – and perhaps especially Muslims.

It is impossible to believe that the inclusion of the NJA was mere oversight. A simple Google search would have revealed it to be a project of Gary Mond, and Mond’s name is infamous within the BoD. His inclusion can only be the result of a deliberate decision: the BoD’s preference for numbers (or, worse, for active outreach into the far right of the Jewish community) at the expense of moral integrity. 

Another sponsor of the rally is Stop the Hate, an extremist group whose leader, Yochy Davis, asked on Facebook last year: “Where is the ordinary Brit? When will they wake up? When will they take a stand to defend their homeland? … Stand up for your homeland! … Don’t let it be taken over by Islamists who want Sharia law!” Other members have a history of Nazi salutes, white supremacism and other forms of violent thuggery.

And then we come to the line-up at the top table. While many of the speakers came from mainstream Jewish institutions – the acting president of the BoD and the chief executives of MPJ – Nigel Farage was also invited to speak. He, of course, sits comfortably with the hatred of Stop the Hate and Gary Mond. By way of reminder, Nigel Farage is the man who warned that Muslims are coming into this country “to fight British values”. Oh, and 34 of his schoolmates have given testimony of his antisemitic and racist bullying, which continued into his 1990s banking career.

The danger that Farage poses to minorities in Britain (including Jews) is not just hypothetical. Reform party candidates elected in the last few days include a rape apologist; a man who called for Nigerian immigrants to be melted down and used as gravel for road resurfacing; and of course the obligatory Holocaust denier. And the party is committed to repealing the Equality Act – the law that protects minorities from discrimination and mistreatment. 

Although Farage was replaced as a speaker at the last minute by his deputy, Richard Tice, that was hardly an improvement. Tice’s reaction to the “melt down the Nigerians” outrage was to whine that Reform was being smeared. 

Leader of the Greens Zack Polanski was deliberately not invited to the rally because the BoD claimed that “he has not done enough” to deal with antisemitism in his party. But apparently Reform’s parade of extremists is the sign of a party which takes racism seriously. Their inclusion was not an innocent oversight. It was a careful selection that the BoD made with its eyes wide open.

It’s unsurprising, though, that Reform itself wants to take part: Farage thirsts for votes and believes that the Jewish community’s fears dovetail nicely with his anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant rhetoric. As the scholar Emma Rosenberg has noted, far-right demagogues increasingly use ostensibly pro-Israel and pro-Jewish rhetoric to provide legal and reputational cover for their hatred of Islam.

It’s also unsurprising that the ironically-named Stop the Hate et al want to take part. As a reactionary pro-Israel organisation that issue placards reading “anti-Zionism = terrorism”, the Jewish community’s fears fit in very conveniently with their anti-Palestinian agitation.

All these far-right entities are using Jews’ genuine anxiety as a springboard for their own nefarious ends. The undoubtedly frightening antisemitic attacks of recent weeks are being used by the rally’s sponsors and speakers, and Starmer’s government, as a pretext to demand legal restrictions on pro-Palestinian advocacy and protest, and the creation of a hostile environment for non- and anti-Zionists (including non- and anti-Zionist Jews).

For an entirely self-appointed body like the NJA, having its logo featured on publicity with equal prominence to that of AJEX and Jewish Women’s Aid is a massive coup.

And for Richard Tice, being included among the “allies” lauded by the chief executives of MPJ is likewise a massive coup.

A moral flop

The big question is: what on earth was the rest of the community thinking? Why was anyone outside the far right willing to take part in this utterly transparent scheme?

In fairness, the New Israel Fund wasn’t. Originally listed as a sponsor, it pulled out of the rally and withdrew its support, because taking part would make it impossible to look partner organisations – many of which are from Palestinian and Muslim communities – in the eye. That was an essential moral stand.

MPJ did not pull out. That is the opposite of a moral stand. It is a moral flop. And as I’ve hitched my wagon to MPJ’s star, this moral flop has left me feeling abandoned and betrayed. Many of my rabbinic and cantorial colleagues are similarly horrified to see their movement cosying up to the far right. 

A press release justifying MPJ’s decision to attend says that speakers were given “guidance” that they shouldn’t use “racist, inflammatory or discriminatory language” at the rally. Apparently this concession was only achieved after “extensive conversations” with the organisers.

It speaks volumes that the organisers needed to be convinced that invited speakers should be asked nicely to avoid inciting racial hatred. Anti-racism is surely the most basic of expectations. It isn’t an afterthought to be haggled over.

But the “don’t be racist on Sunday” guidance rather misses the point anyway. The concern was never that Farage, Stop the Hate and co would engage in racist speech at the event itself. The concern is that they are racist individuals who, when indulged by Anglo Jewry, bring us all into disrepute. And, emboldened by the legitimation of Anglo Jewry, will continue to wreak devastating havoc on the most marginalised and vulnerable in this country. 

Making them promise to behave well on the day and then letting them climb down from the platform to resume their incitement and perpetration of hatred, is not leadership and most certainly is not progressive.

This is the second time MPJ has co-sponsored a rally alongside Stop the Hate. It’s worth noting that the government’s definition of extremism includes: “Consistent association with individuals or representatives of groups or organisations that aim to negate or destroy the fundamental rights and freedoms of others, without providing critical challenge to their ideology or behaviour.”

The MPJ has not issued a word of “critical challenge” explicitly condemning its partner organisation. MPJ felt the need to be seen at a glitzy, attention-grabbing event, and it didn’t mind who it was seen there with.

Even if we end up on our own

For me as a rabbi, the overriding principle here is וְהָיָה מַחֲנֶיךָ קָדוֹשׁ – Your camps shall be holy (Deuteronomy 23:15). Our moral purity is at stake. Antisemitism is real and scary, but our fears cannot be allowed to conquer our values.

Being a progressive Jew means making choices with integrity. There have to be some red lines. We have to be able to articulate some principles, dissent from which would make one a bad person.

If we can’t do that – if we are entirely neutral on everything and judge no opinion to be worse than a mere difference of opinion – then how can we claim to be an ethical community? Progressive Judaism must mean something more than gutless desperation to fall in with the mainstream no matter how despicably the mainstream is behaving. Progressive Judaism means doing justly, even if we end up on our own.

An important, and highly visible, way of acting with integrity, and showcasing the professed values of MPJ, is to refuse to offer a kosher certificate to extremists. That applies even if those extremists claim to be friends of our people.

MPJ says that its attendance was in keeping with the Talmudic principle of maintaining relationships with people even if we disagree with them. But this isn’t some arcane “disagreement” on whether or not a grasshopper is kosher. It’s something fundamental and visceral. How can we enter “relationships” with people who want to destroy Britain’s minority communities? Doing so will horrify and actively endanger our fellow immigrant communities. Doing so will certainly mean that we no longer have any right to ask that they support us when we face times of trouble. And above all, doing so is just morally wrong.

MPJ’s chief executives, in their speech from the platform, said that the rally was “not simply a gathering about antisemitism” but also “a statement about the country we still believe in and the future we want our children to inherit.” Apparently that vision for the future includes Stop the Hate, the National Jewish Assembly and the Reform Party, and the vitriol these groups continue to peddle. Anglo Jewry’s fight against racism took a huge step backwards the moment its leaders chose to ally themselves to them.

We cannot sensibly say we oppose antisemitism when hailing as “partners” a party led by a man who spent his schooldays hissing that Hitler was right at Jewish pupils. And we cannot wholeheartedly condemn Jew-hatred when standing alongside founts of Muslim-hatred.

Your camps shall be holy. We didn’t manage it this time. We owe it to ourselves, and our consciences, to make sure that next time, we do not rally with racists.▼

Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber is the rabbi of Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue. All opinions are his own. On Thursday 21 May, Rabbi Gabriel will be teaching a text-based session on this topic, ‘Choosing our bedfellows’, at an online Tikkun Leyl Shavuot. His book The Pastor as Partisan: freedom of the pulpit in history and theory, on why rabbis should be able to express themselves freely, will be published by Wipf & Stock in the next few months.