(Jewish Group) The Jewish Women Leading the Fight Against Anti-Semitism in Britain

[Behind the Aegis]

(THIS IS THE JEWISH GROUP! RESPECT!!)

On 12 September 2015, Jeremy Corbyn, a hard-left politician with little public profile and no tangible achievements in a parliamentary career stretching back almost a third of a century, was elected leader of the Labour Party and set about transforming British politics, perhaps forever. Corbyn’s election stunned Britain. In hindsight, it turned out to be the beginning of a larger global anti-liberal backlash that would see Corbyn joined by Donald Trump and other fringe politicians who would rise to power on the strength of their disdain for perceived elitist norms.

A lot has happened since Corbyn arrived: The Tories have changed prime ministers twice, the Corbyn-led Labour Party lost a national election to Theresa May’s Tories; Britain voted to leave the European Union 52%-48%. Meanwhile, the Labour Party, once the natural home of British Jews, has seemingly gone to war with them.

On Thursday, Britain will again go to the polls. According to a recent survey conducted by the Jewish Chronicle only 7% of British Jews are considering voting Labour– an astonishing collapse of support for what was once British Jewry’s party of choice.

If Corbyn wins, 47% say they might leave Britain. On Friday, Dec. 6, 2019, YouGov, Britain’s most famous polling agency, gave Boris Johnson’s Tories a 43% to 33% lead over Corbyn’s Labour. Yet polls put the previous Prime Minister Teresa May far ahead of Corbyn in the 2017 election, only for him to outperform expectations. If there is a no clear winner this time, Labour can enter a coalition with the Liberal Democrats or the Scottish National Party. The Tories remain alone.

Labour anti-Semitism has cleaved Britain’s political and intellectual classes; it has sundered friendships, and further divided the country’s elite. But it has done something else, too. It has forced British Jews to reconsider what it means to be British by making them confront an undeniably resurgent anti-Semitism. The confrontation with Labour anti-Semitism has in turn helped to elevate a new group of unofficial Jewish leaders, a group of accomplished women—all secular, and all for whom their Judaism was once only secondary to their lives.

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