UK Jewish community melts down over leaders’ criticism of Israel

I am a Jew because our ancestors were the first to see that the world is driven by a moral purpose, that reality is not a ceaseless war of the elements, to be worshipped as gods, nor history in a battle in which might is right and power is to be appeased. The Judaic tradition shaped the moral civilisation of the West, teaching for the first time that human life is sacred, that the individual may not be sacrificed for the mass, and that rich and poor, great and small, are all equal before God.

Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, Radical Then, Radical Now (London 2000).

Many of Jonathan Sacks’s admirers in Britain easily quote from his insightful teachings but remain silent when it comes to the war in Gaza – now approaching 600 days of hostilities. They telescope fidelity to the state of Israel with lack of comment about its government.

In a recent radio interview on Galei Israel, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich commented that “we need to say the truth: Bringing the hostages home is not the most important goal.” He placed the priority of destroying Hamas before enabling the release of the remaining hostages from the tunnels of Gaza. At least Smotrich was being transparently honest in lauding the aims of the war – an issue which Netanyahu’s rhetoric has studiously circumvented.

Jonathan Sacks, his predecessor Immanuel Jakobovits and his successor, Ephraim Mirvis, were far more perceptive than their flock in understanding how to handle the relationship with successive Israeli governments. Jakobovits was privately critical of Menahem Begin and his policies during the 1980s. Mirvis recently withdrew from an international conference on antisemitism, organised by the Israeli ministry of the Diaspora because European far Right organisations – not noted historically for their love of Jews – were invited. Sacks himself was associated with figures in the religious peace movement prior to his appointment as Chief Rabbi.   

The belief of these chief rabbis was that traditionalism and conservatism were not necessarily synonymous.

Adherents of central Orthodoxy in Britain today are less in tune with their rabbinical leadership – and this is particularly the case when it comes to understanding Israel. They often view Israel in less nuanced terms, of right and wrong, of black and white, of evincing emotion before any other consideration.

This is the perception of today’s conflict in Gaza where “washing one’s dirty linen in public” before a non-Jewish audience is traitorous – and is often associated with the views of the non-Orthodox.

This mindset fuelled a meltdown of communal common purpose recently when 36 members of the UK Board of Deputies signed a collective letter – as individual deputies – to the Financial Times. They decried Netanyahu’s restarting of the war in Gaza. Two members of the Executive who have signed this letter have been suspended and will be judged by the Board’s interpretable and amorphous Code of Conduct.

The 36 are regarded by one side as perfidious and deceitful and by the other side as “lamed vavniks” – the righteous 36 of the Talmud – and the conscience of the community. On social media, the signatories are referred to as “kapos”, the latest epithet of ignorance of those who cannot cope with what Jonathan Sacks called “The Dignity of Difference”. And remarkably, 40 well-known Israelis, prominent in public life, signed a letter in support of the 36 British Jews.

In 2025, it is clear that there are challenges to the traditional idea of uniformity and consensus. The advance of Jewish demographic analysis which started in the United States during the 1980s now demonstrates what the ordinary Jew in the street thinks – and is often at variance with the stance of Jewish communal organisations.

In the UK, for example, 75% of British Jews have consistently opposed the settlement drive on the West Bank – now over many decades. In Israel, some opinion polls show, 70% of Israelis support a deal with Hamas to release the hostages and end the military operation in Gaza, according to Amos Harel, writing in Foreign Affairs 7 April 2025.

If demography in Israel itself consistently indicates that a majority of its citizens indicate opposition to the reignition of conflict in Gaza – why shouldn’t British or Australian Jews reflect that view?  

Leadership has been further undermined by the spread of instantaneous news and opinion from Israel via the internet. This is accessible to both Jews in the UK and Australia who wish to be informed, as well as to Israel’s enemies in those countries who wish that the state had never come into existence in 1948.

Many on the Board of Deputies bemoan such developments and believe that dissent means a lack of control – and deep down, a recognition that the clock cannot be turned back. The reflexive remedy today is to act as judge and jury and to threaten expulsion from the tribe.

American Jewish organisations have reacted differently to the situation in Israel despite the wave of antisemitic and anti-Zionist reaction in the universities. Several months ago, major US Jewish organisations issued a statement which condemned the recolonisation of Gaza, as advocated by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich. The mainstream Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) were all signatories. 

The ADL view was unequivocal: “We are deeply troubled by statements from Israeli government ministers and activists advocating for the emigration or ‘population thinning’ of Palestinians in Gaza. These views reflect an inhumane approach, tarnish Israel’s reputation, and are fundamentally immoral.”

At the end of the day, an opinion on the Gaza war from a British or Australian Jew remains just that – an opinion. Power to change direction lies solely in the hands of the Israeli voter.

There is the argument that a Diaspora opinion will have absolutely no effect on an Israeli government led by Netanyahu. This may indeed be the case but what of the effect on the relationship of young Jews in the Diaspora to the state of Israel?

Many young people in the UK have argued that Netanyahu’s conduct clashes with their understanding of Jewish values. It does not gel with Jewish teachings at home and in the synagogue. Some refused to even attend this year’s Passover seder if the words “Next Year in Jerusalem!” were included. They are not self-hating Jews but disturbed, thinking ones.

Such despair and disillusion runs deep. Diaspora Jewish leadership has offered no safety net to these young people who easily see through advocacy. They do not accept “Israel, right or wrong”.

Diaspora leaders are undoubtedly hardworking and devoted servants of the Jewish endeavour but they remain oblivious to this drip-drip loss of today’s generation due to Netanyahu’s follies and its replacement by an indifference to Israel and an antagonism to Zionism. And all this comes from the brightest and the best. It does not bode well for the future.

PUBLIC TALK BY COLIN SHINDLER IN SYDNEY ON MAY 28

UK Professor Colin Shindler will be scholar in residence at Mandelbaum House at Sydney University during May. He will deliver a public lecture for the Sydney Jewish Museum on May 28 titled Dark Days in Our Time: Polarisation in Israel and the Jewish Diaspora.

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