TheJewishParliament

It is said that when there are two Jewish people you will have three opinions. Imagine the British Jewish Parliament, which is known as the Board of Deputies of British Jews when there are several hundred Deputies; as a consequence there are many hundreds of opinions.

Boris Johnson, the recently elected Mayor of London addressed the Deputies at his first official visit with the British Jewish community. He said that he would not be making doing two things, pronouncements on international events nor would he be inviting people like Al Qatari to London. These both seem like very good ideas after several major mistakes in this area from his predecessor as Mayor, Ken Livingstone.

Voting in the Jewish community’s Board of Deputies validates its claim to democracy in action simply not seemingly found within the Muslim community, nor from the recent happenings at the Church of England conclaves at Jerusalem and now in England.

There is no representative body that can claim to speak for an entire community, especially one that contains diverse opinions and agendas like the Jewish community. But it does appear to have a legitimate claim to speak for the vast majority of the Jewish people of Britain.

As Henry Grunwald QC, the President of the Board of Deputies stated so accurately, “We are proud to be British proud to be Jewish and proud to support Israel, especially during its 60th birthday celebrations”.

Judaism is a role model for all the other minority faith communities and many, especially the Muslim community, perversely, some might say, consider the Board of Deputies of British Jews the template for how they wish their own representative organizations should operate.

The Durban conference on anti racism which last year was hijacked and became an anti Israel and anti Semitic festival is about to recur. Because of what transpired last year, Canada has refused to attend and America and Israel will lead the Western countries to do the same thing if there is a similar occurrence.

July 14, 2008, The Washington Times, Ed Royce

In this Op-Ed, Ed Royce of the Washington Times surveyed the anti-Semitic propaganda activities of Durban I, resulting in the United States’ withdrawal from the conference. He anticipates a similar outcome, and because of this the United States withheld its contribution to the UN, which is intended to fund the 2009 Durban Review Conference. Royce believes that Durban II could well be even more extreme than Durban I, with the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) setting its agenda, which includes the promotion of restrictions on freedom of expression, under the claim of Islamophobia. “Like the first Durban conference, some of the worst human-rights violators will serve on Durban II’s panel [Libya, chair, Iran, Pakistan and Egypt]. The hugely disappointing and worrying U.N. Commission on Human Rights - the same commission that only passed light condemnation of the regimes in Burma and Sudan, intentionally selected these member countries. Its passion, its all consuming pathological hatred is democratic Israel, which has been condemned 15 times over the past two years.” Royce concludes that the best way for the United States to handle this situation is by refusing to participate in the Durban Review Conference.

Isn’t it a terrible irony that this should be the case when the idea of the conference is supposedly the exact opposite of what they are now doing?

In the UK people of every type are confused by the different events centered on the Holocaust. There is Holocaust Memorial Day, Yom Hashoa, The Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and The Holocaust Educational Trust. This is an all year round program, holocaust visits by British school kids, which receives about £1.5 million in government funding. It promotes visits to such places as Auschwitz for the young, who come back, write essays, then tell their fellow non-Jewish schoolmates what they saw, felt and experienced.

Why this is relevant, and why it is pertinent?

In a world where Iran is permitted to say, “wipe Israel from the face of the earth;” and “The Holocaust never happened,” it’s vital that our British youth understands where such anti-Semitic behavior can lead, and what it means in a very real outcome.

There are lesson to be learned and remembered and the more means we have to do so the better. The numbers who participate in Holocaust Memorial Day or Yom Hashoa is dwindling because of it being populated almost solely survivors and descendants of victims and as one of these people emotionally stated, “you should come, you have a duty to come, and you should bring your children with you or this will become just an empty day with no one to be there.”

Another Deputy at the Board suggested that Commemoration and education and prayer should be differentiated. All of these serving different purposes for a diverse audience.

Meanwhile the Holocaust section of the Imperial War Museum is seen by many thousands of kids and others who don’t have a Jewish agenda and nevertheless gives a true perspective of what happened.

It isn’t just an old boring trotting out of Jewish memory of suffering to act as an apologia for whatever we as Jews might want to claim or Jew haters seemingly think we want to excuse Israel for. If we don’t remind our children and they don’t commemorate the holocaust then who will in a few years?

The dead cry out to you all to spend at least two hours once a year to attend the Yom Hashoa event. In an emotional and very moving speech Ben Helfgot spoke out on the behalf of the dead and to prevent it happening again, anywhere to anyone.

There is probably more publicity and awareness in the UK about the Holocaust now than there was when I was growing up in post war Britain. Moral relativism is sneaking in and being used against the Jewish people. The victims didn’t get the sympathy at the time for their suffering probably because most people didn’t believe or know what had happened.

Proof of this still sometimes being the case can be found when you hear seemingly well educated young people tell you that the total Jewish dead via the Nazis was 50,000 and not 6 million. The need for education can never end.

Sometimes the “Jewish Parliament” can seem an empty talking shop, but when put into the perspective of its use for the entire Jewish community it quickly becomes apparent that it is more than useful to its members. When you realize the respect the Board has with the politicians of the UK and the rest of the world’s Jewish organizations it becomes obvious that the Board of Deputies of British Jews still has an important future.