Diane Abbott denies that Travellers, Irish and Jewish people ever, at any point in their lives and at any point in history, experience racism (“Racism is black and white”, Letters). She justifies this by observing that “Jewish people… were not required to sit at the back of the bus”. Maybe not, but Jewish people were rounded up on to trains and transported to death camps – to say nothing of the pubs and hotels whose signs used to read: “No Jews, no Blacks, no Irish.”
I would be delighted to invite Ms Abbott to my synagogue, where she can meet the security volunteers who keep us safe from antisemitic attacks, and watch us reading from a Torah scroll saved from destruction during the Holocaust. Perhaps, then, she will understand how inappropriate it is for a public figure to make extraordinary and inflammatory remarks such as denying the existence of anti-Jewish racism.
Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber
Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue
