JEWISH Voice for Labour (JVL) members joined the party to fight for a just society where people could achieve their full potential and contribute their talents and skills.  

No-one was prepared for a Corbyn-led party – not Jeremy Corbyn and not the ruling class which launched a relentless attack, escalating  after the 2017 election demonstrated wide  support for the ideas in the manifesto. But, even though they would not/could not take him on politically, they recovered quickly. Having failed to make the labels “terrorist supporter,” “Czech spy” and “mad Marxist” stick, they found something that did: turning Corbyn’s support for justice and autonomy for Palestine into allegations of widespread anti-semitism.  

JVL was necessary to support the policies being developed and to defend the left against the witch hunt, already under way. Although we did not join the party for this fight, this was the struggle to which we had to respond.

Corbyn asked Shami Chakrabarti to investigate and she did find some evidence of anti-semitism, but she found more of other racism and Islamophobia and, astonishingly for a party founded by and largely made up of trade unionists, no clear disciplinary and grievance process members. She outlined a framework for such a process based on natural justice, due process and proportionality. Published in June 2016, it was rubbished by the Establishment as a whitewash. 

The Jewish Labour Movement initially welcomed the report as “… a sensible and firm platform which gives the party an opportunity to get off the back foot and on to the front foot in setting a new standard for tackling racism and anti-semitism.” But six days later, the JLM’s chair said many members were left “disappointed and underwhelmed.”  

The then general secretary, openly hostile to the left, felt free to literally shelve the report (even removing it from the party’s website) and Chakrabarti was not even able to attend NEC meetings.  

The witch hunt has left many people hurt, bewildered and adrift; for many their party membership was a central part of their lives and their friendship networks. When letters insist on maintaining confidentiality and suggest going to the Samaritans, your GP or the Citizens Advice Bureau if you feel upset by the accusations, this shows a shameful lack of care. 

Meanwhile those on the right who broke rules or were insulting, even racist, were not disciplined.  

And a rather surprising number of Jewish people were being accused of anti-semitism and “making it harder for the party to campaign against racism” – an accusation that, frankly, beggars belief considering not only the content of the leaked report but the specific experiences of people from Black, Asian, Muslim and Gipsy, Roma and Traveller communities, and left-wing Jews.  

Their complaints were not taken seriously – and nor were those made by disabled people, women and members of the LGBT community. Complaints from left-wing Jews of our experience of anti-semitism, of being called “sham” Jews, anti-semitism deniers, self-haters and even kapos, were completely ignored.

The fact is that the left has been outgunned and outclassed. Despite our knowledge of the ruthlessness of the ruling class, many erroneously thought that appeasement was the way. But, of course, that never works, and far too many seemed mainly fearful of facing similar accusations themselves. 

We need to remind ourselves that solidarity is not a slogan or a song but requires deep and meaningful action – action that may involve some risk. Right now that risk is suspension or expulsion from the Labour Party – not police violence, imprisonment or torture, which people fighting for justice in other parts of the world are facing.  

JVL has now asked the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) to investigate Labour Party anti-semitism towards left-wing Jews, because our complaints are ignored and because we are at least four times as likely as non-Jewish Labour Party members to be accused of anti-semitism. 

JVL committee members are more than 200 times as likely, with 65 per cent of us subject to at least one, and up to three, allegations. 

Not only is this painful to us as Jews, whose understanding of the reality of anti-semitism is burned deep into our DNA. 

It also forms part of the anti-semitic narrative that there is only one acceptable sort of Jew with one permissible point of view on Israel/Palestine and on anti-semitism (in the Labour Party).

Just three weeks later, we wrote again: in that short period, several more of us received notices of investigation or of fast-tracking an already open investigation, and in several cases, including mine, the truly Orwellian and indeed McCarthyite “notice of possible auto-exclusion” for the heinous crime of not being clairvoyant, not knowing in advance not to associate with a group that would be proscribed in July 2021. 

To avoid turning the “possible” into an “actual auto-exclusion,” we need to do the impossible – prove a negative – that we are NOT supporters.

We know that anti-semitism is real, even in the Labour Party, directed at Jews regardless of their politics – but it has been dramatically exaggerated. 

JVL believes that the exceptionalising of anti-semitism has betrayed many black, Asian and Muslim members. 

The Labour left must rethink, regroup and reach out. The launch of Labour Left for Socialism, which we support, is part of that fightback. We are still here and there is a wider movement to join with and to help consolidate. 

JVL’s conference fringe meeting “Labour In Crisis – tackling racism in the Party” will address these issues with speakers from JVL and from Labour Black Socialists. It takes place on Sunday September 26 at 5.30 at the Mercure Hotel. 

Leah Levane is co-chair, Jewish Voice for Labour.