A British-Jewish umbrella organization on Tuesday suspended an executive and began disciplinary action against 35 other members who used their organizational credentials in a public letter criticizing Israel.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews, which has over 300 member delegates, announced the suspension of Harriet Goldenberg, the vice chair of the group’s International Division, and the disciplinary actions in a statement following an extraordinary meeting of the Board’s executive committee.
The meeting followed the publication last week of an appeal in the Financial Times that accused Israel of rejecting diplomacy in its war against Hamas in Gaza, and called for an end to the fighting.
The letter was the first significant public criticism of the war from within the Board, which is the largest Jewish communal organization in the United Kingdom.
“Israel’s soul is being ripped out and we, members of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, fear for the future of the Israel we love and have such close ties to,” the 36 members wrote in their letter. It also accused Israel’s government of being “extremist,” pro-violence and “strangling the Palestinian economy.”
The Board cited procedure in its statement about the disciplinary action against the 36 members, and did not counter their claims about Israel.
Their letter “was not representative of the Board of Deputies’ policy on Israel,” the statement read. “The Board of Deputies is clear: only our democratically-elected Honorary Officers and authorised staff speak on behalf of the organisation,” it continued.
However, in an op-ed published last week in The Jewish News of London, Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg did counter the claims raised in the letter
In the piece, titled “Board of Deputies stands firmly with Israel... not THAT letter,” he wrote that it is “remarkably easy to get the media to listen to you in this country if you highlight your Jewish identity while vocally criticising Israel or its government.”
Rosenberg accused the letter’s co-authors of ignoring Hamas’s responsibility for the war and blaming it “squarely” on Israel, and writing a text that “feeds into an underlying and dangerous narrative about ‘good Jews’ and ‘bad Jews’.”
The authors, according to Rosenberg, represent about 10% of the Board’s membership.
