ENCOURAGING HATERS SORRY FOR MY INVITE OFFENCE

I’m writing to you following recent articles in Jewish News about a Holocaust Memorial Day event I hosted at the Senedd.

I wish to start out by reiterating my apology (for not mentioning Jewish people in relation to the Holocaust on the invitation) and that I wished to cause no offence with the wording of the invitation.

The event to mark Holocaust Memorial Day with the gypsy and Traveller community is one that I have hosted for more than five years, first starting when I was the chair of the Gypsy and Traveller Cross Party Group at the Senedd.

The event this year is being run in conjunction with the organisation There and Back Again, a community interest company which seeks to increase Gypsy and Traveller awareness in Wales.

Each year the aim of the event is to bring MSs together to remember everyone who tragically lost their lives during the atrocities of the Holocaust.

The event has always been extremely inclusive – we remember all.

On reflection, the invitation was not explicit that this is an event in which we remember all six million Jews, as well as everyone else who was killed in the Holocaust. It will be re-issued.

This year, the event is being held the day before a larger event at the Senedd to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day, which I will also be attending. At this event, we will have the privilege of hearing from a Holocaust survivor.

I would never intentionally wish to exclude or downplay the appalling atrocities inflicted on Jews during the Holocaust and I hope your readers will now understand the context and history of this memorial event.

Julie Morgan, member of the Senedd for Cardiff Northtion

Reading last week’s report on Jewish Arsenal fans being abused for asking fellow supporters to stop using the word “Yid” sickened me.

I am a long-standing Jewish Arsenal season ticket holder. I have never encountered racist antisemitic chanting at the ground. The underlying issue is the double standard. Nothing is done to dissuade the use of the Y-word by Tottenham Hotspur. There are banners around Spurs’ stadium proclaiming the Y-army, regular chants using the Y-word.

In any other venue such racist imagery and chanting would be met with a ejection and a ban. Why not Spurs? I am unsure of why the continued association of Spurs with Jews persists, of my football supporting friends there is a range of teams supported – Borehamwood; Leyton Orient; Dagenham & Redbridge; West Ham; Chelsea; Man City; Spurs and Arsenal.

Allegiances are evenly spread. Interesting most are Arsenal supporters. Malcolm Rabin, By email

Gravest Threat Existed Long Before Election

Letter writer Rosalind Preston claims “Israel now faces the gravest threat to the future of its democratic way of life and peaceful coexistence of its citizens”.

I must have missed her protestations and those of other correspondents about the inclusion in the recently defeated previous coalition of Ra’am, the political wing of the southern branch of the Islamic Movement, not known for its tolerance of women’s rights, gays or support for Zionism.

Ms Preston has an idealised vision of Israel’s “peaceful coexistence” which she thinks the new government threatens. Is she oblivious to the escalation of Arab terror against Jews in Israel, unprovoked pogroms in mixed cities by Arabs during the 2021 Gaza operations and the violence and intimidation of Jewish citizens in the Negev by parts of the Bedouin community, to name just a few examples of inter-community hostility? Colin Rossiter, WC2A

Your recent editorial stated you “don’t like criticising Israel for good reason”. Don’t make me laugh.

Week after week your columnists and guest writers do just that. Alex Brummer, Jenni Frazer, Vivian Wineman and members of Yachad to name but a few. And always their so-called criticisms aren’t based on facts or truth but by perceived wrongs and injustices of which we are familiar.

You rightly cover the scourge of antisemitism, but doesn’t it occur to you that your negative coverage of Israel gives antisemites the material they need to perpetuate their hatred?

Warren S Grossman, Leytonstone