FR
EE
PUTTING THE PAST INTO PASSOVER Familiar faces reflect on the seders of their childhood in our nostalgic 24-page Pesach supplement See inside
BRITAIN’S BIGGEST JEWISH NEWSPAPER 30 March 2017
•
3 Nissan 5777
•
www.jewishnews.co.uk
•
@JewishNewsUK
OUR EXPERIENCED TEAM CAN HELP YOU WITH: COMPANY COMMERCIAL & EMPLOYMENT FAMILY LITIGATION PROPERTY PRIVATE CLIENT & ELDER LAW T: +44 (0)20 8349 0321 www.ogrstockdenton.com
After Brexit, it’s time for…
KENXIT VOICE OF THE JEWISH NEWS Over the next two days, during the course of his Labour Party hearing following his suspension for bringing Jeremy Corbyn’s party into disrepute, Ken Livingstone will paint himself as a victim – a political veteran whose only offence has been standing up for the rights of Palestinians. An innocent man caught up in a valiant battle against an unholy alliance of Blairites and the mainstream media. Don’t swallow a word of it. It seems the latter part of Livingstone’s political career has been characterised almost as much for serially offending the Jewish community as for any other achievement: from his concentration camp guard comment to a reporter to his remark ahead of the 2012 mayoral election that Jews were unlikely to support Labour in large numbers because of their wealth.
book your free tickets now at yomhashoah.org.uk/nationalevent
When it comes to offending the Jewish community, the current Ken is as guilty as Kens of the past. And that’s the point. This latest case has solidified his place as the poster boy for provoking communal offence. But that, you may rightly point out, is not the issue at today’s crunch hearing of the National Constitutional Committee. The charge on which the NCC must rule is that he “engaged in conduct that in the opinion of the NEC was prejudicial and/ or grossly detrimental to the Labour Party”. No more and no less. On that, this is surely an open-and-shut case. The fact of the matter is that – at a time when he was a member of the party’s influential governing body last summer – Livingstone went out of his way to defend MP Naz Shah, who by that time had already apologised for sharing a social media post
during the Gaza conflict describing the “solution” as transporting Israel to the US. While she accepted the post contained anti-Semitic sentiment, he has spent the past 11 months insisting otherwise. He perpetuated the scandal by touring media studios to protest his innocence, in the process claiming that Hitler at one point “supported Zionism before going mad”. Despite being fully aware of the offence he had caused, the media rounds started again. He was given no less than 16 opportunities to apologise during an LBC interview. I n st e a d he repeatedly said he wished he hadn’t said it before doubling down on the claim. Continued on page 22
over 2,000 ticketsalreadybooked