Has The Board Of Deputies Just Destroyed Itself Over Israel?

Right, so it seems I might have been a bit prescient on a recent video where I criticised the BBC for its part in the cover up of a visit by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar, a meeting that took place here in the UK, where the BBC made it seem, until they were caught out, that such a visit took place in Israel, a photo op between Sa’ar and Board of Deputies of British Jews President Phil Rosenberg being part of the leak that unravelled to scandalous embarrassment for the BBC I’m sure, but I also made mention in that video about a letter signed by 36 of the Board’s 300 odd Deputies, only around 10% of their number, which mildly criticised Israel for its genocidal actions and wanting to make sure they as purported representatives of British Jewry were not seen to be making themselves complicit in that and I postulated as to whether this might be the beginning of a split. Well it seems the head honchos on the Board are intent on driving a bulldozer through that split, because not only have they now suspended their vice-chair of international relations for signing that letter, whilst instigating a disciplinary process that will apparently take four weeks – four weeks for daring to sign a letter – but the other 35 signatories may also now face disciplinary proceedings too. Board of British Jews apparently, but with a code of conduct that demands absolute loyalty to Israel or face punishment. If the Board wanted to make itself irrelevant, it couldn’t be doing a better job of it if they tried.
Right, so in a moment that may well come to mark the decline of its relevance and moral authority, if it hadn’t binned those already given their antics over the last several years, from Jeremy Corbyn to Israel’s actions in the here and now, the Board of Deputies of British Jews, the Bod, has taken a split amongst its number and been hammering a wedge into it like mad.
Following the publication of a letter in the Financial Times, mildly rebuking Israel for its actions in Gaza, the BoD has suspended its International Division Vice-Chair Harriet Goldenberg and placed the remaining 35 signatories on notice of disciplinary action, a draconian move that has made what should have been a moment of reflection into an expose of not only the Board's absolute intolerance for internal dissent but also its increasingly untenable position as a body claiming to represent British Jews while simultaneously enforcing rigid, unquestioning loyalty to the State of Israel.
The letter, which was signed by 36 deputies, was not particularly incendiary, it was not a radical indictment, it was anything but a full-throated denunciation of Israeli atrocity. It was a cautious, restrained call for some reflection and accountability, an effort to separate the Board from being tarred with the genocidal brush that Israel is, to not be seen as complicit in those acts of depravity. The letter acknowledged the horrors unfolding in Gaza and urged that British Jews not remain silent or complicit in what many international observers and human rights organisations—including the likes of Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—have described as acts constituting a genocide. Who wants to be labelled as a genocide supporter? Not these 36 clearly, who lets face it, have taken 18 months as it is to reach this conclusion, a point most of us have reached long before now.
Yet, this call for some consideration was met with a response that is blatantly authoritarian. The Vice-Chair of International Relations, Harriet Goldenberg has been suspended for signing the letter. The others who signed have been warned that they potentially face the same yet.
A Statement on behalf of the Board of Deputies in response to this letter reads:
‘Following the publication of the letter by 36 Deputies in the Financial Times last week that was not representative of the Board of Deputies’ policy on Israel, the Board of Deputies today convened an extraordinary meeting of the Executive Committee to discuss the ramifications and consequences of this act.
The Board of Deputies can now confirm:
Following multiple complaints by Deputies and the public, all 36 signatories of the letter to the Financial Times are now subject to a complaints procedure in accordance with Appendix C to the Board of Deputies’ Constitution.
A further Deputy is subject to the complaints procedure for an alleged GDPR breach.
All Deputies and under-35 Observers subject to complaints procedures have been informed of the complaints made against them and the process to be adopted. The complaints procedure is likely to take at least four weeks.
All members of the Executive eligible to vote, unanimously approved a motion temporarily suspending the Vice Chair of the International Division from that role and the Executive while they remain subject to the complaints procedure, having signed the Financial Times letter and given further media interviews on it.
Board of Deputies President Phil Rosenberg said: we take alleged breaches of the Code of Conduct very seriously. I am grateful to the Constitution Committee for the speed with which they have reviewed the initial complaints, and it is right that they are now given the time and space to review the cases with due process and impartiality. The Board of Deputies is clear: only our democratically-elected Honorary Officers and authorised staff speak on behalf of the organisation.’
The leadership's rationale for this course of action? That these individuals had spoken "on behalf of the Board" without authorisation. Well how dare they! Well actually they had done no such thing. They signed this letter in their capacity as individuals, as deputies of the board but not as representatives of the Board, or of institutional policy, so where is the breach of code of conduct? Their crime was not usurping the Board’s voice, but daring to use their own. Punishable evidently.
This distinction matters. Because the BoD claims to represent British Jews, in theory it should be having to grapple with a growing diversity of opinion within that broad community, especially regarding Israel. Instead, they demand absolute loyalty to Israel, irrespective of its actions—including an 18-month-long military campaign in Gaza that has left tens of thousands dead and displaced—, irrespective of alternate opinion as mildly put as this letter did, and instead what the Board is now seeking to do is to silence and marginalise the very people it purports to represent, even down to their own members. If the Board of Deputies of British Jews is smearing its own members as Jew haters for criticising Israel, then what chance do the rest of us have, be we Jewish or not?
In smearing their own members as effectively disloyal, or even antisemitic possibly, for expressing concern over state-led atrocities against an illegally occupied population, the Board has lost the plot. More so than they had previously, for as much as they purport to represent all British Jews, they very much do not and with views like this, that should come as less and less of a surprise, it blatantly cannot serve as a legitimate voice for Jewish communities that are increasingly divided and conscience-driven, which is seemingly something the Board Executive isn’t troubled by.
This is a self inflicted, existential crisis for the Board now. It arises from a long-standing refusal to allow criticism of Israel’s actions, no matter how egregious. Rather than seizing the opportunity to evolve, to open space for a meaningful dialogue on what are absolutely war crimes and crimes against humanity, and to heed the alarm bells rung by 36 of their own, the BoD has chosen instead to tighten the noose and double down.
As such, the Board has rendered itself captive to a singular, blinkered narrative in which Israel is always right, and critics, even Jewish ones, even amongst their own number in their own organisation are dangerous or disloyal, but at the same time the Board renders itself impotent and irrelevant increasingly, especially as Israel’s far-right government, under figures like Benjamin Netanyahu or Gideon Sa’ar, continue to wage a war that has shocked the world.
That Phil Rosenberg, the President of the BoD, met recently with Gideon Sa’ar here in the UK without challenge or scrutiny, amid that story that the BBC was later found to have quietly edited coverage of Sa’ar’s visit to pretend he was in Israel and not in London, underscores the dangerous collusion between lobbying groups, media, and politics. The Board has not only failed to challenge power but appears to be complicit in its concealment.
Adding to that thinking all the more, the BoD’s pressure on the BBC to control its Gaza coverage, as reported on last month, by independent media at least, by Skwawkbox notably for one, just reinforces this.
Their calls to the BBC according to Skwawkbox demanded they:
‘Commit to a review of its coverage, which is to be ‘independent’ but must, of course, satisfy the BoD.
A ‘requirement’ for the BBC never to mention anything to do with Gaza information provided from within Gaza – for example the huge numbers of deaths inflicted by Israel’s targeted bombing of children, families, hospitals, schools, journalists, medics, paramedics, emergency workers, food queues and aid workers – without qualifying those numbers by ‘informing’ viewers that the information is from a ‘proscribed terrorist group’.
Demanding that the BBC translate the Palestinian word for Israeli as ‘Jew/Jews’ – Palestinians use the word ‘Yahud’ because they usually do not recognise the legitimacy of the Israeli occupation by naming it
Sacking BBC staff for a single instance of what amounts to offending the Israel lobby – a number of presenters have already lost their jobs under similar circumstances.
Promising to jump to attention if the BoD or other lobby groups complain – or ‘rapidly addressing editorial breaches’, in the BoD’s Orwellian language.
Addressing’ the apparently unevidenced ‘serious deterioration in the health and wellbeing of Jewish [BBC] staff’ and their claimed ‘pervasive sense of hostility and isolation’ in a broadcaster where whistleblowers have accused their employer of quashing coverage of Israeli atrocities and living in terror of an angry call from the Israeli embassy – again, the supporters of Israel are the victims for supposed hurt feelings, not the hundreds of thousands being slaughtered, maimed and starved by the occupation in its efforts to purge them from Gaza.’
That a religious organisation would seek to dictate editorial lines and the conduct of its staff to the national broadcaster is insane, it’d be laughable if we didn’t see clear evidence of lobbying by Pro Israel entities in our media, not least this cover for Gideon Sa’ar the BBC put on. Which shoul be raising serious concerns for all of us about freedom of the press and the separation of religious influence from public accountability.
The longer this crisis continues, the more the BoD resembles not a representative body of British Jewry but a pro-Israel lobbying group masquerading as a communal institution. The message to British Jews is clear from them: dissent will not be tolerated. Even if that dissent arises from a place of deep Jewish values—of justice, of compassion, of never again.
The prolonged disciplinary proceedings against Goldenberg—set to drag on for four weeks—exemplify this punitive overreach. It is a chilling signal to others within the organisation: stay silent, or face the consequences. But silence, especially in the face of genocide, is not a virtue. It is an absolute moral failure.
If the BoD cannot allow its members to speak their conscience—even when that conscience compels them to speak out against genocide—then it is not a representative body. It is a gatekeeper of pro Israel ideology and nothing more.
Of course it is not just the Board trying to crack down on pro Palestinian voices, Keir Starmer is as well as the authoritarian crackdown on pro Palestine journalists and activists has now turned to the detention of academics and even being arrested for wearing a jumper with a picture of Palestine on the front. I wish I was joking, but I’m not. Check out the details of that story in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch. Please do also hit like, share and subscribe if you haven’t already done so, so as to ensure you don’t miss out on all new content published daily as well as supporting the channel at the same time, which is very much appreciated, holding power to account for ordinary working class people and I will hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks.