The Board of Deputies of British Jews has been the democratically elected representative body of the UK Jewish community for 250 years; effectively the Board is the UK Jewish Parliament. Every Synagogue and Jewish communal organisation elects representatives every three years to serve as Deputies. At the same time the Deputies elect a President, three Vice Presidents, Treasurer and members to four Divisions dealing with international issues, domestic issues, internal community issues and the administration of the Board itself. These Divisions help to formulate the policy of the Board.
Broadly speaking, the Board advocates for the peace and security of the State of Israel as representatives of our community to government, foreign embassies and other faith organisations. The Board has a role in expressing the Jewish community’s views on what can be one of the most divisive of issues. Attitudes towards Israel from Diaspora communities have always been complicated and with the peace process in abeyance, there has never been such a diverse range of views as to the direction in which the State should be heading. The Board’s role is to make sense of this range of views and represent as nuanced a position as possible. An impossible task I hear you cry! But that doesn’t stop us trying and we view it as a positive challenge both to present the range of opinions within our own community but also to highlight the democratic and pluralistic nature of Israeli society.
So what Israel based work do we do?
The Board implements a three-pronged Israel strategy– Public Education; Supporting Peace initiatives; and Advocacy.
Our Public Education work generally involves building and maintaining contacts with Israelis from all shades of the Israeli political spectrum and society to bring their narratives and realities to our community. This ranges, for example, from hosting Israeli government officials both from the UK embassy and from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, (most recently Ismail Khaladi, the MFA’s senior advisor on Arab citizens of Israel) to organizing meetings at the Board with such diverse civil society groups as Neve Shalom (Peace village) and IsraAID, an umbrella organization for all international Israeli humanitarian missions, such as those in Haiti, the Sudan and even Pakistan.
As well as supporting a negotiated peace for all people of the region through organizations such as One Voice, the Board promotes initiatives which are designed to inculcate the right conditions for peace. For example, the Board is a founding member of the UK Taskforce on Arab Citizens of Israel. The Taskforce promotes the prosperity and equality of Palestinian Israelis, recognising that the founding principles of the State of Israel demand such actions. Just last month, Elizabeth Harris-Sawczenko, the Board’s Director of Public Affairs, spent a week in Nazareth and the Galilee as part as of the Taskforce’s first ever Israel trip, a trip which included Lucien Hudson, Chairman of Liberal Judaism.
Our advocacy work falls into two categories – responding to concerns from the Jewish community and advancing a proactive policy.
The Board is often the first stop for members of the community when they have concerns about Israel’s treatment in the press, on TV or in exhibitions. Recent examples of this include misleading adverts in newspapers, gratuitous demonization of Israel in non-Israel related articles or imbalanced exhibitions, such as Rod Cox’s ‘Loss of Innocence’. The Board responds in a firm, nuanced and constructive way – we’re not afraid to make a noise if necessary but we also try and resolve issues in a way that wins us friends and offers a positive vision of Israeli democracy rather than a divisive negative one.
The Board also conducts a proactive Israel strategy. We support and initiate campaigns and projects to present a different paradigm to the one peddled by those who attempt to demonize and single-out Israel for criticism. This has included BUYcotts, to counter the negative boycott campaigns against the Jewish State, and the community has had no trouble in shopping to support Israel!
The Board is currently taking part in a cross-communal Gilad Shalit awareness campaign. As part of this, the Board has asked the Jewish community and the general public to wear a yellow ribbon, or add a digital ribbon to their Facebook and Twitter profiles, to show solidarity with the Shalit family. The campaign very much focuses on the human rights aspect of his captivity rather than the general political situation in the Middle East.
In the last few months the Board has been doing much to build relations with key political figures in the European Union, including a delegation to Brussels last November when we met MEPs from the three major British parties. At these meetings tougher sanctions, and implementation of sanctions, against Iran’s nuclear programme featured high on the agenda, as did a long awaited upgrade to Israel-EU bilateral trade relations.
It is not the Board role to act as an extension of the Israeli embassy or to support one or another Israeli government policy, but whilst the State of Israel remains a key part of the lives of British Jews, it will remain a key aspect of the work of the Board of Deputies.
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