Athletico Neasden and Beyond
by Brian Klug
I don’t know how many people here read the Jewish Chronicle. I grew up on the JC. We bought it every week without fail in my family, although for many years my main interest was in the back pages where you could find the results of games played in the Maccabi Southern Football League. Reading this week’s issue, I find myself characterised by one letter-writer as someone who has never demonstrated an interest in “the continued existence and health of the Jewish people in any meaningful way”. Obviously this person has no inkling of my many years as a dedicated defensive midfield player for Athletico Neasden ‘C’ team.
His view of me, and of everyone else associated with IJV, is relatively benign. Others go further, including a well-known commentator who, in her column in the JC this week, describes us as “the British arm of the pincer of Jewish destruction”.
Clearly, we have hit a nerve: hence the scale of vituperation and hostility. And equally, judging by the overwhelming support we have received, we have struck a chord.
The remarkable thing about this support is that it comes from across the Jewish spectrum. We stand accused by some of our critics of not being ‘real’ Jews on the grounds that we do not participate in mainstream Jewish life. There are only two things wrong with this accusation. First, it’s untrue: many IJV signatories come from what might loosely be called ‘the mainstream’. (One wrote to us to say that she agrees “wholeheartedly” with the aims of IJV, describing herself as editor of her synagogue’s newsletter.) Second, and in my view more profoundly, the accusation rests on a fallacy. There seems to be an assumption that if you live on the margins of the mainstream Jewish community, this makes you a marginal Jew. But it doesn’t; and it’s a chutzpah to suggest that it does.
One new signatory wrote as follows: “You have said openly what many of us have felt for a very long time but have lacked a vehicle for expressing our views”. Such people are at the heart of the IJV initiative – whether they live their lives within an organised Jewish community or not.
As for the Middle East, we have been dubbed “leaders of the Israel hate-fest”. But it is not hate for Israel that animates us. In some cases, it is even the opposite. I received an email yesterday from someone who wrote, “I joined IJV because I support and love Israel: I have children and grandchildren there and visit regularly; because I go to shul every week … because I believe in justice.” Justice is actually the common denominator; not hate and not love. As I wrote in my Guardian article, some of us “feel a strong attachment to Israel as Jews, others feel none”. But all of us feel a commitment to the principles set out in the IJV statement – and some of us precisely because of our Jewish identity: the historical experience of persecution and the prophetic tradition of social justice.
What we are seeking to do is to draw a different line in the sand. Instead of group loyalty, we believe the debate over the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be based on the principles of justice and human rights that the IJV statement affirms. This basis allows for a wide range of views about what constitutes a better future for Israelis and Palestinians: whether there should be two states, one state, and so on.
So, we are not promoting one particular political agenda concerning Israel. Rather, what we seek to promote is a different, healthier climate of political debate among Jews in Britain. As for those who deny that the present climate is unhealthy, I can only say that we must be living on different planets; and the planet I’m on is called Earth.
We hope that the launch of IJV will create a momentum. In other words, let others pick up the ball and run with it – as (I hasten to add) I never did in my days with Athletico Neasden C.
Brian Klug