I World

Standing Up

British Jews hold two huge rallies in support of Israel.

Amiram Birkat
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

London

W

ith a pair of massive rallies for
Israel held simultaneously in
London's Trafalgar Square and
Manchester's Heaton Park on Sunday, June
29, British Jewry may be signaling that its
transformation is at hand.
Some 30,000 participants attended the
public shows of support for Israel, which
were inspired by New York's annual Salute
to Israel parade.
Several thousand people waving Israeli
and British flags marched from the Ritz
Hotel to Trafalgar Square followed by doz-
ens of carnival floats, cyclists, dancers and
bands. At Trafalgar Square, an Israeli cabi-
net minister, Britain's secretary of state
for education and Britain's chief rabbi
addressed the crowd. Israeli musicians
performed between the speeches.
"I'm sure that my father, who served
as an officer in the British army, couldn't
have imagined that some day tens of
thousands of Jews would be waving
Israeli flags here in Trafalgar Square said
Israel's minister for welfare and diaspora
affairs, Isaac Herzog, who addressed the
London rally. Herzog's father, the late
Israeli President Chaim Herzog, served as
an intelligence officer in the British army
during World War II.
Observers and critics alike said the
unprecedented show of pride and self-
confidence at the rallies is a sign that
British Jewry is shaking off its reputation
for being timid and low-key.
Organized by a coalition of community
groups under the direction of the Board
of Deputies of British Jews and the Jewish
Leadership Council, the rallies were aimed
at expressing solidarity with Israel on its
60th anniversary and the unity of British
Jewry.
Jeremy Newmark, the Leadership
Council's chief executive, said the idea for
the event was born when he and several
British Jewish organization executives
attended last year's Salute to Israel parade
in New York. Discussing the parade with
representatives of the American Jewish
Committee, Newmark recalled an AJC rep-
resentative saying a New York-style Israel
salute probably wouldn't play in Britain.
But Newmark said the New York experi-

A24

July 3 • 2008

Celebrants fill Trafalgar Square on June 29 to salute Israel.

ence changed his mind.
"Seeing this tremendous display of
communal unity and affirmation of the
relations between not just the Jewish com-
munity but actually America and Israel,
we thought,'Well, here is one thing that
might just play in the UK," he said.
Herzog was pleased that "Anglo Jews
decided to follow the American Jews'
example with a display of power and
unity"
An event like Sunday's Salute to Israel
could not have taken place as recently as a
decade ago, Newmark said. But a political
shift that has made British politics much
more tolerant of minorities, lobbies and
interest groups.
"If you want to influence political deci-
sions in Britain, you have to operate up
front as an interest group, and the com-
munity had to adjust to that:' Newmark
said.
Some Jews long have complained that
British Jews are too timid.
Three months ago, a renowned British-
born Israeli expert on anti-Semitism, Prof.
Robert Wistrich, told the Jerusalem Post
that Britain's Jewish leadership is taking
a "softly, softly approach" in tackling the
problem of anti-Semitism.
"There is a long tradition of doing
things behind closed doors," Wistrich said.
"It is difficult to break with tradition, but
it should be broken:'
Newmark believes the breakthrough
is already under way. The caricature of
Anglo-Jewry that Wistrich and others
have sought to portray is no longer the

case; it's history:' he saidAsk any minis-
ter in a government portfolio that relates
to the Jewish community in any way if
the Jewish community is shy about com-
ing forward or making noise, if they feel
they're not being treated the way they
want to. You'd get a pretty clear response'
Newmark points to several high-profile
media campaigns launched by the British
Jewish community in the past year, includ-
ing fighting an academic boycott of Israel
and campaigning against the Anglican
Church's "divestment intentions:' as fur-
ther evidence of the community's willing-
ness to speak up.
"We now have strong support for Israel
within all the mainstreams in the nation's
political parties as a consequence of the
work done by the Friends of Israel organi-
zations within each party," he said.
At the rally, Herzog lent support to this
argument, saying he felt "decisionmakers
in British politics as well as in the media
are much more attentive today to Israel's
case than several years ago:'
Researchers of British Jewry say the
Jewish community has never been health-
ier.
Keith Kahn-Harris, a sociologist based
at London's Goldsmiths College, says
research suggests that in recent years, even
during the height of the second intifada,
an overwhelming majority of British
Jews feel settled and comfortable in their
homeland.
To be sure, there are concerns about the
growing threat of anti-Semitism and the
virulent anti-Israel views coming from

some in the media and the intellectual
elite. But, Kahn-Harris said, "The threats
are manageable and the community devel-
oped effective mechanisms to counter
them:'
Yaakov Wise, a researcher at the
University of Manchester's Center for
Jewish Studies, said the number of British
Jews was growing for the first time since
the end of World War II.
A large part of this growth is due to .an
exceptionally high birth rate among the
Orthodox, though they were largely absent
from Sunday's parades.
Also underrepresented were Israelis
living in England. One communal leader
admitted he was "disappointed" by the
"limited success" of efforts to engage
Israelis in Britain.
On the fringes of the Trafalgar Square
rally, some pro-Palestinian Jews took
part in a vigil organized by the Palestine
Solidarity Campaign.
Brian Klug, a prominent left-wing activ-
ist who announced two months ago he
had no intention of celebrating Israel's
60th anniversary, said he found something
positive about the parades in the fact that
"Jews are able to express in public their
views about something that affects them,
which was not the case about 30 years ago
when I was growing up in London."
Still, he said, the Salute to Israel was
"unhealthy:"
Salute to Israel organizers, however,
didn't seem to care much about the voices
of dissent. "We're focused on having a
good day and a few fringe voices are not
going to upset anybody;' Newmark said.
At the London rally, huge screens pro-
jected greetings from Israeli President
Shimon Peres and London's new mayor,
Boris Johnson, followed by a slew of
American celebrities such as former
President Bill Clinton, Billy Crystal,
Michael and Kirk Douglas, Ashton Kutcher
and Ben Stiller.
The events cost some $700,000, and
nearly 600 volunteers were required to
secure the Trafalgar Square rally alone.
"We promise to do this again next time
Israel celebrates its 60th anniversary:'
Henry Grunwald, the president of the
Board of Deputies, quipped when asked if
the Salute to Israel would be repeated. "I'm
sure we will have such events again in the
future" he later added, "but probably not
on an annual basis like in New York."

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