British Labour Party Activist Questions Holocaust Remembrance Day
Image by YouTube
— A senior activist in Britain’s Labour Party who is close to controversial party leader Jeremy Corbyn questioned why Holocaust Remembrance Day is only about Jews.
Jackie Walker also questioned the need for security at Jewish institutions, suggesting that anti-Semitism is not behind any attacks, during a workshop organized by the Jewish Labour Movement at the annual party conference on how to confront anti-Semitism and engage Jewish voters.
Recordings of her comments were published Wednesday on the Huffington Post.
Walker, a vice chair of Momentum — an organization formed to help Corbyn and Labour win the next national election — was suspended from the party in May for making anti-Semitic remarks. She was later reinstated.
“I was a bit concerned … at your suggestions that the Jewish community is under such threat that they have to use security in all its buildings,” she said during the workshop, according to the Huffington Post.
Walker also told workshop participants that she still had not heard “a definition of anti-Semitism that I can work with.”
Jeremy Newmark, the chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, called for Walker to resign over the comments.
“To denigrate security provision at Jewish schools, make false claims about the universality of National Holocaust Memorial Day and to challenge recognized definitions of anti-Semitism is provocative, offensive and a stark example of the problem facing the Labour Party today,” Newmark said.
Gideon Falter, chairman of Britain’s Campaign Against Antisemitism, also called for Walker to be expelled from the party and Momentum, and “condemned in the strongest possible terms.”
“Until Labour matches its rhetoric with action, we remain of the view that the Labour Party is not safe for Jews,” he said.
Holocaust Memorial Day does also honor the victims of other genocides and the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust’s website includes information on atrocities in Rwanda and Cambodia, according to the UK Jewish News website.
The Labour Party is poised to take disciplinary action against Walker over the comments, the Jewish News reported, saying she has been told to “show contrition or resign.” The report did not cite any sources.
Corbyn has faced allegations that his pro-Palestinian politics and endorsement of radical anti-Semites has encouraged hate speech against Jews. He been accused of doing too little to curb rampant anti-Semitism among party members and lawmakers, some of whom have been suspended for making racist and anti-Semitic statements on social media and in other public forums.
This is a moment of great uncertainty. Here’s what you can do about it.
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news this Passover. All donations are being matched by the Forward Board - up to $100,000.
This is a moment of great uncertainty for the news media, for the Jewish people, and for our sacred democracy. It is a time of confusion and declining trust in public institutions. An era in which we need humans to report facts, conduct investigations that hold power to account, tell stories that matter and share honest discourse on all that divides us.
With no paywall or subscriptions, the Forward is entirely supported by readers like you. Every dollar you give this Passover is invested in the future of the Forward — and telling the American Jewish story fully and fairly.
The Forward doesn’t rely on funding from institutions like governments or your local Jewish federation. There are thousands of readers like you who give us $18 or $36 or $100 each month or year.
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
