Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Trustee of Britain’s largest Muslim charity resigns over anti-Semitic posts

(JTA) — A trustee for Britain’s largest Muslim charity resigned after Facebook posts came to light in which he called Jews the “grandchildren of monkeys and pigs.”

The Times of London first reported the posts by Heshmat Khalifa, who sat on the Board of Trustees of Islamic Relief Worldwide. The organization announced in a statement later on Friday that Khalifa had resigned.

“These (offensive views) have no place in our organization. We are appalled by the hateful comments he made and unreservedly condemn all forms of discrimination, including anti-Semitism,” the statement also said. “We are fully committed to reviewing our processes for screening trustees and senior executives’ social media posts to ensure that this will not happen again.”

Khalifa, who launched the organization’s Australia office, made the posts in 2014 and 2015. They which reportedly also said called Palestinian terror group Hamas “the purest resistance movement in modern history,” and said Egypt’s president was a “Zionist pimp.”

“Khalifa has acknowledged that these posts were unacceptable and has apologized for falling short of the strict standards expected by our code of conduct,” the charity organization said in its statement.

The organization, which provides humanitarian support in dozens of countries, receives more than $765 million a year from the United States and from British taxes, according to the London-based Jewish News.

The British Charity Commission told the Jewish News that it has opened a compliance case against the Islamic Relief Worldwide organization, and said that the charity is cooperating with the investigation.

The post Trustee of Britain’s largest Muslim charity resigns over anti-Semitic Facebook posts appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.