David Bennun, a Jewish writer and journalist, wrote on Twitter that “Jeremy Corbyn recalls the Holocaust while refusing to acknowledge its principal victims were Jews.” Equating that with Soviet-era Holocaust memorials that spoke only of “Soviet citizens,” Bennun charged that “This is dog-whistle stuff and it’s nasty.”.@JeremyCorbyn must apologise for failing to mention Jews or antisemitism in his Holocaust memorial statementhttps://t.co/KpwMymenXI
— Campaign Against Antisemitism (@antisemitism) January 25, 2018
Jonathan Greenblatt, the CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, posted a screen grab on Twitter of Corbyn’s statement on Facebook, adding: “To omit any reference to Jews or antisemitism in your Holocaust remembrance statement is offensive to us and the millions murdered.”If that’s universally true, then it must also apply to Prime Minister Theresa May, who mentioned neither Jews nor antisemitism in a statement she wrote Friday for the Holocaust Educational Trust. Or the Liberal Democrat Party’s Vince Cable. Or Sajid Javid, the British secretary of state for housing.Or of Rabbi Mirvis, who during a three-minute address Friday morning about the Holocaust said the word “Jewish” once in a preface to the main theme of his talk, referencing an old folk story about the power of words. But in speaking about the Holocaust, he described it as “the murder of millions of innocent women, men and children.”In a separate message Friday on Twitter, Mirvis did mention Jews and antisemitism. Corbyn did, too, in a different statement this week to the Holocaust Educational Trust, calling the victims “our Jewish brothers and sisters.”The selective treatment of Corbyn did not go unnoticed — even in the Jewish media that have been less than sympathetic to him over Labour’s antisemitism problem.“Jeremy Corbyn’s was singled out for excoriation on social media,” the Jewish Chronicle of London informed its readers in a news article on the subject.While unfair, the extra vigilance toward Corbyn is not entirely unpredictable for a politician who the Board of Deputies of British Jews said, in an unusual statement in 2016, cannot be trusted.Under Corbyn, thousands of people, many from the far left, joined Labour in a development that British Jewish leadersaid has generated an antisemitism problem in the party’s ranks. A British parliamentary committee of inquiry in 2016 upheld claims that the party’s leadership is failing to confront seriously antisemitism in its ranks. And internal Labour reviews that downplayed the problem were dismissed as a “whitewash” by the Jewish Board.All of which came into play in the reactions to Corbyn’s statement about the Holocaust, Jason Braier, a Jewish lawyer from London, wrote Friday on Facebook.“It’s difficult to be charitable to a person who spoke at a Labour Friends of Israel meeting without mentioning the word Israel, and who refuses to interact with the Jewish press, and who has shown repeated willful blindness to acts and words of antisemitism,” Braier wrote of Corbyn.Jeremy Corbyn recalls the Holocaust while refusing to acknowledge its principal victims were Jews.Reminds me of Soviet-era memorials to massacred Jews I saw in Lithuania, commemorating the deaths of many thousands of "Soviet citizens".This is dog-whistle stuff. & it's nasty.
— (((David Bennun))) (@DavidBennun) January 25, 2018