The recent march against the rise of Jew-hatred in Britain was a triumph for the organisers. There are only about 271,000 Jews in the UK so to get 60k and possibly more, if the organiser’s figure of 105k is to believed, out on the streets is impressive. It’s even more impressive when you consider that most British Jews would rather keep our heads down and just get on with life and making a contribution to the nation than turn out for a demonstration. As I said the demonstration was a triumph but it was also a tragedy that it was required and it was necessary because Jew hatred, including an alarming amount of the Islamic type of Jew hatred has risen dramatically in the UK.

I could not attend this march as I was in dealing with sick child mode but from what I watched of it online there was a marked difference between this demonstration and the series of pro-Hamas hate marches that have marred London over recent weeks. The main difference between this march of Jews with their non-Jewish supporters and the pro-Hamas hate marches was the lack of genocidal chants, along with no posters calling for the same and no violence directed at either the public or the police. We’ve all seen the disgraceful calls for violence and genocide that have been a constant feature of the pro-Hamas hate marches and there was none of this on this demonstration for and by British Jews.

There should not have been the need to have a massive demonstration against Jew hatred in London, the largest it is said by some, since the demonstrations against Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists in the 1930’s. That there is this need for British Jews to take to the streets in this way is testament to the rise in Jew hatred from both the political Left and that which is emerging from Britain’s Islamic community.

The demonstration was a wonderful display of communal unity and support from Britain’s non-Jews for Britain’s Jewish population. It marked a turning point when Britain’s Jews and their non-Jewish supporters stood up and said enough is enough to the Jew hating Left, Jew hating Muslims and a Metropolitan Police force that has clearly proven, over a period of nearly eight weeks, that they cannot be trusted to police London equitably, fairly or effectively.

It was also a turning point in another way. The demo itself and the arrest of Tommy Robinson who turned up to cover the event for his Urban Scoop outlet marked the beginnings of what I perceive as a growing division in the Jewish community between many ordinary Jews and what some are calling the ‘Establishment Jews’. These Establishment Jews are, for example those who run the Jewish Board of Deputies and other communal organisations such as, amongst others, the Community Security Trust and the Campaign Against Antisemitism.

From what I can see on social media the arrest of Tommy Robinson even before he was able to start covering the demonstration, has been a catalyst for non-Establishment Jews to speak up more loudly and forcefully than they seem to have done before. Various allegations have been made that UK Jewish organisations are stuffed with people who care more for keeping on the right side of the Left/Liberal British Establishment than for looking after the interests of British Jews. Some of what is being alleged has a ring of truth about it as the Board of Deputies has a reputation for removing those Deputies who hold robust and highly critical views about Islam on the grounds of ‘Islamophobia’. I may either in whole or in part agree or disagree with these dismissed Deputies, but I deplore the removal of them on the grounds that it robs the Board of viewpoint diversity. Also the Community Security Trust (CST) has been on my personal do not trust shit list since they decided to get into bed with the highly questionable and much mocked ‘anti-Islamophobia’ organisation Tell Mama. My view is that for the CST to choose to work with this organisation might have made the CST even more Establishment friendly than it was before, but at the cost of losing the trust of those who are critical of Tell Mama’s funding, policies and ongoing campaigns for even more censoriousness than we suffer from in Britain at the moment.

In a way I can understand why groups such as the Campaign Against Antisemitism (CAA) didn’t want to have the demo turned into a Tommy Robinson circus but unfortunately by behaving heavy-handedly and allegedly involving the Met in order to get Mr Robinson arrested that’s exactly what they got. Maybe it would have been better had the CAA had said nothing and done nothing in this situation. As it is they’ve made things worse and increased the division between the Establishment Jews and the rest of us.

David Atherton writing on the Politicalite website made some interesting points regarding both the arrest and an alleged connection between the CAA and the Met’s decision to arrest Mr Robinson.

Mr Atherton said:

Twenty officers were despatched, and a sergeant asked for his home address in front of the assembled media. Whether a cock up, or a conspiracy to put him and his family in danger by doxing him, is a matter of debate. Robinson was handcuffed, pepper sprayed and led away. Some in the crowd shouted, “shame on you,” & “Tommy, Tommy.” His arrest received extensive criticism, many by Jews.

There’s aspects of this arrest that trouble me deeply especially when put in contrast to how the Met have treated the pro-Hamas hate marchers. The fact that he was pepper sprayed after he was in handcuffs looks to me like the police engaging in gratuitous violence because they can. Mr Robinson was not resisting arrest and was not being violent towards police officers. The second aspect that troubles me is the alleged doxing of Mr Robinson’s address which could quite conceivably put Mr Robinson’s family at risk of harm. The third aspect that gives me concern is the alleged involvement of staff from the CAA in getting Mr Robinson arrested.

Mr Atherton continued:

Politicalite can exclusively reveal one of the people who requested his exclusion was Steven Silverman of the Campaign Against Anti-Semitism. My sources are the Metropolitan Police, a Jewish follower and Mr. Silverman speaking to Paul Brand on LBC.

He said to Brand: “This march is about tolerance, it’s about inclusion, it’s about kindness, anyone who wants to use it to exploit hate or division, is not welcome.”

There are other names from the CAA being banded about on social media as being prominent in the decision to have Mr Robinson arrested which suggests that this story might be getting bigger. Personally, unlike Mr Silverman, I did not see the demonstration on Sunday as about ‘tolerance, inclusion and kindness’. I saw it as a cry for help by British Jews in the face of the Leftist and Islamic Jew hatred that some of us have been warning about for years. I also saw it as a protest against not only the massive rise in Jew-hatred from the Left and the Islamic community but also the failure by the Metropolitan Police to keep law abiding Jews safe from the savage Jew haters who make up the core of these pro-Hamas protests.

Mr Silverman’s words are the words of an Establishment Jew, one who speaks the language of the Establishment and therefore may not represent the views of ordinary British Jews. The irony is that by going after a man who has clearly been targeted for persecution by the Establishment, the Establishment Jews have created more division.

In a way I can understand the reasoning of the Establishment Jews, who are more or less completely law abiding being uncomfortable with getting support from a person who has been on the wrong side of the law and Mr Atherton who I’ve quoted above recognises this.

Mr Atherton added:

From an image point of view, I can understand Campaign Against Anti-Semitism’s stance at an image level. Robinson does have a mixed background with the law & assume they did not want his presence to overshadow the event, but his arrest has.

Mr Atherton is correct. Members of the Jewish Establishment wanted to run this protest as they wanted and also wanted complete control over who attended. This is not something that you see regularly or normally with demonstrations as in my long experience it’s almost impossible for a right wing demo or a left wing one to completely exclude crazies. A demonstration needs to be open to all those who wish to protest peacefully for the cause in question and the cost for that is the occasional nutter turning up. The right can’t completely keep out tin foil hat lunatics and the left can’t completely keep out mentalists like the Stalin Society. The nutters and extremists only become a problem when they make up a significant proportion or a majority of a protest which is what was the sad and ignominious fate of the UK Yellow Vests group. The problem for the Jewish Establishment and for the CAA in particular is that by allegedly pushing for this arrest of Mr Robinson they’ve made a manageable situation, the presence of Tommy Robinson at the anti-Jew hate demo, into a worse one and one where the divisions between the Jewish Establishment and ordinary Jews are becoming more prominent.

It will be interesting to see if there are any more demonstrations against Jew hatred organised by the UK Jewish Establishment and also if this does occur whether they will be able to paper over the cracks in communal unity that they’ve created. It will also be interesting to see if what I’m seeing at the moment online, which is non-Establishment Jews starting to organise themselves, has any impact on how these demonstrations are organised in the future. There is not one voice in the British Jewish community, instead there are many. What I’m noticing is that those who have been kept outside of the communal Establishment are starting to give voice to their views. They are increasingly at odds with what has become an overly comfortable Jewish Establishment that some are accusing of breaching the admonishment in Psalm 146:2 and have put ‘too much trust in the princes’ of the State. Time will tell whether the divisions that have already appeared and which seem to be being exacerbated by the actions of the British Jewish Establishment worsen or are healed.