Philosophy professor Shalom Lappin, of King’s College, London, calls for a more aggressive reaction to antisemitism in a
aper written for the Initiative for the Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism at Yale University.
In This Green and Pleasant Land: Britain and the Jews, Professor Lappin says that increased hostility to Israel, both in public discourse and in the media, is fuelled by a “perception of Jews as an illicit collectivity with no claim to legitimacy or
ecognition”.
Current hostility to Jews in the UK, he argues, is frequently packaged as “progressive political comment”, but its origins are in “traditional social attitudes that have been integral to Britain’s history for centuries”.
This week he told the JC: “It is not true that change can be brought about by quiet diplomacy by an elite of elders. When a community finds itself under attack, it should react robustly, with activism and in the public domain.”
Professor Lappin, a supporter of Peace Now and of the anti-boycott campaign, said that Israel should be held accountable to the same norms as other countries, and that criticism on such a basis was legitimate. However, he said, the community should react when such criticism spilled over into antisemitism.
“There are some wonderful people in this community who fight antisemitism, such as the Community Security Trust, but too often – when for instance Jewish students come under attack – the community leadership stands off and just offers quiet advice from the outside. The reaction is anaemic.”
Source:
http://archive.thejc.com
http://archive.thejc.com
By Bernard Josephs
