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As Jews, we fight racism wherever it is found

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June 04, 2020 18:31

For most of the past five years, the JC has been dominated by a fight against racism. We have exposed it, highlighted it and demanded action against it.

We have taken that fight to the racists and reported on the efforts of our allies. It is a fight we would rather not have had but, as the target of racists within the Labour Party, the Jewish community had no choice.

In our stand against antisemitism, we were made stronger by the support of non-Jewish allies who made clear their abhorrence of racism.

Today, we do the same for black victims of racism. As Jews – as people – we abhor racism, wherever and whenever it is found.

That is why we, as a Jewish newspaper, stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the black victims of racism in the United States and elsewhere.

The murder of George Floyd would have been an outrage had it been a sole act of racism. But it is, appallingly, merely the latest in a long and shameful litany of racist murders by the police in the US.

We, too, must acknowledge ongoing anti-black racism here in the UK. And for those Jews who are black, racism is a double-headed monster. 

We must also confront the fact that such racism sometimes comes from within the Jewish community. In doing that, we must do everything in our power to stop it — all of us, always.

As has been said often, silence in the face of racism is a form of complicity in that racism.

In March 2018, we stood proudly in Parliament Square and said ‘Enough is Enough’. Where then we stood with our non-Jewish allies to fight antisemitism, now we stand together with black victims of racism and we say it again — Enough is Enough.

June 04, 2020 18:31

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