The president of the Board of Deputies has expressed concerns for “the chilling effect” calls to boycott Holocaust Memorial Day could have on the annual event.
The Islamic Human Rights Commission sent a letter to 460 local councils and universities, urging them to boycott the event next month after the HMD Trust “refused to include Gaza among the genocides being marked”.
Speaking at Limmud, Board President Phil Rosenberg said: “Last year, there was an almost 20 per cent drop, and with calls for the boycott we are anxious about what is going to happen next month.”
Rosenberg, who sits on the board of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust, said that he had been encouraged by the response of local councils, some of whom had added Holocaust Memorial Day resources in response to the calls to boycott.
In an article in the Jewish News, Councillor Jeremy Newmark, leader of Hertsmere Borough Council said that said he had found the request “appalling, objectionable and racist” and that it was a “thinly veiled attempt to redefine Holocaust Memorial Day as a vehicle to attack the state of Israel”.
Demands for a boycott had only served to motivate him to put more resources and energy into marking the day, he said.
Olivia Marks-Waldman told the JC: “The Holocaust is central to and has primacy on Holocaust Memorial Day. Learning about the Holocaust, the murder of six million Jews by the Nazis, should resonate with everyone, regardless of faith or background. It’s beyond frustrating and disappointing that this is not recognised by the IHRC.”
She said that hundreds of thousands of people would be getting together on January 27 in communities around the UK to learn more about the Holocaust and also the non-Jewish victims of the Nazis. “Nationally and locally we will be learning the lessons from the past, and our team is working hard to make sure that, as usual, thousands of events mark Holocaust Memorial Day appropriately with its focus on the unique crime that was the Holocaust.”
This year’s Holocaust Memorial Day will mark 80 years since the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau. It will also mark 30 years since the genocide in Bosnia and remember victims of other genocides, including Rwanda and Darfur.
This year’s theme is For a Better Future and organisers have stated that, following an increase in both antisemitism and anti-Muslim hatred in the UK since October 7, they hoped that the occasion would be “be an opportunity for people to come together, learn both from and about the past and take actions to make a better future for all”.
