A prominent media supporter of Jeremy Corbyn has been condemned after suggesting that dozens of UK rabbis who publicly critised Labour should have their "records examined".
After the Emeritus Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks, compared Mr Corbyn's comments about British Zionists to Enoch Powell's infamous Rivers of Blood speech, Aaron Bastani, co-founder of the far-left Novara Media, said the "first thing" Mr Corbyn's office should do was investigate the 68 rabbis who wrote an open letter attacking him for Labour's failure to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition.
He tweeted: “First thing leader of the opposition’s office should have done was examine record of 68 Rabbis signing letter. With most it is going to be a question of agreeing to disagree. Others like Sachs [sic], will be right wing ultra-nationalists. Labour shouldn’t concede to such voices.”
The 68 rabbis were a cross-denominational group who signed a letter published in the Guardian in July which condemned antisemites within Labour and urged the party’s National Executive Committee to adopt for the IHRA definition.
Simon Johnson, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “Yes, excellent idea Aaron. Why not make a list of Jews and research their backgrounds? It must be a plot, mustn't it?
"They can not possibly be genuinely concerned can they? And btw, when you insult an eminent Rabbi, do check you have spelled his name correctly!”
Rabbi Sylvia Rothschild, the past chair of the Rabbinic Assembly of Reform Judaism, who was among the 68 signatories and is a Labour member, said: “I am fascinated to know what record you want to look at.
"School reports? Degrees? Spotify playlist? You are seriously into antisemitic tropes sir and could do some teshuvah.”
This is not the first time the rabbis' open letter has angered Labour activists.
In a recording obtained by the JC, a member of the party's governing body, Pete Willsman, can be heard ranting about the letter, saying “some of these people in the Jewish community support Trump – they are Trump fanatics and all the rest of it.”
“I am not going to be lectured to by Trump fanatics making up duff information without any evidence at all," he says in the recording.
“I think we should ask the 70 rabbis where is your evidence of severe and widespread antisemitism in this Party?’”
Rabbi Lord Sacks was not one of the 68 rabbis who signed the letter.
In the New Statesman interview, Rabbi Lord Sacks condemned comments Mr Corbyn made in 2013 - recently resurfaced - in which the then-backbench MP said a group of British “Zionists” “don’t want to study history" and "having lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives, they don’t understand English irony either”.
Rabbi Sacks described the comments as “the most offensive statement made by a senior British politician since Enoch Powell’s 1968 ‘Rivers of Blood’ speech. It was divisive, hateful and like Powell’s speech it undermines the existence of an entire group of British citizens by depicting them as essentially alien.
A Labour spokesperson responded by calling the comparison "absurd and offensive".
