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After the acrimony of of the election, Limmud was particularly healing

The last thing I wanted was to be around several thousand Jews but somehow it was incredibly refreshing, writes Nina Morris Evans

January 8, 2020 12:31
Nina Morris-Evans, centre, pictured with fellow Limmud volunteers
2 min read

The last few months of 2019 were frustrating for Jews in the UK. However people voted or felt about the outcome the run up to the election was awkward at best. I know I was not alone in feeling confused and very much in the political wilderness.

It seemed to me that, as our own community became one of the main election issues, we lost the ability to talk or even think with any subtlety.

Two camps emerged: there was the "avoid Corbyn at any cost" camp which, in its most extreme manifestation, portrayed an election of Corbyn as leader as some kind of repeat of Nazi Germany.

In its more moderate version there was a valid argument here that I could somewhat relate to: whatever Corbyn’s personal ideas around Jews might be, if a Labour government was elected after all the headlines about antisemitism, it would be an opportunity for previously covert antisemites to feel like they’d been given the go-ahead to become more outspoken.