Opinion
The Board of Deputies has lost its relevance
Its partisan, political stance against the government did not impress many British Jews
March 31, 2023 09:11
3 min read
At the Community Security Trust’s annual dinner on Wednesday night, Home Secretary Suella Braverman was very incisive when she highlighted the need for communal organisations to transcend lines of political difference if they are to remain representative of their diverse communities. The decision by the Board of Deputies of British Jews (“the Board”) to criticise legal aspects of her immigration bill earlier this month was a case in point. Controversial political positions must never be presented as the sentiment of an entire community, and in doing so the Board has misrepresented British Jewry.
Jewish communal organisations have very important roles to play. These might involve promoting Jewish life and culture, championing Jewish education (including that relating to the Holocaust, Israel and history of the Jewish people) and fighting antisemitism. Other laudable objectives might include interfaith work (Mitzvah Day) or activism within a political party (the Jewish Labour Movement). To this list can be added Jewish charities, big and small. The key point here is that in all of these cases, the aims and objectives of the different organisations match the wishes of their stakeholders, be they donors, trustees, senior employees or beneficiaries.
Almost alone among communal organisations, the Board has a mismatch between its apparent objectives and its stakeholders which, as the Board claims to be a representative organisation, means the whole UK Jewish community. Some Jews may support the Board’s pronouncements on UK immigration, others may not. What is, however, definitely the case is that this issue is not one of concern to the Jewish community as a whole in our capacity of being Jews (unlike Jewish life issues, antisemitism or general support for Israel’s existence). It is a political statement on behalf of our community without the latter’s general support.
What lies behind the Board’s problem is an abject lack of leadership. In saying this, it is, however, important to define what, at least for the Jewish community in the UK today, leadership should be about. Those who find themselves in senior positions in our various communal organisations and charities – be they paid chief executives or trustees giving their time voluntarily – need to show vision, but that vision must be entirely consistent with the aims and objectives of the section of the community for which they work or otherwise represent. If they achieve this, they are worthy community leaders. In this attribute, the Board’s current leaders patently do not.
So what, exactly, are the consequences of the Board’s action here?
First, there is the very real risk that the government as a whole is likely to take anything that the Board says far less seriously, as it identifies political bias from the organisation. This could be highly damaging if, for example, there was a need to engage on issues that really do matter to our community as a whole, such as antisemitism, brit milah or shechita. Fortunately, there are several other Jewish communal bodies that the government can (and does) turn to instead.
Second, the Board has yet again shown what a communally divisive organisation it is. This has been a trait at the Board for over ten years. In 2013, the Board passed a resolution authorising a joint project with Oxfam, a charity which many Jews regarded as a wholly unsuitable partner.
In 2018, it demonstrated its desire to interfere in Israel’s internal politics, criticising its nation-state legislation, an action that enraged many British Zionist Jews. The Board has repeatedly found fault with Conservative MPs on trivial grounds, including with the current Home Secretary in 2019, as reported in the Jewish Chronicle at the time. These are just a few examples, there are many others.
Third, the Jewish community as a whole, perhaps now more than ever, regards the Board as an organ for the pursuit of left-wing politics, especially on domestic issues. Finally, the medium-to-longer term consequence must now be for those who care about our community’s future to consider alternatives to the Board for our representation and cease funding it. A start would be for synagogues across the UK, when sending out membership invoices, to offer alternative worthwhile Jewish charities, to which members can make their £30 annual voluntary contribution, instead of to the Board.
Gary Mond is a former senior Board of Deputies vice-president, who resigned from the body in January 2022. He now leads the National Jewish Assembly.