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Thirty-six elected representatives to the UK’s largest Jewish organisation are to appeal against disciplinary action taken against them after they criticised the Israeli government’s operations in Gaza, and have said they remain “deeply concerned” about the war.
The Board of Deputies of British Jews announced on Tuesday that five of the group would be suspended for two years and 31 would be reprimanded for breaching its code of conduct after a two-month investigation.
In a statement released on Thursday, the group said they would appeal after taking legal advice. They “remain deeply concerned about the remaining hostages, the appalling humanitarian crisis and ongoing war in Gaza and the further deteriorating situation in the West Bank”, they said.
The five deputies who gave media interviews about an open letter that was published by the FT in April had received “the enhanced punishment of effective expulsion from the board” as they were suspended for the remainder of their terms of office, the statement said.
It was “the biggest mass disciplinary action in the board’s history, with over one in 10 elected board members disciplined”, it added.
The open letter caused a furore among British Jews amid growing divisions over the war and distress at the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. It said that “Israel’s soul [was] being ripped out” by military action that renewed in March, and that the signatories could no longer “turn a blind eye or remain silent” on the issue.
Statements issued by the Board of Deputies since the war began in response to atrocities committed by Hamas on 7 October 2023 have been broadly supportive of the Israeli government’s actions.
The board launched an investigation after receiving complaints from other members. It stressed that it welcomed a diversity of opinions, debate and free speech but that its code of conduct required deputies not to misrepresent the position of the board and not to bring the institution into disrepute.
The reprimanded group’s statement said they stood “in solidarity with the 70% of Israelis that consistently say they want an immediate end to the war in Gaza, which is the perceived price for the return of all the hostages”.
Since writing the open letter, a lack of food and aid had “engineered conditions of scarcity, which has seen hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of Palestinians being killed week after week in the desperate scramble for survival that has been created”. There was “no justification for the continuing misery and destruction being wrought on Gazan civilians”.
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Harriett Goldenberg, one of those suspended, said: “So many Jews in the UK agreed with our sadly groundbreaking letter. We were inundated with thanks from those who said we represented them, and that we were their voice. It is tragic that voice is still needed.”
Philip Goldenberg, another suspended deputy, said the board’s executive was “effectively expelling those who spoke inconvenient truth unto power. This is utterly contrary to the Jewish tradition that robust debate is an essential part of a civilised life, and feels more like Putin’s Russia.”
