There is a movement among Millennial Jews in the United States to abandon the Democrat Party and that movement goes by the name of Jexodus. This political movement has arisen because the Democrats, despite being a party traditionally supported by working class Jews of the non-Orthodox persuasion, have increasingly promoted policies that are not merely critical of the State of Israel but are plainly anti Jewish, which for example can be seen in the political attacks on Jewish schools in New York City. The Democrats are also extremely relaxed about the presence in their party not only of people who criticise Judaism from a theological point of view, but which like Congresswoman Ilhan Omar are plainly out and out Jew haters.
Many of the problems facing Jewish voters for the Democrat Party also face those Jewish voters in the United Kingdom who have traditionally voted Labour. Labour voting Jews existed because Labour seemed immune to the sort of golf club Jew hatred that was common in the past and also because Labour were once the party of equality between Jew and Gentile. Unfortunately for Labour just as with the Democrats in the USA, those days are over. Like the Democrats, Labour is now a hotbed of Jew hatred and it is a hatred that is coming from two main sources, the far Left and the Islamic community, both of which are political groupings that have an incredible amount of undue influence over the Labour Party.
Labour are no longer the friends of the Jews just as they are no longer the friends of the British working classes in general. Sure Labour, just like the US Democrats make the right noises and press the correct high profile communal flesh, but at heart they are not on the side of British Jews just as they have failed to be on the side of the rest of the working classes.
I’m delighted to see American Jews starting to think carefully about whether the Democrats are going defend them or not and coming to the conclusion that the Democrats are treating their Jewish voters with utter contempt. Jexodus is a great idea that may, in modified form, go down well in the United Kingdom.
The Jexodus organisation describes itself on its home page thus:
We are proud Jewish Millennials tired of living in bondage to leftist politics. We reject the hypocrisy, anti-Americanism, and anti-Semitism of the rising far-left. Progressives, Democrats, and far too many old-school Jewish organizations take our support for granted. After all, we’re Jewish, and Jews vote for Democrats.
Until today.
We are determined and we are unafraid to speak for ourselves. As combatants and veterans of the campus wars, we know the threat progressivism poses to Jews. We’ve had front row seats witnessing anti-Semites hide behind the thin veil of anti-Zionism. We know the BDS movement harbors deep hatred not only for Israel, but for Jews. We’re done standing with supposed Jewish leaders and allegedly supportive Democrats who rationalize, mainstream, and promote our enemies. We’d rather spend forty years wandering in the desert than belong to a party that welcomes Jew-haters.
Spot on Jexodus! Sadly we can replace the word ‘Democrat’ with the word ‘Labour’ and these passages could easily be transplanted to the United Kingdom and be a description of Labour and the British Left. We face similar problems with so called progressive parties here in the UK and similar issues with our communal organisations being too close to such parties for our, and the nation’s own good.
I have become heartily sick with watching communal organisations that should be representing our interests and protecting us, succumbing to the influence of Leftism and the wilder shores of progressivism. I stand aghast at the sight of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, a body that should represent all of us Jews no matter what our political views, become more and more dominated by the Left. This leftist domination has brought about a situation where those representatives on the Board who criticise Islam or Jihad are hounded out of office by Leftists. I am also disgusted to see that the management of groups like the Community Security Trust, whose volunteer guards help to prevent attacks on synagogues from among others Jew hating Muslims, has climbed into bed with the often mendacious Islamic grievance mongers of the Tell Mama organisation. All this sort of link does is decrease the confidence that many Jews may have in how the Community Security Trust is managed.
I also have little but scorn for the high profile British Jews, some of whom are clerics and communal leaders, continuing to support the Labour Party and in some cases even serving as elected representatives for this party. They are doing this in the vain and naive hope that Labour’s far Left and Islam inspired Jew hatred can be fought from within. Those who serve the Labour Party in this way are wrong, Labour cannot be ‘reformed from within’, it’s now too far gone and under Corbyn and his ilk, will only get worse.
Yes we do need a Jexodus from the Left in the United Kingdom and in my view such a move cannot come soon enough. This is a movement that I would be delighted to see replicated in Britain. For far too long Labour have taken Jewish votes for granted and our communal organisations have treated community support in a similar way. It is time for British Jews to walk away from Labour and the far Left and Islamic Jew hatred that has become embedded within it. It is also time to challenge Left-dominated communal organisations that are not representing the whole spectrum of political opinion among British Jewry and other groups that can’t be trusted to properly defend us when the chips are down.
Of course there are differences between the British Jewish community and that of the United States. In the USA the majority of Jews are of the non-Orthodox persuasion and that is the main body of Jewish voters that have supported the Democrats for decades. In Britain the situation is reversed with more Jews being Orthodox than either Reform or Liberal. In Britain the Jewish Labour vote is cross communal unlike the situation in the USA where non-Orthodox Jews predominately vote Democrat whilst Orthodox Jews vote mostly Republican. I tend to think that it matters not one jot what sort of a Jew you are, Orthodox, Reform, Liberal or secular, what really matters is that you recognise that Labour are no longer a decent party, but instead a party that welcomes those who hate us and in some cases want us dead. British Jews, especially those who are working class or who remember their working class roots, need to put aside their traditional feeling that the Labour Party is on the side of equality, justice and democracy and take note of what the Labour Party has become. We need to walk away from Labour and do it in a high profile and voluble manner and we need to do it soon. I’m fed up with seeing British Jews voting for reasons that no longer exist for a Labour Party that has changed greatly from what it used to be. We may have to hold our noses and vote Conservative in order to stand up to Labour but it’s a far better and a morally cleaner thing to do than to continue to vote Labour just because Labour did something nice for our ancestors fifty or one hundred years ago.
Let’s walk away from a party and a political current that now openly hates us, lets walk away from Labour and the entirety of the political Left. We need a Jexodus in Britain, we need to stand up to the Left and tell it where to go.
