The Board of Deputies for British Jews has been around for centuries. When it was formed in 1760 it was originally set up to pay homage to the new British monarch, George III and to represent the interests of British Jews in the political sphere. Since then it has mostly done a reasonable job of quietly representing Jewish Britons to the monarch, to parliament and to the general non Jewish population of Britain. It has often done well at representing all shades of Jewish opinion from the most liberal of Liberal Jews right through to those who follow a much more Orthodox path.

Unfortunately in recent years the Board of Deputies (BOD) has, like so many other public organisations not just religious ones, become infested with leftism and leftist activists or has cowered in the face of leftist agitation. The BOD has removed Deputies who have criticised Islam and hasn’t even got the strength or the courage to fight government plans to force LGBT propaganda onto all schools, even Jewish religious schools. At a time when the BOD should be making waves against the type of Leftism that is the complete opposite of Torah Judaism, the BOD instead just seems to rehash leftist talking points. I have pointed out before that I don’t want my community to be governed by Leftists as leftism doesn’t respect my right to either freedom of speech or my right to be an individual as well as being incompatible with Torah Judaism. Other commentators, most notably Edgar Davidson have also pointed out how toothless and pathetic the BOD has become.

Now another writer has stepped into the fray and published criticism of the BOD. Jules Gomes writing in Front Page Magazine has criticised the BOD for getting their knickers in a twist over the Conservative MP Suella Braverman (who incidentally is married to a Jewish man) for using the term ‘Cultural Marxism’ at a meeting of the anti EU ‘Bruges Group’. The BOD criticised Ms Braverman for using the term on the grounds that the term ‘Cultural Marxism’ is an anti-Semitic canard. I agree that the term Cultural Marxism can be used in this way but it can also be used in other non anti-Semitic ways as well. In my opinion to lay into Ms Braverman because of her use of this term is as pointless and as laughable as someone refusing to use motorways on the grounds that they were first built in Nazi Germany.

The piece that Jules Gomes, a fiery former vicar from the Isle of Man, wrote is both informative and in parts hilarious. In his piece he takes to task both the BOD and the leftist press that has criticised Ms Braverman.

Here’s part of the piece by Dr Gomes and I would advise readers to read the entire article over at Front Page Magazine as it is well worth taking the time to read. Although I readily admit that some of those who formulated ‘Cultural Marxism’ at the Frankfurt School were ex Jews or people of Jewish heritage it also needs to be said that Cultural Marxism, or neo-Marxism if you prefer, is incompatible with Torah based Judaism. The use of the term Cultural Marxism by Ms Braverman is a relatively minor issue an not one that the BOD should have got all arsey about. There are far greater challenges facing the British Jewish community than this, problems such as the rise in Islam-derived anti-Semitism for instance.

Dr Gomes said:

When Jeremy Corbyn insulted British Jews by accusing them of not wanting to study history and failing to understand English irony, I fired a torpedo at his tuchus for his stratospheric asininity. Jewish prophets laced their orations with irony and Jewish priests chronicled history in Solomon’s Temple when Comrade Corbyn’s ancestors were cavorting in cowhide and communicating in grunts and cave graffiti, I pointed out.

So when my literate and lettered cousins from the Board of Deputies of British Jews suddenly turned on Suella Braverman, MP for Fareham, and horsewhipped her in the Leftist media for using the term ‘Cultural Marxism’ in a speech to the Bruges Group, a pro-Brexit think tank, I smote my thigh and was confounded, in the manner of the prophet Jeremiah.

Mrs. Braverman, unlike most fake conservatives who populate the Tory party like maggots on Jezebel’s cadaver, is a kosher conservative. “As Conservatives, we are engaged in a battle against cultural Marxism…. I’m very worried about this ongoing creep of cultural Marxism which has come from Jeremy Corbyn,” she said in her address last Tuesday.

Within hours, the Board of Deputies was hopping mad like grasshoppers and calling down locusts from the Guardian and Independent and it was all getting a bit like the prophet Nahum’s visions of wrath against Nineveh. Mrs. Braverman was smeared with the sticky tar of ‘guilt by association’ because she had used a ‘far-right conspiracy’ term from the black bowels of ‘murky internet forums.’

Yes I agree that the term Cultural Marxism is used a lot in murky online forums and by those who believe in various laughable ‘Jewish conspiracy’ theories. However just because these types use this term does not mean that this term should be out of bounds for others to use in contexts that are plainly not related to anti-Semitism. It is right to point out, as Ms Braverman did, that there are cultural forms of Marxism that are being promoted by leftists and that these Marxist ideas have caused damage to our society and have the potential to cause further damage. I see no way that Ms Braverman could be called anti-Semitic over the use of of the term Cultural Marxism. The BOD really jumped the gun on this issue and deserve the criticism that they have got because of it. It would be better in my view if the BOD concentrated on real problems not unreal ones.

This story does have somewhat of a happy ending. The criticism that the BOD got was apparently quite intense and came from all quarters both from inside and from outside the British Jewish community. The BOD was forced to admit that they did not intend to smear Ms Braverman as an anti-Semite. Whilst the apology to Ms Braverman is welcome it should cause the BOD to think carefully before they join a similar leftist ‘hate chorus’ to that which has erupted over the use by Ms Braverman of the term Cultural Marxism.