A coalition of prominent British Jews has attacked the country's Jewish establishment, claiming it puts loyalty to Israel before the human rights of Palestinians.
An open letter entitled "A Time to Speak Out: Independent Jewish Voices" was published in Monday's issue of the Times and in the Internet edition of the Guardian newspaper. It marks a growing division within the Jewish community over the nature of its ties to Israel.
"We come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole," said the letter, which was signed by 140 people, including actors Stephen Fry and Zo Wanamaker, playwright Harold Pinter, fashion designer Nicole Farhi, film director Mike Leigh, and academics Eric Hobsbawm and Jacqueline Rose.
However, the letter continued, the nation's Jewish leadership has "consistently put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people."
Uncritical support of Israeli policies toward the Palestinians has "undermined" the "battle against anti-Semitism," they argued. "British Jews should take the moral high ground in the Israel/Palestinian dispute, reclaiming "the tradition of Jewish support for universal freedoms, human rights and social justice."
The coalition has scheduled a public meeting in London to be chaired by television presenter Jon Snow for February 19, seeking to recruit support from the community.
A similar dispute arose in the United States after publication of an American Jewish Committee essay last month entitled "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism."
In the foreword, AJC executive director David A. Harris wrote that what had been surprising and distressing in a recent upsurge in rhetoric was "the very public participation of some Jews in the verbal onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish state."
While "A Time to Speak Out" did not name names, Oxford University philosopher Brian Klug singled out the Board of Deputies of British Jews and British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. In an article accompanying the declaration published in the Guardian, Klug said the Board of Deputies had become a mouthpiece for the Israeli government, devoting "much of the time and resources of its international division to the defense of Israel."
He also criticized Sacks for telling a pro-Israeli rally last year: "Israel, you make us proud."
"Others felt roughly the opposite emotion," said Klug, the author of 2004's "The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism."
Supporters of the declaration said justice required they act. Prof. Susie Orbach of the London School of Economics said she had endorsed the declaration because, "as a Jew, I feel a particular duty to oppose the injustice that is done to Palestinians."
Dr. David Goldberg, rabbi emeritus of London's Liberal Jewish Synagogue, said that "when Israel's Jewish supporters abroad don't speak out against disastrous policies that neither guarantee safety for her citizens nor produce the right climate in which to try and reach a just peace with the Palestinians - but seek instead to justify those policies by turning a blind eye to flagrant human rights abuses in the occupied territories - then they are betraying millennial Jewish values and acting against Israel's own long-term interests."
The Board of Deputies did not respond to requests for comment.
A group of almost 150 prominent British Jews has launched a new organisation, Independent Jewish Voices, and criticized the British Jewish establishment for its uncritical views on Israel. An open letter titled "A Time to Speak Out: Independent Jewish Voices" was published in Monday's edition of the ''Times of London'' and reprinted on the ''Guardian'''s online site, stated that the group has "come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole" and that the leaders of Britain's Jewish community, the Board of Deputies, has "consistently put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people," referring to Israel and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza strip areas, which have been occupied and illegally settled by Israel since 1967.

The letter was signed by over 140 prominent writers, actors, academics and intellectuals including author and writer Stephen Fry, academic Brian Klug, historian Eric Hobsbawm and film director Mike Leigh.

Klug, in an article published in ''the Guardian'' announcing the launch of the group, argues for its necessity by asserting that the Board of Deputies actions in defence of Israel "suggests that British Jewry, speaking with one voice, stands solidly behind the Israeli government and its military operations," despite the fact that, according to Klug, "Jews were deeply divided over Israel's campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon last year."

The launching of the new group comes on the heels of a dispute within the American Jewish community after the American Jewish Congress published an essay titled "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism" in which criticism by liberal Jews of Israel was criticized as facilitating antisemitism.