About 50 people flock to a screening room in the basement of a hotel in Soho, in the heart of London. We recognize each other, we embrace each other: all are eminent representatives of the British Jewish community. Lords, ex-deputies, historians, writers, some activists.
They are gathered this Sunday morning for the launch of the book Forced out ("Expelled"), and the documentary of the same name, dealing with the resignation of Jewish – and non-Jewish – members of the Labor Party, claiming to be traumatized by anti-Semitism within it. The subject is hot news, a few days before the general election of December 12. But "It's not an anti-labor event", at once, a little against the obvious, Judith Ornstein, author of the book, whose academic David Hirsh shot the documentary.
In the latter, a dozen former members of the Labor, Jews like Dany Louise, councilor in Hastings, or Dame Louise Ellman, former MP, but also non-Jews like Joan Ryan and Ian Austin, also former deputies, tell why they had to give up their political commitment. The words are hard, the testimonies are moving. Online harassment, deputies and councilors accused of being "Zionists"colleagues "Obsessed with their anti-Israel hatred," in the case of Lady Louise Ellman, spending their time to hold him accountable for Israeli policy. The MP, who has been in office since the late 1990s, resigned in October, unable to be treated as " racist ".
"Corbyn must lose"
At the end of the screening, the debate begins. Lady Louise Ellman is in the room. "I have come to the conclusion that anti-Semitism in the party will not stop as long as Mr. Corbyn is at his head. " The audience approves. Also present, Joan Ryan admits that he "Is terrible to have to choose between two fears. But I can not negotiate with anti-Semitism, I will not vote for Corbyn, " says the former MP, who recalls leaving the party early 2019, for his "Institutionalized anti-Semitism".
Left to give Boris Johnson a majority to achieve the Brexit on January 31, 2020? The dilemma is cruel, and "Many of us are confronted with it," slip Nicole Lampert, freelance journalist, Jewish and anti-Semitism activist, "But Corbyn must lose". "It seems obvious that Corbyn is not going to win this election, but I have no joy, because we are going to inherit Boris Johnson as Prime Minister and we will have Brexit," says David Hirsch, a professor at Goldsmiths College London.
