Rabbi Assaulted - Corbyn Alone Calls

The scourge of anti-Semitism, like other forms of racism, never went away. It is showing worrying signs of becoming more serious, as the Guardian has now reported. “The Metropolitan police have been accused of failing to urgently investigate an antisemitic assault by two attackers who shouted ‘kill the Jews’ as they punched a rabbi and left him ‘bleeding and dazed’ in north London last week”. There was more.

“The unnamed rabbi was on a visit from Israel for a family wedding when he was attacked on Friday night. The attackers also shouted ‘fucking Jew, dirty Jew’ before striking him to the ground, according to Shomrim, a neighbourhood watch group that monitors hate crimes against the Jewish community”. Jewish voices were understandably unhappy.

“Shomrim’s chairman, Rabbi Herschel Gluck, who reported the attack, accused police of dragging their feet. He said: ‘The police response has certainly not been good enough. When something like this happens, which has caused deep distress to the Jewish community, the police should pull out all the stops to deal with it in a suitable manner … We hear a lot of very nice talk about being against hate crime and antisemitism but when it comes down to it we don’t see any appropriate action’”. Then came an interesting detail.

“The shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, and the Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, both condemned the attack … Corbyn tweeted that he had spoken to Gluck to express his concerns … Gluck confirmed that Corbyn ‘phoned to find out what happened and to express his shock and empathy with the community’. He added: ‘We deeply appreciate his concern. He sounded extremely genuine. He was the only party leader who called’”.

Well, well. You didn’t hear that? Why that might be can be seen from other media reports of the assault. Take Mail Online, for instance, which tells readers “Prime Minister Boris Johnson, local MP Diane Abbott and Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn used Twitter to condemn the attack”. Bozo only did that after Corbyn phoned Rabbi Gluck.

And the Jewish Chronicle, whose editor Stephen Pollard is vehemently anti-Corbyn, does not mention Jezza at all in its report. But then, Rabbi Gluck has also said, as the Hackney Gazette has reported, “I do not think any of the attacks in Hackney have been caused by issues in the Labour Party or Jeremy Corbyn … These are antisemitic attacks, pure and simple, and I think they are part of a pattern that started long before Brexit and have increased exponentially since the current government came in”.

Also, he passed adverse comment on recent Police cuts. "The president of Stamford Hill's volunteer-led neighbourhood watch group Shomrim believes police funding cuts have fuelled a rise in hate crime … Rabbi Herschel Gluck said minorities including the Haredi Jewish community are being attacked on a regular basis and there are not enough police in the area to deal with the issue”. Small wonder some in the press are keeping schtum.

Thus we see that selective reporting is alive and well: airbrushing the Labour leader out of this story shows that, when it comes to allegations of anti-Semitism, it is not only what the press chooses to publish, but also what it chooses not to publish.

Jeremy Corbyn alone of party leaders cared enough to call. I’ll just leave that one there.

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