Tracy Ann Oberman Attacks Jewish Activist

Although many press and broadcast outlets talk about “The Jewish Community”, there is no one Jewish community in the UK, or indeed elsewhere. Jewish voices in the UK do not have one spokesman; they are diverse parts of a diverse population. And despite what those media outlets may have been telling their consumers over the last few days, there are many Jewish voices on the left who support the Labour Party.

Tracy Ann Oberman

One of those voices is that of Rivkah Brown, editor at Vashti, which describes itself as “A new Jewish media”. She contributed to a video for left group Momentum, which was titled “Stand with Corbyn”. This attracted the attention of those opposed to the former Labour leader, especially those semi-anonymous folks behind a Twitter feed called Milk Media.

Rivkah Brown

Making sure they tagged Lee Harpin of the Jewish Chronicle, they told “Rivkah's Jewish question … Some may question her choice of words”. This appears to be code for “she has done something bad”, although what that might be is not told.

That in turn caught the eye of minor thesp Tracy Ann Oberman, who was not happy. “Oh she’s awful. I’m sorry for her parents … She’s an alumni of that lovely school Simon Marks. They must be kvelling [sarcasm, much?] … such pride”. But, it seems, this is not the first time Ms Oberman has gone after Ms Brown, as the latter pointed out.

“If you want a sense of the gut-churning wretchedness of being a Jewish leftist with a platform: here is a man who used to babysit me egging on Tracy-Ann Oberman, a woman I had to block because she kept @ ing my mum”. Thus one of Milk Media’s custodians ceased to be quite so anonymous. And there was more.

Ms Brown tagged the Board of Deputies of British Jews. “I know you're hardly my biggest fans, but this has gone too far. Can you please have a word with her?” That suggests Ms Oberman has done this before, and more than once. That might interest people like, oh I dunno, Mike Sivier and Shaun Lawson. amongst others.

After that, Ms Brown mused “A reminder that Tracy-Ann has built an outpost of her career on fighting online bullying & trolling. What a fucking joke”. She had quoted her own Tweet commenting on Ms Oberman’s “frank conversation” with David Baddiel which concluded “Tracy-Ann @ed my mum after I criticised #NoSpaceForJewHate on Tysky [podcast], she's a veritable expert in family politics and Twitter trolling”.

Once again, free speech does not seem to include the freedom for Jewish voices on the left to support people that others would rather they didn’t. And trying to drag in Ms Brown’s Mum is totally out of order. She wants to support Jezza, she should be free to do so.

Rivkah Brown has chosen her political path. Her detractors need to accept her choice.

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