The Campaign Against Golders Green Mosque is the tip of the racist iceberg in Britain's Jewish community

You might think that Jews, with their experience of racism, would welcome another religious minority seeking to establish a centre alongside them.  Think again.  Today’s Jews seem to have learnt nothing from the Jewish experience of racism.

Led by outright racists such as Zionist activist Ambrosine Yolanda Shitrit, who is usually to be found demonstrating alongside Paul Besser of the neo-Nazi Britain First, a group called Golders Green Together was formed to oppose the plans.  A look at their Facebook page gives you an indication of their politics. 

Golders Green Together [GGT] was formed last year as an anti-racist group to oppose a small demonstration by neo-Nazis led by one Joshua Bonehill-Paine in Golders Green.  The demonstration was later moved by the Police to Central London.  Now a bunch of Zionist racists and Jewish (& non-Jewish) Islamaphobes have taken over the name and subverted.

What is common to these people is that their fervent Zionism.  They take their cue from Israel’s hostility to Muslims and Arabs. Israel is an object of veneration by European and American fascists because it is seen as the ideal anti-Muslim state.  In Israel what is termed the ‘Jewish State’ is openly racist.  Legislation such as the recent Muezzin Law outlaws the Muslim call to prayer.  Last year the Northern Muslim League, a group with a large degree of support amongst Israel’s Palestinian minority, was bannedby the government without even a pretence that it had broken any law.

In the USA Steve Bannon’s Breitbart magazine, the flagship of the Alt-Right movement, combines White Supremacy, homophobia, hostility to feminism and anti-Semitism with fervent Zionism.  We have the neo-Nazi founder of the alt-Right, which organised the carnival of racism at Charlottesville, Richard Spencer describing himself as a White Zionist.

Groups like the misnamed Campaign Against Anti-Semitism have campaigned on the idea that Muslims are a reservoir of anti-Semitism stating openly that ‘it has long been suspected that sections of the British Muslim population harboured hatred towards British Jews.’  In 2016 they produced a Report  BRITISH MUSLIMS AND ANTISEMITISM to back up their Islamaphobic assertions.

With the Affair of the Golders Green Mosque, the Jewish establishment has reacted with something approaching horror to the racist base they are sitting on and have, up to now, encouraged.  Forget the nonsense about anti-Semitism causing only 13% of British Jews to vote Labour.  The real reason, which has been analysed by Jewish academics such as Geoffrey Alderman and William Rubinstein, is that they have climbed the socio-economic ladder.  Couple this with the support of many Jews for Israeli settler colonialism (59% declare they are Zionists according to the Attitudes of British Jews to Israel survey in 2015) and what you see is White racist supremacy in the heartland of British Jewry. 

Jews in Britain are no longer on the Left.  Support for Zionism is a mask for wider racist attitudes such as we are seeing now in Golders Green.

Both the Jewish Chronicle and Jewish News have both come out strongly against the racist campaign against the mosque.  This is to be welcomed but both papers have distinguished themselves by their uncritical support of Israel, its apartheid structures and its demonization of Arabs and Muslims. 

The Jewish News, to its credit said that they had refused to take a paid advert from the GGT hate mongers.  They also said that they had had to delete many ‘vile’ messages on the Internet including being called ‘kapos’, the Zionist term of abuse for anti-Zionists, which equates them with Jewish concentration camp guards.  The term was poplarised by David Friedman, Donald Trump’s bankruptcy lawyer and now US Ambassador in Israel.  

It is a rich irony that those who have been peddling Zionist race hate for so many years have now become victims of that hate!  The same Zionists who regularly called Jewish anti-Zionists ‘kapos’ ‘self-haters’ ‘traitors’ are now turning their fire on those of their comrades who aren’t willing to walk that extra racist mile in the fight against a Mosque.  After all where did those associations between Muslims and terrorism come from if not Israel and its associates?

The Jewish Chronicle in a remarkable editorial for it The Fig Leaf Objections compared the reaction of Jews in Golders Green to Moslems in Rotherham objecting to a synagogue.  Both would be, in its words, outrageous.  One can only presume that editor Stephen Pollard is on leave.

Local Rabbi Goldsmith made the point that the current reactions to a mosque are similar to the reaction to Jews when, in the 1920’s they moved to Golders Green. Laura Marks of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust asked whether there would have been a similar reaction to a Christian centre moving to Golders Green and of course the answer is ‘no’ there wouldn’t. 

However Marks, a staunch member of the Zionist Establishment tries to play down the reaction to the Mosque.  She wrotein Why opponents of the Golders Green mosque must mind their language:

The reaction to the Mosque is driven by what one might call the activist wing of the Zionist movement – people like Jonathan Hoffman, Ambrosina Shitrit etc.  The horrified reaction of the Jewish Establishment is a product of its own work.  Year after year they have poured out vile propaganda against Arabs and Palestinians.  They have defended every racist action of the Israeli state and proclaimed that Israel’s murderous attacks on Gaza were an act of peace.  Is it any wonder that many Jews have assimilated the message that you can’t trust Muslims or Arabs?  These establishment worthies have gone along with everything Netanyahu has done and defended his demolition of homes, houses and even his call to Israeli Jews to vote because the Arabs are voting in droves.  The values of Zionism have seeped into the subconscious of British Jews and the petition to Barnet Council is the result.

No doubt if there was a neo-Nazi campaign against a synagogue he would also ‘understand both sides of the debate’.  This comes from someone who has never understood the Palestinian side of the debate as he shouted down his opponents.

It is remarkably similar language to Donald Trump who instead of condemning the neo-Nazi violence at Charlottesville, instead condemned violence on ‘both sides’.

The JTA Report goes on to saythat a 2008 study by the Community Security Trust attributed a third of all violent anti-Semitic incidents to perpetrators described as having an Arab or South Asian appearance.

The Golders Green Facebook page is a sewer of racist bigotry.  It is a testament to what British Zionists really think when the PR and hasbara is abandoned.

Under a post heading ‘Shocking revelations now come to light re Golders Green development of a mosque at BBC hippadrome’ we have Daniel Vulkan of Jewish Voice for Labour finding his racist neighbours comments most amusing.  

There is Ambrosine Yolanda Shitrit, who is normally happiest in the company of Britain First neo-Nazis, saying that the advent of the Mosque will change peoples’ minds with Rachelle Marks commenting that ‘hope they the Muslims go away and realise they are not wanted as we need a theatre not a MOSQUE.’ Rachelle then suggests that ‘they have a mosque in a side street where it won’t be noticed’.

A Robert Sur believes that unless ‘you welcome your conquerer with open arms you are a racist islamaphobic bigot’

whereas Helen Kissen believes the Jewish Chronicle should be renamed ‘the Muslem chronicle’. 

Robert Moshi informs us that ‘the liberal kapos dominate the media’ with surly Sur telling us he lost all respect for that ‘liberal rag’ when they printed an advert for the Gaza appeal some years ago.  The idea of printing a paid for ad for the victims of Israel’s bombing clearly doesn’t appeal to these kindly souls.  It must be the first time in a long time that the JC has been described as liberal.

Robert Young tells us how he can’t bear to see ‘that little dwarf hopping around in golders green’ a reference to the local Tory MP Mike Freer who has opposed the bigots.

Robert Young, who seems to be all over GGT’s Facebook page publishes an illustration of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights on free speech and posts a link to the White Supremacist Breitbart News!

The Independentsuggests that Young is a member of the neo-Nazi Britain First, the same group that former Zionist Federation Vice Chair Jonathan Hoffman works with.  What is interesting is how he is never criticised or called out for his openly racist and neo-Nazi views by others who post to the FB page. 

Young also informed people that the noise from the call to prayer and Muslim demonstrations would be unbearable.  He informs readers that

‘On Sunday the first they swarmed the whole area with a victory parade of cars with jihadi flags and inbreds with 2 different eye-sizes.’ 

Clearly Mr Young’s talents are underused.  He could have been employed on Der Sturmer had the paper still been going.  But there is still no reaction to these overtly racist comments.  In fact Young attracted 3 'likes' for his comment about 'inbreds'.

Robert Surechoes what the Jewish Chronicle said in its Leader, that parking is a pretext for racist bigotry:

Robert Surspeaks for many when he recalls the Gaza advert in the Jewish Chronicle.  ‘I remember that Gaza appeal. Those Jews make me wanna vomit’

One would think from reading these comments that the JC was a fully signed up supporter of the Palestinians rather than the Zionist rag that it actually is.  But the overt Zionism of the contributors stands out because that is where their racism comes from – Israel.

Haaretz 14.10.2017 12:07 Updated: 12:08 PM

Plans to open a mosque in one of Britain's best-known Jewish communities has sparked a heated response from some locals, leading to accusations of Islamophobia.

The Jewish Chronicle has been reporting on the increasingly fractious developments in recent weeks after the iconic Golders Green Hippodrome – formerly a BBC concert hall seating some 3,000 people – was bought earlier this year by the Centre for Islamic Enlightening, for £5.25 million ($7 million).

The group's spokesman, Ahmed al-Kazemi, was quoted in the Jewish Chronicle as saying that the building would house the Hussainiyat Al-Rasool Al-Adham mosque and Islamic center, serving northwest London's Shia community.

The JC also reported that a petition complaining about the plan was posted on the local Barnet Council's website and received over 4,000 signatures, compared with 93 comments in favor of the mosque.

While some local residents voiced concerns about traffic jams and noise pollution, others questioned the arrival of Muslim worshippers in an area that is famously noted for its Jewish community.

One local resident wrote on the Barnet website that the move would “force the Jewish population to run away,” while another said placing "a large Muslim institution in the heart of one of London’s only two Jewish communities is a highly dangerous undertaking."

However, a prominent local rabbi, Mark Goldsmith, has criticized the comments coming from some members of the community.

"Things have been said about it being the largest mosque in Europe, and that the Shia community is a threat," Goldsmith told the JC. "That language is threatening and misleading.

“I suspect it’s the same sort of thing said about Jews moving to Golders Green in the 1920s," he added. "Golders Green is not entirely Jewish. It’s a special place to live in and we all get along together. That’s what London is about.”

Golders Green, in northwest London, has been home to a large Jewish community since the 1950s. In the most recent census, some 37 percent of the suburb was Jewish, compared to 26 percent being Christian and 12 percent Muslim. (Britain's largest Jewish population is situated further north, in Borehamwood, on the outskirts of London.)

Writing for the JC, Laura Marks – the chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust – questioned whether there would have been a similar response if a Christian center were being established at the site.

 "Reading some of the comments on various chat groups by those opposed sent a shiver down my spine," Marks wrote.

"Comments such as 'We don’t know what they are preaching as it's all in Arabic,''This will result in violence and terrorism' and 'There is a chance of infiltration of bombers' are Islamophobia plain and simple," she observed.

Marks added: "I wouldn’t for one moment suggest we are using Nazi language, but we must recognise the danger of what we say and how that fuels mistrust, separation, prejudice and hatred."

Although the online petition closed on Friday, the fight looks set to continue in the months ahead.

The Islamic center hopes to open its doors for an initial Open Day in December, with its spokesman, Kazemi, being quoted in the JC as saying, "We are very pleased and excited to be in Golders Green in such a diverse area. We can’t wait to get to know our neighbors."