What is the matter with Mary Jane?
She's perfectly well, and she hasn't a pain;
But, look at her, now she's beginning again!
(from "Rice Pudding" by A.A. Milne)
In our post-October 7th Jewish world, guilt-by-association reigns supreme: anything any Israeli does or doesn’t do, Jews are attacked for. In wades YachadUK, ostensibly a non-governmental, independent progressive group of British Jews (spoiler: but read on). YachadUK chose to air, last month (5 May 2024), a whopping lie about a popular Israeli ultra-hawkish journalist as if to gift Britain’s worst anti-semites with a gold-mine of justification for their hate-filled attitudes. What happened at YachadUK?
YachadUK blared on “X” that an Israeli journalist said ‘we overcame Lord Moyne, we will overcome Lord Cameron too’. YachadUK then added heavy-handedly: “Lord Moyne was assassinated by a Jewish terrorist group in 1944” and concluded that Groner’s tweet was both “abhorrent” and “dangerous.”
The besmirched Israeli journalist was Elchanan Groner - who had 21 thousand “X” followers, more than most MKs have and twice as many as Yachad has. And of course Groner, a journalist with long earlocks fitting neatly into Western stereotypes, was an easy target from YachadUK’s viewpoint.
Whose insinuations were in fact abhorrent and dangerous here – Groner’s? YachadUK’s?
Well, is there any truth in the allegation that YachadUK’s director tweeted - namely that Groner “hopes David Cameron will be assassinated”? We looked into that. It turns out that there is not. It turns out that in actual fact, Groner did not “hope” anything of the sort. This is a figment of YachadUK’s imagination and no more:
The Groner tweet, which was in Hebrew, used a modern Hebrew idiom whose meaning is far from/even opposite to what YachadUK, in far-off Britain, carried on about. It obviously never heard the expression. An expert opinion, prepared for our NGO, Mattot Arim, by top-tier veteran Israeli translator Ruchie Avital, details YachadUK’s error:
First, YachadUK used an English term with a double, ominous meaning, to translate a Hebrew verb with a single, innocuous meaning.
Then, YachadUK used the double-meaning, which was completely absent in the Hebrew original, to reach a nefarious conclusion – which might conceivably be correct about the ambiguous YachadUK translation, but was completely incorrect about Groner’s actual Hebrew tweet.
The opinion on YachadUK by veteran translator Avital first attests that she has decades of experience – translating and interpreting, including years at Haaretz (flagship progressive daily), and also teaching at Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Translation for over twenty years.
Avital gives her opinion on whether the YachadUK tweet has factual basis given the Hebrew original.
“I have reviewed the materials,” Avital writes. “It is my professional opinion that Yachad … erred … their 5 May tweet is a misrepresentation of the original Hebrew language tweet by Mr. Groner. The source of their error lies in their misuse of the ambiguous word “overcome”. Consulting the definition of "overcome" in Oxford Languages reveals that it has a dual meaning: both to “succeed in dealing with (a problem or difficulty)” and to “defeat (an opponent)”.
Defeating another conceivably has an ominous overtone, however Avital pointed out that “the original Hebrew words, “avarnu” and “naavor” do not carry this dual meaning. These Hebrew words can only signify “succeed in dealing with (a problem or difficulty)” and cannot denote “defeat (an opponent).”
Avital concluded that “As a translator, I can confirm that the accusations published by Yachad … are entirely inconsistent with the Hebrew original”.
YachadUK’s blaring of an incorrect translation is regrettable but understandable. What is unconscionable is that YachadUK, who received the Avital opinion, have omitted to correct their error, a full month later. It is strange indeed that no-one at YachadUK has come forward to retract the false tweets about an Israeli.
'Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice
But there is more. Because the British upcoming general elections are on their way. And the number one issue these elections pose for the Jewish people, is whether the probable winner, the British Labour party, can be trusted to stay away from anti-semitism.
Into the picture comes YachadUK. It turns out that YachadUK is not an ordinary independent Jewish charity. Nor does it merely “influence” the British Labor party. Yachad basically almost is the same as the Labor party, because four of Yachad’s nine directors have strong Labour ties (see list below); of the remaining 5, all but one are simply technical experts (media, finance, community engagement, advertising).
If this sort of falsehood dissemination by a Labour-steered group, creating guilt-by-association against Israel and Jews abroad, occurs even now -- what can the Jewish people expect after the elections if Labour is elected?
The undersigned has no inherent opposition at all to the British Labour party. To the contrary, my late great uncle Mr David Weitzman served as Labour Party MP for Hackney North and Stoke Newington. My own mother campaigned for Labour in her youth. My great-uncle was a socialist.
What I do oppose, is when a charity run by prominent Labour party hacks (the Jewish ones, noch!) spreads untruths which damage and endanger the Jewish people. Not only are these activists not dealing with anti-semitism effectively - they are creating anti-semitism with their own hands (on their own keyboards). And this is the Jewish corner of Labour! And this is before the elections, when the party is still a bit worried about losing Jewish votes (and legitimacy)!
So if you are a British Jew and this op-ed has been forwarded to you - please, take responsibility. Turn to our well-meaning sisters and brothers at Yachad/ Labour and insist that they promptly pull their socks up (to use a British-English idiom). Watch this space, because I will let you know, if YachadUK/Labour does not do so.
The first step that YachadUK/ Labour should take, is to delete and apologize for the false tweets and yes, that needs to happen BEFORE the upcoming elections. The next step might be the following, which was recommended to YachadUK by a British-Jewish member of the public: “Most of those [Israeli civilians] killed on Oct 7th were leftist Jews like you. Most leftists in Israel now recognise they were wrong and naive to believe peace was possible with those who hate Jews. Out of respect for those who were murdered why don’t you pipe down for a bit.”
Appendix
The 9-person Yachad Board includes the following 4 directors:
Natasha Collet: spent the last five years working in the Labour Party,
Mike Katz: National Chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, the sole Jewish affiliate to the Labour Party.
Jack Lubner: Youth & Students Officer at the Jewish Labour Movement,
Amos Schonfield: Former Labour party activist who published that he hopes that Labour may soon once again be his political home.
Susie Dym is a spokesperson for Mattot Arim, an Israeli NGO working toward peace-for-peace since 1992