England, illustraion
England, illustraioniStock

The Daily Mail reports that a 63 year old man was arrested for more than 12 hours after referring to Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber, leader of the Brighton and Hove Progressive Synagogue, as a 'creep', a 'fake Rabbi' and a 'kapo boy' in private posts on Facebook.

The man's professional supervisors at the Chartered Institute of Securities & Investment were alerted of the comments but did not take action following the report.

The man was released on bail after a lengthy ordeal in custody. ''In the police station I was treated like a proper criminal. I was fingerprinted, DNA tested, photographed and then kept in a cold cell completely alone for ten hours. It was humiliating.''

He claimed the affair was a serious misallocation of police resources. ''I am astounded that police waste their time on cases like mine and Allison Pearson's when they could spend their time tackling real hate-crimes instead.''

Toby Young, Director of the Free Speech Union said: ''If it's not a criminal offence for pro-Palestinian protestors to call for a global intifada, I don't see how a Jew calling another Jew a 'Kapo' can possibly be against the law.''

A police representative stated that, ''We are investigating alleged anti-Semitic posts on Facebook and enquiries are ongoing.''

North West Friends of Israel added: "The fact that Gabriel Kanter-Webber (who has the title Rabbi before his name) chose to report someone to the police rather than reach out, in the pastoral role you would expect of a Rabbi, to the person who called him a Kapo to offer the hand of "rachmonus", compassion, says so much about Kanter- Webber."

Rabbi Gabriel Kanter-Webber initially did not comment on the report, but took to Twitter to respond to the accusations, writing briefly: "I am hereby reaching out with the hand of compassion to ask if you feel you need a pastoral conversation?"

Author and journalist Stephen Pollard tweeted about the incident: "I don't know who comes out of this worse - the rabbi (whose behaviour will be unsurprising to those who have encountered him before) or the police."

'(It's an awful, vile word to use, but the idea that your response to being insulted is to call the police - and that they then act - is deeply troubling.)''