Campaign Against Antisemitism UK

The Campaign Against Antisemitism UK (CAA) was established in early August 2014. Its stated mission is to '[empower] individuals to counter antisemitism in all its forms, including both classical antisemitism as well as antisemitism which masquerades as political opposition to Israel'. It is led by Gideon Falter (chairman).

Establishment

The CAA was established 'by half-a-dozen activists and funded by private donations', presenting itself as a response to the alleged increase in the presence of anti-Israel and antisemitic behaviour and sentiment in the UK. It was set up in early August 2014, during Israel's 'Operation Protective Edge' operation in Gaza.

In an account of his involvement, current CAA chairman Gideon Falter describes having been outraged during the Gaza conflict by the British media's 'insistence on holding Israel to exceptional, impossible standards', which 'helped to feed the oldest hatred'. The result was that in Britain 'Israel's case was deliberately stifled', while expressing 'support for Israel was enough to make the disinterested "right thinking" mainstream of British society wince'. His discomfort grew, he says, when pro-Palestinian protestors did not object to some in their midst who chanted antisemitic slogans. He was dismayed to find that the antisemites, at rallies and online, 'were not arrested'. At this point, Joseph Cohen, Darren Borg, Justin Chorn and Jordan Jay created a Facebook group, Campaign Against Antisemitism. When the Tricycle Theatre then decided to boycott the UK Jewish Film Festival (which was funded by the Israeli state), Rupert Nathan launched a Facebook campaign, which 'soon joined forces' with the CAA. Nathan Hopstein and Mandy Blumenthal also 'entered the fray'.

Falter sent the group a Facebook message with advice, and they admitted him as a member. He called in Jonathan Sacerdoti as a 'media man', and within a week, they had 'developed a plan': to call for 'zero tolerance enforcement of existing laws against anti-Semitism by the police'. According to Falter, the group and the subsequent rally outside the Royal Courts of Justice it organised was set up by a 'group of like-minded people who did not know each other just a month before'.

Activities

The CAA presents itself as a grassroots direct-action alternative or supplement to the quieter, and for some British Jews complacent, approach supposedly taken by the Board of Deputies. Says the CAA:

Alongside the traditional channels (reporting antisemitism to the police and community security trust). We believe the community must also take direct action to combat the increasing hostility Anglo-Jewry is experiencing. We counter antisemitic protests, seek out antisemites online and apply direct pressure to organisations and institutions that enable antisemitism in the UK.

Demonstrations

The group is primarily active online, but has also organised several demonstrations:

• 7 August, 2014: the group staged a protest outside the Tricycle Theatre against its dropping of the UK Jewish Film Festival, which is funded by the Israeli state. It claimed an attendance of 350 people. Other sources reported 'more than 100' and 'around 250'.

• 31 August, 2014: the CAA organised a rally against antisemitism, billed as a 'Rally to Demand Zero Tolerance of Antisemitism',. The organisers reported an attendance of 4,500 in Central London, and was backed by the United Synagogue and the Office of the Chief Rabbi. CAA spokesperson Jonathan Sacerdoti urged a 'zero tolerance' approach to 'turn the tide' of antisemitism, and claimed British Jews 'feel overlooked and not protected enough'. Speakers at the rally included Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, Maajid Nawaz (founder, Quilliam Foundation), Rabbi Laura Janner Klausner (senior Rabbi, Reform Judaism), Rabbi Josef Dwek (senior Rabbi, Spanish and Portuguese Jews' Congregation), Bernie Yaffe (of Manchester Friends of Israel, Gerry Gable (former editor of the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine), Stephen Pack (president, United Synagogue, the Board of Deputies' Vivian Wineman (president) and Laura Marks (vice-president) and neoconservative commentator Douglas Murray. Its "media partner" was Jewish News. The day after the rally, Prime Minister David Cameron expressed concern over 'growing reports of antisemitism on our own streets here in Britain'.

• 4 September, 2014: CAA members staged a counter-protest against a demo by the 'increasingly hostile BDS movement' outside Marks & Spencer's in Marble Arch. They report being 'subjected to a range of antisemitic abuse', including 'Nazi salutes', and that 'a number of arrests followed'.

• 11 January, 2015: CAA invited its Facebook followers to attend a demonstration in Trafalgar Square organised by the French Embassy in response to an attack on a kosher supermarket in Paris, in which four hostages were killed. The CAA designed placards reading Je Suis Juif - a reference to the 'Je Suis Charlie' slogan widely voiced to express solidarity with the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo, 12 of whose staff were killed in an attack by two gunmen on 7 January, 2015.

Facebook campaigns

As well as its website, the CAA maintains an active Facebook group, which as of 14 January 2015 has 6,518 likes. It was set up on 1 August, 2014. As well as sharing links about antisemitism and protests against Israel, it organises online 'Action Campaign[s]' and 'Call[s] to Action'. Issues have included:

• Antisemitic tweets: the FB group posts images of tweet deemed antisemitic and urges followers to contact report their authors to the police and to their employers.

• Tricycle Theatre: Tricycle Theatre refused to host the Israeli state-funded UK Jewish film festival; the CAA called for a 7 August 2014 protest against this echo of 'the Nazi boycott of Jewish enterprise after Hitler's election'.

• Counter-boycott: the CAA urged support for the Kedem cosmetics shop in Manchester, targeted by some Palestinian activists for boycott. The CAA tried to show that much of the activism was motivated by antisemitism. (On 22 August, 2014, Greater Manchester Police imposed restrictions on Gaza protestors in Manchester.

• Sainsbury's kosher drop: CAA was one of a number of groups organising protest, primarily online protest, against the decision by a Sainsbury's store in Holborn to remove kosher food items from its shelves in advance of a pro-Palestinian protest.

2015 Antisemitism poll

In January 2015, newspaper headlines reported that nearly half of Britons subscribe to at least one antisemitic belief. They were based on the findings of a YouGov survey commissioned by CAA, which polled, inter alia, the following beliefs: 'Jews chase money more than other British people'; 'Jews' loyalty to Israel makes them less loyal to Britain than other British people'; 'Jews think they are better than other people' and 'have too much power in the media'; and 'Jews talk about the Holocaust too much in order to get sympathy'. The poll found, CAA claimed, that 45% of British adults believe at least one of the polled statements; 26% believe at least two and 17% believe at least three.

In news reports, Jonathan Sacerdoti was quoted as CAA spokesperson. A foreword to the CAA report, co-authored by Sacerdoti (Director of Communications) and Gideon Falter (Chairman) claimed:

Whilst antisemitism in Britain is not yet at the levels seen in most of Europe, the results of our survey should be a wakeup call. Britain is at a tipping point: unless antisemitism is met with zero tolerance, it will continue to grow and British Jews may increasingly question their place in their own country.

The poll also conducted an online survey of British Jews, finding high levels of fear and insecurity.

In the context of the January 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre the findings were widely reported. The Independent, for example, ran a front-page story headlined 'The new anti-semitism', which quoted CAA chairman Gideon Falter as follows:

These results are shocking wake up call straight after the atrocities in Paris. Britain is at a tipping point: unless antisemitism is met with zero tolerance, it will grow and British Jews will increasingly question their place in their own country.

The CAA's report also attracted serious criticism. Ha'aretz reporter Anshel Pfeffer argued that several of the allegedly antisemitic beliefs polled by YouGov do not necessarily amount to antisemitism, and criticised methodology of CAA's survey of British Jews as leading to an unrepresentative sample. He added:

The last finding in the survey is that 56 percent agree that 'the recent rise in anti-Semitism in Britain has some echoes of the 1930s'. If the majority of British Jews and the authors of the CAA report actually believe that, then it’s hard to take anything they say about contemporary anti-Semitism in their home country seriously. If they honestly think that the situation in Britain today echoes the 1930s when Jews were still banned from a wide variety of clubs and associations, when a popular fascist party, supported by members of the nobility and popular newspapers, were marching in support of Hitler, when large parts of the British establishment were appeasing Nazi Germany and the government was resolutely opposed to allowing Jewish refugees of Nazism in to Britain, finally relenting in 1938 to allow 10,000 children to arrive — but not their parents who were to die in the Holocaust (that shameful aspect of the Kindertransport that is seldom mentioned) — and when the situation of Jews in other European countries at the time was so much worse, then not only are they woefully ignorant of recent Jewish history but have little concept of what real anti-Semitism is beyond the type they see online.

Jonathan Boyd, executive director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, dismissed CAA's survey of British Jewish opinion as having 'little, if any, methodological credibility'. He also characterised the CAA's presentation of the YouGov poll as 'deeply flawed':

The finding, for example, that 'almost half of British adults believe at least one of the anti-Semitic statements shown to them to be true' is a deeply flawed read of the data. An accurate and honest read would rather highlight the fact that between 75 percent and 90% of people in Britain either do not hold anti-Semitic views or have no particular view of Jews either way, and only about 4% to 5% of people can be characterized as clearly anti-Semitic. This figure is similar to Pew data gathered in 2009 and 2014, which estimates the level at somewhere between 2% and 7%, and Anti-Defamation League data gathered in 2014 which, while also flawed, put it at 8%, and, more robustly, identified the UK as among the least anti-Semitic countries in the world.

On 8 January, 2015, CAA chairman Gideon Falter attended a meeting with Home Secretary Theresa May 'to address last year's recording-breaking number of antisemitic incidents' in the UK. He reportedly proposed a 'five-point plan':

1. Production of a quick reference guide on how to enforce the law against antisemitic hate crime for police officers and prosecutors;
2. Strengthening oversight mechanisms within the Police and CPS to ensure that the response to antisemitism is as firm as the law will permit;
3. Taking enforcement action against the organisers of marches and protests which become intimidatory or antisemitic;
4. Ensuring that social networks tackle online hate crime effectively; and

5. Formally adopting a definition of antisemitism which includes antisemitism disguised as anti-Israel political discourse.

It is not clear what if anything this 'plan' adds to existing Home Office policy, nor in what specifically CAA's 'zero tolerance agenda' consists.

The fifth point of the 'plan' merits attention. In an op-ed published in the wake of the report, Gideon Falter wrote:

In three separate questions 80% linked antisemitism with anti-Israel activity and media bias. These figures will now feed into our discussions with the government.

In another such op-ed, he wrote:

What many will probably seek to brush aside from our survey is the crossover between anti-Israel activism and anti-Semitism. 84% of Jews think boycotts of Israeli businesses are intimidatory. 82% of Jews think anti-Semitism has been fuelled by biased reporting on Israel. 77% have personally witnessed anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Israel activism. The tone of debate around Israel has become one of pure hatred – there is no debate. When thugs enter shops and throw all of the kosher food on the ground because it’s ‘Israeli’ or stand outside Jewish events shouting “Baby killers!”, it’s not hard to understand what is really happening. Anti-Israel protests are increasingly the scene of anti-Semitic acts, and we must cease to allow the perpetrators to get away with saying that they only meant to criticise Israel.

Pro-Israel groups have long sought to promote definitions of anti-semitism, such as the European Union Monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia (EUMC) Working Definition of Antisemitism, which threaten to conflate criticism of Israel with antisemitism. It is not clear how the CAA proposes to distinguish 'antisemitism disguised as anti-Israel political discourse' from 'anti-Israel political discourse' that has nothing to do with antisemitism.

Anglo-Jewish politics

As noted, the CAA's 31 August, 2014 rally against antisemitism in London was supported by the United Synagogue and Board of Deputies. CAA spokesperson Jonathan Sacerdoti said of this backing: 'The establishment was very supportive; some might say they didn’t want to get left behind'. On the day of the protest, he told a reporter,

It is great that the communal organisations who have been criticised for not doing enough have come on board and have supported us in organising an important day.

As Sacerdoti's comment suggests, and as Ha'aretz reports, the Campaign Against Antisemitism is an intervention in Anglo-Jewish politics. Its context appears to be one of increasing grassroots discontent among Jewish and pro-Israel activists with the performance of communal bodies on Israel and antisemitism. As one newspaper reported:

At the rally, there was audible booing when the representatives of the Board of Deputies – President Vivian Wineman and Senior Vice President Laura Marks – ascended the podium to speak. The Jewish Chronicle’s Marcus Dysch tweeted that people were shouting things like 'you need to do more', 'resign', and 'shame'.

The Community Security Trust (CST), the most important UK Jewish organisation concerned with (inter alia) monitoring antisemitism, reacted coolly to the CAA. CST deputy director of communication Dave Rich observed that, while the frequency of antisemitic incidents spiked during Israel's 'Operation Protective Edge', 'a lot of anti-Israel language and activism isn’t anti-Semitic or illegal'. Of the two grievances that CAA has concentrated on - the Tricycle Theatre's dropping of the Israeli state-funded UK Jewish Film Festival and a decision by a Sainsbury's supermarket in Holborn to remove kosher food from display lest it provoke pro-Palestinian protestors - Rich stressed that these were 'very much isolated incidents... bad decisions quickly overturned'. Rich also played down suggestions that antisemitism was a significant motor of popular protest against Israel's attack on Gaza: 'Examples of anti-Semitism at the demos did exist, on the fringes, with home-made banners – it didn’t characterize the demos as a whole'. He added that protests against 'Protective Edge' were much better than those against 'Operation Cast Lead' in 2008-9.

People

The CAA's 2015 report, Annual Antisemitism Barometer: 2015 Annual Report lists the following staff members:

• Gideon Falter - Chairman
• Jonathan Sacerdoti - Director of Communications

The CAA's website lists nine organisers.

Campaign Committee

• Mandy Blumenthal
• Darren Borg
• Justin Chorn
• Joseph Cohen
• Gideon Falter
• Nussi Hopstein
• Jordan Jay
• Rupert Nathan

Spokesman

• Jonathan Sacerdoti

Contact

Website: http://www.campaignagainstantisemitism.com/ | http://antisemitism.uk/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/campaignagainstantisemitism

Twitter: https://twitter.com/caantisemitism

Resources

• Ben Quinn, 'Almost half of Britons hold antisemitic view, poll suggests', The Guardian, 14 January, 2015.
• Gideon Falter, 'Let’s turn fear of anti-Semitism into fight', Jewish News (3 September, 2014).