Scottish Friends of Israel

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Scottish Friends of Israel is a Zionist group set up by the 'media response group' of the Glasgow Jewish Representative Council in 2003. It's website was in existence until 2018,[1] but since then has been defunct. It created a Facebook page in 2013 which in 2025 has 2.6K likes • 2.8K followers. The Facebook page is still active but seems to be used simply for posting news related to Zionist concerns.

The web page of the Scottish Friends of Israel in April 2004, from the Internet Archive.

Timeline

'Scottish Jews split on website', Jewish Chronicle, 19 November 2004.
  • 2004 (November)
  • 2004 (August) - STANLEY GROSSMAN, of the Scottish Friends of Israel (Letters, July 30), says his organisation has been highly commended by, among others, the Board of Deputies and the Chief Rabbi's office. But not all of Scottish Jewry is impressed with the Scottish Friends of Israel. Some of us feel that the stereotyping to be found on their website could cause damage to the interests of Scottish Jewry. Letters to the press written in their name do not portray either Israel or the Glasgow Jewish community favourably and are just as extreme as the ugly letters written against Jews or Israel. Many of their letters are crass and insensitive and actually encourage anti-Semitic feeling rather than counter it. TONY TANKEL, tony.tankel,@ntlworld.com.[2]
  • 2004 (August) - SFI was originally set up under the auspices of the Glasgow's Jewish Representative Council, and is still affiliated to it. However, the council has criticised the group's stance, and has stepped in to try to mediate in the dispute. "I would appeal to SFI to be true to their original promise to be a broadly based organisation representing all strands of pro-Israel opinion," Dr Kenneth Collins, the council's president, told the JC, adding that he hoped the "offensive material" about Peace Now would be removed. However, SFI co-ordinator Mickey Green said that the article had been the subject of "an unfortunate misinterpretation. We are neither left nor right. We simply exist to present an alternative view [of the Middle East] to the general public."[3]
  • 2003 - "REDRESSING THE balance" is both the name and the aim of a website produced by Glasgow Jewish Representative Council's mediaresponse group, jointly with the Scottish Friends of Israel. Site designer Raymond Mann said: "There is so much bias against Israel in the media that we in Scotland feel need to redress the balance." The site has some 30 pages and is linked to other relevant web pages. The site is at www.scottishfriendsofisrael.org.[4]

People

Contact

Notes

  1. https://web.archive.org/web/20180603210409/http://www.scottishfriendsofisrael.org/
  2. Letters, Jewish Chronicle 13 August 2004, p. 20.
  3. Web slur sparks Scottish spat, Jewish Chronicle, 27 August 2004, p. 3
  4. Jewish Chronicle, 5 September 2003, p. 7.