ANTI-SEMITISM IN BRITAIN

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 67, Issue 48, 6 December 1946, Page 3

ANTI-SEMITISM IN BRITAIN

Mr Reeve went on to say that reaction against the Jews were becoming very strong in Britain. It was still below the surface, but it would take very little to make it articulate. There was also much resentment in Britain about . Jewish-inspired anti-British propaganda in the . United States. Rabbi A. S. Super, senior minister of the United Hebrew Congregation of Leeds, said that the Jewish side of the case had not been propertly presented by the British press. He was not going to make accusations against British soldiers and police, but a definite case could be made out to show that acts of terrorism had also been perpetrated on the British side. Tim present anti-Semitic briefing of British soldiers in Palestine should be stopped. ' Mr Neville Laski, K.C., said that outrages must be condemned, whatever their cause. He agreed that there had been a growth of anti-Semitism in Britain, particularly in the provincial cities. As a British citizen he was horrified and outraged at some of the things now being said, particularly in the United States, about this country and its Government. Mr Laski said the British people had been the best friends of the Jew,

COUNCIL OF CHRISTIANS CONCERNED , • Effect Of Palestine Outrages (Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.) ;(R«ceived This Day, 11.30 a.m.)' LONDON, December 5. Anxiety about the growth of anti-Semitism in Britain as a result f of Jewish anti-British propaganda and terrorist outrages in Palestine was expressed at the annual meeting of the Council of Christians and Jews in London. The Vicar of Leeds, the Rev. A. S. Reeve, whose parish contains proportionately the largest Jewish community in Britain, said he was seriously perturbed at the situation developing in Britain between Christians and Jews as a result of the terrorist outrages in Palestine. Mr Reeve said that when the Council of Christians and Jews had been founded 18 months ago they had no difficulty in obtaining members. Now, however, he found a change of mind in the most responsible people, and he would go so far as to say that if the present trend continued he would find it extremely difficult to keep his own council together. He appealed to Christians to live up to the spirit of their religion in their approach to the matter, and to the Jewish community to condemn outrages.

and if the Jewish community forfeited that good will, they, would lose something upon which they depended. The Archbishop of .Canterbury (Dr. Geoffrey Fisher) said the extent of the outrages was calculated to encourage anti-Semitism, and there was evidence that it had done so. He moved a resolution placing on record the council’s abhorrence of outrages, and appealing to the people of Britain to guard against any tendency to condemn the Jews as a whole for the crimes of “a numerically insignificant minority.” The resolution was carried unanimously. The “Yorkshire Post,” commenting in a leading article upon Rabbi fjuper’s allegations against the reporting of the Jewish case in the British press, says: “The British press reports events in Palestine and their reaction here as fairly and as wisely as it can. This newspaper is attacked by the Jews for not printing all the propaganda they send in. Our policy is one of restraint and it is applied to both sides, to Jews who make wild attacks on Britain, and to other citizens who are' antagonised to the point of loathing and anger ffiy reports that they hear. There are extremists on both sides.”