An organisation in 'crisis': Jewish anti-Zionists hit back at Board of Deputies
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Fleur Hargreaves
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Fri, 06/19/2026 - 16:04
Pro-Palestine groups contest the Board of Deputies of British Jews' statement about its protest outside the Great Israeli Real Estate Event
Demonstrators and counter-demonstrators face off outside the Great Israeli Real Estate Event (Maya Saad/MEE)
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Anti-Zionist Jewish groups have responded to the statement issued by the Board of Deputies of British Jews condemning its protest outside a Great Israeli Real Estate Event in London on Sunday.
The demonstration was co-organised by the groups Jewish Anti-Zionist Action (JAZA), International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network (IJAN) and the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) to oppose the sale of land and properties, including illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, promoted at the event.
In its statement, the Board of Deputies attempted to claim the event, which was hosted by the Edgware United Synagogue in northwest London, did not market any real estate over the Green Line - the 1949 armistice line separating Israel from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The board said the protests were “wholly unjustified” and intended to “harass and intimidate members of the Jewish community”, without acknowledging that many protestors were from the local Jewish community themselves.
Despite Sky News revealing images that contradict its claims and property event organisers being forced to apologise for listing West Bank settlements as illegal under international law, the Board of Deputies has neither retracted nor corrected its statement.
Jewish protesters say that the Board of Deputies, a representative body made up of elected members from synagogues and Jewish organisations, can no longer seek to describe itself as “the voice of the British Jewish Community”.
Dora, who is Jewish and grew up in the area, obtained marketing materials after signing up for the event with other JAZA members, before they were kicked out for disrupting it.
She told Middle East Eye that “categorically speaking, there was illegal land sale happening, because I picked up the leaflets, the brochure, and have videos of the stalls in the main room”.
On top of physical evidence, Dora also told MEE that she had a covert conversation with one of the stalls about properties that they “weren’t allowed to” advertise in what they called “Judea and Samaria”, the Israeli name for the occupied West Bank.
“They don’t see anything wrong, because they believe that the land is theirs”, she explained, which is why there was a “hush, hush, giggly, under the table, ‘that’s fine’ attitude” from the vendors.
MEE contacted the Board of Deputies for comment, but had received no response at the time of publication.
Board of Deputies allying itself with a ‘fascist mob’
The event drew pro-Israel counter-protesters who MEE journalists witnessed attacking and verbally abusing pro-Palestinian demonstrators, as well as the presence of the Metropolitan Police Service.
One counter-protester was videoed taunting attendees with a photo of a dead Palestinian child.
Max Hammer, who is also a member of JAZA, referred to the counter-protesters as exhibiting “the behaviour of a fascist mob” who “did everything they could to exert as much violence on us as possible before the police arrived”.
He described witnessing counter-protesters singing Tommy Robinson chants, and wearing Trump hats and Jewish Defense League (JDL) T-shirts.
JDL has been classifiedas a “right-wing terrorist group” by the US Federal Bureau of Investigation since 2001.
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Hammer said that the board, by aligning itself with the counter-protesters organised by Stop the Hate, have chosen to “legitimise far-right violence” and “aggressively shore up its position by making common cause with street fascists”.
He said that this is proof that the organisation is in “crisis” from “twisting itself into knots in order to defend a state that has shown itself to be committing a genocide in Gaza”.
As a result, it has “found itself at odds with increasing parts of the Jewish community” as well as society as a whole, which has turned against Israel, forcing it to “find allies in ever more repugnant places” because “the alternative would be to confront the moral rot at the heart of Zionism and the far-right politics that Zionism has become synonymous with”.
“The only saving grace is that by making it increasingly clear that upholding a Zionist position means collaborating with far-right groups… They are doing the work of the Jewish left for them, by making it very evident how morally bankrupt this project is.”
Hammer described witnessing “two visions” for the Jewish community: “either a multiracial coalition of Jewish people standing alongside other minority groups fighting for human rights” or “on the other side… a project of fascism, united by the belief that it’s destroy or be destroyed”.
"Increasingly it is becoming untenable to occupy a middle ground," Hammer said, adding that "the Board of Deputies has shown which vision it prefers".
Jewish safety
Joshua Gottlieb, a member of the Jewish organisation Na’amod, described the event as “using synagogues as cover, laundering their reputation through synagogues… to sell illegal settlements in a place of God”.
“How can you say that you support Jewish safety?" He asked. "Think about how that portrays Jewish people.”
In fact, he told MEE that he “faced extra threat” from counter-protesters because he was wearing a kippah and was physically attacked as a result.
Gottlieb described the Board of Deputies' "disingenuous" statement as "part of an ecosystem that meant on Sunday I was threatened and harassed by people who... wanted to hurt me". He accused the Board of Deputies of being “part of that propaganda, which is creating violence against Jewish people”.
“It is becoming increasingly clear to everyone that the Board of Deputies does not speak for all Jews”, he added.
In the lead-up to the event, it sparked widespread condemnation from over 100 UK MPs and peers. London mayor Sadiq Khan, Green Party leader Zack Polanski and Amnesty International UK called for it to be cancelled.
London synagogue reported to Charity Commission over event promoting Israeli settlement property
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However, despite the political and media pressure, the event went ahead.
Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper referred the incident to the Advertising Standards Authority, while Polanski called the measure “inadequate” and said the incident should be investigated by the Met due to “clear evidence” of unlawful activity.
For Gottlieb, the fact that the event went ahead despite such criticism, while Cooper purported to impose sanctions on illegal settlements, shows how “hollow” the government’s words were.
Jeanine Hourani, a representative of PYM, told MEE that they had “wanted to apply a multi-pronged strategy to get the event cancelled” before it took place, but had been left with no alternative except to mobilise, arguing that “when the government doesn’t do its job, then people have to take matters into their own hands”.
“It is important for us as Palestinians living in Britain to say that we will not accept the sale of land that was stolen from our parents’ and grandparents’ generation to happen on our watch in London… not just in settlements but across historic Palestine.”
Hourani was disappointed by some of the media framing that sought to reduce the campaign to a “brawl outside of a synagogue” and was missing vital context, including that grassroots organisations, legal groups, parliamentarians and leading human rights organisations had called for the event to be cancelled before its location was known.
In spite of this support, police arrested protesters who were being assaulted rather than protecting them, which, she said, made it "clear whose interests they are serving".
Oscar Leyens, an organiser with IJAN, told MEE that the mainstream media and political class have “treated the Board of Deputies line as authoritative” in speaking for an increasingly polarised British Jewry, allowing it to “play a very prominent role… to justify expanding the military industrial complex and the repression of the growing anti-Zionist movement”.
But now, Leyens says the board has been “totally exposed” as “craven liars”.
The Board of Deputies recently released a statement celebrating the Court of Appeal's decision to uphold the ban on Palestine Action, presenting the group's targeting of Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit Systems as an attack on "Jewish-owned businesses".
The board also invited Reform UK’s Nigel Farage, who was accused by a Jewish former schoolmate of saying “Hitler was right”, to an antisemitism rally. It did not extend the invitation to Polanski, the only Jewish leader of a political party.
“Reform’s agenda is ethno-nationalist, and so is the agenda of Zionism. Judaism is deployed as a cover for contributions to the genocide of the Palestinian people,” Leyens explained.
For him, “the Jewish experience in history can speak to and inform our anti-Zionism in many ways” because it reflects a tradition of resisting “Nazism, fascism and racism”.
“The acts we take in the International [Jewish] Anti-Zionist Network are in line with the struggle of the oppressed” because “we believe in the politics of collective liberation”: fighting for “a fully liberated Palestine, including the right to return, from the river to the sea”.
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