Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) is an organization launched on 5 February 2007 by 150 prominent British Jews such as Nobel laureate Harold Pinter, historian Eric Hobsbawm, lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman, Lady Ellen Dahrendorf, film director Mike Leigh, and actors Stephen Fry and Zoë Wanamaker. The organization is reportedly "born out of a frustration with the widespread misconception that the Jews of this country speak with one voice –– and that this voice supports the Israeli government's policies." IJV stated it was founded "to represent British Jews ... in response to a perceived pro-Israeli bias in existing Jewish bodies in the UK," and, according to Hobsbawn, "as a counter-balance to the uncritical support for Israeli policies by established bodies such as the Board of Deputies of British Jews."
Read more about Independent Jewish Voices: IJV Declaration, Signatories, Responses, "End The Siege of Gaza!"
Famous quotes containing the words independent, jewish and/or voices:
“It is so rare to meet with a man outdoors who cherishes a worthy thought in his mind, which is independent of the labor of his hands. Behind every man’s busy-ness there should be a level of undisturbed serenity and industry, as within the reef encircling a coral isle there is always an expanse of still water, where the depositions are going on which will finally raise it above the surface.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“What was lost in the European cataclysm was not only the Jewish past—the whole life of a civilization—but also a major share of the Jewish future.... [ellipsis in source] It was not only the intellect of a people in its prime that was excised, but the treasure of a people in its potential.”
—Cynthia Ozick (b. 1928)
“A city is a place where there is no need to wait for next week to get the answer to a question, to taste the food of any country, to find new voices to listen to and familiar ones to listen to again.”
—Margaret Mead (1901–1978)