Criticisms and Controversies
In 2003, the Board, on its web site, reproduced an extract from a US State Department report that suggested that the aid organisation Palestinian Relief and Development Fund (Interpal) was helping to fund terrorist organisations. Interpal threatened to sue for libel, whereupon the Board retracted and apologized for its comments
The Board became involved in the Oliver Finegold affair when the Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone made comments to a Jewish reporter, Oliver Finegold, comparing him or the newspaper he worked for, to a concentration camp guard. Many individuals and media commentators objected to the remark. Along with the Commission for Racial Equality, the Board filed a complaint to the Standards Board for England, calling for the Mayor to apologize to the reporter. The Mayor made a statement condemning the Holocaust, but stood by his remarks to the journalist, mentioning in passing his belief that the Board of Jewish Deputies only represents a small section of the Jewish community.
On 5 February 2007, a group of prominent British Jews, such as Nobel laureate Harold Pinter and lawyer Sir Geoffrey Bindman, launched an organization called Independent Jewish Voices to counterbalance what they perceive as uncritical support of Israel by major Jewish institutions in the UK, criticizing particularly the Board of Deputies of British Jews.
Read more about this topic: Board Of Deputies Of British Jews
Famous quotes containing the word criticisms:
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)