Our politics

We are socialists, diasporists and secularists. As socialists we know that there can be no secure future for Jews, other minorities, working people and the unemployed under an economic system that promotes greed over need. We are anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist and we campaign for social justice locally, nationally and internationally. We join with others to fight discrimination and persecution and we also challenge conservative forces within our own community. We work for a socialist solution to the Israel/Palestine conflict, based on equality and self-determination for Israeli and Palestinian Jews and Arabs, and we challenge the leaders of the Jewish community when they defend or excuse Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

As diasporists we celebrate the fact that the Jews are an international people. We support the right of Jews and other ethnic minorities to live in security and harmony with other communities wherever they are in the world, and to be free to express and develop their historical and cultural identities. In the diaspora we are at home, not in exile. We reject the negative ideology of Zionism, which subordinates the political, social, economic and cultural needs of diaspora communities to the demands of the Israeli state.

As secularists we fight for democracy, equality and the right to dissent within the Jewish community and in the wider society. Jewish identity is diverse and dynamic, and we are especially committed to strengthening a progressive, secular Jewish identity. We challenge our communal establishment’s attempts to confine Jewishness within a religious or Zionist framework and to marginalise and exclude people from Jewish life on the basis of their politics, gender or sexuality. As secularists we argue for the separation of religion from the state, so that individuals of all religions and none are citizens on equal terms; we also apply this principle to our own community so that all Jews have an equal right to express themselves.

An alternative voice

The needs of ordinary Jewish people, and the diverse range of opinions within our community, are constantly misrepresented by powerful individuals and institutions such as the Chief Rabbi, the Board of Deputies, the Israeli Embassy, the Jewish Leadership Council and the mainstream Jewish press. They claim to speak on our behalf but they share a narrow set of political orthodoxies and interests. Our group gives a voice and a platform to anti-racist Jews, Jewish feminists, working class Jews, gay and lesbian Jews, secular Jews, diasporist Jews. We give a voice and a platform to Jews who do not fear open debate or interaction with other communities.