An excellent letter in today's Guardian, signed by over 80 British Jews. Note the insistence on the separation of Zionism from religion. Spot on. And, Keith, as you always seem to want balance when we discuss Israel, how about the point in the letter about the serious anti-Muslim racism in our politics? Never seems to come up much, does it? In your perpetual attempts to make Jews sound like victims, what price your sense of unfairness and lack of balance now? These are British Jews calling for fairness, balance, and a sense of proportion with regard to history. Are they all misguided, Keith?

Anti-Zionism does not equate to antisemitism

In his Daily Telegraph article on which you report (Chief rabbi: Labour has severe problem with antisemitism, theguardian.com, 4 May), Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said the antisemitism crisis engulfing Labour had "lifted the lid" on bigotry.
He joins in the sensationalist allegations of antisemitism in the Labour party, where the headlines' decibel level is in inverse proportion to the evidence supporting them. Ignoring the more serious anti-Muslim racism in electoral politics, Rabbi Mirvis attacks the Labour party by launching a defence of Zionism which turns it from a political ideology (that can be supported or opposed) into a religion that is beyond question. We British Jews reject this categorically.
Mirvis attacks as "antisemitic" those who separate Judaism from Zionism. Yet most Jews who perished in the Holocaust were indifferent to Zionism and many opposed it. In the last municipal elections in Europe's largest Jewish community, in Poland, just before the second world war, Poland's Jews voted overwhelmingly for the secular, anti-Zionist, socialists of the Bund, while Zionist parties got derisory votes. Is Rabbi Mirvis recasting those victims of the Holocaust posthumously as enemies of Judaism and therefore as antisemites?

Alexei Sayle, Leon Rosselson, Les Levidow, Michael Rosen, Mike Leigh, Miriam Margolyes, Moshe Machover, Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi and 80 others (full list at gu.com/letters)