‘After Jeremy Corbyn, after all of the antisemitism, I was now standing alongside Jewish and non-Jewish members alike’
Parliamentary assistant Sam Kahn at the Labour conference in Liverpool during Israel’s 911
Attending the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool was different this year. With more than 260 bodies discovered at an Israeli music festival the day before, it was always going to be. But as a Jewish Labour member, I felt that the party struck the right tone.
Knowing what was happening in Israel, I had chosen to avoid thinking about it. To compartmentalise and focus on my job as a researcher. That worked for the first few days. But on Monday, when my lovely boss, Siobhain McDonagh MP, asked if I was alright, I started to cry.
I headed to a grass area just outside the conference secure zone and bawled my eyes out. A 24-year-old man, who struggles to cry at funerals, snorting and tearing all over. After that, I decided that avoiding the situation wasn’t going to work.
The next day, Labour Friends of Israel (LFI) hosted a vigil for the victims. I thought I would be going alone, but my boss, and the whole team decided to join me. They abandoned their drinks reception and came to pay their respects.
Arriving at the vigil was surreal. As I walked down the escalators, I saw queues snaking around the hallways. I wondered what they were queuing for. Was there some sort of celebrity in the centre? No, they were all going to the same place that I was going to.
Walking in, I found a huge auditorium, with Israeli flags draped over TVs next to the podium, filled to the brim with Labour members, Rabbis, parliamentary staff, delegates, and every single member of the Shadow Cabinet. There were a thousand people in that auditorium, but I soon found out that hundreds of people had been turned away due to a lack of space. Such was the demand from Labour members to pay their respects.
Their solidarity, and the whole event, was totally on point. The minutes silence, the Jewish and non-Jewish friends checking in on each other, asking if they were ok, was remarkable.
When Keir Starmer, David Lammy, Yvette Cooper and Rachel Reeves spoke, their words were heartfelt and personal. David Lammy seemed to sum it up the best.
Talking about Hamas, he said “These are not militants, these are not insurgents, they are terrorists, and they do nothing to advance the cause of peace”. Explaining, in detail, the unspeakable atrocities, that have been carried out against women and babies, he said “This is not a battlefield, this is a massacre”. Steve McCabe, Chair of LFI added: “Jews have a word for events like this, ‘a pogrom’”.
Finally, it feels like the Labour Party get it. The party understands that Hamas is not a resistance force, but a terrorist organisation, with murdering Jews in its’ constitution.
The most moving parts of the ceremony were the religious elements. Adrian Cohen, another Jewish Labour Movement member, stood up to say the Jewish prayer “Oh Se Shalom”. In English, he translated, “One thing above all, that for Israel, for the Jewish people, and for the world, that there should be peace”. The prayer, that I had only ever heard at synagogue, I was now hearing at Labour Party conference.
After Jeremy Corbyn, after all of the antisemitism, I was now standing alongside Jewish and non-Jewish members alike, heads bowed, to pay our respects. Then as Hatikvah rung out, I felt comfortable singing along. I let my Jewishness stand proud in a way that I never would have a few years ago. It was a privilege.
Nothing about the events of the past few days are about the Labour Party. But at a time when Kosher shops are being vandalised in Golders Green and Jewish school children are being told not to use public transport in case they are abused, the Labour party felt like a safe space to be Jewish. The party seemed to handle it well and made sure that Corbyn’s era of antisemitism is firmly in the rear-view mirror.
- Sam Kahn is a parliamentary assistant to Siobhain McDonagh Labour MP
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