A-Z OF JEWISH VALUES -

L FOR LAW & LIBERTY

I wanted to talk about Jewish Law this Shabbat. It’s dictated by the parashah we read earlier about the daughters of Zelophchad.

Then came the failed attempt at a repeat of the London bombing atrocity .

And I’m still keeping the subject of Law – Law and Liberty. Because the bombings have strengthened the governments resolve to have tougher laws against incitement to terrorism and in particular to religious incitement.

These are extraordinarily dangerous times calling for extraordinary action. We have been through IRA bombings in our cities over 30 years. This is different; we all sense that is so. It is an international problem.

There is a huge divide in our country over the advisability of the proposed new legislation. Outlawing actions directly aimed at encouraging terrorism – no problem, it’s already against the law. Outlawing indirect incitement – though there is wide agreement in all communities, including the Muslim, that speaking, teaching, preaching is very much behind the trouble, laws are a double-edged sword: while they may protect civil liberties, they may also threaten them.

Free speech is the mark of a liberal society. The cliché we’ve been hearing from our PM and the Queen ‘we must not let them destroy our way of life’ could be contradicted by proposed legislation against religious incitement. Undoubtedly intentions will matter. If it is blatant arousal to violence – then all such incitement should be illegal. If we broadly restrict freedom of religious teaching, ‘though, will that not be a step along the road which militant extremists of Sham Islam want to impose? One in which there is no such freedom?

Our form of Judaism is one in which laws are to serve people not people to serve laws.

It is opposed to those forms of Judaism and Islam which seek to establish a religious state in which everyone’s life will be regulated by religious law, and where all the freedoms we take for granted – publishing and reading, speaking in public, TV and cinema, would be severely curbed.

When the news started coming through of the attempted attacks in London, I was on my way to a meeting at the Greater Manchester Police HQ, a meeting of religious leaders Muslim, Jewish, Christian and others, with the assistant Chief Constable Rob Taylor. It’s to be an ongoing forum set up in the wake of the July 7^th bombings for mutual support between us and the police and amongst ourselves. As Rob Taylor said ‘if we can work together it will be more difficult for the extremists to drive wedges between us.

The majority present were Muslim leaders and other Asians. It was a real eye-opener talking with them hearing their concerns at first-hand. Some of them did want curbs, especially of the press and media where they see themselves becoming demonised, all tarred with the same brush, too much coverage of the militants Al Mahajiun and Hizb-ut-Tahrir and not enough attention paid to their moderates.

Our Jewish concerns were voiced, by Louis Rapaport and myself over the proposed meeting in Manchester in a couple of weeks which was due to feature Sheik Karadawi, but owing to protests against his condoning of suicide bombers in Israel he declined.

This is a man who is supposed to be moderate – I had a long debate with two of the organisers of that meeting (one of them was the leader of the Ramadan Foundation who had appeared on the news arguing in favour of Karadawi’s appearance) – we never really got down to the key issue that a distinction is being made between such atrocities which some of them hail as freedom from oppression in Israel and the same indiscriminate acts committed here which everyone acknowledges as evil. But we are continuing the discussion .

Laws against extreme views being voiced at all would stifle discussion and get nowhere. They would just drive the radical extremists further underground. There was a strong feeling in the meeting against restrictive legislation in the religious sphere.

But the greatest concern above all was how to control their youth. Their problem is how do they ensure that they are not influenced by the wrong people. They despair that are not getting across to them- there is a cultural gap, they don’t speak the same language (they complained that in the mosques they should be addressed in English, not Urdu or Arabic) they’re not on the same wave length. And the police were asking what tactics can be used to reach out to the youth.

One Imam whom I am very friendly with, Habib ur-Rahman, who has visited us here a number of times over the years, mentioned the 15 year old boy who won his case against the government over the curfew law – on grounds that his human rights were infringed if he couldn’t be allowed to pop down to the supermarket or the cinema after 9pm without being arrested just because he was under 15.

What can the law do now that police are losing that power to protect us from young teenage hooligans, he was asking, but he added ‘hooligans that are goaded by adults’.

And this is the crux of the matter. It’s the responsibility of the whole community to ensure that peace prevails.

In the midst of the agonising about youth, my orthodox colleague Rabbi Rubin, who I was sitting with, rose to his feet. Rabbi Yitzchak Rubin or the ‘Bowdoner Rebbe’ is the Jewish Police Chaplain. He said I think I can help here (why is it we Jews are always giving everybody else advice?). He said in his broad New York accent I’ve been where Muslims are today, in the village of Brooklyn. 30 years ago I was involved with a community relations problem. Young people drifting away from their parents. Rabbis trying in vain to get them back into the synagogue.”

“One very charismatic rabbi actually succeeded, and the adults were saying ‘good, now they’ll be more religious, they’ll start eating kosher again, they’ll observe the Sabbath and holydays…’ But this charismatic rabbi turned out to teach very extreme views.”

“There we were,” he said, “surrounded by blacks and Puerto Ricans, and there had been some anti-Semitic incidents, and this rabbi was had a slogan – he was saying ‘Every Jew is a .22’ (which means a gun) ‘Get tooled up’ he would say –‘go and get a gun’.”

“The police wouldn’t get involved,” said Rabbi Rubin, “to them we all looked alike – we all wore funny beards and funny hats. They couldn’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. The police turned to us and said ‘you guys sort yourselves out.’

“So his community held a meeting, chaired by a eminent rabbi who said: ‘this maniac will destroy everything we value- we’ve come to this land of freedom, and he is going to wreck it for us – we must close off his oxygen.’

“‘Just do this,’ he said, ‘put a padlock on every synagogue in Brooklyn. I’ll pay for it.’

“So wherever the ‘charismatic’ rabbi went to speak, he found the door locked. And when he asked ‘how do I get in here?’ he was told, ‘speak to the Rav – he’s got the keys.’ So he left town.”

Rabbi Rubin added “I know what your pain is. I’ve been there. I’ve been picked on, and I’m not even a player in this game. You know who the players are. I just want you to know, that we understand where you’re coming from.”

We do need those tougher laws cracking down on anything directly and overtly inducing acts of terrorism and angerism: hate-mongering, let alone bomb-making. We also need to protect free speech and free press. The law needs to make clear that intentions are key.

Above all has to be a trans-communal marginalising of extremists. Cut off their oxygen.

For example, when the founder of the British National Party died this week, it was good that he wasn’t given too much coverage, and that the focus was on him having been about to stand trial.

There has to be an understanding of the inimical ideologies on all sides, a public will to encourage reasoned debate based on mutual trust, and an earnest desire all round to preserve our civil liberties.