After pledging to stamp out anti-Semitism from his party, British Labor leader Jeremy Corbyn attended a Passover seder organized by a group describing Israel as “a steaming pile of sewage.”
By: Ben Cohen, The Algemeiner
Jeremy Corbyn, the embattled leader of the opposition British Labour Party, was again locked in conflict with the country’s Jewish community on Tuesday — just days after publicly admitting that “antisemitism has occurred in pockets within the Labour Party, causing pain and hurt to our Jewish community,” and pledging to “stamp this out from our party and movement.”
Corbyn’s attendance on Monday night at an alternative Passover Seder organized by “Jewdas” – a small association of left-wing anti-Zionists devoted to attacking the UK’s mainstream Jewish communal leadership — was greeted with dismay by Jewish leaders and several Labour politicians, many of whom pointed to a tweet from the group that described Israel as “a steaming pile of sewage which needs to be properly disposed of.”
Political blog Guido Fawkes published photos of Corbyn at the Seder, along with leaked audio in which guests were heard reading from a specially written Passover haggadah.
In one passage, guests were urged to “take a moment to consider how sh*t the State of Israel is in general and particularly at the moment.”
But by the standards of the 2017 edition of the group’s “haggadah,” the version read in Corbyn’s presence had clearly been toned down — perhaps in anticipation of a controversy.
In that version, the word “f**k” appeared no less than 33 times, while the words “Palestine” and “Palestinian” appeared 11 times. The word “Jerusalem” appeared once, in an explanation that the shank bone on the Passover seder plate “represents the sacrifice Jews used to make at the temple in Jerusalem, and our mourning for the temple being destroyed.”
“100% f**k that,” the text continued.
Corbyn defended his attendance at the “Jewdas” Passover celebration on Tuesday.
Describing it as “a celebration of Passover, which I celebrate with young Jewish people from my own community and my own constituency,” the Labour leader said it was “very interesting talking to a lot of young people about their experiences of modern Britain and I learned a lot.”
“Isn’t that a good thing?” Corbyn asked.
