Johnson’s Jewish moments
The Conservative Party leader announced last week that he would step down.
For many Britons, Boris Johnson’s tenure as prime minister will have been defined by scandals like the one that forced him to resign last Thursday. For Jewish Britons, the memories might well include a broken menorah.
The Conservative Party leader announced he would step down after a scandal involving his handling of the case of a senior official who had been accused of sexual abuse. He had also come under criticism for violating the UK’s COVID-19 rules and his allegedly failing to report some meetings with Russian oligarchs.
When he vacates the office, Britain’s nearly 300,000 Jews are likely to remember him as someone whose leadership had little lasting effect on their status. Predecessor Theresa May led the UK’s adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, blacklisted Hezbollah as a terrorist group and lifted the unofficial boycott on official visits to Israel by senior members of the British Royal House.
By contrast, Johnson’s tenure featured few changes, for better or worse, on the issues that many community members hold dear, according to Herschel Gluck, an influential Orthodox rabbi from north London. He noted that under Johnson, British authorities did strengthen enforcement of rules that Charedi Jewish schools in the United Kingdom seem reluctant to uphold.
“Johnson has charisma, spoke generally in positive terms and gave the feeling that the community was dear to his heart, which a lot of people liked. But I can’t think of a single area where he actually delivered,” Rabbi Gluck said.
Anat Koren, the editor-in-chief of London’s Hebrew-language newspaper, Alondon, offered a more sanguine assessment of Johnson’s tenure.
“He was a friend to Israel with a warm attitude to the Jewish community,” she said. “He made sure there isn’t a deterioration when it comes to the government’s attitudes to Israel and the Jews, and that’s already a lot.”
Whatever his scorecard on Jewish issues, Johnson certainly provided some memorable Jewish moments since 2019. He made a rare visit to the Belfast synagogue earlier this year. Last year he organised an hour-long video call with a survivor and a death camp liberator. As foreign secretary, he spoke out pointedly against what he described as anti-Israel bias at United Nations forums.
Arguably the most memorable moment, though, was last Chanukah, when, in the presence of then Israeli foreign minister Yair Lapid, he enthusiastically waved around a delicate menorah which went flying and subsequently broke.
JTA
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