Jews & co.

In the past couple of weeks, on the Guardian there’s been a debate mostly among Jews on what Jews think of Israel. Brian Klug kicked it off denouncing the Board of Deputies of British Jews for taking a partisan position in favour of Israel without admitting any divergence of opinion. The Board, who, as Klug explains, call themselves ‘the voice of British Jewry’ is far from representative, in fact it's mostly made up of people from north-west London. Personally, aside from preferring the satirical version of the Board, I can’t see why there should be a ‘voice of British Jewry’ at all. This structure of a Board with a Chief Rabbi originates from the system Napoleon imposed in France with the Consistoire. The British liked the idea and replicated. Things have moved on and more and more Jews are members of Reform and Liberal synagogues. Jewish communities are more heterogeneous than they've ever been. Politicians like putting people and groups into a box with a nice clear label, such as ‘jewish’, ‘muslim’ or ‘christian’. Understandably, the government would like groups to organise and elect spokespeople so that they could be consulted on issues that might affect those communities. Such a system, however, would lead to the government taking for granted that the view expressed by the leaders/spokespeople/representatives of those communities reflects what the community as a whole thinks. In a democracy people come together for different reasons and have multiple communities, not monolithic blocks. We’ve seen the rather sad coalition of some Catholic, Anglican and Muslim groups against the Sexual Orientation Regulations 2006 (although I wonder whether the same would have happened had internal political pressures within the Catholic and Anglican Churches not been there).
The ‘communitarian’ view of society is disingenuous. To essentialise communities and to reduce the individual to merely a member of a community will ultimately damage the community itself. Respect for diversity is founded on the right of the individual not to conform.
Citizenship means having a stake in defining one’s identity, values and rights within a society. It must be based on individuals. Not to do so would inevitably lead to internal oligarchies. I wouldn’t want a body, especially an unelected one, to speak for me. I can do that myself very well, thank you very much!