The Jewish Chronicle has been on Life-Support for Years – Will They Now Turn It Off & Allow it to Die?

Like Rats Deserting a Sinking Ship, Freedland, Aaronovitch, Baddiel & Freeman Took Their 30 Pieces of Silver Whilst the JC Celebrated the Slaughter of Gaza’s Children– But when Scandal Broke They Fled

Skwawkbox – The JC’s Libel Victims

The Jewish Chronicle has reached the end of the road. The kindest thing to do with it would be to put the financial equivalent of a Do Not Resuscitate notice on it. Whatever happens to this apology for a newspaper, its reputation is blown for good.

Jonathan Freedland's Self-Serving Statement

It is no surprise that Jonathan Freedland, David Aaronovitch, David Baddiel and Hadley Freeman have, at last, said goodbye to the JC. Like rats deserting a sinking ship they left the captain Jake Wallis-Simons to drown in his own disgrace.

Wallis-Simons has faithfully defended the murder of Palestinian civilians, children included, in Gaza whilst denying that what was happening was genocide. This is the Zionist version of holocaust denial.

We urge @IpsoNews to launch a Standards Investigation into the Jewish Chronicle without delay.
We have seen 28 recorded breaches of the Editors’ Code and four libel defeats in just three years. @pressgazette @journalism_news pic.twitter.com/BUdXIhXkAL

— Jo Bird (@JoBirdJoBird) August 3, 2021

Simons posted and then deleted an Islamaphobic tweet accusing Muslim Palestinians of staging a ‘Ramadan’ attack on the Church of Annunciation in Gaza.

🧵Last week, the editor of “the world’s oldest and most influential Jewish newspaper” posted the following tweet propagating news that was both falsified and divisive. @JakeWSimons later deleted the tweet but not before it has been seen by thousands of people. pic.twitter.com/EZrsytWgZW

— Fahad Ansari 🇵🇸 (Stop the Gaza genocide) (@fahadansari) April 16, 2023

Not only was this untrue, but it is Israeli soldiers who have attacked, not only the Church of Annunciation but worshippers at the Church of Holy Sepulchre. The church even closed its doors indefinitely because of Israel’s attacks on it.

Jerusalem’s far-right Council have repeatedly attacked Christian institutions through methods such as taxation.  Settlers and Orthodox Jews have regularly spat at Christians and priests in Jerusalem something defended by Israel’s Police Minister, Ben Gvir.

This has not prevented Wallis-Simons being a regular guest on Sky News Press Review as well as appearing on BBC Question Time on October 12, 2023 as part of an all-Zionist panel.

The scandal over the JC’s financing has been brewing for some time. They were the consequence, not so much of Wallis-Simons, but his vituperative Islamaphobic predecessor Stephen Pollard, a founding member of the Islamaphobic Henry Jackson Society.

“Why did a British Jewish newspaper publish fake Israeli intelligence?”

Absolutely damning piece/investigation from an Israeli outlet on the UK’s ⁦@JewishChron⁩. Shouldn’t editor @jakewsimons have to resign over this? https://t.co/JGoCq1bNks

— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) September 11, 2024

At one point the JC’s circulation hit 63,000.  In the 1970s it averaged 50,000. As I wrote at the time, the JC’s circulation declined when Pollard took over. It went from from over 32,000 in 2008 to 20,000 in 2018.  Wallis Simons gave it the kiss of death as it plummeted to 6,000 paid copies with another 6,000 given away, figures that provincial papers have.

Historically the JC was the paper of the Jewish Establishment. Its main problem used to be how to keep its readers awake long enough to read it. (see British Jewry’s Family Newspaper:A Century of the “Jewish Chronicle”)

When the Zionist movement appeared in the late 19^th Century, the JC reflected the views of the Jewish Establishment which was hostile to any attempt to suggest that, having won the battle for Emancipation, British Jews didn’t belong in Britain. It described Zionism ‘as ill-considered, retrogressive, impracticable, even dangerous.”

In December 1906, L.J. Greenberg, an English Zionist leader, bought the paper from Dutch banker Jacobus Kann with the object of promoting Zionism. However at that time the JC was not the extreme and partisan paper it became. In the 30s it was vociferously opposed to the Zionist trade agreement, Ha'avara, with the Nazis, describing it as an ‘unclean thing’.

Fast forward today and the JC has become a supporter of the far-right. Under Trump the Jewish Chronicle refrained from criticising the anti-Semites and racists that made up his Administration whereas America’s Forward had a series of articles such as How Steve Bannon and Breitbart News Can Be Pro-Israel and Anti-Semitic at the Same Time.

The Forward realised that you can be both anti-Semitic and pro-Zionist at one and the same time. In fact the whole history of Zionism has been its friendly relations with anti-Semites, both of whom agree that Jews are a nation separate from those they live amongst.

Pollard went as far as defending anti-Semites as long as they supported Zionism and Israel. Pollard defended one fascist in particular, the Chair of the European Conservatives & Reform, Michal Kaminski MEP defended villagers in Jedwabne who had herded up to 1,600 Jews into a barn which was then set alight in July 1941. Kaminski when an MP opposed a national Polish apology for what had happened in Jedwabne during the war.  

After books by Jan Tomasz Gross. [Neighbours: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland,] and Anna Bikont’s ‘The Crime and the Silence’, a movement grew up to re-examine what had happened 60 years previously.  Kaminski was in the forefront of those opposing an apology. 

Pollard’s other hero, another MEP Roberts Zile from Latvia’s LNNK distinguished himself each March by marching in Riga, the scene of the first executions of German Jews in October 1941, when 5,000 were machine gunned as they descended from the deportation trains from Germany, by the veterans of the Latvian SS.  See Jedwabne – The Polish Village Where Up to 900 Jews Were Burnt Alive by Fellow Poles

None of this stopped Pollard writing that Kaminski was ‘one of the greatest friends to the Jews” Kaminski, even if he didn’t like Jews very much loved the State of Israel. Poland's Kaminski is not an antisemite: he's a friend to Jews. Pollard also wrote in response to criticism from Jonathan Freedland that

Robert Ziles - Latvian MEP who marched with the Latvian veterans of the Waffen SS - Stephen Pollard was foremost in defending him

“Jonathan Freedland attacked Michal Kaminski, the Polish MEP; Roberts Zile, the Latvian MEP; and me. Freedland seems to have decided that Kaminski is an antisemite; but, far from this, Kaminski is – as his record in Brussels shows clearly – one of the greatest friends to the Jews in a town where antisemitism and a visceral loathing of Israel are rife.” (Once no self-respecting politician would have gone near such people, 7 October)

 

A Palestinian Woman Comforts Emily, the Victim of the 'Jewish' State's Violence

Emily Henochowicz.

It was a story that many papers had covered, including Israeli newspapers.  It was about an American Jewish teenager Emily Henochowicz who had lost an eye at the Qualandiyah checkpoint in Jerusalem, where Palestinians cross to the West Bank and back again. Emily had participated in a demonstration against forcing Palestinians to wait for hours in the hot sun for the ‘privilege’ of being able to cross over to work or return to their home again. 

A soldier of the Israeli army, that beacon of moral righteousness fired a tear gas shell directly at her face, blinding her in one eye. And just to show just how wonderful the ‘Jewish’ state is, the government insisted that her family should pay the bill for her hospital treatment.

I emailed Pollard suggesting that this story should appear in the Jewish Chronicle so that Jewish readers in Britain might understand just what Palestinians faced in their normal life and how criticism is not motivated by anti-Semitism. Pollard emailed back that

Dear Mr Greenstein,

Thank you for your email, which will make a fine addition to my 'delete' folder.

Stephen Pollard

From that day on I had nothing but contempt for this vile lump of lard.

Elon Perry

During today’s genocide in Gaza the JC has been nothing more than the propaganda arm of the Israeli military and Netanyahu. It is no wonder that it employed Elon Perry without bothering to check his credentials. Perry claimed to have been a professor at Tel Aviv University for 15 years amongst other lies.

Why should the JC have checked what Perry told them? The JC has never checked its facts when it came to writing scandalous stories about its anti-Zionist opponents and Palestinians. Why change the habits of a lifetime? It has a history of making things up. Why shouldn’t those it employs?

The JC was forced to apologise to Nada al-Sanjari, alleging she was one of a number of Momentum activists who had engaged in anti-Semitic activities when she had never even been a member of Momentum. It had to apologise to the charity Interpal, to whom they also paid £50,000 damages. These were the tip of the iceberg. Most people can’t afford to litigate in the libel courts.

Skwawkbox listed 15 victims of the JC yet the Regulator IPSOS, which found some 33 breaches of its own Code of Conduct in 3 years, refused to conduct an inquiry. Now this scandal has broken out. IPSOS’s Chair, Lord Faulks gave as his explanation `

the newspaper’s 2020 change of ownership and recent changes in editorial leadership.  Stephen Pollard stepped down as editor after 13 years last month, and was succeeded by his deputy Jake Wallis Simons.

Well we know how this turned out!  One crook gave way to another crook and now the JC’s past is beginning to catch up with it. The disregard for facts was such that completely fictitious articles were making it into the paper as ‘Exclusives’.  Which in a sense they were!

What is worse is that although there was indeed a change of ownership, we don’t know who the new owners are!!

Alan Rusbridger, former Editor of the Guardian asked in April 2024 Who really funds the Jewish Chronicle? It is a question yet to be answered. Rusbridger’s article was the stone that started a landslide.

A few days after October 7, 2023, The Jewish Chronicle editor Jake Wallis Simons appeared on BBC Question Time.

He told the millions of watching that children had been beheaded and women and babies had been raped.

The beheading and raping of children has been comprehensively… pic.twitter.com/IWx4kQYVsP

— Roshan M Salih (@RmSalih) September 16, 2024

What we do know is that in April 2020 the paper was rescued from liquidation by a consortium that was headed by Sir Robbie Gibb, who is a government-appointed BBC director. In his declaration of interest Gibb states that he has a 100% holding of Jewish Chronicle Media.

The problem is that Gibb doesn’t have that money. He was a front-man for person or persons unknown who gifted £3.5 million to the JC. Other members of this consortium included the ex-Labour MP John Woodcock (Lord Walney) who was suspended by Labour for sexual harassment of an 18 year old assistant. Others included Zionist operative Jonathan Sacerdoti and John Ware who produced the anti-Corbyn Is Labour Anti-Semitic programme which has been assailed ever since it was broadcast in July 2019 for its dishonesty and downright lies.

A newspaper which refuses to come clean about who owns it is not a newspaper. It is a propaganda sheet. What is outrageous is that a BBC Director, who is supposed to be responsible for impartiality at the BBC is himself party to hiding the ownership of this pro-Israeli propaganda sheet.

The Case of  Geoffrey Alderman

One reason I have contempt for the 4 ‘journalists’ who have resigned from the JC is because of their acquiescence in the sacking of Geoffrey Alderman. Zionists’ have a totalitarian attitude to criticism.  Pollard was determined to shut down any dissent at the JC and Freedland went along with this. The rot did not begin with the pathetic bigot Wallis-Simons. It began under Pollard.

My association with the JC goes back over 40 years.  I say ‘association’ but only in so far as I have long been a target of theirs!

Geoffrey D Paul was the editor between 1977 and 1990 when I became involved with the Palestine solidarity movement. He was a Zionist but he was critical of the invasion and occupation of  Lebanon. Although he was a Zionist he at least allowed the targets of his criticism to respond to the attacks on them and I had many letters in the Jewish Chronicle. In the one instance he refused to print my letter I went to the Press Council and obtained, for the first time, ever an adverse judgement against the JC. 

Nonetheless Paul stood by his columnist Chaim Bermant who earlier than most argued for recognition of the PLO and talking to the Palestinians.  Contrast this with the miserable Pollard.

Following my role speaking at UNISON Conference in support

 of BDS the JC's Letter Writers were not Happy!

 My Response to the JC's Readers

Its not unusual @DAaronovitch for rats to desert a sinking ship but why have you waited so long? this didn't start under the genocidie supporter @jakewsimons? fabricating stories was part of the business plan

there was all the fake 'antisemitism' allegations against Corbyn and… https://t.co/bkhAQtQiJq

— Tony Greenstein tonygreenstein.com (@TonyGreenstein) September 16, 2024

Long and loud was the clamour of the JC’s readership for Bermant’s head but to his credit, the Geoffrey Paul stood up for him and freedom of speech. That was why the JC was a lively publication even if it made you chew your hair at times. It also had interesting contributors such as its Literary Editor, T.R. Fyvel, who succeeded George Orwell as literary editor of Tribune.

Despite being a columnist for 14 years Pollard sent an email to Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Alderman, the historian of the British Jewish community out of the blue one day. It was blunt and to the point: “as editor I no longer wish to have you in the paper.” A decision confirmed by Pollard in a phone conversation.

What was Alderman’s offence?  In an interview with the Times Higher Ed. of July 13 2017 he said that ‘In the Oxford empirical tradition, I shall go wherever the evidence takes me.’ For Zionists, for whom defence of Israel right or wrong is everything, this is the wrong approach. The truth is secondary to the hasbarah (propaganda).

In an Interview with the THES (13.7.17.) Alderman outlined his philosophy in the statement that ‘Folks don’t like the truth, do they? Even academic folks. Very sad.’ It would make a good epitaph for Pollard when the grim reaper comes a calling.

Alderman though is not your average progressive, still less a socialist.  He is religious and right-wing, as one would expect of someone who was Professor of Politics at the Britain’s only private university, Buckingham.

Alderman was a man of contradiction, a ‘communal gadfly’ as a JC article described him when he left the Board of Deputies to the sound of boos. On the one hand he, of all people, in an article A man who deserves banning called, in November 2015, for the banning of another Jewish dissident, Gerald Kaufmann MP.

Kaufmann was targeted by groups such as the misnamed Campaign Against Anti-Semitism for having used the phrase ‘Jewish money’ in regard to the contributions of the Conservative Friends of Israel to Tory Party funds. As I wrote in Geoffrey Alderman and Gerald Kaufman –Jewish Chronicle Columnist’s Exercise in Hypocrisy

surely this wasn't the same Geoffrey Alderman who wrote, in an article Obama’s false Iran Alternative (14.8.15) of ‘the fact that Jewish money, albeit American-Jewish money – is being used to this end has led the president to adopt an unfortunate and worrying rhetoric.  Israel and its supporters are warmongers and American-Jewish money is being used to drag America into war.’ 

Alderman’s main sin in Pollard’s eyes had been to contradict the JC’s propaganda barrage that Corbyn was the worst anti-Semite since Adolf Hitler. Having worked with Corbyn Alderman knew that this was not true and he wrote an article in The Spectator Is Jeremy Corbyn really anti-Semitic? in which he stated that:

The fact of the matter is that Corbyn has an impressive record of supporting Jewish communal initiatives. For instance he was recently supportive of Jewish efforts to facilitate the speedy issue of death certificates by the north London coroner. In 2015 he took part in a ceremony in his Islington constituency to commemorate the founding of the North London Synagogue. In 2010 he put his name to an Early Day Motion (tabled by Diane Abbott) calling on the UK government to facilitate the settlement of Yemeni Jews in Britain. Indeed I could fill this entire article with a list of philo-Semitic EDMs that Corbyn has signed since he was first elected as Labour MP for Islington North in 1983.

As if this was not blasphemy enough, Alderman went on to declare that ‘in my view context is, again, paramount.’ Alderman wrote:

‘I will agree that from time to time, as backbench MP and party leader, Corbyn has acted unwisely. But the grounds for labelling him an anti-Semite simply do not exist.’

In the eyes of Pollard and the Board of Deputies Alderman had committed a Chillul Hashem, which is about as great a sin as man is capable of viz. telling the truth.

Of course to most normal people it is obvious that Corbyn was not anti-Semitic. But Zionists are not normal. Their values are, above all, those of state worship and veneration of the land over the people who live on it. To that end lying is just a means to an end.

Alderman wasn’t the first journalist to suffer at the hands of the Zionist press for expressing a dissenting opinion. Stephen Oryszczuk the foreign editor of Jewish News dared to criticise his own paper’s attack on Corbyn. He told The Canary:

It’s repulsive. This is a dedicated anti-racist we’re trashing. I just don’t buy into it at all.

Neither did the Jewish News editor as Oryszczuk was immediately put on gardening leave and soon after parted company.

Statement by Professor Geoffrey Alderman

Jewish academic Professor Geoffrey Alderman has been no-platformed by the UK’s oldest Jewish newspaper, the Jewish Chronicle.

Announcing this, Professor Alderman has made public the contents of an email sent to him by the Jewish Chronicle’s editor, Stephen Pollard.

In that email, Pollard told Alderman that “as editor I no longer wish to have you in the paper.”

This decision was confirmed by Pollard in a phone conversation with Alderman on 31 January 2020.

Such was Pollard’s dishonesty that he wouldn’t even give a reason for his decision.  However Alderman's crimes were not hard to fathom. Amongst which were an article in The Independent headed ‘This Labour Party row will not be settled by relying on a flawed and faulty definition of antisemitism’.

Attacking the IHRA misdefinition of ‘anti-Semitism’, which has the status amongst Zionists of Moses’ tablets of stone, Alderman wrote that the 11 examples of anti-Semitism in the IHRA

‘embed numerous internal contradictions. One example affects to condemn as antisemitic “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis.” But the preamble that introduces all 11 examples explains that manifestations of antisemitism “might include the targeting of the state of Israel, conceived as a Jewish collectivity. However, criticism of Israel similar to that levelled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.”

Well, a number of political regimes around the world have been criticised because they are alleged to be pursuing policies reminiscent of the Nazis. So how in principle can it be antisemitic to draw a comparison between “contemporary” Israeli policy and that of the Nazis? 

Alderman compounded his ‘crimes’ by making a submission to the EHRC  slating the IHRA definition. One of the wondrous things about the IHRA is that virtually no academics or legal scholars defend it and yet it continues to dominate the narrative.  An example of Marx’s dictum that the ruling ideas in society are the ideas of the ruling class.

Although Alderman was banned from writing for the JC  Pollard’s pages were left open for arch Islamaphobe Melanie Phillips one of whose pieces was ‘Don’t fall for bogus claims of ‘Islamophobia’’

I first came across Alderman’s name in 1978 when the Board of Deputies was launching ‘kamikaze attacks’ (Maurice Ludman, Editor Searchlight No. 41) against the Anti-Nazi League because of its anti-Zionist founders. The ANL bothered the Board far more than the National Front. Alderman along with others like Miriam Karlin criticised their approach.

Previous Blogs & Articles on the Jewish Chronicle include:

Former Columnist and Historian of the Jewish Community, Professor Geoffrey Alderman, is Banned by Jewish Chronicle Editor Stephen Pollard.

Jewish academic no-platformed by Jewish Chronicle (JVL)

The Jewish Chronicle is Heavily Criticised by the Independent Press Standards Organisation for Lying about Audrey White and Refusing to either Retract the lies or Co-operate with an Investigation 2 December 2019

The Sad and Steady Decline of the World’s Oldest Jewish Newspaper 22.9.18.

Meet the Jewish Chronicle’s New Blogger – Carlos Contiglia of the BNP!  20.4.12.

Jewish Chronicle Publishes Uncut and with Teeth Clenched Letter Rebutting Jonathan Freedland’s Lies & Distortions 3.10.15.

Ex-Daily Express Editor Stephen Pollard Turns the Jewish Chronicle into a Propaganda Sheet 5.9.14.

The Nauseating Hypocrisy of Stephen Pollard, Editor of the Jewish Chronicle 10.12.16.

Emergency Appeal – Jewish Chronicle is Facing A Financial Crisis - Please Dig Deep for the Sake of Genocide Jake’s Salary 20 November 23

The Lies & Distortions of the Jewish Chronicle 27.9.08.

With Its Funding Sources Hidden and Half its Copies Given Away, the Jewish Chronicle is a Propaganda Sheet not a Newspaper 15 may 24

Why the Editor of the Jewish Chronicle Is No Different To A Holocaust Denier 18 January 21

The Jewish Chronicle's Contempt for its readership knows no limits - they treat them as idiots (probably because they are) 13 January 20

The Hypocritical War by the Jewish Chronicle and the Jewish Establishment on Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party 9 November 2019

Rachel Cooke: Never Underestimate the Stupidity of a Guardian Journalist – Jewish Chronicle Letter of the Week 24 June 2019

The Prostitute of the Press - the Jewish Chronicle and Glynn Secker 22 May 2019

Jewish Chronicle survey finds that 85% of British Jews are stupid and gullible  18 September 2018

Two White Racists Discuss Their Anti-Semitism and Contemplate their Navels as the Jewish Chronicle Declares War 22 July 2018

Meet Jessica Elgot - the Guardian & former Jewish Chronicle 'Journalist' Whose Articles are Regurgitated Press Releases 17 July 2018

Jewish Chronicle Editor Stephen Pollard Compares Jeremy Corbyn to Adolf Hitler and the Nazis 8 July 2018

A Comedy of Errors from the Jewish Chronicle – Marcus Dysch in Another Fine Mess – 14 Jan 18

Jewish Chronicle Hits a New Low - A Vile Article Attacking 16 year old Ahed Tamimi – 12 January 2018