The Persecution of Michael Rosen by Peter Newbon & Labour Against Antisemitism – an Abuser & Racist Who Took His Own Life As Time Ran Out

Rosen was Blamed for the Death of his Defamer Just as I Was Blamed for the Death of Jason Silver

Michael Rosen & Machievelli

Michael Rosen is a much loved and much read children’s author and poet, the recipient of numerous awards. He is also Professor of children's literature at Goldsmith’s College, London University and has received a clutch of honorary doctorates. Rosen is also a Jewish socialist and anti-Zionist. He was also a vociferous supporter of Jeremy Corbyn when leader of the Labour Party.

It is in this last capacity that he attracted the wrath of a variety of Zionists, fake anti-racists and bad faith actors like the far-right Zionist David Hirsh. He also came to the attention of the misfits and oddballs of the misnamed Labour Against Antisemitism [LAAS]. 

Rosen is not unique. It is almost a rule of thumb that the most intelligent, talented and creative Jews reject Zionism as a right-wing, pro-imperialist, racist ideology that appeals to common and garden bigots.

Naturally it riles the Zionists that people like Miriam Margolyes, Harold Pinter, Geoffrey Bindman, Stephen Sedley, Avi Shlaim, Stephen Rose, Jon Stewart and Alexei Sayle, as well as most Jewish academics of note, see little attraction in Zionism, an ideology and movement that is now openly genocidal, specialising in the slaughter of Palestinian children.

In a former generation some of the most prominent and famous Jews came to reject the claims of Zionism to represent Jews. People such as Einstein, Trotsky, Marx, Hannah Arendt, Freud, Kafka and Primo Levi. Zionism, a form of political messianism, was seen by many Jews as both a reflection of anti-Semitism and its triumph. The racial nationalism of Zionism has morphed into Nazism. It primarily appeals to petit-bourgeois and and lumpen Jews.

According to the Yorkshire Post Newbon left his home in the village of Norton on January 15 2022 after a disagreement with his wife.

The story of how Michael Rosen was blamed for the death of Newbon, who had targeted him for abuse, as if he should have ignored Newbon’s attacks, has a particular resonance with me.

Eight years ago I had a similar experience. A group of fascist Zionists including a member of the neo-Nazi Britain First (Paul Besser) were attacking Palestinian and anti-Zionist meetings. I therefore published a blog naming them. A number of them squealed about being named and identified. Amongst these people was Jason Silver, who was being used and manipulated by Jonathan Hoffman.

This is an example of how Zionists, having used and manipulated their more psychologically damaged followers then blame any tragedy on others

Silver took his own life and I was accused of having murdered him! As the report of the inquest into his death in the Jewish Chronicle found, he had become ‘increasingly “obsessed” with pro-Israel activism’. Silver was diagnosed with depression in 2013 and was suspected of being bi-polar. He was clearly susceptible but when have facts ever got in the way of Hoffman, the link person between Britain’s neo-Nazi groups and far-right Zionists?

Sharon Klaff, a supporter of Tommy Robinson and from South Africa even had a blog article published in the Times of Israel ‘First BDS Victim in the UK’ accusing me of responsibility for Silver’s death before I had it taken down.

Michael Rosen faced similar accusations for having stood up to Newbon, a bullying troll. In May 2021 Newbon posted a photoshopped image on Twitter of Corbyn reading Rosen's book We're Going on a Bear Hunt to a group of children.

The book being held in Corbyn's hands was open at the page where the dog sees the bear. Over that page was photoshopped the anti-Semitic forgery, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. and accompanying it was a parody of some words from the book.

The Protocols, were a seminal anti-Semitic tract. They were a forgery cobbled together from several earlier sources by the Czarist secret police. They described a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world. They were integral to Nazi ideology and became, in the words of Norman Cohn, a warrant for genocide.

Instead of, "We can't go over it. We can't go under it. Oh no! We've got to go through it!", Newbon wrote, "A nasty, horrible Zionist! We can't go over him, we can't go under him, we'll have to make an effigy..." Rosen called the tweet "loathsome and anti-Semitic."

We're Going on a Bear Hunt has won many awards and was mentioned by Guinness World Record for the Largest Reading Record for a children’s book with 1,500 children attending and 30,000 listening online. Naturally this attracted the attention of those who defend Israel’s slaughter of children in Gaza.

Rosen’s first reaction was horror, that someone would try to get at him by posting the Protocols on a book he had co-created (the illustrator was Helen Oxenbury).

Rosen described Newbon’s desecration of his much-loved The Bear Hunt as a ‘loathsome and anti-semitic thing to do’ and copied his tweet to Newbon’s employer Northumbria University. Newbon’s profile had listed his university. In total some 4,000 people made a complaint about Newbon to Northumbria University.

Given that Zionists regularly target the employers of anti-Zionists with their lies, their complaint that his employer had been contacted is typical Zionist hypocrisy. Especially since the decidedly non-Jewish Euan Phillips had tried to get Rosen dismissed by BBC Radio, on account of being an 'anti-Semitism denier' and a 'racist'.

The Labour Files – Episode 2 – The Crisis I Al Jazeera Investigations

Philips is best known for the revelation in Al Jazeera’s Labour Files that he had adopted the pseudonym ‘David Gordstein’, (Goldstein is a very common Jewish name so he changed one letter to give himself plausible deniability!).

These right-wing non-Jewish trolls must have wished that they could be Jewish just in order that their false allegations of ‘anti-Semitism’ could have some credibility. They don’t understand that for many people being Jewish and on the left go together.

There was a twitter storm against both Newbon and Rosen. The stuff said against Rosen argued that the tweet wasn't about him but about Corbyn. The trolls complained that he’d tried to get Newbon sacked. Rosen said repeatedly that he didn't want Newbon to be sacked but it was obvious that the tweet was about both him and Corbyn.

The university arranged for mediation between Rosen and Newbon. This progressed well. Newbon was preparing an apology which Rosen told the university he would accept and that would be the end of the matter. Then Rosen heard that Newbon was withdrawing the apology on legal advice. Rosen said that as far as he was concerned that was the end of the matter.

Then Rosen heard that Newbon was suing him. Mark Lewis was representing Newbon. Rosen was accused of libelling Newbon. After nearly a year they received the Particulars of Claim which meant that the Claimants were preparing to go to trial. Rosen and his lawyer responded.

The libel claim against Rosen alleged that the reason for calling his defacing of the image of Corbyn reading Rosen’s ‘Bear’ anti-Semitic “was to cancel the claimant, that is to cause him to be ostracised by telling people that he was a racist and/or had committed a racist act.” It’s strange how those who accuse others of anti-Semitism at the drop of a hat suddenly become fragile when they are accused of anti-Semitism.

This is extraordinary. Pete Newbon agreed to apologise to Michael Rosen over Newbon’s ‘Bear Hunt’ tweet.

A prof at Northumbria Uni was mediating. Rosen was happy to accept an apology and that would be the end of it.

But Newbon received legal advice and refused to apologise.… pic.twitter.com/HEjSVCN01p

— James Wilson (@per_incuriam2) May 4, 2024

 

At the same time it became known that Newbon was involved in another case, brought by a James Wilson, as well as facing a disciplinary hearing over his social media behaviour. Simon Myerson, a Zionist lawyer who was forced to resign as a judge, was quoted in the Telegraph as saying that this second case was causing him 'upset'.

Simon Myerson claims it is defamatory to say he resigned as a judge because of disciplinary matters.

Piecing together the info: it seems a judicial complaint was made on 21 June 2024; the complaint was accepted and Myerson was notified of it on or immediately before 11 July; his…

— James Wilson (@per_incuriam2) July 23, 2024

Myerson had already been found guilty of judicial misconduct for his abusive behaviour on Twitter in March 2024 and been offered ‘formal advice’ as to his conduct. However in June 2024 no less than three complaints were made about his behaviour and it is clear that he was told either to resign or be dismissed. On 12^th July he jumped.

Paul Besser with the Fuhrer of Britain First Paul Golding - an out and out neo-Nazi

Jonathan Hoffman (right) with Paul Besser (left) on the picket of Palestine Expo in 2018 - Hoffie will work with any fascist or neo-Nazi as long as they are pro-Zionist. Sharon Klaff, a Tommy Robinson supporter makes up the trio

Wilson brought a libel action against Newbon and two others. Newbon had posted a tweet accusing Wilson of being a 'freak who takes photos of kids'. The full story is on Wilson's substack site. He tweets under the name of @per_incuriam2 with links to his blog.

Simon Myerson, who was acting for Newbon in the Wilson case, which was reportedly causing him deep upset, posted on Twitter:

“Pete Newbon is dead. It’s devastating. Those who remorselessly bullied him on here neither represent, nor I suspect understand, the love and friendship he inspired.”

The judge dismissed an attempt to quash Wilson’s case stating that:

It is not very attractive for the defendants, who put the claimant in this position, to say that he should have exercised their suggested form of self-help or that he has been insufficiently robust and resilient. The first defendant and Dr Newbon themselves acknowledged in private conversation on Twitter that to allege publicly that the claimant “took photos of other people’s children” was not something they would wish on themselves: (“Tbf to him, I wouldn’t love it”). For these reasons I consider that the claimant has a harassment claim against the first defendant which has a real prospect of success.

So at the time of his death, Newbon was running two cases, neither of which stood much chance of success. He also kept news of both cases from his wife, who only found out about them, after he died.

The lawyer in both cases (Wilson's and Rosen’s) was Mark Lewis, an arch-Zionist and founder of Likud-Herut in Britain. It was Lewis who persuaded Newbon to embark on his legal adventures knowing full well that if they failed it was Newbon, not him, who would bear the cost.

Newbon's widow settled the claim of Wilson. Wilson won his case against the two surviving people involved, James Mendelsohn and Eddie Cantor. Wilson won damages and costs. Expert witnesses called by the defence were dismissed by the judge, including Myerson who was told that he had used dehumanising language reminiscent of the Nazis. Newbon was described as abusive and bullying.

On 15 January 2022, Newbon committed suicide falling from a road bridge and being struck by four cars on the road below. His inquest was conducted by the Assistant Coroner for North Yorkshire and York, Jonathan Leach on 4 April 2023.

Rosen’s interaction with Newbon took place eight months before his death but this has not stopped right-wing media levering a mention of Rosen’s complaint into articles covering the coroner’s verdict.

Rosen was not even mentioned during the inquest let alone listed as a factor in his suicide. The Coroner made no mention of the two legal cases. All that was mentioned was that Newbon had had a 'disagreement' with his wife and was described by the coroner as being in a ‘fragile state’.

This made no difference to those around LAAS who accused Rosen of having killed Newbon. David Hirsh, a far-right Zionist lecturer at Goldsmiths University set up the Pete Newbon Award in order to honour people who fight ‘antisemitism’. The launch document of Hirsh's London Centre for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism wrote at great length about Rosen, while writing disclaimers that he wasn't seeking the cause of suicide and anyway, the causes of suicide are 'multiple, complex and unknowable'.

Some idea of the nature of the Pete Newbon Award can be gauged by the calibre of those nominated for the award and those who have won it. The winner of the 2023 award was Tracy-Ann Oberman, best known for making false allegations of anti-Semitism against Philip Proudfoot, a Sussex University academic. The 2024 award was to Heidi Bachram who is also an expert when it comes to anti-Semitism smears as well as a police informer. Both of them are Zionists, i.e. racists who specialise in accusing anti-racists of anti-Semitism.

Shortlisted candidates were Alex Hearn, Elica Le Bon and Jewish News ‘journalist’ Nicola Lampert, Other nominees included David Collier, Alan Johnson, Richard Kemp, Lesley Klaff, Douglas Murray, Melanie Philips and Jonathan Turner of the McCarthist UK Lawyers for Israel.

Collier is a Jewish Nazi who justified starving Palestinian children because they had underlying health issues. Kemp is a fanatical Christian Zionist, war monger and anti-Palestinian racist. Douglas Murray is an Islamaphobe and advocate of the White Replacement Theory. Any award that has Melanie Philips near it, she denies the existence of Islamaphobia, is an award for racism not anti-racism. It is noticeable that Newbon’s widow, Rachel Hewitt, has nothing to do with Hirsh's Newbon Award.

It also emerged that at Newbon's hearing at Northumbria he was given a Final Warning for being in breach of the university's social media policy and given a one year caution not to post anything defamatory on Twitter. It also emerged that this was his third offence. It's not clear what the other two offences were.

From the Particulars of Claim and an SAR, Rosen learnt that Newbon thought that his tweet was a 'parody' and a 'corruption' of what Rosen had written in his book. So, despite claims to the contrary, it was admitted that The 'Bear Hunt' tweet was an attack on Rosen.

It is highly unlikely that Newbon would have won at trial given that he had already written an apology and had accepted that he had indeed parodied Rosen in the tweet. Rosen’s defence would probably have been honest opinion. It would have been difficult for Newbon to prove 'serious harm' given that he had a problem over whether he was even Jewish, as was claimed in the Particulars. Even by the lax standards of Reform Judaism, it is clear that he wasn’t Jewish. There's no evidence for example that he had had a brit milah (circumcision ceremony) or a bar mitzvah.

At first his wife Rachel Hewitt tweeted:

Pete Newbon was my best friend, my partner-in-crime, my beautiful kind husband, a brilliant reader & scholar, the best daddy in the world to our three beautiful daughters, and I just don’t know how we’re going to bear his loss. I’m broken into a million unbearably painful pieces.

When the dust had settled however Rachel was to tell a very different story about the abuse she had suffered at Newbon’s hands, writing in September 2024 that

It’s common knowledge that my late husband was secretly pursuing multiple court cases entirely unbeknownst to me, risking me and my children’s financial security and home.

The attacks on Michael Rosen have a strong whiff of "methinks they do protest too much". There are some seriously guilty consciences lashing out, trying to lay the blame of a man having the worst kind of breakdown imaginable at the door of one of their defined enemies 1/

— CrémantCommunarde #ResistHate💚🕊️ (@0Calamity) April 7, 2023

On May 19, 2025 she explained that after Newbon’s death

I discovered he had been keeping secrets and living a double life, which demolished my perception of our relationship and made me realise how it had been, in many ways, abusive. This made the grieving process extremely complicated and I had to deal with the shocking loss, not just of him and of my day-to-day life as I knew it, but of the version of our fourteen years together that I had believed to be true. I also had to unpick the ways in which I had lost myself during our marriage, and how a difficult childhood had made me vulnerable to abuse later in life.

It comes as no surprise that David Hirsh and his fellow racists should create an award in honour of a serial abuser. That is Zionism.

In a further post on May 23, Hewitt wrote about Newbon’s obsessive behaviour. Far from being a fighter against anti-Semitism he was developing an obsession fed by the false allegations he was making against anti-racists. His fixation with Rosen was itself anti-Semitic. Hewitt wrote that even before he committed suicide she had ‘grown increasingly worried about his social media use’ and he

‘became involved in campaign groups seeking to identify, expose and oppose examples of anti-Semitism on the left in Britain... this led to him spending escalating hours alone on his laptop, or on his phone, zoned out of family life. He developed an aggressive, angry, sarcastic tone of voice online; ... I worried about how he was reorienting almost every discussion at home around anti-Semitism. I worried about how he was spending the nights drafting long, repetitive monologues to post on Facebook, each one extending over five pages or more on Word. I worried about an increasing distraction, recklessness and lack of care in his behaviour both on- and offline, such as forgetting to turn the gas off on the oven, or to strap the children into their car seats. I worried about his need to be right in every discussion or argument, and about his explosions of anger, around which I and my daughters tiptoed, so as not to ignite another one.

Then came the tweet involving Rosen and Corbyn which

‘had a disastrous fallout... , in the sheer quantity and nature of the public attention it attracted. Actions he took and events that occurred in the aftermath, along with other things that were going on in his life, combined to make him decide, in January 2022, to take his own life: a violent, traumatic act that decimated the lives of myself, my children, and his family and friends....

What is interesting about Newbon’s fateful tweet was that he had to manufacture the evidence in order to portray Corbyn as an anti-Semite. It must have been frustrating when trying to prove ‘anti-Semitism’ against your political enemies that you have no actual evidence that they are anti-Semitic. This is why in cases like Chris Williamson, Jackie Walker or myself, words had to be taken out of context, twisted and distorted. This is what the fake anti-Semitism campaign was really about.

Newbon pressurised his wife to move north in order that he no longer had to commute, but that led to her becoming isolated from her own friends and community. She concluded that

Isolating women is a well-known tactic of abusers... Every time I raised my worries about my husband’s compulsive behaviour and patent unhappiness with him, he batted me away: ‘there’s nothing wrong with me’, ‘don’t be ridiculous’, ‘you don’t understand because you’re not Jewish’ and of course ‘you don’t love me: if you loved me, you’d support me.

The irony is that someone who wasn’t Jewish was now playing the Jewish card against his own wife. Newbon had never told Hewitt about the two legal cases that were risking their home.

Behind all this is the very serious matter of how Mark Lewis treated his clients. James Wilson has analysed Lewis behaviour towards vulnerable people facing being sued and how he encouraged them to sue assuring them that they’d win. Lewis, instead of warning against the perils of an action for libel and questioning whether it was appropriate to sue, seems to have done the opposite. He encouraged risky litigation. Hewitt thinks that Lewis’s advice was disastrous, given that they didn't have the resources to fight these cases.

Both cases could have been settled at virtually no cost. Rosen would have accepted an apology and when he didn't get one he simply walked away. In Wilson's case, there were proposals on the table to resolve the matter at virtually no costs. Wilson has suggested that Lewis was driving these cases for the benefit of him and his law firm.

Some of the LAAS trolls have fastened on to the fact that 'We're Going on a Bear Hunt' is an adaptation by Rosen and not a straightforward piece of writing by him. Because Rosen has been harassed about this he has written a blog about it.

Rosen has been targeted by at least two other directors of LAAS. One was Jonathan Glass who suggested that he might have attacked Rosen when he saw him in the street ‘If my wife hadn’t been with me’:

The sick, sad Emma Picken has nothing to say about actual racism

LAAS director Emma Feltham (Picken) repeatedly attacked Rosen from well before Newbon’s death, especially for his support for Jeremy Corbyn:

Newbon’s decision to target Rosen was no ‘joke’ and cannot be properly understood in isolation. Instead, it forms part of a pattern associated with a particular anti-Corbyn group to whom Rosen was a considerable inconvenience because – though not a Labour member – he was not only a Jew who spoke out for Corbyn against the antisemitism smears, but a popular and highly-regarded public figure.

Newbon was a director of LAAS, a group of mainly non-Jewish trolls whose main purpose was making false accusations of anti-Semitism against Jewish members of the Labour Party. Newbon made it clear in his Particulars of Claim that he objected to Rosen’s support for Corbyn and that was why he had ‘echoed’ Rosen’s remarks in support of Corbyn.

The political nature of the libel claim against Rosen was made crystal clear both in the Letter Before Action and then the Particulars when he was accused of being a Corbyn supporter (horror of horrors!).

The Board of Deputies of British Jews opened a condolence book in his honour. Fiona Sharpe of LAAS, who perjured herself in Brighton magistrates court when giving false evidence against a Palestinian, described him in The Jewish Chronicle as “the anti-racism warrior with a radiant soul”. She also described him as a ‘Jewish academic’.

Zionists have a habit of making racist non-Jews into Jews and conversely denying that anti-racist Jews are Jewish. It is as if being a racist has now become a qualification for being a Jew!

Newbon’s sole claim to being Jewish was that his father's mother was born Jewish. However, according to the Jewish Chronicle she left the community when she 'married out'. She knew her traditional family wouldn’t approve of her marrying someone outside the faith. She didn't bring up her son (Newbon's father) as a Jew. Newbon himself admitted that his father ‘didn’t really see himself as properly Jewish’.

Newbon declared that he was an atheist, and admitted that he grew up with ‘next to no Yiddishkeit'. The only bit of Jewishness that he'd done was read his daughters Genesis and Exodus and tell them that there's a lovely hot country where he hopes they'll go one day. Nor was his wife Jewish.

For further reading about the affair of the fake anti-racist, Skwawkbox in particular has covered it in depth. See below.

Tony Greenstein

https://skwawkbox.org/2021/05/20/bbc-omits-name-of-uni-lecturer-investigated-over-vile-rosen-corbyn-tweet-and-that-hes-laas-director/

Michael Rosen condemns ‘loathsome and antisemitic’ manipulated image 20.5.21. Guardian

Probe launched into death of UK Jewish academic after Twitter antisemitism ‘pile-on’ 31.1.22.

High Court declines to strike out claims in defamation, harassment, misuse of private information and breach of the GDPR in Twitter “spat” case 6.3.23.

Inquest hears shocking testimony of Pete Newbon's final moments JC 4.4.23

Right-wing trolls and media target Rosen over Newbon death  10.4.23

New attack by Newbon’s fans confirms Newbon repeatedly disciplined for social media 12.5.23.

J Chronicle deletes snap showing late serial anti-Rosen troll Newbon with wife in ‘award’ promotion – 1.10.23

Newbon’s widow writes he was ‘secretly pursuing’ court cases that put their family at risk 11.9.24.

Widow of anti-Corbyn troll Newbon – lionised by Israel lobbyists – accuses him of abuse 20.5.25.

Why is it especially hard for women to ‘listen to our Brunos’? 23.5.25. Rachel Hewitt

Widow of anti-left troll sanctified by Israel lobby says she feared for her kids’ safety if left with him 26.5.25.

Michael Rosen analyses further targeting of him by LAAS directors  15.8.25