Brent Jewish Network delegation with Brent Nablus Twinning Association outside Brent Civic Centre, 16 July 2025
A delegation of the Brent Jewish Network met with Brent Council Leader Muhammed Butt on Wednesday (16 July 2025) to express strong support for the borough’s proposed twinning with Nablus, arguing for this positive step towards international friendship and understanding.
The diverse group included synagogue members, secular Jews, young people and elders. They shared their own experiences of visiting Nablus, the vibrancy of its city life, the warmth with which they were received by its people and the difficulties that their communities face under illegal Israeli occupation. They pointed out that visiting Nablus as visible Jews did not cause any hostility whatsoever from its people, who were unfailingly hospitable. They noted that Nablus, as home to Muslim, Chrisitan and Samaritan Jewish communities, was a great twin city for proudly multicultural Brent.
The group expressed its dismay at the recent intervention in this matter by the Board of Deputies of British Jews. They reaffirmed that a significant threat to community cohesion is the false conflation of Jews with the Israeli State and the fraudulent presentation of every Jew as being in support of the Israeli war on Gaza. They explained that the Board, by choosing to assert these falsehoods, was directly undermining community cohesion in Brent.
The group also reaffirmed that the Board is not representative of the whole Jewish community, evidenced by its failure to include the Reform synagogue in Brent or any non-Orthodox synagogal bodies in its delegation to the Council. The Board’s highly sectarian attitude was demonstrated by its recent disciplining of 36 of its own elected representatives for expressing mild anti-war views.
Following the meeting, Brent Jewish Network member Daniel said:
We congratulate Cllr. Muhammed Butt and Brent Council for the progress made on the Nablus twinning project. Nablus is a city that I was privileged to visit in 2015, where I was received with warmth and hospitality. Much like Brent, Nablus is a bustling, vibrant place. It is diverse, with many different communities living together. People in Nablus have much the same problems as us - unemployment, housing scarcity, inflation - in addition to facing a brutal Israeli occupation. Twinning is an exciting opportunity to build links with the people of Nablus in a spirit of friendship and solidarity.
It is pure chutzpa for the Board of Deputies to criticise anybody’s efforts towards community cohesion. Their intervention into Brent Council’s democratic process has nothing to do with defending Jews or community cohesion, but instead has everything to do with their steadfast support for Israel. Rather than affirm the separation of local Jews and the Israeli state, they knowingly conflate the two. We urge the Board of Deputies to step back from sectarianism.
Cllr Butt thanked the Network for their support for the twinning project and remarked that it was important to hear the alternative view of the local Jewish community to the one presented by the Board of Deputies delegation. He said that the council will continue to seek engagement will all parts of the local Jewish community, including the sections represented by the Brent Jewish Network. They were told that the meeting was helpful in documenting that the council was proactively engaging Brent communities
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