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
