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THE JEWISH TRIBUNE AND NETUREI KARTA

Alex Strom writes an opinion column for the Jewish Tribune [JT], an Anglo-Yiddish newspaper owned by the Agudist movement and which circulates in the orthodox Jewish communities of the UK.

In its issue of 24 August 2006 the JT carried a piece by Strom highly critical of a motion passed at the AGM of the large and prestigious Adass Yisroel Synagogue of Hendon. This motion called on the Synagogue to sever its ties with the Union of Orthodox Hebrew Congregations [UOHC] should the Union not openly disassociate itself from Neturei Karta [NK], an allegedly orthodox extreme anti-Zionist group whose leaders travelled earlier this year to meet and make friends with the Jew-hating and Holocaust denying government of Iran, which is of course the patron of Hamas and Hizbollah.

But Strom did not mention that in recent years the UOHC has made donations totalling over £58,000 to NK. The story of these donations was first broken by the Jewish Chronicle earlier this year. But the JT has never reported these donations, details of which can be accessed at the website of the Charity Commission.

Unless JT readers know about these donations - for which no plausible explanation has ever been given - how can they be expected to understand the ferment within the Hendon Adass Yisroel Synagogue?

On 26 August I emailed the editor of the JT a letter setting the record straight.

I have learned today that the letter is not going to be published.

What a surprise!

Geoffrey Alderman

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