• I AM writing to join with Michael Ellman’s letter of support for Paul O’Brien on the subject of charges of anti-Semitism against Labour (Some of the ‘pledge’ demands by the board of deputies are deeply concerning, February 13), which I see in the Board of Deputies of British Jews’ (BoD) demand of “10 pledges”.

As a Hungarian Jew forced to wear a yellow star, a child survivor of the Holocaust, I feel the intervention of the BoD to force the Labour leadership candidates and the membership of the party to accept a false reality, creates an atmosphere where it has become dangerous to openly state the truth.

Over the past four years, bodies like the BoD, supported by Jewish Labour Movement in the party, have used the charge of anti-Semitism to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and the party’s support for Palestinians.

I was in hiding on false papers; I shared a school desk with Gyorgy shot into the Danube while holding his mother’s hand; I have seen my father taken to Belsen, thankfully returned unlike 15 other family members.

Later I experienced concealed “dogwhistle” anti-Semitism during the communist regime which followed, when open anti-Semitism was illegal.

I recognise anti-Semitism when I see it. Like Michael Ellman I have never experienced anti-Semitism in the party during my some 40 years of membership, nor seen anyone else subjected to it, ever.

I am not on social media much and not seen the vile anti-Semitic postings by fringe elements reported by others; and we are right to be forever vigilant.

However, by stating my scepticism of institutional anti-Semitism in Labour, as I do here, I fear I might be falling into the new McCarthyite category of “anti-Semitism-minimisers” and its consequences. Jews in the party must be seen in all our diversity.

STEPHEN KAPOS
Holborn and St Pancras Constituency Labour Party