HIAS+JCORE join call against hate at #Together4Humanity vigil

HIAS+JCORE was proud to stand in solidarity with thousands of people and unite against hate, at yesterday’s (3rd December) #Together4Humanity vigil in Westminster.

Our Executive Director David Mason was honoured to join on stage with Imam Monawar Hussain MBE and the Archbishop of Canterbury and address the event audience.

You can watch David’s full speech and read the text of his address below.

“I am a Jew. But I am also Scottish. I am British. I am religious. I am open minded. These elements shape how I see the world and function within it. But I am not alone in this world. My people are not alone. This world is full of people with different ways of viewing the world. That is what makes it so amazing.

There is a wonderful saying in a 2000 year old Jewish text. ‘All arguments that are for the sake of Heaven, will endure for ever’. Surely an argument is not a good thing. No. Here an argument is truly an argument if it never stops. And that means I need to exist with the other and their view. It means that I must not try and erase the other arguing with me. I must listen to them, hear them, try and understand with them, eat with them, and live with them.

We so need this advice today. Because when arguments get tinged with hate, they are all about defeating the other. The antisemitism and anti Muslim hate we are seeing is just that. It is borne out of a total and utter insensitivity or hate for one side and their worldview. Without that hate, it just becomes a disagreement, even a passionate one – but not hatred.

So from here I let out a voice from the Jewish community, across its denominations and its diversity. We want to live in a United Kingdom where communities build strong bonds between each other; and where those on the extremes do not get to set the agenda.

Jewish people are together with all of you for humanity.”