'My ancestors fled pogroms, you incite them on refugees!'
Nigel Farage was heckled by Jewish activists as he launched Reform’s Jewish Alliance yesterday afternoon.
Around 50 Jewish protesters assembled outside the venue, a synagogue, ahead of the meeting.
Farage started off by saying “we shouldn’t even need to think about forming a Jewish Alliance within this political organisation”.
The Reform leader’s speech was then derailed by protests. One man shouted: “The Torah says to love the stranger for we were once strangers in Egypt.”
Another said: “My ancestors fled pogroms, you incite them on refugees.”
A woman said: “My mother didn’t fight the Moseley fascists in Cable Street for this. An attack on one minority is an attack on all.”
Another woman shouted: “My grandmother fled Germany, you would deport her!”.
The video of the protest then shows three security guards carrying one of the protesters out of the venue.
The launch of Reform’s Jewish Alliance comes after Farage was accused of racially abusing classmates at Dulwich College, including singing antisemitic songs at Jewish classmates.
Peter Ettedgui, a Jewish former classmate who was the first to approach The Guardian about his experiences, said the Reform leader would regularly come up to him and say “Hitler was right” and “gas them”.
In 2017, Farage said that “the Jewish lobby” should concern Americans more than Russian influence on their politics.
Reform will also set up a Friends of Israel group.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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