21/02/2021
The Jewish Chronicle has often pulled out strands of commonality between LGBTQ people and the Jewish population, noting our common experiences of oppression and resistance. This week, the paper, which started printing an astonishing one hundred and eighty years ago, meets with a young gay writer called Ben Freeman, who argues that Jewish people should be working alongside gay and trans people to dismantle bigotry once and for all. The book, “Jewish Pride” is published by No Pasaran texts, a left leaning press, but one which rejects the descent into conspiracy theories of parts of the political left. Mr Freeman says “The reason I wrote the book is two-fold. The first is my own experience with LGBTQ+ pride. I have my own experiences with pride – I’ve been on that journey already. With regards to the Jewish community, when I joined Twitter in 2018 specifically to take part in the fight against Jeremy Corbyn and left-wing Labour antisemitism, I really saw that Jewish people wanted to speak out, wanted to be proud, but they were suffering the hangover of the ‘keep your head down’ policy.” He adds “Antisemitism is embedded in the non-Jewish world, be that America or England or Scotland. It’s the culture and society we live in, and it is antisemitic just as it is homophobic, misogynistic and in many ways anti-black.”. Ben’s book is available now – why not order your copy from an independent bookstore and help keep the diverse voices of publishing going.
