{"id":115622,"date":"2017-07-04T10:47:01","date_gmt":"2017-07-04T18:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=115622"},"modified":"2017-07-04T10:47:01","modified_gmt":"2017-07-04T18:47:01","slug":"former-edl-leader-tommy-robinson-holds-secret-meeting-with-manchester-jews","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=115622","title":{"rendered":"Former EDL leader Tommy Robinson holds secret meeting with Manchester Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><A HREF=\"https:\/\/www.thejc.com\/news\/uk-news\/former-edl-leader-tommy-robinson-holds-secret-meeting-with-manchester-jews-1.440940\">From the Jewish Chronicle in London<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>Members of Manchester\u2019s Jewish community held a secret meeting with Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the far-right English Defence League.<\/p>\n<p>The controversial meeting, which took place in Prestwich last week, was billed as a charity fundraiser, but also saw Mr Robinson deliver a speech outlining his extreme views on Islam&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Jeremy Newmark, Jewish Labour Movement chairman, confirmed local activists from his organisation had been left \u201coutraged\u201d after learning of the event.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Newmark told the JC: &#8220;No ifs, no buts, Tommy Robinson is an enemy of our community. He is part of the same political tradition as the National Front and the BNP.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr Robinson has long attempted to court British Jews and has travelled to Israel, proclaiming himself to be a \u201cZionist\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>In a statement, the Board of Deputies condemned last week\u2019s meeting saying: \u201cTommy Robinson\u2019s record of anti-Muslim provocation means that he could never be a partner of a respectable or mainstream Jewish organisation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;A spokesman for the left-wing Jewish Voice group said: \u201cTommy Robinson has been attempting to co-opt the Jewish community, trying to play on antisemitism among the Muslim community to cause tension between the two communities.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Mr Robinson confirmed on Twitter that the meeting took place.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was from the talk I gave to Manchester Jewish community. Thank you guys for the donations,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<p>In a further post today, Mr Robinson added: &#8220;People actually think I&#8217;m a Jew. I&#8217;ve gone full 360 over last 8 yrs. From people thinking I hate Jews to people thinking I am a Jew.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From the Jewish Chronicle in London: Members of Manchester\u2019s Jewish community held a secret meeting with Tommy Robinson, the former leader of the far-right English Defence League. The controversial meeting, which took place in Prestwich last week, was billed as &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=115622\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42720,609,29],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-115622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alt-right","category-england","category-jews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=115622"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115622\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":115623,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/115622\/revisions\/115623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=115622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=115622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=115622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}