Letter: British Jews not perfect

GERALD KAUFMAN is abso- lutely right ("Kaufman attacks `pompous' Jewry", 8 April). The Board of Deputies of British Jews is, to add to his arsenal of adjectives, an amorphous and largely pointless body, quite unrepresentative of British Jewry as a whole, most of whom have never heard of it.

How regrettable, then, that the one way in which they do represent us is in the perpetuation of Anglo-Jewry's tired and cliched "poor me" mentality, our seeming inability to accept criticism of anything Jewish or Israel- related, and worse, our constantly confusing anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism and screaming anti-Semite every time Mr Netanyahu and his ruinous government are called to account.

The Jewish community in this country is both divided and dwindling - our numbers are so much smaller than our strong presence would make it seem - and the Board of Deputies, with their incessant whingeing and posturing, do nothing to improve the situation. As Passover approaches, and with it tales of great Jewish heroics of the past, it really is high time we Jews removed the communal chip from our hypersensitive shoulder and accepted that, contrary to every Jewish mother's protestation, we're not perfect.

PETER MOSS

Edgware, Middlesex