J.K. Rowling defends British Jews who fear Labour party anti-Semitism

“How dare you tell a Jew that their outrage is ‘patently synthetic’? What other minority would you speak to this way?” the famous author tweeted in reponse to a post slamming British Jews.

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

JK Rowling, the billionaire author of the best-selling Harry Potter fantasy series, has taken to Twitter over the past several days to bash a well-published British writer who attacked British Jews over their concerns about anti-Semitism in the Labour Party.

Last month, after continuous scandals concerning racism and anti-Semitism in the party, three British Jewish newspapers published a joint editorial issuing a powerful warning of the “existential” threat that Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, who has compared Israeli policies with Nazism and expressed support for radical Islamists seeking Israel’s destruction, poses to British Jewry.

Simon Maginn, a British author of several comedies and thrillers, criticized Jewish anti-Corbynites who have not accepted the Labor party leader’s various ‘explanations. and ‘clarifications’ of his conduct and comments.

For example, on Sunday, Maginn tweeted, “Explain it to me, then. Explain your deep and wounding sense of injury. Explain the wrong that’s been done to you. Explain your patently synthetic outrage. Explain yourself. Publicly.”

Rowling, a non-Jew, found this offensive, and she tweeted back, “How dare you tell a Jew that their outrage is ‘patently synthetic’? How dare you demand that they lay bare their pain and fear on demand, for your personal evaluation? What other minority would you speak to this way?”

This set off a back-and-forth in which Maginn accused Rowling of “slinging mud” while the world-famous author used quotes defining anti-Semitism from a book by philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew.

Rowling has been vigorous lately in her calling out anti-Jewish bias. In April, she took to Twitter in response to an anti-Semitic statement posted on social media.

“Most UK Jews in my timeline are currently having to field this kind of crap, so perhaps some of us non-Jews should start shouldering the burden,” she wrote.

Rowling’s defense of Jews does not necessarily make her a fan of Israel, as seen in her 2015 tweet about the “injustice” and “brutality” suffered by “the Palestinian community” and her wanting to “see the Israeli government held to account” for it.

However, even then, she declared her opposition to the anti-Israel BDS movement, saying that a cultural boycott “places immovable barriers between artists and academics who want to talk to each other, understand each other and work side-by-side for peace.”