The Jewish Chronicle dates back to 1841. Its pages trace a long history of Jewish life in Britain.
This is no small feat for a newspaper serving a minority community, outlasting the horrors of Tsarist pogroms and Nazi Germany.
But the reputation of the paper has taken a big hit over revelations the newspaper published fake stories about Israel.
Worse still, the scandal was exposed by the Israeli press. There is no pretending this hadn’t happened.
The Jewish Chronicle published little-known Israeli journalist Elon Perry, who appears to have fabricated much of his personal history. His byline featured a short account of his impressive claims.
Exhibit A: Perry was a commando in the Golani Brigade. Exhibit B: Perry served in the Israeli Defence Forces for twenty-eight years. Exhibit C: Perry worked as a journalist for twenty-five years.
The IDF opened an official inquiry on 12 September into claims that The JC was spreading false claims based on “Israeli intelligence”. This was after a series of sensationalist articles by Perry.
Somehow, Perry claimed he had anonymous insiders who gave him insights. One such story was that the late Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was plotting an escape to Iran with Israeli hostages.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had made this exact claim not long before. It was all too obvious, and Yediot Ahronot was soon reporting that The Jewish Chronicle had run false stories written by Perry.
+972 compiled an account of Perry’s impressive record of lies. Whether he’s pathological or a hired hack, the fake journalist can’t get any of his stories straight. It’s hard to imagine that The JC didn’t know.
Ha’aretz was on the Perry story by this point. In a particularly damning op-ed, its New York correspondent, Etan Nechin, accused the paper of abandoning journalistic integrity to champion the causes of the Israeli right.
The Jewish Chronicle responded to the controversy by removing Perry’s work from its site, but it wasn’t over yet. The scandal ripped through the newsroom, and resignations soon followed.
Long-time columnist Jonathan Freedland resigned publicly on X. The prominent Guardian columnist made it clear he could no longer be associated with the newspaper that had published his father’s work.
“Too often, the JC reads like a partisan, ideological instrument, its judgements political rather than journalistic,” Freedland wrote.
David Aaronovitch and Hadley Freeman soon followed Freedland’s lead. Erstwhile comedian David Baddiel intervened to assure everyone he would also not be writing for the paper again.
Jewish Chronicle editor Jake Wallis Simons’s credibility was on the line. He soon took to X to inform the public (actually the media bubble) that the newspaper would ensure this never happened again.
“I take full responsibility for the mistakes that have been made, and I will take equal responsibility for the task of making sure nothing like this can happen again,” Wallis Simons said.
A few weeks later, The Jewish Chronicle is back to interviewing fading luminaries like French nouvelle philosophe Bernard-Henri Lévy, promoting his new 7 October book, Israel Alone.
Decrying Israel’s isolation in the Middle East (never mind its US and European allies), Lévy’s “outraged cri-de-coeur”, as his publisher’s melodramatic PR lit puts it, means it’s back to business for the publisher.
Better to focus on culture than unverified scoops. At least for now.
Out of Focus
The Jewish Chronicle is still betting on Israel coverage to stay relevant, but this misses why most people read it. The JC maintained a loyal following for most of its history by closely following community life.
Unlike other British media, The Jewish Chronicle is a community paper that spans the country. It played a crucial role in covering major religious controversies such as the Jacobs affair in the 1960s and the Sacks letter scandal in the 1990s.
Rabbi Louis Jacobs was marginalised by the Orthodox establishment for his belief in progressive revelation. This was the beginning of the New London Synagogue and later the emergence of the Masorti movement in the UK.
The Sacks letter scandal was a furore involving Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks and written remarks he made about deceased Reform Rabbi Hugo Gryn. Most shockingly, Sacks accused the late rabbi of destroying Judaism.
These remarks somehow found their way to The JC.
This was a huge controversy at the time, not least because Rabbi Gryn was a Holocaust survivor, but because it seemed to confirm what many believed: the chief rabbi did not speak for all Jews.
The Jewish Chronicle is much more focused today on covering Israel and Antisemitism scandals than on anything else. However, this leaves out the broader range of coverage that many of its readers still crave.
“I want a JC that treats boardroom disputes in Jewish charities as serious and important, and that uncovers scandals that have nothing to do with Israel and Antisemitism,” said Keith Kahn-Harris, a sociologist and Jewish affairs commentator.
“I don’t believe that parochial is an insult,” he added.
Today, it’s probably the only British newspaper that divides its international coverage into three online sections: Israel, USA and World. These categories sit alongside UK, Politics and Community.
Many British Jews who want coverage of Israel will go to an Israeli news source, mainly because the quality is often so much higher. Ha’aretz alone does a better job than most UK publications combined.
The JC’s circulation dropped from 32,000 a week in 2008 to 20,000 a week in 2018, and by 2023, it had fallen to just over 12,000 readers. Yet the newspaper has massively expanded its online readership.
The Jewish Chronicle has over a million hits a month from online readers. This is notable because it is more than quadruple the Jewish population of the UK.
Going Israel Crazy
The Perry farce’s prehistory can be traced back almost two decades. The Jewish Chronicle has undergone an editorial transformation in the last sixteen years, as the paper has taken a much more right-wing line on Israel.
Stephen Pollard took over as editor in 2008. A former Labour Party member, he once worked for left-wing MP Peter Shore, but his views had changed significantly by the time he became editor of The JC.
Pollard was a founding signatory of the Henry Jackson Society, a hawkish think tank, which cheered on the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He also embraced neoliberal economics, backing tax cuts and market reforms to public services.
So when Pollard took over, The Jewish Chronicle was set for change. Gradually, the newspaper moved away from the liberal Zionism still dominant in many British Jewish communities to hardline conservative politics.
In his words, Pollard wanted to position The JC as “Israel’s candid friend”, meaning a supporter who won’t mince words. In theory, this meant honest criticisms when necessary. In practice, it was quite different.
The paper became much more preoccupied with defending the Israeli government. Unfortunately, the shift converged with Benjamin Netanyahu’s return to power in 2009, just after the horrors of Operation Cast Lead.
London had just seen a wave of pro-Palestine protests. Much more chaotic than the demonstrations today, the marches against the Gaza offensive often ended in clashes with the police.
This was an appropriate backdrop to a rightward lurch.
Under Pollard, The Jewish Chronicle hosted Nigel Farage at a 2013 event. The editor personally interviewed Farage, and the populist UKIP leader took questions from a friendly audience.
This shouldn’t be surprising since Pollard came from the tabloid press. He worked for The Daily Express until he fell out spectacularly with owner Richard Desmond (leaving an acrostic “fuck you” message in his last article).
Pollard later went on to join The Daily Mail.
The fact that the editor is a Brexiteer with a penchant for bashing the pro-Palestinian left should surprise no one. The latter aspect of Pollard’s politics went into overdrive once Jeremy Corbyn became Labour leader.
During the Corbyn years, The Jewish Chronicle played the same tune as much of the mainstream media – except with the volume raised – running endless articles claiming the Labour Party was uniquely tainted by Antisemitism.
The paper even ran a frontpage decrying Corbyn as an “existential threat” to Jews.
This was a period when the Labour leader was being accused of Antisemitism for everything and anything, including mispronouncing Jeffrey Epstein’s surname.
However, The JC may have taken a few liberties in its coverage during this time. Several complainants, including ex-Labour councillor Jo Bird, claimed the paper breached the editors’ code of practice 28 times between 2018 and 2020.
Many of the claimed infractions were related to coverage of the Labour Party and allegations of Judeophobia. However, the same complainants have come back this year, claiming that the number of breaches has increased to over 40 since 2018.
Nevertheless, IPSO has not opened an investigation into The Jewish Chronicle. Brian Cathcart, former director of Hacked Off, has criticised the press regulator harshly for this in several articles for Byline Times.
Pollard stepped down as chief editor in 2021. His deputy, Jake Wallis Simons, took over.
By this point, The JC was under new ownership – in fact, highly mysterious ownership – by a consortium of investors with BBC board member Robbie Gibb as frontman.
That same year, The Jewish Chronicle was found guilty of libel against Labour Party member Marc Wadsworth. The paper had printed a photo of Wadsworth claiming he was part of a plot to intimidate Jewish Labour members.
Following this legal defeat, The JC had to print an apology to Wadsworth. This was just one of a few libel claims made against the paper over its coverage in recent years.
All of this was easy to ignore until the Perry scandal.
The kind of people who didn’t care about the Wadsworth case (i.e. most establishment journalists) do care about false stories about the Gaza war.
The Perry scandal should be a wake-up call. Britain’s Jewish community deserves a serious newspaper devoted to in-depth coverage of its affairs.
If The JC can’t get it together, it’s time for new media to step in and take over.
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Photograph courtesy of the Edinburgh International Book Festival. Published under a Creative Commons license.
