Baroness Ruth Deech
Jews, Israel, and the House of Lords
Summary
What is it like to be a Jewish peer in the House of Lords, a chamber of very diverse membership? Some Jewish peers have taken on a special responsibility in regards to the anti-Semitism that has surfaced in relation to Israel. Through new legislation, peers have also taken steps to ameliorate the plight of Jewish wives whose husbands will not give them a “get” (religious divorce).
Baroness Ruth Deech
Ruth Deech was the principal at St Anne’s College, Oxford University, from 1991 to 2004. She was also the chair of UK Human Fertilization and Embryology Authority (1994–2001), governor of the BBC (2002–2006), and a Rhodes Scholarships Trustee (1996–2006). She was appointed a life peer in 2005 and sits in the House of Lords as a crossbench legislator. In 2013 she was an honorary member of the Queen’s Counsel. Ruth received her MA from Brandeis in Jewish studies, an honorary degree from Ben Gurion University, and a Churchill Award from Technion. Her father, Josef Fraenkel, was a founding member of the World Jewish Congress.
I’m not sure quite how many, but about 7% are ethnic minority, and a lot of them are Muslim, so it’s probably 4, 5%. There’s no breakdown of Christian sects that would be meaningful, but there’s certainly several Catholics as well as C of E.
Well, a lot. I mean, in theory we are equal with the Commons because any new law has got to be passed by the Commons and the Lords. So what happens is usually when a bill goes through the Lords, through the Commons, and it has its third reading. It comes to us usually in a rather undigested state, because they rush things. We don’t have what’s called a guillotine. We can spend as long as we like looking at each word of that new law and suggesting alterations, which we do at leisure. And then we send those alterations back to the Commons. Now in the last resort, we can hold up a bill for about one year if we don’t like it. But in the last resort we tend to give away to the Commons because they are, after all, elected and we are not. But very often, we in the Lords have suggested an amendment, and the Commons have accepted it, either because they agree with us or they’re in a hurry to get that bill into law. So we do have actually quite a lot of power. Equal in theory, but not in practise.
I don’t sign these letters addressed to Netanyahu because I don’t believe that Netanyahu is going to get a letter from British people, smack his hand to his head and say, “Oh my goodness, British academics don’t like what I’m doing. I shall change tack.” So I don’t really think we have any influence. Britain would have more influence if it always solidly supported Israel in the UN. But if it doesn’t, you can’t really expect Israel to listen to Britain. The other thing is when you consider how Britain has handled Ireland over the ages with religious divisions, with barbed wire, with fences, with sectarian divided schools, with ongoing terrorism. Britain is hardly a model on how to handle deep-seated divisions in other countries. So I don’t think Britain really has any influence. What does work well is the Labour friends of Israel, the Tory friends of Israel, LibDem friends of Israel, they send delegations of British peers, usually non-Jewish to Israel to visit. And the one thing that makes friends for Israel is to send people there to visit. Once they’ve been there and they’ve seen it, then they come back and their minds are open and usually in favour. So that’s well worth it.