Our seventh Fforestfach Colloquium was held on 2nd July, 2026, in Committee Room G of the House of Lords, and was attended by eighteen invited guests. The topic of the Colloquium was Antisemitism.
A panel of four distinguished speakers was invited to lead us in our thinking on the subject:
- Rabbi S. F. Zimmerman
- Rabbi Benjy Morgan
- Graham Edwards – investor and business executive
- The Rt Revd Dr Peter Selby – retired Anglican Bishop of Worcester
Our hope was that the speakers’ presentations and our subsequent discussion would range widely across people’s experience of the problem of antisemitism, both past and present, in our society. With the ‘Free Palestine’ marches and protest meetings, a politicised form of antisemitism has emerged, spilling over into party politics, in the outliers of the Labour Party and the Greens. Is this trend something more than a newly-minted version of the ever-shifting ‘progressive omni-cause’ (day before yesterday, women’s rights; yesterday, ethnic minorities’ rights; today, Palestinians’ rights; tomorrow, …)? Or is it a sign of a return to a more sinister prejudice against Jews, which many of us hoped had been purged from our society with the ending of the Second World War? To what extent is growing antisemitism in the UK and elsewhere bound up with the nature of the war in the Middle East? What part can and should Christian churches and individual Christian believers play in stamping out any form of antisemitism, conscious or unconscious, from our lives?
Our speakers and the discussion which followed certainly addressed these points, and gave us a poignant and challenging insight into the feelings and concerns of our Jewish brothers and sisters in Britain today.
Presentation 1:
“Antisemitism: A Spiritual Virus” by Rabbi S.F. Zimmerman
Rabbi Shraga Feivel Halevi Zimmerman is an American and English Haredi rabbi who since 2020 has served as the rov (senior rabbi) and av beit din (Head of the Court) of the Federation of Synagogues in London. He is a posek (a legal scholar who determines the application of halakha, the Jewish religious laws derived from the written and Oral Torah) and is regarded as one of the United Kingdom’s most influential Haredi rabbis.
Presentation 2:
“Antisemitism: A Biblical Reflection” by Rabbi Benjy Morgan
Rabbi Benjy Morgan was born in New York City and raised in the UK. He has spent 14 years studying in the top Rabbinic training academies in the world. Today he is the Chief Executive Officer of the Jewish Learning Exchange (JLE), a London-based organisation which aims to teach Judaism’s relevance and deeper meaning to 21st-century Jewish youth and young professionals, so as to enable them to connect with one another and make informed life decisions.
Presentation 3:
“Antisemitism and the Double Standard” by Graham Edwards
Graham Edwards is a British businessman and Conservative Party official. He is the former chief executive of property company Telereal Trillium (TTG), and the current Treasurer of the Conservative Party. In 2015/7 Graham studied for a Master’s degree in International Relations at King’s College in London, writing a dissertation on The Causes of the Failure of Camp David 2000, effectively a dissertation on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
Presentation 4:
“Antisemitism: From ‘Uncomfortable’ to ‘Intolerable'” by The Rt Revd Peter Selby
The Rt Revd Peter Selby is a retired British Anglican bishop who served as the Bishop of Worcester from 1997 until he retired at the end of September 2007. He was also the Bishop to HM Prisons from 2001 to 2007. Earlier in his career, he taught at Durham University as the William Leech Professorial Fellow in Applied Christian Theology, before returning to full-time ministry in the Church of England in 1997.