It seems that, far too often, Jews need to point out obvious examples of egregious racism directed at them. The fact that we need to do this in supposedly liberal, anti-racist spaces makes it all the more appalling. Martin Rowson’s cartoon (Journal, 29 April), which he has fully apologised for, contained trope after trope – Jews with grotesque features, money, power and puppeteering. We are tired of calling this out.
We will never really know what led Rowson to draw this cartoon. Neither will we know the precise process that led to its publication. However, in the meantime, the Jewish community is left in despair as to why, despite all the history, we still need to expose and fight anti-Jewish racism.
Keith Black
Chair, Jewish Leadership Council
• We were astonished that the Guardian saw fit to print Martin Rowson’s grotesque cartoon marking the resignation of Richard Sharp as chair of the BBC. You may have withdrawn it from the Guardian’s online edition, but it is very sad that you saw fit to print such antisemitic stereotypes in the first place. The imagery shown in the cartoon derives directly from the crude propaganda of the Nazis – the grotesquely exaggerated features, what appears to be piles of money and other symbols of wealth, and the squid, which seems to be a clear reference to the trope of tentacles of Jews allegedly trying to take over the world.
The Guardian is a newspaper that claims to have progressive values, and is read by people who broadly do have such values, for the most part. We hope you would think twice before publishing something so diametrically opposed to those values again.
Adele Douglas and Barnaby Marder
Socialists Against Antisemitism
• When I first saw the cartoon, I saw what Martin Rowson thought he was depicting – Boris Johnson’s toxicity and how it destroys everyone who comes into close contact with him. When I then read about the horrified response from others, I went back to the cartoon, and there, indeed, was the evidence of antisemitic iconography that I had missed the first time.
The evidence was ambiguous but also undeniable. It made me think of Rorschach inkblot tests, which reveal unconscious interpretations of random shapes. These interpretations are clues to the inner world of the interpreter. I think both Rowson and I need to work harder to see what is in front of us, and to hope that we can learn from this.
Andrew Collie
Maidstone, Kent
• It was so depressing to see coverage of your cartoon on Richard Sharp’s resignation. It simply should not have escaped Martin Rowson and the editors’ notice that its overtones were antisemitic.
As a British Jew, and Guardian reader, I find this all too predictable. Both the cartoon (for which you should have known better) and the resulting outcry (which you can’t help, but again, should have expected). It does no one, apart from voluble fringe characters, any good.
This was a completely avoidable misstep. I can’t be the only one who is heartily sick of these “how antisemitic is the left” debates. Do please stop adding fuel to the fire.
Name and address supplied
• I think it would be a good idea if Martin Rowson and staff at the Guardian watched the documentary Jews Don’t Count and read David Baddiel’s book of the same name on which it is based, and really take to heart what is being said. I think the publication of the awful antisemitic cartoon is a prime example of what Baddiel is talking about.
Carol Taylor
Birmingham
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