Rabbi Sacks: Not always, not inevitably, and every substitute for religion leads to war. So the cause of war is not religion, it's us. It's human beings, it's that nasty little thing called human impulse and anger. So religion doesn't lead to violence, but it can very much intensify it, or provide a justification for it.
Evan Davis, Interviewer: A vehicle…
Rabbi Sacks: And I think no one expected this in the 21st century.
Evan: It's very interesting you're arguing, making this point now, because of course a lot of people are saying the era in which we're living is one in which there is a clamour or a need for people to find identity. Identity politics, nationalist politics is very prominent, people feeling like their voice needs to be heard, they need to shout more loudly because their tribe is not getting the recognition it needs. I wonder whether you think that is a problem?
Rabbi Sacks: I think it is, you know, we've lost our national identity.
Evan: Do you think so?
Rabbi Sacks: I think we really, really have, yes. And we kind of lost that in that welter of multiculturalism, and we said, you know, actually it's very impolite to have a national identity.
Evan: But this gets to the heart of a very awkward dilemma, doesn't it, about whether we all should have a shared identity, or whether we should encourage people to have their own identity in a multicultural England or a multicultural Britain.
Rabbi Sacks: The real difference is this, if there's a collective identity, society is a home. If you have multiculturalism, society is a hotel. It was supposed to lead to greater tolerance. What it led to was what Trevor Phillips called “Sleepwalking into segregation.” Multiculturalism did not promote tolerance or shared identity, it said you go off and do your own thing. And that turns out to be very destructive.
Evan: Well, that brings us to a very timely topic, of course, which is antisemitism. And many of the British Jewish community have said they have noticed a step change in the level of hostility. Have you noticed that, and does that worry you?
Rabbi Sacks: Well, I noticed it because our youngest daughter actually encountered this when she was at university. And I found this deeply shocking because I have not, had not and have not, experienced a single episode of antisemitism in my life. And I'm not exactly low profile, you know. Chief Rabbis are fairly known to be Jewish for the most part.
But it is there actually. And of course it's always in a new form because antisemitism is so socially unacceptable that it can only survive the way a virus survives, which is by mutating.
In the Middle Ages, Jews were hated for their religion. In the 19th and 20th centuries, you weren't allowed to hate anyone for their religion because this is post-Enlightenment Europe. So they were hated for their race. Today you can't hate anyone for their race, so you hate them for their nation state.
And that is why anti-Zionism is the new antisemitism.
Evan: But this gets to the heart of a difficulty that some people are feeling about this whole chat about antisemitism. Because there are some people who feel incredibly strongly about the State of Israel and things they don't like about it, particularly settlements and things. And they feel that the charge of antisemitism is effectively being used to kind of put a sort of moral question over their hostility to Israel.
Rabbi Sacks: A group of school kids asked me just that question a week ago. And I said, tell me, hands up, which of you believes it's legitimate to criticise the British government? They all put their hands up. I said, which of you believes that Britain has no right to exist? Nobody put their hands up. I said, now you know the difference between criticism of the State of Israel and antisemitism.
Evan: How surprised have you been about the traumas the Labour Party has been through with Ken Livingstone and the charges of antisemitism? How serious do you think a problem the party has?
Rabbi Sacks: I think the problem is so simple. Just practise zero tolerance the way you would to any other kind of unacceptable prejudice. So just do it and the problem is solved.
Evan: Lord Sacks, Jonathan Sacks, thank you very much.
Rabbi Sacks: Thank you.
