The NUJ is a Hostile Environment For Jewish Journalists. So I Quit.

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I don’t normally make a habit of making the newsletter about me, but today I must. I have resigned from the National Union of Journalists (NUJ). It has become a hostile environment for Jews, and I can no longer be a part of that. (Sadly, this is not the first time I’ve had to leave an organisation over such issues.)

I remember the first time I joined the NUJ and received my Press Card. I felt so proud. Coming from the world of blogging, it made me feel like a “proper” journalist. However, the issues that have finally led to me giving up my membership have gone on for years.

Plenty of Jewish journalists have already quit the NUJ over its response to the war between Israel and the terror group Hamas following the atrocities of October 7, 2023. I, in hope/naivety, decided to stay. Indeed, a few months ago, I attended a meeting for the branch I was a member of. Those there seemed keener to discuss a foreign war than how to support journalists. I spent much of the meeting worrying that people would work out I was Jewish.

Now, the NUJ is urging its members to join the TUC’s workplace day of action on Thursday, calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. This will put a number of Jewish journalists (and our non-Jewish allies) in a hugely difficult situation and shows the NUJ is no longer a place for us.

As the Board of Deputies of British Jews explained:

[The day of action] represents a continued failure of unions to support workers if they are Jewish. Whatever the stated intent, attempts to bring this issue into the workplace in such a fashion will undoubtedly add to the belligerent atmosphere which many Jewish staff have been facing across a variety of sectors – and highlights an ongoing issue whereby certain unions have prioritised gesture politics over the welfare of Jewish workers in their sector, resulting in an exodus of Jews from such unions.

BBC Journos Respond to NUJ Action

I’m just one hack. In bigger chapels, there is an active debate about what to do. For instance, a Jewish member of staff at the BBC told me:

The events in the Middle East are awful to witness and journalists who play a key role in documenting events, shouldn’t fear for their lives. But the NUJ has taken a step too far, asking members to outwardly show support for one side over the other. It’s hard enough being a Jewish staff member at the BBC without colleagues inside the corporation and outside in the wider journalism community being encouraged to display whose side they’re on.

I would argue that it is also farcical that a union that represents journalists is so hostile to the only country in the Middle East that is both a democracy and has a free press. Maybe one day, Britain’s largest union for journalists will be able to accommodate all its members, but I won’t be holding my breath.