Stop using ‘they’ as a catch-all term for Jewish people, warns TV star Rob Rinder as he slams ‘deeply disturbing’ language use in ‘so-called polite company’

Judge Robert Rinder has warned against the ‘deeply disturbing’ use of ‘they’ as a catch-all generalisation for Jewish people.

The television personality and barrister said he was ‘very, very worried’ about the rise in discriminatory language now used in what he termed ‘so-called polite company’.

Urging people to ‘stop letting things slide’, Mr Rinder, 46, said that his Jewish background was a ‘celebratory aspect of my identity’.

But he revealed that people he knew were now ‘fearful’ of wearing a Star of David in public.

Mr Rinder’s ancestors, including his great-grandparents were murdered during the Holocaust at the Treblinka death camp.

Speaking on the Off Air podcast, Mr Rinder said: ‘The curious thing is the first time in my lifetime – I grew up in a racially and ethnically and splendid community and being Jewish was a rather lovely cultural aspect of my life, and despite being the grandson of a Holocaust survivor, so deeply aware of antisemitism in the most extreme form imaginable, I never felt existentially threatened or different.

Judge Robert Rinder has called out the ‘deeply disturbing’ use of the term ‘they’ reference to Jewish people

Mr Rinder, who is the descendant of Holocaust survivors and victims, said he knew people who were now afraid to wear the Star of David in public, and a worrying increase in disturbing language at events 

‘The truth is I now have people I know and love who are fearful of walking the streets with a Star of David on.’

The barrister added that people were struggling to discuss the conflict in the Middle East in ‘a way that is nuanced’ while not defending the actions of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government.

He said that people felt fearful to ‘communicate and share why Israel as a state is sacred to Jewish people’, the Telegraph reported.

‘When they want to perhaps make the case for why it should exist, and be able to enter those complex and challenging conversations watching the horror ensue, that they feel very fearful doing that.

‘They feel excluded and dehumanised from that conversation. That’s the first time I’ve ever experienced that being a Jew in this country.

‘I’ve been at dinner parties or events where things that are said, both on the Left and the Right… casually, loosely and are deeply disturbing.’

Mr Rinder said that the term ‘they’ was being increasingly used in the context of classic Jewish tropes such as their ‘influence in the media’ and ‘disproportionate power in some professions’.

‘You can hear that now in so -called polite company, and you shut your eyes and you imagine – you don’t have to shut them very tightly – and you imagine that’s the starting point for all the horrors that ensue’, the TV personality said.

Mr Rinder’s grandfather Morris Malenicky, a Lithuanian Jew, arrived in Britain as one of 300 ‘Windermere children’ – orphans who survived the Holocaust and were brought to the Lake District. 

Citing the subtle events that culminated in the Holocaust, starting after the First World War, he continued: ‘The thing that I care about a lot mostly isn’t focusing on all of the horrors underneath that dark earth in Treblinka.

‘But that’s the end of the story. It’s the beginning that matters. 

‘This is the most advanced western liberal democracy of its time. The absolute apotheosis of western civilisation, Germany.

‘And what did you need? Well, you need people to be aggrieved by a treaty, catastrophic economic events, and the wrong person in the right place at the wrong time.

‘And then this conversation starts. The ‘they’. ‘They are very powerful you know’.

Mr Rinder said that people wanted to be able to discuss Israel in a ‘nuanced’ way without necessarily endorsing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government

‘All the things that you’ve begun to creep into, like a malignant force, branded on the tongue in conversations, that exist now in ways and spaces that would have been intolerable when I was young.

‘That’s the quiet starting point for the slow dark slippery slide into what can be depravity and I’m very very worried about that.’

But he clarified it was not something to be ‘pessimistic’ about, but a reason to ‘check ourselves’.

On both antisemitism and islampphobia, Mr Rinder, who was awarded an MBE for Holocaust education, said: ‘If you’re not sure, it’s worth calling it out. Just sort of be mindful of how it’s affecting the world, and be mindful that the power to stop hate really does start and end with you.’

Speaking about his documentary about Israel called Holy Land: Our Untold Stories, he said: ‘I’m not hind minded enough to believe that television or even writing has the power to change people’s minds, especially when it comes to that part of the world.

‘What I wanted and hoped for is for anyone watching it would perhaps go away and think the issue was nuanced.’