The bizarre alliance between the anti-Zionist Greens and Hackney’s ultra-Orthodox Jews

Simche Steinberger has been a Conservative councillor on Hackney council for 20 years – one of six representing the borough’s ultra-orthodox Haredi community. He’s seen many things during his time as a councillor, but on Tuesday night, he had a front-row seat as the new kids in town – the Greens – took pride of place at their first full council meeting. In the May election, the former Labour stronghold went Green. It was a wipeout – 42 of the 67 councillors are now Green. At the meeting last week, 11 of them were wearing Palestinian-style keffiyehs. Steinberger counted them. One of the council’s first acts, he says, seemed to reveal the priorities of the new establishment. It was not a vote on Hackney’s controversial low-traffic neighbourhood restrictions or a debate on school budgets. Instead, the Greens put forward a motion to sever the borough’s 60-year relationship with the Left-wing Israeli city of Haifa . Hackney was twinned with Haifa at a time when Israel – a haven for oppressed Jewish refugees with its communist-style kibbutzim – was fashionable among the Left. In recent years, the relationship has been largely dormant apart from temporary educational swaps of medical staff between the two local hospitals. “The planning changes we need? I’ll call them Haifa – maybe that will get them to move on this issue,” says Steinberger with a mischievous glint in his eye. “Those extra school places we desperately require? I’ll call them Haifa too!”