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THE JR INTERVIEW TEA WITH OONA KING GOLDA ZAFER-SMITH When Oona K ing opens a sturdy front door and invites me into her converted M ile End pub, what I see is a mixed-race woman whose ethnicity combines both black and white genes. What I get is a black woman who is also Jewish. Whilst Oona makes tea I look around. ‘Downstairs’ is one large room, filled with light. I sit at a table made for full family dinners and note the piano, billiard table and the original bar. now housing a kitchen sink. Floor to ceiling bookcases encase a library spanning multicultural, multilingual interests. An African print hangs near to a hamsa performing protective duties by the front door. Oona’s diaries. House M usic have already told me that she decided to become an MP aged five, joined the Labour Party aged 14 and swept into the House o f Commons in 1997, aged 29, as the elected Labour Member o f Parliament representing constituents o f Bethnal Green and Bow. In that 1997 photograph o f women MPs celebrating Labour’s sweeping victory with Tony Blair, Oona stands central. This particular ‘ B la ir Babe’, it becomes clear, has been absorbed by the politics o f human rights, ju stice and equality for most o f her life a passion which continues, despite being ousted from her Parliamentary seat in the 2005 election by Respect Coalition candidate, George Galloway. After dism issing the erstwhile B ig B ro th e r contestant as a 'wasted talent’ , we do not mention his name again. Oona K in g ’s family lore comprises first-hand accounts o f overcoming poverty, persecution and prejudice. Her paternal great-great grandparents were slaves. Her father’s parents met at the Tuskagee Institute, established to teach former slaves. They produced seven highly achieving sons, one of whom was Oona’s father, Preston, whose request for a deferment from military service earned him 40 years o f exile from the United States until Oona headed a campaign and B ill Clinton revoked the injustice through a presidential pardon. Jenny Stern. Oona's maternal grandmother, a half-Irish, half-Scottish working-class Catholic Geordie, undertook the full Jewish conversion to marry Oona’s grandfather, Sidney Stern. The Stern side o f the family had arrived family. Oona describes her Aunty Miri and mother Hazel, as “the outcasts o f the outcasts” in Newcastle’s Jewish community. Despite embracing Judaism "in a typically convert way” and “separating milchig from fleischig tea-towels and everything they w'ere looked down on.” Oona says Grandma Jenny would be thrilled to know that she was being talked about in a Jew ish journal. Aunty Miri became a doctor and in a secret registry office wedding she married a penniless playwright (Tom Stoppard!). Then Hazel took a sim ilar route with an African-American academic and their mother Jenny turned both their photographs to face the wall. She did not speak to Miriam for two years. Oona reflects that her Grandma must have been very open-minded to have learnt Hebrew and convert to Grandma Jenny would be thrilled to know that she was being talked about in a Jewish journal. in Newcastle circa 1908, fleeing Hungarian pogroms. Family stories float down about dire poverty in a tenement where 13 children slept head-to-toe in one bed, “girls one end and boys the other, divided by a sheet suspended from the clothes line” . Judaism when prevailing attitudes towards Jews in Newcastle were extremely xenophobic but that openmindedness did not extend to her daughters marrying ‘ out’ . Photos are produced and the cultural expanse o f Oona’s fam ily lies before us. Great grandmother. Z illa h Stern wears her sheitl. Husband Tiberio’s pre-war fam ily portrait shows a group sporting uniforms o f fascist Italy. K ing says, “It’s so insidious, the way that culture throws fam ilie s one way or the other. So, 1 put these pictures together, to remind me.” In House M u s ic there is a section called ‘ The Un-chosen’ which tells about her aunt and mother growing up on the wrong side o f the social tracks, as daughters o f a convert and from a poor Nevertheless, Oona’s Jewish grandparents became a significant influence. “We grew up in North London and would see them at least every other weekend on Friday nights, and holidays. Th is was where my brother Slater and 1 got our Jewishness because my Mum had rebelled and decided she wasn’t that keen on religion. Mum and Grandad, who was a bit o f a militant Zionist, argued about Israel all the time. A s a child I was given a certificate for my tree in I s r a e l . . . 1 really want to see my tree in Israel one day!” Oona says her mother told few positive stories about being Jewish, 8 JEWISH RENAISSANCE JULY 2008
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THE JR INTERVIEW having been bullied by gentile children for being Jewish and rejected by her Jewish peers, but she did make her daughter think about being Jewish. “ My mother always impressed the horrors o f the Holocaust on me. I remember being dragged round museums, understanding how many people died. And the fact was always there that I would have had 'double points’, being obviously black and less obviously Jewish.” She reads widely about the Holocaust and has visited Yad Vashem. The Auschwitz Education Trust invited Oona to visit the camps, which will happen within the next two years but she guards against becoming a ‘disaster’ tourist. A s a member o f the Select Committee for International Development, walking around Pol Pot’s torture chambers, visiting the American War Crimes Museum in Vietnam and the African Slave Museum in the Congo. Oona felt she had done enough on torture in her life. Then she adds, “I could not live a happy life, unless I also felt able to look at the worst things humanity can throw up, including the Holocaust. You've never done enough on human suffering and prejudice!” Oona K ing’s proudest achievement is setting up the All-Party Group on Genocide Prevention after a visit to Rwanda. Oona attended Haverstock School where her mother had previously been a teacher and known to be Jewish. Oona King remembers being called Yid-Nigger in the playground, but that was rare. For the first 30 years o f her life, any prejudice was always directed towards her being a black woman. She has since been through some very tough times, including death threats from the ‘White Wolves’, who demanded Jews and Blacks should leave Britain by the Millenium. Oona says her resilience comes from her ancestors, born into slaver)', fleeing pogroms and surviving the Irish potato famine. "I think there is something in visualisation which takes you out o f your own time and place. I imagined being them and they became real people to me, which they weren’t before. Then I realised the death threats were a totally irrelevant distraction - but distractions can be very soul-destroying at the time.” And what docs Oona think about the stale o f racism in the U K now? She believes racism has decreased in some respects a typical 1950s citizen would not have thought o f her as being quintessentially British but in many smaller places, people continue to fear the stranger. The change is that now it is harder to be ‘out’ as a racist. She believes that racism has twin catalysts o f ignorance and insecurity. Communities blame the ‘other’ for their misfortunes. Recently, when canvassing in Barking, King was told by Africans that there are too many Poles in the country. “We would be mistaken to make the comfortable assumption that we can’t regress as well as progress, especially in a worsening economic climate. 1 do not take it for granted that we w ill inevitably become less racist." She believes that Jews and Muslims need to acknowledge that when racism gets worse for one community it also gets worse for the other. “The terrible thing is that the more the Muslim community feel discriminated against, the more it brings out their tendency to do the same. Racism doesn’t inoculate you, as you would imagine. Often the opposite is true." I ask about her maiden speech, made on July 5, 1997. in which she declared that her background could ‘ be a bridge between two cultures’ and suggest she bridges many more. Oona laughs. When she described herself as mixed-race during the process o f adopting her son E lia , her social worker rejoined that she w'as not abreast o f current thinking which prefers ‘ dual heritage’ . “This is an inherently limiting term,” Oona observes, "because it means you can only have two heritages!” 1mention that elsewhere in this edition o f JR, Ch ie f Rabbi Jonathan Sacks discusses his position on the multicultural debate. Oona, who chairs the Institute for Community Cohesion, says his contribution has been outstanding and having previously never picked up a book by a theologian, she was enchanted and entranced by The D ig n i ty o f Difference. She thinks Rabbi Sacks is correct in saying multiculturalism had its place at a certain time, but disagrees that multiculturalism leads to intolerance. “ Multiculturalism has its limitations - the issue is whether communities are living with each other, or beside each other. You can have a sterile multiculturalism which is just ghettoised, o ra vibrant multiculturalism where communities interact and do not just live parallel lives. The backlash “We would be mistaken to make the comfortable assumption that we can't regress as well as progress, especially in a worsening economic climate. I do not take it for granted that we will inevitably become less racist.” against multiculturalism is about a sense that it inadvertently funded separatism. It didn’t go out o f its way to encourage genuine integration, which is what current government policy now' attempts to do. Any policy can have unintended consequences.” Oona believes w c have to calibrate multiculturalism to ensure it carries on w'orking for us. She concludes London Her resilience comes from her ancestors, born into slavery, fleeing pogroms and surviving the Irish potato famine. won the O lym p ics over Paris, because it was seen to be a successful multicultural city where every country in the w'orld is represented. “Whether you are talking about the economic environment or the gene pool, different cultures give strength and diversity. Even intellectually, it tests your arguments against other world views, and I think that is a healthy thing. So 1 agree overall with the C h ie f Rabbi’s argument which is that we need to leant how to live together more effectively.” So is multicultural Bethnal Green a good place for Oona’s two-year-old Elia to grow' up. She laughs happily and says Bethnal Green is a fantastic place. Oona loves the East End. which she came to at the age o f 25 when looking for material for her wedding dress. She continues to feel astonished, almost as i f she has emigrated within London. “ It has a combustible atmosphere and so much history. East London was where the ideas for the welfare state were tried out, where the first council flats were built and Victoria Park was the first public park. But the main history o f course is the people - from JEWISH RENAISSANCE JULY 2008 9

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THE JR INTERVIEW

TEA WITH OONA KING

GOLDA ZAFER-SMITH

When Oona K ing opens a sturdy front door and invites me into her converted M ile End pub, what I see is a mixed-race woman whose ethnicity combines both black and white genes. What I get is a black woman who is also Jewish.

Whilst Oona makes tea I look around. ‘Downstairs’ is one large room, filled with light. I sit at a table made for full family dinners and note the piano, billiard table and the original bar. now housing a kitchen sink. Floor to ceiling bookcases encase a library spanning multicultural, multilingual interests. An African print hangs near to a hamsa performing protective duties by the front door.

Oona’s diaries. House M usic have already told me that she decided to become an MP aged five, joined the Labour Party aged 14 and swept into the House o f Commons in 1997, aged 29, as the elected Labour Member o f Parliament representing constituents o f Bethnal Green and Bow.

In that 1997 photograph o f women MPs celebrating Labour’s sweeping victory with Tony Blair, Oona stands central. This particular ‘ B la ir Babe’, it becomes clear, has been absorbed by the politics o f human rights, ju stice and equality for most o f her life a passion which continues, despite being ousted from her Parliamentary seat in the 2005 election by Respect Coalition candidate, George Galloway. After dism issing the erstwhile B ig B ro th e r contestant as a

'wasted talent’ , we do not mention his name again.

Oona K in g ’s family lore comprises first-hand accounts o f overcoming poverty, persecution and prejudice. Her paternal great-great grandparents were slaves. Her father’s parents met at the Tuskagee Institute, established to teach former slaves. They produced seven highly achieving sons, one of whom was Oona’s father, Preston, whose request for a deferment from military service earned him 40 years o f exile from the United States until Oona headed a campaign and B ill Clinton revoked the injustice through a presidential pardon.

Jenny Stern. Oona's maternal grandmother, a half-Irish, half-Scottish working-class Catholic Geordie, undertook the full Jewish conversion to marry Oona’s grandfather, Sidney Stern. The Stern side o f the family had arrived family. Oona describes her Aunty Miri and mother Hazel, as “the outcasts o f the outcasts” in Newcastle’s Jewish community. Despite embracing Judaism "in a typically convert way” and “separating milchig from fleischig tea-towels and everything they w'ere looked down on.” Oona says Grandma Jenny would be thrilled to know that she was being talked about in a Jew ish journal.

Aunty Miri became a doctor and in a secret registry office wedding she married a penniless playwright (Tom Stoppard!). Then Hazel took a sim ilar route with an African-American academic and their mother Jenny turned both their photographs to face the wall. She did not speak to Miriam for two years. Oona reflects that her Grandma must have been very open-minded to have learnt Hebrew and convert to

Grandma Jenny would be thrilled to know that she was being talked about in a Jewish journal. in Newcastle circa 1908, fleeing Hungarian pogroms. Family stories float down about dire poverty in a tenement where 13 children slept head-to-toe in one bed, “girls one end and boys the other, divided by a sheet suspended from the clothes line” .

Judaism when prevailing attitudes towards Jews in Newcastle were extremely xenophobic but that openmindedness did not extend to her daughters marrying ‘ out’ .

Photos are produced and the cultural expanse o f Oona’s fam ily lies before us. Great grandmother. Z illa h Stern wears her sheitl. Husband Tiberio’s pre-war fam ily portrait shows a group sporting uniforms o f fascist Italy. K ing says, “It’s so insidious, the way that culture throws fam ilie s one way or the other. So, 1 put these pictures together, to remind me.”

In House M u s ic there is a section called ‘ The Un-chosen’ which tells about her aunt and mother growing up on the wrong side o f the social tracks, as daughters o f a convert and from a poor

Nevertheless, Oona’s Jewish grandparents became a significant influence. “We grew up in North London and would see them at least every other weekend on Friday nights, and holidays. Th is was where my brother Slater and 1 got our Jewishness because my Mum had rebelled and decided she wasn’t that keen on religion. Mum and Grandad, who was a bit o f a militant Zionist, argued about Israel all the time. A s a child I was given a certificate for my tree in I s r a e l . . . 1 really want to see my tree in Israel one day!”

Oona says her mother told few positive stories about being Jewish,

8 JEWISH RENAISSANCE JULY 2008

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