Leah Levane is a prominent British Jewish activist and former local councillor who long served as the Co-Chair of Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL).
Levane has a profound background in social work, having spent years in community support and advocacy for marginalized groups in London and East Sussex. She served as an elected councillor for Hastings Borough Council, focusing on addressing housing injustice and social deprivation during her tenure. She excels at bridging macro-political justice with micro-community needs and has been a pivotal organizer and strategist for the Jewish Left within the UK Labour Party.
Leah Levane’s pro-Palestine activism is characterized by “defending intra-party democracy” and “resisting political purges.” She co-founded Jewish Voice for Labour (JVL) to provide a political shield and platform for Jewish members supporting Palestinian rights within the party. In 2021, she was high-profilely expelled from the Labour Party while attending the party’s annual conference as a delegate, an event she characterized as a political purge of Jewish dissenters. She has organized and led numerous legal and public challenges against the adoption of the IHRA definition, arguing against the conflation of criticizing Israeli state policy with hate speech. Through national speaking tours and op-eds, she works to expose how censorship of Palestinian supporters damages the overall democratic climate in the UK. She actively participates in international humanitarian mobilizations, such as the Gaza Flotilla initiatives, and remains a steadfast supporter of the BDS movement.
Regarding the situation and the future of Palestine and Israel, she commented:
In the short to medium term I’m very pessimistic. In 2014 I thought Israel had gone too far, but that is nothing compared to now. But two things give me hope for the future: first, the numbers of people, not just young people, who are saying, “What on earth?” and can hardly believe the failure of our political leaders to do even the minimum such as making arms sales conditional and calling for the killing to stop. Second, the huge mobilization across the world in support of Palestine. The way it has been sustained over more than seven months is quite amazing, and I think there is a possibility of building on that. It’s happening at all levels.