Thirty six of its delegates — or deputies to give them their correct designation — took it upon themselves to write to the Financial Times, criticising Israel’s government in less than savoury terms.

We cautioned last week that the BoD needed to distance itself from those deputies who seemingly, quite deliberately, led those who read their poisonous missive to believe that they represented the Board’s official stance on Israel, bearing in mind that it is the official representative body of British Jewry.

Even Jewish Telegraph readers were taken in, and some of the correspondence we received this week was critical of the BoD, rather than of the signatories to the letter who represent no-one but themselves and the organisations for whom they are delegates.

Fortunately, president Philip Rosenberg clarified the Board’s position in an op-ed that appeared first on the Jewish Telegraph’s Facebook page last week and elsewhere in this week’s edition, in which he stressed that the BoD stands firmly behind Israel — in complete contradiction of the views expressed by the 36 deputies.

The damage though had already been done at a time when the community needs cohesion rather than division.

The BoD is currently examining what remedies are available to it.

Hopefully one of those will be to expel the 36 as deputies - not because they went public in criticising Israel, that is their right – but because they deliberately misrepresented themselves as being representative of the BoD, which they are not, and knowingly caused considerable reputational damage in the process.

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