(JTA) — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who resigned the premiership on Monday, leaves behind a mixed record on fighting antisemitism in the Labour Party that Jewish organizations say will help shape their expectations for his successor.

Starmer announced that he was stepping down outside 10 Downing Street in the morning local time. He made the decision in the wake of mounting pressure from Labour members of Parliament and waning political support after the party’s devastating losses in the May 7 local elections and the success of political rival Andy Burnham in Manchester’s parliamentary election last week.

Burnham, the former mayor of Greater Manchester, has emerged as the leading contender after winning a Manchester-area by-election on Friday with 55% of the vote. Burnham has sought to position himself prominently on antisemitism and relations with the Jewish community in his bid to take over from Starmer.

In a post on X, Burnham thanked Starmer for his leadership and said the PM’s decision to resign “marks the beginning of a transition and it is important that this process is conducted in an orderly and responsible way. I will put myself forward as part of this process.”

Starmer confirmed he would remain on as caretaker prime minister until a successor was chosen.

“The question my party is asking now is whether I am best placed to lead us into the next general election,” he said. “I have heard the answer of my parliamentary party to that question, and I accept that answer with good grace.” 

The Jewish Labour Movement thanked Starmer in a post on X, noting that two years ago he inherited the party “at its lowest point” from former party leader Jeremy Corbyn, when it was “institutionally antisemitic.” It added, under Starmer, “our party has a clean bill of health on antisemitism.”

However, Starmer’s tenure was still met with plenty of criticism from the Jewish community over his handling of antisemitism, particularly in light of ongoing antisemitic attacks in the country. In recent months alone, four Hatzola ambulances were lit on fire; there were attempted attacks on three synagogues; two Jewish men in the Orthodox neighborhood of Golders Green were stabbed. Dozens of people have been arrested in connection with the incidents.

Starmer entered office in July 2024, leading his country’s thorny relationship with Israel in the aftermath of the Hamas Oct. 7, 2023, attack against the Jewish and the Gaza war that followed. He angered Israel with steps such as recognizing Palestine as a state and promising to uphold the International Court of Justice’s arrest warrant against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for war crimes.

With Starmer’s upcoming departure, focus has shifted to the contest to replace him, bringing renewed scrutiny to candidates’ positions on antisemitism, relations with the Jewish community, and Israel.

Starmer said he would give his successor his “full and unequivocal support,” adding that nominations would open on July 9 and conclude before the parliamentary summer recess on July 16.

Board of Deputies of British Jews President Phil Roseneberg posted on X, “When he took on the leadership of the Labour Party the first thing @Keir_Starmer said he would do is ‘tear out the poison of antisemitism by its roots’. His subsequent actions were transformative within the Party.”

He praised Starmer’s government for providing “unprecedented security funding,” and introducing legislation to proscribe the IRGC.

Burnham, for his part, has spoken out against antisemitism in the wake of violence attacks. Following the October 2025 Yom Kippur attack at the Heaton Park Congregation synagogue in Manchester, in which two people were killed, Burnham said in an official release, “Tonight, our first thoughts are with the families of those who have died, those injured and those traumatised by this – a horrific antisemitic attack on our Jewish friends and neighbours. We condemn it outright.”

He also wrote in a post on X on the same day, “Today we have witnessed a vile attack on our Jewish community on its holiest day. We condemn whoever is responsible and will do everything within our power to keep people safe.”

His positions on Israel and Gaza have also come under scrutiny. In a June 4 interview with The Guardian, Burnham did not invoke the term “genocide” in relation to the war in Gaza, but did say, “I can’t judge things of that enormity from where I am as mayor of Greater Manchester.”

He added, “But I do have concerns about the disproportionate nature of what has happened in terms of the destruction, and there has to be a full process of investigation and accountability.”

Additionally, 10 days after the Oct. 7 attacks, Burnham called for a ceasefire in a joint statement with 10 Greater Manchester leaders. The statement read in part, “We condemn unreservedly the appalling terror attacks on innocent civilians in Israel by Hamas on 7th October.”

The statement also noted that Israel has the right to take “targeted action within international law” to defend itself and to rescue its hostages, but added, “We also have profound concerns about the loss of thousands of innocent lives in Gaza, the displacement of many more and widespread suffering through the ongoing blockade of essential goods and services.”

Referencing his expected leadership bid, Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy told the Jewish News on June 17 that Burnham had a few weeks earlier met with Jewish communal leaders in Greater Manchester.

When it comes to Israel, Nandy said Burnham “believes in justice, so he’s acutely aware of the need for a safe homeland for Jewish people, you know, and the particularly unique historical reasons why Israel came into existence.”

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(New York Jewish Week) — A Brooklyn café posted on Instagram that it refunded a purchase made by Rep. Dan Goldman, saying that it doesn’t serve “genocide enablers.”

“Do you see how it doesn’t taste like genocide juice?” the post by Poetica Coffee read. “Or are you still having a hard time telling the difference?”

In the post, the coffee shop included a photo of Goldman at the Lorimer Street location of their five Brooklyn spots. “Too bad we didn’t recognize you right away or we would have turned you away,” the post said.

The caption on the post said Goldman’s money is “probably coming from AIPAC anyways” and told Goldman never to come back. The post was accompanied by the song “F— You” by British singer-songwriter Lily Allen.

Jewish community leaders immediately condemned the post, which was deleted when Poetica Coffee deactivated its account Monday.

“Assigning collective blame to Jews or perceived supporters of Israel over disagreements with Middle East policies is the very definition of antisemitism,” Mark Treyger, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said in a statement. “It is shameful and hateful, and businesses open to the public do not get to discriminate based on religion, ancestry, ethnicity, or stereotypes.”

According to its website, Poetica Coffee is “rooted in the Uzbek tradition where the guest is sacred, the books are unbanned, and the door is open to everyone.”

Goldman, who describes himself as “unabashedly pro-Israel,” is running for reelection in a contentious election Tuesday against former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, an Israel critic who also identifies as a “liberal Zionist.” Lander’s campaign did not respond to request for comment from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency.

“I am sorry to see this post,” Goldman said in a statement earlier Monday. “The barista could not have been nicer to my 7-year-old daughter and me — allowing her to use the bathroom even though we had not purchased anything. I made sure to buy a coffee in return for her kindness. I hope you at least make sure she gets the tip that she deserved.”

Before deactivating its account, Poetica Coffee said it had been the recipient of multiple death threats, including at least one with Islamophobic rhetoric.

Goldman was refunded $9.82, according to now-deleted screenshots from Poetica’s post.

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(JTA) — WASHINGTON – Alan Greenspan, the free markets champion whose longevity shaping the American economy was grist for the mills of Jewish pride and antisemitic conspiracy mongering alike, has died at 100.

Greenspan, who led the Federal Reserve under presidents of both parties for 18 years, died Monday, according to a statement by his widow, veteran NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell.

“Alan passed away at our home this morning at the age of 100 from complications of Parkinson’s disease,” Mitchell said in a statement she shared with her employer. “He was a giant of a man who helped shape the U.S. economy for decades under presidents of both parties, but was always honest in acknowledging his mistakes.”

The “mistakes” he acknowledged included first and foremost the housing bust in 2008, two years after he retired as Fed chairman.

“Yes, I’ve found a flaw,” he confessed in congressional testimony that year when Rep. Henry Waxman, the Jewish California Democrat, asked Greenspan if he regretted his laissez faire approach to keeping interest rates low. “I don’t know how significant or permanent it is. But I’ve been very distressed by that fact.”

Greenspan’s Jewish profile was low key: government He was a member of two predominantly Jewish clubs, Harmonie in New York and Hillcrest in Los Angeles. He rarely if ever headlined Jewish events, but he campaigned in the Jewish community for his favored candidates, including for Ronald Reagan in 1980, when the Republican ousted Jimmy Carter from office.

He was among a coterie of Reagan advisers who assured Jewish leaders in a New York meeting that Reagan would be a better friend to Israel than Carter, who had clashed with the government of Prime Minister Menachem Begin.

Because of his prominence, Greenspan became an avatar of postwar Jewish success. When Sen. Joe Lieberman became in 2000 the Democratic vice presidential candidate, commentators reflexively named Greenspan as one of the prominent Jews who had helped create an environment that paved the way for Lieberman’s ascent.

Greenspan’s successors as Fed chair, Ben Bernanke, and then Janet Yellen, were Jewish; by the time Yellen assumed the job in 2013, that fact seemed hardly worth mentioning.

That didn’t spare Greenspan from being fodder for antisemitic conspiracy theorists. Hutton Gibson, the extremist who shaped the views of his son, Hollywood megastar Mel Gibson, placed Greenspan at the center of his fantasies of Jewish malign influence and once said Greenspan should be hanged.

By the time he assumed the Fed chairmanship in 1987, Greenspan was a prominent  Republican deeply involved in economic politics. President Richard Nixon named him chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers in 1974; he assumed the position just after the scandal-plagued Nixon resigned and then worked throughout President Gerald Ford’s term.

Greenspan, a prominent analyst and consultant since his early 20s, had in 1967 joined Nixon’s presidential campaign as a top domestic affairs consultant.

He came to Republican politics by way of his infatuation with the works of Ayn Rand, the Russian-born Jewish philosopher whose extreme libertarianism wrapped up in didactic, potboiler novels like “The Fountainhead” shaped generations of post-World War II conservatism. He invited Rand to his swearing-in as chairman of the White House council.

“As I got to know her better and read her materials and had conversations with her, she had a sort of effect similar to that of a favorite college professor,” Greenspan told The New York Times in 1989.

Still, for all of his attachment to Rand’s philosophy of rationalist self-interest, which she dubbed “Objectivism,” Greenspan was known above all for his caution in addressing the government’s role in distributing resources and addressing inequality.

Reagan tasked him with reforming Social Security, and some of the recommendations of the commission Greenspan headed became law. At the time, he said he had to temper his ideals, which would have scrapped the system, in order to reform a system which kept millions of retired Americans solvent.

“Do I like the present Social Security system? No,” he told The New York Times in 1983. “If you asked me whether it would be necessary in the ideal society, I’d say no. Our type of economy is far removed from where I would like to see it, but you have to be careful about moving from one type of society to another.”

A throwaway line in a 1996 televised speech referring to the “irrational exuberance” of investors caused markets to plunge and reinforced for Greenspan the importance of caution in whatever he said.

His caution and his maintenance of low interest rates steered the U.S. economy through its massive 1991-2001 boom, and helped the economy recover from the crisis precipitated by the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. But his laissez-faire policies also were blamed for the 2000 dot-com bust and the 2008 mortgage crisis; his critics said he gave banks too much freedom, leading to abuses.

Born in 1926 in New York City, Greenspan was steered toward music school by his mother, a Jew of Hungarian descent. His father worked as a stockbroker and financial analyst. Alan attended the prestigious Julliard school and played saxophone in swing bands. On breaks between gigs, he was a voracious reader, and a book on markets led him to leave Julliard for New York University, where he studied economics.

He preserved his love for music throughout his life. Eric Alterman, the liberal Jewish commentator, recalled his conversation with the Fed chair after an introduction by Mitchell.

“I have you on CD with Woody Herman’s Thundering Herd,” Alterman, a pop music enthusiast,  recalled saying. “How did you like my playing?” Greenspan said.  “Better than your monetary policy,” Alterman said, and Greenspan ended the conversation.

Greenspan’s only survivor is Mitchell, whom he married in 1997 in a ceremony officiated by Jewish Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

The Genesis Prize, the organization that awards people for commitment to Jewish values, in a social media post on Monday, said Greenspan’s virtues exemplified Jewish values.

“One of Greenspan’s guiding principles was a Jewish value of l’dor v’dor — from generation to generation: decisions made today should not mortgage our children’s future,” the organization said. Another was cheshbon hanefesh, or moral self-accounting and self-critique. After the 2008 financial crisis, Greenspan — a vocal proponent of free market policies — publicly acknowledged where his assumptions had fallen short, demonstrating a willingness to reconsider prior convictions in light of evidence.”

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