On Thursday the Equalities and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) released a report that found Labour guilty of breaching the Equality Act in its treatment of Jewish people. Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer said it was a “day of shame” for his party.
Mr Corbyn was suspended from the Labour party after claiming political opponents had “dramatically overstated” the level of anti-Semitism in response to the report.
Last night’s Question Time took place with a virtual audience from Lincoln.
Ms van der Zyl said: “The EHRC report has found that the Labour Party has committed unlawful acts of harassment and victimisation against Jewish people.
“It doesn’t get any worse than that does it?
“The Jewish community, we didn’t want this fight but we had to stand up. We had to say this was wrong.
“What’s happened over the last few years is that anti-Semitism was on the fringes of society and it’s been brought straight into mainstream politics.
“Jeremy Corbyn and his leadership made a political decision to ignore, not to tackle, anti-Semitism.”
Sir Keir said the suspension of Mr Corbyn, carried out by general secretary David Evans, had his “fully support”.
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“And not only did the leadership of the party not do anything about it, we’ve not got findings of political interference by the leaders office.
“It doesn’t get much worse than that.”
Due to the coronavirus pandemic guests on last night’s Question Time were socially distanced whilst the audience asked questions via video link.
The Board of Deputies is the main umbrella group representing Britain’s Jewish community.
Reacting to the EHRC report Mr Corbyn insisted he had “acted to speed up, not hinder the process” around Labour anti-Semitism complaints.
He added the problem had been “dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party”.
It was this comment which led to his suspension from the Labour party.
Dame Margaret Hodge, a Jewish Labour MP, welcomed the suspension describing it as “the right decision following Corbyn’s shameful reaction to the EHRC report”.
Ms van der Zyl argued Mr Corbyn had “presided over the descent of a proudly anti-racist party into a party that broke equalities law in its treatment of Jews”.
However, Len McCluskey, general secretary of the Unite trade union and a key Corbyn ally, described the suspension as “an act of grave injustice”.
