CAA applauds Architects Registration Board for removing architect from register who claimed Judaism is a “cult” and Jews should be banned from “important public office”

The Architects Registration Board (ARB) has removed an architect from its professional register following an investigation into his claims that Judaism is a “cult” and Jews should be banned from “important public office”.

On 13 April 2019, Peter Kellow, an award-winning architect, published a long post on Facebook, which read, in part:

“This business of ‘anti-semiticism’ [sic] in the Labour party which is held up as racism. What is it all about really? Let us get a few thing [sic] straight. There is no such thing as the Jewish race. This is one of the many stunts that Judaists have pulled on non-Judaists who have swallowed it whole. There is only the religion/cult of Judaism and I never use the word ‘Jew’ because that implies buying into the myth of racial commonality amoungst [sic] Judaists. […]

“There is no doubt that Judaists have suffered from unfair and cruel treatment at many times in history but this was never racially motivated until the late nineteenth century and bloomed in the ideology of Adolf Hitler. Hitler used the myth of a Jewish race that the Judaists had invented against them. It is not far from the truth to say the Judaists were the inventers of European racism for they asserted they were racially different to the rest of us. […]

“But racism as I have said is a recent phenomenon. Are the so-called ‘antisemites’ in the Labour Party simply ‘racists’ as the popular narrative would have it? I doubt it. The problem people have and always have had with Judaism is not about race. It is because Judaism is a cult. What do I mean by a cult? A cult is a set of people, normally norminally [sic] unified by a religion or quasi-religion, who try to create a society within the general society. Judaism is far from being the only or even the most resented cult in history or the present.”

Mr Kellow identified as other cults similar to Judaism: Freemasonry, Mormonism, Scientology, paganism and Sunni Islam.

He continued: “Cults work against the interest of the general society as its members, in subscribing to a society within the society favour each other over the rest of us….How can you trust such people?…So how should society deal with cults? How should society deal with people who through their cult activity weaken the bonds that the society needs to function well?”

Although Mr Kellow insisted that such “cults” should not be proscribed, he did believe that “we must put restraints on their ability to create a society within a society.” Among these “restraints” was “(1) Registration of the cult in a public register; (2) Registration of all adult members in a public register; (3) No cult member can hold an important public office where they are in a position to descrimiate [sic] between cult members and non-cult members. For instance it is totally unacceptable lo have a Freemason or Judaist as a judge as their decisions will very like work in favour of fellow cult members. Their strong bond in their society within the society will ensure this; (4) Whereas adults are free to choose to belong to a cult, the same cannot reply [sic] to their children….To this end, no cult can run its own “faith” schools; [and] (5) It must be against the law to wear cult clothing in public – except something worn on the top of the head like a hat [e.g. Sikh turbans or Judaist skull caps].[…]”

On 3 June 2019, Architects’ Journal brought the Facebook post to the attention of the ARB, which is the statutory regulator for the industry. The ARB commenced an investigation and found that the post was “was visible as a ‘public’ post. When the Respondent’s profile was clicked, his profile information could be seen which included his profession and a link to his professional website.”

The panel established to investigate the matter concluded that the “comments, which the Respondent continues to stand by, made as they are against two specific established religions and other groups, are discriminatory, potentially offensive and are therefore inappropriate.”

The panel was concerned that the respondent showed a “lack of demonstrable meaningful insight” into his conduct and considered that he had “entrenched discriminatory attitudinal issues”. It concluded that “these failings…are fundamentally incompatible with continuing to be an architect” and accordingly erased Mr Kellow from the register for no less than two years.

Stephen Silverman, Director of Investigations and Enforcement at Campaign Against Antisemitism said: “We applaud the Architects Registration Board for removing the respondent from the register. The panel was absolutely right to find that his suggestions that all Jews should have to join a register or be excluded from holding public office – notions reminiscent of past eras that we all hope have been confined to the dustbin of history – were discriminatory and offensive and damage the reputation of the profession. We call on other professional bodies to follow the ARB in showing zero tolerance for this sort of antisemitic propaganda.”