In a speech to the Labour Friends of Israel in April 2007, Brownwhose father was the chairman of the Church of Scotland's Israel Committee spoke of his long-standing interest in Israel and the Jewish community. He said that he "had a very clear view from household slides and projectors about the history of Israel, about the trials and tribulations of the Jewish people, about the enormous suffering and loss during the Holocaust, as well as the extraordinary struggle that he described to me of people to create this magnificent homeland".