Loss of Innocence opened at the weekend and will run until Sunday, August 8.

And speakers at the exhibition’s opening were two pro-Palestinian activists, Manchester University’s Egyptian-born Professor Mona Baker and Rod Cox.

Baker was the UMIST academic editor of a journal who banned two Israelis’ articles in 2002.

And she promoted an academic boycott of Israeli academics.

Mr Cox, according to Manchester University lecturer Professor Harry Lesser, attempted to push through an anti-Israel motion while a mature student at the university in the late 1970s.

He currently runs a pro-Palestinian blog on the Internet.

The cathedral’s website declares that the exhibition is “intended simply as an invitation to prayer”. But StandWithUs UK’s Joy Wolfe told the Jewish Telegraph that the cathedral was trying to justify the exhibition in the way of prayer.

She said: “They are pretending it is not political and I find it exceptionally disappointing.

“The most damaging aspect is that the exhibition is going to be taken around schools.

“Schoolchildren will be indoctrinated and brainwashed.”

Mrs Wolfe said that she had been in contact with the cathedral to see if they would hold a similar exhibition featuring traumatised children of rocket-hit Sderot, but is waiting to hear from them.

“The cathedral doesn’t seem to understand that they are doing anything wrong,” she added.

The exhibition is organised by an outside body, with a presence from representatives of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.

Manchester Jewish Representative Council president Lucille Cohen revealed that she had spoken to Canon Andrew Shanks, head of the cathedral’s educational programme.

She told the Jewish Telegraph: “The exhibition’s subtext is the delegitimising and demonising of Israel, and, by extension, the Jewish people.

“It represents just one cog in an orchestrated campaign aimed at infiltrating universities, unions and churches.

“I also told him one-sided portrayals of Israel are documented as leading to increased antisemitic sentiment and increased antisemitic attacks on the streets of Manchester.”

Canon Shanks, Mrs Cohen explained, said he supported Israel, did not support Hamas and would not object to leaflets being distributed outside the cathedral putting forward the Israeli perspective.

In addition, he would also be willing to consider hosting an exhibition of the art of the children of Sderot.

A concurrent exhibition would have seemed too political, however.

Mrs Cohen also said that she had written to the Council of Christians and Jews chairman Rev Steve Williams and Rev Nigel McCulloch, the Bishop of Manchester.

Manchester Zionist Central Council president David Berkley, who has visited the exhibition, told the Jewish Telegraph: “My main concern is that the exhibition is being exploited by people who are promoting a narrow, one-minded political perspective against Israel.

“When I was at the cathedral, a member of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign was taking people around the exhibition and she was calling for a the boycott and isolation of Israel.”

But when contacted by the Jewish Telegraph, a cathedral spokesman would say only that it held an Anne Frank exhibition last year and would not comment any further.

The exhibition will also take place for six days in Cheshire at the Marple Methodist Church.

And Mr Cox is due to speak at its opening on Monday, August 9 (6.30pm).

Mrs Cohen said she had talked with the church’s Rev Chris Ambler, who would be conveying the community’s concerns.