A last stand for British Jews?
I couldn’t put my finger on it but I’d felt this mix of fear and anxiety before.
I was traveling up to Birmingham on a blustery November evening for the Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel Aviv match with wonderful friends and activists Lara Lipsey, Gidi Matlin and Michael Marlowe who is the proud father of Jake who was murdered by Hamas on Oct 7 as he saved others at the Nova Music Festival.
Following West Midlands police banning Israeli fans from Birmingham, for some strange reason, we had all felt the need to jump in a car and head to a hostile environment as Jews. I wasn’t sure what we were going to do or how it would end, but being there somehow felt important.
I had a ton of messages from friends and family with unhelpful advice to ‘stay safe’, take off my yellow hostage pin, tuck in my dog tag and remove my shtreimel. The last example was a stretch but you get the point. We had all seen the ominous social posts of faceless men in black clothing, zip-tying threatening Zionist hotline placards to lampposts and we were ‘on spilkas’.
As we crawled towards Coventry, the penny dropped and I realised the last time I had felt this way: It was before the first Borehamwood vigil for the hostages in October 2023. Cast your mind back to how we felt after Oct 7 2023 as British Jews.
Schools were closing for fear of attack, kids were advised not to wear their Jewish school uniforms in public, some removed their mezuzahs or considered it, the Israeli flag on Hertsmere civic centre was daubed with red paint and the London hate marches had sprung to life, with the first ‘demonstration’ planned on Oct 7 itself, before Israel had even fired a shot. My neighbour in his wisdom put a ‘From the River to the Sea’ sign in his window and I was petrified. The endless whatsapp conversations questioning ‘where are we going to go?’ did not help. I hated that feeling; the feeling of being intimidated in my own country.
Israel is our homeland but Britain is our home and I knew that if we didn’t do something, we would be ‘properly stuffed’… that’s the technical term.
It’s worth noting that being vocal does not come naturally to us British Jews. In previous Israel wars, we would happily attend an Israel rally every couple of years in Trafalgar Square, wave a flag and go home, believing that it would all blow over. Keeping our heads down was baked into our Fiddler on the Roof diaspora DNA. However, this time we knew it was different and required a different response.
In response to the attack on British Jews since Oct 7, I believe that we are undergoing a metamorphosis into to a new generation of British Jews who are louder, prouder and stronger. Today, with a sovereign State of Israel, we are finally starting to realise that we are able to stand tall as Jews in the UK, knowing Israel is behind us just as we are strong for her.
Unlike the disorientation that followed October 7, when West Midlands Police barred Jews from Birmingham, we knew exactly what needed to be done. And to be honest, standing up for our people feels bloody good.
Flash back to Birmingham.
We made a point of unfurling an Israeli flag inside and outside the stadium and I only received one dirty look inside the ground for a reattached yellow hostage pin. There were aggressive shouts of baby killers and genocide from outside the ‘Jew pen’ but overall, whilst exceptionally tense, it was well policed and we were not physically attacked.
And perhaps that is part of the issue; we needed 700 police to keep us safe.
Sadly, the British government’s response to record antisemitism and two Jews being tragically murdered in Manchester is to throw cash at us, providing yet more security whilst not addressing the core issue of Jew hate which is institutionally pervasive.
There may be a ceasefire in the Israel -Gaza war but there no such ceasefire exists in Britain and higher fences, more stab proof vests and CCTV simply tackles the symptom and not the cause.
Where does this leave British Jews? I take inspiration from Haviv Gettig Gur citing Israel academic, Dan Schueftan:
What’s the difference between a dumb optimist and a smart optimist?
A dumb optimist hopes that everything is going to be great.
A smart optimist thinks we will get stronger faster than things get worse
I believe it’s our grassroots activism that is strengthening us at unprecedented speed, but I know none of it comes easily. We may be living in the safest, most opportunity-filled era in Jewish history, yet some days it feels utterly unbearable. Even so, it is the duty and honour of our generation to raise our voice for our people at time when individual and collective action can have more impact than ever before.
TV and film producer – Leo Perlman whose leadership shines so brightly, says it better than anyone: “… go, show up. Join a counter-demonstration with the brave souls who’ve been carrying this burden for years. Write another letter to the BBC. Tell your colleague what you love about Israel. Tell them Chanukah is coming and you’ll be celebrating it proudly. Wear a Magen David big enough to catch the light and blind the haters when you walk into a room. Reclaim your story before someone else rewrites it.
And most importantly:
Tell your children to be proud. Proud of who they are, proud of where they come from, proud of what Jews have given the world, proud to stand tall, even when it’s hard, especially when it’s hard.
There may only have been a handful of us who schlepped to Birmingham, but even a small group can make a powerful statement: this will not be a Jew-free zone. With so many doing so much around the UK, I have never been prouder to be a Jew, to defend our values and our right to tell our story.
In October 2023, I mistakenly believed that the Borehamwood vigils were a last stand for British Jews.
I now understand they were the first.
Am Yisrael Chai.
