Jews Must Count for Autistic Lives to Thrive

I remember the time I went on the March Against Antisemitism in 2023 on the streets of London. It was the first in my life that I went on a protest march and connected with my Jewish friends and learned about their suffering and isolation after the October 7 massacre in Israel. It was a powerful display of unity and I felt really inspired by the speeches and the resilience and spiritual power of the Jewish people. I then spent the next 12 months making my own advocacy for the Jewish people and standing up for the state of Israel by fusing it with a touch of my own autism. This time around on 8th December 2024 I turned up at the next protest rally carrying a banner openly declaring “Jews must count or else autistic lives won’t survive or thrive”. My placard was so striking that many of the Jewish and non-Jewish people on the march were curious to know what my autism movement had to do with Jewishness or Zionism.

Legendary autism psychologist Hans Asperger was quoted as saying “It seems that for success in science or art a dash of autism is essential”. In August I started looking out for other neurodivergent Jews to help develop my own neurodivergent Zionist advocacy movement. For me, it seems that for autism to succeed a dash of Judaism is essential. Because in the years that I have read books and articles about autism advocacy, I found many interesting connections to Jewish people in science and politics. Recently I found a network of Jewish and non-Jewish autistic Zionists on social media and we began discussing an emblem that could be used as a badge to represent our mission. I made one that features a Hanukkah menorah with the infinity symbol and I put it onto a badge. It’s a very striking design and my neurodivergent Ashkenazi Jewish friend Martin thinks so too.

I handed these badges out to my friends and a few other people at the march. They were thankful for turning up and showing my support, even though I probably am one of a few brave neurodivergent warriors to show my support for Israel. I made a very good impression on them by info-dumping these bits of neurodiversity-Jewish topics like the creation of the Paralympic Games, the autistic intelligence officers of the IDF’s Unit 9900 and the disability services and inventions that Israel has produced. Disability advocacy like autism and neurodiversity movements may be niche in the way of social activism but I think they should take front and centre alongside other forms of diversity and equality missions. It shares a common goal with Jewish people in that those with impairments or differences are not weak or defective, they are stronger, resilient and more determined than most people you will ever meet.

My purpose for being on the March Against Antisemitism was a fight for the harmony and security of British Jews in national society. Antisemitism in Britain has quadrupled since the October 7th attacks and it is getting uglier by the day for Jews in Britain. I am not Jewish myself but I can’t stand the rancid and toxic atmosphere of what Jew hatred has become now. I saw one woman on Instagram a while ago at a Palestine hate rally in London declare that “Zionism is an incurable disease and we need to cull these (Jewish) people”. That is very disturbing for me as it evokes the same feelings of what a eugenicist would say to me as a disabled person. What I really want to know is why the social justice activism of the Palestinian supporters has become a big ugly cacophonic parade of dysfunctional people fighting without any direction. People like them need to check their own prejudices before they declare their own moral superiority.

Speeches were given at the end on stage outside Parliament. I saw Gideon Falter talk about how the two governments in the UK (Conservative and Labour) have been ‘dragging their feet’ on tackling anti-Jewish hate. If Jews don’t matter to them then neither will I or my autistic community thrive neither, as we are facing a wave of systematic social cleansing or social eugenics as I prefer to call it. I believe it’s time we challenged the antisemites in an information war to declare that Zionism is not a dirty word or some form of racism, it’s a civil justice movement that elevates nations to be bright and beautiful. These anti-Israel activists prefer it if Jews and disabled people such as myself were kept as second-class citizens who live under a social contract of slave to master.

Week after week there are endless parades of hate in London calling for the death of Israel and the biased and defective police and the politicians do next to nothing. I think it’s because of the anti-Israel politicians and social campaigners who are serving rancid Jew haters for their own selfish interests. London Mayor Sadiq Khan has a past in support of Jew-haters. He has stood on platforms with Islamic extremists and is largely absent from Jewish communities when they need him to stand up for racism in forms that he doesn’t; seem to care about. I think he is playing favouritism here as he supports the hate marches going ahead all the time. He defends his actions like an oversized condescending cloud of grievance hustling that could dispel a London fog, representing a foul rancid atmosphere that makes London an unfriendly city.

We need to act against this hate and reform the civil justice order of this country before it’s too late. The October 7 attacks unleashed antisemitism on a global scale and it wasn’t just because of prejudice, it was because of the psychological manipulation by Islamic extremists. I know how these people influence and corrupt social activists because I grew up with such characters like this in school. We had no dignitaries from the UK government or the Greater London Assembly present like last year. It would be decent and honourable for at least some members of their Israel friendship groups to come here from any political party. When a servant of the state serves the selfish interests of himself, the government and the lawmakers instead of serving the public and protecting them against evil agents at large it shows that we have a two-tier society. We need to reject the appeasement of extremists and fight for a bright future where Jews can live in mutual harmony and freedom with people.