Knighthoods and Kippahs: Being Jewish in an Age of Royal Honour and Antisemitism

There’s a curious dissonance in watching a Jewish figure, proudly donning a kippah, kneel before a member of the British royal family to receive a knighthood. It’s a tableau both triumphant and trembling—celebration tinged with the weight of history. For British Jews, knighthoods and kippahs are not merely symbolic accessories; they encapsulate the complexity of a dual identity caught between honour and hostility, belonging and marginalisation.

A Heritage of Oscillation

The Jewish presence in Britain stretches back to the Norman Conquest—its trajectory marked by alternating tides of protection and persecution. Jews were once declared wards of the Crown, enjoying royal patronage, only to be expelled en masse in 1290 under Edward I. Readmitted under Oliver Cromwell in the 1650s, British Jewry began a long journey toward civic integration, though always tempered by conditions and cautious toleration.

The emergence of titled Jews in British society—from Sir Solomon de Medina, knighted in 1700, to Sir Moses Montefiore, the quintessential Victorian Jewish gentleman—offered a veneer of acceptance. Queen Victoria’s bestowal of honours on Jews marked a symbolic shift in national sentiment. Yet these accolades often came with unspoken expectations: to be visibly British, quietly Jewish, and impeccably respectable.

Elite Anglo-Jews in the 19th and early 20th centuries sometimes distanced themselves from newly arrived Eastern European Jewish immigrants, conscious that communal solidarity might hinder their delicate dance with assimilation. Belonging, it seemed, was always on probation.

Between Royal Ritual and Public Reality

In today’s Britain, Jewish figures are visible in royal ceremonies, honoured in Queen’s and King’s Birthday lists, and appointed to positions of high public esteem—from the House of Lords to the judiciary. The late Queen Elizabeth II hosted Holocaust survivors. King Charles III has made poignant visits to synagogues and Holocaust memorials. Prince William’s 2018 visit to Yad Vashem was the first of its kind.

Such gestures matter. They represent a monarchy and a state that, at least in form, affirm the dignity and belonging of British Jews. But this royal embrace exists alongside a sobering reality. In 2023, the Community Security Trust (CST) recorded 4,103 antisemitic incidents in the UK—the highest ever. These ranged from verbal abuse to physical assaults, often triggered by flare-ups in the Middle East.

In London, Jewish schools install concrete barriers. Jewish university students form WhatsApp groups for safety alerts. In parts of Britain, wearing a Star of David necklace or a kippah in public is an act of courage. The antisemitism comes not only from far-right extremists but also from segments of the far-left, where anti-Israel sentiment too easily slides into Jewish vilification.

A Balancing Act: Pride and Precarity

This is the paradox of British Jewish life today: to be embraced by the establishment while simultaneously needing protection from parts of the society that celebrates you. Knighthoods represent national validation. Kippahs, meanwhile, invite scrutiny—and sometimes worse.

Take, for example, Lord John Mann, the UK government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, who has spoken out forcefully about how antisemitic narratives have spread online and in public discourse. Or Baroness Luciana Berger, a Jewish MP who faced a torrent of antisemitic abuse, prompting her departure from the Labour Party in 2019. Their experiences reflect a broader reality: visibility can be both a privilege and a risk.

To be British and Jewish is to walk with poise between two worlds—one adorned with honours, the other still echoing with prejudice.

A Society of Simultaneity

British Jews embody a national story of simultaneity: of being insiders and outsiders, celebrated and scapegoated, patrons of the Crown and targets of populist rage. Antisemitism in Britain, like elsewhere, has mutated—once cloaked in religious bigotry, now rebranded through conspiratorial tropes or veiled as “anti-Zionist critique.” The line between legitimate criticism of Israeli policy and blanket demonisation of Jews is not always held with care, especially in online spaces.

Yet Britain is not France, where Jewish communities have seen deadly attacks in kosher supermarkets and synagogues. Nor is it Hungary, where state antisemitic dog-whistles pass with little censure. Britain remains, for all its flaws, a place where a Jewish boy from Stamford Hill or a girl from Golders Green can dream of being knighted, sitting in Parliament, or teaching at Oxford.

But those dreams are lived with one eye open.

Conclusion: The Challenge of Belonging

Knighthoods and kippahs—one bestowed by the Crown, the other inherited through covenant—represent the British Jewish condition. They are twin emblems of a community both woven into the national fabric and vulnerable to its unraveling threads.

To be a British Jew in the age of royal pageantry and rising antisemitism is to live with nuance: to feel honoured and endangered, proud and precarious, accepted and always, somehow, provisional. It is to belong, but never forget the conditions of belonging.