Britain’s Jews are no longer just frightened of extremists and terrorists

It has got to the point where an attack on the Jewish community happens and I find myself waiting to see if the attacker could be someone I know. Hyperbole, some will say, and I wish nothing more than for that to be true. If only this were just a “perception of unsafety”, as Zack Polanski suggests. How much simpler it would be to fit the stereotype of the hysterical Jew. But the level of rot in our society is such that I now hold my breath and wonder: could it be? 

A folder on my phone suggests it could be. Since 7 October I began to record open displays of antisemitism from people that I know. Today that folder on my phone has over 100 examples of antisemitism from people that I know, 10 percent of it amounts to content I’ve felt necessary to report, including open calls for acts of violence against Jews, and explicit support for terror groups.

Antisemitism before 7 October was already embedded. Afterwards, it was like watching a swarm of bees leave a nest. Jews saw thousands of people on the streets and online seemingly radicalised overnight. People that never posted so much as lunch online were now spending all day online posting hate obsessed with a single conflict. The response to murdered Jews was not horror or sorrow. It was feverish, at times almost animalistic, a kind of relish, a celebration.

We watched on as marches took place week after week, where antisemitism was allowed to flourish. It does not matter how well-meaning many attendees may have been, if the demonisation of Jews went unchallenged and it did.

And any reasonable person alarmed by racism should ask: why did a movement that claimed good intentions and a desire for peace do so little, over so long, to confront a vocal hatred within its own ranks? There was not one clear, consistent effort to educate its audience about antisemitism. Not one sustained attempt to draw a line against extremism or insist on solidarity between minority groups.

If one racist came to a protest I organised, I would tell them they were not welcome. It is not difficult. And yet here, an environment was created in which this rhetoric was not only tolerated, but mainstreamed. Politicians and public figures defended it, and the result today is an atmosphere that has emboldened terror attacks on Britain’s Jews.

Meanwhile, many of us saw the same hatred reflected in our everyday lives, within our own circles. Not one example, not two, but many examples. Some relationships fell away; others imploded.

The years have rolled by and the intensity of that hatred grew. In some cases, it became so extreme that we reported it, fearful it might be the warning sign that someone would one day regret to ignore. This normalisation of rage, hatred and misinformation has happened around us while we do our best to continue living as normal.

But how can we? When Jewish parents take our children to school, it is not normal. We send them through armed gates. It is not normal to plan Shabbat shopping around safety rather than convenience. Our community do not go to shul thinking only about spiritual connection; we go thinking about security, about protecting people who are simply longing for peace.

We talk about friends who once cradled our newborns and now post that “f***ing Israelis are scum of the earth” and we wait for someone, anyone, to say: this is not OK

I am a mostly secular Jew, with a largely non-Jewish circle. And yet I do not live entirely authentically outside my community. I speak only to a trusted few about what I have personally experienced since 7 October. I fear the response. I can’t take another disappointment. I can barely bring myself to write it down because it sounds so far from a reality I want to acknowledge.  And yet I know it is not unique — because we do talk about it. We talk to each other. We talk about the peer who has spent years saying Zionists deserve to be attacked — to an audience of mutual friends who say nothing.

We talk about the friends who post open support for terror groups and frame them as noble freedom fighters. We talk about institutions connected to Israel — the world’s only Jewish state — being treated as fair game. We talk about friends who once cradled our newborns and now post that “f***ing Israelis are scum of the earth” and we wait for someone, anyone, to say: this is not OK.

We talk about the friends of years who disappeared overnight — not in response to anything you have done, but in response to 1,200 of your people being murdered in an attack livestreamed to the world.

Since 7 October I have recorded open displays of antisemitism from people that I know. Today that folder on my phone has over 100 examples

We talk about the quiet ones, the ones whose “likes” you begin to notice, post after post on misinformation and fabrication.  The slow drip.
We talk about the non-Jewish childcare professional working in a Jewish setting who engages with posts about “money-grabbing Jews” and we sit with the discomfort of knowing they are responsible for Jewish children.

Should we tell the school?

We talk about the feminists who look you in the eye and deny that Jewish women were raped on 7 October. They would say that, wouldn’t they? And we are left reeling that this does not provoke challenge or disgust from others.

We talk about celebrated figures in the music industry who defend artists supporting terror groups that openly call for the eradication of the Jewish state — or who dress up calls for violence against young conscripts as something fashionable, something justifiable.

We watch as our much-loved broadcasters do the same. Platforming without challenge or interrogation.

We talk about professionals — even therapists — who accuse us of “brainwashing” our children, as if it were remotely conceivable that parents of young children are discussing geopolitics with their toddlers rather than reading bedtime stories.

These are not abstractions. These are just a handful of examples from my own life.  For a long time, these experiences filled me with a sense of shame — as though that shame belonged to me. It silenced me. It embarrassed me.

Not because I think people won’t believe me. I know they know. I know they have seen it too. But because I know, deep down, that many are indifferent to what has happened to our society. They have seen this hatred before. They did not speak then. And if they are not speaking now, they never will.