British Jews might want to consider adopting an American mindset

English friends say “you’re so American”, despite my growing up in Watford. Americans say “you’re so British” despite living in LA for 15 years. Last week I cautiously went to a music festival near Reading, hoped that they wouldn’t hate Jews too much, and considered that perhaps the best way to thrive as a Jew in the UK is to have an American mindset.

I was concerned when buying my ticket to Medicine Festival, a hippy-style healing gathering on a country estate in Reading, described as “a gathering of wisdom-keepers, indigenous peoples, and artists of all traditions in prayer”.

The one reticence was simple; it was a healing festival for indigenous peoples and artists of all traditions in prayer, but how much did they dislike Jews? Call me old-fashioned, but I just wasn’t in the mood to be visually slammed with Palestinian flags that too often are waved by those who support Jews being pushed into the sea.

My non-Jewish best friend has a lot of Jewish friends, and commented last week how many of them casually talk about hiding their Jewishness, without realising this is an extraordinary way to live. It’s Britain in 2026, a land that allegedly prizes diversity and acceptance, and we should not have to question such things as revealing our ethnic identity.

This is where the American mindset comes in. While Britain can sometimes be a soft-spoken nation which chooses to underplay things, there is great value to the American confidence in free speech.

In the end, the festival was very pleasant. The majority of people are in the “medicine” community – which is often a synonym for plant-based drugs or other healing modalities – but it was officially a “sober” festival with no alcohol allowed. I completely missed the memo when I brought in a bottle of rum to share on Shabbat. The program included workshops on healing primal wounds, rituals with indigenous shamans, and tantric dating. People were friendly, it was mostly apolitical, and of the 10,000 festival-goers, only one tent had a row of Palestine bunting, and one person wore a Palestine t-shirt.

I went into the festival loud-and-proud, and always wore some kind of immediately identifiable merch, whether it was a Hebrew “Chai” cap, a “Jewlicious” t-shirt, or I wandered the festival grounds in full Jewish indigenous tribal outfit of tallis, tefillin, and blowing the shofar for anyone within earshot.

One lady came up to me, almost in tears, and thanked me for just standing there in my prayer gear. Another girl thanked me for wearing the Jewlicious top. People called out “hi” when I walked past wearing the Chai cap.

When we boldly publicly display our Jewish identity, it can give other people permission to do the same. There was usually a positive response, and most people ended up at our Shabbat event.

We had a beautiful Kabbalat Shabbat service in the field, set up by long-term festivalgoer Marc Frank, and later that night I taught an ad-hoc Kabbalah class outside one of the concerts. The next morning I led a Shabbat service and class in the centre of the festival. This may be Britain, but we were Jews, present and public, and just got on with it.

There is something about these kinds of non-Jewish spaces that makes many Jews want to come together. Although it isn’t right for everybody, and there were people who chose not to join us, many were inspired and grateful. My friend Rabbi Yonah Bookstein in Los Angeles runs “Shabbat Tent” at major music festivals like Coachella, and whilst there was a Jewish tent at Glastonbury for many years, there is still room for growth with Jewish events in these spaces.

It’s easy to think that the entire world is thinking about Jews or that we are universally hated, however, the majority of people are just busy living their lives and dealing with their own problems.

One approach is to hide Jewishness and just blend in, but if we can be confident in our identity, fearlessly flying the flag helps other people get inspired and feel better. Now is the time to be a loud, proud American, even if you were born and live in the heart of middle England.

Some American friends think that we live in a Sharia law state where you can’t walk on the streets being openly Jewish, and people say to me, “Take care,” “be careful,” whenever I back to England.

Marcus J Freed is an actor and writer, based in Los Angeles and London. He is on Instagram at: @marcusjfreed, and www.marcusisalive.com.