OPINION: From Magna Carta to Remembrancetide, Britain’s story is also ours

In 1935’s “A History of Europe”, H A L Fisher wrote that “Men wiser and more learnt than I have discerned in history a plot, a rhythm, a predetermined pattern. These harmonies are concealed from me.” He couldn’t have been Jewish. For we have no problem detecting history’s loops and coincidences, its cadences and modulations.  Perhaps as British Jews even more so.

At the heart of our nation sits the Palace of Westminster. The home of our politics and a monument to the UK’s story, from within which we can discern our own. Overlaying Parliament’s various statues, artefacts, paintings and spaces with the patterns of Jewish experience is almost frictionless.

From the antisemitic violence of Richard I’s coronation (culminating 100 years later in Edward I’s Edict of Expulsion), to Cromwell’s half-hearted approval of the Resettlement in the 1650s.

Get The Jewish News Daily Edition by email and never miss our top stories Free Sign Up

From the firefighters of the AFS in WWII (over half of whom in London were Jewish), who helped save Westminster Hall on the very last night of the Blitz. To David Weitzman of the Manchester Regiment, who, when he retired from the House in 1979, was the last MP to have been born in the 19th century and the last to have fought in the Great War.

From the Jews alongside Nelson at Trafalgar and Wellington at Waterloo. To those of the Dutch Republic who allied with William & Mary and helped bring about the Glorious Revolution.

More by Dan Fox

Nov. 6, 2024

OPINION: What it means to be both a Jewish and British veteran

By Dan Fox

June 6, 2024

OPINION: D-Day at 80: the Jewish heroes who helped secure victory

By Dan Fox

Feb. 20, 2023

OPINION: A timely reminder of why we have a duty to care

By Dan Fox

From the abusive ‘protection’ offered by Norman and Mediaeval kings. To the entrenchment of that racket by the barons in Magna Carta.

From the Georgian and Victorian political battles to allow practising Jews to sit in the Lords and Commons. To the careers of inspiring Jewish Parliamentarians like Manny Shinwell.

We are woven into the fabric of the United Kingdom. Sure, with a few kinks and loose threads along the way. But with our story always hugging the contours of our nation’s own.

Antisemitism is many things. Over the millennia, it has been, for its practitioners, a religious belief, an economic necessity, a scientific truth and a foreign policy doctrine. Damn anyone today who still dares to even try and justify it, rationalise it or equivocate over it on those bases.  For at their heart, in the depths of their Jew-obsessed viscera, antisemites are simply jealous. Tiny men and women whose miniscule intellectual stature allows them to slip so easily down the rabbit holes of conspiracism and hate.

And nothing fires that envy more than seeing our pride in being both British and Jewish. A pride especially demonstrated during Remembrancetide.

Remembrance is a very Jewish and ancient act. In the Book of Samuel, after the defeat of the Philistines at Mizpeh, our eponymous prophet erected a huge rock on the battlefield in thanks for the interventions he believed had secured victory. It was an eban ha’nezer. A “stone of help”. Humanity’s first war memorial. On 16 November, the Jewish community will march once again, as we have done for nearly 100 years, in the AJEX Annual Parade to the Cenotaph, our nation’s own Stone of Help.

We will do so with Stars of David around our necks and Union Jacks in our hands. Two symbols of our identity. Two pillars of our fight against modern antisemitism. Another step in the imperfect, yet rich and proud, journey of this great nation and its Jews.

• Dan Fox is the National Chair of the AJEX The Jewish Military Association