The everyday heroism of our Jewish children

It’s primary school. 12:30. Sun is shining. Some of the kids are having lunch, others are out in the playground. The climbing frame is full, the football pitch is buzzing, kids are running around playing ultimate tag. There’s a lunchtime netball club in the hall. This is the primary school of every kid in the UK. But this is where the familiarity for the general population ends.

The alarm goes off. It takes a second, but the kids know exactly what to do. They’ve practised for this very moment. This alarm isn’t the fire alarm. It’s the other one. The one where you have to stay safe, stay down, and stay silent. Thirty seconds later the entire school has locked down. Out of sight. Four to eleven year-olds sitting without making a sound. A minute goes by. Then the next, then the next. Seconds feel like hours. The teachers don’t know any more than the kids, but they have to keep them calm. They have to keep them quiet. Because the alternative is unthinkable.

Finally, the all clear sounds. It was a false alarm. Everyone breathes out.

And the kids? They just go back to the rest of the day like nothing happened.

I just finished watching Crossfire on BBC iplayer. It’s harrowing. Gunmen attack a hotel. Families, kids, running everywhere. But all I could think (and it was wildly depressing) was, “my kids would know what to do. If I told them it was an intruder alarm, they’d know what to do”. And that awkward lump in my throat, the slight tear in my eye, grew just slightly bigger.

Every kid at a Jewish school walks past the security, and often the police outside their school, and instead of turning to their parent and asking why these people are here, they just say good morning. Because it’s normal. But it’s not, is it? It’s not normal to be surprised when the front gate is open rather than locked shut. It’s not normal to have your bag searched going into a Jewish community centre. It’s not normal for my son’s teacher to have to skip a section of CBBC Newsround because it might hit a bit too close to home.

It’s not normal for every single synagogue in the country, every Jewish school, every Jewish building, every Jewish event to have security stood outside large gates and fences. And it’s not normal for my kids to think it’s normal.

And this isn’t just some sort of over-reaction. The threat is real. This month alone there has been an attack against a Jewish “cheder” school in Amsterdam, an attack on a synagogue in Michigan which housed a nursery, arrests of Iranians accused of spying on Jewish locations (including a school) in London, and of course the firebombing attack on the Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green.

This is the reality for Jewish kids growing up in the UK, and around the world. But even with all of that, even with the high fences, hundreds of security guards, thousands of cameras, my kids are still defiantly proud of their Judaism. They walk down the street singing Hebrew songs absent-mindedly. They walk out of our house with their kippah on to go to school or shul (sometimes) without a care in the world. They don’t know that they are being defiant in the face of hate. They just know that they are happy being Jewish, and young enough not to be scared of anything.

Obviously it goes without saying that there are kids, and adults, living far starker realities at the moment. My kids’ cousin in Israel hasn’t had a full school year in her life, between Covid lockdowns, wars and rocket attacks. But we aren’t in a challenge monopoly system. Different challenges, difficulties and traumas can exist simultaneously without us having to make them compete against each other for the gold medal in tragedy.

My hope for my kids and their peers, and my hope for all of us, is that the world they grow up into is a world where that defiance and pride becomes the normality. Where the high fences are replaced with low hedges, where the security is replaced with greeters, and where the cameras are replaced… well, it’s London in 2026 so the cameras will probably still be there. The world my kids deserve to grow up in is one free of hate. One where we have educated each other to stand strong together. Where the biggest challenge facing the Jewish community is whether Ashkenazi, Mizrachi or Sephardi food is the best (we all know which one it isn’t…) and where the only alarm my kids’ kids have to hear in school is a fire alarm, once a term, for the fire‑safety mandated drill.

We are not there yet, but with a growing global Jewish community, connected through positivity and engagement, we can be there sooner than you think.