What British Jews can learn from American Jewish confidence?

California Dreaming? Reimagining Our Right to Belong

La La Land. California. The Golden State. The sunshine. The palm trees. The optimism. Home to Hollywood, the great American dream factory, where imagination, ambition and an audacious belief in possibility have shaped the cultural consciousness of generations.

And where the Jewish contribution to that story is foundational, not incidental.

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I travelled to watch the third instalment of the production of Letters, Light and Love, a theatrical journey through thousands of years of Jewish history, conceived in the aftermath of 7 October, as the historical connection between the Jewish people and Israel was being increasingly challenged.

Following performances in London and New York, the show, originated and co-produced by my sister (hence my being there), arrived in Hollywood, with Hollywood royalty to match. Dustin Hoffman and Gene Simmons among the familiar names lending their voices.

Not everyone invited had accepted. Even in an industry whose Jewish origins are so deeply embedded in its identity, publicly celebrating that history and its connection to Israel is evidently, and disappointingly, not an opportunity everyone wishes to embrace.

But plenty did. And the setting was unintentionally symbolic.

Royce Hall. UCLA.

The university which, two years earlier, became a notorious flashpoint of America’s campus encampment movement. Jewish students intimidated, harassed and excluded. The legitimacy of Israel, and in some instances the historical connection of Jews to the land itself, fiercely contested.

And now, in one of its most prestigious auditoriums, hundreds of Jews celebrating precisely that history and connection, through letters written centuries before the current political arguments had even been conceived.

From Caesar to Balfour, Maimonides to Hannah Senesh and Frank Sinatra. Emperors, rabbis, statesmen, philosophers, artists and ordinary people. Letters spanning centuries and continents, charting the history of the Jewish people and their enduring connection to Zion. Personal correspondence, political declarations, moments of humour, courage, love and loss, brought to life on stage.

The contrast was quite extraordinary.

No protests outside. No keffiyehs. No flag-waving. No hostility.

Just extraordinary warmth.

Jon Voight read George Washington’s remarkable 1790 letter to the Jewish congregation of Newport, Rhode Island, affirming that religious freedom was not a privilege granted to a tolerated minority, but an inherent right of citizenship. Jonah Platt voiced Frank Sinatra’s invitation to his Hollywood pals to visit the Holy Land. Gene Simmons told the audience to sing Hallelujah.

And they did. They whooped, cheered, sang and cried. They belted out Hatikvah with pride. On balance, more joy than solemnity.

They also moved around, went to the bathroom, took calls. The kind of theatre behaviour frowned upon in the West End. But this audience was entirely uninhibited, wonderfully demonstrative, totally American, without the reserved self-consciousness of a British audience.

There was an unapologetic, confident ease amongst them. Celebrating their Jewish identity. In Royce Hall.

America’s response to campus antisemitism has been contentious, politically charged and robust. Federal investigations, lawsuits and financial consequences have held universities to account for their failures.

Four days in Los Angeles cannot qualify as a comprehensive assessment of American Jewish life. But it reinforced an observation that American Jews may approach the antisemitism resurfacing around them from a rather different starting point.

Not necessarily less fear. But perhaps a greater sense of agency. A belief that they have the right, and the means, to challenge institutions and refuse to accept antisemitism as the new normal.

These are their institutions, their country, their future to defend.

Perhaps something fundamental in America’s founding ethos makes this possible.

Much of Europe comprises nations whose identities were established long before Jews were permitted to participate fully in national life. Jewish communities have historically lived within host societies. Welcomed, tolerated, integrated, at times celebrated. But with the uncomfortable knowledge that such acceptance could prove conditional.

The American story is different. A nation shaped by successive waves of immigration, where belonging is bound up with helping to build the country itself. Not simply being accepted into a national identity shaped by others, but helping to define it.

While I was in Los Angeles, France was burning. Again.

Cars ablaze. Public buildings attacked. Shops looted. Protests overtaken by destructive unrest, with the French government pointing to radical far-left involvement.

And behind the immediate disorder, a more troubling, bubbling milieu of despair. Economic stagnation, political polarisation, unresolved tensions around immigration, integration and national identity. Alongside political movements in which hostility towards Israel has become defining, and antisemitism increasingly commonplace.

The riots were not principally targeting Jews or Israel. But for France’s shrinking Jewish communities, already profoundly anxious about their future, the convergence of these forces is hardly reassuring.

Because in Europe, we know where this can go.

Not that history is destined to repeat itself. But European Jewish history carries the all-too-recent memory of societies turning, of prejudice becoming ideology and movements across the political spectrum finding common cause in a convenient, enduring enemy.

And perhaps that changes the questions we instinctively ask.

In America: how do we confront and challenge these forces?

In Europe: how bad might things become? And, increasingly, where could we go?

I suspect there are scant Jewish Friday night dinner tables in London, Manchester and Leeds where that question hasn’t surfaced over the past three years.

Israel? America? Somewhere else? Where might our children feel safe? Where would they truly belong?

The wandering Jew. A people condemned to perpetual movement, never entirely secure. The establishment of the State of Israel finally offered an answer to centuries of displacement. Yet nearly 80 years later, the muscle memory remains intact.

Does the same conversation dominate Jewish dinner tables in California? Perhaps. I don’t know.

But America still presents itself as a destination. A place people aspire to go to, rather than a place they are contemplating leaving.

And perhaps American Jewish confidence rests on more than cultural optimism. There may also be a realpolitik at work. For all its political upheavals, America remains profoundly pragmatic. Capitalist, innovative, commercially driven and continually looking towards the next opportunity.

Jewish Americans are woven into its economic, intellectual and cultural success. Israel, too, brings considerable strategic value through defence, technology and innovation.

Might these shared interests help counterbalance some of the ideological hostility? They offer no guarantees. History is littered with prosperous Jewish communities whose contributions afforded them little protection. But perhaps there is something to explore in relationships rooted not only in tolerance, but in shared interests and ambitions.

Which brings me to Britain.

Our national narrative celebrates Kindertransport, Cable Street and our role in defeating fascism. All important chapters. But Britain’s relationship with its Jewish population has not always been quite so noble.

Norwich, 1144, gave Europe its first recorded medieval blood libel: the grotesque invention that Jews murdered Christian children for religious purposes. England subsequently expelled its Jewish population in 1290.

One of history’s most enduring antisemitic lies originated here, and its imagery of Jews as uniquely bloodthirsty still finds uncomfortable echoes in contemporary discourse. Criticism of Israeli policy or military conduct is legitimate. Attributing an inherent appetite for cruelty to Jews is something altogether different.

And this is hardly confined to distant history.

Earlier this month, the Green Party voted to classify Zionism as racism while endorsing a single democratic Palestinian state across historic Palestine, effectively denying Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish state. The UK Government’s adopted definition of antisemitism identifies denying Jewish self-determination, including by portraying Israel’s existence as inherently racist, as an example of how antisemitism can manifest itself.

Britain has been both a refuge and a persecutor. Our role in defeating fascism offers no automatic immunity from the forces that have historically threatened Jewish life, particularly when questions of integration, identity politics and social cohesion have so often lacked serious, long-term political consideration.

So where does this leave British Jewry?

Our historical understanding of antisemitism inevitably shapes our expectations. We recognise the warning signs. We know how societies can turn. It would be foolish to ignore them.

But could that same historical consciousness lead us towards a sense of inevitability? Towards planning for a future elsewhere before fully exploring how to shape one here?

British Jewry has hardly been passive. We have a distinguished history of civic engagement and contribution to national life. But we have been unexpectedly challenged in recent years. Relationships we relied upon have frayed. Established principles of engagement no longer relevant.

Perhaps we need to think more expansively about what it means to be woven into the future of a country, if we intend to keep calling it home.

Britain, like much of Europe, faces a sclerotic economy, strained public services and increasingly fractious politics. Could our community, alongside others, play a more deliberate role in addressing these problems? Through enterprise, expertise, investment and deeper participation in the institutions shaping Britain’s future.

Not to purchase acceptance. Our rights as citizens must never depend upon our economic usefulness. But to become more integral to the country’s future, rather than simply seeking reassurance about our place within it.

But confidence must also be built from within. Investing in our children, in Jewish learning and literacy, pride, joy and optimism is every bit as essential to nurturing the instinctive sense that we belong, and have every intention of continuing to do so.

This is a medium-term proposition, not a quick solution to antisemitism or an immediate alternative to exiting, stage left. But departure is neither an option nor a desire shared by all. Families, livelihoods and a real attachment to home make starting again elsewhere far more complicated than Friday night dinner conversations suggest.

For many of us, Britain is not merely where we happen to live, it’s where we want to live. It is where our lives are. And, an ironic twist, it’s where a large number of Israelis are choosing to settle.

So we must find a way. Not by dismissing the warnings of history, but by refusing to assume we know how the story must end.

Back at Royce Hall, Gene Simmons hardly needed to ask the audience to sing; they would have done anyway.

It was an exuberant evening in LA. But there was something infectious and reassuring about a room full of Jews so entirely at home.

I came back to London thinking we could do with a little more of that. The motivation to nurture our community’s confidence that we have every right to be here and every intention of staying.