What Immanuel's Near-Closure Taught Me About Community

I have been at Immanuel College since Year 7. That’s almost six years of the most formative years of my life. This school is not just somewhere I go to learn, it is a genuine, deep, part of who I am.

So when the announcement came that Immanuel College would be closing, I didn’t quite know how to process it.

I had only been Head Boy for a couple of months. I had barely had the time to find my feet in the role, to work out what kind of leader I wanted to be, how I wanted to give back to a place that had given me so much. And then suddenly, the future of that place was in question. It felt surreal. Like the rug had been pulled out from beneath something everyone had always assumed would just be there.

In the days that followed, I watched something remarkable happen. Parents, community members, donors – people came forward in a way I hadn’t expected. Not in a quiet, behind-the-scenes way, but with true urgency and generosity. The donations that followed were not just financial contributions. They were declarations. They showed the community: this matters and we are not willing to let it go.

And it worked. Immanuel College will now remain open.

Even a week later I’m still processing the relief of that. But more than relief, I feel something that is harder to name, a kind of clarity about what Immanuel actually is.

It is easy, when you are in the middle of something, to take it for granted. I have gone through those gates hundreds of times without really stopping to think about what it means to be educated in a Jewish environment. An environment where the rhythm of the school year follows the Jewish calendar, where you can talk about your heritage without explanation, where there is a shared framework of values even among students who observe differently or hold different views. That shared framework is subtle but it matters enormously, and I had not fully appreciated it until I was faced with losing it.

This also must be understood in context. Antisemitism in the United Kingdom is rising. The statistics are stark, but you don’t need statistics if you have been a young Jewish person navigating the world recently. We all feel it. Whether it’s online or in public discourse. Jewish students across the country describe environments where they feel they have to self-censor, where their identity becomes a source of tension rather than pride. I do not take lightly how lucky I am to attend a school where that is not my reality.

Jewish schools like Immanuel are not just educational institutions. They are spaces where Jewish identity is something that is celebrated, explored, and taken seriously (rather than apologised for) . And at a time when that feels increasingly important, the thought of losing one of those spaces was terrifying for our community.

Running Model UN at Immanuel has taught me to think about communities, institutions, and their fragility. The countries we simulate have entire constitutions and histories that shape who they are, but ultimately they are held together by people who believe in them. Immanuel is no different. What saved this school was not a building or a budget, it was the people who believe in what it represents.

I am grateful to every single one of them. I also want to say a particular thank you to Daniel Levy, who has given so much of himself to this school and is now stepping down from his role as chair of governors. His dedication to Immanuel (especially through this most turbulent of periods) deserves to be recognised and remembered. We owe him a great deal.

I now have the rest of this year as Head Boy, and I intend to spend it differently than I would have a month ago. With more intention. More gratitude. Because I have seen what it looks like when something you love is suddenly under threat and more importantly, I have seen what it looks like when a community refuses to let it fall.

That is something worth fighting for. And something worth celebrating.