Is it time for the wandering Jews to once again pack up and go? It’s a question that has been troubling communities of the Diaspora – especially in this country – ever since the atrocities of October 7th unleashed, in the words of the Chief Rabbi, unrelenting waves of hatred against our people.
How much more of a warning did we need?
Sometimes we muse in the abstract. Idling around the Friday night dinner table over a fragrant bowl of chicken soup and wondering if this is the time for ‘the Exile’. At others, the tone hardens. Not least on strident Facebook feeds where the gathering storm clouds of prewar Germany are invoked to agitate us out of complacency. Or, as one of my connections roared, ‘so as not to miss the mistakes of our predecessors in waiting too long.’
Meanwhile – and oh the irony – friends in Israel send sympathy messages. They ask how those of us ‘left’ in Britain are bearing up. What with the hate marches (they don’t buy the new police reforms) or the roar of campus intimidation. And the fact that all of this is framed by a prime minister who, in offering a no-strings recognition of a Palestinian state, was rewarded with the gratitude of Hamas (for in their monstrous glee this, ‘the fruit of October 7’).
In short, why the hell would any Jew – would I? – want to stay in this dark, bleak, vulnerable place?
Then came the deadly attack on worshippers at the Heaton Park synagogue on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. How much more of a warning did we need?
On a personal level, this appalling act of terrorism which left two Jewish people dead and others injured was framed by an especially personal heartache. Heaton Park, only a five minute drive from my home, has been my family’s synagogue for decades. A place where my brother had his bar mitzvah, where my late grandfather was choir master and where I got married. Indeed my grandfather came to this country to escape persecution in Ukraine (irony!) at the turn of the century. Now the place he once filled with joyous music has become a focal point of the Jew hate he once escaped. Why would I want to defile his memory by hanging around and hoping things might get better?
Yet, despite all this, I refuse to be forced out of the country I call home. I don’t want to give up weekend trips to the Lake District or leave behind the gritty humour of northern banter. I love my friends, family and workmates here. The absurd pageantry of Royal events and the fact we seem to have hose pipe bans as soon as the temperature nudges above freezing. Or that I always seem to meet someone I know in the M&S car park in central Manchester.
I have always felt as British as I am Jewish. True, it might be a slightly Rom Com view of the world. But I enjoy queueing and apologising when someone walks into me – even though it is their fault. And actually, I like being Jewish in this country. Being part of a tight-knit community where everyone knows someone is such a source of comfort. Do I really want to give all this up and go somewhere new?
Anyway, where would I go? Israel is the obvious answer. A country I visit several times a year to see friends and family, there’s so much I love about being in our ancient Jewish homeland. The sea front in Tel Aviv thrums with an energy I’ve never experienced anywhere else. The food, especially dazzling multicoloured salads, is gorgeous. Above all I can be Jewish without having to smother my identity.
On the other hand, Israel is challenging. The summer heat can be brutal, the cost of living is high and don’t get me started on Israeli motorists. One family member who lives near Jerusalem says the only way to survive behind the wheel in his adoptive country is to practice defensive driving – that is to assume that someone will try to overtake as you slow down at a roundabout or pull out without looking or signalling – because why wouldn’t they? Life there is anxious, energetic. No time to wait.
But the reasons for wanting to stay in the UK run far deeper. I fundamentally believe that those who spread hatred towards Jews or make baseless claims about Israel and give ammunition to antisemitism are in the minority. That this is the country where the default position is decency, kindness and loathing of injustice It’s something I became even more aware of after the attack on my synagogue with messages of hope and solidarity from complete strangers who were not Jewish but who represent such values.
In short, I want to stay here in the UK as an act of defiance, resilience, and hope – a declaration that antisemitism, as virulent and terrifying as it is, will not drive Jews from the streets or expunge us from the history of this country. I will not allow violence and prejudice to decade my choices.
To do that is the exile of fear. I have no desire to wander that way.
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