Will Britain abandon its Jews? Politicians’ hollow words aren’t helping

On Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish year, a man got into his car, checked his mirrors, and decided this would be a fine day to kill some Jews. Jihad Al-Shamie drove to a Manchester synagogue, where he scouted his targets. They would have been easily identifiable, men with kippot, women in long skirts and dresses. Al-Shamie drove his car into a group of these Jews before getting out and stabbing more of them. Two Jewish men were murdered; more were badly hurt.

At that moment, I sat in a London synagogue a few hundred miles to the south, unaware of what was transpiring in Manchester. As I noted in a now-viral post on X, a friend who was sitting next to me whispered into my ear: “I reckon Jews have 10 years left in this country.” I said I wasn’t so sure. What I meant was the tides of antisemitism ebb and flow, like tides under a foul millennial moon. This is obviously a period of acute anti-Jewish hatred, particularly in the UK — particularly in London — but it too shall pass.

As the congregation prepared to recite a prayer of repentance called Avinu Malkeinu, “Our Father, Our King”, there was a bustling in the synagogue hall. Three of the synagogue’s security volunteers rushed in, one took to the bimah, the stage where the Torah scrolls are housed. “There’s been a major incident at a shul up north,” he said, using the Yiddish word for synagogue. The security team was locking down the synagogue. No one was to leave. The children’s service was cancelled.

There was fear, but not panic — an indication of how accustomed British Jews are to these kinds of scenarios. We didn’t know what had happened “up North”, but we knew it would be bad. The rabbi leading the service announced that in light of the situation, instead of the customary, mostly silent recitation of Avinu Malkeinu, we would read each stanza aloud, responsively — it being a prayer traditionally turned to in times of communal distress.

When the synagogue security coordinator finished speaking, my friend leaned over to me: “You see what I mean? 10 years.” It was as if he’d calmly predicted this very situation only minutes ago. But before we could reflect on his prophetic abilities, we were both struck by the same thought — we have to find our families, who would be heading over to the now-cancelled children’s service. The picture of a Jewish woman and two Jewish children walking down the road in a quiet London neighbourhood suddenly seemed like an inexcusable vulnerability.

And so it is. Only months before, my wife was on a London bus with my children, in the centre of town. A middle-aged woman turned to my children and began muttering something in a nasty undertone. My wife asked what she was saying to them. The woman, irate, spat, “You’re a Jew! You’re a Jew!” No one on the bus interceded. No one stood up for them. When it comes to the Jews, Transport for London’s slogan is apparently, “See something, say nothing.”

My children attend school in London under the gaze of a small squadron of security guards in anti-stab vests. Their city no longer feels safe. Four years ago, well before October 7 was a glimmer in Yahya Sinwar’s eye, a convoy of black cars drove through one of London’s most Jewish neighbourhoods, the men in the cars chanting: “Fuck the Jews, fuck them all, fuck their mothers, rape their daughters and show your support for Palestine.” The men were arrested — and all charges were duly dropped.

Last year, just days after October 7, a member of the Jewish community sent me a photo of a protester at one of the pro-Hamas rallies in London flying what he thought was an Isis flag. I reached out to a number of leading experts on jihadi ideology, including its symbols. All of these experts told me this was the “Black Flag of Jihad”, employed by proscribed Islamist terror groups. I asked the Met Police about this. Their representative responded: “I’m told it is a call to prayer flag and as such no offences committed.” I should have known better.

Ten years ago, British Jewry — most of which has supported the Labour Party for generations — were sent into a panic by the rise of Jeremy Corbyn as the party’s leader. Then, as now, there was much handwringing about where (and when) British Jews should go. Corbyn was eventually defeated, and it seemed like the danger had been averted.

In reality, something much worse happened — Corbynism leeched into the broader political culture. It’s a wild, galloping hatred that, driven by its revolutionary rage, cannot slow down for even a moment, not even to allow a Jewish community that had suffered a horrific attack only hours before to mourn its dead.

Instead, the movement decided to go ahead with a pre-planned rally in Trafalgar Square in support of Palestine Action, another proscribed terror group. The protest managed to evince a rare telling-off by Met Police, which posted on X, “At a time when we want to be deploying every available officer to ensure the safety of those [Jewish]  communities, we are instead having to plan for a gathering of more than 1,000 people in Trafalgar Square on Saturday in support of a terrorist organisation.”

If you read not between the lines but directly on them, what the Met Police admitted is that on Thursday, as an anti-Jewish terror attack unfolded, they chose to divert resources elsewhere. My synagogue was guarded not by police, but by volunteers — teachers, doctors, accountants, lawyers, and (just maybe) journalists trained to do whatever they can to protect their communities. One of the victims of the Manchester attack was doing just this, holding a door closed, when he was accidentally shot dead by the police.

After the attack, British politicians took to social media, where, one by one, they offered the besieged British Jewish community American-sized portions of pabulum. Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood tweeted she was “horrified” and police were “stepped up” at synagogues. (Apparently, she didn’t read the Met Police’s tweet.) Yvette Cooper found the whole thing “horrific”. And Keir Starmer intoned in a noble and entirely unconvincing speech that “Antisemitism is a hatred that is rising, once again. Britain must defeat it, once again.” 

What’s remarkable is that the gamut of statements by political leaders, including from Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch, were not only indistinguishable from each other, but from that of another political leader: Jeremy Corbyn. “I am horrified by the news of multiple stabbings at a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur,” Corbyn tweeted. Not one of the mainstream political leaders called for real change, or dared to speak seriously about the problem of antisemitism.

This signals something important: for many Brits, including numerous Jews I’ve spoken to who have been arrested for social media posts and even Gaza-war related arguments, silence is now the safest option. It‘s by far preferable to getting a late-night knock on the door from a police officer “concerned” about a tweet — a tweet very much like the one I wrote after the Manchester attack. If you speak out, you risk your freedom. If you pray quietly, you risk your life.

Nearly two years ago, I sat in my garden drinking a cup of tea before getting ready to head to a festive meal. The date was October 7, and it was also a Jewish High Holiday, Simchat Torah. (This fact somehow got lost in the narrative onslaught that ensued.) Someone told me 20 Israelis had been kidnapped by Hamas that day. I said if that’s true this will be a years-long war, accompanied by global upheaval. The actual number of hostages was 251.

The attack perpetrated in Manchester by Jihad Al-Shamie did not take place in isolation. In fact, it’s inseparable from its context. The attack was an extension of Hamas’s terror war. As are the pro-Hamas protests where demonstrators freely fly the Black Flag of Jihad. In many ways, with Hamas losing badly on the battlefield, it’s this propaganda campaign that is the essence of Hamas’s terror war. 

Though it’s tempting, I won’t pull out the old canard about Jews being canaries in the coal mine. Coal mine canaries stay caged until they suffocate and die. While some British Jews may take wing, I suspect many more will stay and fight. There is still a great country worth fighting for. The only question is whether the Jews of England will have real allies by their side, or if they will fight alone.

---