Antisemitism in 21st century United Kingdom?

Don’t like Jews

An acquaintance once confided: “A lot of people here don’t like Jews”.  He is a born-and-bred British Jew, a successful businessman, not just well-integrated, but almost entirely assimilated into the social fabric of modern-day United Kingdom.  This man is the very image of self-confidence, yet he delivered that disconcerted statement at the dinner table in a low, almost conspiratorial voice.

His words spring to mind every time somebody mentions ‘defining’ antisemism.  And so, I remembered them recently, while reading the results of the latest survey on antisemitic attitudes in contemporary Great Britain.

Please tell us if you are an antisemite…

Undertook in 2016-2017 by the Institute for Jewish Policy Research (a British-Jewish think-tank), the new poll is reputed to be the largest and most accurate survey on antisemitism ever performed in Britain.

But first, let’s talk about scope and methodology: the survey measured attitudes towards Jews and towards Israel among the British population.  It did so by approaching a representative sample of that population (more than 4,000 people in total), who were asked to provide answers to a questionnaire.

The first question asked was rather obvious:

“Please tell me if you have a very favourable, somewhat favourable, somewhat unfavourable or very unfavourable opinion of Jews”.

I say ‘obvious’ because this question is but a posher version of my friend’s rumination: it seeks to determine how many people “don’t like Jews”.  The immediate answer: 5.4% (that is, slightly more than 1 in 20 individuals or circa 3.6 million Britons) responded that they had either “a somewhat unfavourable” or “very unfavourable” opinion – i.e. that they “don’t like Jews”.  On the other hand, 39% said that they had a “favourable” or even “very favourable” opinion of Jews.  But the majority (56%) declared that their opinion of Jews was “neither favourable nor unfavourable”, or that they didn’t know/didn’t want to answer.

“Not very helpful, this”, must have thought the academics behind the survey, scratching their balding pates.  Hence they asked the question again, while eliminating the ‘neutral’, fence-sitting option “neither favourable nor unfavourable”.  This time, 12.6% of respondents (i.e. 1 in 8) admitted that they didn’t like Jews.  In the absence of another ‘neutral’ option, 19.4% (almost 1 in 5) chose the ‘don’t know/refuse to answer’ option.

The survey report authors analysed the difference between the two sets of results:

“Within the context of this survey, that means that the respondents may have been somewhat cautious about revealing the true nature of their feelings toward certain groups, and may have given responses that were socially acceptable instead, i.e. responses that were unlikely to result in them being negatively judged. In survey science jargon the outcome of such under-reporting is called social desirability bias.”

Great.  Now let’s dispense with the “survey science jargon” and with ridiculous euphemisms such as “somewhat cautious about revealing the true nature of their feelings”.  The survey authors seem unable to say it – so let me state it for them: at least 7% of respondents (the difference between 12.6% and 5.4%) lied.  In the first experiment, they declared themselves ‘neutral’ – even though in reality they “don’t like Jews”, as proven by the second experiment.

And that is a fundamental problem with the “survey science”: people lie.  As we’ve all seen, most recently in polls regarding the Brexit referendum and US elections.  They lie to the pollsters and – perhaps even more frequently – they lie to themselves; and the more ‘controversial’ the issue, the higher the propensity to lie.  Ask yourself, dear reader: if you harboured some deep dislike towards an entire racial, ethnic or religious community – how likely would you be to admit those attitudes in writing, even in a questionnaire purported to be anonymous?  In fact, how likely would you be to admit them even to yourself – if they were (as they often are) well-hidden or even subliminal?

In fact, what the survey academics didn’t say (or didn’t say in plain English) is that those 12.6% are not the ones who “don’t like Jews”, but just the ones less reluctant to admit it.  In fact, there is no way of knowing how many (perhaps all?) of the 19.4% that stubbornly refused to answer did so because of understandable reluctance to confess a racist attitude.  It is also impossible to say how many of those who responded that they liked Jews actually lied (to the pollsters or to themselves) and in reality harbour dislike.

Here’s another part of “survey science”: the very words used in asking the question create a strong bias, because people are always more likely to declare something positive (such as a “favourable opinion”) than they are to admit negative feelings (“unfavourable opinion”).  Even more so when it comes to issues of ‘race’.

The survey academics did not say all this in plain English – but they know it.  Which is why they continued their research beyond the obvious ‘favourable/unfavourable’ question.

I’m not antisemitic, but…

Respondents were presented with a number of statements about Jews and were asked to state if they agree with those statements or whether they disagree.  The statements themselves were based on common antisemitic preconceptions, but they also included a few positive statements about Jews.

And here are the results:

-          13% agreed/strongly agreed that “Jews think they are better than other people”;

-          12% agreed/strongly agreed that “The interests of Jews in Britain are very different from the interests of the rest”;

-          12% agreed/strongly agreed that “Jews get rich at the expense of others”;

-          10% think that “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes”;

-          8% think that “Jews have too much power in Britain”;

-          4% agree/strongly agree that “The Holocaust has been exaggerated” and 2% think it “is a myth”.

Again, the authors of the study avoid using plain language.  So let me do it in their stead: these ‘statements’ represent various embodiments of anti-Semitic prejudice.  And the percentages above are those of people who admit that they harbour those types of prejudice.

Interestingly, a full third of the people who declared unfavourable opinions in the previous round did not agree with any of the listed types of prejudice against Jews.  Maybe they base their antipathy on some other aspect; or perhaps they lied in the second round, when asked the more specific questions.  Or (more likely in my opinion), their dislike of Jews is a ‘matter of gut feeling’ and not based on any particular reason.  After all, racism isn’t rational; and, for some racists, it doesn’t even have to be post-rationalised.

True, on the other hand considerable majorities of Britons (78% and 61% respectively) agreed/strongly agreed that “A British Jew is just as British as any other British person” and that “British Jews make a positive contribution to British society”.

But, again, that’s not the end of the story.  A huge proportion of people (between 34% and 47%) reacted to the ‘negative’ questions either by choosing “neither agree nor disagree” or by refusing to answer.  On the other hand, just 16% chose that ‘neutral’ option with regard to the positive statement “A British Jew is just as British as any other British person”.  Perhaps many interpreted this as a statement of fact, rather than of opinion: after all ‘British’ (unlike ‘English’, ‘Scottish’ or ‘Jewish’) has to do with citizenship, not ethnicity; and it is a fact – not a matter of opinion – that British Jews are citizens equal under the law.

So, again, we are left mostly in the dark.  Take, for instance, “Jews get rich at the expense of others”: how many of the 39% who chose not to let us know their opinion about this statement actually agree with it (but are reluctant to confess it) and should really be added to the 12% who admitted the prejudice?  How many of the 34% who preferred to hide their feelings on the matter really believe that “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes”?

We know one thing: that, in the previous experiments, the number of people who admitted not liking Jews went up from 5.4% to 12.6% when the ‘neutral’ option was eliminated; in other words, 6 out of 10 individuals who actually don’t like Jews initially lied about it.  Assuming the same proportion for the ‘negative’ questions (an assumption that makes sense, I think, but for which I am unable to provide evidence) would mean for instance, that at least 27.5% of Britons believe that “Jews get rich at the expense of others”.

Unfortunately, the study’s authors did not overly concern themselves with the painful issue of insincere answers.  They did something else, however: they calculated the proportion of people who either admitted to disliking Jews or admitted to harbouring at least one type of anti-Jewish prejudice.  That proportion is 30%.  I.e., about 1 in 3 Britons admits to harbouring a dislike or prejudice against Jews.

Boundary of the diffusion of attitudes

British Jews have a complex relationship with antisemitism: on one hand, they are keen to expose it, so that it can be dealt with; on the other hand, they are loath to admit its true extent.  And not just because it means confronting a scary situation, but because it would force them out of that false comfort of ignorance.  It is hard for a Jew to live, work and interact with other people when he/she knows that – statistically speaking – many of them ‘don’t like Jews’.

Hence, every piece of British-Jewish research into antisemitism always seems to tread softly, to gently tiptoe around the issue and to contain ‘clarifications’ meant to take the edge off otherwise harsh findings.

This study is no exception.  Having established – even with the huge caveat of deeming every answer as sincere – that scary 30% proportion, the authors take great pains to try and humble down its significance:

“We relate to this figure not as the proportion of antisemites that exist within British society (such a claim simply does not stand up to any reasonable scrutiny), but rather as a boundary of the diffusion of antisemitic attitudes in society. The use of the new term, diffusion, is highly significant analytically. It signals a shift in emphasis – from counting antisemitic individuals to quantifying the spread of attitudes that Jews consider to be antisemitic, and that may represent a source of discomfort or offense to many Jews when exposed to them.”

Well, I agree that antisemitism is not a matter of black-and-white, but a continuum of attitudes ranging from complete lack of prejudice to violent, berserk hatred.  What I do not understand or accept is the attempt to detach the assessment of the pandemic from the number (or proportion) of infected individuals.  Let’s do away with posh academic lingo and take an example.  Say an individual agrees (or strongly agrees) with the statement “Black people are lazy” (this is a prejudice originating, I believe, with white slave owners).  Would you then say that the polled individual is a racist – or would you just say that “We relate to this […] as a boundary of the diffusion of [racist] attitudes in society”??

‘Good’ news: they don’t ‘just’ hate Jews…

Perhaps in an attempt to persuade themselves that ‘things are not so bad, after all’, the survey authors also asked respondents about any ‘unfavourable’ opinions about Christians, Hindus and Muslims.  Needless to say, the vast majority of people in the UK do not dislike Christians – those who do represent just 3.1%.  After all, the UK is still ‘a Christian country’ – nominally at least, if not in terms of church attendance.  5.5% of respondents admitted to having unfavourable opinions of Hindus and 14.4% harbour such opinions with regard to Muslims.  So hey – there you are!  Jews fare no worse than Hindus and much better than Muslims.  Yippeee!!

Except that – though the academics behind the study failed to point this out – things are not so simple.  To start with, there are (according to the 2011 census) only about 260,000 Jews in the UK, compared to circa 835,000 Hindus.  That’s not including 425,000 Sikhs – although it’s doubtful that the average Briton differentiates between those two religions; in fact, it is much more likely that the majority of respondents had taken ‘Hindus’ to mean ‘more-or-less of Indian origin’, and hence have mentally included all ‘Indian-looking’ people, whether originating from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh or Sri Lanka, whether Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist or Muslim.  That would bring UK’s total ‘Hindu’ population in 2011 to 3 million people.

As for Muslims, the 2011 census found circa 2.8 million self-declared adherents of this religion in the UK.

So both Hindu and Muslim minorities are considerably more numerous – arguably a full order of magnitude above Jews in absolute numbers and in proportion within the general British population.  As a result, the comparison is rather meaningless.  And for several reasons:

Firstly, given the minuscule proportion of Jews in the UK (and the fact that most British Jews live concentrated in a handful of urban areas), it is obvious that the vast majority of Britons spend the vast majority of their lives without ever interacting with Jews.  This means that, if they declare an ‘unfavourable opinion’ or some prejudice about Jews, that’s mostly not the result of some personal experience, not even personal experience wrongly twisted and generalised.  It is pure, unadulterated racism.

Secondly, at under 0.4% of population and given the long and bitter history of European antisemitism – including Inquisition, pogroms and the Holocaust – Jews not just feel more vulnerable, but objectively are more vulnerable than both Hindus and Muslims.  With regard to Jews (but not Hindus or Muslims), there is a concrete, relatively recent and absolutely horrific history of specific persecution.  This is not a ‘potential’ danger; nor are we talking about the type of racism that results in ‘mild’ discrimination – but about racism that has shown centuries of genocidal intensity.

Thirdly, in terms of sheer electoral muscle (the ultimate source of power in a parliamentary democracy) Jews are a negligible factor.  Hindus and Muslims are not.

All of the above should translate – in any democratic and caring society – into an understanding that Jews are more at risk of oppression and should therefore be more entitled to protection.

Left, right and centre

One of the issues investigated by the survey was the specific prevalence of antisemitic attitudes across the political spectrum.  To that end, respondents were asked to self-describe their political inclinations on a scale ranging from ‘very left wing’ to ‘very right wing’.  These categories were then cross-related to the previously measured antisemitic attitudes.

In the authors’ opinion, the only relevant result pertains to the ‘very right wing’.  52% of those who self-described as ‘very right wing’ admitted some form of antisemitic prejudice, as compared to 30% in the general population.  All the other types of political persuasion (including ‘very left wing’) hovered around 30%.  In the authors’ words:

“The very left-wing is indistinguishable from the general population and from the political centre in this regard. In general, it should be said that, with the exception of the very right-wing, there is little differentiation across the political spectrum in relation to the prevalence of antisemitic attitudes.”

Not so in relation to anti-Israel attitudes (which was measured using a similar methodology to the one described above).  Anti-Israel attitudes are hugely prevalent among the ‘very left wing’ – affecting close to 80% of those respondents.  Even among the ‘slightly left of centre’ anti-Israel attitudes are found among two thirds of respondents.  This exceeds even the prevalence of such sentiments among the ‘very far right’.

Should we conclude, then, that antisemitism is mainly an issue on the far right and that the far left is, in that respect, no-better-no-worse the rest of the British population?  Well, such stupid conclusions might, I think, come under the title ‘Statistics triumphs upon reason’.

The ‘anti-Zionism is not antisemitism’ has long been a slogan on the far-left.  Far-leftists have heard arguments around this slogan and are as a consequence both more motivated and more able to consciously avoid statements that are overtly antisemitic; to conceal antisemitic sentiment – and to more skilfully cloak it as ‘anti-Zionism’.  That biasing factor is certain to have been amplified in the period 28 October 2016 - 24 February 2017, when the survey was conducted and when Labour and Momentum were very much ‘under fire’ on the issue of antisemitism.  (See for instance articles published even in The Guardian.)

In fact, the poll attempts to use the same tools on two completely different populations: one (the militant far-left) is ‘forewarned’, extremely aware from a political point of view – and hence ‘forearmed’; the other, the much more ‘innocent’ and much less politically active centre, which decidedly less skilled in the art of dissimulation.  This is decidedly like comparing apples with oranges.

While far rightists may be just as militant as far leftists, they are less likely to dissimulate attitudes that may be perceived as racist, because such attitudes are less strident in the general picture of their ideology.

For the left (and in particular for the hard left), opposition to racism is – at least in theory – a major ideological thrust.  According to the perception of many Jews, the hard left’s anti-racism manifests a strange blind spot when it comes to seeing and identifying as such antisemitic (as opposed to anti-black, anti-Asian or Islamophobic) attitudes.  It would have been extremely interesting to test that hypothesis: even assuming that the ‘very left wing’ segment manifests the same level of anti-Jewish ‘dislike’ as the bulk of the population, how does that segment compare in terms of anti-Hindu and anti-Muslim sentiment?  If the level of that kind of racism is lower than average (as would be expected from a purportedly ‘anti-racist’ segment), then that would prove the ‘blind spot’ hypothesis.  Unfortunately, that data is not available in the published survey report.

But even if we were to accept that the far left is – from the point of view of antisemitism – no-better-no-worse than the bulk of British population, that should not be, from their own point of view, an acceptable situation.  This is a political segment that – to a considerable extent – defines itself in terms of opposition to racism.  Naively, we would expect them to be at the forefront of fight against antisemitism and not just ‘average’.

But you know what?  Let us now be practical.  Let us assume, despite all the above caveats, that the proportions found in the survey are largely correct.  So, we’ve got 52% of the far right harbouring antisemitic sentiment and ‘only’ 33% on the far left.  Does it follow, then, that the priority should be fighting far-right antisemitism?  Hardly!  In fact, the opposite is more logical, because in contemporary UK the far right is decidedly marginal – both in terms of numbers and of political influence.

Just 1.4% of respondents self-describe as ‘very right wing’, while 3.6% declare themselves as ‘very left wing’.  If we include ‘fairly right wing’ and ‘’fairly left wing’, the proportions are 7.8% and 15.5%, respectively.  As a result, despite the lower proportion, there are more leftists harbouring antisemitic prejudice than there are rightists.

But it’s not just about the numbers.  In terms of practical political influence, the English Defence League is a non-entity and so is the BNP; with no representatives in the Parliament, even UKIP is more and more inconsequential.  On the other hand, the hard-left faction currently leads the Labour Party – the country’s second-largest parliamentary bloc.  It is Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of that faction, that has a chance of becoming the next Prime Minister, not Nick Griffin or even Nigel Farage.

Proudly anti-Zionist, but utterly opposed to antisemitism…

Previous polls showed that, for the vast majority of British Jews, the State of Israel is central to their Jewish identity.  While British Jews accept (and often join) ‘normal’ criticism of Israeli government policies, they typically perceive anti-Israel hostility and anti-Zionism as antisemitic.  The survey attempted to discover, using statistical means, whether there is a correlation between ‘anti-Israelism’ and antisemitic prejudice.

In their academic lingo, the study authors state:

“we find that the existence of an association between the antisemitic and the anti-Israel attitudes tested, is unambiguous.”

In English: according to the survey results, the more anti-Israel a respondent’s opinions, the higher the likelihood that that individual also harbours antisemitic prejudice.  As we have seen, the prevalence of that prejudice is 30% among the general British population; it is, however, 74% among those with high levels of anti-Israel hostility.  1 in 2 respondents with strong anti-Israel opinions believes that “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes”; compared to 1 in 10 respondents in the general population.  Conversely, among those who hold no anti-Israel opinion, 86% are also free of antisemitic prejudice.  Of course, as discussed earlier, the correlation is likely to be even stronger than that, because the survey ignores the (very likely) possibility that some respondents will much more freely express anti-Israel attitudes, which they consider legitimate and even noble political views; but will tend to conceal anti-Jewish opinions, which are less ‘socially acceptable’.

In total, one third of respondents were willing to declare an ‘unfavourable’ or ‘somewhat unfavourable’ opinion about Israel.  The equivalent proportion was 23% about the USA and 48% about Iran.

Unfortunately, the survey investigated the correlation between ‘anti-state’ opinion and ‘anti-people’ prejudice only in the case of Israel and Jews.  It would have been interesting to see, for instance, if respondents who exhibited anti-USA opinions also tended to show more dislike for Americans living in Britain; but such data is not available.

As any student of statistics knows, ‘correlation’ does not necessarily imply causality – and of course does not shed any light on the direction of that causality.  True to their academic (or perhaps didactic) make-up, the study’s authors felt compelled to point that out:

“Our analysis lacks the capacity to identify causality. What remains unclear is just how the connection between the two types of attitudes arises, when it does. Do people develop anti-Israel attitudes because they are antisemitic? Does adopting an anti-Israel position become just one more channel for expressing antisemitism? Or, alternatively, do people become antisemitic as a side-effect of their anti-Israel attitudes and activities? Future research will have to tackle the question of the chain and order of the acquisition of these two types of attitudes.”

Theoretically, that is indeed so.  But, ‘between us girls’, allow me to scoff with contempt at the ludicrous suggestion that a sentiment well-documented in Europe for many centuries may actually be “a side-effect” of attitudes towards the modern State of Israel (established in 1948).  Statistics is an excellent aid for reason; it should never be employed in-lieu of reason.

So let’s summarise – in as simple a way as possible – what we learned about the anti-Zionism/antisemitism correlation:

•          If a Brit appears strongly hostile to Israel – this does not absolutely mean that s/he harbours antisemitic prejudice; but there is a 74% likelihood that s/he does.
•          If a Brit shows zero hostility towards Israel, it does not absolutely mean that s/he is free of antisemitic prejudice; but there is an 86% likelihood that s/he is.

The Muslim factor

The study also tested the prevalence of antisemitic and anti-Israel sentiment among various religious communities in the UK.  To paraphrase the study’s authors, the conclusion in this respect is also ‘unambiguous’: no significant difference was found among the various Christian denominations, or indeed between Christians and those who self-described as ‘of no religion’.  On the other hand, both anti-Jewish and anti-Israel opinions are much more prevalent among British Muslims.

Almost 40% of the British Muslims polled did not agree with the statement “A British Jew is just as British as any other British person”.  63% did not agree that “British Jews make a positive contribution to British society”.  1 in 4 British Muslims believes that “Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes”.  1 in 7 believes that the Holocaust has been exaggerated and 1 in 12 believes that it is a myth.

According to the study, the higher the level of Islamic religious observance, the higher also the level of antisemitic prejudice (and anti-Israel opinion) among British Muslims.

It’s not like there are pogroms here!

Finally, the study measured the propensity to violence against Jews.  When asked whether it is justified to use violence against Jews “in defence of one’s political or religious beliefs and values”, 4.1% of respondents opined that this is ‘often justified’ or ‘sometimes justified’; 9.8% opined that it ‘rarely justified’.  When the same question was asked about ‘Zionists’, the proportions were 4.4% and 10.1% respectively; naming Israelis as the target of violence resulted only in a minor increase: 4.8% and 10.4%, respectively.  Strangely, the study authors failed to point out this similarity – which may indicate that for extremists the terms Jews, Zionists and Israelis are quasi-interchangeable.

4.1% might sound like a small proportion.  But when applied to the entire British population, it translates into 3 million people envisaging violence against Jews, either ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’, if they perceive that their “political or religious beliefs and values” are jeopardised.

It would have been interesting to see the propensity-to-violence among Muslim respondents, but the data has not been provided in the report.  Was the result uninteresting, or did it offend the authors’ sense of ‘political correctness’?  We can only guess.

(Not) assigning blame

And perhaps it was political correctness that caused the authors to opine, in the final conclusions that, despite their focus on perceived ‘high incidence’ segments such as far right, far left and Muslims, the ‘responsibility’ for antisemitism cannot be assigned to these groups.  The authors justify that conclusion by showing that, if those three segments were eliminated from the analysis, the level of anti-Semitic prejudice would reduce only marginally.  That’s because those three segments of focus are numerically small within the general population (they account together for only circa 10%).  Well, the number crunching is correct – but the reasoning is rotten; this is yet another instance in which the authors are, in my humble opinion, ‘misinformed by data’.  Looking simplistically at the ‘numeric’ contribution of the three focus segments may be misleading.  We are clearly dealing with segments that tend to be more ‘militant’, where the general population is typically more ‘apathetic’.  The question is – or should be: to what extent are the levels of antisemitic prejudice found in the general population the result of the 3 segments’ militancy?  After all, the activism of a small but militant minority can gradually ‘spill over’ or ‘seep into’ the majority – such phenomenon is well-known in social sciences and is familiar also from historical events.  We do not know if this is what occurred here; but surely the authors should have given more thought to this very credible possibility, before placing the ‘responsibility’ squarely on the shoulders of the ‘mainstream’ and practically exonerating the political extremes (and the Muslim community) as ‘too few to matter’.

Making no bones about it!

It is easy to get caught in (or get bored with) numbers and number-crunching.  But what this study (and of all the studies before it) did was merely to provide scientific evidence for something that most British Jews – the well-ensconced, comfortable British Jews – already knew; for something they feel in their not-yet-assimilated Jewish bones: that antisemitism exists – and at worrying levels; that it exists in 21^st century United Kingdom; that it exists in the mainstream and among those that inscribed anti-racism on their flags as a defining value; that it’s everywhere and that it’s growing.

It’s good to have scientific evidence.  But frankly – I don’t need it.  I listen to the scream of alarm coming from those old Jewish bones.  Broken by Inquisition and burned at Auschwitz – they’ve developed delicate nerves.  They’ve learned to identify a certain type of hostility – even when it’s well-hidden, even when it’s reflexive and subliminal.  They tell me all I need to know…

Antisemitism & Jew-washing

Much has been written already on ‘left-wing antisemitism’.  Lest I am accused of being a ‘right-winger’, (for some people – though not to me – that’s a terrible fault), let me ‘reassure’ my readers that Judeophobia is to be found everywhere: left, right and centre.  It tends to more densely inhabit the more extreme segments of the political spectrum: both the far left and the far right.  The reason why Judeophobes have, of late, become more conspicuous in UK’s Labour Party is that, under Jeremy Corbyn, that party has moved to the Far Left.

Needless to say, the Far Labourists would object to my calling them Judeophobes.  They’d say they are only ‘Zio-phobes’. Far Labourists have ‘nothing against Jews’ – provided, that is, that they’re the right type of Jews. Far Labourists are ‘anti-Zionists’ and ‘anti-Israel’; they just care about the Palestinians.  And the fact that they 'happen' to care about Palestinians much, much more than about Yazidis, Middle East Christians, Iranian Baha’is, Saudi women and the zillion other entities throughout the world that are oppressed more than the Palestinians… well, there surely are reasons for that… reasons which, of course, have anything to do with Israel being the only country with a Jewish majority.

If you think that pretence is ludicrous, I can’t blame you; yet it’s raised a question – one deemed important enough for UK’s Chief Rabbi to deal with.  In a Telegraph article, Rabbi Mirvis states:

“It is astonishing to see figures on the hard Left of the British political spectrum presuming to define the relationship between Judaism and Zionism despite themselves being neither Jews nor Zionists. The likes of Ken Livingstone and Malia Boattia claim that Zionism is separate from Judaism as a faith; that it is purely political; that it is expansionist, colonialist and imperialist.

It is unclear why these people feel qualified to provide such an analysis of one of the axioms of Jewish belief. But let me be very clear. Their claims are a fiction. They are a wilful distortion of a noble and integral part of Judaism. Zionism is a belief in the right to Jewish self-determination in a land that has been at the centre of the Jewish world for more than 3,000 years. One can no more separate it from Judaism than separate the City of London from Great Britain.”

Such pronouncements caused an understandable stir.  After all, the Chief Rabbi is supposed to know a fair deal about what Judaism is and what it’s not – perhaps more than Corbyn, Livingston & Co.

In desperation, the New Far Labour deployed its Trump… err, its trump card: a cabal (they wouldn’t call it like that – not to their faces!) of far left activists with Jewish-sounding names – the ultimate proof, you see, that one can be an anti-Zionist and a Jew at the same time.  Referring to Rabbi Mirvis’s article in a letter to the Guardian, 88 of these ‘anti-Zionist Jews’ declared:

“We British Jews reject this categorically.”

It is rather unclear to me who elected (appointed?) those 88 signatories to speak for a quarter million British Jews.  But let’s stick to the substance (or what passes as such) of their disagreement:

“Mirvis attacks as ‘antisemitic’ those who separate Judaism from Zionism.  Yet most Jews who perished in the Holocaust were indifferent to Zionism and many opposed it.  In the last municipal elections in Europe’s largest Jewish community, in Poland, just before the second world war, Poland’s Jews voted overwhelmingly for the secular, anti-Zionist, socialists of the Bund, while Zionist parties got derisory votes.  Is Rabbi Mirvis recasting those victims of the Holocaust posthumously as enemies of Judaism and therefore as antisemites?”

Many found the letter offensive.  Frankly, I find the argument ludicrous.  To start with, the 88 anti-Zionists ‘deployed the Holocaust card’ – something the reviled Zionists are supposed to be doing.  That’s surely a sign of deep desperation.  As for the ‘argument’ that Polish Jews “voted overwhelmingly […] for the socialist of the Bund” in some random municipal elections more than 70 years ago… well, 200 years ago American Jews voted overwhelmingly for parties supporting black slavery.  What's that have to do with anything?

A slightly more nuanced (but ultimately just as ludicrous) critique was published in the Jewish Chronicle by one Simon Rocker.  Mr. Rocker is not a Rabbi, but he is Editor for Judaism at the JC – and an occasional contributor to the Guardian.  So he feels entitled to weigh in:

“But one point he [Chief Rabbi Mirvis] made has particularly generated over the past week – the relationship of Zionism to Judaism.”

I take “generated” in Mr. Rocker’s otherwise oh-so-elegant sentence to mean ‘generated disagreement’.  That – admittedly speculative – understanding is driven by Rocker’s next pronouncements:

“The centrality of the land of Israel, the ultimate restoration of Jewish sovereignty, the ingathering of the exiles – these are, indisputably, cardinal beliefs in traditional Judaism handed down from generation to generation.

But the religious return to Zion is not quite the same thing as Zionism. Zionism was a 19th century political movement to establish a modern Jewish state which was influenced by the secular nationalism of the times. There may have been proto-Zionist groups who tried to found Jewish colonies in Eretz Yisrael but it was Zionism that led to Jewish statehood.”

Now, I must be a bit thick.  Because I rather struggle to understand how the “restoration of Jewish sovereignty” (which Mr. Rocker declares an indisputable cardinal belief in Judaism) is “not quite the same as” renewed Jewish statehood in Eretz-Yisrael (a rather cardinal issue in Zionism).  It may be that “ingathering of the exiles” is not quite the same as Aliyah; but the difference seems to me so small as to make Mr. Rocker’s entire endeavour look like a bit of frantic nit-picking.

Pedantry attains new peaks when Mr. Rocker proceeds to point out that:

“… one can’t forget that Zionism was not, and is still not, universally accepted within Orthodoxy.

Some of the most prominent rabbis of the early 20th century opposed the movement for two main reasons. They feared – not without justification – that it would replace the primacy of Torah commitment with secular nationalism. Some also argued that the exile was divinely ordained and that the return to Zion must await messianic times, until which Jews must bear their fate in the diaspora.

Those views still persist in parts of the Charedi world, even if the diehard opponents represent only a minority trend. That doesn't make them more ‘authentic’ than any other intepretations [sic!] of Judaism.  But it remains true that love of Zion and Zionism are not quite the same thing.”

But why does anything need to be “universally accepted” (rather than ‘generally accepted’), to be considered part and parcel of Judaism?  No ‘liberal-minded’ journalist would require Muslims to ‘universally accept’ a concept, before it's considered part of Islam.  Mr. Rocker’s objection to Rabbi Mirvis’s view is that… there are fringe Judaic sects (which, by the way, are likely to opine that Rabbi Mirvis himself is not a ‘true Jew’) that are opposed to Zionism – though they still of course proclaim their “love of Zion” and belief in the “in-gathering of the exiles”, albeit in God’s good time.  In practice, Mr. Rocker has rather prolixly demonstrated that Rabbi Mirvis is not 100% right – only 95%.  Good point, Mr. Rocker!

Employing meaningless sophistry is a sign of desperation and paucity of arguments.  But Mr. Rocker is not the only culprit.  On BBC’s Radio 4, Yachad’s Hannah Weisfeld was asked about the antisemitism espoused by former Labour MP Naz Shah – the one who opined that Jewish Israelis should be ‘transported’ to America.  Hannah’s response was a masterpiece of pointless word-mincing:

“I think that Naz Shah said a lot of things that are antisemitic; I’m not sure she is an anti-Semite and I think there’s quite a big difference…”

Beyond the utter absurdity, such approach is dangerous because it enables some people to move the goal-posts: there is no antisemitism in the Labour Party; after all, its leaders and activists have only “said a lot of things that are anti-Semitic”; they haven’t yet beaten Jews in the street, now did they?

But let us move on from pedantic ‘analyses’ to the facts.

The Siddur is Judaism’s main book of prayers.  Amidah is arguably Siddur’s centre-piece prayer – it is recited (standing up, rather than sitting) as part of every synagogue service.  It includes the following supplication (translation from Hebrew):

“Sound the great Shofar for our freedom; raise a banner to gather our Diasporas, and bring us swiftly together from the four corners of the Earth into our Land.  Blessed are You Lord, Who gathers the exiles of His people Israel.”

No, Amidah was not concocted (by either mythical ‘Elders of Zion’ or real-life Zionists) in the 19th century.  It dates from around the 2nd century CE.  Observant Jews everywhere have been reciting it three times a day ever since.  Less observant Jews – whenever they happen to attend a synagogue service.

Amidah is just one of the many Jewish prayers and rituals that express hope in the ‘ingathering of exiles’ and ‘restoration of Jewish sovereignty’.  Which, as we remember ‘are not quite the same’ (read: they are ‘largely the same’) as Zionism.

So I really can’t fault Rabbi Mirvis for stating in his article:

“Open a Jewish daily prayer book used in any part of the world and Zionism will leap out at you. The innumerable references to the land of Israel are inescapable and demonstrative.”

But what about his next paragraph?  It claims:

“Throughout our collective history we have yearned for a chance to determine our own future, to revive an ancient language and return to rejoice in our love for this tiny sliver of land.”

Really, “Throughout our collective history”?  Wasn’t Zionism “a 19th century political movement”, as Mr. Rocker so learnedly explained?  Here are a few historical facts that preceded the 19th century:

66–73 CE:            ‘Great Jewish Revolt’ against Roman occupation.  After defeating it, the Romans demolish the Temple.  Jews are prohibited from entering Jerusalem and are gradually expelled from the Land of Israel.

115–117:              ‘Rebellion of the Exile’.  Exiled Jews in several corners of the Roman Empire rise against the Romans and return to the Land of Israel.  They are eventually defeated.

132–135:              ‘Bar Kokhba revolt’.  Jews rise against the Romans under the leadership of Bar Kokhba.  They regain Jerusalem, proclaim independence, even make coins with the text ‘To the freedom of Jerusalem’.  They are ultimately defeated by superior Roman forces.  Emperor Hadrian prohibits the practice of Judaism.  He prohibits the terms ‘Israel’ and ‘Judaea’ and re-names the country ‘Syria-Palaestina’ after the Philistines, the ancient enemies of the Jews.

351–352:              ‘Revolt against Gallus’.  Jewish revolt liberates Galilee, before being defeated.

362-572:               Several Samaritan revolts against Byzantine rule.  The Samaritan faith (a sect of Judaism which had survived in the Judean Hills) is outlawed.

602-628:               Persian Jews form an army, join forces with the Sassanids against the Byzantines and reconquer Jerusalem. A semi-autonomous Jewish state is declared, but is ultimately defeated in 628.

636:                       Arab conquest of ‘Syria’ (including the Land of Israel).  Jews are initially allowed back into Jerusalem, but are later prohibited again from entering.  The Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are built on the site of the destroyed Jewish Temple.

1160:                     Revolt of Jews in Kurdistan. Failed attempt to reconquer the Land of Israel.

1198:                     Jews from Maghreb arrive and settle in Jerusalem.

1204:                     Moshe Ben Maimon (Maimonides) dies and is buried in Tiberias, on the shores of the Sea of Galilee.

1211:                     Around 300 Jews from England and France manage to reach the Land of Israel and settle in Jerusalem.  The majority are killed by the Crusaders in 1219.  The few remaining are exiled from Jerusalem and find refuge in Acre.

1217:                     Judah al-Harizi (rabbi, translator, poet and traveller who travelled from Spain to the Land of Israel) bemoans in his writings the state of the Temple Mount.

1260:                     Having settled in the Land of Israel, Yechiel of Paris (French rabbi) establishes a Talmudic academy in Acre.

1266:                     Jews banned from entering the Cave of the Patriarchs in Hebron.

1267:                     Nachmanides (leading medieval Jewish scholar from Catalonia) arrives in Jerusalem; Ramban synagogue established.

1286:                     Meir of Rothenburg (famous rabbi and poet from Germany) is incarcerated after attempting to emigrate to the Land of Israel.

1355:                     Physician and geographer Ishtori Haparchi (born in France and settled in the Land of Israel) dies in Bet She'an.

1428:                     Jews attempt to purchase the Tomb of David; the Pope issues a prohibition for ship captains to carry Jews to the Land of Israel.

1434:                     Elijah of Ferrara (famous Talmudist and traveller) settles in Jerusalem.

1441:                     Famine forces Jerusalem's Jews to send emissaries to European Jews, asking for help.

1455:                     Failed large scale immigration attempt starting from Sicily.  The would-be immigrants are condemned to death, but the punishment is commuted to a heavy fine.

1474:                     Great Synagogue of Jerusalem demolished by Arab mob.

1488:                     Obadiah ben Abraham of Bertinoro arrives in Jerusalem on March 25, 1488, having commenced his journey October 29, 1486.  When, following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492, many of the exiles settled in Jerusalem, Bertinoro became their intellectual leader. These Spanish Jews presented Bertinoro with a site for a yeshivah (religious academy) in Jerusalem, which he founded.  Considerable support for the maintenance of the yeshivah was given by the Jews of Egypt and Turkey at Bertinoro's written solicitation.

1493:                     Joseph Saragossi travels from Spain and settles in Safed.  He becomes the leader of the local Jewish community and dies in 1507.

1561:                     Spanish Jews travel to the Land of Israel under the leadership of Don Joseph Nasi.  They settle in Safed.  Joseph Nasi secures permission from Sultan Selim II to acquire Tiberias and seven surrounding villages to create a Jewish city-state.  He hoped that large numbers of Jewish refugees and Marranos (Jews forced to convert to Catholicism) would settle there, free from fear and oppression; indeed, the persecuted Jews of Cori, Italy, numbering about 200 souls, decided to emigrate to Tiberias.  Nasi had the walls of the town rebuilt by 1564 and attempted to turn it into a self-sufficient textile manufacturing centre by planting mulberry trees and producing silk. Nevertheless, a number of factors during the following years contributed to the plan's ultimate failure.  But by 1576, the Jewish community of Safed faced an expulsion order: 1,000 prosperous families were to be deported to Cyprus, ‘for the good of the said island’, with another 500 the following year.  The order was issued as an instrument of extortion: it was rescinded once a hefty bribe was extracted from the Jews in the form of ‘rent’.

1648:                     Jews from Turkey attempt to return as a group to Israel, under the leadership of Sabbatai Zevi.  His arrival in Jerusalem triggers an anti-Jewish pogrom.

1700:                     A group of 1,500 Ashkenazi Jews attempt to travel to the Land of Israel under the leadership of Rabbi Yehuda he-Hasid.  A third die on the way.  The Rabbi himself dies within days of arrival.  The survivors settle in Jerusalem.

1764-1850:          Small groups of Jews (between 5 and 500 each) make their way to the Land of Israel under various rabbis.

It’s not that Zionism was “a 19th century political movement”.  It is that it became a political movement in the 19th century – acquiring in the process its modern name and ‘ism’ suffix.  The desire (or rather the craving) was there in every previous century – or in every generation; it’s just that it took such extent and form that suited the times.  One can hardly expect any “political movement” – let alone a Jewish one – to have appeared as such in the 15th century.  In fact, in the 15th century Zionism was so much an integral part of Judaism that people who believed in it (and put it in practice whenever possible) thought they were only practicing their religion.

Narrowly interpreting Zionism as “a 19th century political movement” is simply parroting anti-Israel propaganda.  A pamphlet titled ‘Palestine-Israel: the basic facts’ from the infamous Palestine Solidarity Campaign opens as follows:

“1897 A European Jewish political movement, the Zionist movement, has for some years been seeking to secure a national home for the Jewish people.  After considering homelands in Africa and S America, the Zionist conference of 1897 settles on Palestine, then part of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.”

Got it?  In 1897, European Jews (who descended from Khazars, or maybe landed from Mars) suddenly decided they wanted a national home somewhere…

But what about Mr. Rocker’s claim that Zionism (the 19th century political movement) “was influenced by the secular nationalism of the times”?  Well, that’s also a bit of parroting.  Jewish thinking was of course influenced by ideas that circulated at the time among non-Jews – and in turn influenced those ideas.  One can certainly talk about the rise of “secular nationalism” in late 19th century – and even more in the early 20th century.  But that ‘nationalism’ had none of the pejorative connotations imparted to the term by today’s ‘liberals’.  That was a time of nations seeking emancipation, freedom from the yoke of empires, the right to determine their own future.  The ‘nationalism’ that influenced Zionism was no different than the one that gave birth to Enosis and the Czech National Revival.  It’s the nationalism of Gandhi and the Indian National Congress, not that of Hitler and his National Socialist Party.

It would seem that Rabbi Mirvis was right after all.  As for those who are so desperately trying to whitewash (Jew-wash?) Far Labour’s antisemitism, they really need to procure some better paint.  This one’s sooo pathetically transparent...

Don’t slam Islam; but don’t tolerate intolerance, either!

Paris is in shock again and with it the entire civilised world.  Although, truth be told, this has not come as a surprise.  Nor have the reactions of Western politicians and journalists.  On one hand, we hear again the predictable but oh-so-idiotic claim that acts perpetrated in the name of Allah and Muhammad ‘have nothing to do with Islam’; on the other hand, we are treated to the bigoted implication that believing in Allah and Muhammad counts as ‘fifth column’ membership.  Both approaches are cowardly populist; both are terribly wrong; worse – both are pathetically unhelpful.

No, we can’t start accusing or suspecting everyone who embraces Islam as his/her religion; or even as his/her main identity.  But neither should we stick our heads in the ground, close our eyes to reality and plug our ears with politically-correct cotton wool, denying that a certain strand of Islam has everything to do with terrorism.

There will never be a shortage of imbeciles eager to find excuses and to ‘explain away’ terrorism.  Yes, the West has made war in Iraq and Afghanistan; but then, Russia is making war in Ukraine – and yet Ukrainians don't blow themselves up in Moscow’s stadiums or in Sankt Petersburg’s concert halls.  Yes, Western colonialists have left a lousy legacy in the Middle East; but they did worse, much worse elsewhere.  Indians don’t try to blow up the Wembley Stadium.  Armenians don’t murder patrons in Istanbul’s restaurants and Israeli Jews don’t fly airplanes into Frankfurt’s office buildings.

There’ll also be bigots who will point to passages from the Qur’an and claim that there’s something inherently violent in Islam.  But I can equally quote passages from the Torah and from the New Testament that would seem to incite to violence.  What about the injunction to “blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven”?  And didn’t Jesus say “I came not to send peace, but the sword”?  Oh, and I can find for you Qur’anic verses praising peace – just like one finds in every scripture.

No, Islam is not a religion of peace; nor is it a religion of war.  Religions aren’t ‘of’ anything; people are.  There is no denying that acts of terrorism are currently more likely to be committed in the name of Islam than in the name of Christianity, Judaism, Buddhism or Shintoism.  If a suicide bomber detonates himself tomorrow, it is more likely that he’ll be called Muhammad, rather than Paul, Moshe or Jitendra.  That is a fact.  Most Muslims are not radicals; it's just that there are more radicals among Muslims.

But why?  Islam is not fundamentally different from Christianity or Judaism.  It is just younger, much younger.  It appeared on the grand scene of history about 14 centuries ago.  Christianity is considerably older – more than 2000 years; Judaism is ancient.  Age is of consequence: religions (like all human endeavours) have a life of their own.  Just like human beings.  Youngsters are more impetuous; more impulsive; less patient and less tolerant.  Thankfully, they mellow as they grow old.  So do religions.  Want to understand radical Islam?  Violent Jihad?  Think 14th century Christianity, with its crusades and Inquisition.

In 14th century Europe, religion pervaded every aspect of human life; so it does these days in most parts of the Middle East.  14th century Europeans may have called themselves ‘French’, ‘German’ or ‘English’; but their primary identity was ‘Christians’.  Just as these days hundreds of millions of people will tell you that they define themselves first and foremost as ‘Muslims’.

Jihadis are nothing more – and nothing less, and nothing else – than the ‘modern’, Muslim version of medieval Crusaders.  They may be armed with assault rifles and grenades, rather than swords and maces; but they are just as blood-thirsty; just as self-righteous; just as ready to achieve martyrdom and earn their ticket to heaven.  Are you still wondering why they behead people?

OK, you’ll say; that may well be so, but how does this help?  Will we have to endure centuries of Jihad?  Well, not necessarily.  Things have changed somewhat from the real 14th century.

Think about it: why did so many people (not just kings and knights, but simple peasants and tradesmen) leave behind their homesteads, their families, their lives – to make war on the infidels?  To kill, maim, pillage and rape?  No, Popes did not use Twitter to stir up trouble – not in those times.  They used preachers.  That has not changed: it is still the preachers of hate that brainwash people into becoming butchers.

Wanna deal with Jihadi terrorism?  You can try to track all the tens of thousands that have already been radicalised – and the millions that will be; or you can go after a few thousand hate preachers. Those preachers may not practice violence themselves; but they kill, maim, pillage and rape – however indirectly.  Jail them if you can; kill them if you have to; or just prevent their odious message from reaching its target.  That means tighter border controls.  It means closing websites, monitoring social media, controlling school activities, raiding mosques, banning radical madrassahs.  If that implies changing our laws, so they protect the tolerant, rather than tolerating the bigot – then so be it; if it means making law enforcement more intrusive, then that’s a price we’ll have to pay, for our safety and that of our children.  Make no mistake: it’s the price we’ll have to pay to maintain rule of law; to avoid rule of the mob.  There will have to be limits to freedom: your freedom must end where you want to take away mine.

That won’t stop tomorrow’s terrorist attack; it won’t provide an instant solution.  But, in time, it will choke the flow of hatred.

The Torah says “I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. Choose life, so that you and your offspring will live”.  I’m sure the Qur’an won’t disagree.

Angry Jews

Afraid?

Mainstream journalists are herd creatures: once one of them (finally) stumbles upon a juicy subject, expect a flurry of articles, all similar except – at best – for the blurb.  No wonder, then, that the last few months have brought us a large number of media items describing European Jews as afraid and contemplating immigration to Israel – for fear of their lives.

Thus, in an article entitled ‘Fear on Rise, Jews in France Weigh an Exit’, New York Times reports:

“French Jews, already feeling under siege by anti-Semitism, say the trauma of the terrorist attacks last week has left them scared, angry, unsure of their future in France and increasingly willing to consider conflict-torn Israel as a safer refuge.”

For its part, the BBC published an item so minuscule that we can reproduce it here in its entirety:

“Israel has said an increasing number of Jewish people are migrating to the country from France because of a rise in anti-Semitism.
Around 3,200 people left last year, a 63% jump when compared to 2012.
Christian Fraser reports from Paris.”

Mr. Fraser’s report, by the way, was initially entitled “French Jews 'afraid to be Jewish'“(yes, inverted quote marks in the original); but someone at the Beeb later changed it into “Anti-Semitism forcing Jews out of France, says Israel”.  Just in case the inverted quote marks in the original title left any doubt about BBC’s views.

Now, I have no idea who was the creative animal who wrote the first ‘Jews-are-afraid’ item.  But it’s easy to imagine how the rest of the herd (for instance, Mr. Fraser) produced their ‘reports’:

Journalist: With all this terrorism, are you concerned when your children go to school?  Are you worried for them?
Mrs. Lévy: Errr… mais oui, of course I’m worried-eh…
Journalist: And you are thinking about moving to Israel, don’t you?
Mrs. Lévy: Err… we due discuss it-eh sometimes…
Journalist: Excellent.  Sorry, I’ve got to go and write this up.  Thank you for your time.

One thing is clear.  Not because “Israel says”, but because it’s a statistical fact: the number of European Jews making Aliyah (i.e., immigrating to Israel) is on the increase.  50,000 French Jews are expected to arrive to Israel in the next few years.  The number of British ‘olim’ (new immigrants) are much smaller, but they increased by 20% in just one year.

It’s also a statistical fact that the number and severity of anti-Jewish incidents has sky-rocketed.  In France, Belgium and Denmark, Jews have been murdered for being Jews.  Nobody has been killed yet in the UK, but the All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry into Antisemitism has recently listed a number of very disturbing incidents:

•           The daubing of a swastika on the front door of a Jewish home in North West London;
•           Abuse of a rabbi by a group of youths whilst walking in North London including chants of “Free Palestine” and “F*** the Jews”;
•           Two attacks on the Somerton Road synagogue in Belfast;
•           Shouts of “baby murderers” at congregants attending synagogue in Liverpool, a sign displaying “child murderers” being fixed to the synagogue door in Kingston and a brick thrown through the window of the synagogue in Belfast;
•           Flowers with a card naming three children killed in Gaza, being left outside a prominent Jewish centre in North West London, deliberately in time for Jewish schoolchildren being collected from a summer scheme to see them. Police told people that there had been several similar incidents in the local area;
•           The hospitalisation of a rabbi who was beaten by four teens in an unprovoked attack in Gateshead.  [sic!  We are quoting here the language of the report ‘as is’; yet feelings of respect towards the English language compel us to point out that it was the beating, not the hospitalisation, that constituted the anti-Semitic incident!!]  Northumbria Police were investigating a racist tweet in connection with the incident which showed a picture of what was described as a Jewish primary school accompanied by the message: “This Jewish school in Gateshead cheered when the bombs fell in Palestine”;
•           Verbal abuse of a couple in Bradford in person and on a loudhailer when they politely declined to donate to a roadside collection for Gaza when driving through the town;
•           An attack on a visibly Jewish boy cycling in North London, who had a stone thrown at his head by a woman veiled in a niqab [i.e. (in plain English) the attempt by a Muslim woman to cause bodily harm to a child, because of his Jewish appearance];
•           A Nazi salute given to a visibly Orthodox Jewish individual whilst he was in his car at traffic lights in Glasgow;
•           A man at a party being asked “so, you like killing Palestinian children?” when taking off his hat to reveal a kippah [skullcap];
•           Emails sent to a Jewish organisation entitled “murder” and ending “we see why he [Hitler] did it”.

So, if one is a superficial journalist (and, let's face it, the vast majority of today’s journalists are) one concludes, based on the facts above, that Jews are leaving Europe and immigrating to Israel out of fear for their lives.  Reaching such conclusions is easy-peasy; but also very lazy; and, incidentally, very wrong.

Sure, Jews are worried; old Jews are concerned about the young ones; Jewish mothers are anxious for their children.  There’s nothing new in that; worrying is the Jewish national sport.  Jews may be afraid; but one thing they are not – they’re not stupid.  Despite the facile ‘discoveries’ of shallow journalists, it is not fear that makes Jews turn their backs on Europe.  After all, Jews have been killed not just in Toulouse, Brussels, Paris and Copenhagen, but also in Jerusalem, Haifa and Tel Aviv.  Murderous jihadists may be busy planning the next attack in Europe; but I seriously doubt that Hamas, Hizb’ullah and the Islamic Jihad are turning rockets into ploughs and mortar tubes into sewerage pipes.

European politicians and pundits just don’t get it: Jews are not leaving Europe in search of safety, but in search of dignity.  It’s not so much fear; it’s disappointment and anger.

The All-Party Parliamentary Inquiry just doesn’t get it: it’s not ‘antisemitic incidents’ that’s the biggest problem; it’s antisemitism itself.  It’s the anti-Jewish prejudice that lurks in the deep, dark recesses of many a European’s mind and increasingly emerges under the ‘politically correct’ veil of ‘anti-Israel’ sentiment.

Much of the European citizenry just doesn’t get it: it’s not the extreme right; it’s not the extreme left.  It’s not even the jihadists – homegrown or imported – that Jews have come to resent; it’s the relentless seepage of anti-Semitic discourse into the mainstream that’s the real problem.  And the fact that that anti-Semitic discourse masquerades as ‘anti-Zionism’, ‘anti-Israelism’ and ‘humanitarian concern’ only adds insult to injury.  ‘Humanitarian concern’???  Even if every accusation flung at Israel were true, there would still be a hundred places more worthy of true humanitarian concern.  ‘Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism’ they say.  Really, isn’t it???  They boycott Israeli tomatoes, while selling weaponry to Saudi Arabia; they scream abuse at Israeli dance troops, but meekly fawn around medieval-minded sheikhs; they work themselves into a frenzy over Gaza, but aren't particularly bothered when a hundred times more people are killed in Syria.  ‘Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism’??  LOL, haters!  Forget the clumsily-veiled prejudice, the strident injustice, the stomach-turning hatred; it’s the insult to our intelligence that’s arguably the most annoying!

From the pages of ‘The Scotsman’ (the more mainstream newspapers can’t be bothered to print such things), Dani Garavelli explains:

“Though Glasgow City Council’s decision to fly the Palestinian flag after Israel launched Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza strip was politically motivated, the hurt it caused the Jewish community was visceral. […]

The community seems to have closed in on itself; people are increasingly reluctant to draw attention to their Jewishness or to engage in political debate. [...]

But those who are prepared to speak – albeit anonymously – report a dramatic change in the way Jews throughout Scotland feel about themselves and their country, so dramatic, in fact, that Being Jewish, a project undertaken by the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities (SCoJeC) in which a range of people were interviewed about their experiences, is being updated to take into account of shifting attitudes. One woman – Anna – who lives in a rural community, told the original interviewers Scotland was a 'darn good place to be a Jew'. Today, she feels marginalised and says her grown-up son has expressed a desire to move to Israel.

At the SCoJeC offices attached to the synagogue, director Ephraim Borowski, a mild-mannered man with a greying beard and a good line in self-deprecating humour, says Jewish people are upset not only by specific attacks but by what they see as a wider anti-Jewish narrative. […]

90 per cent of Scottish Jews have connections to Israel and more than 80 per cent describe themselves as Zionists. Borowski insists the term Zionist encompasses a wide spectrum of political opinion and that most Scottish Jews (around 75 per cent), including him, believe in a two-state solution. And yet some left-wing campaigners have called for Scotland to be Zionist-free.

'When you hear that, and realise it means forcing more than 80 per cent of Jews out of Scotland, you think: ‘Hang on. This person might not think of themselves as an antisemite in the sense of hating Jews for being Jews, but the fact is they are advocating a policy which is discriminatory in terms of the Equality Act.'

Just like the 1930s?

In the 1920s and early 1930s, many German anti-Semites claimed that they had
nothing against German Jews.  Their ire -- so they claimed -- was directed 'just' at
'Ostjuden', the 'uncouth' Eastern Jews fleeing persecution in Russia and Poland.

A poll of 2,230 British Jews found 56% felt that anti-Semitism now echoes the 1930s.  Politicians, pundits and activists protested; many found fault with the poll methodology; but whether it’s 56% or just 15%, that feeling should come as a shock.  How can ‘today’ be compared to ‘back then’?  Back then, a political party was coming to power, which had anti-Semitism as its official platform.  Today, every European political party touchingly declares its abhorrence of anti-Semitism.

'Save Gaza' demonstration in London

So is this just a typical Jewish exaggeration?  No, it isn’t.  Because one can argue with statistics and logical constructs; but one cannot, should not argue with feelings.  Especially the feelings of a people that is – to use a British understatement – not unfamiliar with persecution.  They do not need statistics – they feel things in their bones.

Tweets referring to the North-London Jewish neighbourhood of
Stamford Hill

Sure, there are many things that differentiate 2015 from 1930 (and perhaps the comparison is better made with the 1920s); yet there are also things that are eerily, disturbingly familiar.  Like mobs ‘protesting’ (in growing numbers and increasingly berserk fashion) against Jews; not ‘all Jews’, you understand, just ‘the bad Jews’ – the ‘murderous Zionists’ today, the ‘primitive Ostjuden’ back then.

The ‘good Jews’ will disagree, of course; they think they’ll be fine.  But then, they thought so ‘back then’, too…  Famous journalist I.F. Stone once reminisced:

“I followed the rise of Hitler very closely, beginning in twenty-nine and thirty. I remember one German-Jewish reader coming to me, about thirty-one or thirty-two. He said, ‘Why are you writing these editorials against Hitler? I got a letter from Germany that says he's only against Ostjuden [Eastern Jews]’”.

But to the vast majority of Jews, this division into ‘good Jews’ and ‘bad Jews’ sounds both familiar and typically anti-Semitic.  And the disappointment, the dismay and anger are all the more devastating because Western European Jews (just like the German Jews ‘back then’) felt well-integrated, accepted and accepting, an all-but-completely-assimilated part of their Western European nations.  They are now shocked to realise that the prejudice did not go away; it was just better hidden, waiting for a slightly more ‘politically correct’ outlet.

Not Jew-baiters – just Jewish state-baiters

On the Stop the War Coalition’s website, one Lindsey German (no relation to the actual Germans) declares:

“The protests are against Israel’s actions with regard to the Palestinians, not against Jews. They are against Zionism as an expansionist ideology…”

So that should be ok, shouldn’t it?  It’s not against Jews.  It’s just against the ‘bad Jews’.

But, as The Scotsman’s Dani Garavelli put it:

“Trying to separate the two [anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism] is complicated…”

And not just because

“more than 90 per cent of Scottish Jews have connections to Israel and more than 80 per cent describe themselves as Zionists.”

But because the love and longing for Zion is an integral, inseparable part of both the Jewish religion and the Jewish culture; of Judaism and Jewishness.  And even those Jews who are neither religiously observant, nor particularly attuned to Jewish cultural identity, even they find it hard to understand why Zionism is treated so differently in comparison with all other national emancipation movements.  Why is every other people entitled to a country of their own, while the Zionist desire for a State of the Jews is the object of so much hatred, scorn and venom?

Sure, as Ms. Lindsey German hurries to mention, there are also ‘good Jews’:

“There are many Jews who define themselves as anti-Zionist…”

Well, precisely, Ms. German: they define themselves as anti-Zionists; and that is, typically, the only context in which they remember their Jewishness.

Ms. Lindsay German just doesn’t get it: Jews – not those accidentally born from a Jewish mother, but those who feel and identify themselves as Jews – cannot give up Israel and Zionism and remain Jews; it is an inextricable part of our very identity.  It’s not a political ideology you’re talking about, it’s the lifeblood of a culture.

I consider myself a secular Jew; religion is a very small part of my life.  Yet every other Friday evening I join my small community for a Shabbat service.  Faces and thoughts turned towards Jerusalem, we read together from the prayer book, in a cacophony of loud and whispering voices, old and young:

“Our God and God of our fathers, we are all Israel.  In Your service we have become old in experience and young in hope.  We carry both in the deepest places of our hearts and minds.  On this Sabbath day we turn to You with eyes newly open, with hope re-awakened, shrugging off the layers of worry and doubt that have closed upon us.
We are all Israel, created by Your promise, holy by Your word, wise through Your Torah, righteous through Your commands, renewed by the Sabbath of Your rest.”

We then supplicate:

“Spread over us the covering of Your peace, guide us with Your good counsel and save us for the sake of Your name.  Be a shield about us, turning away every enemy, disease, violence, hunger and sorrow.  […]  Blessed are You Lord, who spreads the shelter of peace over us, over His people Israel and over all the world.”

And plead:

“Lord Our God, be pleased with Your people Israel and listen to their prayers.  In Your great mercy, delight in us, so that Your presence may rest upon Zion.  Our eyes look forward to Your return to Zion in mercy!  Blessed are You Lord, who restores His presence to Zion”.

After which, satisfied with our spiritual endeavours, we engage in a bit of mundane small-talk, telling each other, among other things, about our son in Haifa, our daughter in Bat Yam, our parents in Ashqelon and our cousins in Tel Aviv; or about our latest visit to Jerusalem.  We eat Israeli dates, dip big chunks of Israeli-style pitta in Israeli hummus and praise the rising quality of Israeli wines.

Ms. Lindsey German just doesn’t get it: Jews – not those accidentally born from a Jewish mother, but those who feel and identify themselves as Jews – cannot give up Israel and remain Jews; it would be easier to get Muslims to give up Mecca!

Just Jews

Mainstream journalists are herd creatures; but a few, cleverer, less lazy and more honest than their colleagues, actually retain a propensity to think, a desire to understand.  Those few journalists realise that Jews are not so much afraid – they are deeply offended; they do not flee Europe in fear – they turn their backs on it in disgust.  Dani Garavelli reports:

“Many Jews in Scotland say that as soon as they admit to being Jewish, they face aggressive questioning and accusations over their position on Israel. ‘I work with very left-wing people and it’s really uncomfortable,’ says Louise. ‘During the summer, I found it hard to go to work; for a long time I couldn’t even go into the canteen because people would make comments.’ […] 

Yiftah Curiel, a spokesman for the Israeli Embassy in London, suggested Glasgow University had failed to uphold freedom of speech after a talk he was giving was halted by rowdy demonstrators.  

Nicola Livingston, chair of the Jewish Student Chaplaincy, says that […] political demonstrations against Israeli speakers breed a climate of “permissiveness” where antisemitic comments are seen as more acceptable.

Nick Henderson, who was brought up a ‘culturally assimilated western secular Jew’ in Glasgow, was so affected by his negative experiences at Dundee University and elsewhere, he left Scotland for Israel. In a piece he wrote for the Times of Israel last week, he told how his involvement with left-wing politics ended when he overheard campaigners “joking” that “if only all the Jews had been murdered in the Holocaust, there would be no Israel and they wouldn’t have to keep going to anti-Israel rallies all the time”.  After he left university, Henderson started a job in a charity shop but says he was forced out when his boss said she couldn’t employ anyone who didn’t understand the oppression of Palestinians. Henderson had few links to Israel growing up but has now taken a Hebrew name and says he feels Israeli.  ‘Today, I don’t need to apologise for being Jewish. I don’t need to apologise for loving my country. I can sing songs on Shabbat as loud as I like, I can decorate my window with the blue and white flag. I can wear a Star of David necklace or a kippah if I want and not fear for my life,’ he writes.

Back in Giffnock, [director of the Scottish Council of Jewish Communities] Borowski says he believes other Scottish Jews may have ­already contemplated making the same journey. ‘They may not have booked 
the one-way ticket, but the idea will be there hovering in the back of their minds.’”

Gradually, other journalists might venture out of the lazy complacency of the heard.  So perhaps one of these days another journalist might interview our imaginary Mrs. Lévy, and this time take just a bit of interest in what she actually thinks:

Journalist: With all this terrorism, are you concerned when your children go to school?  Are you worried for them?
Mrs. Lévy: mais oui, of course I’m worried-eh…
Journalist: But do you think you’ll be less worried in Israel?
Mrs. Lévy: mais non, monsieur, I’m always worried.  My children’s surname is Lévy.  Wherever we live, they’ll be less safe than my neighbour’s children, whose name is Lévêque…  I worry, but we’re used to it…
Journalist: So why do you want to leave France?
Mrs. Lévy: Because, monsieur, you guys have hurt my feelings.  I thought my children are proud Jewish Frenchmen; then I understood that, at best, they’ll always be French Jews.  So I decided they are really just Jews.  Always have been, always will be.  Nobody can take that away from them…