Joanne Bell on the fears of the Jewish community in Enfield following last month’s attack on a Manchester synagogue

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visits the scene at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue (credit Lauren Hurley-10 Downing Street via Wikimedia Commons)

Racist violence against Jews in the UK isn’t new.

Last month’s Manchester synagogue terror attack – which killed two people, with several worshippers seriously injured, on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar – was just the most recent and shocking.

The first time I was physically assaulted for being Jewish was at The Latymer School in the late 1980s. An ethnic-minority classmate threw a 20p on the floor, pushing me down by my head after it, saying “go get the money, Jew”. When I fought back, I was the one accused of racism, until thankfully witnesses came forward with the truth.

For us in Enfield’s longstanding Jewish community, antisemitic violence is a grim inevitability. It’s not a question of if it happens, just when and where.

The statistics around soaring anti-Jewish racism make sober reading. According to the Home Office, Jews experience the highest rate of religious hate crime: 106 incidents per 10,000 people, nearly nine times more than Muslims at twelve per 10,000 people and three times more likely than every other religious group together combined.

But what does this mean to Jews in Enfield like me and my family; born, bred, schooled and living in the area?

It means our schools and synagogues sit behind security gates and blast barriers, guarded by community members wearing stab vests – like those who bravely defended Manchester’s Heaton Park Synagogue from the attacker, Jihad Al-Shamie.

It means hiding your Star of David or kippah (male head covering) and wondering if it’s safe to ‘admit’ being Jewish to your Uber driver when you’re asked where you’re from on a late-night trip home.

It means explaining to your eleven-year-old they need to hide their Jewish school uniform travelling home, so they don’t get assaulted. And it means having conversations about whether the UK is still safe to live in, and where to go if things continue to deteriorate.

Research from leading diversity organisation Inclusive Companies found circa 70% of British Jews now often hide their identity, with nearly 50% having considered leaving Britain since 7th October 2023, when Hamas launched its terror attack on Israel.

If Jews are the ‘canary in the coal mine’, as the old saying goes, at best the canary’s in a coma. But where is this hatred coming from?

Somewhat ironically, the pages of this very paper are part of the answer.

Whatever your political opinion on the urban war between Hamas and Israel in Gaza – which has tragically killed thousands of innocent civilians and combatants and left many displaced and traumatised – the language and behaviour of some pro-Palestinian supporters is steeped in tolerance for anti-Jewish racism, at best. At worst, it is an active source of it.

The comment piece last month by longstanding pro-Palestine and hard left activists, arguing against the proscription of Palestine Action as a terror group, is a case in point.

Filled with emotive references to being elderly and disabled, and the right to protest, the comment piece deliberately hides a rather nastier truth.

Palestine Action, the group the piece characterises as ‘merely’ attacking UK defence infrastructure and organisations “associated with providing support to Israel” has actually attacked random Jewish-owned businesses in London, as reported by The Guardian, leaving owners terrified and traumatised.

The Brixton branch of Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) has previously published Holocaust denial material, claiming just “hundreds of thousands of Jews” were killed.

PSC-organised marches – the first organised on 7^th October 2023 while Hamas was still murdering Israeli civilians – have featured placards showing Stars of David being put in the bin and vile Jewish caricatures. Other pro-Palestine protests have targeted synagogues and Jewish community centres in London with chants of “baby killers”.

Even one of last month’s comment piece authors, Lynda Brennan, shared a Facebook post about the Manchester attack which included the claim that “antisemitism is virtually non-existent in the UK”.

This is the kind of talk which gives implicit permission to attack the Jewish community in Enfield and further afield.

Whatever is happening in the Israel/Palestine conflict, Enfield and the UK’s streets, schools and social spaces should be welcoming and safe for all.

It’s basic anti-racism to say Enfield’s Turkish community shouldn’t be abused for President Erdogan’s government assault on Kurdish people, or the Russian community for the war in Ukraine. Yet, Chanukah lights were subject to an attempted ban in Epping as “insensitive to other religious groups” and non-political Jewish comedians have been de-platformed from the Edinburgh Fringe, when venue staff said their mere presence made them feel ”unsafe”!

The Manchester terror attack was the horrifying logical endpoint of antisemitism, with the terrorist yelling “this is what they get for killing our children” as he mowed down and stabbed innocent Jewish people.

Justifying or equivocating violence due to religious or political beliefs sits on a dangerous slippery slope. Today, it’s ‘just’ the Jewish community, tomorrow it could be anyone else.

Palestine Solidarity Campaign has previously stated that it “is founded on principles of justice, human rights, and opposition to all forms of racism”.

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