Where can Jews feel safest? Not where you would expect

For some, Jews would be wise to keep a bag packed just in case, and for some with that belief, this might be the time to check your passport too.

These folk warn that we’ve been living in a fool’s paradise post-Holocaust and that antisemitism, apparently dormant, would rise again. The normal condition of the Jewish people would reassert itself and, once again, being Jewish will be full of travail. Only the Holocaust inhibited reasonably decent people from expressing what lay just beneath the surface— the normative reality that most people didn’t like most Jews.

I must admit that hasn’t been my experience. I’ve found, on the contrary, that most people are intrigued by and admiring of Jews. True, one could often detect envy in their admiration but that’s because being Jewish, not only in the modern world but often through history, has been so enviable!

I live in a small Jewish community in the west of England (in Bristol) and the last 18 months have not produced a vast outpouring of animosity on our streets. In fact, just recently, a Jewish community grandee came to visit our community to speak and started his speech with something like, “of course, this last 18 months have been really challenging for us all but I want to accentuate the many positive factors that still exist”. I looked round the room and could see most people thinking “why does he say it’s been challenging?”

Bristol is not immune to antisemitism. Only a couple of years ago, a sociology professor at the university was finally sacked for acting in a way “liable to bring the university into disrepute”. That was code for “teaching disgusting twaddle about the international Jewish – oops, sorry - Zionist conspiracy” and, for example, claiming that Jewish students were pawns of the Israeli government. (Since he was heaved out, he’s gone even more bonkers and his regular appearances on Iranian TV have tipped him into ranting mode! For example, apparently, our local Chabad rabbi is not only a Zionist agent but personally responsible for genocide. Chabad rabbis are really very busy. I don’t know how they fit it all in!)