In a time of social division, Marc Cave thinks it is time to rebrand the fight against antisemitism.
Having stepped down from his role as CEO of Nottingham Holocaust Museum in February this year, Cave has transferred six years of leadership and a successful advertising career to a new front: using fish and chips to unite people behind British values.
“As an advertising chap, I know it’s far more effective to have a mass audience on your side,” said the South Hampstead Synagogue attendee. “Saying: ‘Be nice to Jews’ is a niche issue. You’re appealing to people’s better conscience. That doesn’t go too far, sadly.”
Inspired partly by his rabbi, Shlomo Levin’s Thought for the Week-style video series, which universalises Jewish values to build interfaith bridges, Cave’s new not-for-profit Fish & Chips aligns Britain’s interests with those of British Jewry – arguing that a better Britain for Jews is a better Britain for all.
The charity has its roots in Cave’s racism response unit at the museum, and debuted in April when Cave ran antisemitism awareness training for West Midlands Police, following their controversial ban of Maccabi Tel Aviv fans last November.
His argument is that British Jews are failing to “press the right buttons” when faced with antisemitism.
“Advertising is about behaviour change from A to B. If you only have a complaint about A and don’t point to an attractive B, then you will fail.”
Point B is Fish & Chips, which will provide educational programmes for “problem children” (institutions with a predilection for antisemitism), while campaigning against the “dogmaholics”.
“I think most ordinary Brits are on our side and might need waking up,” Cave says, characterising this dormant audience as “Middle Britain”, a reference to a demographics survey by non-profit research agency More in Common UK. He hopes to “celebrate and reassert…the ‘House Rules of Britishness’” among middle-income, social and political mainstream Brits.
To Cave, antisemitism is symptomatic of a wider threat to British values of toleration. “It’s not free speech when [antizionists] are allowed to scream whatever they like, but we can’t say anything back. That’s very un-British.”
Testing the water with an online survey, he boiled down key British values to “fair play, decency, pub banter, tolerance of different opinions, taking the mickey, and suspicion of dogma”.
“These are all the things which Brits love,” he went on. “These are all the reasons why Jews came to this country. And these are all the things that are being destroyed by the civil service and leaders of civic institutions that have been captured by ideology. The benefit of being nice to Jews is that it preserves the ‘House Rules of Britishness’, which we all want.”
The charity’s seemingly random name harks back to its mission. “I can think of no better symbol for British social cohesion than fish and chips. It’s the unofficial national dish. Whether you put vinegar on it, add mushy peas in Yorkshire, or curry sauce in Birmingham, it’s a dish that we can all share according to taste. The kicker is, do you know who invented fish and chips?”
Jewish refugees fleeing religious persecution in Spain and Portugal to come to Britain during the 17th century introduced Sephardic pescado frito (fried fish), which would later be married with French and Huguenot “chips” by Jewish immigrant Joseph Malin around 1860.
“We don’t just contribute to this country,” says Cave. “We are happy to be part of a bigger recipe.”
While it is still early days, police antisemitism training has yielded “amazing” results, Cave’s free Substack is building its following, and the organisation has gained several non-Jewish supporters, including British Pakistani human rights and counter-extremism activist Dame Sara Khan.
Plans on the horizon include a campus roadshow of student debates, leaning more towards a tolerant, topical discussion over “a plate of fish and chips and a pint” than a tumultuous student union event. “It’s [not] about jousting to reinforce an opinion you’re not going to deviate from. It’s asking: ‘Are you big enough to actually change your mind?’”
The next front is social media. “The idea is to fight this war of narrative with a far bigger army than one 270,000 Jews can muster,” he said. “By reintroducing a counterbalance to all that antizionist earache, the risk-averse civic institutions will listen.
“I was always brought up to believe, post-Holocaust: ‘Don’t make any trouble, keep your head down.’ We don’t live in that world any longer. We must be assertive, but audience-savvy.”
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