When Manchester Jewish Museum’s oldest synagogue filled for its first Seek Peace and Pursue It event, what mattered was not simply that every seat was taken, but that people who do not often share the same communal spaces had come together to consider a difficult idea: that even now, peace must remain imaginable.
Launching the series in Manchester mattered. We have the UK’s second-largest Jewish community, but our conversations can still be divided by geography, denomination, generation and outlook. The audience came from north and south Manchester, Orthodox and Progressive communities, and across the generations.
The speakers, Maoz Inon and Aziz Abu Sarah, an Israeli and a Palestinian, spoke from devastating personal loss. Maoz’s parents, Yakovi and Bilha, were killed in Netiv HaAsara moshav on October 7. Aziz’s elder brother, Tayseer, died after being arrested as a child in East Jerusalem. In their jointly written book, The Future is Peace, they bring empathy to their distinct experiences of loss and conflict. Their choice not to turn grief into hatred did not remove the pain or political disagreement. It showed that reconciliation is not naive but can be chosen in full knowledge of loss.
Their message was not that persuasion is easy, or that everyone must first be won over. Maoz argued that change can begin when a committed minority moves from conviction to action. We did not all agree, and that was the point. While one participant suggested peace might still be 25 years away, Maoz used the example of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat coming to Israel in 1977. He said that two weeks before Sadat’s visit, Egypt was Israel’s greatest enemy, and most Israelis thought peace impossible. Yet, when Sadat arrived, everywhere he went, Israelis were waving flags of both Israel and Egypt. His conclusion was that peace is always just two weeks away.
For diaspora Jews, the question is not whether we can dictate events in Israel and the Palestinian territories. We cannot. It is whether our communal culture leaves room for complexity: for solidarity and criticism, security and justice, grief and hope. In Manchester, those questions were voiced rather than avoided.
It was important, too that local voices shaped the discussion alongside the visiting speakers. There were contributions from Orthodox and Progressive rabbis, communal leaders and students that reflected a city whose Jewish life is substantial, varied and confident enough to host a disagreement. National communal debate is too often treated as though it happens in London and is then transmitted elsewhere. Manchester should not be an audience for that conversation; it should help form it.
That means creating space where nobody is required to give up their deeply held beliefs at the door, but everybody is expected to listen. The strength of the event showed that we value difference and can disagree without dehumanising one another.
The launch offered neither easy consensus nor an answer to the conflict. Nor should it have. Its achievement was to widen the circle of people willing to remain in the same room, hear painful testimony and test their assumptions against those of their neighbours.
At a time when public discussion can become narrow, hostile and polarised, Manchester showed the value of something more demanding: a diverse Jewish community thinking aloud together. Peace may feel distant. Building a communal space in which it can still be discussed honestly is one way of bringing it closer.
Our next planned event will be just after the Israeli election, and we’ll have some outstanding British and Israeli experts involved. We’re also planning a future session on the relationship between the British Jewish community and the British government. Now we have No 10 North, those conversations do not need to only happen in London!
Juliette Coleman is a founder member of the new group. For more information on future events, email: juliettecoleman@hotmail.com
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