Jewish parents are worried. As a result our secondary schools are overflowing with many prospective applicants consigned to long waiting lists. Of course, the imposition of VAT on private school fees cannot be discounted. Similarly some parents are influenced by the softer grade requirements on offer to state school students from even the best universities.
Indeed, if the popularity of our schools were the only instance of increased insularity , one might look no further than those specific causes. However it goes far further. The selection of the so-called “Jewniversities”, like Nottingham, Bristol and most of all Leeds, seems to indicate a community in flight from the outside world. Certainly, if we are looking at “flight”, the jump in aliyah among young families who have previously successfully put down roots in this country supports the suggestion that we are circling the wagons. Usually calm voices are predicting Anglo-Jewry’s last stand.
While the strengthening of our schools, the provision of better Jewish facilities on campus and the departure of idealistic young people to be part of the greatest Jewish project of modern times are all welcome in normal times, the problem is that we are not anywhere near normal times. All these developments are driven by real and perceived antisemitism.
We are allowing our enemies to set our Jewish agenda which will ultimately lead to a smaller, inward-looking community which has abandoned our prophetic destiny of being a light to the nations.
The current Hebrew month of Tishri is replete with festivals and fasts that over and over again emphasise the true purpose of our faith, which is to bring knowledge of the Divine to the whole of humanity.
Rosh Hashanah is the day when we emphasis the kingship of God. The more adherents, the greater the realm and the greater the King. Praying for the nations of the world and looking forward to their participating in the ethical vision of the Prophets is a centrepiece of the Rosh Hashanah liturgy. Jews are at the centre of humanity trying to navigate mankind towards our Divine destiny.
This theme is picked up halfway through Tishri on Succot. In Temple times the Succot sacrifices were brought over seven days totalling 70 young bulls. That is the number which in Jewish tradition is the equivalent of the 70 nations of mankind, who speak 70 different archetypal languages. Succot is more than any other festival in our calendar a celebration of humanity and the responsibility which Judaism has to protect human beings from the temptations of evil.
This is a time to rejoice in the greatness of mankind and delight in a wonderful joint future. But October 7 2023, however, was very different. Hamas attacked on the single day festival in Israel which combines Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah – a day of celebration of our Torah, our morality and our way of life. Reflecting on how are a crucial part of human destiny. That day is our celebration of our calling to be as a light to the nations.
As the terrorists were massacring over 1200 innocent victims, here we were reading the haftarah from Book of Kings, when Solomon dedicates the Temple “so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Eternal alone is God, there is no other”.
Murder is woven into the fabric of our history but this time it was different. The massacre did not engender sympathy and recovery, as have similar tragedies in the past but the blood spilt heralded a wave of hate unknown to almost every living Jew.
The tragedies of our past have often led to a partially compensating flowering of Jewish life. The Shoah was swiftly followed by the establishment of the State of Israel. Roman persecution in Palestine engendered a remarkable era of Jewish intellectual life in Babylonia, in which we lived in peace with our neighbours. In each of these instances Jews were able to exchange ideas with our neighbours, fulfilling our ultimate destiny of providing a moral voice in all the countries where we sojourned
It doesn’t feel like that here and now as we approach the third anniversary of the events of the October 7, 2023. The sympathy of the world has been little more than a flutter utterly overwhelmed by an explosion of hate perhaps greater in scope and intensity than anything we have previously experienced.
Unsurprisingly, we have responded by almost completely abandoning the universalism which should be at the centre of our Tishri festivals. The Jewish people are in retreat. We do not wear religious symbols at hospital appointments. We stick together in our self-imposed ghettos, our schools, our safe places. Rather than teaching the world we have decided to hide from the rest of mankind. We have abandoned our national purpose.
But we may take comfort from Thomas Fuller, a 17th-century English churchman, who when writing of the desolation of the Holy Land observed that “the darkest hour is before the dawn”. Observing the Jewish people in 2026, we can only hope that Fuller is right.
Rabbi Pollak is a co-founder of the Jewish Ethics Project. Its High Holy Day booklet, Speech and Criticism, is available from www.jewishethicsproject.org. He also teachers ethics and religion at Hendon School
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