If there was ever a way to come down from the summer holiday with a bump, it was immersing myself in the cheery topic of antisemitism, which I’ve been doing intensely while making a Telegraph documentary on the subject. It’s been eye-opening – even for me as someone entrenched in the Jewish community – or perhaps because of it. Having spoken to dozens of victims, it seems like it’s often those Jews who are most isolated from the community who are most vulnerable.
In the course of making the documentary (available on YouTube), I spoke to several students who lost their entire friendship group after October 7 and who were ostracised and bullied. Often (although not always) Israel was the crux of it. In many school environments, unless you are prepared to totally condemn the entire existence of Israel, show zero sympathy to any Israeli victim and use all the trending buzzwords to describe the conflict, then you shall be banished. One student I spoke to, who as it happened could not have been more left-leaning in his anti-Netanyahu anti-war stance, was spat at every day, constantly had his lunch whacked out of his hands and said he felt “truly hated”. When he reported it to the college, what they decided to do was… absolutely diddly squat. His crime? Sharing a post that said: “Innocent people do not kidnap people.”
Another student I spoke to was similarly shunned – to the point that she had to sit her A-levels in isolation because she would have been too vulnerable to bullies jeopardising her exams. Another case of the school punishing the victim. Parents Against Antisemitism, which was set up to help support students such as these, sees this a lot: the schools treating these situations as a conflict to mediate rather than a straightforward case of safeguarding against bullying and prejudice.
Ignite, another organisation assisting and empowering students, helps teach how to approach conversations about Jewish identity and Zionism in a calm, open-minded way. This year, they have also launched “conversation cards”, which sound like they might help students with their chat-up lines, but in fact aid them in the even more challenging social scenario of talking about Israel, which is something they may find themselves having to do whether they like it or not. (The cards are available to download for free at i-gnite.org).
I met the woman who inspired these cards, Charlotte Korchak, around a Friday night dinner table last year. She told me that whenever she gets an Uber she always tries to turn the conversation to Israel. Doolally or brilliant and bold? Most definitely the latter. She has an incredibly calm, considered and skilful approach to handling difficult conversations – and to ending them too, which, in fact, is just as important. You are not always going to change someone’s mind if you talk about Israel, but knowing how to end the discussion respectfully is also a skill, she explains. For students to have the ability to say, “We might not ever agree on this but I’m glad we were able to have this conversation”, and remain true to their values without losing friends, is in itself a triumph. Charlotte’s own triumph is that she has only ever been kicked out of one Uber.
It is a source of comfort that there are organisations and support networks being created. The other antidote to what has been a very heavy few months for me came from a very unexpected succah party. The invitation was from Laura Marks, co-founder of Nisa-Nashim, an interfaith network for Jewish and Muslim women. If you pay attention to these columns – hey, you at the back – a few months ago I contacted Laura to see if I could come along to an event. And, the week before last the opportunity arose to shake the lulav and etrog in the succah together with a small group of Jewish and Muslim women who just wanted to connect and show friendship towards each other.
The mere fact that Muslim women came to a succah, most of them for the very first time, meant a lot. We can fight hate, but we will never totally defeat it. However, what we can do is nurture the connections and friendships available and doing so doesn’t really take an enormous amount of effort. As someone pointed out, the Muslim word Haj comes from the same route as “chag”. Another woman noticed the similarity between the word “baruch” and the Muslim word for blessing: “baraka”. I know these are only words, but standing in the succah with Jewish and Muslim women, finding our commonality, felt very comforting. Later, around the dinner table, one Muslim woman explained how she used to go to interfaith meetings at a synagogue before October 7, but relations became too strained – and I heard the same about an interfaith group in Manchester. And I know some people feel: “Well, what’s the point if when things get tough, relationships break down?” But not all relationships broke down. And to me the fact that friendships might be challenged, is not a reason to avoid building them in the first place. We won’t always agree on everything, but as Korchak is teaching students, being able to have conversations and respectful dialogue is gold dust – and a triumph in itself.
Our Jewish resilience and resourcefulness in the face of shocking hostility is something of which we should be proud, but in some ways it has encouraged us to retreat. When the world feels like a scary place, we look for comfort. So yes the synagogues are thriving and UJS is busier than ever and JFS is full to the brim and excelling. But, equally, we don’t want to disconnect from what is out there, which is perhaps why shaking a lulav in a succah with a group of Jewish and Muslim women also felt like a victory against the extremism that is making us fear our own country and attempting to divide us.
Naomi Greenaway is the Deputy Head of Long Reads at the Telegraph
To get more from Life, click here to sign up for our free Life newsletter.