My daughter and I were targeted at her school for being Zionists

Oh, I got it. As most Jews recognise, those words have a meaning far beyond the literal. They have become words of violence, an existential threat. And conversely, they have also become utterly meaningless. How, exactly, I wondered, momentarily, did she expect me to free Palestine while I did the after-school pick-up?

A man was now walking up the street behind me. “He wants to free Palestine too, don’t you?” shrieked the girl, as he passed me. “Everyone wants to free Palestine!” The man seemed surprised, but concurred. “Yes, free Palestine.”

I felt trapped. And then an adrenaline surge – more of that fight-or-flight response – made me do something that in retrospect seems quite ridiculous: I began to sing “Am Yisrael Chai” while at the same time dancing the Hora – a physical act of Jewish defiance that erupted from me instinctively. They tried to kill us, we survived, we dance. At the end, and I’m not proud of this (not least because they were now filming me too), I gave them a two-finger salute and a couple of choice words of my best Anglo-Saxon. Afterwards, I shook for hours.

When we moved here – yards from one end of Cable Street – I was fully aware that I’d be living in a majority Bangladeshi Muslim area. I was not concerned

Like thousands of parents all over the UK, I am currently in the process of applying for secondary schools, filling out an online form that will determine my daughter’s future. It’s stressful for all Jewish parents, but, for my family, that stress is amplified by the numerous examples of antisemitism that we have endured since October 7.

When we moved here, five years ago – yards from one end of Cable Street – I was fully aware that I would be living in a majority Bangladeshi Muslim area. I was not concerned. I have Muslim friends and have always believed in multiculturalism, in diversity. And besides, the primary school we chose had a wonderful, inspirational Ashkenazi Jewish headteacher known for fostering cross-community relations.

As the only Jewish child at the school – indeed, reportedly the only Jewish child ever to have gone there – our daughter was regarded as a curiosity by some of the other children. A few refused to believe she was Jewish, insisting that she must be Christian. But there were no real issues. We even took in apples and honey for her class to enjoy at Rosh Hashanah.

That all changed on October 7, 2023. My problems began with a parents’ WhatsApp group discussion over a bake sale to raise money for Palestine. I objected to the anti-Israel rhetoric in the thread, pointing out that the group was for school matters, not politics, and that some of the messages upset me. I explained that my cousin’s wife had been murdered at Kibbutz Kfar Aza on October 7. I asked for understanding.

If anything, my revelation seemed to inflame them more. For the first time I understood that some have absolutely no compassion for dead Israelis or those who mourn them. Palestine flag emojis began appearing in the WhatsApp names in the group, mirroring the flags that had sprung up on every lamppost in the area. Someone removed my admin status. Micro-aggressions, that made me feel I was no longer welcome.

Yes, I had been naive. I had not realised just how anti-Israel the tight-knit, religious local community was. I wasn’t aware that Bangladesh not only refuses to recognise Israel, but also bans its citizens from travelling there and doesn’t allow those with Israeli passports to enter. To some brought up in this culture, Zionism is evil. And now that I had revealed myself as a Zionist, I had become a non-person, a legitimate target.

The headteacher had my back. She said that if a bake sale went ahead, the proceeds had to be split equally between charities that supported both Palestinian and Israeli children. But the parents organising the sale rejected that. They said they would not allow a single penny to go to Israel – in fact, they’d rather the bake sale did not go ahead at all. I couldn’t help thinking of the biblical judgment of King Solomon. These parents chose to tear apart their metaphorical baby instead of letting it live by helping Israeli children. They cared far less about fundraising for Palestine than they did about hating Israel.

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Unsurprisingly, after the cancellation of the bake sale, the antisemitism increased.

A few parents discussed how “one parent” – clearly me – had “a lot of influence” over the headteacher. A blatant antisemitic trope. People began googling my articles online and attempting to use their content to smear me. Eventually, I wrote a message directly calling out the antisemitism, and asking for it to stop. My reward was to be immediately kicked out of the group – a group that I had, incidentally, co-founded. Afterwards, a parent contacted me, privately, to say that I was right: the group was antisemitic. But she hadn’t wanted to wade in. Everyone else stayed silent, both publicly and privately. I was on my own.

Soon, the hostility began to infect my personal social media. My television appearances about matters entirely unrelated to the Middle East were commented on by anonymous accounts, with irrelevant details that could only be known about by these parents – the fact my daughter had been late for school, for example. They were clearly watching me. By now, I was publicly campaigning against the Palestine flags and, perhaps foolishly, stickering lampposts with anti-Hamas stickers. Unbeknown to me, one of the mothers lived in a flat overlooking one of these lampposts. She secretly filmed me, put the footage on X and called on others to doxx me. As the harassment increased, I found myself on first-name terms with the reporting team at the CST.

One of the most shocking incidents occurred in a parents’ coffee morning. I had the misfortune to find myself sitting opposite three of my most vocal haters, who travelled in a pack. At one point, I took my phone out of my handbag to check my work messages. As I held it up to my face, the nastiest of these mothers screamed at me across the room: “Stop taking photos of us!” When, shocked, I proclaimed my innocence, she accused me of being a liar and said, ‘It’s the sort of thing people like YOU do.” (Of course, it was they who had taken photos of me. What is it they say, every accusation is a confession?) To his credit, the deputy head berated her, saying such behaviour would not be tolerated. The coffee mornings were suspended indefinitely.

Word spread and, worse, my daughter began to be targeted. Older boys started coming up to her in the corridors or playground, demanding to know whether she supported Israel or Palestine, as if the war were a football match. Wise beyond her years, she replied only that she supported peace. But this wasn’t enough. “Tell your dad you support Palestine,” one boy commanded, revealingly, his paternalistic upbringing blinding him to the fact that it was perhaps her Jewish mother, rather than her non-Jewish father, who might be hurt by this. After school, my daughter would recount the details of every incident. Each one only made her Jewish identity stronger.

In response, the headteacher kindly gave me her personal number and said that if my daughter was ever upset, she could call her at any time, day or night, to have a chat. It was comforting for my daughter to know that she wasn’t alone, that someone else understood and was protecting her.

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And then, suddenly and tragically, in the spring of 2024, the wonderful headteacher died. An academy trust swooped in to take over the school, changing everything from the start time to the curriculum to the decor, and one by one the lovely teachers left. All our support structures vanished.

The harassment continued. The mother who had filmed me put up signs in her window, with declarations like, “One Holocaust does not justify another.” The lamppost outside was festooned with “Boycott Israel Apartheid” stickers. If I removed them, they reappeared the following day.

Meanwhile, at school, even supply teachers and teaching assistants were getting in on the act. When one noticed my daughter staring at her Palestine flag bracelet (illegal in state schools), she asked my daughter why she didn’t support Palestine, and then demanded that she should. Another, in a PHSE lesson about dealing with racism – I kid you not – didn’t stop some of the boys chanting “Free Palestine” and “From the River to the Sea” and actually stated, “I love Palestine.” I went straight to the headteacher to complain, and the teacher denied it. Fortunately, other children backed up my daughter’s account. I was told neither of these teachers would be allowed back. That they had thought it was appropriate to behave like this at all speaks volumes about the state of education and teacher training in the UK.

But in September 2024, when I reported the red car incident to the school, I was met with indifference. “It didn’t happen on school premises,” I was told, “so there’s nothing we can do. Go to the police if you want to. If you want, you can bring your daughter at a different time from all the other parents.” I refused. Why should we, as the victims, be singled out even more?

I did go to the police. And after weeks of chasing, they finally issued the perpetrator with a verbal warning for harassment. It didn’t quite meet the threshold for a hate crime, they said, because I couldn’t prove I was being targeted for being Jewish. That felt a little like gaslighting. The CST told me I could pursue it, but I no longer had the heart. Remember, I still had to walk past this woman’s home every day, and my daughter was at the same school as one of her children. I didn’t want to make things even worse.

Throughout this period, I was in a perpetual state of anxiety. Jumpy, with frequent palpitations. If I came home alone at night, I glanced over my shoulder. But because I was outwardly defiant, and didn’t look like the cowering victim my bullies wanted me to be, they mocked my expressions of fear – both personal and for Jews in general – on social media. I was “playing the victim, like Jews always do”.

For me, the final straw wasn’t another antisemitic incident. It was when one of the women who was harassing me – the one who had screamed in the coffee morning – was elected as a parent

For me, the final straw wasn’t another antisemitic incident. It was when one of the women who was harassing me – the one who had screamed in the coffee morning – was elected as a parent governor. It seemed she was being rewarded for her behaviour, and it told me loudly and clearly that we – as Jews – did not count.

At the start of the summer term, my partner and I transferred our daughter to the local Church of England school, which is much more diverse, and where antisemitism and political symbols aren’t tolerated. She is happy and settled, the school pick-up and drop-off are stress-free, and while I’m not delighted that she can now recite the Lord’s Prayer by heart, it is a far better environment for her. It strikes me that something has gone deeply wrong in the system if Christian faith schools now protect and respect Jewish children better than secular state schools do.

But the refuge is temporary. Now we have to apply for secondary schools. Locally, we face a choice between academically poor schools with social problems or good ones, where our daughter will once again be the only Jewish child in a class of mainly Bangladeshi Muslim children. She has already said that, if she feels it’s necessary, she won’t tell anyone she’s Jewish, and that is heartbreaking to hear.

We are trying to move, but practical and financial constraints make it a tricky and potentially long process, with no idea where we’ll end up. We’re stymied by a catchment system that does not allow us to apply for decent state schools outside our current area, and we can’t afford the private sector. We’d love our daughter to go to a Jewish school, but the closest is well over an hour and two Tube journeys away – if we can even get our daughter in.

When we went to the JCoSS open day, our daughter was amazed to see how many other girls there had curly hair just like hers. For the first time, she felt she belonged. I dream of winning the lottery and buying a nice flat in north London. In the meantime, my mother has provisionally agreed that if she gets into a Jewish school, our daughter could live with her during the week, if needs be – not an ideal situation for anyone.

Since I began this, the terrible Yom Kippur murders have taken place in Manchester. Now I am wondering if it’s safe to send my daughter to a Jewish school, which might be attacked, or for her to commute with Jewish symbols on her blazer. It feels like we’re facing a Hobson’s choice.