What I have learned about antisemitism from Celebrity Traitors

For the record, having read Church’s blog post about her River and Sea performance, I genuinely believe she doesn’t think she is either antisemitic or anti-Zionist. In her blog post, for example, she explains that contrary to popular understanding, River and Sea is about equal rights across the West Bank and Gaza. She isn’t to know that this explanation has been retro-fitted on a chant that obviously means what it says. Perhaps she also doesn’t realise that equal rights and rainbow lanyards are not a big thing in Gaza.

Having been cheered up no end by this new perspective on antisemitism on BBC1, I switched over to Netflix to watch the recently released second season of Jewish TV hit Nobody Wants This. For those who have standards and therefore won’t have seen this, it’s a rom-com about a rabbi who falls in love with a girl who isn’t Jewish. This was a big mistake. Not the falling in love – although that is clearly complicated – but me watching. Of course, it’s written by Jewish people so it’s not antisemitic, but it is totally “cringe”, as my kids would say.

I ended up watching it through gritted teeth and furrowed eyebrows, so it’s totally ageing too. The question is, who thought it was a good idea to write a series about a rabbi being overlooked for a job as head rabbi because his girlfriend isn’t Jewish? Is this something we really need to make a Netflix series about? One can only imagine that millions upon millions of viewers (the first series attracted about 57 million views) have never met a Jew in their lives before. So this series is their initiation.

And what a ghastly initiation it is. Firstly there’s the Machiavellian mother, who is meant to represent the Jewish tiger mum, but is all roar and no warmth. She has to be TV’s least loveable character, closely followed by the Jewish sister-in-law – also Machiavellian and hideously uptight. Even the other rabbis are cut-throat, disingenuous and competitive. Don’t waste your time.

Thankfully, the UK Jewish Film Festival, which launched last week, has some better opportunities for heimishe screen moments, including Scarlett Johansson’s directorial debut, Eleanor the Great.

But in truth, right now, there are other stories occupying our minds that are better than anything a TV producer could dream up – the returned hostages slowly coming back to life. They may not be on TV or Netflix but the clips that have flooded my Instagram feed over the last month have been life-affirming vignettes of joy, love and resilience – stories to feed the soul.

One clip that stuck with me last week was of recently released Alon Ohel playing the piano with the cast of an Israeli TV show. Despite one eye being obscured by a patch, he played David Brozer’s Mitachat Lashamayim (“Under the Sky”) to perfection.

I was reminded of a small gathering I went to last year when Alon’s brother Ronen and mother Idit were in London desperately campaigning for his release. His brother, also a musician, played a ballad on the guitar, leaving not a dry eye in the house.

Had you asked me then if this composed mother and sweet boy would ever see their son and brother again, I would have felt doubtful. I have since had that song Neged Haruach (“Against the Wind”) on my playlist, and over the past year thought of Alon and Idit and Ronen frequently, always with a heavy heart.

So to see his fingers flying over the keyboard, so very much alive, was wonderfully uplifting. (If you have read former hostage Eli Sharabi’s book, which is well worth it, you’ll recognise Alon as the young man who was left in captivity after Eli’s release.)

Of course, many stories are inter-weaved with grief, but it’s the joyful moments that are captured on camera. Released hostage Eliya Cohen, proposing to his fiancée, Nova survivor Ziv Abud, on what looks like the terrace of the Daniel Hotel in Herzliya. Matan Nagrest getting a call from singer Omer Adam after his release. And so many beautiful reunions – parents seeing their children come back to life, fathers with kids they haven’t seen for two life-changing years, so many dreams come true. For once, this autumn, real life eclipses art.

Naomi Greenaway is the deputy head of long-read features at the Telegraph