I’m totally British, in my own distinct fashion - The Jewish Chronicle

As the fireworks illuminated the sky over the Atlantic Ocean, revellers dressed in Stars and Stripes outfits clinked glasses and cheered. This was Fourth of July in the heart of liberal America, and despite a near-universal dislike of the current president, national pride was not in doubt.

In Britain, we tend to be less earnest in our shows of fealty; sarcasm and a dislike for public displays of emotion being some of our main collective traits. Equally, we rarely talk about what being British means (outside the Brexit debate, anyway) or why it’s so valuable. And for the most part, I think that’s another key British attribute; taking for granted the advantages that come with this identity.

But with accusations of divided loyalty flying around the ever-worsening swamp of social media in relation to the Jewish community, and against what feels like a growing current of intolerance and “them vs. us” sentiment, I’ve certainly been thinking about it.

Here’s what I know. My Britishness is a distinct version. For all that I grew up learning about Henry VIII or Queen Victoria, or being taught to admire Shakespeare, that’s not really my heritage. The story, from Hastings to Empire and the present day, isn’t mine to tell.

My family, like yours probably, were immigrants; they moved not from villages to sooty cities, but from unpronounceable Eastern European shtetls to new promised lands. I can’t really relate to a green and pleasant country, having spent most of my life within the M25.

Yet the fact that my episode of Who Do You Think You Are ? would be unlikely to turn up any relatives present at the signing of the Magna Carta doesn’t make me any less British. Or any less proud of being so.

I am profoundly loyal to Queen and country and love many of the clichéd aspects of this identity as well as those impossible-to-define “British values”, which to me comprise tolerance, respect, humility and an unparalleled ability to moan about the weather.

At the same time, my Jewishness sits at the heart of who I am. It’s the thing that would be consistent wherever and whenever I lived. It indelibly shapes my relationship with the world and the people in it.

And on occasion, it sets me apart. I pray in a different language, am subject to different dietary restrictions, my wedding involved a ketubah not readings and vows. I do things that are normal to me — avoid bread for a week, say — but that raise questions with my non-Jewish peers.

I’ve never seen those differences as problematic. After all, everyone has multiple facets to their identity. As well as being British and Jewish, I’m a Londoner, a feminist, an Arsenal fan. Allegiance to all my different tribes makes me, well, me.

Crucially, I’ve never seen it as a zero-sum game. I’ve never felt my Jewishness was in competition with my Britishness. Largely, I still don’t. But there has been an ugliness in the air in recent months, even years; people scoring points by engaging in the kind of cheap identity politics I hoped fell out of fashion with avocado bathrooms.

And in a political climate that discourages consensus, it has become distressingly clear that not everyone sees it that way. That for some, creeping beyond the fringes, there is at very least a question mark over whether I — and others with identities more complex than simply “White, British” — belong.

The divided loyalty charge against Jews is age-old, and one I’m saddened we must still reject. But it’s also one I’m ready to fight.

Because whatever the trolls say, dual identity does not mean split loyalty. Yes, my Jewishness gives me and many Jews a connection with the Jewish state (with its existence and its necessity, rather than its current leadership), one deepened by family links, knowledge of history and time spent there. Yet for all that my Jewishness leads to my Zionism, it doesn’t in any way negate my Britishness.

Whatever happens — and I don’t subscribe to the scaremongering laid out in recent JC columns, although I think the community’s response to the Labour leadership’s failings has been eminently justified — I’m not giving up on my British identity. I’m not giving up on the country I love and the values I believe are critical to it.

For the sake of a community that has a long and storied history here, I hope I am not alone. And I hope this country isn’t ready to give up on us either.

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