A tsunami of bad news has assailed Jews in Britain since October 7, 2023. Since then, it’s all gone from bad to worse to even worse to – somehow – even worse, with swells in awfulness around each anniversary of that awful day.
Even in the context of a vicious surge in antisemitism from the Islamo-leftist alliance, pouring out of extremist mosques and alive and frightening on the masked and Hamas-glorifying streets, a new and hideous low was hit with the Green Party’s Zionism = Racism motion.
But for three years now the hate has been surging through institutions including the NHS and universities, and, globally as well as domestically, the arts. Last month, the Venice film festival convulsed with pleasure over the perverse “documentary” Naza, a so-called dissection of what its Israeli film-makers assert is Israel’s targeting of civilians in Gaza.
And then there are the quieter manifestations of the turn against Jews. Those who suddenly aren’t invited to literary festivals, for instance. I have wondered more than once if my total absence from the festival circuit this year, to talk about my widely-reviewed, certainly “provocative” book Good Slut, published in March by Little Brown, could be to do with my public Zionist-Judaism. Writers far more famous than me have found their invites lost in the post.
Jews tainted by Zionism have been booted out of writers’ groups or comedy troupes. Jewish writers, mysteriously, suddenly can’t find mainstream publishers. Even Booker Prize winner Howard Jacobson’s furious latest book Howl, published in the UK by Jonathan Cape in March, could not find an American publisher. Nobody wanted to go near that old bushy-bearded Zionist, titan of letters or no.
That is, until a new imprint, one of a crop of new pro-Jewish agencies and publishing outfits called Meg Keene Books, an imprint of Wicked Son, agreed to take it on for publication in 2027.
Which brings me to the silver lining in all this. First, when it comes to cultural boycotts and being frozen out, the Jews are fighting back. The arrival of the likes of Meg Keene Books, which publishes “bold, beautifully written Jewish and Israeli fiction”, is one example.
Another is High Line, the new publishing enterprise of JK Rowling’s famous literary agent and all-round mensch Neil Blair. It’s got two imprints, Antidote, for generally heterodox fare, and Odessa Editions, billed as “the new global home for Jewish and Israeli fiction and non-fiction”.
Some worry this is a sad development because it smacks of Jews re-entering a ghetto, but I find it hard to take this view, given the realities of the moment.
Including this one: unlike in the past, there are prominent non-Jewish members of the great and the good, from academics to politicians to actors, novelists and musicians, who publicly condemn the tsunami of antisemitism and stand with us. At the High Line launch I saw everyone from thriller-writer Lee Child to philosopher and writer Kathleen Stock joining in with our homegrown royalty including Simon Schama and Maureen Lipman. The room was packed with well-wishers and agents.
But the real silver lining goes beyond glitzy parties and glamorous arts organisations. When the Zionism is Racism motion passed, there was an outraged response from non-Jewish British people, including some in the Labour Party, which was surprising because, well, where did Labour think things were going, thanks in part to their words and actions?
Still, it was something. And so, from the depths of disgust, many of us suddenly felt great cheer to read posts like this one from ex-army man, public military analyst and JC writer Andrew Fox: “Jewish friends, it is insane that antisemitism is now officially mainstream in one of our political parties. All I can promise is that they have to go through me and many others first. If these Nazis gain power, I’ll physically put myself between them and you, and I’ll smile.”
Soon after, a trend on X emerged whereby non-Jews posted: “I am [insert race/ nationality] and I am a Zionist.” Glorious to see!
And as Green Party members and MPs have left the party in disgust at the motion, we were reminded of the pique of the Englishman whose sense of fair play has finally been insulted one too far.
“I don’t feel there’s any point in staying,” says Daniel Potter, a Suffolk councillor who defected to the Tories over the vote on Zionism. He found the proposal of a single democratic Palestinian state “in all of historic Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital” intolerable. “There are going to be a lot of Green members up in arms about this, myself included,” he told The Times. “The Green Party as a whole have got serious questions to ask themselves. I don’t want to be a part of those questions. I’d rather move on now.”
And in the worst and loneliest of seasons we find that there is support from the most unlikely of places. While myriad Jewish-American actors, from Seth Rogen to Hacks’ Hannah Einbinder to Ilana Glazer to Adam Brody end up coughing up their allegiance to the antizionist mob, sexpot superstar Sydney Sweeney is said to be considering conversion to Judaism for the sake of her relationship with businessman Scooter Braun. Nick Cave is a supporter. We’ve had the likes of Boy George stake it all on standing up for what is right, and we’ve got the likes of Nicki Minaj posting good wishes on the High Holy Days.
There aren’t a huge number of other big names, admittedly, at least not since the immediate aftermath of October 7. But as the last few weeks have made clear, we do have allies, we are not alone, and the haters will have to fight through a small but sturdy wall of the righteous.
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