This Sunday the annual remembrance parade organised by the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women (AJEX) will take place at the Cenotaph in London. But given that Jewish veterans and representatives of the Armed Forces will already have marched at the November 8 National Service of Remembrance in Whitehall, is a separate event really necessary?
Surely, an additional parade can only be divisive? Gifting our detractors – already agitating at the touchline – the chance to blaze that the Jews believe themselves to be above a collective expression of commemoration and gratitude, treating it instead as the warm-up act for their own show.
It’s an inference I picked up when taking part in a TV debate the other week. Although the subject of our discussion was appropriation of the poppy by political causes, a caller to the programme gatecrashed the agenda with some “Jews news” of their own. Addressing me specifically, the voice at the end of the line declared that “the Jewish Society of Ex-Servicemen [sic] have a different date for Remembrance. They don’t have it on the 11th of November; they have it on the 18th.”
Of course, this, as we know, is entirely incorrect: Jews proudly march on Remembrance Sunday with participants from many faiths, backgrounds and communities. But accuracy is an inconvenience to our critics and where Jews are concerned, the devil is never interested in the detail. Indeed, even when the presenter of the programme tried to steer the discussion back to the poppy, the caller determinedly pivoted again to his theme. Jewish remembrance, he proclaimed, was “not on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month”. Despite correcting him on all his points, it simply didn’t land.
So with this level of contempt and mistrust towards our community – even for those who bravely defended this country – is it helpful or even wise to have a separate “Jewish” parade?
The answer is not only yes. But now, more so than ever. Not only as a powerful act of remembrance for those who made the ultimate sacrifice (more than 120,000 Jewish men and women served in the British Armed Forces during the two world wars alone). But also, as an unflinching statement of the positive duality that lies at the heart of the UK Jewish community. Where nationality and faith are mutually inclusive.
While Islamists and elements of the hard left may take a corrosive view of British tradition, we remain firmly committed in equal parts to both our British and our Jewish identities. A patriotic sentiment which, in fact, is captured in the theme of this year’s AJEX event: “British, Jewish, Proud.”
This is no exercise in arrogance or self-satisfied back-patting. Rather the Jewish parade semaphores to the world that we stand shoulder to shoulder with those who respect the values of this country and will fight together for freedom and decency.
It`s a message that this year has added potency since the ceremony on Sunday will also mark 90 years since the Battle of Cable Street, when thousands of Jewish and Irish East End residents blocked Sir Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists from marching through the heart of London’s Jewish community.
The mobilisation in 1936 of local Jews, along with trade unionists, socialists, communists and dockers, to block the path of the Blackshirts, was an allegory for cross-community resistance to antisemitism and fascism. It was a reminder that, in every generation and in every major conflict, Jews willingly stand alongside their fellow Britons in acts of loyalty and courage, to fight for the soul of the country they love.
It’s worth adding to those who are so ready to weaponise the AJEX parade that the ceremony itself was partially established to counter the antisemitic view that Jews hadn’t played their part in defending this country.
Indeed, its origins are rooted in the very heart of the British establishment, since it was King George V, with the support of Queen Mary, who granted permission for a parade recognising the contribution of Jewish servicemen and women to the defence of Britain. The King understood the importance of publicly acknowledging that British Jews had done their duty to their country – and in significant numbers. During the First World War, around 50,000 Jews from a community of just 300,000 enlisted in the British armed forces to fight for “King and Country” (as many as 90 per cent of young Anglo-Jewish men of military age served).
It is also worth remembering, particularly given the increasingly toxic rhetoric surrounding immigration to the UK today, that among those who served in the First World War were Jews who had come to Britain to escape antisemitism. They were proud to fight for their adopted country to demonstrate their gratitude for the refuge and home they had found here. For this reason my own grandfather, having fled persecution in Ukraine at the turn of the century, drafted without hesitation and served as a stretcher-bearer.
All of which conspires to reinforce why Sunday’s AJEX parade must endure as a vital date in the calendar. The Jewish story of active service is woven into the history of the UK through generations of sacrifice. Those who seek to challenge or rewrite that history are cowards whose service record to this country amounts to nothing more than vapid, armchair militancy.
Although, should these same people, as UK residents, ever need defending, British Jews would be ready to answer the call. As we always have.
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