It can happen here, nobody can be sure that it won’t.
One day my phone will ring or I’ll glance at the news only to find out the almost inevitable has happened: an attack on a synagogue, or a Jewish community centre, or the offices of a Jewish organisation – here, in my home, Britain.
Despite the UK’s sophisticated security infrastructure, its close contacts with police and government and levels of antisemitism lower than in many European countries, it only takes a few determined extremists to take Jewish lives as has happened in France and now Denmark.
I work in the Jewish community, from visible and identifiably Jewish buildings. My kids attend Jewish schools. I go to synagogue and from time to time take my turn on security duty, just like Dan Uzan, who was murdered in Copenhagen. I also visit the Copenhagen Jewish community most years, where my wife occasionally serves as visiting rabbi in the reform synagogue.
So not only do I feel the pain of Danish Jews, I am also aware that if and when the UK Jewish community is attacked, I will feel that pain too, regardless of whether I or my loved ones are physically hurt.
But when and if we are attacked, what will make the pain worse will be the cacophony of reactions from individuals and groups outside the community attempting to corral British Jews like me into whatever agenda they are peddling.
If and when it happens, I will be told to move to Israel, just as Benjamin Netanyahu and others of his ilk suggested following the Copenhagen and Paris attacks.
Never mind that this is my home, never mind that calls to leave weaken the fight against antisemitism (why help to protect diaspora Jews if they are all going?), never mind that Israel is hardly a safe place to be Jewish or anything else. And maybe I’ll receive anxious calls from American relatives and friends, urging my family and me to move to the country that made school shootings and everyday violence commonplace.
If and when it happens, I will be told that it is the 1930s again, never mind the obscenity of the comparison and the fact that European governments, including the British, are starting to make strenuous efforts to support their Jews.
If and when it happens, I will be told that supporting the Palestinians is the same as supporting those who seek to kill us.
If and when it happens, rightwing xenophobic groups will reach out to Jews, attempting to incorporate us into their anti-Muslim agenda, and we will be used by those who seek to deny that Islamophobia exists.
And it won’t just be from the right.
If and when it happens, sections of the left will tell me that it would all be OK if only Jews distanced themselves from Israel. I will be told that, because Muslims suffer worse discrimination than Jews and because Jews are mostly privileged, antisemitism is trivial. I will be told that Jewish concerns about antisemitism are simply disingenuous attempts to deny Jewish responsibility for Palestinian suffering.
I dread this cacophony of self-serving opinions. They won’t help me and they won’t help the British Jewish community.
If and when it happens, Jews like me will need compassion, sympathy and support. But perhaps most of all, we will need the dignity and integrity of our community to be maintained. We will need to be listened to, even when what we express is not easy to hear.
That isn’t to say, of course, that we will speak with one voice. British Jews are divided and often fractious. All the opinions I cited previously will be expressed by British Jews, as well as by outsiders.
But that’s the point: if and when it happens it will be hard enough for British Jews to deal with our own differences and mutual recriminations. Internal tensions are exacerbated when outsiders exploit Jews who share their opinions.
Just as pro-Palestinian Jews are sometimes used by pro-Palestinian activists as a way of avoiding taking antisemitism seriously, so rightwing Jews are used by Islamophobes to justify their own beliefs.
I don’t speak for the British Jewish community. This article is one British Jew’s view. What I do know is that those who would murder us in Paris and Copenhagen – or in London – do not make distinctions between Jews. An attack on one part of the community will be an attack on us all. If we are united in that vulnerability – and we may not like being lumped in together – then the response has to at least try to preserve that uncomfortable unity.
So if and when it happens, I hope that those who are not British Jews will react in ways that preserve our dignity and coherence as a group and do not simply exploit and exacerbate our divisions. If you don’t support the indiscriminate murder of Jews, you should also support our survival as a community in Britain.
