I was invited
this week to be part of a panel discussion in my synagogue on the topic of “What
Does It Mean To Be A British Jew in 2018?”
Other members
of the panel took the opportunity in their allocated five minutes to explore
this theme from a variety of perspectives: one portrayed the Jewish community
in the UK as “riddled by fear and anxiety”, assailed by “never-ending hostility”,
and suffering the threat of diminishing
numbers and a “crisis of meaning” in relation to their Jewish identity. Another
panellist used the occasion to list the multiple challenges the community faced
- internally, financially and externally – and culminated his observations with a denigration
of any Jew who remained within the “anti-Semitic Labour party” led by that
renowned “anti-Semite” Jeremy Corbyn. And
so on.
I took a
different approach to this question. What I said was the following:
“To me, being a British Jew in 2018 means
that I’m concerned that in England and Wales on an average day there are 1400
sexual assaults on women; 25 hate crimes committed against gay and transgender
people; 6 attacks on Muslims because of their religion; and between one and two
reported incidents each day against Jews.
It means I’m concerned about: the
dire consequences of Brexit for the social
fabric of this country; I’m concerned about the 4.1 million children in the UK already
living in relative poverty – that’s 30% of all children in the country – as well
as the 5000 people sleeping rough every night: I’m concerned about the impact
of bad housing on health, and the growing inequality in this country which
leads to multiple forms of deprivation; and as a British Jew I’m concerned
about the fractured nature of the social contract in this country, and the
generation who will probably never own their own homes.
To be a British Jew in 2018 means I’m
concerned about melting ice caps; immigrants left to die at sea, and that the
world’s worst famine in a hundred years is about to descend on Yemen – up to 10
million are at extreme risk.
It means I’m concerned that there are
fascists in power in Hungary, there’s been a significant rise of the far-right
in Germany and Italy and the Czech Republic and France; and there’s more and
more evidence of the proto-fascist leanings of some members of the Knesset and
the legislation they have enacted, including the victimisation of NGOs working
for civil rights and social justice within Israel.
It means I’m concerned about the
durability of modern democracy in Europe over the next decade, upon which all
of us depend. This is what it means to me to be
British Jew in 2018.
And it means something else too. It
means having a dual focus: 1) looking with Jewish eyes thousands of years old
at the long arc of history and the ways in which that ancient Jewish vision –
articulated at Sinai and by the prophets – of a world in which justice and
social responsibility defines the purpose of our being - it’s the sole
justification of our continued existence, to be and bring a blessing to
humanity – it means keeping one eye fixed on that.
While at the same time – dual focus –
it means: 2) keeping attentive to the questions: What is possible now? Where is
holiness waiting to be enacted now? What is our responsibility today?
And keeping that dual focus means,
lastly, resisting Jewish voices that focus relentlessly on the past – and, in
particular, what has happened to us, our Jewish suffering; resisting voices
haunted by, in thrall to, Jewish victimhood.
It means resisting backing into the
future, walking backwards with eyes glued to what has already happened, whether
it is in ghettoes or pogroms or Germany in the 1930s. That backward-looking
orientation is a hopeless stance. Literally. It’s actually the abandonment of
the Judaic vision of hopefulness, the vision of us having a religious and
spiritual purpose.
And I refuse - intellectually,
emotionally, spiritually - to submit to
that backward-oriented anti-vision.
That’s me, being British and Jewish,
2018”
Perhaps
needless to say, not everyone in the audience was sympathetic to my remarks.
But perhaps my favourite response was from a guest who said that he’d felt his
hackles rise as I spoke, and that I was “living in a dream world”. Yes, I
thought, someone has to do that. Someone has to keep alive the dream, the vision,
of what it means to be Jewish, what the inner core of our being-in-the-world is
all about. That’s what I thought - so that’s what I said.
I’m never
sure how useful these kind of events are. At their worst, they are angry and
polarising; there’s a breakdown of any meaningful communication, with people
talking across each other - or bombarding each other - from within their own silos. At their best, they can
offer new perspectives, or at least a small space for reflection, a space to
hold up to the light our own precious opinions, attitudes and views, and see
their flaws and limitations as well as their strengths. In an increasingly fractured
and fractious world, we need such spaces for reflection, as many as we can
find.
