To think there are very few allies against Anti-Semitism?

Anyone who is not aware of this is really not following the news --> https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/crl0p2xk4w3o

I'm still appalled by the what Israel is doing Gaza, war crimes, killing of innocent women and children, etc.

No, it isn’t. But it’s predominantly the left, just by numbers alone. There are a great many ‘pro-Pal’ rank antisemites but very many fewer loathsome EDL types.

Once you add in the relative influence of the antisemite left, the left’s responsibility for promoting Jew-hatred is overwhelming.

But not everyone who is Jewish ‘looks Jewish’. The poster asked the question and you have now explained. I’m not sure why you would find that offensive.

Criticism of a state should have nothing to do with whether it is the home of a particular group or whether they might have suffered prejudice in the past. It’s literally criticism of their actions. But I do know people who were frightened of saying they were Russian in case it opened them up to abuse.

If they are orthodox the men/boys might be wearing a kippah or women might be wearing a wig or a hat.

I agree with your basic premise @MyDearEagle. But it is not just the left. Its everyone horrified by what Netenyahu's government is doing in Gaza.

I agree with this. Not saying OP wasn’t a victim of antisemitism but the general public ignoring her and her children is probably from fear of being attacked themselves rather than them being antisemitic (I think - I wasn’t there obviously). A friend of mine (ethnic minority but not Jewish) was stabbed years ago during rush hour and didn’t receive help until the perpetrator had fled.

@TaupeLemur

These two things are both true:

(A) Israel can be quick to deflect legitimate criticism as antisemetic.

(B) antisemetic language and attitudes are rampant among the British left, and this is widely denied.

(B)'s prevelance makes it hard to tackle (A).

And @OP. Sorry this is becoming yet another Israel/Palestine thread but it feels unavoidable. For what it's worth: I have inadvertently participated in anti-semtism in the past, thinking I was participating in social justice. I was ignorant and I apologize. It wasn't until Corbyn that I started to realize the issue and, even then, its taken me many years to get to the point where I feel significantly knowledgeable and have mustered significant courage to challenge anti-semitism among my (otherwise) politically-like minded friends.

I hear your experience, I am trying to do the work, and I'm sorry that it took me so long.

Yes I do agree with that actually. I fully agree that some people are using it as an excuse to display their antisemitism.

I grew up not really understanding the notion of antisemitism. To my knowledge I didn’t really know any Jews and I found it so strange the level of hatred Nazi Germany had expressed towards them. When I was at university I had a friend and I went on a night out with her and she suddenly started raging about how she despised a group of people on our course because they were Jews and thought they were better than everyone else. She claimed that during the first term they’d asked her her surname and looked at her in disgust when it wasn’t a Jewish one. Whereas to me I hadn’t even realised or thought about the fact that they were Jews (partly due to my ignorance of traditional Jewish names etc). I’d never had the impression that they thought they were better than anyone but I remember how vitriolic that girl was and it really scared me. We stopped being friends.

I also experienced someone saying they were on a train with some ultra Orthodox Jews in traditional dress and that it gave her the rage. Literally them existing gave her the rage because she said their clothes were stupid.

So i definitely believe it exists. But I also support people’s right to critique a corrupt government. Just as I’d never take offence at someone criticising the UK government and I don’t imagine most Americans get angry about Trump being criticised.

I hate all racism. I'm just curious because I have never knowingly seen a Jewish person out and about so I'm just wondering what I'm not seeing

I agree with the posters saying ‘antisemitism’ is being overused at the moment - mainly by supporters of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. Criticising the brutal actions of the Israel government is not anti semitic - just human.
all discrimination whether it’s racist or homophobic or actual antisemitism is obvs not okay, but I’m not sure most people would step in to help strangers unless it was a really serious situation whichever bigotry was on display.
just report and keep reporting. There not much else to be done after the fact unfortunately

Russia is not the sole homeland of an ethnic group. An ethnic group that had suffered the Holocaust, a real genocide.

Not even mildly comparable.

I agree that criticism of Israel does not equate to antisemitism.

People could (and should) validly criticise many an action over the Israeli government, particularly in the present moment.

But my experience is that many self-professed anti-racists do not restrict their criticism to the Israeli government but, instead, routinely slur Jews as a whole, call for Israel's destruction, and/or casually adopt the rhetoric of genocide and ethnic cleansing. Then they do the "you cant say nuffin anymore" bit, that they usually object to in other contexts.

Without more details of the incident no-one can really say if YABU or not or if people should have intervened. I have seen homophobic abuse in public and no-one stepped forward to do/say anything. And I know that friends have experienced racist abuse and no-one intervened.
People
are in their own worlds a lot of the time, esp. in big cities or they don’t want to get involved for fear of their own safety. Just the way it is.

I agree to an extent but I know Russians who felt targeted and prejudiced against when people were displaying Ukrainian flags and expressing support for Ukraine. There was a lot of prejudice against Russians at the time. I do think some use the Palestinian flag as an excuse to be antisemitic but Israel’s actions are terrible so of course people will show solidarity, just as they have done with other atrocities.

How did they know you were Jewish?

It depends. There doesn’t seem to be an agreed upon definition for anti semitism but I am very sorry, criticism of Israel (without saying that all Jews are responsible for Israel or such nonsense) is very much not antisemitism. It’s no different criticising Israel to criticising Russia or China or Afghanistan. And there are some people who do view that as antisemitic.

In terms of general prejudice against Jews then yes that is racist and it is wrong. So are things like downplaying the Holocaust, holding all Jews responsible for Israel and conspiracy theories about Jews.

I would not agree that being Jewish is more dangerous than any other minority in this country. That is not borne out by crime statistics or general attitudes. There is more hatred towards other groups.

What happened to the OP on the tube was wrong and I hope she complains and reports to the police.

I'm sorry this happened to you, it's disgusting. Unfortunately there are some very stupid and ignorant people around. As pp said, in a big city like London, people tend to look the other way. In a smaller town like I live in, I can't see it being ignored. I would certainly not stand by and say nothing.

British Left wing people generally don't.

I do genuinely think it arose by accident rather than malice, but when British left wing people use the word "Zionist" they mean only a relatively small cohort of Zionists - those who support the expansion of Israel's borders. I don't think most of them realize that, when they (for example) that "Zionists are evil", they are attacking the majority of Jews and arguably are expressing support for ethnic cleansing.

Racism against other minorities neither excuses nor justifies antisemitism. It’s all wrong.

The problem across society, though, is that antisemitism is felt as ‘not really racism’. The Palestinian flag wavers promote that obnoxious view. And there are a lot more bigoted flag wavers than outright skinhead racists, all of them too quick to deny their prejudices.

I don't think your experience is unique to anti-Semitism.

People ignore all sorts of horrible things on the streets every day. Muggings, racism, kids getting verbally abused by their parents. People don't want to get involved. We've all heard horror stories of wannabee heroes who step in and then are met with horrific consequences.

It's easy to say that you'd step in if you saw XYZ when posting from the comfort of your own home. But out on the street when a thug is being abusive? Not so easy to do in reality.

Not sure why you're making this about anti-Semitism. It's a society in general thing.