To ask you to help with a cover story for my Jewish child

Your poor kids. Can you mix it up a bit, so ‘My mums family came from Spain & my Dad’s family is Greek but they were both born in London. No, I don’t think they speak much Spanish or Greek, and they never taught me any. All our family live in England now anyway.’

It was discussed earlier in the thread where pp were trying to find out why saying London wasn't good enough. I still have no idea what physical attribute is considered too Jewish to be a londoner. Unless it is clothing.

My own DF had a nose bigger than concorde but he was never thought to be Jewish.

SnipSnipMrBurgess · Today 17:43
Givenup2026 · Today 17:25
Normally, big nose, curly hair (tends to be darker) , and sometimes olive skin.
However, within my congregation they do come in all colours of the rainbow. My BFF is a redhead with blue eyes. There’s a couple with olive skin and straight dark hair.
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Jeepers I've curly hair and a massive nose and im as Irish as a potato. I thought these were smear tropes to use against Jewish people no?

No it doesn't. Polish are traditionally Catholic. Not Jewish.
According to the 2021 census, 71.3% of all Polish citizens adhere to the Catholic Church

I couldn’t agree more.

But in my experience many young people in London do like discussing their heritage and finding out where each other are from. They often will identify strongly with their ethnicity. I assume in the school OP is talking about, the people are not all necessarily White British for multiple generations. And that is why it is difficult to just say ‘London’ if other people are all talking about being Bangladeshi or Nigerian even if they and their parents were born in the UK.

OP, I'm so sorry your children have to face this, and that you had to spend half the thread explaining the prejudice you're subjected too for supposedly incredulous posters.

Your point 1 does chime in with my experience of schools in London despite what I said up thread - there are ways and ways of asking the question of course.

They do all talk about where they’re “from” but there’s a way of asking the question that would make any of them realise the person didn’t mean well, if that makes sense.

It’s horrendous that those things were said to your son.

I like this approach. There are lots of Scots and Cornish who say they have a touch of the Spanish Armada.

Is this a joke? The part about large noses?

Could you not have made your point without resorting to physical profiling ?

Could you say somewhere like a grandparent is from Spain or Greece? Olive skin and larger noses are not unusual in either place.

I get you (and many others here). We are a part-Jewish family and although not religious, we have always celebrated Jewish (and Christian) holidays. We make a point to have a nice Friday night dinner, often with challah. My nearly 7-yo came home a few weeks ago telling me that they'd talked about heritage in class and he'd told his teacher and class that he was Jewish. My first thought was fright. It's horrible, but it doesn't feel safe to be Jewish. How do you explain to your child that you should celebrate your culture but just not talk about it too openly?

Rather than a specific cover story, could they just say something vague like, oh, we're not sure really. And by the way I'm so sorry you're feeling like you need a cover story at all.

I don't know what to say, its awful. I am not technically Jewish as my paternal grandfather was my only relative who was Jewish and I never even met him but I have never denied my Jewish heritage and if people ask me "are you Jewish" I explain my connection and hopefully my solidarity with Jewish people.

In the past few years I have lost very close friends just because of my Jewish heritage as if I am some kind of monster. I have head that for children and young people its become intolerable and its so, so sad and makes me so angry. I have no answers only sympathy and sadness.

I know there are different branches of Jewish heritage - if you are Ashkenazi, you can easily pass for Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, etc.

This thread makes me so sad. No one should experience this or feel they have to lie to be safe. Nevertheless, I understand your predicament. I’m going to make some guesses that may be wrong and assume their appearance, while typical of their ancestry, might also be typical in the eastern Mediterranean. Depending on your preference, you could then choose a country you have no connection to as a cover story: Lebanon, Cyprus, even Malta. Somewhere with Sephardic or ancient Jewish communities perhaps.

a couple of things are converging here that not everyone seems to be aware of :

1. young people in London have an interest in heritage precisely because London is so diverse. They will discuss their backgrounds - as it forms part of their identity. So “I’m from London” just won’t cut it as a response to the question because that’s true of all of them - they’re asking about the generational heritage.
2. anti semitism is on the rise. My son shared his heritage in Y7 to new people. He got told to go to a concentration camp, and kids played music which had Hitler’s voice on the track, etc. the school were blindsided by it. I think it predated Oct 7 and actually people like Kanye have had a big effect and obviously the proud boy’s type internet content.

my youngest is 8 and they’re all proudly chatting about their heritage now - my mums from Jamaica, my dad is French, I’m half Italian etc. it’s innocent at this age and very much encouraged in school.

for the first time ever, and following my older sons experiences, I considered telling my 8 year old to hide his heritage…

Nobody 'looks British', it's not a race.
If your child is being abused at school, keep on at the teachers and if necessary inform the police if there is hate speech. That is what needs to change. Creating a 'cover story' isn't going to help.

To add: I'm from Eastern Europe, lived here for 25 years, but if someone annoys me by saying "where are you from" I just say "Hackney". Love the look on their faces. So far, only one person was brave enough to probe further - but did not get far anyway.

Can't they say England, as that's where they are now? Or is their accent / English obviously not "local"? I'm so sorry op, this isn't something anyone should have to do in this country, as an adult or a child. The fact this anti semitism is coming from KIDS makes you wonder what they hear at home and so often. If you told my 10 year old you came from an Eastern European country he'd just say "cool". It wouldn't occur to him to associate it with a religion let alone negatively

This is ridiculous as London is full of all sort of people, and "British" is definitely not something that can be defined, at least in London.

If by "identifiable" you man they dress in the Orthodox way (like the fashion from the last century Eastern Europe) than I would say there isn't much you can do, it is clearly identifiable no matter where you say you are from. Tone down the clothes a bit, as long as you religion permits?

I think this is a good idea, Palestinian people are having to flee from a genocide, it would make sense and explain the relocation.