Jewish people have to take security very seriously in schools here.

[WhereAreTheTrueGreens]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c623d7z1rxg5o

Antisemitism here in the UK is appalling.

I was once a 'Grren' no more due to the hatred Antisemitism in the party.

They need to do this in Scotland too but our government are absolute melts who will not do anything about it. Some of the Scottish Greens are permitted to wear their Palestinian scarfs etc in Parliament, despite apparently political slogans or any activist slogans not being allowed. The Scottish Green party are just as mental as the English one - I loathe them all and cannot believe I used to vote for both them and the SNP! No more...

Also I hope that people keep speaking up about this, anti Semitism has no place in modern society.

Oct 7th was a turning point for me. The next day, people wearing Palestinian flags, with faces painted, waving banners....celebrating.
Celebrating the rape, murder and kidnapping of innocent people, including babies and the elderly. Then the first march was organised. It happened straight away. It was organised, and I was absolutely sickened.

For me too. I was still processing what had happened I felt ill and I hadn't even watched the videos yet and even to this day I struggle. I expected immediate condemnation from our government and the BBC and then immediate support and action but then suddenly it was all flag waving and celebration for Hamas. I knew it then it had clearly been planned and organised. There's a lot of money getting poured into this, that much is clear.

Well they would be a joke if they weren't so dangerous. The term 'useful idiots' is apt here. The Greens are being piggybacked by the far left and islamists but they are blind to how they're being manipulated. They keep on feeding the crocodile hoping it eats them last. They may well be last, but they will be eaten.

Interesting question. I’m Jewish but not religious and also don’t have children. My brother is religious and his kids go to Jewish schools. Going to a Jewish school means things like having the Jewish holy days off school and being able to easily keep the sabbath - religious Jews don’t do any work or study after sundown on Friday which is pretty hard to manage in a mainstream school.

My brother went to a Jewish school, I didn’t and to be honest I wish I had on reflection.

I have grown up with security being very normal. I remember the first time my non-Jewish husband came to an event at the synagogue and I had to explain about the metal detectors and such. I remember having to explain to friends that you cannot just walk into a synagogue like you can a church. I remember the shock on my university friends’ faces when they learned antisemitism was not a thing of the past.

I agree, I can't believe what's happened to them.

This has reminded me that we recently went through my late Nans jewellery, including a beautiful Star of David necklace. We aren’t Jewish, but her cousin had been given it in Paris during WWII by a Jewish woman he helped, and gave it to her as his favourite cousin.

I asked whether I could have it, as I love the story and am apparently the spitting image of that cousin, and my mum refused as she thought it was unsafe for me to wear a Jewish symbol. She said she’d think about it again ‘when things improve’.

Challenge antisemitism when you see it.

On MN and elsewhere, if it feels safe to do so.

YANBU @WhereAreTheTrueGreens Jewish people do have to take security in schools very seriously here. And it’s so wrong that antisemitism is thriving in a liberal democracy.

Ha. Ha.

I hope that “joke” got reported & deleted.

No, because it's not antisemitic. It's pointing out that it doesn't matter if you're atheist, if you're Jewish, you're a target.
It's just demonstrating that it's not about religion. Being atheist doesn't protect Jews.

How sad that happened. It's a story of goodness, yet we still have evil.

Why does it make a difference? Why does it even matter? Anyway, that wasn’t my point.

Do you not hear? The emblem that represents Jews is central to the flag of Israel. Regardless of whether a Jewish person supports Israel, the Star of David represents both the Jewish people and the Jewish state. Therefore racists and ignorant people assume that anybody wearing a Star of David is declaring alegiance to Israel.

Yeah, I suppose unfortunately that's always going to be a risk then if the flag of Israel represents every Jewish person all over the world no matter their thoughts/feelings/connections to Israel. People will start to assume that people are aligned with the country whose flag represents them. Like if someone said that the English flag represents them you would assume that they are aligned with England.

I think Jewish people have a lot more to be worried about than what bigots presume.

Oh for goodness' sake!

It's not about who the flag represents. It's about racist assumptions around the use of the Star of David.

The Israel flag represents Israeli citizens - Israeli Jews/Christians/Muslims/Druze/Buddhists/Atheists - in just the same way that the Union Jack with all its Christian crosses represents me, a British Jew. Some British Jews will also align themselves with Israel, and for them the Israel flag represents them, too, regardless that they are not Israeli citizens. Some British Jews will not align themselves with Israel and for them the Israel flag does not represent them. I expect Zak Polanski would be one of them. But because the central emblem of the Israel flag is also the emblem most closely associated with Judaism racists assume that if you wear one you support the other.

I can support the state of Israel without supporting its current government. They aren’t the same thing. I am proudly British and not particularly proud of quite a few people in parliament. I am also American and.. well, less said about that the better. So if I wear a Jewish star or Israeli flag or celebrate American holidays or eat haggis on burns night I should have the same grace - to show pride and appreciation without saying I agree with everything they do.

I think a lot about what was said above - what would I be doing in ww2. And I have this vaguely anxious feeling that I’m doing exactly what the Frank family did and wait way too long to notice the problem. I have a recurring nightmare that my kids and I are trapped in our attic. I don’t actually think that’s around the corner, but I don’t want to be stupid and wait too long either.

I have posted on lots of these chats so anyone who has seen me before knows that my kids are regularly harassed for being Jewish. They’ve been bullied and targeted and yelled at. My daughter was surrounded in a school stairwell by older teenage boys shouting free Palestine at her. I’ve spent days of my life in meetings with the school, phone calls with the police, spent hundreds on self defence classes for my daughter so she can have some hope of escaping the next time. I’ve spent the last two weeks emailing and speaking with lawyers and the council as my daughter had a very problematic situation with a Palestine flag wearing teacher and my son’s teacher last year told him that it’s okay to be Jewish but being Muslim is much more fun. She’s being investigated by the police for her teaching methodology in how she addresses the existence of the state of Israel in the classroom and the government office looking into it want to meet with me next week.

i am so scared all the time and so, so tired. I don’t know where to go that’s safe and I don’t know how to protect my kids - physically or emotionally. My 9 year old son missed 15 days of school last year with what turned out to be anxiety but we thought might be coeliac or IBS or something else as the symptoms were so intense.

My workplace and its horrible union has marches and posters and everyone seems to be in keffiyehs all the time. I had another panic attack today as there was a surprise march calling for an intifada. Usually I just skip work if I see a poster for a march but I didn’t see this one advertised anywhere. I am messing up my career as I can’t cope going in during the marches and they happen all the time again.

my brother teaches at a Jewish school in the states. Of course they’ve always had armed security and locked gates and tall fences. But after a string of threats, they’ve added plainclothes armed security in and out of the school building. They patrol around the neighbourhood to try to get ahead of anyone heading to them. That isn’t normal at all.

I don’t have a point really except a plea to anyone to just believe us when we talk. I can’t imagine there’s a single out Jewish person who doesn’t have a similar story, who hasn’t been attacked in some way. It’s relentless and keeps getting worse.

Hello, @PurpleThistle7, thank you for your post, it was a difficult read. Firstly, I'm very sorry for what's happening to you. I can't imagine what your daughter is going through. For school students to be so antisemitic as to intimidate her in a stairwell like that is shocking. Many have been emboldened by those hate marches, and it's absolutely vile.
I know how you must fear for your family and I hope you get the security and support you need. Someone wrote on another thread that their 87 year old Jewish neighbour was too scared to go to the Synagogue at that angered me.
There's not much I can say, other than I wish you strength and peace. Please understand that there are many people who are disgusted by what's happening to the Jewish community, and we'll support you all we can.
💐

@PurpleThistle7 I'm so sorry. I've seen your posts on other threads. It's hellish.

I think the powerful Hamas DARVO propaganda campaign that accompanied 7/10/23 has ensured that it's become fashionable to more or less spit on the Israeli flag and all that it represents. We can debate all night about what it represents, but the end result is that Jewish people are derided and harassed in every part of the globe. And this is seen by an awful lot of morons as somehow being "on the right side of history." Glastonbury for example, WTF.

Three things cannot long be hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth. But it might be too late by the time the truth becomes clear.

I can't imagine how distressing and terrifying it must be to be Jewish in these horrible times.

I agree, @Beachtastic. Hamas are misogynist, homophobic, anti democratic, nihilist, fascist and antisemitic. They want to destroy Israel for those reasons. The destruction would be like Oct 7th on a massive scale.
Why do people unquestioningly support fascism? Why chant Hamas' colonial aims, marching through London wearing a keffiyeh? It's like a form of collective madness.

It's terrible that Jewish schoolchildren should feel afraid due to the appalling genocide in Palestine.

I think despite all the extravagant funding that has been poured into Hamas and all their investment into the tunnels, weapons, etc, they probably realised that winning by military means was unlikely. So they came up with this plan instead: turn the world against Israel, and let everyone else do the dirty work. They must be laughing up their sleeves.

No. It is appalling that Jewish schoolchildren should be afraid of the very real danger caused by people who hate Jews. And it is awful that those who hate Jews are supported by useful idiots banging on about a non-existent genocide.

You just had to sneak that in, didn't you. Even on this thread.