Why are Jewish people facing persecution in the UK?

[Villanousvillans]

I don’t understand why Jewish people are being persecuted in this country. What is wrong with people?

There’s just hatred all around, random citizens are paying the price for Bibi’s crimes. Israel shouldn’t have gone unchecked for so long, but here we are.

Men will find any reasons to commit crimes. A different case on the news yesterday:

A neo-Nazi has been found guilty of preparing terrorist acts after compiling a list of "race traitors" and trying to buy a gun.

Pretty sure you are allowed to criticise Israel. In some circles its almost mandatory.

Because of the middle east 'war'. People blame Jews for the actions of the Israeli state.

No, i don't think that is the case at all but many people are easily led and have some awful political views.

They can be manipulated to do bad things, justified by someone else's bad deeds.
...that "might" explain the current level of violence....

But there are deeper reasons, some historical, some based on jealousy & the need to blame someone else.

Why did the Nazi's do what they did? no state of Israel to blame.

@Owlinthewods I love how this anti-Semite digs to the bottom of the barrel to pull out one random story from Israel with absolutely no understanding of whether it was actually committed by a Jewish person and says see!!! See!!! Christians and Jews are not at war with one another.

@Bluegreenbirdyou think Israel's political actions are just 'Jewish people existing'...?

Sorry this is long I’m writing this to give a perspective of someone that admits these feelings.
I can feel the anti semitism within myself and am ashamed of it. In my case I think it is quite recent since the aftermath of the October 7th attacks. Not the start but the following way that the Israeli government continued and affected individuals when many of the targets were patently civilian.

I have never attended or supported any of the marches which I feel are at least partly antisemitic.

I know intellectually that the Jewish people in this country are not in any way responsible. However a lot of the Jews most frightened say they want to move to Israel and as they are voluntarily moving emotionally I feel they support the decisions of government of israel. But wouldn’t I do that if someone was persecuting me especially with the history of persecution way before the holocaust.

I do not know any Jews (though I might as from the news I see that some are keeping the identity private). I do not live in an area with a large Jewish community, from Google there isn’t a synagogue in my town.

My only actions so far is a donation to the Jewish ambulance service in an area with them after the terror attack on them.

It is not for British Jews to educate me out of these thoughts (like women on misogyny or Black community racism) That is my responsibility.Im sorry to all the Jews in this country afraid and living lives with guards outside schools and synagogues.

edit to correct spelling

The anti genocide/war marches are not anti semitic, a large proportion of Jewish people are marching too, included orthodox Jewish men and boys plus large groups of
holocaust survivors' children.

The marches are heartbreaking because we are thinking about the killed and injured in Palestine, it is nothing to do with being a hate march against Jewish people.

If you think they are hate marches you have swallowed the lies from our right wing government and media, or even worse, you are acting on bad faith to further create racial discord.

Historical reasons regarding even in the UK casual racism towards Jewish people was the norm as seen in literature around 1930’s. People did not believe concentration camps were real. The British involvement in the creation of a State of Israel in 1948. Seemed like a great idea in theory. Not so much in practice.

Perceived insulation. Jewish people have a family first culture that includes a work hard and achieve much culture and so there is a tendency to achieve much because they look after each other. For more insecure types this causes jealousy and resentment.

Islam: Muslim children are taught to hate Jewish people at birth. It is almost unthinkable to culturally British people who in reality have grown up with a high level of tolerance as the normal standard. I worked in a school with the most lovely and intelligent and sensible Muslim boys. Whilst nothing was said that I could correct, if Judaism was brought up - faces would change, body language would change. It was shocking for me to see and try to connect with the boys I knew. If that was the reaction to anything Jewish, you couldn’t help but wonder, what was said at home.

Whilst there are a greater number of attacks on Muslims, there small numbers of Jewish people in the UK make the proportion much higher. I think from a BBC article I read it was 8 times higher? (that’s from memory not fact checked).

Rise in racism: See more attacks on Muslims.
Links to immigration: Not specifically connected to Jewish people but for a lot of the 90’s/2000’s immigration changed whole towns and cities so far beyond what they were. (Bradford, Birmingham) and people were not listened to. Because they were in the North? They were ignored and tarred with the name Bigot for not wanting such rapid and radical change. This doesn’t go away but festers and breeds contempt. When people are attacked they tend to attack.

The Israeli/ Palestine war. People appear to find it very hard to separate a people group from a Goverment. Add on to the fact that it is an abhorrent genocide which is so so so wrong. Judaism is both a race and a religion and that is hard for people to understand can be separate and entwined. And the same seems to be the state of Israel’s government actions - because it’s nuanced and complicated people would rather simplify it.

Rise in openly intolerant behaviour: It’s one thing to oppose an idea, an ideology, a government’s policies- it’s another thing to do mass protests in the street openly chanting for the distruction of a whole people group as a bonding and inflammatory activation.

This is just the strands I know. It’s not just one answer but a melting point of historical, political, cultural, present climate, economical and therefore doesn’t fit into a neat answer.

Although if I was to sum it up in three words: Control. Superiority. Othering.

To criticise Israel is deemed to be anti semitic so not you are not allowed to.

I agree with posters saying it’s because people are confusing Jews and the state of Israel. But this works both ways and, in recent years, it’s been portrayed as antisemitic to criticise the state of Israel. I don’t know who’s been pushing this idea as many Jews elsewhere in the world will never even have been to Israel.

I'm male. If I go online and criticise women, I may well get called sexist, depending on what I say and how.
If someone then asked me why men persecute and attack women, and my answer is "because you can't criticise them without being called sexist" you would think that was monstrous.
Similarly if you say Jews are persecuted because you can't criticise Israel without being called antisemitic, that is equally wrong.

Except it isn’t hypothetical. We have Palestine Action protesters in prison for going on two years awaiting a trial date for vandalism. The ruling that proscribed Palestine Action as an antisemitic terrorist group was overturned by the High Court. In the real world, yes criticising what Israel is doing in Palestine is not only being called antisemitic (peace protests being called hate marches), it has even been criminalised in the UK.

Denying the risk of arrest to protest a genocide in Palestine is also wrong.

It’s more similar to how the suffragettes once denied the ability to peacefully protests turned to terror attacks. It wasn’t right for them to resort to attacks, but it is true that clamping down on peaceful protests often results in people turning to extreme measures. The French Revolution is probably the most notorious case of what can happen when protest is ignored or criminalised.

No all you have to do is listen to the chants and read the placards to know that a large proportion of the marchers are antisemitic and the people that walk alongside them are enabling them. You might also wonder why week after week the marches are against Israel alone as if this is the only conflict in the world and Israel is uniquely evil in the world.

It is the only evil conflict in the world right now that our Government supports.
The other ones, there is no need to protest because the Government is already condemning them and taking steps to counter them.

Portrayed by who? Jews criticise Israeli politicians all the time. The IHRA definition explicitly says 'However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.' However to criticise the existence of Israel as a state is of course almost certainly antisemitic. I mean in theory its not but I've never come across a person in practice who believed Israel shouldn't exist who wasnt.

It wasn't the "criticising Israel" bit they were imprisoned for though was it?

Oh stop being obscure.

The protestors are in jail because they entered and allegedly damaged national security infrastructure. They weren’t just kicking bins over in the high street. It’s a serious offence.

Same would happen if climate action or anti-sexism protestors decided to take on Brize Norton.

Says who? Who is not allowing it? The IHRA definition explicitly says 'However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.'

What is antisemitic is deny the legitimacy of the Israeli state, to hold Israel to different standards, to obsess about Israel alone and not other countries.

Talk me through that please.

Ha ha. Nice try there. 10/10 for effort.

They aren’t. There are a few nutters who are attacking them.

Because antisemitism is an ancient hatred with well-worn tropes that mutate over the centuries to fit the current narratives. There are many on this very thread.

Because it’s deeply embedded even in our broadly tolerant culture - anyone who’s studied English literature knows this - and as pp said, was pretty much normal in polite society until after WW2.

It’s a constant feature of both far left and far right politics in the UK. While Islamophobia is also a significant issue on the right, you don’t have to scratch the surface very hard to find the same old Jew hatred.

The current hysteria about Gaza on the left, fuelled by Islamic antisemitism as well as the home-grown kind, and bolstered by the fashion for hating the West and its values of democracy, peace, etc, as well as the virtue-signalling hijacking of important conversations about colonialism and race, has strengthened the idea in many people’s minds that Israel is uniquely evil among all the countries in the world and to hate Israel and be suspicious of Jews makes one a ‘good person’.

There aren’t many Jews (the population is tiny) and while they punch above their weight, most people don’t know very many, and these things support ‘othering’.

Do a bit of reading about the history of antisemitism - most people seem to be shockingly ignorant about it.