I am a left wing Jew, and genuinely never experienced antisemitism whilst living in Britain ever (I have overseas but never here). But lately a few things have changed and it now truly feels like a hostile environment to me. And I feel worried about how the coming reaction of Israel to Gaza will make that worse. On the right wing, I noticed the general level of open racism went up a notch after Brexit. Then I started seeing Nazis and things popping up more often on Facebook and things and it felt quite weird to see that so openly. We have experienced hate crimes now (which we never did before). Abuse in the street, that sort of thing. I wonder if other minorities experienced the same increase in overt racism? Anyway, I was always a very staunch Labour voter. I voted for Corbyn and really supported him because I loved his policies and actually thought they were very smart. Me and the kids campaigned for him actually as we really wanted to see those changes - particularly around closing tax loopholes and aggressively addressing inequality and so on. I thought it was just what Britain needed. I didn't think he was antisemitic and thought it was all blown out of proportion for political gain to be honest. I heard the accusations against him and thought they all just sounded way over the top, but I wasn't terribly engaged online with politics so was sort of in my own echo chamber. I do feel like a lot of people exploited the issue and that really grossed me out to be honest. I joined Twitter and things around the time of lockdowns and started speaking to left wing people who were equally depressed about another Tory government. And over time this "Palestine" issue started to become almost obsession amongst the left. And as I listened to people talk more and more, I realised that (sorry to who this offends) but the problem with antisemitism on the left is a very real thing. For one thing, a lot of them seem really intense in their anti Israel beliefs. Like this one country represents every evil on earth and they have created a mental monster versus the perfect victim in Palestine. One's wrongs are exaggerated (and even preposterous new ones are invented), and the other's are minimised, justified or twisted around "well Israel brought this on themselves" (no one brings terrorism on themselves, that is the choice of the terrorists). I was also troubled by the sheer *scale* of it. Palestinian flags in every bio. Rallies. Slogans which they were borrowing from Hamas. Almost obsessional focus on Israel / Palestine over any other global events. Engaging with clearly biased news sources (like, seriously....this "Palestine TV" thing that is paid for my the state of Iran...seriously? British people are watching that and thinking they're getting truth?). So I definitely started to feel a really foreboding sense of very deep anti Israel prejudice, and while I can come up with socially scientific reasons for that bias (the underdog story and all that), as I listened more and more, I came to feel that it ran a lot deeper than that. A lot of those people hold very deeply prejudiced beliefs about Jews having too much power, working nefariously to control governments, being linked to finance and wealth, controlling media -essentially the subtle but relentless message that Jews were sneaky, plotting, nasty in some way. They also hold them to completely different standards to any other nation, and they most certainly deny them the right of their country. Of course they worked out language for this. "Not JEWS, I only hate ZIONISTS". Which to be honest, doesn't really fill Jews with much confidence. If you're using "zionist" as a pejorative to cover some sort of horrible words you have made up in your head, then you are probably on shaky ground already to be honest. Coded antisemitism is still antisemitism, and accusing Israel of controlling foreign governments and plotting against people in sneaky ways or being uniquely evil, is not really proportional or evidence based critique. It's laced with tropes. It makes us feel gross. I posted a lot on these Hamas threads these last few days and came across a lot of these types of people, which me and a few others found very depressing. It felt like if, after Hamas actions a few days ago they *still* couldn't condemn them and are still trying whataboutery and blame shifting then we have reached the rubicon where terrorist groups can do whatever the hell they like to Jews, and there are big chunks of left wing people who will think (and loudly argue) that they deserve it. Depressing as heck. I think it's obvious most people have very, very, very, very flawed knowledge of history and middle eastern issues. And their opinions are based on incorrect information. Often completely twisted information. And it reminds me of the Trump era of fake news where people would just repeat lies or false narratives so often that it no longer mattered what was true. They want to express strong opinions, but they don't want to invest a few weeks in thorough research (not via they're anti Israel echo chamber or Iran state news) I think it's also obvious some of them just have very deep prejudice and they're in complete denial over it. I am not sure why or how that manifests, but it's a very uncomfortable feeling. I was left today wondering if maybe the small period of time in history (probably 30 years from 1985) where Britain was relatively free of antisemitic ideologies and prejudices, is now over. They're right back to acting the way they always did. I know Muslims have a hell of a time in the UK and I have a lot of empathy for that, but I was so troubled by people celebrating in the streets with Palestinian flags. I can't grasp that at all. I don't want anyone coming to this thread to spout anti Israel hate. Sensible discussion where everyone is held to an identical standard is fine - but genuinely I think this is a problem and my kids feel the same. Is Britain now become a hostile environment for Jews?