Several Jewish schools in London today stand closed out of fear for the safety of the children who attend them and the staff who teach at them. I was about to follow that with the sentence, “I’d love to hear from anyone who thinks that’s OK.” But on reflection, I really wouldn’t love to. Be in absolutely no doubt that many, many people would be in touch – and probably will be in touch anyway – to explain why, relatively speaking, it is OK. From the unspeakable monstrosity of Hamas’s terrorist attack on Israel last Saturday to the hellish humanitarian crisis unfolding now in Gaza, there is always someone on hand to explain why, relatively speaking, this horror or that horror is OK. They know more about it than you, they’ve read more about it than you, they did their degree in it, they’re less naive than you, they’re less racist than you, they’re humanitarians, OK, you animal? This is a subject with countless brutal gatekeepers, each one working tirelessly to exclude any concerned plebs from even daring to enter the conversation.
But I don’t care about them today, because the answer is very simple. It cannot be OK, can it? It absolutely cannot be OK that there are Jewish children in London not going to school today because there is a reasonable fear of intimidation or even a threat of violence against them or their school. It cannot be OK that some Jewish schools that are remaining open have advised their pupils not to wear their blazers, with boys covering their skullcaps as they travel in. It cannot be OK that Jews in this country feel scared and menaced. It cannot be OK that in the past week, a Jewish charity has recorded a 300% rise in reports of “anti-Jewish hate” – a fourfold increase in abuse of one small minority group of British citizens. It cannot be right. It cannot be.
