Britons face a clear choice: fuel the division arising from all the horror abroad or refuse to let that hatred take hold in our own communities
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few weeks ago in Tel Aviv, on my first days there – before what has now become an extended stay due to the war – I stopped at a small place to grab lunch. I began my order in hesitant Hebrew, thinking I was doing well, but after a moment that exposed my linguistic limitations, the man behind the counter switched to English to ask where I was from. “London,” I said. “Ah,” he replied with a chuckle. “Londonistan.”
With the easy certainty of someone stating a fact, he then told me that London is no longer safe for Jews. I brushed it off at the time. It feels harder to dismiss now.
In the early hours of Monday morning, in Golders Green – long a centre of Jewish life in London – masked attackers set fire to four ambulances belonging to Hatzola, a volunteer emergency service. Oxygen tanks exploded as the vehicles burned, forcing residents from their homes. Police are treating it as an antisemitic hate crime.
