'After October 7 - daring to show Jewishness in Britain has become an act of defiance'

Many Jews now have two lives: life before the October 7 massacre, and life after.

We are also a tiny community, so many of us know families affected. A friend told us how the brutal murder of a young family member was live-streamed by on social media to taunt family and friends. As shocking as the were, we were even less prepared for the reaction in the West which echoed some dark moments in our history.

In the aftermath of the massacre, celebratory attacks against Jews exploded across Britain. Posters of hostages were disfigured and defaced to dehumanise them. An October 7 memorial in Brighton set up by the families of the victims continues to be regularly vandalised by both the left and far-right.

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A misunderstood and misrepresented conflict thousands of miles away has emboldened people to deny the atrocities of October 7 and to demonise Jews as child-killers, Nazis and other representations of evil. Israel has become less of a real country, but now exists as a cipher for racists to express classic hatred.

Uniquely, the Israel-Hamas conflict is regularly imported onto our streets, accompanied by outpourings of hate such as calls for Jihad, Nazi salutes, swastikas and hateful chants such as "go back to Poland". The police defend it as peaceful and legitimate protest, endorsing a new level of anti-Jewish racism.

Instead of providing insight, our national news outlets have helped amplify hate, spreading disinformation from terrorist sources. For example, within an impossibly short space of time after the Al-Ahli Hospital incident, the media used false Hamas figures to report that over 500 patients at the hospital had been killed by Israel. It later turned out that a rocket from inside Gaza had misfired, hitting the car park. The reaction saw synagogues across the world being set on fire.

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The reports mostly fail to address the reality: that there have been no easy options in this war. The removal of Hamas always seemed highly unlikely, particularly without terrible suffering by civilians.

From luxury hotels, Hamas leaders boasted about deliberately getting as many Palestinian women and children killed as possible to achieve their religious war and destroy Israel. They didn't spend one penny of their billions protecting civilians, instead building a network of tunnels larger than the London Underground to hide their fighters under them. Schools and mosques were used to hide their military arsenal.

Hamas' massacre was accompanied by unprovoked attacks on Israel from the Iran regime's other proxies, Hezbollah and the Houthis. There is significant hostility in the region against these occupying Jihadist terrorists and the failed states they create, yet in the UK, astonishingly, we see support.

Living in a failed state is not an aspiration, but unfortunately the hate Jews have faced since October 7 has made our own democracy begin to look like one. Everything has changed for us. But we will not be cowed by hate. Showing outward signs of Jewishness on British streets — a fundamental right — has now become an act of defiance.

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