Time to reflect

This week the Jewish world emerges from Passover and goes straight into a series of days of significance: Yom HaShoah, the Holocaust Martyrs’ and Heroes’ Remembrance Day, beginning on Tuesday evening; followed next week by Yom HaZikaron - Israel’s equivalent of Remembrance Sunday - and then Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israeli Independence Day. It provides a moment to take stock and review the landscape of the Jewish world: the secular equivalent, in a way, of the Days of Awe, that period between Jewish new year and Yom Kippur that is meant to be a time of reflection, repentance, and renewal.

We have also just passed 18 months since the Jewish world was turned on its axis by the Hamas attack of October 7 and everything that has followed since. In that light, and having written similar ‘where we are now’ posts previously, here are a few thoughts about where we currently stand when it comes to antisemitism, Israel and Jewish life.

Everyone is tired

Fatigue is everywhere, even amongst people who care the most. Remember when there were national pro-Palestine marches held in central London every week, and 100,000 people turned up? The last one was on 15th March. The next one is on 17th May. You can knock a zero off the number of people likely to show up for it. This doesn’t mean people have stopped caring, just that the issue is not front and centre for them any more, or that it has been absorbed into their daily life more than being a cause for exceptional protests. This does mean that those left protesting are more likely to be the hardcore, fully committed activists rather than the mildly motivated, but even on the marches that do happen, antisemitic banners and explicit support for Hamas are less common than they were. This is partly because the marchers have seen people get arrested for things like putting swastikas on anti-Israel placards and wearing Hamas-style green headbands. I know that some in the Jewish community refuse to credit the police with anything when it comes to the protests (and there is still much room for improvement as we saw in Westcliffe over the weekend) but in central London the marches are now well policed and, finally, are being kept away from synagogues. It all adds to a sense that the angry phase is over, and what we are left with is cynical, weary resignation on all sides.

Polarisation is the norm

One consequence of this is that people are now set in their positions, which are often more extreme versions of whatever they thought about these issues prior to October 7. I’m generalising, of course, but a lot of people who were previously liberal Zionists have shifted leftwards; while some who were on the centre right of Jewish politics are now expressing support for ideas that, until very recently, were considered so far right as to be off the table completely. For those who dislike Netanyahu while also despising the hypocritical cant of the so-called anti-racist left that fuels so much antisemitism in this country, it can feel like you have moved left and right simultaneously. Eighteen months of conflict in Israel and Gaza, the global rise in anti-Jewish hatred, and the shocking shifts in international politics since Trump was elected, have all had a disorientating and polarising impact on anyone with a stake in this story. Jews are not immune to this; in many ways, we are more vulnerable than anyone to its influence.

Jewish unity is feeling the pressure

Make no mistake, one impact of all of this is that the sense of collective sentiment and purpose felt across Jewish world immediately after October 7 feels increasingly distant. Jewish communities have never been as unified as outsiders tend to think - I always have a wry smile when politicians or police officers praise the unity and organisation of the Jewish community - but there have been times when this unity has been both genuine and important. The fight against Corbynite antisemitism would not have succeeded in the way that it did, had all the major Jewish organisations in this country not been able to put their differences to one side and speak with one voice. When more than 60 rabbis from across the religious spectrum - some of whom did not even recognise others as rabbis - co-signed a joint letter condemning Labour’s stance on antisemitism under Corbyn’s leadership, its power came from exactly that unity. I fear that finding a similar togetherness today is becoming much harder. The recent shambles of the Israeli government organising a conference against antisemitism that leaders of diaspora Jewish organisations refused to attend was one sign of this. The letter by 36 members of the Board of Deputies condemning the Israeli government for its ongoing prosecution of the war in Gaza, swiftly rejected by the Board’s own leadership but welcomed by anti-Netanyahu Israelis in the UK, is another. It would be mistaken, and complacent, to dismiss these as the usual arguments between the Jewish establishment and fringe oppositionists who always like to attack the mainstream of the community. Rather, these are divisions within the mainstream itself that are only likely to become wider still. It is a sign of the pressure that so many Jews feel under, combined with the fact that this conflict has gone on for so long, the Israeli government is genuinely more extreme, and the reactions to both in the wider world feel more threatening to Jewish life than has previously been the case.

Jews on the mind

This comes to my next point: the longevity of the conflict and the high profile of antisemitism as an issue have led many more people to think about Jews and Jewish-related things (like Israel or the Holocaust) than was previously the case, and in many cases they are thinking negatively about them. There is a section of young, progressive opinion that has absorbed the idea that Israel is a racist, genocidal, rogue state, or at least that feels it is both fashionable and socially prudent to go along with that view on social media. The same could be said for a slice of celebrity opinion too. This may have previously been a passing trend, but after 18 months of continuous TikTok videos and Instagram stories showing death and destruction in Gaza, it is now deeply embedded. Along with this, as a secondary impact, comes a generalised suspicion of any Jews who do not actively reject or condemn Israel as not belonging in their progressive world. This is not uniform and shouldn’t be overstated, but it definitely exists in a way, and to an extent, that was not the case previously.

However, this is not only happening on the anti-Israel left. Douglas Murray recently confronted the same phenomenon in his own right wing world, when he appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcast to argue the case for both Israel and Churchill. As he discovered, two positions that used to be fairly axiomatic on the conservative right - that Israel is the good guy against Hamas, and Churchill was the good guy against Hitler - are now no longer to be taken for granted in that world. Rogan and his sidekick, Dave Smith, are two thought leaders on the social media led, Trump-influenced, US right who are taking a much more sceptical, even hostile, view of Jews and Jewish interests. And they have a massive audience.

The Clickbait Conflict

Finally - and having started by saying that everyone is tired - the war in Gaza is still the story that keeps giving to podcasters, YouTubers, newspaper editors and TV news shows. In many ways it has become the clickbait conflict, drawing views and money in ways that no other foreign story can. As an example of what I mean, last week the Guardian carried a report on the conflict in Sudan, where almost 13 million people have been displaced, a famine has been declared, and tens of thousands have been killed (note that nobody claims to know the exact number of dead, unlike in Gaza, where precise daily casualty figures are regularly cited by the media). People working on the Sudan crisis have pointed to the disproportionate focus on other conflicts as a reason why Sudan is not getting the attention it needs. Leni Kinzli, the World Food Programme’s head of communications for Sudan, said:

“We don’t see the level of international attention on Sudan as we do for other crises. There should not be a competition between crises. But unfortunately we’re seeing with everything going on in the world, other conflicts, other humanitarian crises and other things making headlines, that unfortunately Sudan is – I wouldn’t even call it forgotten – it’s ignored.”

As if to prove her point, just five days later, the front page lead on the Guardian’s soon-to-be-sold sister paper the Observer was about food shortages, not in Sudan, but in Gaza. Similarly, the Guardian article about Sudan quoted Oxfam’s regional representative calling Sudan the world’s “largest humanitarian crisis”; meanwhile according to Meta’s ad library, Oxfam currently has eight fundraising adverts running on Facebook and Instagram for Gaza, but none for Sudan. If you include not just current adverts but past ones, there are a staggering 460 Oxfam adverts on Meta platforms about Gaza, and just seven about Sudan. Whether you are a newspaper editor seeking clicks or sales, or a charity looking for donations, Gaza stirs a reaction in a way that Sudan never will. This doesn’t mean that Gaza is unworthy of media attention or charitable donations; just that the unique interest that people have in anything to do with Israel, especially compared to other foreign issues, is so pervasive that it feels almost inescapable. And that, more than anything, is the lesson of the past 18 months.