Why London Jews fear for their future in the capital

Evening Standard

Transcript

00:00Evil!

00:02Kill killers!

00:04What's wrong with you?

00:06You're a Zionist, that's your problem.

00:11October 7 changed my world, turned my world upside down

00:14as it has for many British Jews and Jews around the world.

00:18I saw that there was a party going on

00:20outside the Israeli embassy in Kensington.

00:23I remember the shock and the horror of thinking

00:26that people were actually celebrating

00:29this massacre, this massacre of innocent people,

00:32this massacre of children,

00:34of people who were simply at a party

00:36and there were fireworks

00:39and there was hatred

00:41and since then I've had a kind of dual role

00:44in writing a bit about the war

00:46and a lot about antisemitism in this country.

00:49Go back to Israel!

00:51My name's Nicole Lampert, I'm a freelance journalist.

00:54I've written an investigation into antisemitism in London.

00:58From the moment I started writing about antisemitism,

01:01I started getting antisemitism online.

01:03Horrendous stuff, people would send me swastikas

01:06mixed with the Star of David,

01:08they would call me a fascist,

01:10Zionist bitch,

01:11scum,

01:13apartheid lover,

01:14baby killer.

01:15That was online.

01:17I have a history of some antisemitism,

01:21but for most of my life,

01:23hardly any.

01:24When I was a school child,

01:26I was uninvited from someone's house

01:28when their parent had found out I was Jewish

01:31and they started calling me a dirty Jew.

01:33Then they would stand behind me and pee lessons

01:36and say,

01:37oh I don't want to go behind you,

01:38you're a dirty Jew.

01:39But generally,

01:41that had been my antisemitic experience

01:44until October 7.

01:47And people then started messaging me

01:51about what was going on

01:53and people very quickly started sending me their experiences

01:57and what was going on in the schools,

01:59the universities,

02:00they were sending me pictures of hateful messages.

02:03And it then just continued

02:06and I started looking particularly at schools.

02:09That was one kind of growth area.

02:12Children were being attacked,

02:14they were beaten up,

02:15they were being bullied in school.

02:17Even in those very early days,

02:19there were parents who spoke to me

02:21and said,

02:22I think we're going to have to move our children.

02:24There were Palestine flags going up everywhere,

02:27even before Israel had retaliated.

02:30And although in some ways,

02:33of course I can understand,

02:34people want to support Palestinians,

02:35I don't think they realise how that feels to us.

02:39Like, that means you're against me,

02:41that you hate me.

02:42And of course for Londoners,

02:43the demonstrations were a massive issue.

02:46From the start,

02:47it was clear that there was antisemitism

02:49on these demonstrations.

02:50And even if lots of people were there

02:52for the right reasons,

02:53they wanted peace,

02:54there was a huge cohort of people

02:56who were happy to have antisemitic placards.

02:59And to call for jihad,

03:01and call for the eradication of the Jewish state

03:04by singing from the river to the sea.

03:06From the river to the sea!

03:08You will see!

03:09You will see!

03:10You will see!

03:11You will see!

03:12You will see!

03:13So one of the people I spoke to for my pieces,

03:16she lived in Islington

03:18and considered herself at the heart

03:20of a kind of diverse community.

03:22Her husband is Asian,

03:24she wasn't really part of the Jewish community.

03:27She works in the theatre,

03:29so she has a lot of LGBTQ plus friends,

03:32and she would have these mad parties.

03:35And then she described how,

03:37on October the 8th,

03:38she saw all her neighbours

03:40putting Palestine flags up.

03:42And I think it's quite hard

03:44to explain the connection

03:46Jewish people have with Israel.

03:48And that's because there's only 15 million Jews

03:51in the entire world

03:52and more than half of them live in Israel.

03:54And even people who didn't think

03:57of themselves as particularly Jewish

03:59or care that much about Israel

04:02or think about it,

04:03they saw this massacre,

04:05which upset them

04:06because that feels like

04:07you're kind of your cousins almost.

04:09And then they saw the reaction,

04:11which was joy at the murder of Jews.

04:14And I think that's what affected her

04:16and lots of other people

04:17who really didn't consider themselves

04:19very Jewish,

04:20weren't part of the kind of bigger community

04:23as it were.

04:24Quite a lot of Jews,

04:25some are hiding

04:26and others are doing the opposite.

04:28They are wearing the Stars of David,

04:30they wear a yellow hostage ribbon.

04:32And sometimes she told me

04:34how she literally got it

04:35from her jewellery box

04:36from when she was a child.

04:38And it was a necklace

04:40with Hebrew writing on.

04:42And she talked about

04:43how she was on the bus

04:44and two young women with hijabs

04:46came to talk to her

04:47and because her stepdaughter

04:49had grown up in the area,

04:51she thought it might be two girls

04:52that she knew.

04:54Then they said they weren't,

04:55they said Jew

04:56and then they spat at her.

04:57And then she talked about

04:58how later on

04:59there'd always been a menorah,

05:00which is a kind of candelabra

05:02that's part of the Hanukkah festival.

05:05Quite a few London boroughs

05:07have them out

05:09and how within a day

05:10in Islington

05:11had been dismantled.

05:13And this helped her decide

05:15she had to leave London,

05:16which is one of the most depressing things

05:19in my article I think,

05:20that people,

05:21children are having to leave schools

05:23and people feel they have to leave London.

05:25I think stories like that show

05:28that there is perhaps

05:30this wonderful melting pot

05:32that we imagine we live in.

05:34It's not one community,

05:36it's lots of different communities

05:38and when you've got a war

05:39that is as divisive as

05:41what's going on in Israel and Palestine,

05:43then it can create more problems

05:45between communities.

05:46So I wouldn't compare the experience

05:49that I have as a white-looking Jewish woman

05:53to someone who's of colour.

05:55They will face different types of hatred.

05:58I know from my black friends

06:00they get followed around shops,

06:02things like that.

06:03And you know,

06:04if you are brown,

06:05you may get Islamophobia,

06:07that sort of thing.

06:08I don't get that.

06:10But what we have is called

06:12passing white.

06:14So we might look white,

06:16although often I'm asked where I'm from

06:18because I don't look typically

06:21blonde and tall and British.

06:24But I won't get the same type of racism

06:28but I'll get a different type of racism.

06:30So I'll get called a Jewish princess

06:34or I'll be,

06:35obviously the things I've talked about,

06:37I'll be called a Nazi

06:40or a baby killer

06:41or an apartheid lover.

06:43What's wrong with you?

06:44You're a f***ing Zionist.

06:45That's your problem.

06:46You like depravity and death

06:49and torture.

06:50You're right.

06:51One pattern that surprised me

06:53that I hadn't really come across before

06:55was this idea of spitting.

06:57So three of the case studies that I spoke to

06:59had all been spat at,

07:01which is quite shocking,

07:04just the idea of just spitting at a stranger.

07:07Another is just vandalism.

07:09And one of the more chilling case studies

07:11is this woman called Natalie,

07:13who when she goes for dog walks,

07:16she knows that there's someone who's watching her,

07:19knows where she walks

07:21and has written Natalie, baby killer,

07:24Natalie, IDF lover.

07:26So that's chilling that she knows that there's someone

07:29who's watching where she's walking

07:30and is deliberately writing stuff to upset her.

07:34It's coming from all over the place.

07:35Social media is obviously a big pusher.

07:37For TikTok, it's been recognised

07:40that it particularly pushes anti-Semitic content.

07:43I spend a lot of my time on X

07:47and I get the worst sort of hate

07:49and none of that is ever taken down.

07:52For us Londoners,

07:53I would like to hear our mayor

07:55speak out against anti-Semitism.

07:57For too long, we've seen anti-Semitism on the marches.

08:00For too long, we've seen anti-Semitism in schools.

08:04We've seen anti-Semitism on the streets

08:06and we have not heard enough from him.

08:09He, as a prominent Muslim man

08:11and as someone who is the mayor

08:13that the entire capital city should be saying more.

08:17One of the things that worries me

08:19is that the Holocaust itself,

08:21last year we found a number of councils

08:23that didn't mention Jews

08:24when they mentioned the Holocaust.

08:26So for me, Holocaust Remembrance Day,

08:29which is part of the curriculum in January,

08:32it should be a day to learn about anti-Semitism as well

08:36and to learn about how the same kind of hatred

08:39that led to the Holocaust

08:41is leading to hatred against Jews now.

08:43But instead what we're getting is that

08:45the Holocaust has become a kind of

08:47catch-all definition for

08:49let's not hate people,

08:51which doesn't help.

08:53So that would be a solution for me.

08:56It feels like we're at epidemic levels.

08:58New figures came out just this week

09:01from the Community Security Trust

09:03which looks after the security for Jewish communities

09:07and we're at a new high.

09:09So while it massively peaked after October 7,

09:13we're at a new normal

09:15where it's about twice as bad as it's ever been in the past.

09:19And even when the war is over,

09:21and I hope that war will be over soon,

09:23I worry that it won't ever go back to figures

09:27that it was before Corbyn perhaps.

09:31You know, it will go back to the kind of figures

09:34where it exists but only in a small number of cases.

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