The Jewish community is under attack – I’m sick of living in fear

I just returned from my local bakery.

It’s a traditional kosher bakery, situated on a busy high street, that’s been cooking up handmade breads and bagels since 1989. It is my favourite place to buy a challah.

This should have been a very routine, normal moment of my day – and yet I was so hyper-vigilant, I rushed in and out in seconds.

I’d found myself weighing up the odds. Trying to decide if I was putting myself in danger.

Because that bakery is located just down the road from where yesterday’s Golders Green stabbings took place.

The police had reassured us they would be stepping up patrols in visibly Jewish areas, so I knew the likelihood was I’d be fine. And I was comforted by the sight of the wonderful Community Security Trust team, which goes above and beyond in protecting the Jewish community.

But there was no police presence outside the shops, nor down the road as I drove home. And that matters, because I am scared. Three words I don’t even care to say out loud anymore.

And I am not the only one.

Across Britain, many in the Jewish community are quietly asking themselves – and have been for some time now – whether they still have a future here.

But there is one question I presume they, and I, are asking themselves even more. And that is when the next attack is going to happen.

Because that, more than anything else, is what makes me scared. The fact that it’s a matter of when, not if.

The government’s Independent Reviewer of Terrorism Legislation, Jonathan Hall, has called the rise in antisemitism ‘the biggest national security emergency’ since the 2017 Isis attacks, suggesting that it could be ‘the biggest national emergency since Covid’. And he does so for good reason.

When Jew-hate has risen to the level of national emergency, everyone – Jewish or not – must see it for what it is.

The most recent London attacks have hit me like a crushing blow. The four Hatzola ambulances that were firebombed in March; a cowardly blow to an incredible community service that saved my husband’s life once when he had chest pain.

Finchley Reform synagogue, which was attacked just a couple of weeks ago, was where I would take my kids for occasional services, or hire out the space for their birthday parties.

The recently targeted Kenton synagogue was where my father-in-law used to work.

And now there’s the stabbing in Golders Green, a place I visit at least twice a week.

To put into perspective just how scared I am, I – like many others I know – am considering an exit plan. It pains me to write this through tears but we have to have a B plan.

The seed was planted a while back, after the horrific Manchester synagogue attack on Yom Kippur. And while I can’t just up sticks and leave immediately – I have elderly parents and children to think of, never mind the fact my lawyer husband has a job he can’t leave – that seed has only sadly continued to grow.

I’ve looked at the price of properties abroad, thought about how I’d fly my dogs there, and considered the practicalities of actually packing up a life for good. It makes me feel deeply distressed, because I don’t want to leave Britain and the beautiful life I have created here with my family.

This is our home – but I don’t know how much more we can take. The reality is that if Britain continues on this footing, I sadly have no future here. At some point you have to say to yourself, the country has become unrecognisable, enough is enough.

I am not an angry person by nature, but I am furious that so many innocent people are being harmed just because they are Jewish.

I’m on numerous group chats with friends with kids at Jewish schools. Some say they can’t breathe until their child is home. I’ve been there, I know that feeling.

Our community is sick to death of politician’s platitudes. They speak words but there is never any action. It’s about points scored, votes secured – nothing more. There’s only so many times you can hear phrases like ‘An attack on the Jewish community is an attack on the values of Britain,’ before it starts to lose all meaning.

Those in power need to recognise that it is violent and hateful speech that leads to attacks on our community.

So while I welcome Shabana Mahmood’s announcement today that £25m will go towards boosting police patrols and protections around synagogues, schools and community centres, the real problem lies at the root cause of it. I think it’s abhorrent to conflate what is happening in the Middle East with Jewish people in Britain. We have nothing to do with it.

Anyone who knows me knows I am a bright, bubbly person, but I feel like I’m constantly enveloped in a shadow of fear. I don’t want to live like this. To feel unsafe in the city that is my home. Nobody does.

I’ve had friends who tell me they feel alone, that not one person has reached out. I’m lucky in that I’ve had so many messages of support and love from non-Jewish people, particularly after yesterday’s attack.

On the flip side, I know of many in the community also who are no longer ‘Jews with trembling knees’. They’ve had enough and are continuing to stand tall, proud and fight off the hate.

I will try to take a leaf out of their book, as the last thing I want is to leave the place I call home.

I was scrolling on my phone earlier today and saw a post from Chloe Madeley that said: ‘Golders Green is my home, its residents are my neighbours and friends, and this is a very real, very scary sequence of events. Humanity must prevail. Division is dangerous. Communities must stand together.’

It’s such a comparatively small thing – one post, from one person. But when I saw it I felt so grateful.

These gestures of support and empathy reassure me, give me hope that the silent majority understands and has our backs. Every single message I have received has warmed my heart.

So make that call, write that text, reach out to your Jewish friends, colleagues and contacts. It means more than you know.

In the face of fear, solidarity matters.

Do you have a story you’d like to share? Get in touch by emailing jessica.aureli@metro.co.uk. 

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