Anti-Semitism Rising in UK, but Jewish Life Thrives

Last month, a small English city called Leicester grabbed headlines when Rabbi Shmuli Pink, Chabad representative there was targeted by anti-Semitic vandals. In three separate attacks, bricks shattered the windows of Pink’s home and car, shaking the 300-strong Jewish community.

In the UK, anti-Semitic incidents are on the rise. According to Dave Rich, Deputy Director of Communications at Community Security Trust (CST), a charity organization which ensures the security of Jewish communities in the UK and is currently taking measures in Leicester to protect the Pinks, it is true that there is an “upward trend of anti-Semitism in the UK over the last decade.”

“There’s a significant spike when tensions in the Middle East flare up,” he says. In 2010, 639 anti-Semitic incidents were recorded by CST in their Anti-Semitic Incidents Report for that year.

Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet, Rabbi of the Mill Hill Synagogue in London and Chairman of the US Rabbinical Council concurs. “Overt and practical anti-Semitism — incidents like bottles thrown through windows — is certainly much more obvious today than before.” But, he adds, it is “not causing a ghetto mindset or overtaking anyone’s life.”

In fact, some discern a parallel trend of Jewish growth in the UK.

Jonathan Arkush, senior Vice President of the Board of Deputies of British Jews insists that despite these statistics, Jewish life is flourishing in the UK.

“If you were to ask me whether we are in decline, my answer would be absolutely no,” says Arkush. The most meaningful indication of growth, he says, is the number of Jewish schools today, which have grown by an astonishing 1000 percent in the last twenty years.

“If we have more children graduating Jewish schools, then by extension you have quality as well; more children are getting a better Jewish education. That’s not a story of decline.”

Today, 250,000 British Jews live in London, and the “flavor of Jewish life is rich and varied, with so many Jewish classes, programs and services available to the community,” Arkush says.

And in Leicester, the small Jewish community is resilient. “We are hurt by the attacks, but I’m confident about the community, we are positive about the future,” said Dr. David Lebens, 63, a dentist who has lived in Leicester all his life. Lebens is optimistic, although Leicester’s Jewish population, like many English communities outside major cities, is in fact dwindling. The next generation, he says, is following a time worn path to the bigger cities that offer better Jewish infrastructure.

“When I was a boy growing up in this city, we had seventy to a hundred people at Shul (synagogue) on Shabbos, and today there are fifteen,” he explains. But what the community lacks for in numbers, it is gaining in depth of experience. “Over the last decade since Rabbi and Mrs. Pink have moved here with their family, I’ve observed a real change. There is more Jewish learning here today than ever.”

The growth of British Jewry comes despite prejudice and rising tensions. In fact, several of the individuals interviewed for this article insist that anti-Semitism in the UK is not nearly as bad as it’s purported to be.

“We are very good at monitoring and recording all forms of hate crimes and racism, and in addition the government and police are also very vigilant,” explains Rich. So the mainstream media report the stories with shock-value under attention-grabbing headlines and depict a thoroughly hostile climate for Jewish life in the UK. But while the CST is aware of the “very genuine concern about anti-Semitism, the problem needs to be seen within the wider context of growing Jewish expression and flourishing Jewish life,” says Rich.

In the academic arena as well, where anti-Israel voices among student and faculty can be heard loudly, Jewish students at UK campuses have nevertheless gained confidence in their Jewish identity, according to Rabbi Eli Brackman, Director of Chabad of Oxford and Chairman of Chabad on Campus UK, which counts 30 centers at UK campuses.

“At Oxford university, and at universities in the UK, students feel comfortable walking around campus wearing a Yarmulke,” says Rabbi Brackman.

“It’s difficult to say that there is a direct correlation between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, because it is usually camouflaged in anti-Israel policy,” says Michael Bodansky, who is working toward a BA in Hebrew and Arabic studies. The Palestinian society at the university recently hosted Norman Finkelstein–who spews anti-Israel rhetoric. But the “anti-Semitism doesn’t translate into daily life. We feel comfortable with living as a Jew on campus.”

At the national level, the British parliament is “not an anti-Semitic government. There are parts of parliament that are anti-Israel, just like in the US,” says Arkush. When he visits the States, “we’re on the verge of catastrophe” is the constant refrain he contends with. But the reality is otherwise: “The American press seizes an incident and builds it up to indicate that there is so much anti-Semitism, because good news isn’t news,” he says.

“It is precisely because the incident in Leicester is so rare that it made the headlines.”

Merav Tauber, a scientist at a nearby university moved to Leicester in 2000, together with her husband and twin daughters who attend the Pinks Hebrew School. Like Dr. Lebens, they also observed the arrival of the Pink family, the consequent renovations of the mikvah, the welcoming of a new Torah scroll the synagogue – the Leicester Hebrew Congregation – and the general revitalization of a community.

Here in this quaint outpost, the revival is both symbolic and telling of the vibrancy of Jewish life in the UK.

“This is an old community, and it’s getting smaller,” says Tauber. On Shavuot, she’ll be joining the community in shul together with her family.

“But even as it ages, the Pinks have brought unity to the community and they are keeping everything together with the holy work they are doing.”