says Dave Rich","publisher":{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsMediaOrganization","name":"The Jewish Chronicle","url":"https://www.thejc.com","description":"Founded in 1841 He works at the Community Security Trust (CST) and is the author of 'The Left's Jewish Problem: Jeremy Corbyn Dave Rich is an Associate Research Fellow at the Pears Institute for the Study of Anti-Semitism Dave Rich 8 min readThe heaviness that descended on the Jewish world on October 7 has still not lifted and not only because the war in Gaza that followed was so awful to watch from afar The scale and method of the Hamas killing spree dragged us all back into a Jewish past that we believed we had left behind for ever When we see Jews being hunted in their houses and in forests and fields captured at gunpoint and taken against their will hiding silently in secret rooms while gunmen search their homes They are familiar family tales from times and places buried deep in our collective memory this history of persecution is not specifically Israeli but Jewish dating back well before the creation of Israel in 1948 who were murdered in the Russian pogroms our great-grandparents fled slaughtered in York’s Clifford Tower in 1190 and massacred in the Rhineland a century before that These historic Jewish traumas are shared by all Jews including those who do not care much for Israel “I was like Anne Frank,” said one survivor of the Be’eri massacre who hid from the Hamas gunmen Like going back to the Kishinev pogrom.” This is part of our history and for a day our history became reality once again Sometimes it’s in the details that the loudest echoes are heard 375 Jews were slaughtered in August 1919 in a matter of hours raped and killed,” the chairman of the Pohrebyshche Jewish community said afterwards They dragged people up from their cellars and down from their attics in order to kill them can “throw an old woman out of a third-floor window together with a grand piano he can smash a chair against a baby’s head rape a little girl while the entire crowd looks on hammer a nail into a living human body… He exterminates whole families None of this has any bearing on whether Israel’s response was justified about Israel’s role as a psychological anchor for many Jews around the world Friends who usually wear their Jewish identity lightly or are ambivalent towards Israel were just as affected by the massacre It wasn’t only Israel’s physical security that was breached that day: it stirred our deepest fears for Jewish safety everywhere if the demons of the past awake once again The Times columnist Juliet Samuel wrote of her fear that Israel “is going to collapse and I was surprised by how much it terrified me who would protect us Jews in Europe if we needed it?” This may not appear rational – it us up to our own governments to protect us after all – but it is how a lot of Jews felt because it’s a story we’ve seen so often before The massacre of October 7 will now take its place in this sad another painful bruise on the soul of the Jewish people was that massacres of defenceless Jews on such a scale would never again be conceivable in exactly the place it was supposed to be impossible all Jewish life since the Holocaust has been an ongoing project of rebuilding and reconstituting a stable an endless exercise in hope over experience born just three short years after the Shoah has been the vehicle for this project of Jewish rebirth could have performed that role amidst the ashes In 1946 the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) tasked with working out what to do with hundreds of thousands of Holocaust survivors languishing in displaced persons camps in Europe surveyed 19,000 Jewish refugees to ask them where they wanted to be resettled as their first choice; almost all also put Palestine as their second choice when they were told they could not name Palestine twice a quarter answered “crematorium” as their alternative often with no personal possessions or homes to go back to and few other countries willing to welcome them in This practical reality was mirrored by the psychological and emotional choice of the wider Jewish world I don’t know whether the Jewish people would have survived as a coherent whole after the Shoah had Israel not been created so soon afterwards But I do know that Israel has been integral to that coherence ever since a colonial plot; just a belief in the concept of a Jewish future This Jewish reaction to the October 7 massacre exposed how much Israel provides not only a pragmatic safety net for many Jews a life raft we can all leap to in times of crisis Israel’s existence is the buttress for global Jewish self-confidence the foundation on which we build our British This is what Hamas violated on that terrible October day leaders and preachers who described themselves as “leading members of the British Muslim community” published a joint statement affirming ‘the right to armed struggle … We reject the use of the word “terrorism” to describe Palestinian acts of resistance.’ Their message was echoed in dozens of mosque sermons up and down the country oppressors and aggressors.” In Northampton the call was apparently for the “usurping Jews” to be destroyed: “Count them and kill them don’t let any of them survive … Make them war booty for the Muslims.” In a mosque in Bradford a preacher reportedly claimed that many of the reports of the October 7 attack were false Because it has been the trend of the Jews to lie time and time again about what the Muslims are doing in Palestine and in particular Gaza.” the worst week for antisemitic incidents in the UK was the week following the October 7 massacre – well before Israel’s response had reached its peak This was not people seeing distressing images of dead Palestinian children and taking out their anger on Jews It’s possible to follow the thought process by which that happens but you can see why it happens” kind of way then the worst period for antisemitic attacks ought to have been after Israel sent its forces into Gaza or when the fighting reached Palestinian hospitals and images of Palestinian suffering filled our newspapers the opposite happened: the harassment and abuse of Jews around the world began as soon as news spread that Hamas had attacked Israel It wasn’t images of dead Palestinians that sparked this outburst of anti-Jewish hatred; it was images of dead Jews and acting out that hatred by attacking them a latent prejudice that resides within our culture and society If the only thing that had happened after October 7 was a bunch of demonstrations supporting the Palestinians and condemning Israel I wouldn’t be writing about it in a book about antisemitism “Free Palestine” became the cri de guerre for antisemites a rhetorical weapon used to strike fear into Jews in Western cities; the left-wing equivalent of “Heil Hitler” It shouldn’t be this way: “Free Palestine” is just a phrase But this was the slogan spraypainted onto the walls and windows of the Jewish student accommodation at Leeds University as it was onto synagogues in Porto and Madrid and the railway bridges that sit atop Golders Green the best-known Jewish neighbourhood in Britain over 10 per cent of all antisemitic hate incidents in 2023 involved “Free Palestine” being shouted tweeted or scrawled at or on Jewish people In one case a teenage schoolboy in London was put up against a wall punched in the face and told to say “Free Palestine” There was even a staff member at a trampolining centre who shouted “Free Palestine” over the Tannoy because a bunch of Jewish kids were bouncing around having fun and she seemingly couldn’t cope with the sight of ordinary Jews doing ordinary things is where any conflation between anti-Israel speech and antisemitism resides I suppose it would be surprising if a global movement to condemn the world’s only Jewish state as a unique transgressor of all moral and human values didn’t attract at least some people who dislike Jews I’m sure a lot of the people on those huge demonstrations just want the war to end this isn’t about improving the lives of Palestinians but about saving humanity from the fearsome malevolent Jewish power that antisemites have always fantasised about This doesn’t do the Palestinian cause any favours The people shouting “Free Palestine” at Jewish kids in London aren’t going to free a single Palestinian from Israel “Our cause is not to establish a Palestinian state but to dismantle Israel,” tweeted Professor David Miller in 2023 I desperately want to believe there can be a movement for Palestinian rights that does not bring with it these waves of antisemitism but that would require effort and restraint on the part of the people leading it it’s obvious that the anti-Israel movement has an antisemitism problem even though most of the people in it fervently believe they are opposing racism This is an extract from post-October 7 updates to the paperback edition of ‘Everyday Hate’ by Dave Rich October 7 Svitlana Kylivnyk fled across the border with her own two girls and seven of her friends’ children Here she shares her story with Charline Bou Mansour and Ros Russell News | World Before the war erupted in Ukraine running a firewood business with her husband near the small city of Pohrebyshche Life was good. The family kept chickens and ducks. Her elder daughter Alla was studying law in Kyiv and her younger daughter Olena was about to graduate from high school; she was looking forward to her prom Now Svitlana, 41, is living in a recreation centre in Rudki in southeastern Poland having fled across the border with her own two girls and seven of her friends’ children “When the war broke out my mum started to talk to parents from other families because of the unbelievable horrible things that were happening,” explains Alla “She couldn’t fight so she believed her role was to bring these children to safety so their parents could continue to help our struggle in Ukraine.” Svitlana applied to the court to become the legal guardian of all of the children in her care see their work as crucial to the war effort The mother of 13-year-old Yaroslav and 8-year-old Sasha is a friend of Svitlana and an ambulance dispatcher in Pohrebyshche just over 100 miles southwest of the capital Kyiv Once reassured that her children would be safe says Alla: “There was no way she could walk out of the hospital fleeing Ukraine meant not only leaving his parents school and friends behind but also a promising football career - the teenager was signed to the top-flight Ukrainian team FC Nyva Vinnytsi and dreamt of a future as a professional player who sleeps in a dorm room used in normal times by Polish children on activity holidays She’s determined to be a good parent to all the children and is sensitive to their individual needs Cameron defends Holocaust memorial location as ‘unapologetic national statement’ Harris will engage EU Council on Ukrainian energy security proposals Harris criticises Russian ‘terrorism and barbarism’ during Ukraine trip Make education a priority with help from these acclaimed resources “It was really important to Yaroslav to continue with a professional team so we’ve helped him do that – now he’s playing for a good team here in Rudki,” says Svitlana proudly her ‘adopted’ son resting his head on her shoulder as Alla translates her words Yaroslav had left behind his precious football boots Hearing his son was to start playing again his father made a mercy dash to the border with the boots Svitlana arranged for them to be collected – sending back a carload of relief goods and two flak jackets that she’d raised the money for in Poland ‘Their eyes don’t look like a three year old’ The children here are among the 5 million Ukrainian children who have been displaced by the war in just six weeks “They have been forced to leave everything behind: Their homes their family members,” said Unicef Emergency Programmes Director Manuel Fontaine Life at the Goloborze centre in Rudki is comfortable Families are served three meals a day on long trestle tables in the dining room and their children are enrolled in local state schools everyone here bears the scars of war- the fear of low-flying planes and not knowing when and where the bombs would drop their eyes don’t look like a three year old They were forced to grow up because they have already been through a lot of pain,” Svitlana says her eyes filled with tears and her jaw set in anger Twenty-four-year old Natalia has a blunt-cut fringe and startling pale green eyes She escaped from her village near the city of Vilnyansk in southeast Ukraine with her children Anya She sheds tears of fury as she speaks: “When we started hearing shooting close to our village my husband and my parents decided to get us on a train going to Zaporizhya and then to Lviv When we left we thought we would feel relief but that’s not how it feels “It’s unbearable to think that our loved ones are still there.” The children must adapt to a new environment Most arrived with just a small backpack and they make do with the few clothes and belongings they carried with them They keep asking when they will go home and no one can answer For two of Svitlana’s young charges it was being separated from their mother on her birthday it was missing out her much-anticipated school prom – buying a dress “My daughter was in the last class at school dreaming of going to university in Ukraine She’s in Poland and it’s a different school system,” says Svitlana “She was really upset about this and for two weeks fell into a kind of depression.” Also swept up under Svitlana’s wing is Ivana, Alla’s best friend from Kyiv. When Alla’s father drove to pick her up from Kyiv at the start of the war, Ivana came too. She doesn’t want to speak directly; her story is difficult and painful as her family trapped in Kherson in Russian-occupied Ukraine where residents report food shortages and rising levels of repression and criminality by Russian forces The two friends keep a close eye on the news on their phones, looking in horror at pictures of the mangled wreckage of Friday’s missile strike on a train station in the eastern city of Kramatorsk Ivana is now terrified about what will happen to her family There could be more fighting if Ukrainian forces try to recapture the city “Ivana’s family has prepared everything to leave Svitlana seethes with a controlled rage at the destruction “I personally can’t talk about forgiveness after what they have done to my family and all the families that have been destroyed and killed Her role now is to look after her new family “What is the future of our children?” she asks VE Day 2025 fashion: best looks from the day VE Day 2025 fashion: Princess of Wales to Lady Victoria Starmer Prince Louis steals the show at VE Day parade as he keeps dad William looking sharp and mimics brother George Prince Louis steals show with sweet antics at VE parade Ukraine 'launches stunning Kursk offensive' in major blow for Putin ahead of Victory Day celebrations Ukraine 'launches stunning Kursk offensive' in blow for Putin David Beckham extends olive branch to son Brooklyn amid 'family feud' Pregnant Jesy Nelson reveals plans for future in message from her hospital bed after surgery Pregnant Jesy Nelson reveals plans for future in message from hospital