The arson attack on ambulances belonging to Hatzola, the Jewish first-aid association, in the car-park of a synagogue in Golders Green, the heartland of London’s Jewish community, sent a shiver down my spine (and, I presume, the spines of many Jews wherever they may be). And also, according to reports, caused discomfort in many decent people in the UK and elsewhere.
It is a more overt expression of what has been called ‘the longest hatred,’ i.e., Jew-hatred, which has been with us in one form or another for as long as anyone can remember and beyond.
I was born in war-time London to parents who had managed to escape Nazi Germany and find refuge in Britain (after relatives there had provided the necessary funds guaranteeing that my refugee father would not become a burden on the British tax-paying public). But Britain, to its credit, accepted considerable numbers of refugees from Nazism, including some ten thousand children under the Kindertransport system (again against funds and guarantees). England was a Christian country, and Christian values were supreme. The British sense of decency prevailed over the prejudice that still lay under the surface of society.
I was lucky to have been born into a relatively open and democratic society that provided health care and education for all. I know that my parents faced a financial struggle to provide my two sisters and myself with a relatively comfortable home and a decent education. But antisemitism in one form or another haunted our lives, whether knowingle or not.
My first encounter with antisemitism came when I was hospitalized for suspected scarlet fever at the age of ten. The children’s ward contained some twenty beds for both boys and girls, and the treatment we received was coldly efficient. I remember one nurse with a soft Irish lilt in her voice who seemed to take me under her wing, brushing my hair and giving me special attention. One day, when I asked whether the table with the ward’s radio could be pushed a couple of inches nearer to my bed she rebuked me, saying “Next thing, you Jews will want to be on the right hand of God.” I had no idea what she meant but knew it was bad. I began to cry and didn’t stop until I was discharged from hospital a couple of days later.
After passing the now-notorious eleven-plus exam in 1952 I was able to attend a grammar school for girls. This was a privilege, and a ticket to a better life. The first books we read in our English class were imbued with Christian ideas and values. Thus, Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress,’ and Lamb’s ‘Essays of Elia’ were among the first pieces of literature we read. The pilgrims in Bunyan’s book may have deviated somewhat from ideal Christian morality, but the concept of pilgrimage was paramount. The Lamb essay we studied was all about the delights of ‘crackling,’ i.e., the crisp, juicy skin of roast pork. This was something to which I and probably no other Jewish girl at the school could relate, and the idea of obliging us to read about its wonders constituted a particularly malevolent form of torture to our young minds. Of course, at a later stage we read ‘The Merchant of Venice,’ and imbibed Shakespeare’s ambivalent approach to Jews. In History, our focus was on the Tudors, and for our teacher Modern History ended in the run-up to the First World War. No mention of Hitler, the Second World War and the persecution of Jews, of course.
At that school there was a fairly large contingent of Jewish girls, so we tended to make friends among our co-religionists. From time to time we would hear comments about ‘you people’ from non-Jewish girls or even teachers, but we seem to have taken it all in our stride. As we approached the end of our time at school we began applying to universities, and I was strongly discouraged from trying to get into the LSE (which accepted me on the strength of my interview there). I later found out that two or three non-Jewish girls had been selected for help in applying to Oxford and Cambridge, but that had been done secretly, excluding myself and any other Jewish girl. Anyway, they didn’t get in, and one of them followed me to the LSE a year later.
Perhaps the height of tolerance in Britain in those days was the high rate of acceptance of Jewish students at universities, and that is certainly to the credit of the country. But it goes without saying that those young Jews who remained in England have made a sterling contribution to its culture, industry and life in general.
These days, as bombs rain upon us here in Israel and we make our way to our bomb shelter several times a day and even at night, I sometimes wonder if I did the right thing in coming to live in Israel after I had been privileged to benefit from the British education system. But when I see what England has become in the sixty years since I left it I can only conclude that, even with the wars and discomfort I have endured, my life in Israel is better than the one I would have had in England. It might not be more comfortable (though it certainly is very comfortable), but it is definitely more meaningful. I can only hope that this time of war and anxiety will end soon and we can go back to enjoying the sunshine, physical proximity of family and relaxed way of life which only Israel can offer.
I was born and brought up in England. I am a graduate of the LSE and the Hebrew University. I have lived in Israel since 1964. I am an experienced translator, editor and writer.