A British Jew's Perspective...

Published in the Guardian - largely responsible for much of the anti-semitism in the UK...

I am a secular, liberal, identifying British Jew. My parents would have taken great pleasure if my acting talents had landed me a starring role in the primary school nativity play; on Christmas Day, we gather at home eating smoked salmon bagels and mince pies. There is no conflict whatsoever between my religion and nationality. On the contrary, they have always supported and echoed one another in terms of the values and moral structure they promote. Judaism has taught me to value liberalism, education, tolerance, family and charity. All Jewish religious services and celebrations include a heartfelt toast to the Queen, because Jews in this country have felt safe, well-assimilated and, most of all, grateful.

In August 2001, I turned 21 and my parents gave me a Star of David necklace. Then a month later, the world changed and my mother, with remarkable foresight, began her campaign to rescind the gift, begging me to take it off because she was frightened it would make me a target in the wake of mounting evidence that fanatical Islamism was tightening its grip on the country. My argument was always the same - when I am no longer safe being identifiably Jewish on the tube, I don't want to live in England.

Now it's happening and I am devastated. It was bluster. I am resolutely, irreducibly British. I love Marmite and Labradors and Sunday lunch. If you step on my foot, I will reflexively apologise. New York, where I will go if I have to leave the UK, does not feel like home for me nor, I suspect, could it ever. But as the British establishment sides with the appeasing of Islamism at home and abroad and as the word Zionism is increasingly bastardised, hijacked by a new definition comprising traditional antisemitic libels and demonising conspiracy theories, and as the liberal media and campaigning groups single out Israel disproportionately among all other countries for criticism, perpetuating the myth that Israel is responsible for mushrooming anti-western sentiment, I feel increasingly that I cannot stay.

My little sister arrived back at her university last week to discover buildings had been daubed with antisemitic graffiti. Across north London, the same scrawled vitriol has been appearing - "Jihad to Israel", frequently accompanied by the message: "Kill Jews."

Hamas' leader Mahmoud Zahar has now declared Jewish children worldwide as "legitimate targets" and although Fleet Street's recent Hamas revisionism made his statement easy to miss, it seems that plenty of others have taken note. The Community Security Trust has dealt with more than 50 antisemitic incidents in the UK in the last two weeks, including an arson attack on a synagogue, a massive spike in violence since the current operation began in Gaza.

"Normally, in that period we'd expect about a dozen," their press officer explained to me, but what a staggering and unacceptable base rate. The average number of antisemitic attacks in a civilised western country should be zero. There has been a sea change in Europe and it's terrifying.