LONDON — As a “little Jewish boy” growing up in postwar Britain, Simon Schama says he never felt physically unsafe walking the streets wearing a kippa. Nor, he says, were guards routinely posted at the door of the local synagogue.
But, notes the acclaimed historian, that’s not the experience of Jewish children in Britain today. Instead, he says, it is the most difficult time for young Jews to be growing up since the end of World War II.
“It’s really painful that little kids, for example, Hasmonean or Jewish Free School kids, have to hide their uniforms,” Schama tells The Times of Israel. “The sense of a fearful loss not just of self-esteem, but basic civil rights. Nobody goes around tearing hijabs off Muslim women, and I’m very glad they don’t. But this is a dreadful time just [in terms of] feeling you have equal rights to the rest of the multicultural population.”
Parts of central London’s West End, says Schama, have become “no-go” areas, with Jews wearing a kippa or a Star of David facing the risk of “being screamed at.”
Schama’s comments came during a week when Britain’s Jewish community — already experiencing near-record levels of antisemitic incidents — was further shaken by an arson attack on four ambulances belonging to a Jewish-run volunteer organization in the heavily Jewish north London neighborhood of Golders Green.
Hela artikeln här: https://www.timesofisrael.com/historian-simon-schama-with-parts-of-london-no-go-zones-jews-have-lost-basic-civil-rights/
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