Naomi, this reads to me like you look for antisemitism where it does not exist. Perhaps this explains your own misfortunes? You will only be silenced by your own hateful outlook on the world.

My thoughts exactly Joe. You just got told there Miriam. Take heed and do better.

As one of the many marchers from the Jewish Block I’d challenge Miriam to listen to what we and others are actually saying rather than the motives and language attributed to us. No Palestinian devised a pogrom against Jews in Yemen, no Palestinian participated in the Holocaust. Why is that irrelevant when defending Israel and justifying the deliberate killing of Palestinians? No Israeli hostage has been rescued by the IDF yet we have hostages used as a pretext to killing more Palestinians in Rafah now. I’ve marched with children of Holocaust survivors who I respectfully suggest aren’t anti-Semites. This is a tragedy justified by cheapening anti-Semitism. Jews like me who ask for the end of deliberate killing of Palestinians are insulted by intimations that we don’t care about fellow Jews, we don’t care about the hostages, that we are not real Jews for not blindly supporting Israeli politicians who urge killing of “human animals”. I have no doubt that Paula is more than capable of supporting a Jewish family with understanding and professionalism while also criticising Israel for its actions. Miriam should reflect on what Sami wrote too. Jews aren’t a homogeneous entity and some of the more virulent critics of what is happening to Palestinians come from Hasidic Jews. The trauma I feel is seeing what I see, hearing what I hear and knowing that this unquestioning support of Israel and the justification of what it is perpetuating against Palestinians will be more pain for Jews. I march as a Jew because I am proud of the values my family taught me, I march as a Jew because I know what dehumanising people leads to, I march as a Jew because “never again” means something to me, I march as a Jew because people whose families were murdered in the Holocaust march too, I march as a Jewish social worker because I believe in justice, self respect and equality. If you regard Palestinians as something lesser, if you believe there are no Palestinians to start with, if you forget what history is, if you casually equate Palestinians to Hamas, if you think Palestinians live on borrowed time in the “territories”, then seeing people like me as “hate marchers” is an easy step. We are not and nor are Muslim, Christian and secular Palestinians.

I am Jewish. Both of my parents were born in Yemen. Jews have now been ethnically cleansed from Yemen, having had roots there for hundreds if years. My children have dual heritage from their Ashkenazi father…I hope I don’t have to explain the horrors of Europe his family endured.

I repeatedly see in the marches, people hold placards saying ‘ceasefire now’ in one hand and ‘from the river to the sea’ in another, I read this as being ‘Israel stop defending yourself and surrender to Hamas so that we can regroup and ensure that the Jewish state of Israel ceases to exist’. I live and work in the heart of the broad range of yhe Jewish Community and hear from a multitude of Jews who understand this to be the case too. Had I seen placards saying ‘lasting peace’ or ‘release the hostages’ alongside these placards, I would perhaps be more open to seeing things otherwise.

So for me and most Jews (but not all), these marches are highly triggering of intergenerational trauma and deeply frightening. We live in a state of high alert and it consumes our thoughts and discussions in our community. I appreciate that many want an end to the death and destruction, as do I, but it isn’t coming through that this is for Israeli’s as well.

I hope that this help you, Paula, to understand why we view these marches as fuelled with an underlying antisemitism, and I hope that should you be in a position to be supporting a Jewish family who may be feeling this way, you will be more open to having an understanding of ‘the others view’, even if it differs to yours.

“Gaza’s citizens” are Palestinians, for us to have respectful conversations we need to start from acknowledging who people are. October was a Hamas atrocity but history does not start then. There are countless Palestinians being brutalised now, not just in the West Bank and soon in Rafah but also in Israeli jails held there without trial. Being relentlessly bombed and rounded up and shot at and crushed and killed aren’t exactly conditions for “offering support” whether by Hamas or NGOs who are themselves being brutalised and killed. I too am a proud social worker. I am also a refugee from Kurdistan. Sadly my parents died from Turkish bombs so never got the chance to seek refuge in the UK. I have empathy for all brutalised people. But where does someone like me who has been branded and anti-semite even when I condemn Hamas and believe Israeli hostages should be returned home get to be part of a respectful conversation? These are the discussions we need to have too.