“Are you a f***ing Jew?”: Journalist Nicole Lampert on the disturbing phone calls made to her son
Nicole Lampert, the freelance journalist, best-selling ghostwriter and former Showbusiness Editor of the Daily Mail, appeared on the most recent episode of Podcast Against Antisemitism where she disclosed that her teenage son was the victim of aggressive, threatening phone calls based on his Jewish identity.
Discussing last year’s incident, Ms Lampert said: “We were on holiday in Norfolk and my son gets a phone call, and it was from an anonymous number. ‘Are you a f***ing Jew?’ And he said, ‘What?’.
“[The Caller] said ‘Don’t say “what”, just answer the question. Are you a f***ing Jew?’. And [her son] said ‘Yes’, and [the Caller] said ‘Watch your back.”
Ms Lampert continued: “That frightened my son, and we weren’t at home. He was frightened enough to say ‘Can you get a neighbour to go round and just check the house?’ He didn’t know who it was. He had an idea who it was. It wasn’t someone from his school.”
Ms Lampert added that her son continued to receive anonymous phone calls throughout the week.
“That, he found hard. But generally, he’s okay, I would say. It’s quite a young lesson to learn…antisemitism has risen,” the journalist said, adding that her son was also witnessing antisemitism on social media.
In addition, a fellow student at her son’s student called her son “Jew”, in what Ms Lampert described as “in a nasty way, to his face”, which she felt was as a result of the conflict between Israel and the antisemitic genocidal terrorist group, Hamas.
Ms Lampert added that she was contacted by a fellow Jewish parent at the school who asked her: “How are your boys? Because my daughter is afraid to go to school because her friends have been posting stuff on social media.”
The content in question allegedly referred to conspiracy theories pertaining to Jewish people and Israel.
Last year, in response to similar concerns, Campaign Against Antisemitism published a short resource on “What to do about antisemitism at school” for children and parents, which helps identify antisemitism using the International Definition of Antisemitism and provides pointers on how to act when antisemitic incidents arise.
Throughout the interview, Ms Lampert discussed her extensive primer on antisemitism within the Labour Party, her own experiences of online antisemitism and stories from her life as a showbiz writer.
This podcast can be listened to here, or watched here.
Podcast Against Antisemitism, produced by Campaign Against Antisemitism, talks to a different guest about antisemitism each week. It streams every Thursday and is available through all major podcast apps and YouTube. You can also subscribe to have new episodes sent straight to your inbox.
Previous guests have included comedian David Baddiel, television personality Robert Rinder, writer Eve Barlow, Grammy-Award-winning singer-songwriter Autumn Rowe, and actor Eddie Marsan.
