Essex Rabbi speaks about “frightening” antisemitism and worrying about his children identifying as Jewish in public

A senior Essex rabbi has spoken out about “frightening” incidents of antisemitism, as well as safety concerns regarding his children identifying as Jewish in public.

Noting the anxiety felt by both him and his community, Senior Rabbi Mordechai Wollenberg of Woodford Forest United Synagogue said: “My wife went to get her vaccine the other day and I went with her and it was the first time I thought, ‘Do I put a kippah on?’

“I thought, I don’t know who is going or who would be there and I felt slightly uncomfortable.”

Regarding his children, Rabbi Wollenberg said that he worried about his children identifying as Jewish, “because what has happened in recent weeks is very ugly.”

“Sentiments under the surface have come to the surface now. It’s not new, we have seen it before and it is happening again,” he added.

In the last few weeks, several members of the Jewish community have had to question whether they would continue to publicly identify as Jewish. Recently, a prominent Jewish school has advised its pupils to wear hats over their skullcaps and to cover their school blazers in public amid skyrocketing cases of antisemitism. These a fellow Essex rabbi being assaulted and hospitalised.

Speaking on this issue, Rabbi Wollenberg said: “I definitely feel there’s much more of an angst and I sense that as a community, for those of us most visible, which I am, we are primary targets of physical hate attacks. We have seen it happen and seen that change in recent weeks.”

“You still think, that could happen to me. I’m obviously Jewish and my kids are obviously Jewish. I don’t hate who I am but we are also a little careful. You have to take care and protect yourself outside,” he added.

Many Jews have been worried about being identified as such on public transport, including Rabbi Wollenberg’s son.

“My son was going out and was going to put on a mask when he was leaving and one of the masks had Hebrew on it that said ‘Love your neighbour as yourself’ and he said ‘I probably shouldn’t wear that on a tube, people will probably get a bit jumpy’ and that was really smart,” the Rabbi said.

The country has seen a number of rallies take place recently where several antisemitic signs and chants were present. Rabbi Wollenberg acknowledged this, while also stating that he believes that the demonstrations were organised with “good intentions.”

“We can all have our views as long as it doesn’t spill out into how we treat each other,” he said, adding: “The one thing that sticks out to me also is there is a peculiar double standard in our culture. Every liberal cause going, people jump on the bandwagon and Jews are the only minority who they will say ‘stop complaining’. If it was the other way around, it wouldn’t be like that. We say we feel threatened on the streets and feel uncomfortable and people say ‘sorry it’s our freedom of speech’.”

In recent weeks, there have been several videos of people issuing threats to Jewish people. Rabbi Wollenberg spoke about one in which he saw people allegedly chanting “kill the Jews” in Arabic.

He said: “I don’t know much Arabic but I know how you say ‘Kill the Jews’ and hearing people shouting that in tandem – they weren’t shouting ‘Kill Israelis’, they are saying ‘Kill the Jews’ and it’s happening now in our country and social media means we are all aware of it. That is very frightening. We know from Jewish history that we are often not taken seriously. People are making these threats, what happens next?

“If there’s a message to ‘go kill the Jews’ then someone will go do it. I have heard a lot from Jewish friends say it’s only a matter of time before someone dies. That doesn’t mean it is necessarily going to happen in Essex but nationally, it’s a disaster waiting to happen.”

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s analysis of Home Office statistics shows that an average of over three hate crimes are directed at Jews every single day in England and Wales, with Jews almost four times more likely to be targets of hate crimes than any other faith group.

Campaign Against Antisemitism’s Antisemitism Barometer 2020 showed that three in five British Jews believe that the authorities, in general, are not doing enough to address and punish antisemitism.