The sky was rarely darker than on a moonless night in Theresienstadt. Of the 140,000 Czech Jews imprisoned in the concentration camp-ghetto in Nazi-occupied Czechoslovakia, a quarter died of disease or starvation. The rest were carted away, murdered in Auschwitz-Birkenau and other death camps in the East. Yet even in Theresienstadt, there was Hanukkah.
In May 1942, the modernist sculptor and architect Arnold Zadikow was rounded up with his family and deported to the prison camp. He was put to work in the Lautsch Workshop, which produced decorative arts for the Nazis. With the help of a young woodcarver, Leopold Hecht, who stole a block of wood from the Germans, they created a Hanukkiah with nine candles and a Star of David. The inscription in Hebrew read, “Who is like you, O Lord, among the celestials?”
This was no exception. The festival of lights was celebrated in the Lodz ghetto in Poland, the Westerbork transit camp in the Netherlands and by a young Jewish boy on a bridge while being transferred between concentration camps in Romania. Where it almost didn't go ahead is Havering, east London in 2023.
Earlier this week, the council cancelled plans to light Hanukkah candles outside its town hall, suggesting this would “risk further inflaming tensions within our communities”. Instead, it said it would erect a temporary installation to be quickly dismantled after. In the last few hours, the council reversed its position and announced the celebration could go ahead. This is welcome, but so much damage has already been done.
In a city where attacks on Jews have reached unprecedented levels, cries of “death to Jews” have been heard in train stations and some in the community are feeling moved to remove public displays of their Jewish identity, the initial ban was perhaps the most chilling development. Because it came with the tacit seal of official approval.
The way to counter anti-Jewish hatred is not to hide the symbols of Judaism, it is to counter hate on the streets
It is unquestionably true that tensions are running high in the capital, as they are elsewhere, following Hamas’s barbaric terrorist attack in Israel, in which 1,200 people were killed and some 240 taken hostage, and the Israeli military response, which Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry says has killed more than 14,800 people.
But Havering’s decision was wrong for one simple reason: the celebration of Jewish life in Britain, indeed its very existence, is not a provocation. Put another way, Jews are not responsible for antisemitism. Nor is the act of granting Jewish people the equal rights of citizenship in this country to mark important festivals akin to taking sides in a conflict overseas. Unless, that is, one views all Jews as culpable for the the actions of a foreign government. And we have a word for that.
Let there be no doubt: a person who sees the celebration of Hanukkah in Britain and decides to desecrate it is not responding to events in the Middle East. Instead, their primary objection is to the existence of Jews anywhere.
Most people in Britain neither observe Hanukkah nor would they contemplate protesting its celebration. But silence at this point is complicity. The right of personhood for British Jews cannot be placed in the “too hard” basket.
As for Havering, the council was not even prepared to put a name to its initial statement. The borough has a responsibility to protect Jewish life, but so too to protect the Jewish way of life — and indeed the same applies to its other residents regardless of their background.
The way to counter anti-Jewish hatred is not to hide symbols of Judaism. For politicians, the task is to provide leadership, counter hate on the streets and online and update Holocaust awareness to include more modern forms of antisemitism. For individuals, it is to talk with friends, family, neighbours and colleagues about the impact and consequences of antisemitism, how it manifests and to report it when they see it.
It would be easy to think, given the last few weeks, indeed the last few thousand years, that Judaism is largely defined by antisemitism. It isn’t. For example, have you tried the food? To that end, MPs yesterday called for a debate on the Jewish contribution to British life. A reminder that there is plenty to be celebrated in the face of hatred, and that no group should be defined by it.
It shouldn’t need saying but here we go: pretending Jewish life doesn’t exist, indeed actively suppressing it, is not the answer to antisemitism. It is a capitulation to antisemitism.
Jack Kessler is chief leader writer and author of the daily West End Final newsletter
