If there’s one number you never want to see flashing up on your phone, it’s the school’s. That moment before you hear “there’s nothing to worry about” always seems to drag on. For me, when “there’s nothing to worry about” hasn’t been forthcoming, it’s meant head injury – Baruch Hashem, brain now fully functioning – and second-degree burns, also thankfully now fully healed.
This time, it was a different tone. Not quite “everything OK” but not “nothing to worry about” either. A mobile phone device had been whipped out in class and was now being locked up for the night, hence there was a 14-year-old boy making his way home on the Tube on his own, device-free. When I got home from work, I was ready to chastise, but as one would expect from any self-respecting Jewish boy, there was a defence case at the ready. What had actually happened was this: a friend needed to check his Teams to see what the homework was but, alas, his Chrome Book was not working. So who came to this poor, confused, vulnerable boy’s aid, risking life and limb to offer him his own forbidden mobile device to check Teams? My hero! The friend rather carelessly got caught holding said device, and who immediately took the bullet and admitted the device was actually his own? My brave boy!
In reality, there are few explanations my son could have come up with that would have turned him from mazik to Moishe quite so swiftly. Being loyal to friends is something we all value deeply. (And yes, I am aware there’s more than one way to see any situation, also relevant when I get to the crux of this column.)
But what it did make me realise is that the one characteristic we value most in life is sticking by friends – even if we are sometimes critical. And the reason that feels pertinent right now is that it’s equally true whether that friend is an actual person or, for an example, an 180-year-old institution or, utterly hypothetically, a trusted newspaper.
And how much more important is that loyalty if that friend had stuck up for you when you were being bullied, or had bravely stuck their neck out on behalf of all your mates when it seemed like that school bully (hypothetically nicknamed Germy Crabby) was about to become head boy.
Conveniently dissociating, keeping one’s nose clean, is a mishigas of our times. You can’t be seen to “like” something someone says in case 600 years ago on a medieval version of X that same person had posted their support for corporal punishment. When things get complex, when people or institutions – or even countries – find themselves in tricky waters, of course it is easier to say “nothing to do with me”.
The current war in Israel has thrown up that challenge for so many of us. As with our own politics, British Jewry is very much conflicted in terms of the war itself; from my non-statistical anecdotal experience, I would say only a minority support the current government, something a recent poll also confirms. That in itself can be challenging.
But our relationship with Israel, and certainly our own Jewish pride, is not contingent on agreeing with Netanyahu, even though that’s not always easy to communicate in our bite-size world of snappy messages and headlines. At times, when the hatred and negativity towards Israel has been overwhelming, in certain situations it may have been tempting to dissociate, just like that schmuck Jonathan Glazer at the Oscars. He took the opportunity to clear his name, to avoid being tarnished, so that his Hollywood luvvies could all give him a huge congratulatory air kiss, rather than facing complexity. He had spoken previously, in this paper in fact, of his “love affair” with Israel, sparked by his five-month trip there while he was a pupil at JFS. If he felt fiercely anti-war, he could have espoused his hate for the current government rather than writing off the Zionist dream and publicly throwing an entire nation and ideology under the bus. He chose convenient dissociation rather than facing the challenges that come with loyalty.
But what’s been fascinating to see is that our kids, our British teens, have taken the non-Glazer road. There are more children with Magen Davids dangling round their necks than ever before, my own included. As the cacophony of criticism towards Israel, however twisted at times, has become deafening and whatever their feelings on war and ceasefires, British kids seem to be louder and prouder than ever of being Jewish.
In fact, as I was writing this column – in Ronnie’s on Hampstead High Street, where else? – in walked the wonderful Karen Cinnamon, who founded @YourJewishLife, a joyous Instagram account aimed at helping Jewish women “feel empowered, connected and included”. She happened to be clutching a stack of her Jewish Joy journals, a beautiful creation she launched two years ago for the Jewish mummy market: part diary, part gratitude journal, part Jewish life planner. She’s given them a post-Oct 7 redesign. The original version had a subtle Jewish Joy journal slug on the cover, because we British Jews have always been a little shy of the “J” word. The post-Oct 7 version, like our kids’ jewellery, is louder and prouder. With bold print and a Magen David, it screams Jewish joy.
Being loud and proud isn’t always easy. This week, one friend told me that her friend, who goes to a school with very few other Jewish pupils, wanted to wave an Israeli flag at their diversity assembly. She is scared of the backlash among parents. but her daughter is determined not to be shamed out of her pride for her faith – and for Israel.
In a sense it all comes down to the same challenge: getting the right balance between being loyal and critical. Friends are sometimes flawed. In fact, they are very rarely perfect.
But that’s why coming to the “rescue” of his school pal who made the mistake of waving his phone about, was the silver lining to my son’s detention. That’s why I’m glad my friend supported her daughter to wave that flag on stage. And that’s why, without putting too fine a point on it, I am still proud to be here writing this column – and, presumably, why you are still here reading it too.
