Let me tell you why the Jewish community's fears are very real

What did Dame Margaret actually say? That when she heard about the disciplinary action, "my emotional response resonated with that feeling of fear that clearly was at the heart of what my father felt when he came to Britain."

That her father, who had fled Nazi Germany, told her when she was young that "you've got to keep a packed suitcase at the door, Margaret, in case you ever have to leave in a hurry".

For that, an MP who lost family in the Holocaust was the target of relentless, belittling abuse from Corbynistas.

For example, the woman who tweeted: “if only she would observe one minute silence for each of the Jews that were killed, we would get peace and quiet from her BS for some time because she would have to shut the f*** up for 11 and a half years. Stupid b****.”

But if you understand our community, you understand that the fears that people have — although they might seem ridiculously hyperbolic to some — are in fact very real.

For myself, I often think back to my childhood.

I went to a religious primary school in Golders Green, North West London, the heart of London’s Jewish community.

It's been eighteen years since I left that school, but I still remember it well: the world within a world within its walls; the friendships, alliances and petty enmities; the assemblies and break times; the competitions and the sports days.

Of the 29 boys in my class, almost all had at least one grandparent who was a Holocaust survivor.

My primary school was strongly linked to the German Jewish community in North West London, and although the true horrors of the Holocaust were not discussed at such an early age, I never heard the name of Hitler mentioned without the associated malediction of Yemach Sh’mo — “May his name be blotted out” — one of the worst curses in the Jewish tradition.

I remember in year 3, when in late April 1997 we held a mock general election, a week before the real thing. The Conservative candidate was the son of a real-life local Tory councillor and wooed the young electorate with manifesto pledges such as “ice cream with school dinners” and “an outing every week”.

The Labour and Liberal Democrat candidates — the latter now, as it happens, a popular rabbi in one of the oldest congregations in Britain — could not hope to compete with this promised largesse. The Tories won by a landslide, and I remember being more than a little puzzled the following week when it turned out that the will of the seven-year old people had not been respected by the country at large.

I also remember a new school alarm being introduced that same year. Unlike the normal school bell, when this one rang we were meant to get under our desks and lie on the floor, while the teacher sat in front of the door.

It was presented to us as a “dead lions alarm”. It named after the party game — popular at the time with cunning parents who wanted some peace and quiet — that children lie on the floor in absolute silence, with the final person not to move declared the winner. 

“But what if we're in the toilet?” I remember a classmate of mine asking our exceedingly irascible Welsh sports teacher.

“Well then, you get down on the floor in the toilet, don’t you?” was the response. The alarm was tested on a couple of occasions, but never, as far as I know, used for real. But from then on it was there. Just in case.

I also remember sitting in class one day and discussing current affairs, as we did at the start of every week.

It was then that I saw one of our teachers rendered utterly vulnerable. She was a brilliant woman, possessed of an iron will, and she was brought very close to tears.

It was not because of anything we had done, but because of a news item we were discussing.

A case at the High Court had made the front pages: David Irving was suing Deborah Lipstadt for libel over her description of him as a Holocaust denier. Our teacher’s voice broke as she described Professor Lipstadt as “an incredibly brave woman” and we sat there, unable to comprehend how anyone could possibly dismiss something of that magnitude — and the experiences which so many of our relatives had been through — as lies. 

I still live near that school and drive past it often. It has changed since I was there. It has become more religious, and I less so. Whereas once a passerby would have been able to simply walk up to a classroom window on the one side of the building, it is now surrounded by tall iron gates. The interior, I am told, is much changed. 

As am I.

I worry more now, not just because I have reached adulthood, but because I look at the future for Jews in this country, and it hasn't looked this bleak for many decades.

When I one day have children, I want my daughter to be able to participate in a mock election where one of the parties isn't perceived as being increasingly hostile to our community. I want my son to take part in a discussion of current affairs without seeing fear in his teacher’s eyes.

Above all, I don't want that alarm to ever have to ring.

I remember Jeremy Corbyn’s lifelong association with those who have sworn to harm my people, wherever they may be. I look at the people who flock to his banner, and see some of them who are outright antisemites and Holocaust deniers, while many more are willing to look the other way at antisemitism.

I worry. And many other people in the Jewish community worry.

You can dismiss my fears, and pour scorn on my trepidation, as so many have directed their contempt and abuse at Margaret Hodge.

But I believe that says far more about you than it does about me.