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Why we need a month dedicated to Britain’s Jewry

It’s of course good that the government supports our security but there is more to Jewish life

May 28, 2024 13:50
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Rishi Sunak meeting vice chancellors and representatives from the Union of Jewish Students in Downing Street on 9 May (Photo by Carl Court/Getty Images)
3 min read

Scrolling through my social media feed, which has been filled with Jewish doom and gloom for months, I marvel at the “Celebrate Jewish Stories” announcement on an official Disney Careers page on Facebook. Well, they get me – I click. And I learn that at Disney they’ve spent May recognising and highlighting “Jewish employees, consumers, and fans around the world.”

I read an article condemning Columbia’s crackdown on their encampment and another, conversely, from Jewish students decrying the behaviour of the activists. Then I spy — far less contentious — the National Endowment of the Arts boasting about some of the great Jewish American artists of the century (Judy Chicago, Tony Kushner, Pearl Lang, Max Weber) and affirming their financial commitment to Jewish American organisations. They end their statement encouraging everyone to learn about the contributions to the arts and humanities by Jewish Americans.

No less positive a declaration can be found on the White House website, where you can see President Biden’s proclamation on Jewish American Heritage Month, added on 30 April this year. Biden dates Jewish American settlement to 1654, well before American independence. He reels off a long list of different kinds of Jewish actors that participated meaningfully in the nation’s history: suffragists, activists, leaders in the Civil Rights movement, scientists, doctors, engineers, artists, public servants, entertainers, etc. He quotes Sephardic poet Emma Lazarus to say that Jews “helped write the story of America, making it…a home for the ‘huddled masses yearning to breathe free.’” Switching gears, Biden then talks about the suffering of the Jewish community since 7 October, the implications for and fallout on American Jews, and his national strategy to counter antisemitism.

It's true that Disney wants to sell its merch and the NEA likes to promote its work, and that Biden hopes to win the upcoming election — and maybe it’s in part for self-interested reasons, too, that the now retiring MP Nickie Aiken raised the idea of a British Jewish History Month in January.