Mick Hartley

Life for Jews in Bristol:

When a fellow parent at a park in Bristol learnt they were Jewish, Francis Jones and his wife, Rachel, were asked: “Well, you’re not Zionists are you?”

“We looked puzzled, and from then it didn’t go well,” Jones said. “That family no longer talk to us.”

The Joneses [not their real name] say they have seen a gradual increase of “a permissive culture of antisemitism” since Hamas terrorists attacked Israel on October 7, 2023, killing 1,200 people, committing sexual violence and taking 251 hostages.

And so it goes.

Jones said his child had “already experienced hassle from another pupil over Gaza” at the primary school, which left the child in tears….

He said it was perfectly normal for people in their neighbourhood to talk about their racial heritage and which protest marches they had attended.

“People are regularly testing you,” he said. “There are very few spaces where you are not getting it in your face with the Gaza conflict. We are not Israelis but it’s pumped into our lives like it’s happening just across the border in Bath.

“We believe in a two-state solution but the only way you can navigate this area of Bristol is to say you believe in the destruction of Israel. People lose their minds if they suspect you have any sympathy for Israel’s right to exist.”

At a children’s football club, which has a Soviet-style red star as a logo and stated aims that include “to challenge racism, sexism, fascism, homophobia and transphobia”, a parent was explaining at half-time how Jesus was a Palestinian, not a Jew.

“Everyone was nodding along,” Jones said. “I called him out and said Jesus was Jewish and I was looked at like I was causing a scene. We had to change football clubs.”

Jones said his wife had family who have lived in Israel for almost a century, having escaped discrimination in another Middle Eastern country.

On the streets around their home, many houses and shops display posters showing they are boycotting Israeli products to end the “apartheid” in Gaza and the West Bank.

The new socially acceptable racism. But antisemitism doesn’t count. Jews don’t count.