Address given by Rabbi S.F. Zimmerman [1]
As part of Fforestfach Colloquium VII
My Lords, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for giving me the opportunity to speak with you today. I speak not only as a Rabbi, and not only as a member of the Jewish community, but as someone whose own family story is bound up with the history of antisemitism, with the history of Britain, and with the question of what sort of society we wish to be.
My parents were Holocaust survivors. They came to this country after seeing what happens when hatred is allowed to grow, when lies are allowed to become respectable, when neighbours are taught to fear one another, and when the language of contempt becomes the prelude to persecution. They came to the United Kingdom with deep gratitude. They admired the Royal Family. They admired the stability of this country. They admired the freedom of religion and the freedom of political life that Britain represented. To them, this country was not merely a place of safety. It was a place where one could live as a Jew without fear, where one could worship openly, speak freely, and contribute to society with dignity.
That personal history is always with me. It is not a history I carry as bitterness. It is a history I carry as responsibility. My parents knew what it meant to be denied the protection of law and the fellowship of ordinary citizens. They also knew what it meant to be received by a country whose institutions, at their best, defended liberty and conscience. So when I speak about antisemitism today, I do so with love for this country and with concern for its future.
Today, the 2nd of July 2026, is the 17th of Tammuz in the Jewish calendar. For Jews, this is a fast day. It marks the beginning of a period of mourning leading towards the remembrance of the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem. Jewish tradition teaches that on this day, among other calamities, the walls of Jerusalem were breached; a Torah scroll was burned; and an idol was placed in the Temple. These are not merely ancient memories. They are symbols. A wall is breached when the protection of a society fails. A Torah is burned when truth and conscience are attacked. An idol is placed in the Temple when something false and degrading is allowed to stand where holiness, dignity and moral responsibility ought to be.
Antisemitism is not simply a prejudice like any other, although it is certainly a prejudice. It is something more persistent and more adaptable. I think of it as a spiritual virus. It mutates. It travels across borders. It afflicts countries with very different political systems. It has appeared in communist societies and capitalist societies, in religious cultures and secular cultures, on the far right and on the far left. It changes its vocabulary from age to age, but the underlying sickness remains recognisable.
In one age, Jews are accused of being too separate; in another, of being too influential. In one place, they are accused of clinging to tradition; in another, of undermining tradition. At one time, they are accused of being rootless cosmopolitans; at another, of having loyalty only to one particular country. The accusation is never stable because it is not really based on evidence. It is based on a need to blame.
History is full of absurd and wicked beliefs about Jews. One of the oldest and most poisonous is the blood libel: the claim that Jews would kill Christian children in order to use their blood. It is difficult even to repeat such a thing, because it is so grotesque. Jewish law forbids the drinking of blood from any animal. The idea that Jews would do what they were accused of doing was not merely false; it was the complete inversion of Jewish belief and practice. Yet lies, if repeated often enough and tolerated by people in authority, can become deadly.
That is one of the lessons of antisemitism. It does not require truth. It requires permission. It requires enough people to shrug, enough people to remain silent, enough people to say, ‘Well, perhaps there is something in it,’ or, ‘This is not really our concern.’ Once that happens, the lie gains a social life of its own.
So how do Jews feel today? I can only answer from what I hear, what I see, and what many in the community express quietly and sometimes with great pain. Many Jews feel targeted. They feel under threat. They feel that they need protection in a way they did not expect to need protection in modern Britain. They feel isolated.
And sometimes, even well-intentioned advice deepens that isolation. Jews are told: stay inside; do not go near people who disagree with you; do not incite them; do not be visibly Jewish; hide the symbols of who you are. I understand that such advice is often given out of concern for safety. But we must be honest about what it means. If the answer to hatred is that the hated person must disappear from public view, then the hatred has already won something. If a Jewish child is told not to wear a kippah, if a Jewish student is told not to mention Israel, if a Jewish family is told to avoid certain places because their presence may provoke hostility, then we are not solving racism. We are reorganising life around it.
That is why this matters to all of us. Treating Jews differently, even in the name of caution, can further isolate them. It allows hatred to set the terms of public life. It dehumanises people by making them appear as a problem to be managed rather than as fellow citizens to be protected. And it causes Jews to ask a question which no loyal British citizen should have to ask: do we have a future here?
Lord John Mann, the Government’s independent adviser on antisemitism, was commissioned by the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care and the Prime Minister in October 2025 to review how the NHS and its regulatory system recognise, report and tackle antisemitism and other forms of racism. That review was not only about Jews. It was about the moral health of a national institution. It showed that antisemitism is not a Jewish problem in the sense that Jews cause it. Jews suffer its consequences. The problem belongs to the society in which it is allowed to grow.
The importance of that review is that it understood something fundamental. Racism corrodes trust. Antisemitism corrodes trust. If a patient wonders whether the person treating them despises them, or if a member of staff wonders whether a colleague sees them through the lens of conspiracy and hatred, then an institution begins to fail from within. The NHS, like any great public institution, depends on tolerance, fairness, discipline and mutual respect. Without those things, it does not merely become unpleasant. It begins to self-destruct.
We have also seen recent violence in Golders Green. Jews were shocked by it, but many were not surprised. That is a terrible thing to have to say. When slogans are repeated without responsibility, when hatred is dressed up as activism, when people shout ‘globalise the intifada’ or ‘from the river to the sea’ and then insist that no ordinary person should draw any conclusion from those words, we are asked to abandon common sense.
There may be academic discussions about the precise meaning of slogans. There may be people who say they mean something different by them. But ordinary Jews hear them in the context in which they are shouted, and in the context of the violence and intimidation that so often surrounds them. Common sense understands that when people call for the elimination of Israel, many Jews hear a call for the destruction of the one Jewish state and a threat to Jewish peoplehood itself. Words matter because words create permission. They prepare the ground on which violent people decide they may act.
In our society, most people are not violent. The overwhelming majority of people are peace-loving, decent and fair. But violent people exist on the fringes of every society. The danger comes when those on the fringes sense that the atmosphere has changed, that certain hatreds have become acceptable, that certain targets no longer command the sympathy of the majority. Then they act.
This is why I appeal today to the House of Lords, to people of influence, to parliamentary representatives, and to all who care about the moral character of our country. Please do not be afraid to call out hatred. Do not be afraid to say that certain language is unacceptable. Do not be afraid to say that Jewish citizens must not be made to feel alone. And do not imagine that sympathy is weakness. To feel with us is not to take a partisan position. It is to take a human position.
There is a famous saying often attributed to Edmund Burke, although the exact attribution is disputed: ‘The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.’ Whether Burke said those precise words or not, the truth of the sentiment is beyond dispute. Evil does not always triumph because it is strong. Very often, it triumphs because decent people are tired, embarrassed, cautious, or silent.
We are not asking for special treatment. We are asking for equal citizenship. We are asking that Jewish children should walk to school without fear. We are asking that Jewish students should speak honestly without intimidation. We are asking that Jewish patients and staff should enter hospitals with confidence. We are asking that synagogues should not need the level of security that has become normal. We are asking that our fellow citizens see us, hear us, and stand with us when hatred is directed our way.
Antisemitism begins with Jews, but it never ends with Jews. A society that tolerates conspiracy, dehumanisation and selective compassion will eventually damage every minority and every institution. If one group can be abandoned, another can be abandoned tomorrow. If one lie can be excused because it is politically convenient, another lie will soon follow. The defence of Jews is therefore also the defence of truth, the defence of decency, and the defence of Britain’s best traditions.
My parents came here because they believed this country could be different. I still believe that. I believe most people in Britain want fairness. I believe most people reject hatred. I believe most people understand, instinctively, that a society is judged not by the slogans it permits the loudest voices to shout, but by the protection it gives to those who feel vulnerable.
So my message is simple. Do not leave Jews to face antisemitism alone. Do not allow hatred to become normal through repetition. Do not allow intimidation to dictate where people may go, what they may wear, or how openly they may live. Speak clearly. Act fairly. Stand alongside those who are targeted. And let us ensure that Britain remains what my parents believed it to be: a country where freedom of religion, freedom of conscience, and the dignity of every citizen are not merely admired in speeches, but defended in practice.
[1] Rabbi Zimmerman never writes out his addresses verbatim, preferring to speak from a set of abbreviated bullet-points. The editors have used Microsoft’s Artificial Intelligence app, Copilot, to reconstruct the Rabbi’s presentation, using his bullet-points to guide the AI. The Rabbi has reviewed and approved the resulting verbatim reconstruction, its style and the thrust of its argument.
Rabbi Shraga Feivel Halevi Zimmerman is an American and English Haredi rabbi who since 2020 has served as the rov (senior rabbi) and av beit din (Head of the Court) of the Federation of Synagogues in London. He is a posek (a legal scholar who determines the application of halakha, the Jewish religious laws derived from the written and Oral Torah) and is regarded as one of the United Kingdom’s most influential Haredi rabbis.