Diversity Macht Frei
October 12, 2017
Golders Green is a notorious Jewish colony in Britain. Jews even have their own quasi-police force there, the Shomrim.
The entire area is marked out as an eruv – Jewish home territory – by wire suspended on poles 18 ft above the ground.
This wire stretches across 11 miles.
But the Jews now face an incursion into their space with plans to transform the old Hippodrome building into a mosque.
It seems the dark clouds of prejudice and intolerance have eclipsed the usual Jewish respect for diversity.
Ms Ayelet Avroya wrote: “This neighbourhood is affiliated with the jewish (sic) population that has been living here for years, side by side with the English Christians and others.
“This is going to force the jewish population to run away and make this beautiful neighbourhood to crowded, with loads of burka’s (sic) and vails (sic) over the weekend which I find scary and changes the fine balance between the residence (sic) of this area?”
Ms Josephine Bacon wrote: “To place a large Muslim institution in the heart of one of London’s only two Jewish communities is a highly dangerous undertaking and one that can only result in violence and terrorism.
“The Hippodrome, which I have known since childhood, is in a very prominent position and will attract large numbers of worshippers, including many undesirables, to the neighbourhood.”
Jewish rabbis have even been forced to warn against the use of hateful language.
Reading some of the comments on various chat groups by those opposed sent a shiver down my spine.
Comments such as “we don’t know what they are preaching as its all in Arabic”, “this will result in violence and terrorism” and “there is a chance of infiltration of bombers” are Islamophobia plain and simple.
Going through the public forums – not to mention what people are saying in private – and it actually feels even more sinister still. The language being used is simply not right.
I am chair of the Holocaust Memorial Day Trust and the power of words is the theme for Holocaust Memorial Day (HMD) 2018. It has never seemed more fitting.
Whether it’s Donald Trump on Twitter, or the overt racism and antisemitism we see from the far right and far left, our discourse has taken a turn for the worse.
People seem to forget that language can make a difference – both for good and evil.
We know from our own past how language has been used to fuel hatred. We know too how more recently in Rwanda, people were encouraged to think of the Tutsis as “cockroaches” – as a deliberate way to increase division. Language has been mis-used by other evil regimes in subsequent genocides, and as Jews we always need to be very aware of this.
I wouldn’t for one moment suggest we are using Nazi language, but we must recognise the danger of what we say and how that fuels mistrust, separation, prejudice and hatred.
The Jews are learning a harsh lesson: weaponised diversity is hard to control. Just as the Weinstein scandal may have started with Bob trying to take out his brother Harvey, there is always a strong potential for a runaway chain reaction.