Steve Freedman

“What kind of a depraved monster slices off a woman’s breast while she is being gang raped, and throws it into the dust to be used as a plaything? What kind of a twisted pervert turns rape into necrophilia by shooting a woman in the head while he is still defiling her? What kind of ‘freedom fighters’ go into battle with a set of handy Arabic-to-Hebrew phrases, including ‘take off your pants’, ‘lie down’, and ‘spread your legs’? What self-respecting human being presses nails, scalpels, a hammer, an axe, screwdrivers and other household tools into a woman’s genitals? How hard do you have to rape someone, and with what, to shatter their pelvis? Who shoots a young girl in the face and then films her mutilated corpse on her brother’s mobile phone? The answer is: Hamas terrorists. This is the stark reality of what they did to men, women and children on October 7, 2023. And the world must never forget.” @WestminsterWAG

I’ve written and researched the whole seven front war since 7th October. It has been my whole professional life. I’ve written many papers and have just finished my book. I have written both positive and negative critiques of the war. All of that feels irrelevant in this context. The most meaningful thing I have done since 7th October is bear witness and relay the horrors done that day. I have seen part of the sexual crime evidence in this report (above and beyond the 47 minute reel) and it remains the most horrific thing I have seen in my life. Nothing Israel has done in Gaza comes remotely close to the horrors of 7th October. The Gaza war and 7th October don’t deserve to be in the same conversation when it comes to atrocity. No comparison. The rapes are the thing Hamas and their supporters are most scared of being exposed to the world. Every time I have written about what I have seen, 5x the usual amount of bots descend upon my replies. Abuse and outright denial. Now, the evidence I have seen, and more, is out there. When Yoav Gallant said Israel was fighting human animals in Hamas, he was absolutely correct. Read it for yourself: civilc.org/silenced-no-mo…

What is so chilling nowadays is not simply the resurgence of antisemitism itself but watching people who once proclaimed the loudest commitment to tolerance and human rights now unable (or unwilling) to recognise the same poison within their own ranks dailymail.com/debate/article…

Whenever I post about antisemitic incidents in this country, and about the fear, exhaustion and uncertainty many in the British Jewish community are feeling right now, I receive countless messages from allies across the UK asking the same question: “What can I do to stand with the Jewish community?” The answer - amongst many other things - is to speak up, call out antisemitism wherever you see it, and stand visibly with the Jewish community. Because the reality is that British Jews are under attack. Daily stories of arson attacks, stabbings, attempted car rammings outside Jewish schools, Hitler salutes outside Jewish shops, abuse on social media, anti-Jewish graffiti in our communities, Jewish people being assaulted on public transport and open glorification of extremism on our streets. And it is getting worse. The Jewish community is becoming more and more besieged by security. Synagogues, schools and communal buildings increasingly resemble fortresses. Parents are frightened sending their children to school. Jewish students hide symbols of their identity. Many Jews no longer feel comfortable openly expressing who they are in parts of the country they once called home. Too often, we hear words. Statements. Condemnations. But many Jews feel increasingly alone. This Sunday, there is a march outside Parliament against anti-Jewish hatred and extremism. A cross-communal gathering of Jews and allies coming together to say that this hatred, intimidation and violence cannot become normalised in Britain. Too often, Jewish people are told that support exists quietly in the “silent majority.” But silence is not enough anymore. Visible solidarity matters. Presence matters. Please join us. Stand with the British Jewish community. Stand against antisemitism. Stand against extremism. Because the future of this country depends on whether good people are willing to speak - and stand - when it matters most.

You may not agree with me, but you will always know where you stand with me. Today in Billericay, a heckler tried to shout me down as I spoke about the normalisation of hatred towards Jews. I did not back down, because it needs to be said. British Jews are being targeted and too many people are pretending this is the same experience of other minorities. This lady implied Muslims are being similarly targeted. This is simply not true. Let's be honest about what is happening. Certain groups (in particular but not solely Islamic Extremists) are creating a climate of fear and intimidation that is normalising Jew hatred. I will never stand for that. Governments have spent too long hand-wringing, making excuses and hoping it would go away. It is time to call this what it is: a national emergency in our attitude, our urgency and our response. I will always engage with people who disagree with me. That is politics. But there is a difference between argument and intimidation. Shouting does not make a bad case good. It's done to silence others. And it certainly does not change the truth. The truth is that British Jews have been made to feel less safe in their own country. Our country. They are being singled out, threatened and harassed in ways that should shame everyone in public life. If we do not stand up now and stop this rise in antisemitism, then why bother saying "Never Again" at Holocaust Memorial Day? Because this is how it starts. I am not prepared to play along with the pretence that this is normal, or manageable, or just another example of tension between groups. It really is not. It is targeted hatred and it is getting worse. So my message is simple. Not here. Not in Britain. And not on our watch. We need to stop the hand-wringing and start doing the right thing. That means standing with British Jews openly, unapologetically and without fear.

"There are people in this nation now hunting Jews, for no other reason than they are Jews. Everything else is just a way of justifying their persecution." MUST WATCH monologue by @TrevorPTweets on Sky News, as he reflects on the unrelenting explosion of Jew-hatred in Britain.

On @BBCr4Today, the Chief Rabbi made a direct appeal to the country. "The silent majority of the UK is with us," he said. "They're with the Jewish community… But the time has now come for the silent majority to raise its voice." He was clear about what is and isn't enough. Letters of support, he said, arrive in abundance. What is needed now is "an outright public condemnation." And he asked the question that hangs over this moment: "If this was happening to any other minority in the UK right now, I presume there would be a very different response from the nation and from the government. Why is it different for the Jewish people?" He is right. Jewish life in Britain is facing a level of threat not seen for generations. Going to synagogue, walking children to a Jewish school, wearing a kippah, shopping in a kosher store - ordinary acts that increasingly feel like acts of defiance. In the past five weeks, four Hatzola ambulances have been firebombed, synagogues attacked and two Jewish men stabbed on the sreet. The terror threat has been raised to severe. Some have spoken. HM The King, politicians from across the parties, faith leaders and others have rightly condemned these attacks. But the response the Chief Rabbi is asking for - and that this moment demands - must be broader than that. Prominent Muslim leaders and organisations - the imams, mosque federations - must speak out clearly and publicly against this hatred. The unions and the vice-chancellors of our universities, given what Jewish students are now living through on our campuses, must raise their voices. Our football authorities, cultural institutions, bishops and anti-racism charities must join in condemning these attacks. Too many have said nothing. That silence is being heard, in every Jewish home in this country. The Chief Rabbi has spoken for British Jews. The rest of us must answer him - clearly, publicly, and now.

Jonathan Freedland on why proudly anti-racist voices go silent when Jews are being stabbed in the streets. #unholypodcast #antisemitism #solidarity #BritishJews #London #silence

It turns out that if you import millions of people who are taught to hate Jews their entire lives your country becomes less safe for Jews. Who could have predicted this?

Pass it on if you feel the same.

Too many people who are not Jewish remain silent in the face of Jew Hatred. Silence is not neutral. Neutrality in the face of Antisemitism gives hatred permission. I STAND WITH BRITISH JEWS

They don’t just want to terrify and kill the Jews. They want to remake your country in their image. They are coming for Britain’s future and soul. And it’s going their way. You can stop them, but you don’t have much time. Because they’re radicalising your kids. They’re turning your politicians into their supine lapdogs. Stand up for your country against the Islamists and leftist radicals. That's who “they” are. So stand up. Tell that self-righteous person you on your social media timeline or in your everyday life that you are appalled at what they are doing. That they have become an extremist. And that it’s actually dangerous. If they had nothing to say as Iran massacred tens of thousands of Muslims or as China put Muslims in concentration camps and yet they go to the hate marches (still going on) to chant “From London to Gaza, we’ll have an intifada”, they’re the ones you need to confront. If they’re the ones thinking @ZackPolanski has a point when he says that Jews just have a “perception of unsafety”, and that antisemitism was “weaponised” against @JeremyCorbyn, that’s who I mean. They are the ones making it cool to hate not just Jews but this country. And the best way to fight back is to show them that it isn’t cool, it’s stupid, hateful, and dangerous. Tell them they’re being played. That’s how denazification worked. And if you think that’s an exaggeration and that they’re harmless, watch the video of the stabbing I watched today. That’s what they called for when they chanted “Globalise the intifada”, and it’s well and truly globalised now, isn’t it? So speak up, because it’s your country you’re losing. It’s your children who are being radicalised. And it’s unfair as can be, but it’s down to you, all of us, each one, to act.

Here come the cliches….. ‘This is not who we are as country’ ‘this has no place in british society’ and the rest…. Aptly done @JewishNewsUK

@zarahsultana You literally posed with someone making the Hamas triangle sign. Save your thoughts. No one wants them.

"Why isn't there a call for a huge rally in London this weekend of every committed anti-racist in the country?" Journalist Jonathan Freedland calls for greater solidarity with the Jewish community following the terror attack in Golders Green. #Newsnight

You're a bright lad @owenjonesjourno. What did you think the slogan "Globalise The Intifada" meant? It means "Kill Jews Across The Globe". Don't pretend to be surprised and upset when people act on the slogan.

Today, a man ran through Golders Green, a Jewish neighborhood in London, stabbing Jews outside a synagogue in broad daylight. The UK PM called it "utterly appalling." Here's what's actually appalling: For two years, Western streets have hosted marches calling for the elimination of Israel. Universities have celebrated it. Politicians have legitimized it. The media has normalized it. You don't get to spend two years mainstreaming the idea that Jews and their state have no right to exist and then act shocked when someone takes the message literally. Words have consequences. "From the river to the sea" isn't poetry. "Globalize the intifada" isn't a metaphor. When you spend years telling the world that Jewish presence in the Middle East or in Golders Green is a problem to be solved, don't be surprised when someone shows up with a knife to solve it. The ideology and the blade are the same weapon. One just has a longer handle.

Do we really want to lose our oldest, most loyal and productive minority? It breaks my heart. My plea to Britain’s Jews: Please don’t go. 👇 British Jews are in danger. Either we do something about it or they’ll leave telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/04/2…

Being a Jewish student in Britain today means living a kind of double life. I go to lectures. I take exams. I navigate seminar rooms and library queues like any other student. But unlike most of my peers, I do all of this while calculating: am I in danger because my Star of David or Kippah is visible? Will speaking up in this discussion make me a target? Is today a day there'll be a demonstration outside? Going to university is supposed to be a student’s main job. Right now, for many British Jewish students, it feels like a side gig - squeezed in around the exhausting, full-time business of simply being Jewish on campus. My great-grandmother was Lily Ebert. She arrived at Auschwitz at just 20 years old. In a single day, her mother, her younger sister, her youngest brother, and over 100 members of her extended family were murdered - gassed and cremated, their ashes scattered with no grave, no place to mourn. That was July 1944. She survived. She came to Britain to rebuild her life, and she did more than survive; she thrived. She built a large and loving family: ten grandchildren, 38 great-grandchildren and even a great-great-grandchild in her final year. She believed Britain would be a safe haven. A place where her family could live openly, proudly, as Jews. A country that had learned the lessons of history. For decades, she travelled across the UK speaking in schools, and in her later years she used social media to warn young people that the Holocaust did not begin with violence. It began with words. With small actions. With a shifting atmosphere. In her final months before she passed away in October 2024, my great-grandmother was horrified. Horrified to see the country she had trusted - after the greatest crime in history beginning to fail its most basic duty. She was right to be horrified. And this week, her warnings feel more urgent than ever. British counter terror police are today investigating a wave of arson attacks on Jewish sites across London - four in as many days - probing whether Iranian proxies are responsible. Two synagogues and a Jewish charity torched. And an Iran-linked group threatening to fly drones carrying hazardous substances at the Israeli embassy. This all coming only a few weeks after Jewish ambulances were set alight in Golders Green – one of the most Jewish areas in the UK. Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis has warned that "a sustained campaign of violence and intimidation against the Jewish community of the UK is gathering momentum." Prime Minister Keir Starmer has expressed surprise and called the attacks "abhorrent." But how can he possibly claim surprise? If you tolerate chants of "Globalise the Intifada," don't be surprised when the Intifada is globalised. And throwing money at the problem simply is not a solution. You cannot pay your way out of an Intifada. And we cannot continue to besiege ourselves with security – living behind ever thicker doors and higher fences with barbed wire. This violence doesn't begin with arson. It begins with ideology - and until Britain starts tackling the ideology, no amount of policing or security will stop the flames. That means banning the IRGC, who may well be behind this very campaign of attacks. And it means confronting the Muslim Brotherhood, who are radicalising young people across this country - on campuses, in mosques, in community centres - and may well be recruiting the people lighting these fires. And it starts closer to home too, on campuses like mine, where week after week, masked demonstrators flood university spaces, chanting slogans that go far beyond political protest into something far darker. Jewish students are singled out in lectures, booed, shouted down, accused of being "baby killers" simply for being Jewish. Many now tuck away their Star of David necklaces and think twice before speaking up in seminars. A Jewish professor had his lecture stormed by masked protesters who screamed abuse, branded him a "war criminal," and - according to witnesses - threatened to behead him. His only crime was being Jewish and refusing to be intimidated. And it is not just coming from the students. Too often, academics themselves are part of the problem. On my own campus, the medieval blood libel - the conspiracy that Jews use non-Jewish blood in their rituals - was repeated to students as fact, at one of supposedly the best universities in the UK. Beyond campus: an NHS doctor posts "gas the Jews" online and faces no meaningful consequence. Jewish artists are quietly dropped from programmes. Jewish events are cancelled without explanation. Protests where chants cross into open hatred are allowed to continue unchecked by police. Individually, each moment can be explained away. Together, they reveal a slow and steady normalisation of dangerous jew-hatred. In the past year alone, the UK recorded the highest number of violent antisemitic assaults per capita anywhere in the diaspora - roughly one for every 2,500 Jews. Jewish schools have warned students not to wear visible symbols on their commute. Jewish teenagers have been assaulted on public transport. Every Jewish institution now sits behind security barriers, guards, and locked doors. We are a community under siege. My great-grandmother spent her life warning that these things begin not with violence, but with silence. With the small capitulations. With institutions that hedge, qualify, and reach for the language of "context" and "balance" - as if balance is possible when a minority is being targeted. Britain has a choice. It can honour the lessons it claims to have learned. Or it can allow that silence to continue - and discover, too late, where silence leads. My great-grandmother, Lily Ebert, survived Auschwitz. It is shameful that she lived to see Britain begin to echo the very hatred she had survived - and thought she had left behind in Eastern Europe.

Confused as to why politicians say, on another attempted arson attack on a Jewish building, “these terrorists are trying to divide us - and will not succeed etc etc.” Are they? I’d say that diviseness is not the object. I’d say it’s trying to kill Jews.