Love since 7 October

It is strange to be writing about love, when our world since 7 October has felt at times to be overflowing with hate. At CST, we confront hate every day. Usually, we hear about it anecdotally, when people who have seen it in the wild call to lean on us for support.

When confronted so consistently with the reality of antisemitism, questions inevitably arise, what motivates one to hate?  This hatred can take many shapes. Whether propelled by a hate of the Jew, Judaism, everything that the world’s sole Jewish state represents, or a combination of all the above, it is rarely clear-cut. One thing has become increasingly clear. Despite what some antisemites would have you believe, Jew-hate is not an innate part of the human condition.

It is learned. Antisemitism has formed part of the social fabric for millennia, yet the fabric of antisemitism has not changed much in that time. It is undercut by the very same tropes, narratives and conspiracies that held Jewish people responsible for Jesus’ death, that blamed them for the spread of the Black Death, that propagated the myth of ritual child sacrifice and that, in the minds of antisemites, have justified the repeat expulsions or worse of Jewish communities worldwide throughout the centuries.

So, what keeps us motivated to keep going? There are many reasons why we may have chosen to get involved with the organisation, however, the one thing that unites every single one of us is a shared and profound love of British Jewish life. This love, in one way or another, is what brings us to CST and what brings CST to action.