Proposed British Jewish History Month

Greg Smith Excerpts

Thursday 11th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Greg Smith (Buckingham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Warrington North (Charlotte Nichols), not least because she has improved my knowledge of wrestling from absolutely nothing to slightly more than nothing. I celebrate all those Jewish stars of the wrestling world, just as I celebrate all those individuals whom my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Nickie Aiken) and others have listed from the worlds of entertainment, politics, industry and many more.

I am delighted to say that the Jewish population of Buckinghamshire is growing—it grew by 7% between the 2011 and 2021 censuses. I stand shoulder to shoulder with the community, which I am proud to represent. I want to see it thrive and go from strength to strength.

Notwithstanding the powerful comments that have been made about trying to ignore the haters, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Northampton North (Sir Michael Ellis) said, we have to acknowledge that Jewish communities in Buckinghamshire and across the country are hurting right now. I was privileged to join the south Buckinghamshire Jewish community at a Hanukkah event at Waddesdon Manor in my constituency in December, led by the wonderful Rabbi Neil Janes. His opening words during the short ceremony really shocked me. He said, “We no longer feel confident to gather as a community.” That was in the United Kingdom in 2023. Of course, every community should be confident to gather in the United Kingdom in modern times. They should all be afforded our protection; they should all feel safe.

I put my thoughts about the event on social media, as we in this House have a tendency to do, and I said, not unreasonably, that we must defeat antisemitism. It took 45 seconds for one of the haters—whoever debbie.bennett21 is—to write underneath my Instagram post:

“Strange words ‘must be defeated’”.

What on earth was going through that individual’s mind?

I saw it yesterday under another of my posts, and I have now reported it to the police. A person taking issue with something I said about the conflict between Israel and Hamas—it is perfectly legitimate for someone to take issue with my view on that—asked on Instagram:

“Are you married to a Jew?”

Such outrageous behaviour is happening in our country right now, and it has to be stamped out.

I wanted to say this in the Chamber this afternoon, and to support the call of my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster for a Jewish history month, because one of the most important reasons why we study history is to understand what happened in the past and to ensure that the mistakes of the past, the horrors of the past and the evil of the past are not able to happen again. Yet we see history repeating itself, which is why we simply must have a Jewish history month to celebrate the contribution of all our Jewish communities and everything they have achieved and will continue to achieve.

As Members of Parliament, we all receive very difficult emails. We all have people come to see us at our surgeries in very difficult circumstances, with horrendous stories to tell. It is very rare that those stories reduce us to tears, but I received an email from a Jewish constituent, whose identity I will protect, openly saying:

“I have never felt as scared as I do right now to be in the UK… I’ve considered converting… I’ve gone to ground.”

She has turned off the ability to be found on social media. That should scare us all. It must put a bounce underneath us to ensure that we defeat antisemitism and enable all Jewish communities, all people of the Jewish faith, to live freely, securely and safely, and to feel welcome, here in the United Kingdom, whether they are British or otherwise.