UK: How antisemitism picked me

David Aaronovitch @ the JC:

But there was one problem and you'll all have guessed what it was. I could cherry-pick the Jewishness, but the antisemitism picked me. Not I'll-kill-you-Jewboy antisemitism but the myriad assumptions and attributions that a majority makes about a minority of whom it feels nervous or envious.

It first cropped up when I was 24. I was National Secretary of the National Union of Students and we were having a problem with the goons that Saddam Hussein's regime had sent to Britain to police Iraqi students. So I "derecognised" the National Union of Iraqi Students.

Within weeks, a two sided document had been circulated to student unions purporting to be copies of letters of encouragement to me from the Communist Party (which I had plenty to do with) and the Israeli embassy (which I didn't).

There it was. Name equals Jew. Jew equals tribal conspiracy. But what amazed me was how many ordinary British students bought into it.

Since then it, or something like it, has happened over and over and over again. And the only people who have understood, by and large, have been Jews. Their comprehension has, perhaps, become my Jewish dream. I hope so, because otherwise I really don't know what to say.

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