We're thinking of moving, well, actually we have decided to move and it was a v hard decision because I love living here on the 22nd floor with views over London that only millionaires have.
The thing is, it came down to security. I never realised that I felt insecure living here. I never really acknowledged that feeling. I knew I admired an old neighbour on the 9th floor. She was brave and told everybody in the building she was Jewish. She used to sit on the ledge at the entrance to the building and shout greetings to everyone in the building. She was a fantastic conduit for gossip and, when she died, I lost a connection to most of what happened in the building. She had a mezzuzah at her frontdoor - something I could never bring myself to do.
When I realised we would move to a more secure-feeling building, my first thought was that I want to put a mezzuzah at my front door. That's how I realised I felt insecure here. Suddenly I felt it might be safe to 'come out' as Jewish.
When I said this to K, she asked who I was afraid of here. I said, the BNP- or white racism. We have encountered graffiti a couple of times on the stairwell and though it was focused on Bengali people, I knew it included me as well.
She questioned that, saying the only direct serious anti-semitic racism we have ever encountered here was perpetrated by muslim extremists, who claimed that the holocaust (the shoah) was an invention in order to acquire Israel.
I guess seen from that point of view, the racism has been more significant from muslims than from white christians. But in my imagination, my fears are around white racists. White christians are historically the ones who have wanted me and my people dead. The history books I studied at school were filled with (white) christain racism. The legacy is that I fear them, almost exclusively, regardless of who is currently wanting me - or Jewish people - dead.
It's a hard thing to explain... and I know it's irrational. I know there are other people who hate Jews out there but they don't signify to me in the same way. I was taught to hate Arabs, through my Jewish education, but not to fear them. I was taught to fear white christians
and, like a good student, I do.