I sat in the synagogue where I grew up last night, waiting to interview Colonel Richard Kemp, the retired senior officer of the British Army who served for nearly three decades across Northern Ireland, the Balkans, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. Our conversation would end a service marking the transition between Israel’s Memorial Day for its fallen and its Independence Day. A British Jew and a British Colonel, in a room full of emotion, pride, and more than a little apprehension, after a week in which multiple arson attacks on Jewish-linked sites have taken place in London. There was an uncomfortable sense of the fall of Rome in the air.

That place feels like home to me. I have sat on its wooden pews for as long as I can remember, under the light of the stained glass windows, surrounded by its decorative wrought iron railings – all distinctly Victorian British features, shaped by a church-like grandeur of domes and arches layered with Moorish and Romanesque ornaments. Its blended architecture embodies the cultural fusion of my own British life and many of those in the congregation.

Layers of identity sit comfortably together: Jewish, British, Sephardi, Mizrahi. They work together as notes in a symphony, textures in a painting, interlocking bricks in a tower of strength. The congregation is Britain’s oldest Jewish one, founded by the first Jews to resettle here after Oliver Cromwell permitted our return in the 17th century.

Most of us chose Britain. Not by accident, but deliberately

Most of us chose Britain. Not by accident, but deliberately

As we waited during the service, I found myself acutely aware of where we........

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