‘This is visceral and existential’: Jewish lawyers react to a week of horror

‘We publicly condemn and denounce the unspeakable acts of mass terror perpetrated by Hamas, a recognised terrorist organisation, against civilians in Israel.’

So began a statement issued yesterday, signed by over 400 lawyers from firms such as Kirkland & Ellis, Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, Clifford Chance, Allen & Overy, calling for colleagues across the legal profession to denounce the atrocities committed by Hamas. The statement went on:

‘We stand for moral consistency. We are profoundly disturbed by the litany of free people throughout the world who are indifferent, or even hostile, when confronted with Jewish suffering.’

As the wording suggests, the issue of language and moral equivocation is not just one for the debating chamber. It is being felt on a profound level within the UK’s small Jewish community, nearly all of whom have friends and family in Israel and will know someone killed or missing (see box for current casualties at the time of writing).

‘This is visceral and existential,’ says Mishcon managing partner James Libson. ‘It’s induced terror and fear in our souls and on behalf of our families and children.’

Like the many other Jewish lawyers interviewed for this article, he notes that antisemitic incidents in the UK have already risen by 300 per cent, and schoolchildren at Jewish schools have been advised this week not to wear their blazers for fear of being identified. Just today it was reported that Menorah High School in Brent, Torah Vodaas Primary School and Ateres Beis Yaakov, both in Barnet, had told parents that they were closing today over security fears.

‘To a greater or lesser degree, we’ve priced those experiences into our existence as Jews,’ says Libson. What we haven’t experienced until last Saturday is the fear that, for all of the loud support Israel has received from the political leadership of the Western World, we, as Jews, are alone and vulnerable and our last resort haven has been rocked by unimaginable hatred and evil to its foundations. ‘

The lawyers interviewed for this article express similar sentiments of distress and fear over their community’s safety. They also express despair at the prospect of what will be a protracted and vicious war of which civilians on both sides will bear the brunt. As one lawyer says: ‘As if we don’t care about innocent people now suffering in Gaza! – it’s always going to be the innocent that suffer.’

‘It is possible to be terribly worried about what will happen to civilians in Gaza and hope and pray for their evacuation and protection, and also condemn what Hamas did without equivocation,’ says Francesca O’Neill, a barrister at Deka Chambers.

‘We’re not immune to the suffering of others,’ says Libson, ‘but we’re concentrating on our own suffering at the moment and the solidarity we require as a community that recognises the centrality of Israel and its people to our existence.

All interviewees speak of their deep appreciation of the multiple messages of concern and support from non-Jewish friends and contacts. That has extended to gestures of care within the workplace. Simon Myerson KC, who works out of St Paul’s Chambers in Leeds and Byrom Street Chambers in Manchester, says: ‘Chambers have been just brilliant. Both my senior clerks have been checking in with me.’

Adds Libson: ‘The support I’ve received from those outside the community has meant more than I can express and would have expected it to mean to me.’

But while private support has been forthcoming, there is a deep unease and frustration among many Jewish lawyers that despite increasing corporate attention paid to diversity, equity and inclusion, that the Jewish experience is being ignored or caricatured into politically un-nuanced positions. ‘You see lots of people who are very vocal about social justice issues and they’re not saying a word about this,’ says one lawyer.

‘I’ve supported a Palestinian state for 40 years,’ says Myerson. ‘The thought of voting for Netanyahu fills me with revulsion. But there’s no space [among some on the left] for Jews to be anything but anti-Zionist or to be told that we are all fascists in favour of brutal war crimes and we don’t care about dead children, which is ironic in the light of what’s been happening.’

Many interviewees use comedian and commentator David Baddiel’s phrase ‘Jews Don’t Count’ as a shorthand for their feeling of being ignored. In his book of that title, Baddiel takes aim at what he calls the double standards of current notions of privilege, diversity and inclusion within identity politics.  ‘There is one minority that, for the privilege-checkers, stays firmly in the square of privilege,’ he argues, going on to say:

‘Jews are stereotyped by the racists in all the same ways that other minorities – as lying, thieving, dirty vile, stinking – but also as moneyed, privileged, powerful and secretly in control of the world’ not in the ‘sacred circle’ of the oppressed.

‘Money doesn’t protect you from racism. It doesn’t matter how rich you are, because the racists will smash in the door of your big house that they know you don’t deserve anyway and only own because you’re Jews.’

Myerson argues that many Jews have impostor syndrome. ‘I accept that I’m a member of the establishment, as it were, but I know that Jewish barristers, however senior they are, still have that kernel of worry that someone will say they are not really British,’ he says. ‘The view that all Jews are comfortable and we don’t need to extend to them some consideration and thought and political aspiration as other people have – that is ultimately a racist attitude.’

Certainly, there has been a nervousness on the part of corporates to make any statements on the events in Israel. ‘I think it’s a combination of institutional antisemitism and a fear of saying the wrong thing – or alienating clients from the Arab world,’ muses one lawyer.

Although Cooley, for one, has issued a statement yesterday condemning ‘the slaughter of innocent civilians in Israel at the hands of the terrorist organization Hamas’, the reaction from many corporates and law firms has been muted. When JPMorgan Chase announced earlier this week it was making an initial $1m philanthropic contribution and will be offering a matching campaign for employees, it elicited this LinkedIn reaction from Tracey Dovaston, partner at Pallas Partners: ‘It is disappointing to see how few have come out to support Israel after the horrific events that have unfolded this week. In other humanitarian crises, they have not remained silent. Thank you JPMorgan Chase and [chair] Jamie Dymon for your vocal support and swift action.’

Speaking to The Lawyer, Dovaston said: ‘You don’t have to be Jewish, you don’t have to be Israeli, you just have to be human to take a stance.’

That said, notes Francesca O’Neill, the reaction across the political spectrum has been appreciated. ‘I went to the vigil on Monday and every political party was there. It was a gratifying show of support. But large swathes of academics – the liberal left in particular, and the liberal-left media, with whom I mostly agree on things – they said nothing about it.’

For the moment, the current refusal by the BBC to characterise Hamas as a terrorist organisation is occupying a number of lawyers.  As was reported earlier this week, four silks – head of chambers at One Essex Court Lord Grabiner KC, Blackstone Chambers’ Lord Pannick KC, former justice minister and One Essex Court tenant Lord Wolfson KC, and Essex Court Chambers Jeremy Brier KC – have written to complain to Ofcom. And pressure on the BBC is set to mount, with Mishcon partner Adam Rose advising the British Board of Deputies on its challenge to the BBC to stop calling Hamas ‘militants’.

‘Sometimes you can take neutrality to extreme where words become meaningless,’ says Adam Rose. For Jewish lawyers at this particularly difficult time, language matters.