British Jews are under attack as never before - CEO Claudia Mendoza for The Telegraph

100 days on from the October 7 pogrom, our community is showing that resilience trumps hate.

As we watch the war in Israel and Gaza unfold on our TV screens every night, it can be easy to lose sight of how we got here. But for the Jewish community across Britain, the horror of October 7 – and the hatred it has unleashed here at home – remains at the forefront of our minds. 

One hundred days ago, we saw the worst pogrom since the Second World War, as thousands of Hamas terrorists poured into Israel to slaughter, rape, maim and abduct civilians.

Hundreds of young people, who had gathered at the Re’im music festival to celebrate freedom and promote peace between Israelis and Palestinians, were murdered. At kibbutzim near the Gaza Strip, terrorists went door-to-door butchering innocents. 

A hundred days may have passed, but more than 100 hostages remain in captivity or unaccounted for. Accounts I read of those who have returned, in particular women who endured sexual violence and psychological torture, will stay with me forever.

Within Israel and the wider Jewish community, there is always passionate political debate – as we saw last year in disputes over constitutional reform. Such debates are the hallmark of healthy democracies.

What should not be a matter for debate is whether Israel can let these crimes go unanswered. The state of Israel can and must defend itself. It can and must act to prevent such atrocities from happening again. And it is clearer than ever that many of those who deny Israel’s right to self defence start from the premise that Israel has no right to exist at all. 

The scenes from Gaza are desperate and heartbreaking. I despair at the scale of suffering and loss of life. We must be clear where responsibility lies. Such is Hamas’s disregard for Palestinian lives that they had no hesitation in digging their tunnels, storing their weapons and planning their attacks under schools and hospitals.