‘What’s our red line?’ the British Jews who question their safety

F or many Jews sitting down with family and friends for Friday night dinner, the conversation is now turning to their “red line”. “What do we do? Do we have to leave?” asked Barry Frankfurt. Israel had once been a place some might have considered retiring to, to live by the sea. “Never in our lifetime has it been considered we need to run away, we need to seek refuge … and that place might have to be Israel,” said Frankfurt, a brand consultant in north London. “We might have to do that because we don’t feel safe in the country we call home. “Every couple of weeks you’ll hear of another couple or family in the community who have moved or will be moving soon to Israel,” he said. “And that should be the thing that shocks us as a country.” The Jewish community feels that life in the UK is not safe, he said. Before Wednesday’s stabbings in Golders Green , there had been a series of attempted arson attacks at Jewish sites, including one in the same road where the stabbings began: when four Jewish community ambulances were set on fire in the early hours of 23 March. Frankfurt, a British-born father of four, and chair of his local synagogue, is now considering his red line. “If the things that are part of day-to-day life become physically unsafe for you and your family to the point of risk of life, you’d be crazy not to consider alternatives. …