Most weeks, this column is simple. A Shabbat Shalom to a few individuals who have stood up to be counted, who have shown courage, who have made a difference.

But not this week, this week, that feels too small. Because this week, the story is bigger than individuals. This week, my Shabbat Shalom is to a people.

To the Jews of the United Kingdom, the Jews of Israel and to Jews everywhere.

There are approximately 16 million Jews in the world, less than 0.2% of humanity and yet, for over two thousand years, wherever Jews have lived, one pattern has repeated itself with almost eerie consistency.

Jews contribute, Jews build, Jews help shape the societies around them and then, eventually, Jews are blamed for whatever that society ends up suffering from.

This is not new.

In medieval Europe, Jews were barred from most professions, pushed into moneylending and then condemned as financial manipulators.

In the United States, shut out of established industries, Jewish immigrants helped build an entirely new one on the West Coast, the modern entertainment industry, only to be accused, almost immediately, of controlling the very system they had to create in order to survive.

In 19th century Europe, Jews helped drive industrial, scientific and cultural progress, only to be accused of dominating it.

In 20th century Germany, Jews were among the most integrated, productive citizens in society: doctors, lawyers, artists, scientists and were repaid with annihilation.

Contribution has never protected us. In fact, more often than not, it has been used as evidence against us.

The pattern is not subtle. It is structural.

Once you see it, you cannot unsee it. You begin to recognise it not just in history books but in headlines, in public discourse, in the stories we are being told, right now.

There are only 16 million Jews in the world and yet Jewish names appear again and again at the forefront of medicine, science, economics, literature, entertainment and technology.

A wildly disproportionate number of Nobel Prizes, 22% of all those awarded, a representation 110 times our population share. Foundational ideas that underpin modern democracy. Breakthroughs in medicine, innovation and technology that have saved, extended and transformed human life.

Not because of power, not because of control, but because Jewish culture does not just encourage contribution, it demands it. To question, to argue, to improve, to take responsibility not only for ourselves, but for the world around us.

That responsibility has never been limited to ourselves. Jews have shown up, again and again, for causes that were not exclusively our own.

Standing shoulder to shoulder with the African American community during the Civil Rights Movement. Helping lead the fight for workers’ rights in Britain, shaping the labour movement that underpins so much of modern social justice. Standing with the LGBTQ+ community in its fight for dignity, equality and recognition.

A tiny people, repeatedly choosing to engage not only with their own survival, but with the moral direction of the societies they are part of.

Let me be very clear about something, this is not unrestrained self-congratulation, nor is it a claim of moral perfection.

Jews are not a monolith. We are as diverse, culturally, politically, geographically, as any other people. Within our communities, as within all communities, there is good, there is bad, and there is everything in between.

Israel, too, is certainly not beyond criticism. Its government deserves and indeed demands scrutiny from the internal and external, just like any other. It is a young, democratic, Western nation, remarkable in its achievements, yes, but also imperfect in the way that all democracies are.

It has made mistakes, it will make more and that is not unique.

What is unique is something else entirely. No other people in history has been so consistently targeted for eradication across such different eras, ideologies and geographies.

From the Inquisition, to the pogroms of Tsarist and Communist Russia, to Nazi Germany’s industrialised genocide. The Jew has been cast, again and again, as something that must be removed.

In our own time, that pattern has not disappeared, it has simply evolved, metastasised, as it always does. The language is different, the framing more sophisticated, but the instinct, to single out, to isolate, to hold to a different standard, remains.

Look at the global stage.

-At the United Nations, Israel is condemned more frequently than any other nation on earth, combined.

-In international discourse, Israel is not simply criticised, it is uniquely scrutinised, uniquely judged, uniquely delegitimised.

-Movements like BDS do not call for reform, they call for isolation, for dismantling, for absolute destruction.

So no, this is not a claim that Jews are better. It is a recognition that Jews and the Jewish state, have been treated differently. Held to standards no other people or nation has ever been expected to meet. Judged, time and again, not against reality, but against something closer to impossibility.

Which is why what happened this week in London matters. Not as an isolated incident, but as the latest chapter in a very old story.

Shabbat Shalom to the Jewish community of London, for drawing a line that should never have needed to be drawn.

Kanye West is not simply a controversial artist. He is a man who has openly praised Hitler, platformed Nazi ideology, encouraged young people to wear swastikas and chant “Heil Hitler."

This is not culture, it is racist, it is antisemitic, it is provocation and it directly leads to the endangerment and demonisation of Jews.

Kanye West attempted the normalisation of an ideology that murdered millions and sought the destruction of Western civilisation itself. Six million Jews were murdered, but the Nazi project did not end with us. It led to the deaths of approximately 450,000 British citizens, brought devastation to an entire continent, threatened the very foundations of democracy.

So when Jews stand up and say no, we are not acting narrowly in self-defence, we are acting in defence of something far broader.

Yet, when the Wireless Festival that Kanye West was set to perform at was cancelled, when his visa was revoked, as ever, the blame shifts. Not to the antisemite, his enablers or the institutions and organisations that believed this could be quietly ignored, but to the Jews.

For speaking, for objecting, for refusing to accept what history has already taught us never to tolerate.

Beyond London, the same story repeats, just on a larger stage. We are told that Israel controls American foreign policy. That Jewish influence dictates global decisions. That Netanyahu “maneuvered" and “cajoled" the United States into war.

It is the same accusation, recycled across centuries: The Jew as hidden power, as puppet master, as the force behind events too complex, or too uncomfortable, to confront honestly.

But strip away the rhetoric, and the reality is stark. Israel has spent decades facing a regime in Iran that openly calls for its destruction. A regime that funds and arms proxies on every border: Hezbollah, Hamas, The Houthis. A regime whose reach extends even here, where British authorities have thwarted multiple terror plots linked to the IRGC.

So ask the question plainly.

-Would the people of Gaza be better off without Hamas?

-Would Lebanon be freer without Hezbollah?

-Would the Iranian people, who have risked everything to rise up and who were met once again with mass slaughter, be better served by a different future?

But most importantly in the context of this particular conflict:

-Would Britain and the US be safer without those plotting violence on our streets?

Israel acts first and foremost to defend itself, but the consequences of that defence reach far beyond its borders.

Just as they always have.

Still, the same inversion, the same accusation, the same refusal to acknowledge what is actually happening.

A tiny people, showing up, building, contributing, defending and being told, once again, that they are the problem.

But here is the truth that history makes unavoidable: Jews have never survived by waiting for permission to act and they have never defined themselves by how the world responds. We contribute because we must, stand because we must, speak because we know what happens when we don’t.

Shabbat Shalom, to a people who know this pattern better than anyone. Who have seen what happens when hatred is dismissed, excused, or repackaged as something more palatable.

Who are told, once again, that they are overreacting, right up until the moment history proves that they weren’t.

To a people who, despite all of it, still choose to stand, still choose to speak, still choose to act, regardless of the target.

Not because it is easy, but because we know, better than most, what happens when no one does.