Whichwayforusinthemiddle?

OH, SO you’re the one who wrote that article about being a Labour voter,” said the Conservative Friends of Israel staff member with a disgruntled look as I and other reporters boarded the campaign bus. It was April 2012 and we were touring London with Boris Johnson, who was about to be returned as mayor. The piece in question had discussed how I felt conflicted, reluctant to vote for Boris, but even less inclined to back Ken, fresh from his slur about wealthy Jews not voting for his party.

Roll on four years, and conflicted doesn’t begin to cover it. As a “middle of the road” Labour supporter, watching Jeremy Corbyn walk away with the leadership again, and with no credible centrist challenger in sight, has left me feeling politically homeless.

In 2015, unconvinced as I was by Ed Miliband, I was lucky enough to have in Sarah Sackman an inspirational and competent local Labour candidate. The party felt then to be, if not ready for government, at least standing up for the core positions I believed in; pro social justice but not antibusiness, strong on intergenerational fairness, Europhilic — and certainly not ambivalent towards antisemitism or sympathetic to groups such as Hamas.

These days, the prospect of backing Labour and in so doing endorsing Corbyn’s hard left positions in any real way is appalling, but neither am I convinced by Theresa May’s supposed shift to the centre; my only hope is that she doesn’t call an early election so I can avoid the choice.

I fear we are seeing a narrowing of the centre ground. Maybe it’s just because the centrists don’t shout as loudly, and perhaps I’m just part of the “me, me, me” generation, but surely I’m not alone in feeling all at sea; as a Labour supporter, generally, and as a Jewish Labour supporter, specifically. For there is no party that I feel represents my beliefs, my priorities; no party I want to vote for (none in the UK, that is, I’d gladly vote for Hillary). There are MPs on all sides, of course, those who proudly champion the benefits of immigration but also acknowledge the challenges, who contend that leaving the Single Market would be folly, who understand that politics skewed towards the interests of baby boomers is unsustainable and unfair, plus Boris’s successor, Sadiq Khan, offers a glimmer of hope. Still, it feels as though there is no national platform for these voices.

Nor is it just at the ballot box that we are seeing the centre-ground fade into history. I’m not just a “middle of the road” voter, I’m a middle of the road Orthodox Jew; part of a community where, for a long time, the norm was that Friday night dinner was followed by watching and shul on Saturday morning was followed by watching the football. Where keeping kosher meant separate milk and meat dishes, but still eating fish at a mainstream restaurant, or where you might walk somewhere for Shabbat, but you wouldn’t fret about there not being an eruv to carry the gift.

It feels as though Britain’s Orthodox Jewish community is polarising between very observant or not at all; between the twice-ayearers and the heavily engaged. This trend is already pronounced in America and Israel — in the latter you are either or

but rarely in between. Increasingly, it seems the UK is headed that way too.

As someone who is neither extreme, who observes festivals like Shavuot but might make cheesecake with vegetarian rather than hechshered cheese, I often wonder where my place in the community is, and where it will be in five, or ten, or 20 years. Is my kind of Judaism becoming an anachronism?

And as a diaspora Zionist, I also worry we are increasingly in an “all-or-nothing” conversation about Israel; either you support Israel unreservedly, or you don’t support it at all. I understand the need for a united front, since Israel’s many condemners would leverage any sign of dissent within the “Zionist ranks” — and indeed do, exhaustively, on social media — yet I worry we are being frightened into stopping the debate entirely.

Where is the place for those of us with an unwavering belief in Israel’s right to exist, and a great pride in its achievements, but who nonetheless cannot agree with the current Israeli Government’s approach? Where is the place for those of us who do not support the BDS-mongers, but also cannot see it as defensible that Israel continues to expand the settlements? Yes, there are many left-wing groups championing this perspective, but when did this become a fringe position?

What place is there for a middle of the road Briton, Jew and Zionist in 2016?

There is no party that I feel represents my beliefs