Jewish culture faces slow cancellation in UK – liberal democracy must resist intimidation

Anyone who has paid a visit to the British Museum will see relics and artefacts of historic warrior cultures. It's clear, however, that such pieces haven't had a scintilla of influence on those who run one of our largest publicly funded institutions. Since today top brass at the museum have decided it cannot safely host a lecture on – wait for it – ancient Jewish history. Ticket holders were told this was due to “security concerns” having learned that a “significant number” of registered attendees were planning to “deliberately disrupt” the event.

The talk on “Ancient Israel and Judah in the British Museum,” held as part of Jewish Culture Month, was to focus on civilisations that existed thousands of years ago. So we're hardly in the inflammatory, tub-thumping cauldron of contemporary geo-politics. Yet it seems a major national institution, which trousers millions of taxpayers' money and which, by default, should be secured by the State, no longer feels capable of guaranteeing the safety of people attending an afternoon of culture in the most benign of settings.

It's a move as craven and gutless as it is, ironically, politically motivated. The museum’s timid executive has pathetically caved to a hard-left climate that would rather cancel an event altogether than risk the possibility of “disrupters” turning up among the audience.

In effect, they are playing their part in the slow cancellation of Jewish cultural life in Britain. And if that pattern sounds uncomfortably familiar those responsible should study their history. As the past has a playbook for this.

But let's be clear. This appalling decision is not just a Jewish issue. It is a corrosive piece of messaging which says something about the state of this country. The willingness of publicly funded institutions to fold at the first whiff of pressure rather than show the courage to defend what is right. In short, intimidation cancels culture.

Unfortunately, what we see in these warped times is that if history doesn't fit the agenda then it has to be silenced.

The question – and it is always the question – is why the museum caved in. Would it have done the same for a Black Lives Matter event, or for a lecture on the history of feminism? Or is it that Jews – and this lecture is about the Jews since Israel is the ancient homeland of the Jewish people – are considered fair game in a way no other minority group would be?

Though it should be noted the British Museum has form after recently having to remove the terms “Palestine” and “Palestinian” from some of its displays concerning the ancient Levant and Egypt due to their historical inaccuracy. Keeping such terms would have obscured the history of Israel and the Jewish people.

At times of rising antisemitism, Jewish institutions and events must, quite rightly, take security seriously. That's why Jewish children attend school behind high fences and robust protective measures. Yet life continues; communities do not shut themselves away or abandon public space. They persist in the face of hostility.

Against that backdrop, it is difficult not to see an irony in an institution such as the British Museum – dedicated to preserving and sharing cultural life – appearing to yield to the orthodoxy of menace and terror.

The proper response to the risk of disruption is not withdrawal, but resilience: the determination to proceed in spite of it. It is how this country defeated the fascists and the Nazis.

What makes the museum’s actions even more indefensible is that they help sustain an atmosphere of anti-Jewish hostility that already prevails on the streets of the UK. Giving even greater permission to pursue its noxious agenda.

Only the other day, Dame Helen Mirren was called an “evil Zionist b****” by a pro-Palestine activist as she walked through Tower Hill in London with her husband, film director Taylor Hackford.

Ironically, as the man approached the Oscar-winning actress, 80, her instinctive response was to check whether he was okay. That gesture of civility, stood in harsh contrast to the vile tirade directed at the star through her perceived support for Israel (Mirren's 'crimes' include supporting Israel’s inclusion in the Eurovision Song Contest, her portrayal of prominent Jewish figures such as Golda Meir, and her repeated belief in and affection for the Jewish state).

That such views can lead a stranger – whose intentions are unknown and who may or may not be carrying a weapon – to feel licensed to unleash this kind of abuse in the street speaks volumes about what we are allowing Britain to become. And, it is exacerbated, in no small part, by the moral failings of the British Museum.

If the museum doesn’t immediately reinstate the date, it sends a lesson that will endure through the ages: that the days of Britain as a truly liberal democracy may soon be consigned to history.