Why I Returned to Israel, My Homeland

Over the past year, I made one of the most significant decisions of my life to leave the United Kingdom and return home to Israel, the land of Zion, the Jewish homeland.

Like many, I’ve watched the UK change dramatically. The recent terrorist attack in Manchester was not an isolated act of evil; it was the culmination of years of rising extremism, polarisation, and complacency. For British Jews, it felt like a moment we had feared for a long time.

For generations, Jewish people have made enormous contributions to the UK in business, education, science, culture, and public service. We believed that Britain was different, that it had learned from history. But in recent years, the ground beneath us has shifted.

It began with the rise of Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party. I watched as an institution that had once been a home for many Jewish voters became a place of hostility and denial. Corbyn’s leadership didn’t just change policies, it normalised something darker.

Then came Sir Keir Starmer. He promised reform, a new start. But he sat beside Corbyn in opposition and carries the echoes of that same culture. The words might be softer, but the divisions remain.

And then came something even more visible, the open hatred on our streets. Every weekend, we saw marches shouting “From the river to the sea,” calling for the destruction of Israel. We heard chants of “Death to the IDF” and saw people celebrate terrorists. These weren’t peaceful demonstrations of free speech or democracy; they were expressions of pure hate. Yet they were allowed to continue, week after week. The BBC and Sky often sanitised the language, downplayed the threats, and gave airtime to those who justified it. Social media amplified it all, turning lies into headlines and hate into hashtags. Even prominent figures like Gary Lineker seemed unable to grasp the pain such silence or worse, selective outrage, caused. And all the while, Hamas kept saying openly what they had done on October 7th was just the beginning, that they would do it again and again.

For 5,000 years, Jews have moved from land to land because of anti-Semitism, from Rome to Spain, from Eastern Europe to Britain. Each time, we tried to rebuild, to believe that this time it would be different. Yet history keeps teaching us the same painful lesson: safety outside Israel is never permanent.

In the UK, I no longer felt that my family, my community, or the next generation could feel secure. The political stability we once relied upon, strong leaders from both sides of government, has given way to confusion and weakness.

So I came home.

Home to Israel. The one place where I will never have to explain why I’m Jewish, or hide it. The place where Jewish life is lived fully — where resilience, innovation, and faith stand side by side.

The Jewish people have always been a people of hope, and Israel is the embodiment of that hope. Despite all its challenges, it remains the greatest story of survival, strength, and renewal in modern history.

Returning here isn’t just about leaving somewhere, it’s about coming home to where our story began, and where it will always continue.