My latest for Comment is Free begins like this:
Last week I may or may not have taken my life in my hands and travelled on foot through Hackney after dark. My point of departure was my home, my destination the Association of Jewish Ex-Servicemen and Women in Stamford Hill, the venue for a council-organised neighbourhood meeting about youth and crime. My uncertainty about my safety during my walk there and – in particular – back again, was familiar. How anxious was it rational to be? I battle often with the nerviness this question arises from, and though I nearly always win I resent the mental struggle involved. That said, it has a certain value: it helps me put myself in other peoples' shoes.
Now read on.
