The comic actor Maureen Lipman, known for her role as a proud Jewish mother in a series of British Telecom adverts, has said the sharp rise in antisemitic attacks in Britain may prompt her to leave the country.
Speaking to LBC after Holocaust memorial ceremonies took place across the world, she said she has considered moving to the US or Israel because of an increase in attacks on Jews.
Lipman said: “When the going gets tough, the Jews get packing … it’s crossed my mind that it’s time to have a look around for another place to live. I’ve thought about going to New York, I’ve thought about going to Israel.”
She was asked about the fears of Jews in France in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo shootings and the attack on a kosher supermarket. Lipman said it was not just France where Jews felt threatened.
She said: “When the economy dries up, then they turn on the usual scapegoat: the usual suspect –the Jew. There is one school of thought that says it’s because of Israeli policies in the West Bank, it isn’t. There’s been antisemitism for the past 4,000 years.”
The number of antisemitic attacks in the UK last year was the highest recorded in the past three decades, according to the Community Security Trust. It found there had been a 36% rise in the total number of antisemitic incidents, including violent crime and vandalism, to 304 between January and June. That was followed by 130 incidents in July alone, which coincided with the Israeli military offensive in Gaza.
Lipman said the figures were “very, very depressing”.
Lipman said her children and friends have become anxious too. She said: “There are 245,000 Jews in this country; I’ve been talking like this for a long time, and my kids are very bored with me. But it is only in the last few months that they have to begun to say: ‘Mum you may have something’.”
