What I learned in London in June 2026

By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson in Mevasseret Zion, Israel

I was born and brought up in London in the years immediately after WWII, and left in 1965, so memories of the place are inextricably bound up with the events of that period. I was never really part of the ‘Swinging Sixties,’ though I was aware of political and cultural developments since the daily consumption of newspapers was an important part of life as I was growing up. My awareness of world events was influenced by my family background and the rather limited fare offered on television and radio.

I have visited London from time to time since leaving to live abroad, and I am aware of some of the changes that have taken place there. I no longer visit Oxford Street with the same sense of nostalgia as I did in earlier days. Of course, there have been many changes there, shops have come and gone, those that remained have changed in one way or another, but the broad expanse of what used to be London’s main venue for buying clothes still endures.

My most vivid memory is of the bi-annual excursion there with my mother and my two sisters to equip ourselves with suitable apparel for the imminent Jewish high holidays, where our attendance at synagogue required suitable attire. Our mother would do her best to find clothes that pleased us and did not place too much of a burden on the tight family budget – no easy task, I’m sure.

Over the years I’ve heard and read a great deal about demographic changes to the population of England, and of London in particular. Immigration has swelled the ranks of people who do not subscribe to the traditional British way of life, which involves celebrating the Christian festivals and respecting the general idea of ‘live and let live.’ Attacks on Jews have set alarm bells ringing in Jewish communities around England, and especially in London. Though from what I see in the media physical violence seems to be far more prevalent in England today than it was in the past.

So it was with some trepidation that I returned to my old stamping ground for a week last June. To my relief, I did not encounter any aggression or nastiness, though the fact that I’m Jewish and live in Israel was not readily apparent to the casual observer. Whenever my husband and I, now both of us in our 80’s, got into an underground carriage people invariably gave up their seats to us. Walking down Oxford Street was not the unpleasant experience I had expected. It’s true, the population is more varied, but that does not make it aggressive or hostile. On the contrary, the word one hears most is ‘sorry,’ when one bumps into someone or treads on toes inadvertently.

The Jewish friends I spoke to about what I had understood to be rampant antisemitism in Britain did not seem to know what I was talking about, and usually switched the conversation to making disparaging remarks about Israel, and about Benjamin Netanyahu in particular. The propaganda campaign in favor of a Palestinian state seems to have succeeded to such an extent that even my Jewish friends – including those who once lived in Israel – assume that the establishment of such an entity is inevitable. Many Israelis no longer subscribe to that view, in view of what happened here on 7^th October 2023.

I declined when a young woman offered me a copy of the Palestine Times in the street, stating my view that the idea of a Palestinian state was fictitious. The incensed young lady shouted at me that she refused to discuss the issue and that I should ‘move on.’ I duly did so, but told her that she should ‘shut up.’ Not a fruitful discussion, I agree, but that seems to be the mindset over there just now.

Nevertheless, my experience of London this time was that it is still as decent a place as ever, that life goes on more or less as usual as people go to the pub, watch football and enjoy the sun when it shines, provided it doesn’t turn into a heatwave.

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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson is an author and freelance writer based in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion, Israel.