Dinah Winch

Curator, historian, museum director, citizen of the World.

[Dinah Winch @DinahSW]

@Conviction19c @SamaHoole I still do it.

[Board of Deputies of British Jews @BoardofDeputies]

It is highly regrettable that individuals have sought to deliberately disrupt a Jewish Culture Month event celebrating Jewish cultural heritage at the British Museum. Jewish Culture Month has seen many of Britain's great cultural institutions partner with us in celebration of British Jewish culture, community and creativity, and we will not allow the actions of extremists to prevent the British public from enjoying these events.

We will be working with our partners at the British Museum to reschedule this event as soon as possible.

https://t.co/UcpaZquNVw

[Dinah Winch @DinahSW]

@EdmondsArt53082 @DXW_KC @britishmuseum @George_Osborne Do you know what 'ancient' means?

[Kara Jesella @karajesella]

My new essay for @tabletmag about forgotten feminist Gloria Z. Greenfield. When she left the movement because of antisemitism in the ‘80s, she was a heretic. Now she’s a prophet.

https://t.co/KURHtS3ZaB

[Dinah Winch @DinahSW]

Extraordinary from @CityAM. Apparently the (correct) refusal to take in a model railway on the spot is emblematic of a problem of productivity in the public sector. 'The National Rail Museum won't accept a model railway set' https://t.co/ZgqR8MDCri

[Unholy Podcast @2jewsonthenews]

Jonathan Freedland on why proudly anti-racist voices go silent when Jews are being stabbed in the streets.
#unholypodcast #antisemitism #solidarity #BritishJews #London #silence

[BBC Newsnight @BBCNewsnight]

"Why isn't there a call for a huge rally in London this weekend of every committed anti-racist in the country?"

Journalist Jonathan Freedland calls for greater solidarity with the Jewish community following the terror attack in Golders Green.

#Newsnight

[Daniel Sugarman @Daniel_Sugarman]

I grew up in this community and I have a few thoughts I want to share.

A short thread.

[Board of Deputies of British Jews @BoardofDeputies]

"We shall not be moved." - President @PhilR_R on the arson attack in Golders Green this morning.

[Stephen Pollard @stephenpollard]

Here's my @JewishChron column, 'The Hatzola attack and the normalisation of antisemitism in Britain'

https://t.co/tXJRKWk46k

My nephew got married yesterday. With the hindsight of last night’s Golders Green attack, it feels like a bittersweet occasion – although the simcha itself was, of course, entirely sweet.

But I know that the conversations I had yesterday were the same that the rest of us have every time we gather: is it still safe for us here?

It’s a damning commentary on where we now are as a nation that such a thought should even occur to us. But it’s occurring with ever greater frequency as antisemitism becomes increasingly normalised, Jew hate is increasingly tolerated and the politicians with the power to affect things content themselves with platitudes about antisemitism having no place on our streets, when the evidence is that it has a very welcome place on the streets – and some of those politicians are the worst facilitators of it.

We do not know the full details behind the attack on the Hatzola Northwest ambulances, parked outside a synagogue, but the Iranian-associated terror group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamiyya has already said it was behind the arson – the same organisation which claimed responsibility for similar attacks in Liege, Rotterdam and Amsterdam over the past fortnight.

Already the loons have started their conspiracy theories. One former British ambassador has written, “Could they make the false flag any more obvious?” and there have been any number of social media posts decrying the very existence of Hatzola, on the basis that it shows how Jews look after only themselves with our own fleet of ambulances. Like all antisemitic assertions, this demonstrates only the stupidity and malignity of those making it: Hatzola is run by Jewish volunteers and funded by the Jewish community, but is – as JC readers will be well aware – there for the entire community, Jews and gentiles alike. And the fact that four of its ambulances have been destroyed means that waiting times across north west London will now suffer – for everyone.

If Iran is the most likely culprit, it is operating in the climate of rising Jew hate in which we are now living and which is proving so – to put it mildly – destabilising for our community. We are not living through 1930s Germany. But that should not be the only measure of concern. Living through a repeat of the Nazi era is not the only definition of an existential threat to our way of life and security. The evidence may be anecdotal, but I know that many of you reading this will have had and will continue to have the conversation I referred to above: whether it is safe for us to stay here.

Increasingly it feels as if we are beginning to return to the times of our ancestors, where the Jews were turned on and scapegoated. I have long argued that the period after Second World War until around the turn of the century, in which antisemitism was present but was shunned and frowned on in polite circles, and when it was not an issue that was of real concern to Jews – the period in which I lived the first 40 or so years of my life, for example – was an aberration. But because the majority of Jews have grown up in that period, it was our norm.

What is now happening, I believe, is a sort of reversion to the mean: for centuries open Jew hate and antisemitic attacks were the norm, and that is what we are now returning to. It is only because so many of have grown up in the aberration of the post-war period, that we are so shocked by what is now returning.

Whoever is responsible for last night’s attack, that, surely, is the real context.

[Dinah Winch @DinahSW]

Don't tell us that you don't deliver mail in batches @RoyalMail. No post all week we've been waiting for a new bank card which was due Wednesday at the latest & now a pile of 8 letters & packages?!

[Hen Mazzig @HenMazzig]

If your country has freedom of religion, but members of one religion need to pay millions on security just to safely gather, then your country does not have freedom of religion.

[Dinah Winch @DinahSW]

@theguardianfeed What an appalling article, published at the end of a week of attacks on Jews. This is why I no longer buy the Guardian.

[Dinah Winch @DinahSW]

https://t.co/gued86ioxK

[Dinah Winch @DinahSW]

There is no doubt letters are coming in batches @RoyalMail. We get nothing for a week or more and then a pile all at once. This is very much the established pattern. It's not acceptable.

[Dinah Winch @DinahSW]

@nicolelampert Grotesque.

[Omid Djalili @omid9]

The situation in Iran has now gone into unprecedented territory.

As a Bahá’í myself. the memories of parents of Bahá’í friends & family being taken away, shot and dumped into a ditch, are still vivid. Just for having beliefs that were different from the ruling radical Islamic clerics in charge. Regime officials charging families of the dead exorbitant amounts to release the bodies - with invoices that included money charged for the bullets used to kill their loved ones - was par for the course.

The regime is now doing the same to their own citizens - of all backgrounds and beliefs. They do this every time the people rise up. That’s how power is maintained.

When you hear “this time it’s different” you may ask what has happened to the people of Iran where they feel they have nothing to lose now? What has happened that they feel that it’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees?

The answer to that question is why I don’t see any let up in the people taking the streets in Iran for the 14th night in a row. Despite what the BBC article below is (we think correctly) reporting.

“BBC Persian has verified that 70 bodies were brought to Poursina Hospital in Rasht city on Friday night. The morgue there was at full capacity, so the bodies were taken away. The authorities asked the relatives of the dead for 7 billion rials (£5,222; $7,000) to release them for burial, a hospital source said.”
#IranianRevolution2026
https://t.co/FRZANF4u3a

[Jenni Russell @jennirsl]

It's appalling that Danny is getting gleeful messages threatening him with the same fate as those who died in the Holocaust. It's even more appalling that X is permitting this. This isn't free speech, it's targeted hatred of Jews. Ban it, @elonmusk.

[Dinah Winch @DinahSW]

Letter posted through our letter box. We live in RoCHester and there is one number and one letter in our postcode the same as this postcode. House number is the same & there is a similarity in the street names. How many machines/hands did this go through @RoyalMail?

[The Victorian Society @thevicsoc]

Lovely to see the listing increased to Grade II* by Historic England and the DCMS for this amazing windmill in Margate. Draper's Windmill was constructed in about 1843, by John Holman, millwright of Canterbury.🧵
📷Emily Greenaway