Rabbi Andrea’s Sermon 15th November 2025 / 24th Cheshvan 5786

THE ILLUSION OF SAFETY

It is a deeply human instinct to deny or downplay danger. Most of us have done it at some point. Even when confronted with antisemitism, our first reaction is often to reassure ourselves - to question our perception in the hope of convincing ourselves that things aren’t really that bad.

It is therefore hardly surprising that as many have noted on social media, even when the majority of our community feel that things are getting worse, there are still voices mocking our concerns, dismissing our fears, and insisting that Jews in our city are not facing any real threat. According to this narrative, anyone who dares to speak openly about the rise of antisemitism in Brighton - including, presumably, myself - is intentionally spreading despair and lies about the situation of the Jewish community in our town.

Let us, then, test this comforting theory - calmly and respectfully.

On 17 May 2025, just outside this very synagogue - the Brighton and Hove Reform Synagogue - a man drove past, leaned out of his window, shouted “scum, scum, scum” at Jews standing outside, and then made a gun gesture toward them. This was not a joke or a misunderstanding but a gesture of execution directed at Jews outside their place of worship. The man now faces racially aggravated charges. The legal system recognises the seriousness of what occurred because it is serious.

And yet, we are told there is no real danger.

A few months later, a 19-year-old neo-Nazi from Brighton was sentenced for planning a suicide - bomb attack on a synagogue in Hove. This was not graffiti, nor online trolling, nor a crude slur. It was a detailed plan for mass murder: maps of the building, diagrams of entry points, bomb-making manuals, and videos of mass shootings kept as “inspiration.” He had even identified the High Holy Days - Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Passover - as the ideal moments to kill the most Jews.

Police intervened just in time. A few more months, and we would not be discussing hypotheticals - we would be mourning. But again, we are told we are exaggerating. That we are “stoking fear.”

And then we have the incident from November 2020 at the Brighton Mosque and Muslim Community Centre, where a preacher told an audience of around fifty worshippers - including children - that “jihad is fighting by the sword,” repeating the phrase multiple times and making stabbing gestures as he spoke. Whether or not the courts determine that this constitutes incitement, the content is clear: a public call to violent jihad, delivered in Brighton.

Yet once again the familiar chorus insists there is no danger; Jewish fear is overblown; Jewish concern is hysteria.

It is after reflecting on these three documented, serious incidents that we turn to this week’s parashah, Chayei Sarah. Because Chayei Sarah is not simply about Abraham’s purchase of a burial place for Sarah. It is a meditation on the difference between comfort and safety, between being welcomed and being secure, between feeling at home and truly belonging.

The parashah opens with a phrase that speaks directly to our moment. When Sarah dies, Abraham says to the children of Heth:

“גֵּר־וְתוֹשָׁב אָנֹכִי עִמָּכֶם  -  I am a stranger and a resident among you” (Genesis 23:4).

On the surface this expression appears contradictory. How can one be both a stranger and a resident? How can someone belong and not belong at the same time?

But this is precisely Abraham’s message.

A toshav is someone who lives in a place, contributes to it, builds friendships, and participates in its civic life. A toshav feels welcomed and respected.

A ger, by contrast, is an outsider: tolerated but not fully embraced, accepted but never entirely secure. A ger’s safety depends on the goodwill of others.

Abraham is teaching us something painfully honest:

“I may feel integrated into your society, but my position is not guaranteed. I may feel at home, but my safety can be revoked.”

Rashi explains that Abraham is effectively saying: “If you choose to treat me as a stranger, I accept it; if you choose to treat me as a resident, then treat me justly.” Even as a respected figure, Abraham understands his vulnerability.

Abarbanel  -  in his commentary on Genesis 14:1  -  sharpens this further, noting that Abraham, though wealthy and admired, holds no political power. His position is precarious even in moments of respect. Abarbanel identifies this as the abiding condition of Jews in exile: individual Jews may flourish, but the people as a whole remain vulnerable.

This truth becomes even clearer in Abraham’s negotiation with Efron the Hittite. On the surface, Efron appears polite and generous, offering Abraham the field as a gift. Yet behind this courtesy lies a demand for an exorbitant sum - four hundred shekels of silver, a fortune in antiquity. Rashi comments (on Genesis 23:16) that Efron “said much but did not even do a little.” Abarbanel  -  in his commentary on Genesis 23:10–11  -  adds that Efron’s behaviour is driven not only by greed but by a desire to prevent Abraham from establishing a permanent foothold in the land.

Abraham insists on buying Machpelah precisely because he recognises the limits of courtesy. He understands that symbolic gestures of acceptance do not erase underlying hostility.

And this dynamic should feel familiar.

For centuries, Jews in the Arab world lived in ways that mirrored Abraham’s experience with Efron. There were indeed long periods of cultural flourishing; historians write of convivencia, times when Jewish poets, philosophers, traders, scholars, and musicians played an integral role in cities like Baghdad, Cairo, Fez, and Aleppo. These communities produced extraordinary creativity and learning.

Yet beneath this surface lay a precarious reality. Jews lived under dhimmi status - a legal framework defining them as tolerated but second - class: protected, but never equal. Restrictions governed dress, movement, and public expression. Periods of calm could be shattered overnight by riots or pogroms, leaving synagogues destroyed and communities traumatised. Families whose roots stretched back centuries could suddenly find their property confiscated, their rights revoked, and their entire community expelled.

To claim today that “antisemitism only exists when Jews are being killed” is to misread this history entirely. It is to confuse temporary tolerance with permanent safety, to mistake hospitality for acceptance, and to fall once again for Efron’s courteous smile while ignoring what lies beneath.

And it is no coincidence that many of the same voices who mock Jewish fears today - or accuse us of exaggeration - base their understanding of Middle Eastern Jewish history almost exclusively on the writings of Avi Shlaim, while pointedly ignoring the lived testimonies of North African and Middle Eastern Jews themselves. Shlaim - who has even argued that the political wing of Hamas should be removed from the UK’s list of terrorist organisations[4] - offers a highly selective and often sanitised narrative: one that erases or minimises the discrimination, violence, and sudden expulsions that shaped the experience of Jews from Iraq, Algeria, Egypt, Libya, Yemen, Tunisia, Morocco, and beyond.

That selective amnesia matters. When people disregard the voices of those who actually lived under dhimmi laws - who endured riots, confiscations, and forced departures - and instead cling to a revisionist, idealised version of history, it becomes easy - far too easy - to dismiss contemporary antisemitism as mere hysteria. Minimising the hostility Jews faced in Arab lands and rationalising violence against Israel today are not separate tendencies. They spring from the same refusal to take Jewish vulnerability seriously, the same impulse to rewrite discomforting truths, and the same insistence that danger is always imaginary - until it is too late to see it.

And this claim carries a subtle but dangerous subtext. Those “critical of Israel” who insist there is no antisemitism here are not saying that all Jews are safe. What they really mean is that certain Jews - those who condemn the very existence of Israel, who denounce Zionism, who ignore the history of antisemitism in Arab countries - are safe. Their message is not universal but conditional: You, too, could be safe - if only you distance yourselves from Israel. It is, essentially, an invitation to adopt anti - Zionism as the price of security.

This brings us to the final movement of the parashah.

Abraham purchases the cave and field of Machpelah as “a permanent possession.” Ramban (on Genesis 23:4) and Abarbanel (on Genesis 23) describe this as the first concrete act of Jewish permanence - the first deed of ownership, the first anchor linking Jewish identity to a physical place.

This is why the modern claim that “Israel is not central to Judaism,” or that a Jewish homeland is optional, collapses under the weight of Chayei Sarah. Exile can offer opportunity and comfort, but it has never offered permanence. When Jews were expelled from Iraq, Egypt, Yemen, Morocco, Syria - where did they go?

To the land Abraham secured.

To the land some comfortable Jews today feel free to call “optional.”

But for the Jewish people as a whole, it has never been optional. It is the one place that is truly ours. Chayei Sarah teaches something essential about who we are:

We are ger and toshav - both stranger and resident. We can flourish among the nations, contribute deeply to their cultures, and feel at home. But our permanence - our deepest security - lies elsewhere, rooted in Torah, history, and our ancient land.

Abraham understood this.

The Torah teaches this.

Jewish history confirms this.

And we must never allow ourselves to forget it.

Shabbat Shalom,

Rabbi Dr. Andrea Zanardo, PhD