PERSONAL POST You only have to look at me to see a Jewish woman. If I died tomorrow everyone would say at the very least one thing probably first or second in the list: "she was Jewish". Because that's a fact. A European Jew with relatives who died in the camps and relatives in Israel. But today it needs qualifying. Contextualising. Sorry but it does. I would say "well, Ish" because right now I feel I'm a bad Jew, the wrong kind of Jew. Many prominent Jewish people (some of whom I know and love dearly and others who I do not know and do not love dearly and some in between) here do not hide their contempt or veiled criticism of those of us who won't focus solely on the barbarity of Hamas' attack last weekend but who saw immediately it was associated with history and recent Israeli history at that. Try as I might, I cannot and do not stand only with the innocent victims of the terrorist atrocity of 7 October. I cannot turn a blind eye to Gaza. I never could to be honest. I am never invited to Jewish Book Week, I stood down from the Jewish Museum because I know I feel different, it's a subtle flick of inner difference. I belong because of blood and history but I'm an insider-outsider. I'm not alone but it's lonely nevertheless. It feels like disloyalty. It's certainly deeply uncomfortable. I have understood the conflict for a long time has meant being careful to be loyal and truthful to my heritage without being immoral or hypocritical to my belief which is this: I stand with humans who want to try and break a vengeful cycle of hate and death. It means that today I stand up and say I'm Jewish and let me tell you, I cannot go into my ordinary deli without wanting to burst into tears and I cannot sleep well and I feel more Jewish than I ever have in my life. But I do not stand with the vengeful sarcasm of those here who sneer angrily and worse at their "enemy" and who list a hierarchy of hate and suffering. Please no: let us be civil and respectful. Let us not return the murder of one child, one son, one daughter, with the murder of another. That isn't who we are. What to do? I'm going to play Barry Manilow is what I'm going to do. Because he made the whole world sing. He is Jewish but he isn't singing a Jewish song. Just a pop song. No-one can shoot down a pop song. It lives in our hearts. #sorrow #sing #unityplease