UK leftists outraged at Stephen Fry over Christmas message calling on Jews to stand up to bigotry

Stephen Fry, the famously polymathic British writer, actor, comedian and presenter, is of Jewish heritage. This was at the front and center of a Christmas Message he has recorded for a U.K. broadcaster, much to the consternations of the pro-Palestinian left in Britain. 

In the video message for Channel 4, the former QI presenter called out the shocking rise in antisemitic abuse in the aftermath of the October 7 massacre in southern Israel, and the subsequent war in the Gaza Strip between the Israeli military and the Palestinian jihadists of Hamas. 

“Shop windows smashed, Stars of David and swastikas daubed on walls of Jewish properties, synagogues and cemeteries. Jewish schools have been forced to close,” Fry points out in the recorded message.

“Standing upright means speaking up and calling out venomous slurs and hateful abuse wherever you encounter them,” Fry says. 

“There is real fear stalking the Jewish neighbourhoods of Britain,” he goes on. “Jewish people here are becoming fearful of showing themselves. In Britain, in 2023. Can you imagine, Jews afraid to be themselves in the open for fear of reprisal?”

The backlash came immediately from the pro-Palestinian hard left. 

Jackie Walker — a far left activist banned from the Labour party amid a crackdown on leftist antisemitism that bubbled up to the surface during Jeremy Corbyn's stint as party leader — posted on X that "This '‘'I am Stephen Fry and I am a Jew' drivel is a coded claim of oppression.... Seeing well healed, high status folks adopting the garb of victimhood while lending their names and significant influence to the aid of what is now, according to an overwhelming majority of humanity, a savage and despicable state makes me sick"