Deflated

I used to struggle to quite understand when people said they felt “Deflated” … and yet as I sat on the floor at the back wheel of my car last night, pulling the piece of wood laden with nails from my tyre, I think I finally understood.

Much like the noise of the air escaping the tyre (a horrible sound), I too felt a little like my air was escaping. It’s the third time my car has been targeted. Starting when it had yellow ribbons for the hostages on it back in 2025. Time 2, in April was the random solvent thrown over it, and then yesterday two pieces of wood with nails were left under my tyres ready for me to drive over.

The worry is, what comes next. How does this escalate?... and more than that, the worry is what happens when it does escalate… The police were so busy yesterday, there were 41 calls ahead of me and they ended up not coming to take evidence and a statement until 9am this morning. (16 hours after I called it in!)

I have no answers. No idea what else to do as I build more walls around my life. I’m on edge checking the car… already lobbying for CCTV at the block of flats… looking into car dashcams that record when the car is parked.

It all costs – not just the money (the tyres I replaced were annoyingly recently new) but it also costs mentally. It’s yet another chip in the casino of “has the time for Jews come in the UK… do we need to go?”.

This sits heavily on me. I am third generation born in the UK. For the first ~30 years of my life I was proud to be a British Jew – Purposely in that order… yet now more than ever, I feel as if I’m simply a Jewish Brit.

I don’t know what comes next… and I don’t intend to sit around catastrophising. Mainly because the threat is real, and high. It’s not irrational and it is likely to happen… but meanwhile, I have a life to lead, a global community to continue to support, and sitting round down in the dumps is not going to help that.

So, I’ll get out my metaphorical puncture repair kit. Blot over the holes, the heart ache, the anxiety and stress… I’ll let the glue dry tonight, before I puff myself up tomorrow and get on with it.

It’s what I’ll do tomorrow.

It’s what will keep me going until the next incident.

It’s what we’ve done for 3,000 years.

We are living our history, as Jews once again… and I won’t be going down without a fight.

Deflated but not defeated.

AM YISRAEL CHAI.

I’ve never done this before… and I’m not good at it.. but if you have enjoyed my writing in the past, my salty tweets on X or my supposedly business focused posts on LinkedIn, I’d really appreciate it if you contributed to the coffee/tyre fund.

Since the summer of 2024, I’ve not had a stable wage as I quit tech to focus on building JewishERGs - so any help towards repairs/ caffeine would be so greatly appreciated.

You can either donate directly to my new Buy Me a Coffee page or send a donation to help grow Jewish leaders in the non-Jewish workplace to JewishERGs. (Tax deductible in the US!)

Thank you!