British Jewish public relations professionals faced an “impossible choice” after Oct. 7, according to a new article in Public Relations Review based on interviews, each running about an hour, with 10 professionals.
“Organizational silence” led to a “regime of ‘truth’ that marginalized or excluded Jewish voices and left participants with an impossible choice of either remaining silent and invisible or speaking out and risking antisemitic responses,” wrote Lee Edwards, professor of strategic communications and public engagement at the London School of Economics and Political Science, in the article, which is slated to appear in the December 2026 issue of the publication.
“Alongside this, participants’ perceptions that antisemitism was not given the same attention by organizations as other forms of racism or discrimination were experienced as a lack of recognition, unfairness and injustice within the organizational community,” she wrote.
Jewish PR people in the United Kingdom “had to negotiate tensions in the wider environment, particularly anti-Zionist forms of antisemitism in public discourse, and in their professional workplaces, in media-related roles as well as in relation to organizational responses to events,” Edwards wrote. “The tensions were underpinned by two paradoxes of belonging that challenged,” number one, “their right to claim both British and Jewish identity” and secondly, “their right to claim a place in their organizational community.”
Edwards, who is not Jewish, conducted the study from October to December 2024. She noted that given the limited number of people in the study, “it was not possible to know how the 10 practitioners reflected the U.K. population of Jewish public relations professionals.”
One participant said that “I think it was like four days after Oct. 7, there was a student with this stall kind of shouting about one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter,” per the study, and that “it’s just so unfair.”
“We’re not in Israel. We’re not undertaking anything. So, what are you accusing us of? That’s antisemitic, in itself,” another participant said. “But at the same time, we are inherently, genetically connected to that land,” and “a lot of us feel that way and want to protect it. So, it’s like, we’re not Israel, but we are pro-Israel because we are Jewish. There’s ultimately no winning.”
One said that “I think people are legitimately scared to do anything around antisemitism, because it will be deemed unpopular. It’s not viewed as a legitimate bigotry while the Israel aspect is at play.”
Another said that her organization, which supported the Black Lives Matter movement vocally and made a big donation to charity, made her feel “completely unsupported and no one cared” when it was silent about Jewish trauma after Oct. 7.
