Friday, February 23, 2024
'My grandmothers' passports were stamped Juden and they ended up in Bergen-Belsen - now my baby's has been marked', say the Jewish parents targeted by Passport Office workers. 'It is a warning sign'
There is a new, second security camera facing the door of Israel and Dorin's cosy North London home.
The first went up shortly after they returned from a family holiday to Jerusalem that coincided with the October 7 massacre, a truly terrifying experience that saw them cowering in a safe room with their three young children.
Knowing from bitter experience that whenever there is tension in the Middle East that Jews are likely to be targeted, back in London, the couple quickly moved to protect themselves and their three children.
The extra layer of security, however, came only this week after the British-Israeli couple — and their darling five-month-old baby daughter Ronnie, all smiles and chuckles when I visit them at home — suddenly found themselves on the frontline of the war against anti-Semitism.
Shockingly, it emerged little Ronnie's birth certificate had been defaced by a Home Office employee after being submitted for her first passport application.
When the certificate was returned in the post, her parents were distraught to see that her father's place of birth — Israel — had been crossed out and the document ripped.
The impact on them has been seismic. Put simply, they no longer feel safe — even here, in their peaceful London suburb.
'My heart beats a little faster each time the doorbell goes,' admits Dorin, 29, talking for the first time about their ordeal and revealing that she now also carries a self-defence spray in her handbag. 'I check and check again who it is before I open the door.'
Her husband, meanwhile, admits he fears a 'Molotov cocktail' could be thrown through their window as revenge for speaking out.
Indeed, so intense are their concerns that they could be targeted the Mail is withholding their surname from this interview.
Their brave disclosures — in a tense week that saw MPs express concerns that they could be attacked over a Gaza ceasefire vote, and the Hamas slogan 'From the River to the Sea' projected onto Big Ben — has caused a furore about the growing levels of anti-Semitism in the UK.
Home Secretary James Cleverly attempted to calm matters on Wednesday, saying 'some staff' members of Sopra Steria — a Paris-based company contracted to process British passports — had been suspended pending an investigation.
But Dorin and Israel are still justifiably on edge. After all, when you apply for a passport each and every personal family detail is disclosed.
If such private details are in the hands of such seemingly committed anti-Semites, how safe can this Jewish family be, even in leafy area?
'They have our names, our address, our ages — they know practically everything except my waist size,' says Israel, 32, the owner of a drain engineering company. 'They are handling the most sensitive information and they don't appear to be good people.'
For as the couple reflect, while Israel is a war zone, the UK feels menacing to Jews in a different, but no less palpable, way.
'What happened to us, and all the things that are going on, has made me wonder whether we have a future here — whether our children do,' he continues. 'The people singing "From the River to the Sea" down the streets and in our universities might one day be our leaders.'
Indeed, just a few weeks ago, Dorin saw a schoolboy on her street tearing down posters begging for the release of one of the hostages from October 7.
Shockingly, the posters were of nine-month-old Kfir Bibas, the youngest hostage to be seized by Hamas, whose fate remains unknown.
'I asked what the boy was doing and he just shouted "Free Palestine",' she says. 'This beautiful baby has been kidnapped by terrorists. Where did people get this hate from?
'There is a whole new generation being schooled in anti-Semitism. They don't want us here; they don't want us there; they don't want us to exist. We are a people who try to fit in. We aren't criminals, and this hatred follows us.'
Both parents look down at their smiling baby, utterly unaware of the headlines her birth certificate has created around the world.
'She's a drama queen and she doesn't even know it,' smiles Israel lovingly, as he plants a kiss on her head.
But as he and Dorin discuss in detail what happened, his face becomes grim; at points, they both become emotional.
The story started two weeks ago when they sent off Ronnie's birth certificate for her first passport.
Attached to the back of it was something called an 'apostille certificate' which requires a lawyer's certification, and is necessary for dual nationals to prove the signature and stamp of any UK document is genuine — something Ronnie would need if she also gets an Israeli passport.
Her first British passport arrived last week. Then, a few days later, her birth certificate was returned. The word Israel is on it three times, as place of birth for both parents, and as her father's name. Her father's place of birth had been furiously crossed out. As for the tear, it was clearly intentional.
'When I saw the rip I thought, "Could this have happened by accident?"' says Dorin. 'But it is not a small cut. And when I turned it over, I saw that it went through the apostille [too]. And then I realised that the word Israel had been crossed out.
'Then I became scared; we know there have been many instances of anti-Semitism and then it comes through my letterbox, into my home. How can anyone have so much of a problem with us that they would do this to a baby — not even a child but a baby?'
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