This week we stood in Trafalgar Square as thousands gathered to break the Ramadan fast. It was a moment of real beauty: Muslims marking a sacred time, joined by Londoners of many backgrounds, sharing space in the heart of the city.
The backlash came quickly.
Nick Timothy MP described Muslim prayer there as an act of domination. Nigel Farage MP went further, calling it an attempt to assert control over “our culture” in what he described as a Judeo-Christian country. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer responded that such language risks making Muslims feel they do not belong.
This is no longer simply an argument about discomfort but an argument about who belongs in public space.
Public prayer is visible. It takes up space. It can feel unfamiliar. That discomfort should not be dismissed. In a country that is changing, people are trying to make sense of what they see.
While we are empathetic to that that instinct, we were there in Trafalgar Square this week and as Jews we have stood in that same square lighting Chanukah candles.
As rabbis we are keenly aware that visibility brings both pride and exposure. Nor is it entirely safe.
Jewish communities live with that reality every day. Synagogues are protected. Events are carefully planned. Across Europe, there are places where Jews no longer feel able to gather openly at all.
So, while discomfort and risk is real, the argument for pushing faith out of public life becomes its own risk.
Once prayer itself is described as domination, the terms of the debate have changed. We are no longer discussing how shared space is used but deciding whose presence counts as belonging, and whose is treated as a problem.
That is how cohesion is lost.
The government speaks about strengthening social cohesion. Social cohesion is built when people can bring their identities into a shared national life, and when others are prepared to encounter that difference without immediately seeing it as a threat.
If discomfort becomes the measure, the logic is simple. Anything unfamiliar can be excluded. Visibility itself becomes suspect. The public square shrinks.
That is not social cohesion, that is social erosion.
The language of “our culture” may sound reassuring. In practice, it draws a line. It suggests that some expressions of faith belong, while others are an intrusion.
That is not the Britain we believe in.
The Britain we believe in is one where a Chanukah menorah can be lit in Trafalgar Square, and an Iftar can be held in that same space, and neither is seen as a threat to the other. It is a country confident enough to hold more than one story at once.
In Jewish tradition, prayer is not only private. Some of our most sacred words require a community. They must be said together. Judaism has a long history of a communal need to gather, to be present, and at times to be visible in the public square.
When it does, it is not an act of domination. It is an act of trust.
Trust that this country is strong enough to hold difference. Trust that public space belongs to more than one story.
We do not ignore the risks. We live with them too but the answer to those risks cannot be to make faith invisible. A society in which religion is only acceptable behind closed doors is not more cohesive but more fragile.
Britain becomes stronger when people can stand, openly and safely, in the fullness of who they are.
Public prayer is not a threat to cohesion.
It is one of the ways it is built.