I volunteer across a range of panels/boards and as a school governor because I believe in justice, equality and collective responsibility. I give my time, my expertise and my lived experience freely. Organisations value my skills, my knowledge and my professionalism.
But too often, they fail to see me.
- I am a woman.
- I am ethnically diverse.
- I am Jewish.
- I have a range of disabilities
These are not footnotes. They are central to who I am and how I experience the world. Yet when it comes to recognition, inclusion and solidarity, these parts of my identity are frequently ignored.
Remembrance Cannot Be Selective
Holocaust Memorial Day is not just a date in a diary. For Jewish people, it is deeply personal. It carries the weight of six million Jewish men, women and children murdered simply for being Jewish, alongside Roma people, disabled people, LGBTQ+ people and others targeted by Nazi hatred.
Remembrance is not abstract. It lives in family stories, in silences, in names that were never passed down, and in traditions that survived attempts to erase them.
And yet, year after year, I watch organisations I serve find reasons not to acknowledge it.
“We didn’t have time.”
“We didn’t want to get it wrong.”
“We didn’t think it was relevant.”
“We were focusing on something else.”
These statements may sound reasonable. They are not neutral.
They are choices.
They tell Jewish staff, governors, parents and pupils that remembrance can be postponed.
They tell marginalised communities that their history is optional.
They tell children that some suffering belongs in textbooks rather than in shared moral responsibility.
When organisations fail to mark events that matter deeply to the communities within them, they send a message about whose pain counts and whose can be overlooked.
The Holocaust Did Not Begin With Camps
It began with words.
With prejudice becoming normal.
With exclusion becoming policy.
With silence becoming consent.
Holocaust Memorial Day exists to remind us where unchecked hatred leads. Rising antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, homophobia and misogyny tell us this history is not safely locked in the past.
If remembrance does not shape our actions today, then it becomes ritual without responsibility.
Representation Is Not a Box to Tick
I am often welcomed into spaces for what I bring professionally, but not always embraced for who I am personally.
There is a difference between diversity and belonging.
Belonging means:
- acknowledging significant cultural and faith events
- amplifying marginalised voices, not just inviting them into the room
- understanding that intersectionality matters
- recognising that one person can carry multiple identities at once
I do not leave my Jewishness, my ethnicity or my womanhood at the door when I volunteer. Neither should the organisations I serve.
Low Excuses, High Energy
We need to stop treating inclusion as optional and remembrance as inconvenient.
There is always time to acknowledge.
There is always a way to learn.
There is always space to show solidarity.
Cohesion requires courage. It requires empathy. And it requires leadership that is willing to challenge prejudice rather than quietly step around it.
As a school governor and panel/board member, I believe our responsibility is clear:
- build communities where diversity is visible and valued
- challenge hatred wherever it appears
- move from statements to action
- ensure “never again” is lived, not just spoken
This Is a Call to Action
If you benefit from the labour of volunteers from ethnically diverse communities, then you also carry the responsibility to see them fully.
Not just their skills.
Not just their output.
But their identities, histories and humanity.
Remembrance must become an active promise:
- to confront hatred with solidarity
- to challenge inequality with action
- to build spaces where everyone can thrive
No more silence.
No more excuses.
No more selective inclusion.
If we truly believe in equality, then we must practice it loudly, visibly and consistently.