Amos Schonfield
@ajschonfield.bsky.social
670 followers 720 following 220 posts
Refugee and migrant rights advocate // Founder & CEO @oursecondhome.org.uk // AWFC masochist // Unsubtly bearded // Unfathomably Jewish // he/him
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A day of relief. A day of pictures of happy tears.

It didn't always feel like this, but this day was always going to come. Agreements and negotiations work.

May it be the latest healing day of many. May Palestinian families know the same relief felt today soon.

🎗
This is a fantastic statement from the BoD, and it has rightfully received praise from a wide spectrum of people for this.

The real test is one of consistency. Douglas Murray is just Robinson with a posh accent, and yet he is welcomed into our synagogues gladly.
The Board of Deputies’ response to the Israeli government inviting Tommy Robinson to visit
Amichai Chikli may be a small-minded fascist, but he is also monumentally bad at his job. Legacy diaspora institutions are desperate to support Israel, and he can't help but alienate them. That Netanyahu has let him fester in this job for 3 years is proof of how little the diaspora matters.
Reposted by Amos Schonfield
I never post on Yom Kippur but:

When British Jews tell you antisemitism is getting worse BELIEVE US. It shouldn’t take us getting stabbed by terrorists on the holiest day in our calendar for you to believe us.
Reposted by Amos Schonfield
You don’t actually have to both sides this. The Jewish community in the UK is not the Israeli government. You can just condemn the murder of two British Jews killed in their place of worship and you don’t have to say a single other thing.
Reposted by Amos Schonfield
As long as the far right shapes public opinion, and mainstream parties follow public opinion, the far right dominates politics, whether in government or not.
This is daft and I didn't imagine it needed to be said.

Saying "I personally don't identify as English" is not the same as "migrants and their descendants can't identify as English".

One is about personal feelings, and one is about excluding people based on immutable traits.
In 35mins, this @99pi.org episode shows the challenge of our immigration debates. Our lives depend on thousands of people willing to take on jobs others won't for the sake of their safety and the safety their families. Communities understand this, and govts refuse to.

pca.st/episode/cdef...
The New Jungle
pca.st
Why are we treating migration - a necessity for the lives we lead - like DofE?
Labour looking at Reform's racist policies and saying "we"ll have some of that". These aren't just discriminatory, by making migrants meet higher standards than the average person, they automatically treat migrants as if they are criminals on community service.
#r4today
www.bbc.com/news/article...
Under the proposals, legal migrants will have to learn English to a high standard, have a clean criminal record and volunteer in their community to be granted permanent settlement status.
Went into a bit of a rabbit hole listening to this and found out that (1) London doesn't have a municipal flag and (2) designer Juan Castro Varón has made one! flag.london
The question is: if clubs can spend billions on transfers, what does it say about the untapped potential for community investment?

5/5
When compared with transfer spending, the picture is striking. Despite slightly lower transfer outlay this season, charitable giving rose — meaning clubs gave 3.15% of their transfer spending in 23/24, up from 2.35% the year before.
Club foundations all spend their money differently, but the top 3 biggest Premier League givers are Chelsea, Newcastle & Liverpool. Three clubs have more-than-doubled their giving over the past 5 years: Newcastle, Liverpool & Wolves.
Having looked back at the 2023-2024 accounts of the charitable foundations of clubs in The Premier League, we can see that it was a record year for their charitable work. It's the first time collective giving has broken the £70m mark, and overall spending has risen by 28% over the past 5 years.
The summer transfer window has closed, with hundreds of millions changing hands once again. But alongside the billions spent on players, there’s another story worth telling: football giving.

🧵/5
A flag can be many things: a memory, a hope, a rallying point. Right now, it is also a test. Will we act to make this country feel welcoming for all — or will we let those who seek to exclude decide what England’s flag stands for?

6/6
Political leaders face a choice. Some are inflaming tensions, others are silent — unwilling to challenge a symbol they hope is inclusive enough for everyone to rally behind. If we don’t say when a flag has been corrupted, we hand its power to those who divide.
As England flags spread through neighbourhoods, as have attacks against migrants and racist incidents telling visible minorities to "go home". What could be a civic symbol is instead being wielded as a weapon.
The 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 in “Operation Raise The Colours” carries a different weight. It is a symbol of power used to mark territory, often outside the so-called hotels housing people seeking sanctuary. They are deliberately trying to exclude those who have nothing from even the smallest slice of "home" - their bed.
At @oursecondhome.org.uk, young people often paint the flags of the countries they fled. Sometimes those flags were worn by the very people who forced them out. But for them, a flag is still a memory of what home could be — and a rallying cry that we are still here.
I’ve been thinking a lot about flags, obviously.

"Why is it only in England that you can't raise a flag without being called racist?", is a common question from people not really getting the point. In England, unlike many countries, raising one is an everyday civic act.

🧵/6