Identity: Am I a Jewish Brit or a British Jew?

This blog post was written by Shoshana Beach, a 2025/26 Fellow in Lod

We’ve now been part of the Yahel Fellowship for over a month, and one thing I never expected from this experience was to be faced with questions about how I view my own identity.

I’m from London, England, and I’ve grown up with a distinctly Jewish name: Shoshana. Because of that, whenever I meet someone new, I’m almost always asked the same question — “Oh wow, what an interesting name! Where’s it from?” In other words, my name makes my Jewishness immediately visible, especially in predominantly non-Jewish spaces.

This awareness has become even sharper since October 7th, 2023. In my previous job in local government, I was the only Jewish member of my team. I often found myself fielding questions about Israel, Judaism, and Jewish life. In that world, I was the Jewish version of myself surrounded by British people.

Now, as part of Yahel, the dynamic has completely shifted. I’m no longer unique because of my Judaism — but because I’m British.

An article by Emma Rosen (linked below) captures this dilemma perfectly. Rosen writes, “Sometimes, I am more British and sometimes I am more Jewish — and that’s OK.” She continues, “When I’m watching Wimbledon, eating cheesy chips or having a hot toddy in a pub after a walk in the middle of winter, I’m as British as they come. When I munch on matzah, someone drops ‘shlep’ into conversation, or I sit down to dinner with my family on a Friday night, then I’m Jewish.”

At the start of the Fellowship, the other fellows were amused by my accent — imitating and mocking the way I say certain words such as “bin bag” and “rubbish”, but I’ve done the same with their accents; it’s all part of the fun.

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However, one of our first learning days offered a more serious twist. We heard from the incredible Michael Bauer, who gave a fascinating talk on the history and politics of the Middle East. He spoke about how the British government influenced the region’s geopolitics and even how the term Middle East reflects its distance from Britain.

As the only English fellow, I couldn’t help but notice that while the talk remained balanced on Israel and Palestine, there was a clear — and fair — criticism of Britain’s colonial past.

My fellow participants (in good humour) joked about the British Empire and its

global impact — an impact that, admittedly, shaped much of the modern world. Still, I couldn’t ignore how strange it felt: as both British and Jewish, I often find myself being criticised from within the very communities I most identify with.

As a cohort, we’ve also been exploring questions of identity through the stories of Ethiopian Jews who came to Israel. How do Ethiopian and Israeli cultures blend? Which identity feels strongest?

If you had asked me six months ago, I would have said I felt far more Jewish than British. Judaism was the part of my identity that set me apart from colleagues, friends, and people I passed on the street. But living in Israel has shifted that. Here, being Jewish is the norm — an incredible feeling in itself. Yet now, I’m the British one.

At my school placements, the children constantly ask me to say “bottle of water,” “Harry Potter,” and a host of other phrases. I’ve gone from the “Jewish one” to the “English one” — and that change has been both surprising and enlightening.

I chose to write this blog because this has been the most unexpected aspect of my first month in Israel. I’m curious to see how my understanding of identity continues to evolve — and how I, too, will change — by the end of this fellowship.

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