Fresh off the back of hosting the ‘A Conversation with Our Allies’ event with LLAA and UJIA, Freelance Journalist and activist, Nicole Lampert, tells us about her career journey and work to combat antisemitism.
Nicole Lampert knew she wanted to be a journalist from the age of nine. After studying at University of Leeds, her first job was at her local newspaper, the Hendon and Finchley Times.
From there, Nicole got a job at The Sun as a showbiz reporter, speaking fondly of the role that gave her incredible opportunities such as going to the Cannes Film Festival and being flown to Hawaii.
After being headhunted by the Daily Mail and becoming Business Editor for four years, Nicole went freelance and has been featured in huge publications such as The New York Post, Glamour, and The Spectator. More recently, she has turned her hand to writing about politics, antisemitism, and women’s rights for the Jewish Chronicle, Haaretz, and The Critic – to name just a few!
With a long and well-established career in entertainment journalism under her belt, Nicole decided to turn some of her work to activism and fighting antisemitism around seven years ago: “I first got involved because I just felt that I had to do something after going to the Enough is Enough demonstration in 2018 and thinking to myself ‘what is going on?’”
“Because I’m a journalist, a lot of other journalists follow me on social media, which gives me an influential voice and I feel a responsibility to represent our community through my work,” Nicole reflects on the perks of being freelance. “I can be more agile when it comes to my stories because if one publication doesn’t want to publish it because of my views, I can take it somewhere else.”
The activism side of Nicole’s work does come with its pitfalls as well: “I spend a lot of time arguing with people online and I get lots of hate messages, but I try to not let it get me down. A lot of people have come to me after reading my work and said that it helped them to feel less alone, so it feels special and humbling to know I’m making a difference.” Nicole believes that going forward, a change needs to be made in the mainstream media:
“There are certain TV stations or news outlets that only allow certain voices to be heard which is contributing to an antisemitic view of our community.”
After the October 7th attack on Israel, Nicole quickly sprung into action to offer a helping hand where she could: “I spoke to the Israeli embassy press office when I first heard about the attack, and they asked me to help man the phones and speak to people that were in safe rooms. It was a privilege to do but was also traumatising; when you speak to people that were living it firsthand and crying on the phone, you can’t not cry with them. But there’s a war going on, we have to talk about it to help understand the pain of it.”
Leeds Leads Against Antisemitism (LLAA), in conjunction with UJIA, held an event in March which saw Nicole host Loay Alshareef, Reverend Hayley Ace, and Andrew Fox in a discussion about the importance of ally voices and teaching others to unlearn hate through their own personal journeys to peace.
Speaking about the event, Nicole said: “The Jewish community feels very low at the minute and we’re all quite terrified. Although we’re right to be frightened – the horrendous bullying in schools and what’s happening in the NHS is awful – but we have to lift our heads up. Events like this prove that we do have lots of allies that will speak up for us and with us. I think the audience felt very buoyed by it because the three speakers came from very different places but they each stated how they were with us, and they understood what we’re going through which is really important to remember.”
One of the speakers at the event, Loay Alshareef, was raised with a hatred towards Jews instilled into him and has now realised how wrong this was after spending time with a French Jewish family. Loay now fights misinformation and is a huge ally for the community.
“It was amazing to hear from Loay as he has experience of being in the army,” Nicole praises on Loay’s contributions to the evening. “He said that yes, the IDF is doing everything that it can – in really difficult terrain.”
“He also spoke about his time visiting Manchester Grammar School recently where a lot of the pupils are Muslim; most of them had never heard another Muslim speaking as a Zionist and he gave them a completely different point of view. It’s stories like this one that show the importance of ally voices like Loay’s.”
