‘Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.’ —Robert Frost, The Death of the Hired Man

Standing Stones-4000BC at Machrie Moor, Isle of Arran

Arran took us in and gave us a home. Now someone thinks they can tell us to leave.

The first time I saw the magical island off the coast of Scotland, I just thought Arran was a lovely spot, one I wanted to see again. But there’s something about this little island that keeps people coming back until they have no choice but to call it home. At least, that’s how it worked for us.

We looked at a few places and then we saw the stone house on the hillside. The owner’s friend who showed us the house gave us coffee and explained why we should live here. The neighbors one house over sat us down, gave us coffee, and explained why we should live here. At the Bay Stores in the village, Clair gave us coffee, and the rest of the regulars told us why we should live here. We thought the house might need a bit of paint, but basically we agreed: we should live here.

We found a loo—it was a lot of coffee—and then called the estate agents and bought the stone house. (And okay, as I wrote here maybe it needed a bit more than paint. And wiring. And floors. It really needed floors…)

But none of that mattered, because Arran took us in. Literally EVERYONE we met welcomed us, offered advice and help and the occasional translation from Scots to American. We lived through Covid and Calmac and Storm Éowyn. We joined groups, took classes, and taught classes, and tried to give back.

We got a phone call last summer from a total stranger who said his name was Ben Fogle and that he wanted to talk to us about being Jews living on Arran as part of a new series to be called Sacred Islands that he was filming for the BBC. As Americans without TV, we had no idea who he was. But he turned up with an entire film crew and we showed him how to make bagels and braided challah bread.

None of that prepared us for the day in February when a package was left at our house. Inside was a collection of racially targeted items and an anonymous letter claiming to speak “on behalf of all here on the beautiful Isle of Arran” — to tell us that we needed to leave.

We told the police, of course, who advised us to get better security (or, in fact, any security at all that didn’t rely on the world’s friendliest collie.) So we installed the security system and tried not to think about how we went from not locking our doors to running CCTV 24/7.

But we also told people we knew on Arran what happened. Their universal reaction was the same. “That’s not Arran. We don’t do that.”

Then last week another package was delivered. It also contained a random assortment of items that varied from racist to just plain weird. And it included another ‘letter’ telling us to leave Arran, as well as the bizarrely whiny complaint, “You have now installed cameras. This is not a good sign since really Arran is not the kind of place to require this.”

So Arran, here’s my challenge.

I am passionately in favor of free speech. Here in the UK, freedom of expression is granted via Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, as applied in British law through the Human Rights Act 1998. People get to spout their hate-fueled views and I will defend their right to say so. Indeed, I would support a free exchange of ideas where representatives from opposing groups would actually meet to discuss their point of view.

But that right stops when those views advocate harmful actions based on someone’s race, religion, or other group identifier. So I am challenging Arran residents to answer these questions.

• Does an anonymous coward get to speak for us?
• Do they get to intimidate those whose religion or perhaps race they dislike into leaving?
• Do political or racist views define us and limit who “deserves” to stay?

Someone out there knows who this coward is. I don’t want to know. But I do hope that if you know who has done this, you will step in and put a stop to it. Because that’s NOT Arran. We don’t do this.