My hands actually shook as the clock approached midnight on Thursday (Tel Aviv time) with the seconds counting down to the exit poll in the British general elections.
The predicted results flashed on to the screen and for the first time since 1997, British politics elicited a genuinely visceral response in me. I cried.
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The BBC displays the exit poll for the UK general election held Thursday
(Photo: AFP)
To me and many others, this has not been a battle over economic policy or leaving Europe, this has been a battle over the soul of the country that my paternal grandfather and great uncles defended from the Nazis, the country that took in my maternal grandfather when he fled anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe. Almost every British Jew has this story or one like it.
I have largely avoided Facebook, unable to stomach the glee with which some friends embraced a man whose career has been dictated by his vilification of the only Jewish state, who apparently has never met an anti-Western terrorist he didn't like, whose agitation, nastiness and tolerance of the worst of anti-Semites were wrapped up in a cosy sweater, bicycle clips and Santa beard.
The racism he and his cronies espoused then used to gaslight the British Jewish community did not seem to register at all as they celebrated the man who made almost an entire ethnic minority tremble in terror.
The same was true of the Labour MPs who tut-tutted in faux dismay at the hatred directed at the Jewish community and then worked to put the ringleader in the highest political office in the land.
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My great-grandmother and her soldier sons during WWII
(Photo: Courtesy of the Miller family)
So when Big Ben struck 10 and it became clear that Britain had said 'no, thank you' (for the second time!) to this man and his policies, the tears came.
Let there be no doubt, the polls show that many British people were revolted by this man and his lifelong allegiances. Anecdotal alert: My greatest friend is Catholic; she and her family did not vote Labour for the first time - because of their affection for me and my own family. She also passed on a message from a school chum I have never even met: No Labour vote because of the party's treatment of the Jews.
It turns out that Jeremy Corbyn and his ilk were repugnant to the many and celebrated by the few.
The suitcases can stay under the bed – for now.