Anxiety mounts in London’s Jewish community amid wave of antisemitic attacks

By Lianne Kolirin, CNN

London (CNN) — A week of assaults on synagogues and other communal buildings has created an atmosphere of heightened anxiety in London’s Jewish community.

And yet this series of antisemitic criminal acts has also strengthened the resolve of some of those affected.

The rabbi of Kenton United Synagogue in Harrow, northwest London, which was attacked by arsonists over the weekend, took to social media on Sunday to show members of his congregation gathering in his home to pray.

“We must not be deterred by what is taking place out there. It must not in any way affect who we are as Jews,” Rabbi Yehuda Black said on X.

He is not the only one, according to Michael Wegier, chief executive of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, who told CNN the community is feeling “anxious but resilient.”

“I’m hearing people who are nervous about sending their kids to Jewish schools or coming to synagogue, but one also hears exactly the opposite,” he said in a telephone interview. “There are people who are saying ‘we won’t be cowed, we’ve been here since the mid-17th century and we’re not going anywhere.’”

Nobody was injured in the Kenton attack, which caused minor smoke damage, according to the Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that protects the Jewish community. Two people were arrested Sunday night in connection with the incident.

This was the latest in a spate of arson attacks in recent weeks. Last month, arsonists set fire to four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in Golders Green, north London. Four people were subsequently charged by police.

The tension then ramped up further last week, when a synagogue and the former premises of a Jewish charity, both in north London, were attacked.

Two people have been arrested in connection with an attempted arson attack at Finchley Reform Synagogue in the early hours of Wednesday. On the same day, a Persian-language media organization opposed to the Islamic regime in Iran was also attacked. Three people have been charged with “arson with intent to endanger life” in that case.

According to the Metropolitan Police, a total of 15 people have been arrested in connection with the arson incidents.

Counterterrorism officers from the Metropolitan Police said they are investigating Ashab al-Yamin (Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right), which has claimed responsibility for most of these incidents, as well as others in mainland Europe.

In its most recent report, the CST revealed that it recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents last year, the second-highest in a single calendar year. The highest was in 2023 – the year Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, triggering the brutal war in Gaza.

Meanwhile, the Home Office’s latest figures show that Muslims were the most targeted religious group in England and Wales, with 4,478 cases in the year to March 2025. However, the far smaller Jewish community is proportionately much more impacted –- with 2,873 incidents, the Jewish community experienced more than eight times as many episodes per capita.

“A sustained campaign of violence and intimidation against the Jewish community of the UK is gathering momentum,” Ephraim Mirvis, Chief Rabbi of the Commonwealth, said in a statement sent to CNN. “This sustained attack on our community’s ability to worship and live in safety is an attack on the values that bind us all together. Thank God, no lives have been lost, but we cannot, and must not, wait for that to change before we understand just how dangerous this moment is for all of our society.”

None of this comes as news to British Jews, still reeling from an attack on a synagogue in Manchester on Yom Kippur last October, in which two people were killed.

According to think tank the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, more than eight out of 10 British Jews (82%) regard antisemitism as a “very big” or “fairly big” problem. That said, fewer and fewer people are prepared to speak out publicly due to safety concerns.

One man, a Jewish father of three in his 40s who did not want to be identified but whose children attend a Jewish primary school in north London, told CNN: “When we’re crossing the road to school, I think someone might put their foot down and run us over. And when they’re outside the school gates, I just want to usher them in as quickly as possible but when they’re in the school I don’t feel safe either.”

“There are a couple of security guards but no one’s going to be able to stop someone with a weapon or an attack,” he added.

A woman who asked to be identified only as Sharon told CNN she is afraid. She lives in Hendon, a northwest London suburb with a large Jewish community and where one of last week’s incidents took place.

“The recent wave of antisemitic attacks targeting the Jewish community in this country have left me as a British Jew born and brought up in London and currently living in a large Jewish community shaken and afraid. I am particularly nervous about our safety at Jewish locations, such as synagogues and kosher restaurants,” she said.

Colin Goldstein, who works in the tech industry and lives in the Finchley area, told CNN: “What’s been most worrying is the increase in severity of attacks, especially the murders in Manchester, but also how close they are to where I live and where our family members live. I’m determined not to be cowed by terrorists, and still plan to attend synagogue regularly, as usual.”

“But I do worry that if there is not substantial action to combat antisemitism in the UK urgently in the coming days, the future for British Jewry is looking very uncertain.”

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