‘Visibly Jewish’ people are ‘not safe’ in Britain, chief rabbi says after stabbing attack

By Issy Ronald, CNN

London (CNN) — “If you are visibly Jewish, you’re not safe” in Britain, the country’s chief rabbi said Thursday, expressing the anxiety of the British Jewish community after two men were stabbed in a London neighborhood already reeling from several recent antisemitic attacks.

“I’m sad to say that today’s event proves that if you are visibly Jewish, you’re not safe, and far more needs to be done,” Ephraim Mirvis told the BBC.

“Over the past few days, people have been thinking ‘Chas Veshalom’ God forbid — where will the next one be?” he added in a post on X.

In a significant move Thursday, the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre, which is part of the MI5 domestic security agency, raised Britain’s terrorism threat level to “severe” from “substantial.” The new alert level, the country’s second-highest, means an attack is “highly likely in the next six months,” according to the government.

One of the Jewish victims was stabbed at a bus stop while putting on his kippah, and another was stabbed as he walked down the street. Police described Wednesday morning’s attack in Golders Green as a terrorist incident. Both men are in a stable condition in hospital, and a 45-year-old man was arrested on suspicion of murder, police said.

The suspect was known to authorities since he had been referred to the government’s Prevent program to counter extremism in 2020, police added Thursday.

London’s Jewish community, which is concentrated in the north of the city, has been targeted by several antisemitic attacks in recent weeks. Those have included arsonists setting fire to four ambulances belonging to a Jewish charity in Golders Green last month and an attack on a synagogue two weeks ago.

Such repeated attacks prompted British terrorism adviser Jonathan Hall to call this the “biggest national security emergency” facing the country since 2017, when several terrorist attacks, including one targeting an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester, killed 35 people.

“There are Brits, in London in particular … who are now thinking they cannot live a normal life. And it’s not one attack; it’s multiple attacks,” he told the BBC.

And local member of Parliament Sarah Sackman told BBC Newsnight that “we can’t guarantee that everybody is kept safe,” even as “the threats to Jewish people in this country are very real.”

Britain’s interior minister, Shabana Mahmood, said she was treating the string of attacks like an “emergency,” though she stopped short of characterizing the threat as a “national emergency.”

She added that claims of responsibility by a shadowy, Iranian-backed group were being investigated but that police have not yet established whether those claims are substantive or simply opportunistic.

The government announced a further £25 million ($34 million) to help fund increased security for Jewish communities, focusing on such places as synagogues, schools and community centers. That is in addition to £33 million ($44.5 million) the government previously pledged earlier this year, according to PA Media.

In an address to the nation, British Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the attacks have left Jewish people “scared to show who they are in their community,” including by going to a synagogue, school or university or telling colleagues their religion.

He also promised to increase policing in Jewish communities and accelerate sentencing in antisemitism cases. The government needs stronger powers to “tackle the malign threat posed by states like Iran,” he said.

“We know for a fact that they want to harm British Jews,” Starmer said.

Still, the anger among London’s Jewish community toward the government is palpable. Dozens demonstrated against Starmer when he visited the neigborhood Thursday, and prominent journalist Ben Judah said France implemented a more meaningful response when it mobilized 10,000 troops to protect Jewish centers after the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris in 2015.

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