London’s Jewish community ‘on edge’ as anti-Semitism rises

The grainy CCTV footage was filmed late at night two weeks ago on Dunsmure Road in Stamford Hill, a north London enclave with a large Orthodox Jewish community. In the video, a Hasidic Jewish man, easily identifiable by his black clothing and hat, walks alone. He appears nervous as he is accosted by another man, who corners him against a shutter.

“You mother f**king Jew. I’ll stab you,” says the second man. The voice of a third man can be heard off-screen, aggressively urging him on. “Stab him, stab him, stab him!” he chants.

As the Jewish man tries to walk away, he is struck on the back in mocking fashion. Then his accoster walks away, his act of intimidation complete. The footage was released by Stamford Hill’s Shomrim, a Jewish neighbourhood watch scheme.

Community Security Trust (CST), a charity that provides security to British Jewish communities, this week released details of several other ugly encounters. It has recorded a huge upsurge in anti-Semitic incidents since Hamas’s murderous October 7th attack in Israel, which has responded with a devastating bombing campaign in Gaza.

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In the first month since the Hamas attack, CST recorded more than six times as many anti-Semitic incidents as in the same period last year. There has also been a rise, albeit smaller, in acts of bigotry against Muslims.

Among the anti-Semitic encounters CST described was one where Jewish girls were walking home from school in Hertfordshire, just north of London. A man barged by. “What is this, a Jewish walkway? Free Palestine, you c**ts,” he said.

Golders Green is another north London neighbourhood with a large Jewish population. This week it was quiet, but two days after the Hamas attacks graffiti appeared on a railway bridge bisecting its main street. In huge letters, it repeated the phrase barked at the Jewish schoolgirls: “Free Palestine”.

This may be a political slogan, but it can be viewed in a different context when it is sprayed across a street synonymous with London Jews. On the same morning that the graffiti appeared, the windows were smashed in Pita, a nearby Jewish restaurant, but police believe this was a straightforward burglary and not an anti-Semitic attack. Pita’s till was also stolen.

Residents of some areas complain of people shouting anti-Jewish slogans as they drive past. Red paint was thrown at two schools in Stamford Hill recently. A London hospital consultant has left his NHS job after posting on Facebook: “Die Juden sind unser Unglück.” It means “the Jews are our misfortune,” a notorious newspaper slogan in Nazi Germany.

While such extreme incidents may not be the everyday experience of most of London’s 145,000-strong Jewish community, they have fed into a growing sense of unease. Jews are wary following a series of huge pro-Palestinian marches in central London, with widespread chants of “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free”. This is interpreted as code for destroying Israel and has for years been used by Hamas supporters.

Two women were arrested under anti-terror legislation after one London march recently for having images of paragliders taped on their backs: paragliders were used by Hamas to breach Israel’s border fence with Gaza on October 7th, before landing at an outdoor rave where hundreds were murdered.

CST, which trains Jewish security volunteers, has asked the community in London to be “be vigilant and alert, but carry on living your Jewish life as normal”. It says the end of the marches would bring “relief” to Jewish people who are afraid to come into the city when they are on. Police say there is no legal basis for preventing them.

What is perhaps more insidious for many in London’s Jewish community is not overt ethnic bigotry. Rather, they detect a more subtle form of exclusion: an indifference from others about the pain felt in Israel, the Jewish state that is inextricably bound up in their heritage and sense of selves.

People are quick, some Jewish people argue, to jump on Israel for the huge civilian casualties it has inflicted in Gaza. Yet, they say any sympathy for Israel after 1,400 of its people were slaughtered by Hamas in the October 7th attacks evaporated suspiciously quickly under the guise of criticism of the response. Pro-Palestinian protesters say they are merely calling for justice and respect for humanitarian law. Yet some Jews believe such calls for justice are hollow. They say Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, is always “treated differently”.

People in Britain and elsewhere were demonstrating against the actions of Israel “before its bodies were cold”, says Greg Allon, an executive at a London television production company. A Jewish man originally from Glasgow, he is despondent over anti-Israel protests in Britain. He was particularly hurt when fellow fans of his hometown football team, Celtic, unfurled a “victory to the resistance” banner at a match on October 7th, before Hamas had even finished its attack.

“It’s visceral just thinking about it,” he says, almost gasping as he reaches for a glass of water in his Soho office. Allon believes many non-Jews simply do not fully understand how the October 7th attacks struck at the core of the Jewish psyche, even for those living far from Israel.

“It’s part of our identity. I understand the protests about civilian deaths in Gaza – we are all human first. But for the level of anti-Semitism to spike the way it did ... the idea that that happened so quickly rather than the wider community wanting to put its arms around us is sickening.”

[ Gaza war fuels rise in acts of anti-Semitism across the globe ]

[ Germany takes tough line on anti-Semitism after incidents rise ]

He says that, like many Jews, he feels “constantly on edge” since October 7th. He tries to switch off but it is hard. The psychological impact of the attack is “constantly there”. In coming months, he plans to travel abroad for a short time and has arranged for a family from an evacuated portion of southern Israel to stay at his house. “They need a break too.”

The chill wind that many Jewish people have felt in Britain in recent weeks has driven some to take precautions that cut right to the core of their identity. Emi Sinclair, from Golders Green, is a campaigns sabatical officer with the Union of Jewish Students. She always, she says, wears a Star of David necklace. The star is smaller than the size of her fingernail but sometimes she tucks it in when she is in an unfamiliar area.

“Recently I’ve started tucking it in without even realising that I’ve done so. I’m not going to do a deep psychological analysis of why that is, but there is a level at which I am scared,” says Sinclair.

Ethan, who asked that we not use his real name, is an Israeli Jew working in London’s tech industry. He works mostly from home; he hasn’t faced much obvious anti-Semitism, but has volunteered for CST security duty in his community.

“I realised something after October 7th that maybe I didn’t fully know before. There are millions of people in the world who want me dead simply because of who I am: a Jew. Who else has that?”

He says he cannot understand the slowness in some quarters to condemn what Hamas did to innocent Israelis. Like several other Jewish people contacted for this article, he rejects the settler-colonialism narrative through which he says many in the west view the regional conflict. “That is not how people in Israel see it. People here fail to understand what is happening.”

Some pro-Palestinian marchers in London this weekend may disagree. The dispute will rage on.

Sarah Sackman, a Jewish woman who is running for Labour in the next election in Finchley and Golders Green, says there is “anxiety” in the community but people should remain calm. A noticeably heavier police presence has helped, she says.

“Jews have a keen sense of our history. It has been a joyful one, but punctuated by periods of persecution,” she says. “But it feels incredibly intense right now.”

Back in Stamford Hill this week, Orthodox Jewish life continued, but security patrols were conspicuous around many community centres, synagogues and schools. Meanwhile, on Golders Green Road the graffiti had been wiped off the bridge.

Just up the street, posters of the faces of Israelis kidnapped on October 7th were stuck on the windows of an old supermarket, reminders of that day’s horror, felt so deeply by Jews everywhere.