6 hours ago
5
Jonathan Freedland writes a timely article about the dangers facing Jews in the diaspora (Attacks on synagogues and Jewish shops in the UK, Europe and the US don’t hurt Netanyahu. They just hurt ordinary Jews, 20 March). Antisemitism has always been a light sleeper – and it is stirring once more in modern Britain.
Modern antisemitism draws from several sources: the far right, the extreme left, often obsessively focused on Israel, and Islamist‑inspired hatred. Like a virus, it has infected a number of public-facing institutions.
The scale of the problem is stark. The Community Security Trust’s latest Antisemitic Incidents Report recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents across the UK in 2025, the second-highest annual total ever recorded, surpassed only by 2023. The Jewish schools my children attend operate behind heavy security. In 21st-century Britain, it is nothing short of a disgrace.
The government and the police must continue to act decisively. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of the British public should extend a hand of solidarity to the Jewish community. The message to zealots and bigots must be clear: antisemitism is not only an attack on Jews; it is an attack on Britain and the values we share.
Zaki Cooper
London
In the light of the attacks on the Jewish charity Hatzola and the burning of four of their community ambulances, Jonathan Freedland’s article is, sadly, even more prescient. He expresses the distress and alarm that I and so many of my friends are now experiencing as a result of the violent so-called “anti-Israel” acts of aggression which we read about.
My predominant response to all of this is one of deep sadness. The fact that these events are occurring not only here, but also in other European countries and beyond, deepens this sense of disquiet. Having lived openly as a Jew all my life in the UK, for the first time, at the age of 74, I now understand the unease that our parents and grandparents would have felt in times past.
For Jews to be held culpable for the actions of an Israeli government, which many in my community abhor, is a nonsense that can only be understood one way: as a thinly veiled disguise for antisemitism. Never, until recently, did it ever cross my mind that one day, while still a proud Jew, I would hesitate to admit it, outside my own familiar circle. How has it come to this?
Susan Saffer
London
In reacting to the arson attack on Hatzola ambulances in Golders Green, David Davidi-Brown connects it with the attacks by settlers on Palestinians in the West Bank (As Jewish ambulances are set ablaze, we must quell the flames of hate from Golders Green to the West Bank, 23 March). This is wrong.
The first is an event carried out in the UK impacting British Jews. The second relates to events in the West Bank impacting Palestinians. Each is to be deplored for the harm it causes, independently of the other event and the harm it causes. Put another way, however despicably a settler treats a Palestinian, this does not justify an attack on Jews in the UK.
Davidi-Brown says: “Those whose instinct is to support Israel need to challenge the violence being carried out against Palestinian communities in the West Bank.” But the harmfulness of the attack in Golders Green does not depend on how supporters of Israel behave. It is evil in the absolute.
John Reizenstein
London
I am not Jewish but live in a Hassidic Jewish area of London. A year ago my husband had a cerebral aneurism while speaking to the emergency service call centre. A Hatzola team were in our home within minutes and started resuscitation until the NHS teams arrived. I later learned that in this sort of emergency in our area the Hatzola are contacted, as there is likely to be an ambulance nearby.
I will be eternally grateful for the part that the Hatzola played in trying to save my husband’s life – and disgusted by the attack on their ambulances.
Liz Fewings
London
