An arson attack leaves Britain’s Jewish community feeling vulnerable

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/03/2026 (191 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

LONDON (AP) — British police hunted three suspects on Tuesday over an arson attack on a Jewish charity’s ambulances and pledged to step up security around a community that feels increasingly at risk.

The blaze in Golders Green, a London neighborhood with a large Jewish population, consumed four ambulances belonging to the volunteer organization Hatzola Northwest. Oxygen cylinders on the vehicles exploded, breaking windows in an adjacent apartment block. Also shattered was the community’s shaky sense of security, already strained by wars in the Middle East and what many say is soaring hatred of Jews.

“We’re feeling vulnerable,” said Damon Hoff, president of the Machzike Hadath Synagogue, where the ambulances were parked. Some of the building’s stained-glass windows were damaged in the blast.

“We know what’s going on,” Hoff said. “Nobody’s eyes are closed. We’re living through wars. There’s multiple fronts, and Britain is a part of it, and our community is a tiny little part of a very, very big world.”

The UK Jewish community has deep roots

Britain’s Jewish community is long-established but tiny as a percentage of the population, numbering about 300,000. The northwest London suburb of Golders Green is one of its epicenters, home to kosher restaurants, multiple Jewish schools and several dozen synagogues.

The number of antisemitic incidents reported across the U.K. has soared since the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas on Israel and the subsequent Gaza war, according to the Community Security Trust, which works to protect the Jewish community. The group recorded 3,700 incidents in 2025, up from 1,662 in 2022.

In October 2025, an attacker drove his car into people gathered outside a Manchester synagogue on Yom Kippur and stabbed one person to death. Another person died during the attack after being inadvertently shot by police.

Counterterror police are leading the investigation into the ambulance arson attack, and probing a claim of responsibility posted on social media by a group calling itself Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia, which translates as the Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Right.

Israel’s government has called it a recently founded group with suspected links to pro-Iran networks that has also claimed responsibility for synagogue attacks in Belgium and the Netherlands.

Mark Rowley, chief of London’s Metropolitan Police, said detectives are investigating the claim but it is too early to attribute the attack to the Iranian state.

The U.K. has accused Iran of using criminal proxies to conduct attacks on European soil targeting opposition media outlets and the Jewish community. Britain’s MI5 domestic intelligence service says more than 20 “potentially lethal” Iran-backed plots were disrupted in the year to October.

Last week two men in London were charged with carrying out “hostile” surveillance last year of the U.K.’s Jewish community on behalf of Iran.

Fears of growing intolerance

Many British Jews believe hostility also lies closer to home.

Some members of the community criticize Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s center-left Labour Party government for failing to prevent pro-Palestinian demonstrations held since Oct. 7, 2023 from tipping into anti-Jewish speech and acts. The protests have been overwhelmingly peaceful, but some politicians and religious leaders say chants such as “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” incite anti-Jewish hatred.

Some also say that the U.K.’s recognition of a Palestinian state has emboldened antisemitism — a claim that the government rejects.

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators, among them some Jews, say criticism of Israel’s actions is not antisemitism, though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters have conflated the two.

Rowley said London’s police force will increase security for Jewish schools, synagogues and community centers ahead of Passover next month, including “highly visible firearms patrols.”

Jack Taub, part of the Machzike Hadath Synagogue leadership team, said authorities “need to do a lot more” to protect the Jewish community.

He said the attack was sad but not surprising “given the sentiment that there is in the country, the hatred that is against Jewish people.”

Jonathan Wittenberg, senior rabbi of Masorti Judaism, whose community is just down the street from where the attack occurred, said there was a sense of things coming nearer all the time.

“People are definitely anxious,” he told The Associated Press. “However, the other thing to say is there’s a very, very strong determination to continue with Jewish life. Judaism is nothing if not deeply resilient.”

Attacks have left some British Jews wondering whether they should move somewhere safer — and wondering if such a place exists.

“Israel’s not exactly the safest place in the world at this moment,” Wittenberg said. “There certainly are people thinking, you know, Israel is my safe space. But I think there’s also a feeling, is there safe space anywhere?”

___

Associated Press journalist Kwiyeon Ha contributed to this story.