Life in the UK: When Fear Walks the Streets Again

There are certain stories you read and move on from.

Then there are stories that linger.

The recent antisemitic attack in Golders Green, London, was one of those stories for me.

Not simply because it happened in London, a city many still associate with tolerance, diversity, and democratic values. Not simply because it involved hatred directed at Jewish people. But because it felt like another warning sign in a pattern that is becoming harder to ignore.

Golders Green has long been known as an area with a visible Jewish community. Families. Synagogues. Schools. Businesses. Everyday life. In many ways, that visibility should be ordinary in a free society. It should require no courage to live openly as who you are.

And yet, increasingly, it seems to.

That is what troubles me most.

Not only the individual incidents, though those matter deeply. It is the atmosphere surrounding them. The sense that antisemitism is no longer confined to the fringes, whispered in corners, or hidden behind shame. It now appears more emboldened, more casual, and in some spaces, more socially tolerated than many would like to admit.

Hatred rarely announces itself honestly.

It often disguises itself as politics.

It borrows the language of justice.

It claims to be about governments, borders, wars, ideology, or protest.

Then somehow it lands on the doorstep of ordinary Jewish families in London.

That contradiction should disturb all of us.

Criticising any government, including Israel’s, is legitimate in a democracy. Democracies depend on criticism. But when anger at a foreign conflict transforms into hostility toward Jewish neighbours in Britain, something darker is taking place.

They were not ministers, generals, or policymakers. One victim was an elderly man attacked in broad daylight. The other, a younger man, was injured as the violence unfolded. Neither was targeted for what they had done, but for who they were.

That line matters.

And lately, it feels as though too many people either cannot see it, or no longer care to.

As someone who has lived in the UK for many years, I have always believed one of Britain’s greatest strengths was the promise that people from different backgrounds could live under the protection of shared civic values. You did not have to agree on everything. You did not need the same religion, ethnicity, or politics. But there was meant to be a common understanding that intimidation, scapegoating, and collective blame had no place here.

That promise feels more fragile now.

You notice it in the language.

You notice it online.

You notice it in how quickly some people minimise attacks depending on who the victim is.

You notice it in the strange silence that can follow abuse of Jewish communities, as though many are unsure whether condemning it strongly might be politically inconvenient.

Moral clarity should not depend on fashion.

If a visibly Muslim family were targeted in the street, we would rightly call it Islamophobia.

If a Black family were targeted because of race, we would rightly call it racism.

If Jewish people are targeted because they are Jewish, it is antisemitism.

It should not become more complicated than that.

There is also something especially tragic about antisemitism returning so comfortably to Europe, a continent whose history should have made such hatred permanently toxic. Memory, it seems, is shorter than many assumed.

The lesson of history is not that societies become immune to prejudice.

It is that they forget how quickly prejudice can normalise itself.

First through jokes.

Then excuses.

Then selective outrage.

Then fear.

Then people quietly adjusting their lives around threats they did not create.

No minority community should have to calculate routes home, hide symbols of faith, avoid certain streets, or wonder whether world events abroad will make them less safe in Britain tomorrow.

That is not multicultural success.

That is social failure.

What concerns me is not only the attack itself, but what it says about the health of the society around it. Nations often reveal themselves in how they treat minorities when tensions rise. It is easy to preach tolerance in calm times. The real test comes when emotions run hot and scapegoats are available.

The UK is being tested.

And I hope it passes.

Because if Jewish communities no longer feel secure in Britain, something precious is being lost for everyone, not only for them.

A free society is not measured by slogans or branding.

It is measured by whether ordinary people can live openly, safely, and without fear.

That standard must remain non-negotiable. For even in uneasy times, a nation is not defined only by the darkness gathering around it, but by the lights it chooses to keep on.

To Britain’s Jewish communities: know that you are not alone.

Am Yisrael Chai 🟦