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Jews living in the capital are choosing to conceal their religion as a form of self-protection.
A terror attack in Golders Green, north London, has left two men in hospital and the local Jewish community traumatised.
The double stabbing took place last Wednesday, where a 70 and 30-year-old were attacked. Both remain in stable condition in hospital, and a 45-year-old man has been arrested.
Since then, the terror threat in the UK capital has been raised to ‘severe’, meaning an attack is ‘highly likely’. The local Jewish community has been left to reckon with the psychological impacts of mounting antisemitic sentiment amidst the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.
Derek, whose name was changed by the BBC, said he had chosen to conceal his kippah with a baseball cap for the first time following the attacks.
‘I felt that to go on the underground, as a religious Jew, was just too problematic.’
For Jews like Derek, the weekly rituals that mark religious life are being constantly reshaped by threats of violence. Shabbat, during which Jews gather every Friday night to share food and conversation, followed by Saturday morning synagogue prayers, will continue as normal. But Derek says they now feel ‘especially intense.’
‘Unsurprisingly, this week we are going to have even more security. My synagogue is like a prison. And it’s a small synagogue.’
For many Jews, it’s not just the violent attack itself that has shaken the community, but the lack of response from the country and government at large. ‘I have never experienced,’ Derek told the BBC, ‘not the levels of hate, but the deafening silence of a community, of a country in the wake of such virulent antisemitism.’
The attack, in which two Jewish men were seriously injured, did not occur in isolation. It followed months of escalating incidents: attempted arson attacks on synagogues, vandalism, and targeted violence against Jewish institutions.
For Adam Wagner, a human rights lawyer, even the act of buying challah bread has taken on a new edge. A routine prelude to Shabbat now comes with a calculation of risk.
‘In the back of my mind, I’m thinking how to keep myself from being stabbed in the queue,’ he said.
The psychological toll is not limited to those directly affected by violence. It extends outward, shaping decisions about family life, visibility, and belonging. Ben, a lawyer in north London, says he and his wife stopped taking their baby to synagogue following the attack on Yom Kippur last year at Manchester Park synagogue.
‘In an ideal world, we would take our child,’ he said. ‘But we’ve been very, very scared.’
Other British Jews have considered leaving the country altogether and relocating to Israel. Across the community, there is a growing sense that something fundamental has shifted—not only in terms of physical safety, but in the broader social climate.
Some point to what they see as a rise in antisemitic rhetoric in public discourse. Others highlight the cumulative effect of repeated protests and political tensions linked to the conflict in the Middle East.
This perception is reinforced by the diversity of threats cited by security officials – from far-right extremism to Islamist terrorism, and even the involvement of hostile states. The result is a crucible of risks that places Jewish communities at the intersection of multiple forms of hostility.
Despite pushback from the Jewish community, a large portion of which believes the British government has failed to support them, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has suggested a suspension of pro-Palestinian marches may be necessary to tackle rising antisemitism in the country.
