Great Britain saved my family from Nazism.
On the eve of World War II, many countries, including the United States, still limited Jewish immigration. But in July 1939, my grandparents were able to flee Germany for England. They settled in London, and two years later, my mother was born. Eight years after that, they emigrated to the United States. The family they left behind died in Hitler’s death camps.
Most European Jews were unable to escape — in part, it must be pointed out, because of British policy. Many of them would have gladly taken refuge in Palestine, then a British colony. But in May 1939, the British government effectively ended Jewish immigration to the territory. Still, for my family, Britain will always be viewed fondly as a safe haven from the horrors of the Holocaust.
That fondness makes the current situation for British Jews uniquely painful. Once a nation that welcomed victims of the Nazis, today the U.K. is increasingly a place where Jews are forced to look over their shoulder and hide their Jewishness. For American Jews, what’s happening across the Atlantic offers a disquieting preview of our possible future.
Last year, violent assaults against American Jews reached the highest level since 1979.
Over the last 2 1/2 years, but particularly in the last few weeks, antisemitic violence and harassment have become the new normal for British Jews. Last week, in the predominantly Jewish neighborhood of Golders Green in London, two Jewish men were stabbed by a knife-wielding attacker. This violence followsmultiple arson and attempted arson attackson synagogues, Jewish businesses anda Jewish ambulance servicein London. And last fall, two Jewish men died after aman attacked worshippersat a Manchester synagogue.
In 2025 there were3,700 antisemitic incidents in the U.K., according to the Community Security Trust, which reports on antisemitic activity. That’s an extraordinary number considering that there are fewer than 300,000 British Jews.
As British Prime Minister Kier Starmer (whose wife and children are Jewish) said last week, “People are scared to show who they are in their community, scared to go to synagogue and practice their religion, scared to go to university as a Jew, to send their children to school as a Jew, to tell their colleagues that they are Jewish.”
The situation is so bad that in response to the violence Britain raised itsnational terrorism threat levelfrom “substantial” to “severe.”
The oft-heard explanation for this increase in antisemitic hate is that it’s a response to anger over the war in Gaza. Even if one accepts the argument, someone attacking a Diaspora community because they don’t like the actions of the world’s only Jewish state is collectively blaming all Jews for the actions of other Jews. That would be akin to targeting Russian emigres because of the war in Ukraine. Of course, no such attacks have taken place. Jews, however, have not been so lucky.
Source: Drudge Report
