British Jews Hide Religious Identity After Golders Green Attack

Derek has never owned a baseball cap. He bought one this week, and now he wears it on the Underground to hide the kippah he has worn openly his entire life. The 45-year-old from Edgware in north London made this decision after Wednesday's attack in Golders Green, when two Jewish men were stabbed in what police declared a terrorist incident. For the first time, the ritual of preparing for Shabbat—the Jewish sabbath that begins each Friday evening—feels shadowed by something he cannot name except as a kind of surrender.

Every Friday night, Derek lights candles with his family, shares a meal, and on Saturday morning walks to synagogue to pray. This Shabbat will be no different in form. The candles will be lit. The synagogues will fill. But the texture of the experience has fractured. Derek's synagogue, he says, now feels like a prison. Security has intensified. Volunteers wear stab vests. The space that was meant to hold prayer and reflection now holds the weight of precaution.

Adam Wagner, a human rights lawyer, finds himself paralyzed by a choice that should be simple. He wants to buy challah, the braided bread, from a kosher bakery in Golders Green as he does most weeks before Shabbat. But the thought of standing in that queue fills him with a specific, vivid fear: being stabbed. His own child has asked him not to wear his kippah when walking to synagogue this week. Wagner has not yet decided whether he will comply. He knows that whatever he chooses, his Shabbat will unfold behind high walls, with volunteers in stab vests, car-ramming prevention barriers, and professional security guards—a scene replicated at every synagogue across the country.

Jonathan Romain, a former rabbi, now spends his Saturday mornings standing outside Maidenhead synagogue on guard duty. After decades leading services from inside, protected by others, he has taken on the role of protector himself. He worries about copycat attacks. He thinks about the two injured men. He wonders if random street violence against Jews will suddenly multiply.

For some families, the fear has become too large to contain. Ben, a lawyer from north London, stopped taking his baby to synagogue after an attack on Manchester's Heaton Park synagogue last year. He has experienced young people shouting "free Palestine" as he left services with his father. This week, on the day of the Golders Green stabbings, Ben and his wife made a decision: they are moving to Israel. The accumulation of threats, he says, finally pushed them over the edge.

But others refuse to be displaced. Judith Nemeth hid behind a fence as the attack unfolded on Golders Green Road. She was there. She saw it. She was not hurt. This Shabbat, she will walk down that same road to visit family and friends. "Nothing has changed," she says. "You will find across the community that we will carry on business as usual." Zoë Jacobs, a cantor at Finchley Reform Synagogue—itself targeted in recent arson attempts—will lead prayers for the healing of the two injured men and for wisdom among leaders of all faiths. Her message to the community is one of resilience.

The government has responded. Sir Keir Starmer, who observes Friday night dinners with his Jewish wife and father-in-law, announced measures including increased visible police presence, greater investment in Jewish security services, and stronger powers to shut down charities promoting antisemitic extremism. Lord Richard Hermer, the attorney general and one of the country's most senior Jewish politicians, acknowledged that "the fear in my community is palpable, and understandable." He will gather his family for Shabbat as always, though he suspects Jewish parents across the country will find themselves holding their children a little tighter.

Yet community leaders say the response is insufficient. Rabbi Romain points out that the threat comes from multiple directions at once—extreme right, extreme left, and Islamists. He calls for government regulation of anti-Jewish hate at protests and on social media. Adam Wagner has urged the government to treat this as an emergency and act with speed, but he argues the problem runs deeper than politics. "The whole of society needs to look inwardly," he says, "and understand why anti-Jewish hatred has been allowed to grow to such an extent that there are people trying to kill Jews on the streets." A group with suspected Iranian links claimed responsibility for the attack, though Iran's embassy categorically denies involvement. The questions of why, how, and what comes next remain suspended over this Shabbat and the ones that follow.