When arsonists attacked Finchley Reform Synagogue earlier this year, the physical damage was mercifully limited. The fear travelled much further.

For years, it was my community: I sang at Friday night services, taught b’nai mitzvah students, and its former rabbi officiated at my wedding. Seeing it targeted felt painfully personal, part of a pattern that has led to British Jews changing routines, concealing symbols of our identity and wondering whether the places we gather in can be kept safe.

The government’s announcement of more than £250m over three years to protect Jewish communities in England and Wales is therefore welcome. Communal leaders have recognised the difference it can make after the murders at Heaton Park synagogue, the stabbings in Golders Green and repeated attacks on Jewish people and institutions. The Community Security Trust said it had come “not a moment too soon”.

But as many Jewish representatives and government officials have acknowledged, policing and security alone cannot provide a sustainable or dignified future for British Jews. A country where Jewish children pass security guards to enter school, and worshippers expect police outside synagogues, should not mistake better protection for a solution. Success must also mean confronting the conspiracies, dehumanising ideas and extremist movements creating the threat.

Anti-Jewish racism damages Jewish life first and most directly. But the fundamentalism sustaining........

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