Four ambulances were set on fire in Golders Green in the early hours of the morning yesterday. They were not police vehicles or abandoned cars but emergency vehicles belonging to a Jewish volunteer ambulance service, parked near a synagogue and deliberately targeted.

What is changing is not just the frequency of these incidents, but the atmosphere around them. There is a growing willingness to excuse, downplay or contextualise hostility towards Jews in a way that would be unthinkable for other groups. The result is a quiet normalisation, where anti-Semitism is not always overtly endorsed but increasingly tolerated, explained away, or allowed to pass without consequence.

The vehicles belonged to Hatzola, a volunteer-run, non-profit emergency medical service embedded in the Jewish community but serving far beyond it. Its medics are on call around the clock, responding to emergencies, providing immediate care and transporting patients to hospital, entirely free of charge. They work alongside the NHS and respond to anyone in need, regardless of background.

Anti-Semitism is no longer confined to the margins

Anti-Semitism is no longer confined to the margins

These were ambulances that saved lives. Jewish lives, certainly, but just as often non-Jewish ones. To target them is not only an act of hatred; it is an act of wilful disregard for what those vehicles represent. It requires a kind of blindness in which the mere association with Jews is enough to justify destruction, irrespective of the human........

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