The British Jewish Campaign Against Antisemitism organization urged the country’s new prime minister, Andy Burnham, to make combating antisemitism a central priority of his government, warning that the UK’s Jewish community was facing an unprecedented security crisis.

In an open letter published as Burnham took office on Monday, CAA Chief Executive Gideon Falter wrote that British Jews live under constant threat, citing years of attacks on synagogues, Jewish schools, community institutions, and individuals, which have escalated significantly in the past year.

“The crisis has gone on so long now … that it has become the new normal,” Falter warned, noting Jews have been targeted disproportionately by hate crimes after successive governments failed to confront the problem. He cited arson on targets such as synagogues and a Jewish volunteer ambulance service.

“Synagogues and Jewish schools require a quarter of a billion pounds of police protection. Jewish volunteer ambulances are firebombed and charitable institutions are targeted by arsonists,” wrote Falter.

“Jews have been murdered at synagogue, stabbed in their neighborhoods, and attacked when they dare venture farther afield,” he added, referring to the deadly 2025 Yom Kippur terror attack at Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester, and the stabbing of two Jewish men in a London neighborhood in May.

He noted that Burnham, as the then-mayor of Greater Manchester, “saw the effect firsthand” at Heaton Park Synagogue, and said, “Now, as prime minister, you have an opportunity to do what your predecessors did not: You can do something about it.”

Burnham attended a vigil in the aftermath of the Heaton Park terror attack, where he told the city’s Jewish community that Manchester’s leadership “have your back,” and that it would “always be that way.”

Last week, Burnham also backed a £250 million funding boost to protect Jewish communities, saying he has “seen first hand the anxiety in our Jewish communities and the very real threat they........

© The Times of Israel