‘An attack on the heart of this community’: Golders Green arson leaves Jews feeling besieged

The blasts that boomed out in the early hours of Monday in suburban north-west London struck terror into people living in the surrounding streets. Their effects in Golders Green, with its large Jewish population, were still reverberating later that morning.The antisemitic attack, in which four ambulances run by the Jewish charity Hatzola were set on fire, has left local people afraid. They are afraid because of the incident itself but also because of what they see as a febrile atmosphere of Antisemitism in the UK more generally.Damon Hoff. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian“People are frightened. I am feeling vulnerable. If you had heard the explosions, it really was terrifying,” said Damon Hoff, the chair and president of the Machzike Hadath synagogue, on whose land the ambulances were stationed.Hoff, who was called to the scene in the immediate aftermath of the incident, said the UK’s Jewish community felt besieged – and constantly at the sharp end of events that were inherently global in nature. “I’m aware it is a global set of incidents; it is not just a UK or Jewish community issue. But, at the centre of the issue is the Jewish community.”He said the site of the attack was recognised locally as the centre of the Golders Green’s Jewish community. “Knock on any door around here and they will know where the Hatzola ambulances are. There is no mincing words – this is an attack on the heart of this community.”Asked to sum up how Golders Green was feeling the morning after, he said: “You are frightened, and you are feeling vulnerable. I’m here to represent a community that needs broad shoulders to rest on. The Jewish community has been under siege, and the streets of London are not good for Jewish people right now.”Sam Adler, who lives nearby, said: “To target the heart of Golders Green is cynical and cowardly, because everyone knows why they have done it. One bit of negative press about Jews just gives them fuel to target us – there is no other reason.”Sam Adler spent much of the night helping people from surrounding buildings out of their flats to safety. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The GuardianHe said he was one of the first people on the scene after the incident and had spent much of the night helping people from surrounding buildings out of their flats to safety.Adler said some people in the local area “feel really bad for us” but others would just shrug. “I have had some very kind phone calls this morning,” he said.Hoff agreed, saying: “Dozens of people have been contacting me. It is the very best of British humanity that comes out.”Jacob Lipton: ‘We don’t want sympathy.’ Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The GuardianBut there was also anger at the way some people in Golders Green saw British Jews consistently being treated. Jacob Lipton, a local resident, said: “I come from a background where family members were sole survivors from Europe – we have been persecuted for millennia. We don’t want sympathy. You question whether the UK has a future for Jews.”He said there was no one incident that would lead him to conclude it had none, adding: “We always ask what will happen to make us think we are not welcome here.” Instead, he said, it was an atmosphere of hostility built up over a long time.Lipton claimed the actions of the UK’s political leaders had helped exacerbate animosity towards British Jews. He noted that since the 7 October attack in Israel, the Labour party had voted to recognise the Israeli army’s actions in Gaza as a genocide, and the UK government had formally recognised Palestinian statehood as it sought to “protect the viability of a two-state solution”. He said each of these acts had had the effect of intensifying the hatred that was directed towards British Jews.But Adler and Hoff were careful to stress the indiscriminate nature of the attack on Sunday evening, pointing out that the explosions could have hurt Jew and gentile alike. Adler said: “When you target ambulances, you are not targeting the Jewish community, you are targeting the heart of the city. When ambulances become targets, that’s not just criminality, that’s people losing their moral compass.”