My son recently found a swastika drawn on the pavement at the end of our street

Every synagogue has, for many years, had members on a rota for security duty, led by more experienced volunteers from the invaluable Community Security Trust (CST). Members of my family were doing it this week. I take my turn on the rota, though I can’t imagine there are many things less intimidating than me in an oversized stab-proof vest armed with a walkie-talkie. Whenever I’ve been on duty I spend most of my time watching cars driving past and wondering “what if”.

It's not just synagogues either. Jewish schools have guards, metal detectors and active shooter drills. And for good reason. In 2024 and 2023 there was a 100% increase in antisemitic incidents logged by the CST from the two years before that. This includes online abuse, which is now standard for any Jew with a public profile, and has got worse since X stopped removing openly racist posts. But it also includes regular vandalism of synagogues. Just last month five in Golders Green were attacked and smeared with human excrement, including the entrance to a Jewish nursery. My son recently found a swastika drawn on the pavement at the end of our street.

This ever present sense of risk is frightening, and has left many Jews feeling unwelcome in the UK. It’s hard to see things improving, as violence in the Middle East and the rise of the far right in Europe and America has led to a resurgence in age old tropes. Education is one route. I’m a trustee of the Holocaust Educational Trust and we work with thousands of schools, using history to show where antisemitic ideas can lead. We know this work does make a difference to young people that engage. But in an era where it’s easier than ever to share emotive disinformation it can feel like an increasingly unfair fight.

It's a fight we share with other minorities that are increasingly threatened by violence, abuse and intimidation. Alongside protecting Jews, the CST has advised Hindu temples, Sikh gurdwaras and mosques. They helped set up Tell MAMA, which combats anti-Muslim hate crimes – incidences of which have risen dramatically in recent years. It’s critical that, like the numerous Muslim organisations that offered support in the past few days, we continue to stand together and work against hatred.

To stand with others is to choose hope over fear, and to avoid letting antisemites define us solely as victims. As the late Rabbi Jonathan Sacks wrote: “The Jewish way is to rescue hope from tragedy. However dark the world, love still heals. Goodness still redeems. Terror, by defeating others, ultimately defeats itself, while the memory of those who offered kindness to strangers lives on.”

Photograph Daniel Leal/AFP/Getty Images