Manchester’s Jewish community faces renewed wave of antisemitic attacks

The Community Security Trust, which monitors antisemitism and provides protection to Britain’s Jewish community, recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents across the United Kingdom in 2025.

By Ailin Vilches Arguello, The Algemeiner

Britain’s Jewish community is confronting another series of suspected antisemitic attacks after several vehicles belonging to Haredi residents in Greater Manchester were vandalized, just days after three Jewish people were injured in a drive-by BB gun shooting nearby.

The vehicles were targeted at around 3 a.m. on Saturday during Shabbat. Residents of Leicester and Middleton streets discovered later that morning that the windows of several cars had been smashed.

Manchester Shomrim, a volunteer security organization serving the area’s Orthodox Jewish community, said it was assisting police by collecting surveillance footage and information from residents as investigators worked to identify those responsible.

The vandalism occurred days after three Jewish adults were injured in an apparent antisemitic attack in Salford, a city within Greater Manchester that is home to a large Haredi population.

At around 10 p.m. on July 20, a BB gun was fired from a passing vehicle at members of the Jewish community on Leicester Road, according to Greater Manchester Police.

All three victims suffered minor injuries.

Following an examination of surveillance footage, police arrested two suspects on suspicion of religiously aggravated common assault. The investigation remains ongoing.

“Threats to our communities will not be tolerated, and we’re continuing to enhance our security in Jewish communities across Greater Manchester to help keep them safe on our streets,” police said.

The incidents have added to concerns over the security of British Jews, who have faced persistently elevated levels of antisemitism since the Hamas-led invasion of and massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.

The Community Security Trust, which monitors antisemitism and provides protection to Britain’s Jewish community, recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents across the United Kingdom in 2023.

That was the second-highest annual total in the organization’s history and a 4 percent increase from 2024.

The number was more than double the 1,662 incidents recorded in 2022, the final full year before the Oct. 7 atrocities and subsequent war in Gaza.

The group recorded an average of 308 incidents per month in 2025, exactly twice the monthly average during the year preceding the Hamas attack.

Greater London accounted for 1,844 incidents, while Greater Manchester recorded 425. Physical attacks included 170 assaults and four incidents involving grievous bodily harm or a threat to life.

The latest incidents follow a string of violent attacks and acts of harassment directed at visibly Jewish residents in London.

Two men were recently given six-week prison sentences, suspended for 12 months, after traveling to the heavily Jewish Stamford Hill area to film antisemitic content for TikTok.

Adam Bedoui and Abdelkader Amir Bousloub, both 21, targeted a Jewish man with abuse while filming the encounter.

Bousloub later told police that he had brought a fishing rod to the neighborhood to imitate social media videos in which participants claimed to be “fishing for Jews.”

The pair pleaded guilty to religiously aggravated intentional harassment. In addition to the suspended sentences, both were ordered to complete 150 hours of unpaid work and 20 days of rehabilitation activity.

In another Stamford Hill incident in May, a man allegedly attacked several Orthodox Jewish women at a bus stop with a belt while shouting racist abuse.

The suspect, Francis Achile, was charged with aggravated assault, two counts of assault by beating, racially aggravated harassment, and racially aggravated assault. Shomrim volunteers who responded to the attack said the suspect also spat at them.

On the same day, Syeda Khatun, 39, approached children waiting outside a Jewish school and began shouting antisemitic abuse, according to prosecutors. She then struck a father in the face and pulled his beard after he confronted her over her treatment of the children.

Khatun was convicted earlier this month of multiple racially aggravated offenses.

The attacks came shortly after two Orthodox Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green, north London, on April 29 in an incident police classified as an antisemitic terrorist attack.

The following day, Britain’s Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre raised the national terrorism threat level from “substantial” to “severe,” meaning an attack was considered highly likely within the following six months.

Government officials said the decision followed the Golders Green stabbing but was not based solely on that attack.

They also cited the rising threat posed by Islamist and extreme-right terrorism, as well as concerns that foreign states were encouraging violence against targets including the Jewish community.

The British government subsequently announced an additional 25 million pounds in funding to protect Jewish schools, synagogues, and community centers, bringing total security spending for the Jewish community this year to a record 58 million pounds.