Adam Langleben is Executive Director of Progressive Britain and has served as National Secretary of the Jewish Labour Movement
On Thursday morning, Yom Kippur morning, my family and I left our north London synagogue earlier than usual. We made a conscious decision not to linger, not to chat with friends outside, as we often would.
Before stepping onto the street, we removed our young children’s kippot — not a decision made lightly. We did so out of fear. By then we’d heard what had happened at Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation in Manchester. As we left, there was a van of police officers stationed outside, doing exactly what the government had promised just an hour earlier: protecting our community. I am grateful for that.
My son attends a Jewish day school where there’s a permanent security presence, and often a heavy police presence over the past two years too. Every morning, when I drop him off, I experience what it means to raise a Jewish child in Britain in 2025. Police outside school is so normal now that he has never asked me why they are there.
The Community Security Trust, or CST, is the charity that protects British Jews from antisemitism and terrorism. It trains volunteers to guard synagogues, schools and community centers, and administers the government grant to help guard Jewish buildings. I have been one of their volunteers. I have worn the stab vest. I have stood at the gates of synagogues. The threat has been very real for decades.
For British Jews, including me, a murderous attack on a synagogue like the one that unfolded in northwest England on Thursday was always something we’d expected — a question of when rather than if. Our fear was born from experience, history and security assessments. For two years, the temperature has been heating up. The almost weekly protests, the chants, the placards, the online abuse. Most Jews share the feeling that something terrible is happening in British society — that a threshold has been crossed.
The danger was never hypothetical. We knew it was inevitable. It might have been in Manchester this time, but it could have been anywhere. But this attack isn’t just a Jewish problem. It is a challenge to Britain as a whole. For two years, and across two different governments, a culture has been allowed to develop in which deeply irresponsible speech, sometimes lawful and sometimes not, has filled our streets week after week. We have been told that free speech, even if it makes minorities feel uncomfortable, is the price we pay for living in a free society.
I used to believe that. I used to think that free speech was such a bedrock principle that my unease as a Jew walking through a hostile crowd was a small sacrifice in the bigger scheme of things. But I no longer think that; my thinking has changed.
The near-weekly pro-Palestinian protests have had a cumulative effect. They’ve normalized intimidation. They’ve created an atmosphere where citizens, whether Jewish or not, don’t feel safe in their own cities and neighborhoods. They’ve blurred the line between protest and communal harassment.
Some of what has been shouted and chanted is explicitly unlawful. Much of it sits in a gray area, just within legal bounds. And when it goes beyond the boundaries there’s no zeal from authorities to pursue a case.
But the effect is the same: vulnerable communities feel menaced, targeted, and despite the police presence outside places of worship still unprotected.
Antisemitism is not just another prejudice. At its core it is a conspiracy theory — the oldest one: the belief that Jews, collectively, are secretly responsible for the world’s ills. The late Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks described it as a “light sleeper.” It never disappears. Sometimes it lies dormant, waiting to be triggered by new myths, new accusations, new crises. History shows us the pattern. From the medieval blood libel, to Christian and feudal antisemitism, to the 20th century when Jews were painted as sub-human, capitalists or communists, the conspiracy mutates, never dies.
To most, slogans like Globalize the Intifada are interpreted as calls for Palestinian liberation, but for some, a minority yes, it is a call to action to attack Jews anywhere in the world — and chanting antisemitic slogans gives permission for violent extremists.
That is why language matters. Words can stir the sleeper. The worst possible accusation that can be made against Jews, individually or collectively, is genocide. Whether such claims stand up to evidence is for time and international law and the courts to decide. But the shouting and screaming on our streets that Jews — in a collective form, as Israel — are guilty of genocide carries a chilling echo. It is not so different from the old blood libel.
And we know what happens next. To those on the fringes of society who already view Jews as uniquely malevolent, this language is seen as permission. If Jews are committing the worst crime imaginable, then surely, they tell themselves, violence against them is justified. That is the twisted logic of antisemitism. And I fear that’s exactly what we have just seen play out in Manchester.
Anxiety about reckless speech isn’t confined to one group. That same gray area has been exploited against other minorities by rabble-rousers like Tommy Robinson, and by thugs of all stripes who use the cloak of “protest” and “free speech” to launder their hate in public spaces.
We know, too, that the majority of people on marches do not come with malice. But intent is not the only thing that matters. Outcomes matter too. And the outcome, time and again, has been intimidation. Organizers of demonstrations cannot simply wash their hands of responsibility. If hateful groups use marches as cover for hate or intimidation, then it is the duty of protest organizers to act and to ensure those people are clearly unwelcome. Freedom of assembly doesn’t absolve them of responsibility.
We need a fundamental rethink. Free speech is indeed an important democratic right, but it also entails a responsibility. When rights conflict, we must decide which one prevails. The right of British citizens — Jewish, Muslim, Black, Asian, LGBT, or anyone else — to go about their lives without fear of harassment or violence is as fundamental as any other democratic right. And in today’s hyper-polarized society, that surely must come first.
This does not mean banning protests. It does mean redrawing the boundaries of the behavior we allow in our public spaces. It means recognizing that speech and assembly, even if technically lawful, can corrode the sense of safety that communities should be able to have. And it means governments and police forces enforcing that principle consistently across the board.
Above all, it requires people to police their own speech — and especially leaders. Words have consequences and sometimes they can be deadly.
The post What it means to raise a Jewish child in Britain appeared first on Politico.
