A recent terrorist attack in Manchester, England, testifies to a darkening future for not only Europe‘s Jews, but Europe itself. To save both, both the press and the policymakers must stand forthright against antisemitism.
On Thursday, a man attacked the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Manchester, murdering two. The attacker rammed his car into worshippers who were standing outside the synagogue, before exiting his vehicle and stabbing them. He was subsequently shot and killed by police. British counterterrorism authorities have classified the incident as a terrorist attack, noting that it was targeted and unfolded on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.
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Keir Starmer, the prime minister of the United Kingdom, noted that “additional police assets are being deployed to synagogues across the country.” Starmer asserted: “We will do everything that we can to keep our Jewish community safe.” The attack, he told the press, was “absolutely shocking.”
But Starmer is wrong. In the year 2025, the murder of Jewish worshippers standing outside a synagogue in England isn’t shocking. Tragically, it is almost to be expected. Antisemitism has been skyrocketing in both England and Europe. As Stephen Pollard of the Jewish Chronicle acidly observed: “As I write we know nothing yet of the attacker’s identity” but “we know everything about the climate that made this atrocity possible: years of antisemitism on Britain’s streets, tolerated until it turned deadly today.”
In 2023, the U.K. experienced no fewer than 4,296 antisemitic incidents, according to the Community Security Trust, a nonprofit organization tasked with helping protect British Jews. This was by a wide margin the highest number since the CST began tracking antisemitism four decades ago. In 2024, the number of antisemitic incidents dropped slightly to 3,528, but this still marked the second-highest figure recorded and was an astonishing 56% higher than the third-highest year of 2021.
In short, exploding antisemitism in the U.K. is nothing short of a crisis. It’s not brewing, it’s not looming, it is here. And tragically, Manchester might not even be the tipping point. But it is almost certainly a harbinger. Both Europe and history tell us what happens next.
For years, countries in Western Europe have seen skyrocketing antisemitism. Many synagogues and Jewish day schools in France, Belgium, Germany, and elsewhere exist only under armed guard. Many of Europe’s remaining Jews have chosen to emigrate to Israel. Indeed, French Jews have constituted the fastest-growing segment of Israel’s immigrant population for years.
The exodus isn’t surprising. Several European nations have called for a boycott of the world’s sole Jewish state, singling it out for opprobrium while doing business with human rights violators like China. Some, notably Spain and Ireland, have even lamented not being able to use military force against Israel. Pro-Hamas demonstrations, many birthed after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in Israel, have become commonplace on many European streets. And in the U.K., government employees can even laud Hamas, a designated terrorist group, without worry.
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Europe has been here before.
Nearly a century ago, growing antisemitism in Europe presaged war and the rise of totalitarianism. As the late British historian Paul Johnson once observed: “Wherever antisemitism took hold, social and political decline almost inevitably followed.” Mealymouthed condemnations won’t cut it. England and Europe itself are faced with a choice: fight antisemitism or lose not only their Jewish populations, but eventually, themselves.
The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis