The UK must redouble its efforts to “wipe out antisemitism”, Home Secretary Theresa May has said.
Mrs May said she “never thought I’d see the day when members of the Jewish community” would be “fearful” of staying in the UK.
She was speaking at a service in London to remember those killed in the terror attacks in France this month, including four people in a kosher supermarket.
Police say there is “heightened concern” about risks to Jewish people.
The president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Vivian Wineman, welcomed the home secretary’s speech, saying Jews in the UK should be alert to the terror threat but not alarmed.
Mrs May said the attack on the supermarket in France was “a chilling reminder of antisemitism, not just in France but the recent antisemitic prejudice that we sadly have seen in this country”.
“I know that many Jewish people in this country are feeling vulnerable and fearful and you’re saying that you’re anxious for your families, for your children and yourselves,” she continued.
“I never thought I would see the day when members of the Jewish community in the United Kingdom would say they were fearful of remaining here in the United Kingdom.”
“And that means we must all redouble our efforts to wipe out anti-Semitism here in the United Kingdom,” she said.
