King Charles III on Thursday visited Golders Green, the London neighborhood where a suspected jihadist stabbed two Jews last month, on a solidarity visit with the Jewish community following a wave of attacks on its members.
Separately, Prince Harry, the King’s younger son, published an op-ed in the left-leaning The New Statesman magazine, condemning antisemitism.
The king met the victims of the April 29 stabbing attack, which took place a little over a month after four ambulances belonging to the Hatzola Northwest Jewish rescue group were set on fire in a suspected terrorist attack by an Islamist group. On April 15, a London synagogue was damaged in a suspected arson attack.
The monarch did not make speeches during his brief visit to Golders Green, according to the Jewish News of London. British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis and Metropolitan Police Commissioner Mark Rowley joined the king on his visit. Government representatives have been booed several times recently during appearances before a heavily Jewish crowd, but Charles was not, with people calling out, “God save the King” in Golders Green, The Jewish Chronicle reported.
Mirvis told the king that the community “appreciates it [the visit] enormously.” Charles also met members of the Jewish volunteer neighborhood patrol group Shomrim, who helped respond to the attacks.
In Harry’s op-ed, the first three paragraphs deal with universal issues, such as the need “to stand against injustice wherever we see it” and against “extremism.” In the fourth, he mentions antisemitism, adding that “we are seeing a deeply troubling rise” in it.
“Jewish communities—families, children, ordinary people—are being made to feel unsafe in the very places they call home. That should alarm us, but also unite us,” the prince said.
On Wednesday, Charles said that the British government would take immediate action to combat antisemitism in the country. “My government will take urgent action to tackle antisemitism and ensure all communities feel safe,” the monarch vowed in his speech at the ceremonial opening of parliament.
On Thursday, the Metropolitan Police said that prosecutors had indicted a man in his thirties for setting fire on May 5 to a former synagogue in East London, which is in the process of being said sold to a Muslim, Somali group. The defendant, Dominic Charles-Turner, is charged with “arson with intent to endanger life,” along with another defendant, Moses Edwards, 45, police said. He was arrested on May 10 along with a 52-year-old woman. The statement did not say whether the three are believed to have targeted the building because it had been a synagogue. The woman has been bailed while the men remain in custody.
In 2025, the United Kingdom had the highest per capita rate of real-life antisemitic assaults of any country with a large Jewish community, according to a report published last month by Israel’s Diaspora Affairs and Combating Antisemitism Ministry. It recorded 121 violent antisemitic incidents, in a country with a Jewish population estimated at between 292,000 and 313,000.
The total number of antisemitic incidents recorded in the United Kingdom last year—including threats, vandalism and intimidation—reached 3,700 cases, a slight increase over 2024 and the second-highest tally on record, the Community Security Trust (CST) watchdog group said earlier this year.
The 2025 tally represents a 4% bump from the 3,556 anti-Jewish hate incidents recorded by CST in 2024. Last year’s total was 14% lower than the highest-ever annual total of 4,298 antisemitic incidents reported in 2023.
The latest report indicates a continuation of the elevated levels of Jew-hatred on display in the United Kingdom since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists attacked Israel and triggered a regional war that set off a wave of antisemitic hatred in Western Europe and beyond. In 2021 and 2022, CST recorded 2,261 and 1,662 antisemitic incidents, respectively.
Last year, 872 Britons immigrated to Israel, despite the war with Iran. This was a 40-year high and a significant increase not only compared to the years 2023-2024, but also to pre-war levels (572 and 681 in 2021-2022).
