Where are the marches or placards of solidarity with Britain’s Jews?

It is something that I hear from Jewish friends and colleagues, who feel that they have been left behind, discarded and left to fend for themselves by other groups and communities.

The lack of solidarity is visibly marked and telling, in an age where we talk about protecting the human rights of people and respecting their identities.

It seems that many in the anti-racist groups and organisations look the other way on protecting these basic rights when Jews in Britain are attacked.

There is a quiet discomfort in parts of British public life when the issue of antisemitism within sections of British Muslim communities is raised.

It is often softened, redirected, or submerged beneath well-meaning but ultimately inadequate calls for “more dialogue” and “greater interfaith understanding.”

That instinct, however, is no longer enough.

Government responses have too often defaulted to the same familiar script: fund interfaith projects, convene roundtables, promote “shared values.” These initiatives have their place. But they are not designed to confront prejudice at its source.

People who are already committed to interfaith harmony are not the ones shouting abuse on the streets or circulating conspiracies online. To put it another way, people interested in interfaith do not kill.

The Community Security Trust (CST) recorded 3,700 antisemitic incidents in 2025, one of the highest totals on record. Where the ethnicity of perpetrators was identified, 14 per cent were South Asian and 26 per cent Arab or North African, a significant minority within the dataset.

These figures do not map neatly onto religious identity, but they do point to a reality that cannot be ignored: antisemitism is not confined to the far right.

At the same time, research from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research highlights a growing sense of insecurity among British Jews. In 2025, 35 per cent reported feeling unsafe, and nearly half saw antisemitism as a “very big problem”. That is not simply perception, it is lived experience shaped by repeated exposure to hostility.

What is required instead is clarity, expectation and accountability. This also means holding the Crown Prosecution Service to account for the woefully inadequate prosecution rates on antisemitic inspired cases. Prosecution outcomes are higher on anti-Muslim hate, and while that is excellent news, we should not accept different outcomes for Britain’s Jews.

As a British Muslim myself, I know that the overwhelming majority of British Muslims do not engage in antisemitism.

But we cannot continue to deny that a persistent, culturally embedded strain of anti-Jewish sentiment exists within some Muslim spaces, sometimes theological, sometimes political, often unchallenged.

Britain’s mosques and Muslim community institutions that benefit from public funding or political access must be expected to actively challenge antisemitism, not quietly, not privately, but openly.

Sermons should confront it directly. Community leaders should name it without qualification. Silence, ambiguity, and deflection must no longer be acceptable.

This is not about collective blame. It is about collective responsibility.

Ultimately, there is a responsibility on us all to stand with communities who live in fear in our country. Only then can trust begin to be rebuilt.

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Fiyaz Mughal is the founder of Muslims Against Antisemitism and Faith Matters

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