Today in north west London, Jewish lifesavers became targets, writes Rabbi Benjy Morgan

These were not symbols of power. They were not instruments of conflict. They were ambulances – vehicles dedicated to the preservation of life, expressions of compassion in its most immediate and practical form. Even the BBC described the incident as an antisemitic attack. At such a moment, one need not speculate unduly about motive.

And perhaps that is what renders it so deeply unsettling. When those who save life become targets, something more than hostility is at work. It is not only Jews who are being attacked, but the very values we represent.

I find myself thinking of my grandmother.

I remember her pointing to my American passport with a seriousness that, at the time, I did not fully understand. “Never give this up,” she would say. “You never know when you might need to run.”Her words were shaped by experience.

Her family had left Vienna in 1939. They knew how fragile the assurances of civilisation can be, how quickly the conditions of belonging can change, how swiftly a society can turn.

For many years, one hoped such fears belonged to the past.

And yet, not long ago, I found myself in Florida, staying at a venue for a wedding – in a state where, well into the 1960s, Jews were barred from buying property in certain areas. It was a place of evident refinement and comfort, and yet I encountered antisemitism there. It was subtle, but unmistakable – an echo of the past in the present.

It is an uncomfortable recognition, but an increasingly unavoidable one. Antisemitism today is not confined to one country or one context. It is global in reach and varied in form. From the streets of London to parts of the United States, from campuses to conflict zones, Jews are once again finding themselves singled out.

What, then, are we to make of this? What clarity can be drawn from such events?

Perhaps the answer lies in what was attacked.

Hatzola is not merely an organisation. It is an expression of a deeply rooted Jewish instinct: the obligation to care for others, to respond to need without hesitation, to treat every human life as of infinite value. Its volunteers give of their time and energy not for recognition, but because they feel responsible. It is, in many ways, a living embodiment of the principle that to save a life is to save a world.

That is our strength.

And it is, perhaps, precisely this that our enemies fail to understand.

They imagine that what defines us lies in our institutions, our buildings, our outward forms. But the Jewish people have never been sustained by externals alone.

You can burn our synagogues, but you cannot burn our faith.

You can attack our ambulances, but you cannot extinguish our compassion.

You can kill Jews, but you cannot destroy the soul of a people.

Because that soul does not reside in what we possess, but in what we are.

And it is for that reason that, this morning, Hatzola simply announced that all its services would continue as normal.

There is something profoundly moving in that quiet statement. No rhetoric, no defiance for its own sake, only a continuation of purpose.

Because Hatzola did not begin with ambulances. It began with individuals, using their own cars, guided by a simple but powerful conviction: that when another human being is in need, one responds.

That spirit cannot be targeted. It cannot be extinguished.

You can damage the external forms, but the inner flame endures.

That has always been the story of the Jewish people. We have faced darker chapters than this, more sustained hatred, more devastating loss. And yet we remain.

Because we carry within us something that cannot be taken away.

Am Yisrael Chai.

The flame they try to extinguish is the very one that will outlive them.

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Rabbi Benjy Morgan - this piece first appeared in Jewish News

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