'Shocking but not unexpected': Jewish community reacts to ambulance attack

The source - the smell of the remains of burnt out ambulances, which lie blackened in a car park next to a synagogue in the north-west London suburb.

In the early hours of Monday, four Jewish charity-run ambulances were set alight at the site, leading to explosions that caused the windows of nearby buildings to shatter and the evacuation of some residents.

While no-one was hurt, the incident - which is being treated as an antisemitic hate crime and investigated by counter-terror police officers - has left members of the Jewish community feeling increasingly unsettled and fearful.

"It's a shock," said Jack Taub, who is on the leadership team of the Machzike Hadath Synagogue, where the incident took place.

Taub's words have been echoed by other members of the Jewish community who have spoken to the BBC since the attack. Ben, who only gave the BBC his first name, added: "I think I can speak for the community [that] it's been in the back of all our heads that something somewhere is going to pop off. "

At about 01:40 GMT on Monday, the London Fire Brigade was called to Highfield Road in Golders Green, where four Hatzola ambulances were ablaze.

Dozens of local residents were evacuated, with about 30 people taken to a shelter in the early hours of the morning.

The explosions also caused damage to the synagogue, Taub said, with the building's stained-glass windows blown out, as well as smoke and roof damage. Yehoshua Posen, whose daughter lives in the flat next door, said she had seen people set fire to the ambulances before fleeing the scene. "For this to happen on something which is just there to save lives is quite telling and shocking. It's time that people wake up and realise that you can allow hatred only so long, but eventually it catches up," she told the BBC.

She said: "We heard these explosions, a lot of explosions.

My daughter was quite shaken… I'm still shaken to be honest. And no, we don't feel safe if that is the question. It's quite frightening. "

Abigael Levi fled her flat and said she took her kids.

She said she and her family left France for the UK as she "thought it was safer to be here".

"But apparently the same thing," she said.

"All over Europe now it's very dangerous for us. " Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis described the arson attack as a "particularly sickening assault - not only on the Jewish community, but on the values we share as a society".

Lyn Fry told the BBC she was "absolutely appalled and disgusted" by the attack.

Her husband, Mike Clack, was assisted by the service after he broke his leg in 2024.

"He was a 70-year-old non-Jewish man with a seriously broken leg, lying on cold, wet ground, and clearly in a bad way," she said.

The ambulance arrived in 15 minutes, she added, describing the volunteer-run service as "absolutely wonderful".

Damon Hoff, president and chair of Machzike Hadath Synagogue, described Hatzola as the "backbone of the community, it's for everyone that lives here".

"It was set up for the Jewish community but a third of the people that live in our area are not Jewish. "

The Jewish Leadership Council said it was "particularly sickening that someone's hatred of Jews drives them to target vital ambulance services," amid what it called a "tidal wave of hatred" against Jewish people.

According to the Community Security Trust (CST), which provides security and monitors antisemitism in the UK, there has been an uptick in antisemitic hate crimes across the country in the past two years, following the Hamas attacks in Israel in 2023 that triggered the war in Gaza. The Home Office said the latest figures recorded by police in England and Wales showed Jewish people had the highest rate of religious hate crimes targeted towards them of any faith group.

In the year up to March 2025, "there were 106 religious hate crimes per 10,000 population targeted at Jewish people, the highest rate for any religious group", the Home Office report, released in October, said.

"The next highest rate was for hate crimes targeted at Muslims, with 12 per 10,000 population," it added.

Antisemitic incidents have also been reported at schools, universities and healthcare facilities across the country.

Gideon Falter, chief executive of Campaign against Antisemitism, told the BBC "not enough is being done" to combat antisemitism.

"The government needs to take actions against the hate marches and hate preachers and extremists," he said.

"This is a systemic, society wide problem