Safety of the Jewish Community

Munira Wilson Excerpts

Tuesday 8th September 2026 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West]

From the number of people who have written to me since this debate was granted, I am very aware that resourcing is crucial. There are more than 500 additional officers across England and Wales, boosting security around schools, synagogues and community centres. It is deeply upsetting, as their MP, to hear mothers ask, “Why does my daughter say, ‘Mummy, why there are so many police outside my school?’?”

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I agree with the comment from my hon. Friend the Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding), although members of the Jewish community say to me that they do not want to build ever-higher walls. My hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and I had a harrowing meeting with children and young people who attend Richmond synagogue in my borough. They told us about their terrible experiences of bullying, both physical and verbal, at school and university. They are all having to hide their faith. Does the hon. Member agree that nobody should have to hide their faith? Sir David Bell, who is doing a review for the Government on antisemitism in schools, says that headteachers tell him that, for Jewish faith schools, security comes ahead of education. That cannot be right, can it?

[Catherine West]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. Although we have not yet heard back from the Bell inquiry, I will touch on it in my third and final point and will pick up the hon. Lady’s points then.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mark Sewards]

Goodness me! I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. It is a disgraceful turn of events when people feel confident enough to say something like that on camera, especially if they are not even intoxicated and inebriated, not that that would justify any comments of that nature. That is sickening and it goes to the heart of what we are trying to get to. Because of the way antisemitism has been allowed to flourish, a lot of people now confidently say such things even on camera. It is disgraceful.

We need to think about what it means to belong to a society in which we are repeatedly forced to ask whether it is safe to live openly as a Jewish person. The threat is the threat itself; that is the problem, as is the effect it is having on Jewish people who have to live in anticipation of it. Over the past year, Jewish communities have seen attacks on communal organisations and threats against places of worship and institutions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Friern Barnet set out, alongside appalling levels of antisemitic incidents.

The significance of that cannot be measured simply by counting the incidents, because it is changing the everyday, ordinary lives of Jewish people in this country. Familiar places and ordinary routines become questions of security. Precautions that might once have seemed extreme, maybe even paranoid, have instead become reasonable considerations that Jewish people have to make as part of their ordinary daily lives. That is why security outside synagogues, schools and community institutions sadly remains all too essential; why Jewish societies at universities do not always publicise where their events will take place; and why celebrating Jewish life in public can require precautions that few other communities in this country ever have to consider.

[Munira Wilson]

In my previous intervention, I mentioned that my hon. Friend the Member for Richmond Park (Sarah Olney) and I had met children, young people and their parents at Richmond synagogue to talk about their experience in schools, colleges and universities. On the hon. Gentleman’s point about people hiding their identity and partly withdrawing from public life, one of the students from —I will name the university, because I went there—the University of Cambridge said that antisemitism was rife in some colleges and was not dealt with. They hid where the Jewish society would meet. One student said she had done Hebrew teaching as part of her extracurricular activities, but is keeping that off her CV because she is worried she will be discriminated against. Folk in that room said to us, “We’re tired of advocating for ourselves; we need others to advocate for us.” It is incumbent on us all to come together and say that enough is enough.

[Mark Sewards]

I could not agree more. I will come on to universities in the final part of my speech. The experience of students at the University of Leeds reflects what the hon. Lady said.

Security is incredibly important, but our ambition cannot simply be to protect the Jewish people from immediate physical danger. It must also mean being able to live openly and confidently in British society, with a sense of belonging, while being Jewish. That challenge is made even more serious by the actions of hostile states. I welcome the Government’s action on designating the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps under the newly reformed National Security Act 2023. Designation must be backed up by vigilance and effective enforcement.

Ministers have acknowledged in previous statements that Jewish people, alongside dissidents and journalists, are among those most targeted by the Iranian state and the IRGC in particular. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out what further steps are being taken to ensure that hostile states and their proxies cannot intimidate or target British Jewish communal institutions or other organisations in Britain. This is not just some distant foreign policy concern; as we know, we have to live with it every day. Iran has demonstrated its willingness to project threats well beyond its own borders. It also views Jewish communities through the prism of the conflict with Israel, which inevitably creates further concerns for Jewish people here in Britain.

Before I come to my point about universities, we have to confront the antisemitism that presents itself as anti-Zionism. Criticism of the Israeli Government is, of course, not inherently antisemitic—of course it is not—but denying Jewish people alone the right to national self-determination, or treating British Jews as responsible for the actions of Israel, is obviously antisemitic. It is anti-Zionist antisemitism and it needs to be called out.