The UK government announced on July 13, 2026, that it will spend more than £251 million over the next three years to increase police protection for Britain’s roughly 290,000 Jews, following a series of violent antisemitic attacks that pushed the national terror threat level from “substantial” to “severe.”
The announcement, made jointly by the Home Office, Policing Minister Sarah Jones, Chancellor Rachel Reeves and Prime Minister Keir Starmer, comes amid a sharp rise in recorded hate crimes. In May 2026 alone, 255 antisemitic hate crimes were recorded, a 72% jump from the 148 recorded the previous month.
A String of Attacks in Britain
The funding follows a run of high-profile incidents targeting British Jews over the past year, such as:
- October 2, 2025: Two worshippers, Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, were killed and three others seriously wounded when Jihad Al-Shamie drove a car into the gates of the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Manchester and stabbed congregants during Yom Kippur services.
- April 15, 2026: Two masked assailants threw a brick and what were suspected to be petrol bombs at Finchley Reform Synagogue in north London in the early hours of the morning. Police launched a manhunt and treated the incident as an antisemitic hate crime; a synagogue leader described it as an attempt to intimidate British Jews.
- April 29, 2026: Two Jewish men were stabbed in Golders Green, north London, in what police called a suspected terrorist attack. The suspect, identified as British national Essa Suleiman, is alleged to have targeted people specifically because they were Jewish.
Where the UK Money Goes
The £251 million package breaks down roughly as follows:
- £86 million to the Metropolitan Police for about 300 additional officers
- £22 million to Greater Manchester Police, sustaining the policing surge that followed the Heaton Park attack
- £43 million spread across seven other forces with significant Jewish populations: Hertfordshire, Essex, Northumbria, Sussex, Thames Valley, West Midlands and West Yorkshire
- £41 million for national coordination and antisemitism training for all officers in England and Wales
- £59 million for Counter-Terrorism Policing
In total, the funding is expected to deliver more than 500 additional officers, an extra 100,000 officer-hours per year nationwide, and mandatory antisemitism training for every police officer in England and Wales. It builds on a separate £32.4 million allocated in 2026-2027 for protective security at synagogues, Jewish schools and community centers, and an earlier £25 million emergency fund announced earlier this year.
Community groups welcomed the move but cautioned it addresses symptoms rather than causes. Community Security Trust Chief Executive Mark Gardner called the timing critical for the future of British Jews, while Antisemitism Policy Trust CEO Danny Stone stated permanent heavy security is “… not a sustainable or dignified way for a British community to live, nor should it be what Jewish life is about … Efforts must now focus on targeting the root causes of antisemitism.”
A Parallel Crisis in the United States
The UK’s response mirrors a similar reckoning in the United States, home to just over 7 million Jewish citizens.
- April 2025: The Pennsylvania governor’s residence was set on fire while Governor Josh Shapiro and his family slept inside, hours after they had marked Passover there. Cody Balmer was charged and sentenced for the attack.
- May 2025: Two Israeli Embassy staffers, Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim, were shot and killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.; the first Jewish fatalities from an antisemitic attack on U.S. soil since 2019.
- June 2025: Mohamed Sabry Soliman attacked a “Run for Their Lives” demonstration supporting Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado, using an improvised flamethrower and Molotov cocktails while shouting pro-Palestinian slogans. More than a dozen people were injured, including an 82-year-old woman who later died of her injuries.
- March 2026: Ayman Ghazali drove a truck into a Detroit-area synagogue and opened fire before turning the gun on himself; no one else was killed.
- May 2026: The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced the arrest of Mohammad Baqer Saad Dawood al-Saadi, an Iraqi national accused of leading elements of Kataib Hezbollah, an Iran-linked militant group. Prosecutors allege he was planning attacks on synagogues and Jewish centers in Arizona, Los Angeles and New York, and tied him to earlier arson attacks on Jewish sites in Europe.
A separate global tracking report found that violent antisemitic attacks in 2025 killed more Jews worldwide than in any year in the past three decades.
Washington’s Legislative Response
Where Britain has moved through executive funding decisions, the U.S. response has centered on legislation. On June 10, 2026, Representatives Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Mike Lawler (R-NY) introduced the bipartisan Jewish American Security Act (H.R. 9211) with 28 co-sponsors; Senators Jacky Rosen (D-NV) and James Lankford (R-OK) lead a companion bill in the Senate.
The bill’s “Six-Point Security Plan” would:
- Reauthorize Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’)s Nonprofit Security Grant Program (NSGP) at $1 billion through 2031
- Authorize $9 billion annually from FY2027–2031 for the DOJ to support local law enforcement at religious institutions and improve coordination on hate crimes
- Require the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Department of Homeland Security, and the National Counterterrorism Center to jointly produce an annual, decade-spanning threat assessment on antisemitic violent extremism, including its online origins and any foreign state involvement
- Direct the Department of Education to appoint an Antisemitism Coordinator
- Require large online platforms (50 million-plus U.S. monthly users) to file recurring public transparency reports with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on how they handle antisemitic content
The bill has drawn endorsements from a broad coalition, including the Anti-Defamation League, American Jewish Committee, the Orthodox Union, Jewish Federations of North America, and the Republican Jewish Coalition alongside the Jewish Democratic Council of America.
It builds on an earlier funding push: on April 17, 2026, 41 senators – led by Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), James Lankford (R-OK), Gary Peters (D-MI) and Jacky Rosen (D-NV) – had urged Senate appropriators to provide $750 million for the NSGP in FY2027. A related request sought to extend the July 24, 2026 deadline for states to submit FY2026 NSGP applications.
The Common Thread
Officials on both sides of the Atlantic are framing the moment in similar terms: rising violence has forced governments to move beyond statements of concern toward direct funding for physical security, while acknowledging that policing and legislation alone won’t resolve the underlying rise in antisemitic sentiment. As UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer put it, security funding is essential, but tackling antisemitism at its source is just as important.
