Met Police confirm 72% increase in antisemitic hate crimes in May
Borough of Barnet hit hardest
Antisemitic hate crimes recorded in May by the Metropolitan Police in London jumped by 72% month-on-month.
Some 255 antisemitic hate crimes were logged by the force in May, up from 148 in April.
The borough of Barnet – includes the districts of Golders Green, Hendon and Finchley – saw the highest number of these offences last month, at 76, accounting for 30% of the total.
Hackney in east London saw 40 antisemitic offences recorded by the force, along with 29 in Westminster, 16 in both Camden and Haringey and 11 in Tower Hamlets.
Overall, 28 of the 32 London boroughs saw at least one antisemitic hate crime logged by the Met last month.
An arson attack at a former synagogue in Whitechapel on May 5 was one of a number of recent apparent antisemitic attacks in the capital, while police officers were sent to an area of Tower Hamlets on May 15 after an online video showed a man threatening that “Jews gonna get beheaded”.
The 72% rise in antisemitic hate crimes recorded by the Metropolitan Police between April and May is the largest monthly increase since late 2023.
The number soared from 59 in September 2023 to 455 in October, coinciding with the Hamas attacks on Israel and subsequent conflict in Gaza.
A CST spokesperson said: “”This sharp rise in antisemitic hate crimes reflects the daily experiences of the Jewish community in London, and corresponds to similar data recorded by CST over the same period. Most disturbing of all is that this increase appears to have been triggered by the series of arson attacks on the Jewish community and the stabbing of two Jewish men in Golders Green at the end of April.
“This means that, as we saw after the October 7 attack in Israel and after the terror attack on Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester, attacks on Jews lead to more antisemitism, not less. To tackle this shocking reality, we welcome the increased police resources in Jewish community areas and the work of the CPS to bring more prosecutions to court more quickly, and we will continue to work closely with them both and our community partners to reduce the impact of this hate crime.”
The Met Police data published this week also shows that offences classified by the force as Islamophobic hate crimes also rose between April and May of this year, up 33% from 135 to 179 – the highest monthly figure since August 2024.
Such offences had been on a downwards trend at the end of last year and early 2026, before jumping in March – the same month a new agreed UK Government definition of anti-Muslim hostility was published.
At the time, the Government said the definition was “an important step towards combating the unacceptable hostility that Muslims face” adding that past attempts to define such hatred had “fallen short, leaving the concept ambiguous and highly contested”.
The borough of Westminster had the highest number of Islamophobic hate crimes recorded by the Met in May, at 21.
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