Zack Polanski has been criticised for remarks he made about the British Jewish community’s “perception of unsafety” in the wake of the Golders Green Hatzola arson attack, which came just months after the deadly Manchester shul terror attack.
In an interview with Haaretz journalist Hagar Shezaf, the Green Party leader – who is Jewish himself – was asked about how concerned he was about the increase in antisemitic attacks in Britain.
I asked @ZackPolanski yesterday what is the Green Party's response to the recent wave of attacks against Jewish sites in the UK. His response: “I'm concerned about rising antisemitic attacks. We saw arson attacks on ambulances for instance and we know that increasingly jewish… pic.twitter.com/mHHS6M4oth
— Hagar Shezaf (@hagar_shezaf) April 22, 2026
Polanski responded: “We saw arson attacks on ambulances, for instance, and we know that increasingly Jewish communities are feeling unsafe.”
He added: “There's a conversation to be had about whether it's a perception of unsafety or whether it's actual unsafety, but neither are acceptable. As a politician, as a leader of a political party, it's really important that we do everything we can to make sure people are both physically safe and have a perception of safety."
Polanski continued: “It's unacceptable for anyone in this country to be feeling unsafe if they're just going about their daily business”.
Jewish communal groups have expressed dismay at his remarks about the “perception” of unsafety.
A Community Security Trust spokesperson told the JC: "The harsh reality of antisemitism and the threat to the Jewish community is obvious to everybody. You have to wonder why any politician would seek to question that reality."
Russell Langer, director of public affairs at the Jewish Leadership Council, commented on X:” The Iranian regime has been using its proxies to scope out Jewish locations in London. Two Jews were murdered attending synagogue in Manchester. There have been repeated arson attacks in recent weeks. This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is not a matter of perception”.
In the interview, Polanski also accused the Labour Party of “weaponising” antisemitism.
He said: “I would say that the perception of antisemitism … I see as an increasingly weaponised, cynical political attack from the Labour Party. Now that doesn't mean that I don't take antisemitism seriously. In fact, the opposite. I do take antisemitism seriously, and part of taking it seriously is recognising it needs to be dealt with compassion and care and nuance, and we need to be levelheaded about these conversations.”
Referencing the forthcoming local elections in May, he went on: “For the Labour Party to wait until the day the election started, to start accusing candidates of being antisemitic shows me the opposite of that. That's a deeply unserious commitment to actually dealing with a serious issue, and instead the weaponisation of a political attack, which I think is really, really unhelpful and unhealthy.”
Last week, both the Labour and Liberal Democrat groups on Lambeth council wrote to Polanski urging him to drop a candidate who shared a string of social media posts including one which claimed that Donald Trump is “owned by Jews”.
Claire Holland, leader of the Labour group on Lambeth Council, wrote to express concern about Saiqa Ali’s “openly expressed antisemitic views” and urged the party to withdraw her candidacy.
Ali apologised for “any offence or distress caused” and claimed she rejected “antisemitism in all its forms”.
In a separate incident, Feda Shahin, a Green candidate in Bournemouth made a series of offensive comments and bizarre claims about “Zionists”, falsely accusing them of killing “20 million Christians” and “trying to control the world”, which the party said it was “looking into”.
Shahin did not respond to requests for comment. When asked for comment about Shahin’s remarks, the Green Party said in a statement: “Where there are examples brought to our attention that do not fit in with the views of the Green Party, we are looking into them.”
In the Haaretz interview, Polanski also said that he would not try to speak for the Jewish community, despite being the only current Jewish leader of a political party in Britain, “because it would be impossible for anyone to speak for the entire Jewish community”, but referenced a recent Guardian poll that found a modest increase in Jewish support for the Green Party.
He also repeated criticism of the Board of Deputies and the Chief Rabbi, who he claimed were also unrepresentative of the community.
“Before I was leader of a political party and a more public Jewish figure, there were organisations like the Board of Deputies who were claiming to speak for the Jewish community, or indeed the Chief Rabbi who was claiming to speak for the Jewish community… I know as a Jewish person, never mind a politician, when I would hear them speak or see them release a statement, I would go, ‘that doesn't represent me as a Jewish person. That's not what I think.’”
Polanski continued: “What I hope, is this opens a more broad conversation about people claiming to speak for a community when we know there isn't a single Jewish community. There are Jewish communities who believe different things and have different views and different nuances.”
The Green Party leader also said he personally felt compelled to speak up about what he called Israel’s “genocide” in Gaza.
“If you're Jewish, you don't have any more responsibility than anyone else to speak out against the genocide, but as a Jewish politician, I do think it's important that I both make sure that my Jewish identity is not weaponised by other people in the community who claim that all Jewish people support the Israeli government, or certainly all Jewish people support the genocide, because that absolutely categorically is not true”, he went on to say.
The Green Party has been contacted for comment.
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