Property entrepreneur and philanthropist Gerald Ronson has warned that the worst threat currently facing the Jewish
community is a large-scale terrorist attack.

Writing in Property Week magazine, he said that antisemitic incidents had doubled over the past decade, and said that this was “a social indicator for us all”.

“This is antisemitism’s universal lesson,” he said. “It starts against Jews but never ends there.”

And he believed that British citizens all faced a basic risk from terrorism.

Mr Ronson, chief executive of property firm Heron International, and the national chairman of the Community Security Trust (CST), which he founded, explained that local Jews were often being attacked over events for which they did not bear responsibility, such as violence in the Middle East.

He said: “Physically, the worst threat is that of a large-scale terrorist attack against the Jewish community, or against an Israeli-related target in its midst.

“Since 2001, pro al-Qaeda groups around the world have repeatedly attempted such attacks, most of them foiled by police and security services.”