The BBC current affairs programme Panorama has devoted an episode to the increasing levels of abuse, intimidation and violence to which British Jews are being subjected, with members of the community opening up about the antisemitism they have endured.
The programme-makers spoke to more than a dozen Jewish people from a range of communities around the UK – including an NHS midwife, a student and a musician who was kidnapped – who pointed to the rising undercurrent of antisemitism they had witnessed across society.
Entitled Antisemitism: Why British Jews Are Afraid, the documentary, highlights the experiences of Laura, 62, a midwife in London, who feels it is unsafe to go to work: “I think it's very hard to be openly Jewish in the NHS without feeling a degree of fear and that you may not be psychologically safe with some of your colleagues," she said.
“I've been called racist. I've had various sorts of slurs. I've been called a ‘Zio’.
“There are also Nazi-type tropes – that kind of inversion is incredibly distressing.”
The programme, which is available on iPlayer and airs at 8pm today on BBC One, also features Amanda, 47, who said that she has stopped wearing her Star of David pendant because she fears the symbol could mark her out as a target.
“It's hard to be openly Jewish sometimes in everyday life. Living in the UK now for Jewish people is very uncomfortable," she said.
Speaking about her Jewish friends, Amanda, a volunteer and a governor at her children's school in London, said: “There aren't any Jewish people I know that haven't got plans to leave.
“The first thing we all talk about is: What is the exit plan? Where are you going? What will you do? When will you be going? Or they're already moved or moving.”
Another individual featured, Avital, 21, a student who attends a university in the North of England described how some of her Jewish friends have had to move out of their accommodation because of comments made by flatmates.
"It's creating an environment where Jewish students are isolated from others purely because of the fact they are Jewish," she said.
Perhaps the most extreme case of antisemitic violence to be included in the Panorama episode is the ordeal endured by British-Israeli citizen Itay Kashti, who in 2024 was kidnapped. A judge later stated Kashti was abducted because of his Jewish heritage.
In 2024, Kashti, a record producer based in London, received an email from the kidnappers, who claimed to be representatives of Polydor Records, inviting him to a songwriting camp at a property in the Welsh countryside.
When he arrived in a taxi, three masked men attacked Kashti and the driver. While the driver managed to escape, Kashti was punched, kicked and handcuffed to a radiator before being told he "would be killed" if he tried to flee.
Kashti managed to free himself by lifting his hands over the pipe and ran out of the property “covered in blood”.
In March 2025, Mohammad Comrie, 23, from Leeds, Faiz Shah, 23, from Bradford, and Elijah Ogunnubi-Sime, 20, from Wallington, London, pleaded guilty at Swansea Crown Court to kidnap and each received a custodial sentence of eight years and one month.
Judge Catherine Richards said Kashti was "targeted due to his Jewish heritage," with the kidnappers "motivated by events taking place elsewhere in the world”, referencing the war in Gaza.
Speaking to Panormama, Kashti said: “There is a lot of prejudice against Jewish people in general, and Israel in particular.
“People may like or not like their politics in the same way I don't like the politics in Israel.
“You can like or dislike the politics of the country. But it doesn't mean you need to judge the individual people that come out of it on that basis.”
The programme also spoke with the government’s independent reviewer of terror legislation, Jonathan Hall KC, who said he believes that “hatred in the public sphere towards Jews has made them more acceptable as a target for terrorism.”
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