Kaploun – who is a close friend of Donald Trump and Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state – met with senior Jewish leaders and on the trip. He also reportedly met with representatives from all the major political parties here, though declined to confirm exactly whom he spoke with.
President Donald Trump and Rabbi Yehuda Kaploun light a candle during an Oct. 7th remembrance event in October 2024 (Picture: Joe Raedle/Getty Images)Getty Images
“In all our meetings, we have found that everybody has agreed the steps are inadequate to make the Jewish community feel safe and secure, and there’s also a sense of a tremendous breakdown of law and order,” Kaploun said.
Although he said he has no desire “to meddle” in UK politics or dictate what the Prime Minister should be doing, Kaploun offered an assessment of where he believes the country is going wrong.
"Currently, the American government would like to see the British Government provide safety and security so that this issue doesn’t come up. We’re prepared to hold governments accountable on how they’re protecting their citizens,” he said.
Kaploun added: “The UK Government should learn from our [US] policies, that are being shown to be effective, in reducing the level of hatred and rhetoric on college campuses. It’s something that they should…perhaps implement here in the UK.”
The Community Security Trust documented 3,700 antisemitic incidents across the UK in 2025, marking the second-highest total since the charity began tracking anti-Jewish hate in 1984. and surpassed only by the 2023 total of 4,298.
The Manchester synagogue attack on October 2, in which shul-goers Melvin Cravitz and Adrian Daulby were killed – prompted an “immediate spike” in incidents, according to the CST figures, released last week.
“It [the attack] didn’t come in a vacuum,” said Kaploun. “If you’re going to have three years of rising incidents of antisemitism, it escalates. And if it goes unchecked, and if it goes without law and order, which is the basic premise for people to be able to live freely, then you’re going to get unfortunate results that occurred in Manchester on Yom Kippur.”
Reflecting on what the future cold hold for Anglo-Jewry, he said: “It’s not for me to determine whether British Jews should stay or not. However, the role that our office and our administration and the president and the secretary of state are doing, is to watch very carefully that freedom of religion should be allowed everywhere.”
He added: “If you’re worrying about being attacked going to a synagogue… and if your children are being harassed on their way to school, is that a country that you want to live in?”
