London Mayor Sadiq Khan: ‘Jewish Londoners have felt scared to leave their homes.’
With antisemitic incidents surging in London, the British capital city has introduced a new bus route to help Jewish residents “feel safe” when they travel.
The newly launched 310 bus will run every 20 minutes from 7 am to 7 pm daily between Stamford Hill in Hackney and Golders Green in Barnet, areas with two of the biggest Jewish communities in London, according to British media reports.
Transport for London, a local government body overseeing much of the city’s transport network, will collect data on the new bus route’s use before deciding whether to make it permanent.
“Jewish Londoners have felt scared to leave their homes,” London Mayor Sadiq Khan told The Jewish Chronicle. “So, this direct bus link between these two significant communities means you can travel on the 310, not need to change, and be safe and feel safer. I hope that will lead to more Londoners from these communities using public transport safely.”
Khan expressed similar sentiments to BBC London.
“I was struck by the conversations I’ve had in recent months with the Jewish community,” he said. “They were frightened because of a massive increase of antisemitism since Oct. 7 of last year. I was told stories by families who, where they changed buses from Stamford Hill to Golders Green at Finsbury Park, they were frightened about the abuse they had received.”
London specifically and the United Kingdom more broadly have experienced a surge in antisemitic hate crimes following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) recorded 2,065 antisemitic hate crime incidents between October and July, with several hundred taking place in Barnet and Hackney.
Orthodox Jews in the Stamford Hill section of the city have been targeted disproportionately for being visibly Jewish, as shown in a spate of incidents reported by Shomrim, a Jewish organization that monitors antisemitism and also serves as a neighborhood watch group.
Such incidents included an Orthodox Jewish man being assaulted by a man riding a bicycle on the sidewalk, two attackers brutally mauling a Jewish woman, and a group of Jewish children being berated by a woman who screamed “I’ll kill all of you Jews. You are murderers!” A similar incident occurred when a man confronted a Jewish shopper and shouted, “You f—king Jew, I will kill you!”
The new bus route “connects communities, connects congregations” and would reassure Jewish Londoners they would be “safe when they travel between these two communities,” Khan told BBC London.
“We have heard stories of Jewish Londoners receiving verbal abuse,” he added. “We’ve also heard stories about Jewish Londoners not leaving their homes … because they’re worried about their safety. I don’t want any Londoner to be scared to leave their home because they’re worried about public transport.”
The mayor continued, “I think we’ve got to recognize the fear that Londoners feel who are Jewish; we’ve got to recognize the tremors of hate that are felt by Jewish people across the country. We’ve got to be good allies to our Jewish friends and neighbors.”
The London Jewish Forum and the Board of Deputies of British Jews both expressed support for the new bus route.
The mayor’s office said the effort was launched following requests from Jewish organizations that have campaigned for it for the past 16 years.
Beyond London, more antisemitic incidents occurred in the United Kingdom in 2023 than any year in the history of recording such data, according to a report issued by Community Security Trust, a nonprofit that offers security services and training to the country’s Jewish community. The group’s data showed a massive uptick in antisemitic incidents immediately after the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 that continued throughout the ensuing Israel-Hamas war in Gaza.