\u201cThe crisis has gone on so long now \u2026 that it has become the new normal,\u201d Falter warned, noting Jews have been targeted disproportionately by hate crimes after successive governments failed to confront the problem. He cited arson on targets such as synagogues<\/a> and a Jewish volunteer ambulance service<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cSynagogues and Jewish schools require a quarter of a billion pounds of police protection. Jewish volunteer ambulances are firebombed and charitable institutions are targeted by arsonists,\u201d wrote Falter.<\/p>\n \u201cJews have been murdered at synagogue, stabbed in their neighborhoods, and attacked when they dare venture farther afield,\u201d he added, referring to the deadly 2025 Yom Kippur terror attack<\/a> at Heaton Park Synagogue in Manchester, and the stabbing of two Jewish men<\/a> in a London neighborhood in May.<\/p>\n \n\t\t\tGet The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition \t\t\t\tBy signing up, you agree to the terms<\/a><\/p>\n He noted that Burnham, as the then-mayor of Greater Manchester, \u201csaw the effect firsthand\u201d at Heaton Park Synagogue, and said, \u201cNow, as prime minister, you have an opportunity to do what your predecessors did not: You can do something about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnham attended a vigil in the aftermath of the Heaton Park terror attack, where he told the city\u2019s Jewish community that Manchester\u2019s leadership \u201chave your back,\u201d and that it would \u201calways be that way.\u201d<\/p>\n \t Last week, Burnham also backed a \u00a3250 million funding boost to protect Jewish communities, saying he has \u201cseen first hand the anxiety in our Jewish communities and the very real threat they face.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cTheir safety will be a priority for me \u2014 we must do more to stamp out the scourge of antisemitism and protect Jewish communities across the country,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n Letter urges solutions, doesn\u2019t include concrete proposals<\/p>\n Falter, in his letter, urged the new prime minister to do more than just fund protective measures, saying, \u201cThe Jewish future in Britain \u2014 if there is to be one \u2014 cannot be lived behind ever higher walls.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cProtection and anonymity are precautions; they are not a solution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Instead, he added, the correct approach would be to \u201cstop appeasing the extremists,\u201d whom he identified as those associated with \u201cIslamism\u201d and the far-left. He urged police and the courts to crack down on those movements.<\/p>\n \u201cNo concession will ever be sufficient to those whose values are antithetical to ours, who want to see our liberal society overturned and who are prepared to ostracize, discriminate, abuse, and even murder to achieve their goals,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n The letter did not include concrete policy recommendations. But Falter said that the CAA has already formulated a plan for combating hostile elements, and would be happy to meet with Burnham and his team to discuss it.<\/p>\n \u2018Disheartening\u2019 focus on Israel-Gaza policy<\/p>\n The CAA chief also criticized Burnham for a recent interview in which he discussed the United Kingdom\u2019s stance on Israel and the Gaza war, and in which the new premier said his predecessor Keir Starmer had not taken the correct approach.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was disheartening to British Jewry,\u201d wrote Falter, \u201cthat you recently found time to announce specific policy measures relating to a foreign policy matter over which Britain has very little influence, but managed only a passing reference to antisemitism without mentioning a single policy.\u201d<\/p>\n In an interview with the Guardian earlier this month<\/a>, Burnham said Westminster needed to put more pressure on Jerusalem over its actions in Gaza.<\/p>\n \t He told the newspaper that many people thought Starmer\u2019s government \u201cdidn\u2019t get it right,\u201d when it came to responding to Israel\u2019s war on Hamas in Gaza, following the group\u2019s October 7, 2023, invasion and massacre in southern Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cI am sorry about that. The response has too often not been good enough. We need to do better,\u201d he told the newspaper.<\/p>\n While he stopped short of declaring the war a genocide, a charge that Israel vehemently denies, Burnham said there was \u201cincreasing evidence that war crimes appear to have been committed.\u201d<\/p>\n He added, however, that, ultimately, \u201cit must be for the international courts to determine, rather than politicians.\u201d<\/p>\n Burnham also said he believed \u201cfurther sanctions\u201d on Israel should be considered, and that measures should be examined \u201cto ban trade in goods with illegal settlements.\u201d<\/p>\n The new Labour leader also insisted that there was \u201cno contradiction between a zero-tolerance approach to antisemitism and holding the Netanyahu government to account,\u201d and vowed to always \u201ctake a fair and balanced approach and stand up for what is right.\u201d<\/p>\n Falter noted in his letter, however, that although \u201cBritish foreign policy in the Middle East may exercise some politically significant communities over here,\u201d the government\u2019s approach to antisemitism \u201cis literally a matter of life and death for the Jewish minority in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cYour legacy will not be remembered solely in terms of tax rates and hospital waiting times,\u201d Falter told Burnham, the seventh British prime minister in less than a decade. \u201cIt will be whether Jews were murdered or thrived in Andy Burnham\u2019s Britain.\u201d<\/p>\n
\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t The war with Iran has been draining for all of us in Israel. But when I heard about a high casualty incident \u2013 ballistic missile impacts in Arad and Dimona that left nearly 200 people wounded \u2013 I drank a cup of coffee, packed a bag, and headed south.<\/p>\n There, I spoke with Shilgit, the head of an after-school program for underprivileged youth. Standing outside her destroyed center, Shilgit said it was a miracle that no children were hurt and spoke about the community coming together in the hours since.<\/p>\n As a Times of Israel reporter, I\u2019m committed to telling stories of resilience like Shilgit\u2019s. But my colleagues and I can’t do this alone. If you value work like this, please consider joining our reader support group, The Times of Israel Community. Your financial support is essential to keep real human reporting like this going.<\/p>\n \u2014 Stav Levaton, military reporter<\/p>\n \t\t\t
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\n\t\tBritain\u2019s new Prime Minister Andy Burnham speaks to staff and media at 10 Downing Street in London, July 20, 2026. (AP Photo\/Kirsty Wigglesworth)<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/britain\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/AFP__20251002__77JE8WA__v1__HighRes__BritainCrimeReligion-640x400.jpg\")
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\n\t\tThen-Britain\u2019s home secretary Shabana Mahmood (C) and then-mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham (2L) arrive to address members of the media, near to Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation synagogue in Crumpsall, north Manchester, on October 2, 2025, following an attack at the synagogue. (Oli SCARFF \/ AFP)<\/p>\n
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