Jewish children as young as three take part in drills for terror attacks at UK schools

On Tuesday morning, as Lydia said goodbye to her 11-year-old son at the family’s front door in London, she asked him to tuck his school uniform in. But the request had nothing to do with a smart appearance.

“He wears the tzitzit [fringes attached to the Jewish prayer shawl, the tallit] and the kippah as part of his school uniform. I had to say to him, ‘Darling, you are visibly Jewish, they are not fully tucked in’,” the mother-of-three told i.

“I have to tell my children to hide who they are. As a Jewish parent, I feel terrified every day. When I say goodbye to my children, I kiss them beside the door.

“I feel terrified that they’re either going to be verbally or physically assaulted, on their way to school. I can’t imagine how this is going to impact them, not just in the short term, but in the long term psychologically.”

The aftermath of the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel, which saw more than 1,400 people killed, has led to a huge spike in antisemitic incidents in the UK.

According to charity the Community Security Trust (CST) anti-Jewish hate acts have soared by a record 731 per cent since the 7 October massacre compared to the same period last year, with 457 antisemitic incidents across the UK, the highest ever total reported to CST across a 12-day period since it began collecting data in 1984.

Twenty-nine incidents were targeted at Jewish schools, schoolchildren and teachers at non-Jewish schools, or schoolchildren on their way to or from their place of education. In one, a schoolboy was walking home in Manchester when a man shouted, “You f*cking little ginger y*d” from a passing vehicle.

Meanwhile, antisemitic incidents reported to the Metropolitan Police Service have now increased 10-fold in the last two weeks.

Many in the UK’s Jewish community have been traumatised by the deaths of friends and loved ones in Israel. “We are living through our worst nightmare at the moment,” said Lydia, 40, who only wished to give her first name. “There hasn’t been anything that we have seen or felt on this scale since the Holocaust.”

Now there are heightened fears of threats closer to home.

Jewish schoolchildren, including nursery children as young as three and four, are being drilled in what to do in the event of a terror attack by practising “invacuations”, where they have to hide in protected areas in their classroom, community leaders and teachers have told i.

According to Rabbi David Meyer, chief executive of the Partnerships for Jewish Schools (PaJeS), there was an average 25 per cent drop in attendance at Jewish schools in London last Friday after a former Hamas chief called for a worldwide “day of jihad” and protests against Israel. Up to 10 schools are thought to have closed completely.

Lydia was among those parents who chose to keep her children off school on Friday due to safety fears. Last week, as her son walked to school with a group of boys, a passing motorist began “screaming harassment at them, screaming ‘Free Palestine’, all that kind of stuff,” she said.

“I feel angry that I’m surrounded by people who in this country are showing their true colours.”

Children taught to hide during terrorist security drills in London

Three days before the 7 October attacks, Rabbi Ithamar Handelman-Smith, a British-Israeli writer and teacher at a Jewish primary school in north London, was a victim of antisemitic abuse.

“I was attacked just outside my school. I was wearing my Sabbath day garments And a man just came up to me very angry and screamed at me horrible stuff,” the 47-year-old told i.

“He started saying your a f***ing wizard all of you Jews are f***ing wizards’. I said. ‘What are you saying?’ And then he just lost it and started calling me ‘dirty Jew’ and stuff like that.”

Two Polish men in a nearby kosher shop chased the assailant away as he screamed “once he will finish with the Jews, he will come to them”.

“And all that in broad daylight in the middle of the street in a Jewish neighbourhood at 10am,” he added.

When he told his Orthodox friends about the abuse he suffered, their response was “welcome to the club”.

A couple of years ago, during another conflict between Israel and Hamas, a friend who is Hasidic Jew was walking down the street with his 11-year-old daughter and seven-year-old son. Youths in a car passing by stopped and shouted “we will rape your daughter.” 

On the Saturday of the terror attacks in Israel, he spent an agonising 28-hour wait for confirmation of the safety of his brother and his sister-in-law in their kibbutz near the Gaza border.

Last Friday, the primary school he teaches at decided to stay open, but performed a security drill for the children the day before.

“We have them usually, but because of the situation, there was [an extra] drill on Thursday, which I think only Jewish schools do, in case somebody enters the school. In case there is a terrorist attack on the school,” he said.

“Where the children has to go to hide in the corner of the classroom. The teachers need to close the door to lock the windows to shut everything down. I think it’s very, very sad.

“Why is it that Jews in in this day and age still need to live in fear of attacks?”

One grandfather of seven said his grandson’s nursery has brought in new security measures for picking up children. And he described how a Hebrew teacher and a Muslim colleague were called “Zionist pigs” by two pupils during a visit to one school following the 7 October attack.

London-based security firm SQR said there had been an increase of more than 30 per cent in requests from Jewish sites, including shops, with a 15 per cent rise in callouts from Jewish schools since 7 October.

As well as new security enquiries, 60 per cent of the firm’s Israeli officers have returned to Israel to join the Israeli Defence Force (IDF), and need to be replaced.

Across Stamford Hill in north London – home to Europe’s largest community of Hasidic Jews – fluorescent-vested security guards keep watch outside Jewish schools and shops, while banks of CCTV cameras silently scan the area.

But despite the beefed-up security measures, Jewish schools have still been targeted. Two in Stamford Hill were daubed in red paint following Hamas’ deadly incursion.

“It was upsetting to see that there is hatred in the country,” one mother in the area said. “Of course, there is tension in the air. It’s so upsetting to see that things have taken a turn for the worse.”

Rabbi Meyer, whose organisation works closely with around 90 of the 130 Jewish schools in the UK, said there was a “palpable fear” in the Jewish community for the safety of children.

“We are telling children not to wear visibly Jewish clothing in the streets. That’s not a message for 2023. That sounds much more like, dare I say it, 30s in Germany. It’s a horrific message to be giving our children,” he said.

“You don’t need to be an expert psychologist. I can tell you categorically that there are children who are suffering significantly from this.

“I actually think the vast majority of the Jewish community on one level, at the moment is suffering quite significant depression.”

Two psychologists brought in by PaJeS after 7 October have assisted parents with how to manage the wellbeing and concerns for the mental health of children.

Rabbi Meyer said he also feared for the approximately 15-20,000 Jewish children who attend non-Jewish schools, with some facing “horrendous” racism. He said that at one school in north west London, a swastika had been daubed in the toilets.

As a former head teacher, he said the invacuation security drills that train children what to do in the event of an intruder “always left us shaking”.

“Even at times when there was no specific threat, they were the most troublesome times to do that kind of a drill. We always felt , it’s really sad that we need to do that,” he said.

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“I’m not aware of any other schools that go through those kinds of scenarios. It’s very different from a fire drill. They are getting down on the floor protecting themselves and getting across the message very clearly that you’re a target.”

Another mother of two children, aged three and five, who attend a Jewish nursery and school, said that three of the nine confirmed British victims of the massacre were friends or relatives of her friends and family.

“I’ve got a lump in my throat going through my chest and my body. I feel suffocated,” the 37-year-old said.

“On Friday, last week, our school didn’t close because we have funding for a lot of security and police. But half the class didn’t go. To be debating whether to send my son or not when he’s got a spelling test, it’s surreal, and it’s weird, and it’s upsetting.”

Since Hamas’ attack, there has been a visible police presence outside the school every day, with the number of CST volunteers and security guards on patrol also increasing.

The mother, who did not want to give her name, said she felt like a “really bad mum” for sending her son to school.

“I just had to trust the system,” she said. “And when he came home, when I knew he was back and safe in our house, I was like, ‘thank God’, and I do think how mad this is in London 2023. I’m thanking God that he’s back safe with school?’”