00:02In North London, Jewish communities are seeing a major surge in police patrols in the wake of a string of
00:08arson attacks and a rise in anti-Semitism.
00:13The Jewish festival of Lag Boma, celebrated by thousands from the Orthodox community on Tuesday, comes less than a week
00:20after two Jewish men were stabbed in a terrorist attack in Golders Green.
00:28The Independent was granted special access to the Metropolitan Police and community-led operation to keep families safe as they
00:35celebrated this annual religious festival.
00:37We're out here for a number of reasons and the first of those is really just to kind of offer
00:42some reassurance to the local community.
00:43We want to be out, we want to be visible, we want to reassure them that we're still offering that
00:49same level of policing service and additional kind of policing service to them in light of all the attacks that
00:55we've seen in other parts of London and the awful terrorist attack that happened on the 29th of April.
01:01And deterring that terrorist threat is also one of the reasons we're out here today.
01:04I think what we've tried to do is make best use of the resources that we're putting on. So as
01:09well as putting lots of extra officers out on patrols, we've tried to focus those in the areas of London
01:14that have the largest Jewish populations.
01:16And we've tried to focus, even within those kind of areas, like here in Stamford Hill, the officers around the
01:21events that we feel are most at risk, using some advice from some of our counter-terrorism colleagues.
01:25More than five times the usual number of officers were on the streets for the celebrations in Stamford Hill, which
01:31is home to one of Europe's largest Hasidic communities.
01:35And for the first time, men, women and children celebrating at one event at a local school were being protected
01:42by hostile vehicle mitigation barriers to stop an attacker from ramming into crowds.
01:48Shomrim, the volunteer-led service dedicated to protecting Jewish communities, had also doubled its security operation.
01:55Obviously, because of the increased threat level that's gone up to severe, we had to double our guarding, which was
02:02initially planned, especially like this morning.
02:05There was an arsenal attack not far from here in Tower Hamlets. So obviously the threat is coming a bit
02:11closer to us, to Stamford Hill as well.
02:14We have constantly got to look back behind our shoulders, see who's behind us, who's coming. We try to train
02:19many people in the community, so volunteers, as well as like the caretakers from the synagogues.
02:26With the police, we do training like scan and act for counter-terrorism, how to look out for the threat
02:31that's coming from the outside, or if there's any threat from the inside, etc.
02:35People are obviously nervous, they are alert and vigilant, but obviously we've got to continue with life. We can't just
02:41be locked up in our houses.
02:43This year, more than any other year, there's a lot more security parameters in the area, a lot more policing
02:48presence to keep the community safe in light of what we've seen recently happening.
02:53We don't, we can't let those anti-Semites terrorists deter us from our way of life. We will continue, we
03:00stay strong. It's difficult.
03:03And despite all the challenges, as a community, we are united and we will continue to strive and hopefully continue
03:11our way of life here in Britain.
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