Masked Teen Gang Attacks Jewish Couple as Anti-Jewish Assaults Soar 82% in Britain

By Joseph Marshall

Seven teenage boys wearing balaclavas rode their bicycles directly at a visibly Jewish couple in a Manchester park, stopping just before striking them and then attacking them with stones and tree branches.

The February assault is among the cases revealed in a new report documenting an alarming rise in anti-Jewish violence across Britain. The Community Security Trust recorded 1,926 anti-Jewish incidents during the first six months of 2026, an increase of 21 per cent over the same period last year and the second-highest January-to-June total the organization has ever recorded.

According to the report, the Jewish couple were walking through a park in north Manchester when the seven boys approached on bicycles. The teenagers accelerated toward them as though they intended to run them over before stopping short.

They then tried to grab the Jewish man’s hat and threatened to take the woman’s religious head covering. The boys continued taunting the couple, threw stones and fallen branches at them and attempted to trip them as they tried to get away.

The attack was not prompted by an argument, a political demonstration or any reported discussion of Israel. The couple were selected because they were visibly Jewish, and the teenagers specifically targeted the clothing that identified them as Jews.

The CST report does not identify the park, the victims or the teenagers involved. It also does not indicate whether police made any arrests or whether either victim required medical treatment.

The Manchester assault was part of a sharp escalation in physical violence against Jews. CST recorded 135 anti-Jewish assaults between January and June, an increase of 82 per cent from the 74 assaults reported during the first half of 2025. It was the highest number of assaults the organization has ever recorded during any six-month period.

Thirty-four victims were punched or kicked. Objects including eggs, stones, bricks and bottles were thrown in another 34 attacks. Seventeen incidents involved Jews being spat on, while attackers removed or attempted to remove religious clothing in 11 cases.

Vehicles were used to endanger Jewish pedestrians eight times. BB guns, water pistols or similar weapons were fired in nine incidents, while sticks were used as weapons in two. When the April stabbing of two visibly Jewish men in Golders Green is included, CST recorded 136 violent attacks during the six-month period.

In at least 80 of those attacks, the victims could be readily identified as Jews because of their religious clothing, Jewish symbols or school uniforms. Nearly half of the violent incidents occurred in five areas with large and highly visible Jewish communities, including Barnet and Hackney in London and Salford and Bury in Greater Manchester.

The report also found that children are increasingly involved on both sides of the violence. Among the cases where CST obtained the victims’ ages, 41 physical attacks targeted minors. In nearly one-third of the assaults where the attackers’ approximate ages were known, the perpetrators were also under 18. Eighteen incidents involved children physically attacking other children because they were Jewish.

The overall number of anti-Jewish incidents has nearly doubled from the period immediately preceding the October 7 massacre in Israel. CST recorded an average of 321 incidents per month during the first half of 2026, compared with 161 per month during the six months before October 7, 2023.

The 1,926 incidents recorded in just six months also exceed the total number reported during the entire year of 2022. Anti-Jewish hatred initially exploded following October 7 but has not returned to its previous level. Instead, CST says it has settled at a far higher and increasingly violent rate.

Greater London recorded 994 incidents, while Greater Manchester recorded 222, an increase of 14 per cent. Synagogues, Jewish schools, community organizations, kosher businesses and visibly Jewish pedestrians were all targeted.

In one case, a Jewish father who confronted a man shouting at his family was told that the man had killed Jews before and would do so again. Jewish organizations received messages celebrating the Golders Green stabbing, while swastikas and anti-Jewish threats continued appearing near synagogues and in Jewish neighbourhoods.

Britain has announced £250 million in additional security funding for Jewish institutions and neighbourhoods, including hundreds of new police officers. Government officials called the latest figures appalling, while the Jewish Leadership Council warned that promises of zero tolerance must finally be matched by action.

The numbers no longer describe a temporary reaction to events in the Middle East. They describe a country where Jews are being attacked in parks, stripped of their religious clothing, targeted on their way to school and assaulted in the neighbourhoods where Jewish life is most visible.