We Can No Longer Ignore Faith-Based Hate

Carrie Alderton, Interim CEO – The Faith and Belief Forum

Standing together in solidarity to ensure faith-based hate is no longer ignored.

In the last week, the United Kingdom has been shaken. Last Thursday saw a violent attack on a synagogue in Manchester, leading to the deaths of two people at a moment of sacred observance. Only days later, the only mosque in Peacehaven, Sussex was targeted in an arson attack. These are two incidents of direct assaults on places of worship amidst a rising sea of hate crime, underscoring in tragic detail what so many communities have long known: faith-based hate is real, pervasive, and deadly.  

What we are seeing: Before and after the attacks

On Yom Kippur, 2 October 2025, a man carried out a horrifying attack outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester. Two Jewish people, Melvin Cravitz (66) and Adrian Daulby (53), lost their lives.  Several others remain critically injured. 

This attack did not happen in a vacuum. Even before last Thursday, Jewish communities have added barbed wire, CCTV, private security, and layers of fortified defences at synagogues and community centres across the UK. There is now further augmented police protection in the wake of last Thursday’s attack. Many congregants have spoken of fear, grief, and a visceral sense that sacred spaces are no longer safe. The abject fear, and ramping up security measures, is hardly surprising considering the backdrop of rising Antisemitism, with Community Security Trust recording 1,521 antisemitic incidents (the second highest level of anti-Jewish hate incidents ever recorded by CST) in the first half of 2025. 

During this same period, Muslim communities and organisations have continued to report a sharp rise in Islamophobic incidents. The police recorded a 19% increase in religious hate crimes targeting Muslims in this year with a particular spike after the Southport murders after the Southport murders and misinformation online linking the murderer to Islam. Tell MAMA documented a 73% increase in Islamophobic assaults in 2024 compared to the prior year, marking their highest ever figures. They also report that threatening behaviour, intimidation, and harassment against Muslim individuals and institutions have surged.  

And the statistical picture more broadly shows religious hate rising in the UK: police-recorded hate crime data for the year ending March 2024 registers 10,484 religious hate crimes, a 25% increase over the prior year.  

While the statistics tell a dark story, we must remember this only accounts for cases that get reported and recorded as meeting the legal threshold of “hate crime”. Official figures may not capture what the police call “hate incidents”, nor those categorised as hostility and prejudice.  
 
Moreover, not every hate incident gets reported – even to independent community charities. Why? Because there is often a despair amongst victims. “What is the point? What can they do?” In our circles and communities we hear many people of faith sharing their sheer exhaustion at the volume of hate, hostility and prejudice they face and that reporting them all would be unsustainable. The unreported stories from “minor” abuses on the street to obscene messages and threats on social media create an atmosphere within faith and ethnic minority communities that they are not safe nor welcome. We cannot stand for this. 

The numbers are important and paint an undeniable trend that we must confront together, but they only scratch the surface of the human experience behind them: the fear, the isolation, the silencing, the constant vigilance, the daily decisions not to wear visible symbols of faith in public, not to pray openly, to cease open days at places of worship, not to push back on verbal abuse for fear of escalation.  

Hope Amidst Pain – What we have seen in our work  

Across the work of the Faith & Belief Forum, we have heard stories from children, parents, educators, faith leaders, and young people wrestling with this new reality in the wake of the horrors of October 7^th, the brutal conflict in the Middle East, the 2024 summer riots, and the sharp rise in faith-based hate. 

In schools, teachers tell us that young people are anxious.  Young Muslims and Jews, as well as those who are visible ethnic minorities, are frightened by what they see on social media, uncertain how to defend themselves or explain their faith, and worried about their safety in corridors, in playgrounds, and on their routes to and from school.  

Due to impartiality guidance, and fears of “getting it wrong” (alongside fears of backlash from parents and the wider community) many teachers are shutting down conversations on faith and identity. This leads to a lack of safe spaces for dialogue, listening or sharing on issues that deeply affect students and their families. In these cases, understanding is not developed, difference and diversity are not appreciated, let alone valued. We cannot understate the impact of this silence on students’ feelings of belonging in classrooms – and how it leads to a growing feeling of disconnect from teachers and school.
 
If we cannot create the safe and courageous spaces to have such challenging and vital conversations within schools in a confident, knowledge-based, and empathetic manner, where and how will those conversations take place? 

In one school, a Jewish pupil had a book about Hitler waved in his face as he was mocked about the Holocaust. A teacher in another school told us of the distress among students after a racist attack on a Sikh girl in a local park, a place many many pupils walk through every day. Yet, the teacher told us the school was too afraid to address it, worried about where the conversations might lead. This silence, the teacher feared, risked leaving students to process their fear and anger alone, without guidance or support. Another teacher from a Muslim boys’ school spoke about the lack of time, resources and confidence to explore difficult issues like media literacy and understanding. The only space he could create for this was through our Linking Programme, which connects pupils across faith and belief lines.  
 
In an era where pupils are exposed directly to hate and conflict on their phones, there are unprecedented challenges. It’s not about how we can keep global politics and problematic influencers out of the classroom: they’re already here. How can we make sure our teachers and school cultures are ready to engage in such challenging conversations with skill and tact? 

These stories, tragic and frustrating as they are, sit alongside the hope we witness elsewhere such as the primary headteacher who, through our workshops, has built daily opportunities for encounter across difference.

When a Year 4 pupil heard a speaker share his experience of racism and exclaimed, “But that’s racist – that’s not allowed!”, the headteacher used the moment to open a conversation about why it mattered to speak up and show care. Her leadership shows what is possible when schools are supported to make dialogue, empathy and moral courage part of everyday learning. 

At interfaith gatherings and dialogue sessions we’ve convened, we have listened to stories of hurt and betrayal: of people afraid to use public transport, feeling confined to their homes, shutting down their Mosque open days, always fearing they could be under attack just when walking down the street. Through our Interfaith Restorative Justice Project, we have convened restorative listening circles in collaboration with partners Why Me? and Interfaith Glasgow. These spaces have brought together people across communities into spaces to speak, to be heard, and to find common ground. One participant expressed: 

“I’m scared all the time and I don’t know how to improve that. Walking from the bus stop to my home is a nightmare — I am always checking to see if I’m being followed” 

And another showed the importance of spaces for deep listening, restoration and healing:  

“The riots impacted the whole people of the UK but the greatest impact was on us  because we couldn’t express ourselves. These kind of circles are very helpful in making us less worried” 

Amidst the grief, we have seen courage, resilience, and solidarity. In Birmingham, Jewish and Muslim youth have sat together, processing fear, trauma, distrust, and creating a local cohesion plan. In Sunderland, interfaith groups have marched side by side in solidarity with Muslim communities under siege. In Solihull and elsewhere, faith leaders have walked into each other’s houses of worship, and embraced public acts of unity.  

Report: UK Summer Riots 2024 – The Faith & Belief Forum 

The Political and Social Context: Why This Moment Matters 

The rise in hate we are witnessing stems from a painful convergence of factors. The conflict in the Middle East has shaken many communities and heightened emotions across the UK, coinciding with alarming increases in both antisemitic and Islamophobic hate crimes. So too has the rise of far-right populism internationally and on our doorsteps.  Politicians and public figures have increasingly been too at ease employing antisemitic and Islamophobic tropes, along with xenophobic language and imagery, fuelling suspicion, fear and the othering of swathes of our communities. Social media amplifies conspiracies, dehumanising narratives, and incitement, allowing people to incite hate from a distance without accountability. 

Meanwhile, public institutions are struggling to respond both sensitively and coherently. The criminal justice system is under pressure. Victims report that hate crime complaints are dismissed, under-investigated, or poorly followed up. Recording practices, as well as training on diversity and faith, vary across police forces. Many incidents go unreported because victims expect no justice or fear further victimisation. 

Yet the stakes could not be higher. When people cannot safely live out their faith, worship openly, wear religious symbols or clothing, or pray in public without fear, we lose part of what makes this country strong, democratic and vibrant. When we allow communities to be isolated, we fracture trust, feed division, and give space for hate to grow. 

Amidst all of the tension, however, the people we work with show us the power of interfaith. Not only must we continue to engage in dialogue to sow the seeds of a generation that transcends such division, but to act as partners in societal change. Our youth leaders undertaking interfaith social action projects will continue sowing seeds of change at the local level, showcasing  the unity, power and transformation that can come from empowering young interfaith leaders. We want everyone onboard, but we are already bringing tomorrow’s leaders together and they are leading the way – together.  

Building Collective Resistance: Addressing Faith and Race Based Hate 
 
At this moment, we must recognise at once the distinctness of antisemitism and Islamophobia and their shared roots. Both draw on unique historical and contemporary phenomena of othering and scapegoating. But while each requires specificity of response (tailored education, policies, support structures, community safety plans) both demand a shared moral commitment: that we will not allow intimidation or hatred to persist or grow in our country.  

What we are seeing – Muslims standing with Jews, Jews standing with Muslims, interfaith groups raising their voices – gives us both a model and a mandate. Solidarity cannot be optional; it must be treated as an essential route forward. 

Together is the Only Option: 7 Needs Across Society
 
This is an urgent moment. Words of condemnation are necessary, but insufficient. Together we must commit to: 

1. Education, prevention, and relational programmes. Schools, universities, community centres, and faith institutions must receive centrally funded resources and training to understand and appropriately cater for faith and belief diversity. This must be a national priority so within a generation we see widespread community connections grounded in empathy, effective dialogue, critical media literacy, and the transformation of polarisation to connection.. 

2. Investment in interfaith education: We have to invest in our next generation. Investment in safe and courageous facilitated spaces for discussion within education settings is essential. Teacher training and support needs to adapt to the current political climate; expert organisations already working in the grassroots and with schools should be part of that conversation to give the teachers the latest best practice to employ. Teachers and schools must have the support to be confident, knowledgeable and capable to tackle those big conversations so school – and, eventually, wider society – return to feeling like a place of belonging and understanding.  

3. Restorative, not merely punitive approaches. Where possible, we should open spaces for listening, accountability, dialogue and repair especially at the community level and led by communities themselves. This is most pertinent among younger generations, so we can spark a cultural shift. Instead of simple punishment of hate crime – wherever victims and perpetrators are able  – we must seek to involve them in restorative practices that heal individual and community bonds. Restorative practices strengthen relationships, even in the face of extreme difference or harm, and present opportunities for transformational connection in the face of polarisation and division.  

4. Cross-faith solidarity support. We must refuse to treat communities in isolation. Visible solidarity matters: it changes social norms and challenges isolationist narratives. 

5. Safe public spaces, visible worship, protected expression. Local government, police, and civic authorities must ensure mosques, synagogues, and other faith spaces are protected without forcing faith communities into fortress mode. Public celebration of faith should not invite suspicion. 

6. Stronger leadership and accountability. Political and civic leaders must refuse to tolerate hate in any form. They must call out Islamophobia and Antisemitism explicitly, not just in general terms. They must educate themselves so that they too do not contribute to harmful stereotypes, tropes and can use language sensitively and accurately to help the wider public conversation be more nuanced and less polarised. They must also assess how government policy and initiatives feed into these stereotypes and perpetuate divisions in society.  

7. Uniform, dependable hate crime recording and response. The Home Office, police forces, and local authorities must harmonise how religious hate is recorded, investigated, and prosecuted. There must also be sector wide training in line with best practice on how to support diverse communities. Hand in hand with restorative responses, the criminal justice system’s handling of faith-based hate must be improved.  

A Call to Solidarity and Action 

To our Jewish and Muslim neighbours, and to all those who have been victims of hate, whether because of the colour of your skin, the accent in your speech, the clothes that you wear, the faith that you practice, or the life that you live: you are not alone. We mourn your losses with you, we feel your pain, your anger your fear – and see your resilience. We commit to walking beside you, in public and private spaces. We refuse to allow hatred to silence us. 

To those who may not have been victims of hate, those who may be of another faith or of none: your role is also vital. Standing in solidarity is an act of moral courage and social necessity. We are at a turning point in history: we must move forwards together. If you see a hate incident, intervene in support of those targeted. Stand besides them. If you see a neighbour fearful, reach out. If you hear rhetoric that scapegoats, demonises, or de-humanises, refute the narrative. Your voice and your presence hold power. 

We cannot turn back time or erase the trauma already inflicted. But we can choose how we face what comes next. We can choose courageous truth, relational repair, collective responsibility. 

At the Faith & Belief Forum, we are committed, in schools, in neighbourhoods, in interfaith partnership, to building those bridges, working for safety, facilitating respectful dialogue, and amplifying hope over fear. We are entering a new phase in history and the decisions we make today will define the future we live in tomorrow.