London – Muslims and Jews living in the same North London neighbourhood are making a stand together against hate crime amid concerns of an increased threat to both communities in the aftermath of the Paris attacks.Jewish communities in the UK have been on a heightened state of alert since a siege orchestrated by a gunman at a kosher supermarket in the French capital left four hostages dead, with police and Jewish neighbourhood watch groups stepping up security around synagogues and schools.

The government also pledged police support for mosques amid reports of an increase in anti-Muslim hate crime following the linked attack by gunmen claiming allegiance to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula on the offices of the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo.

Meanwhile, a widely reported survey conducted earlier this month by the Campaign Against Antisemitism, a lobbying group established last year, suggested that increased numbers of British Jews were questioning their place in their own country.

More than half of respondents said they were fearful that Jews had no long term future in Europe, and one in four said they had considered leaving the UK because of rising anti-Semitism.

Although subsequently criticised as methodologically flawed, and described as “incendiary” by the Institute of Jewish Policy Research think-tank, senior politicians expressed alarm at those conclusions.

“I never thought I would see the day when members of the Jewish community would say they were fearful of remaining here in the United Kingdom,” said Theresa May, the home secretary. Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, vowed the city would remain a “safe haven” for Jews. But in the Stamford Hill neighbourhood of Hackney, north London, where Europe’s largest concentration of Haredi Jews and a substantial Muslim minority share the same streets, community leaders of both faiths said they stood united.

“The Jewish community and the Muslim community are facing difficult times at the moment, but it is not a case of them or us. We are all in the same boat,” Munaf Zeena, chairman of the North London Muslim Community Centre, said. “We have a big Jewish community here, and they have been victims in Paris. I think we have a responsibility to make sure that those who feel uncomfortable or unsafe feel supported. It is our role to give them that moral support and to stand by them in every way we can.”

Rabbi Herschel Gluck, a veteran international conflict mediator and founder of the Muslim-Jewish Forum, a local initiative established in 2000, said Jews and Muslims were “not just living side by side”.

“There is a palpable feeling of warmth when one sees members of the other community in the street or going about our business,” Gluck said. “It is not just that we tolerate each other. We actually engage constructively as very good neighbours with each other.”

Gluck said the idea for the forum, the first Muslim-Jewish interfaith organisation of its kind in the world, grew out of his involvement in peace and reconciliation work in conflict zones, including the Middle East, Kashmir, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Sudan.

“I thought, ‘Hang on a second, here I am working throughout the world, what’s happening in my own backyard? Is everything as rosy as it could be?’” he said.

“I felt that while things were okay, we were living in a changing world and you never know what tomorrow is going to bring. I thought, ‘Is our relationship strong enough to stand a crisis in the future?’”

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