British police investigate attempted arson attack on London synagogue

Masked suspects threw two bottles suspected to contain petrol and a brick at Finchley Reform Synagogue in north London shortly after midnight on Wednesday, April 15, in an attack police treated as an antisemitic hate crime.

The Metropolitan Police said the two suspects, both in dark clothing and balaclavas, approached the synagogue on Fallow Court Avenue in Finchley and hurled the items at the building. Neither bottle ignited, no damage was reported and no one was injured. Staff reported the incident at 8:30 a.m., and officers began urgent enquiries. Police later arrested two people in connection with the attempted arson.

The case landed in a district of Barnet that has a large Jewish population and several synagogues, sharpening concerns about whether security around houses of worship has kept pace with the threat environment. Detective Chief Superintendent Luke Williams said police understood the significant concern the attack would cause, especially after an earlier arson in nearby Golders Green.

That earlier attack, on March 23, targeted four Hatzola ambulances parked on Highfield Road near Machzike Hadath synagogue. The vehicles were part of a volunteer-led Jewish emergency service, and the fire caused gas canisters stored in the ambulances to explode. Police later made a further arrest in that investigation, which remained under Counter Terrorism Policing.

Taken together, the Finchley attempt and the Golders Green fire point to more than opportunistic vandalism. The targets were not random properties but Jewish communal infrastructure, including a synagogue and emergency service vehicles that help protect local residents. That has raised pressure on police, local officials and community leaders to show they can stop copycat attacks before they spread.

The Community Security Trust, the main Jewish community security organization in Britain, has described itself as a best-practice model for minority-community protection and says it works with Jewish schools, synagogues and communal organizations on security advice and training. Its figures show the scale of the pressure: 3,700 antisemitic incidents in the UK in 2025, the second-highest annual total it has recorded, and 1,521 in the first half of 2025 alone. In the first half of 2024, it recorded 1,978 incidents, then its highest six-month total ever.

Government material published in December 2025 said antisemitism had been rising in recent years and that Jewish institutions increasingly need security at their doors. That warning now reads less like a policy statement than a description of daily life for many British Jews. The Finchley case, even without a successful fire, has become another test of whether Britain can keep worshippers, volunteers and community buildings safe under sustained threat.