Though there is no intelligence to suggest Glasgow’s Jews are at particular risk, security outside Jewish buildings has been stepped up; there are now police patrols during services at the synagogue and Scotland’s only Jewish primary school.
IN GIFFNOCK, the heart of Scotland’s long-established Jewish community, where matzos and potato latkes are sold in kosher sections of all the major supermarkets and no-one takes a second glance at traditionally dressed Hasidic Jews out shopping, life appears to be ticking along pretty much as normal. Services at the synagogue are well-attended and customers are flocking back to the kosher deli and café, which recently re-opened at its old site after a fire ripped through the premises.
Yet explore a little more deeply, and you quickly detect an air of unease that wasn’t there before; simmering below the surface of still-welcoming community is a slight air of defensiveness, which is growing in the face of a perceived rise in antisemitism across Europe and attacks on Jewish targets in Paris, Belgium and Copenhagen.
Though there is no intelligence to suggest Glasgow’s Jews are at particular risk, security outside Jewish buildings has been stepped up; there are now police patrols during services at the synagogue – a squat, square building decorated with a large black menorah – to bolster the protection provided by the Community Security Trust. Police officers are also regularly in attendance at Scotland’s only Jewish primary school where children are no longer allowed to line up in the playground in the mornings.
Source: The Scotsman
