Statement from the Jewish Social Work Group

As a Jewish community, we are still grieving, so this is a brief statement in the immediate aftermath. Our thoughts and prayers are with the families directly affected by the 2025 Manchester Synagogue Attack, an antisemitic terrorist attack on Jews—targeted because they are Jewish.

This tragedy reflects concerns we have raised for many years with our peers and social work organisations. These warnings have been met with little to no meaningful action—despite our repeated offers of practical steps to increase awareness and understanding.
Jewish voices have been excluded from conversations and statements about our own lives. We have been told what antisemitism is—and what it means to be Jewish—by those outside our community. 

Many of us have faced isolation or been targeted actively for expressing our lived experiences, including within our professional association and other social work bodies in the UK and internationally. 

Language of hate has consequences. Antisemitism has been allowed to grow in an environment shaped by well-meaning intentions but marked by a failure to challenge rhetoric steeped in extremism. We ask our peers and the institutions that speak up against racism to listen to our concerns. 

We hope that the new leadership in BASW will take our concerns seriously, given the history with the organisation, and work on the recommendations in the Commission on Antisemitism . 

These are dangerous times when many extremists seek to divide and increase fear in minoritised communities. It is imperative that the social work profession is part of the solution and not part of the problem.