Special report: Heavy police presence at Stamford Hill Lag BaOmer celebrations

A significantly increased police presence accompanied Lag BaOmer celebrations in Stamford Hill, east London, on Tuesday (5 May), with officer numbers around five times higher than in 2025, according to the Metropolitan Police. It comes after the terror threat level for the UK was raised from “substantial” to “severe” for the first time in more than four years following the stabbing of two Jewish men in north London’s Golders Green. The stabbings, which were declared a terror incident by the Met, are the latest case of violence targeted at the UK’s Jewish community. Event organiser Rabbi Levi Schapiro described how many in the community were feeling “very anxious,” with extra security perimeters deployed in the area to “keep the community safe in light of what we’ve seen recently happening”. On the morning of Lag BaOmer celebrations, counter-terrorism police were investigating a suspected arson attack at a former synagogue on Nelson Street in Whitechapel.