Israeli First Lady Michal Herzog returned to Israel yesterday after a two-day solidarity trip to the United Kingdom, which has seen a major rise in antisemitic attacks in recent months, including an apparent targeted stabbing attack in the heavily Jewish northern London suburb of Golders Green earlier today. 

Two Jewish men with stab wounds were being treated by Hatzolah medics, and police have apprehended the assailant, local Jewish security groups said. 

During Herzog’s trip on Monday and Tuesday, she visited a Manchester synagogue that was the site of a deadly terror attack in October, meeting with British Jewish students and visiting the car park in Golders Green where Hatzolah ambulances were set ablaze in an arson attack last month. 

In both Manchester and London, Herzog oversaw donations of ambulances to Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service, which facilitated her trip. In London, Herzog also served as the guest of honor at an award ceremony hosted by the U.K. branch of Magen David Adom.

Speaking to reporters outside the event, Herzog decried the rising antisemitism in the U.K. “We look with great worry about what’s happening. I think what we must do is look in the eyes of leaders so that [they] will understand that it may begin with the Jews, but it never ends with the Jews,” she said. “Antisemitism may be first, but it’s never last.”

At the event, she also spoke with Dr. Mohammed al-Hadid, the president of the Jordanian National Red Crescent Society, who noted the coordination between his country’s ambulance service and Magen David Adom. 

“I got in touch with MDA about a week ago because we’re getting some children from Gaza to be treated in Jordan,” al-Hadid told her. “The turnover was very slow and I got in touch with my brothers in MDA. Straight away, they got in touch with the Israeli ambassador in Jordan, and he got in touch with me.” 

In Manchester, two ambulances were donated in honor of the two victims of the attack at the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation, Adrian Daulby, 53, and Melvin Cravitz, 66. 

“Standing here now, after meeting the beloved families of Adrian Daulby and Melvin Cravitz, I share in the enormous grief, pain and hurt for what has been taken away — loved ones, dear, precious people of courage,” Herzog said at the event on Monday. 

“Naturally, there is fear for what all of this means for our future. But, in the very same breath, also so clearly present here is a sense of deep celebration of life — of lives that were lived, that we honor here now, and of lives that will yet be touched because of them, and because of what is now being done in their names,” she said. “It is an honour to be dedicating these two emergency response vehicles in the names of Melvin and Adrian. Two emergency medical vehicles to Magen David Adom so that countless other lives will be saved.”

During her visit, Herzog also met with students at the Jewish Community Secondary School, north of London. There, she met not only with children from that school but with students from other local Jewish schools, including Yavneh College, Immanuel College and King Solomon High School.

A spokesperson for the President’s Office said that Herzog did not have formal sit-down meetings with British Jewish communal leaders during her visit, though she did speak with various officials on the sidelines of her events.